Forged in Blood I (12 page)

He’d already committed the layout to memory, so he took a few steps into the half of the open room dedicated to baking and scaled a sturdy rack mounted to a wall. He climbed into the rafters, finding a spot between two parallel beams. Scratches sounded at the doorknob. Lock picks. Interesting. Feet and hands pressed against opposing beams, the shadows cloaking his body, Sicarius found a position that he could hold for hours—though he hoped she proved a more apt lock picker than that.

A few minutes passed with nothing except the soft scrapes of metal tools probing within the doorknob. He couldn’t hear the rest of the team from inside, but while he waited motionless in the rafters, he thought of Amaranthe. It had to be an hour after midnight by now. It was time to find her.

He was of a mind to hop down, open the door, and confront—or perhaps stalk past and ignore—the other intruder. That was when the lock thunked. The door eased open, and the woman’s head poked inside. Sicarius had left himself a clean line of sight to the entrance, and he could have hurled a throwing knife, even from the precarious position in the rafters, but the woman hadn’t done anything to prove herself an enemy yet.

Once she believed the building was empty, she hustled inside, heading straight for an office in the rear. She didn’t bump any of the racks or counters in the dark, so Sicarius surmised she’d been there before, perhaps at night. He remembered the scratches around the lock.

The office door was open. The woman stepped inside only for a moment, then slipped out again, weaving back through the kitchen and toward the exit. Having no reason to suspect her errand had anything to do with him, Sicarius let her go. The lock thunked again, and she was gone.

After waiting a few moments, he dropped to the floor. On the chance it was relevant, he headed for the office to see what the woman had done. Though shuttered, the wall window let in an iota of light, enough for him to see an envelope on the desk. It might have been there all along, but the woman hadn’t been inside long enough to do more than grab something or drop something off, and she hadn’t left with anything noticeable.

After taking note of its exact position on the desk, so he could return it to the appropriate spot, Sicarius picked it up and explored it with his fingers. A wax seal secured the flap, so he couldn’t break it without revealing that the contents had been read. He probed the pattern with his fingers. The elegant calligraphy style of the single letter gave him trouble at first, but he eventually identified it by touch. An F. His mind went straight to Forge. Was the owner of the bakery a member of the organization?

He thought about breaking the seal to see what was inside, but there wasn’t enough light to read by anyway. He held the envelope to his nose. The scent of the wax, freshly pressed, was the most prominent odor, but something else underlay it, something very old and distantly familiar, a unique mix of staleness and antiseptic cleanliness and—

Sicarius lowered his hand, almost dropping the letter. It was the smell of those strange alien tunnels he’d been sent to almost twenty years prior. He’d been little more than a boy, but the week he’d spent up there in the Northern Frontier was indelibly imprinted on his mind. He doubted this letter had come from there, but that aircraft Amaranthe had been in had the same scent. The smell of it had been in her hair, along with the dirt and blood, when he’d retrieved her.

He eyed the letter. This meant the craft was no longer in the wetlands, hundreds of miles to the south. It was here.

Curi, Sicarius decided, wasn’t going to get her mail. He tucked the envelope into his pocket. He’d wait to read it until he could share it with Amaranthe.

Reminded of her missing state, he jogged out of the bakery. Once outside again, with the door relocked behind him, he strode toward the others. It was time to check the
Gazette
.

A few steps before he reached the group, the sound of low voices drifted to his ears. Enforcers? Or the rest of the team? The voices were coming from the street on the other side of the bakery, a block away. Sicarius glided past Yara, Books, and the others without them noticing and eased around the corner.

Amaranthe led the approaching group; he’d recognize her gait at any distance. Thanks to the feminine curves that the military fatigues and weapon-laden belt didn’t quite hide, there was a touch of hip sway to her determined stride. Further bundled in a parka with the fur-lined hood pulled around her face, she spoke with the man beside her as they walked. Even without the swordstick and the confident but lopsided gait, Sicarius would have known it to be Mancrest. He refused to acknowledge any residual jealousy that stirred at seeing them together; he’d made his interests clear to Amaranthe and offered himself as a mate. When she decided she wished such a thing—not, he reluctantly admitted, guaranteed to be soon, thanks to Pike—he trusted she’d choose him.

