Forged in Blood II (36 page)

Careful not to touch her, lest it waken her, Sicarius lay down beside her and closed his eyes.

He drifted in and out of his meditative rest. Many hours passed before Amaranthe stirred. Her eyes remained closed, but she yawned and stretched out a hand. Her fingers bumped against his leg. Her face scrunched up, and she patted about, trying to identify the unexpected object.

“Musharup?” she mumbled, then blinked bleary eyes.

“I suspect I would need to consult Professor Komitopis for a translation before finding a suitable response for that,” Sicarius said.

“Oh. Hello.” She pushed the dyed hair out of her face, rubbed her eyes, found them crusty, and grimaced. “I see I’m looking my best for you. I wasn’t drooling, was I?”

“No.”

“Good.” Amaranthe pushed herself to a sitting position, the blanket falling about her lap. She looked him up and down, perhaps noting that he hadn’t removed his boots or knives. “Are you here to… stand guard?”

Sicarius knew what she meant, but pretended to misunderstand. “I have been doing that for several hours now.”

“
Hours
, eh? By yourself?”

He contemplated whether to respond. With her, there might be hours. By himself? Such needs could be taken care of more quickly. The topic seemed too crude to voice to her in blunt terms, and he was not practiced in coming up with humorous innuendoes.

When he didn’t answer, she blushed and waved away the joke, a sheepish expression on her face. He should have risked the faux pas and replied with an answer.

“Do you know what time it is? Or how much time we have before… er, what
do
you have in mind anyway?”

What did he have in mind? To see if she slept better when he was there, holding her in his arms. To see if she might sleep even
better
after a couple hours of vigorous horizontal exercise. All he said was, “Teaching you meditation.”

Her shoulders drooped. “Oh. It’s not that I don’t need that—and I appreciate your willingness to teach me—but I thought… I had something else in mind.”

“I did as well when I entered your room hours ago, but you were sleeping. Hard. You may have been drooling.”

Eyes chagrinned, she lifted a hand to her mouth. “I was? That’s not—you shouldn’t just… No, wait. I want you here. No matter how pathetic I look. It’s not as if you haven’t…” She squinted at him. “Are you… smirking?”

“No.” Sicarius flattened his lips into their usual deadpan expression.

“You were. I saw it. You’re teasing me, aren’t you? Was I really drooling?”

“No,” he said, more softly this time, and lifted a hand to brush a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. “I did not wish to wake you. We will be up all night.”

She swallowed and leaned her head into his hand. He cupped her cheek.

“How long do we have until it’s time to go?” she asked.

“A half hour.”

“That’s long enough to do… things.”

“Some of the others are milling downstairs, making preparations. Someone will doubtlessly come to ask you a question before it’s time to go.”

Amaranthe opened her mouth to voice some protest.

“I do not know if I could keep from throwing a knife at Sergeant Yara a second time,” he said bluntly.

She stared at him, her open mouth forming the word, “second,” though no noise came out. It didn’t take her long to remember what he was referring to, and her lips curved into a smile.

“Besides,” he said, letting his eyelids droop halfway. “I want those hours.”

“Oh,” she whispered.

“Days, perhaps.”

“Days?”

Still cupping the side of her face, he brushed her cheek with his thumb. “Days. I’ll bring water. Rations.”

“Not those awful bars,” she blurted.

“Hm.” Sicarius lowered his hand.

Amaranthe caught it and held it in her lap. “All right, you can bring them, but I insist on a couple of pastries as well.” She stared into his eyes, serious as she made this proposition.

She’d started stroking the back of his hand, her fingers tracing the tendons, and it distracted him. What had they been discussing? Appropriate food for sustaining physical exertion, yes. He ought to tell her that sugary treats weren’t suitable for activities requiring stamina, but a memory flashed through his mind, that smudge of frosting on her nose and his interest in… cleaning it off.

“A compromise would be acceptable,” he found himself saying.

“Good.” Her gaze lowered to his lips.

Was she contemplating a kiss? Her strokes to the back of his hand were already stirring sensations in his body, along with thoughts he’d been quelling while she slept. If she kissed him, he might forget his resolve to postpone their amorous acts until they had more time. Much
could
be done in a half hour. But a frenzied rush? Surely she’d want more.
He
wanted more for her, and for himself.