Maldynado strolled behind them, a pistol pointed at a pair of men in army fatigues. One of the prisoners walked with a pronounced limp and had his arm slung over the other.

After the group passed the streetlight, Sicarius stepped out of the shadows, falling into place at Amaranthe’s side. Deret flinched, fumbling his grip on his swordstick. It clattered to the street, and the group paused while he muttering curses and retrieved it. Normally Sicarius thought little of it when his appearance startled people, other than that they should be more aware of their surroundings, but he admitted a modicum of satisfaction at the aristocrat’s stumble.

Amaranthe merely arched an eyebrow at him, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. Perhaps she did. That often seemed to be the case.

The group had not entirely moved out of the streetlamp’s influence, and Sicarius made a point of examining her soot-stained clothing, dirty hands, and the numerous strands of hair that had escaped her usually perfect bun. When compared to Mancrest, whose ripped garments were coated in blood as well as soot, she appeared only moderately disheveled, but the group had clearly seen action.

Sicarius heard the soft footsteps and rustling clothing of Books and the others a couple of seconds before Amaranthe’s gaze shifted in that direction. At first, she simply nodded toward them as they approached, but her eyes widened when Akstyr came into the light, revealing the freshly hacked locks atop his head.

This time, the eyebrow she arched at Sicarius rose even higher. “Trouble?”

“No.” The mild altercation at the Barracks hardly qualified as thus. Sicarius brushed some of the soot off the pale fur trim of her hood. “You?”

Amaranthe smiled. “No.”

Books looked back and forth between them, shook his head, and walked back into the alley, muttering, “Crazy. Both of them.”

Deeming the alley a more suitable place to catch up, Sicarius also strode in that direction.

“No, no,” Maldynado said, “I can keep taking care of these blokes. No need for anyone to offer to help.”

“Has he been complaining again?” Yara asked Amaranthe.

“No more than usual.”

“
That
much?”

“I’m not as enamored with this group now that there are two women,” Maldynado announced to no one in particular. “Too much girl talk.”

“
Girl
talk?” Books asked. “You’re the only one who blathers on about hair, hats, and fashion. The last chat I overheard between Amaranthe and Sergeant Yara involved plans for acquiring troops and munitions.”

“I fail to see your point,” Maldynado said blandly.

They’d reached the alley, and Amaranthe cleared her throat and waved toward the shadows, shadows she probably saw as potentially threatening, though, of course Sicarius had checked the entire area and continued to listen for the approach of others. “Perhaps,” she said, “we can head to our new hideout for further discussion.”

“I didn’t know outlaws discussed hair, hats, and fashion in their hideouts,” Mancrest said. “I’d always been under the impression that more nefarious topics were covered.”

Sicarius didn’t miss the smile Amaranthe gave him. It wasn’t flirtatious, but it was a reminder that both she and Sespian appreciated humor, something that he had a poor grasp on.

“This group talks about a wide variety of subjects, from what I’ve seen,” Sespian said from the wall he leaned against. He’d remained in the alley instead of going out with the group, and Mancrest noticed him for the first time.

“I… is that…?” Mancrest squinted. The darkness masked Sespian’s features, and the two had probably never met in person. “Sire?”

“Just Sespian. If you haven’t heard, I’m not—”

Amaranthe had taken a couple of nonchalant steps toward Sespian, and she interrupted his words with an elbow nudge to the ribs. Sicarius nodded at her. If Forge hadn’t come forth about the paternity information yet, there was no reason for them to announce it of their own accord. They could worry about being honest with the populace after Sespian had regained the Barracks and the throne—if that was what he and Amaranthe wished to do. Sicarius would prefer to see another with the responsibility and Sespian free to live a life of his choosing.

Sespian got the message, for he switched to, “Let’s just say someone else is sleeping in my bed at the moment.”

“Though it seems not everybody is happy about that,” Books said. “We stumbled across an assassin who was apparently in the Imperial Barracks to cut Ravido’s throat.”

“I hope you left him alone then,” Amaranthe said.

The two prisoners were gawking at Sespian. Sicarius wondered why Amaranthe had brought them and was speaking so openly in front of them. Had Books truly overheard her discussing the acquisition of troops? Did she intend to start with this random pair? More likely, she’d had to choose between killing them or bringing them along to keep them from tattling about the team’s presence in the city. Now they were stuck with them.

“Not exactly.” Books looked at Sicarius.

Sespian, Basilard, Yara, and Mancrest all frowned at Sicarius. Amaranthe didn’t frown, but there was a sad acceptance to her gaze. Sicarius was tempted to explain what had happened, letting her know he’d been forced to kill the other assassin, but she was right: this wasn’t an appropriate place for storytelling. Besides, he refused to get into an argument, defending his actions, with this many people looking on.

“The molasses factory on Fourth and Waterfront, is that your suggested hideout?” Sicarius asked.

“Yes,” Yara said.

“We should ascertain its acceptability and share information there instead of dawdling here.” He strode off without waiting to see if anyone followed, in part to avoid seeing further disappointment from Amaranthe and, in larger and more practical part, he told himself, to arrive ahead of them and fully scout the proposed hideout for trouble.

Chapter 5

A
maranthe walked past two huge cylindrical tanks, wondering if they still held liquid, and led the team toward the back door of Svargot’s Molasses Distillery. Sicarius was presumably already there, scouting the place. On the walk over there, he’d returned to the group twice to warn them of enforcers along their route. Wanting to avoid more confrontations that night, she had veered out of the way to slip past the patrols unnoticed. She’d been walking alongside Sespian and their two prisoners, Corporal Evik, a rangy man with black hair that did its best to curl despite the short soldier’s cut, and Private Rudev, the fellow who’d been pinned beneath the beam. With every limping step, he gritted his teeth. Most of them anyway; a couple of front ones were missing. He was the one who’d made the spanking comment in the basement, and Amaranthe had caught a few other sarcastic mutterings from him, so she wasn’t surprised his face had met a few fists in its day. He’d grown respectful, or at least quiet, in Sespian’s presence though, and she sensed there might be hope in winning them over.

Basilard trotted ahead of the group to open the back door while Yara dug in her rucksack to produce a lantern.

“Thank you,” Amaranthe said.

Though she believed Sicarius was around, she stepped to the side as soon as she entered, putting her back to the wall, so she wouldn’t be outlined in the doorway. She trusted that Yara and Basilard had scouted the building during the day, but the temperature had dropped below freezing, and they weren’t far from a populous part of the city. Vagrants might also find the quarters amenable for the night. Or bounty hunters.

The air smelled of charred wood, a different scent from the pervasive coal smog that permeated the city in the winter. Someone had made a campfire recently.

The rest of the group entered, with Yara and Books carrying lanterns. Their lights did little to brighten the massive facility, and all except the area around the door remained in shadows. Pipes snaked up and through nearby walls, running out to the tanks in the yard. Catwalks crossed the open space overhead, and, in the distance, Amaranthe detected the dark outlines of furnaces and huge vats with equally huge ladles. The place reminded her of the smelter where she and Sicarius had first clashed with Forge.

Yara sniffed at the smoke smell. “There were a couple of homeless people camped in the back when we came in, but Basilard convinced them to leave.”

“Basilard did?” Amaranthe cocked her head at him. Despite his briar patch of knife scars, which his jacket and gray wool cap didn’t entirely hide, he was a peaceful warrior, rarely one to lose his temper or impose his will on strangers.

At her consideration, his expression turned wry. He lifted his fingers and explained,
I walked up to them and attempted to sign a greeting.

Yara smirked. “They thought he was a crazy Kendorian shaman casting a spell.”

Basilard sniffed.
Kendorian. Really.

“That’s what you get for looking so inimical, my friend.” Maldynado thumped him on the back and considered what they could see of the facility. “So, the place is ours?”

“Let’s keep to back areas and upper levels if possible.” Amaranthe nodded to the catwalk. “In case any prospective buyers come to tour the facilities while we’re…”