Amaranthe dropped her gaze to her lap. “Ah, meditation, was it?”

“Yes,” he said. Did his voice sound raspy? Odd. They hadn’t even kissed. He put more effort into finding his emotionless tone when he launched into an introduction of the history of meditation.

“You’re sure you don’t need hours for this too?” Amaranthe asked after a few minutes.

“It can be taught in stages.”

“I see. Carry on then, carry on.”

She kept stroking his hand while he spoke, eventually turning it over and running her fingers along his callouses. He prevailed against urges that called for him to drag her into his arms and show her exactly what he’d been thinking of while she slept. As he spoke, he did, however, indulge himself in the planning of what they’d do when they did find their hours.

All too soon, a knock came at the door. Amaranthe released his hand. It was time to go.

S
icarius glided through the streets, scouting ahead for Amaranthe and the others, avoiding the pockets of fighting. Night had come a couple of hours earlier, so most of the skirmishes had broken off, but a few continued. The gangs were about, too, looting, or trying to. Many shopkeepers remained in their stores, fighting off would-be intruders with crossbows and swords. Sicarius stuck to residential areas, picking a winding route toward the Emperor’s Preserve and the secret entrances to the Imperial Barracks.

They reached the park’s boundaries without incident, and Basilard came up to scout the woods with him. He took point, ahead and to the right of the party, while Sicarius took the left. Footprints and lorry tracks crisscrossed the slushy snow blanketing the ground between the trees. The warming front from the south had come in, and icy clumps melted from bare branches, spattering on their heads and shoulders. Shots fired from time to time in the city, but the Preserve remained quiet.

That quietness ended abruptly when the team was halfway to the underground tunnel Sicarius sought. A woman’s shriek arose from the west. He paused, turning his head to catch the remains of the cry, pinpointing the direction. He couldn’t see the city from there, but given their position in the woods, he was certain it had originated on Mokath Ridge. He would have thought that area, where the wealthy lived, would be neglected by the soldiers, as there was little up there worth acquiring in terms of military maneuvering, though perhaps the gangs had taken their looting to those lavishly adorned homes. The only reason he’d paused was the sheer terror and pain the shriek had carried. Would someone cry out so at a bunch of teenaged Akstyr-like thugs? If one’s life were in danger, he supposed so. Whatever it was, it was unlikely it had anything to do with their mission.

A shadow trotted in from the northeast. Basilard. He carried a lantern, though he had it shuttered. He set it on the ground and released a sliver of light in such a manner as it wouldn’t shine into their eyes—he only needed enough illumination for his hand signs to be seen.

I caught the scent of blood,
he signed and pointed toward the northeast.

Human blood?

I believe so.

There may have been fighting out here earlier in the day. Flintcrest’s camp is nearby.
Though Flintcrest’s camp should have been more to their east by now.

There was something else… something familiar.

Yes?

When he wasn’t signing, Basilard was plucking at the seam of his trousers and glancing over his shoulder.
I’m uncertain. I would like your opinion. They shouldn’t be down here.

They?

But Basilard had already picked up the lantern. He jogged in the direction from which he had come.

Sicarius thought of returning to the team to warn Amaranthe—and let her know they were going to investigate something suspicious—but the others were a half a mile back yet. Traveling with the aid of lanterns, they were picking their way more cautiously across the forest floor, and Maldynado and Books carried a heavy burden, a four-foot-tall canister Starcrest had devised to hold his daughter’s concoction. Amaranthe had more details as to what it was and where they’d use it. First they had to reach the Imperial Barracks. Sicarius wondered if they should be wasting time, following the scents of blood, instead of heading directly to the passage. Nonetheless, he trailed Basilard, pausing only once, when he crossed the trail the others would come up. He broke a couple of sticks to form an arrow on the snow, indicating their northeasterly direction.

As he loped after Basilard, he tested the air again, as he’d been doing throughout the evening. He detected the scents of the forest, of coal smoke, of military rations, and… He sniffed again. Yes, the smell of blood tainted the air.

Freshly spilled blood, a lot of it.

The air held another odor as well, one that was earthy and musky. And familiar. One he hadn’t smelled since last spring, since they’d been in that dam up in the mountains. Makarovi? Down here? Basilard was right. They were a hundred miles from that dam and hundreds of miles from what remained of makarovi territory. It was possible that one of the ones he, Amaranthe, and Maldynado had hurled downstream had found its way to shore and migrated in this direction, finding food to sustain it as it went, but such beasts did not tread lightly upon the earth. Someone would have reported the deaths, and the story should have made its way into the newspaper.

His nose, however, did not make mistakes, not like this.

His first urge was to find Amaranthe, remembering that makarovi chose female targets when possible, preferring the taste of their reproductive organs. His fear for her rose in his chest, so intense that he almost spun about and ran to her. But that would leave Basilard to possibly face one alone. Amaranthe had several men around her, enough to slow an attack should it come, and Sicarius would hear the sounds of melee. He could run back in time. She was competent enough to deal with a fight as well—if nothing else, she couldn’t do worse than his example with the soul construct: fleeing up a tree.

Hoping he wouldn’t regret the decision, Sicarius increased his speed until he caught up with Basilard.

“Slow down,” he whispered. “We should approach with caution.”

Basilard started to unshutter the lantern, but Sicarius stopped him, guessing at his question.

“Yes, I smell it too.”

Moving more slowly now, they circled a copse of evergreens so they could approach from downwind. In this part of the park, boulders mingled with the trees, and some of the outcroppings towered above a man’s head. Though hunters and the creep of civilization had long ago driven large game out of the valley, it was the sort of area where an animal might make its den.

He and Basilard picked a careful route, listening and smelling as they went. To Sicarius, the faintness of the makarovi odor implied the creature wasn’t still about—their pungent, earth scent was overpowering in close proximity—but makarovi could move quickly on land, and just because it wasn’t in the area didn’t mean it couldn’t choose any moment to return.

Sicarius spotted the body first, a dark form crumpled against the trunk of a tree. The paleness of the snow made the blood spatters stand out. Clawed plantigrade footprints surrounded the area. Basilard stopped and pointed at the body. He raised the lantern questioningly.

Sicarius nodded. “Take a look. I’ll stand watch.”

As Basilard peeled back the shade on his lantern for a close look at the corpse, Sicarius listened for the approach of the others—or for anything else that might be about. Plops sounded as melting snow continued to fall from the branches, but little else disturbed the night. Above the skeletal trees, clouds blotted out the stars and moon. A dark shape in a hollow between two boulders caught his roaming gaze.

Sicarius headed toward it. The number of clawed footprints in the snow increased. With several meters between Sicarius and the lantern, he couldn’t be certain of the indentions, but he thought them varied in size. More than one makarovi?

He knelt, spreading his fingers wide to measure one of the prints. Not surprisingly, it dwarfed the width of his hand. He touched another one. It was bigger. He checked a third. Smaller than the first.

Sicarius struggled for his usual calm detachment, but another urge flowed through his veins, an urgent desire to race back and warn Amaranthe. He made himself stay, probing the edges of the prints, trying to decide how fresh they were from the amount of erosion—the warmer weather was melting snow at a regular rate, but those edges were sharp. Recent. Two hours? An hour?

He rose to check on the dark hollow. More than a hollow, he discovered as he drew closer. A tunnel, freshly scraped from the earth, one large enough for three men to stride through, shoulder to shoulder. Large enough, too, for a makarovi to traverse.

Sicarius sniffed the air. It did smell of the makarovi, but not so pungently as one would expect from a den. The walls were even and tidy, too, more like something dug with machinery than claws. He peered behind him, half-expecting Heroncrest’s tunnel-boring machine to be sitting under the trees somewhere, beside piles of moved earth. When he didn’t spot anything in the trees behind him, he skirted the edge of the boulder formation. He’d only taken a couple of steps before he rounded a bend and found his moved earth. Great piles of dirt had been dumped behind the boulders. Snow blanketed some of them, but other piles had been recently dumped, the dark earth standing bare to the night.