Republic

by Lindsay Buroker

  Sicarius crouched and spun. A figure knelt on the top of the tank, raising its bow at him.

  The string was dampened somehow and didn’t have a telltale twang—otherwise he would have heard that with the first shot and known the shooter’s location right away. He lunged to the side, dodging the arrow and launching a throwing knife in the same breath. The arrow thunked into the tarpaper inches from his head. His knife almost caught her—in the shadows, she hadn’t seen him fully, and he had kept the movement of the throw compact. He expected her to roll away from the edge, to use the top of the tank for cover, forcing him to climb the side to attack her again. But she dodged and jumped at the same time. The clouds shifted, and the moon came out. Its beam reflected off steel in the woman’s hand, a short Nurian sword that he knew would have a razor edge. Its length would give her the advantage in a blade fight.

  Instead of grabbing another throwing knife, Sicarius snatched up her discarded pole. He jerked it up, pointing the tip at his descending foe.

  She saw it, and tried to twist to evade it, but he tracked her. He jabbed the pole upward to take her in the stomach. It wouldn’t be a killing blow, but with her momentum, it would bruise or break ribs. The pain should distract her in a fight.

  The pole caught her, sliding into her gut more than he expected. The scream was unexpected as well. A mage hunter should have been trained not to cry out and certainly not to do so loudly enough to announce her position to the world.

  Sicarius thrust the pole—and her—away from himself. He expected her to find a way off it, to leap away as she landed, but she didn’t, and he reached her as soon as she dropped to the roof. She tried to roll away from him, but he knelt, pinning her. Perplexingly, she gave him the time to drop his dagger to her throat, resting the blade against vulnerable flesh. Then his nose caught the telltale scent of blood and he understood. The pole had done more than bruise ribs. Or had she been surprised into cutting herself with her own blade somehow?

  He didn’t take his eyes from her, but in his peripheral vision, he considered the pole. The moon was still out, and he could make out more under its revealing light, including the bloody tip of a six-inch-long stabbing blade on its end. An unexpected tool for springing from building to building. Ah, and there was her own sword. She had dropped it as she fell, but it too had blood on the blade. He would not feel smug at this awkwardness in her defense, for she had nearly succeeded in outmaneuvering him.

  The fallen woman gasped, clutching her stomach. She seemed oblivious to the weapon at her throat.

  “You are Ji Nah, the Nurian mage hunter, correct?” Sicarius asked. He did not believe she would die immediately from the gut wound, but he would extract what information he could in case she did. He did not currently know the location of any healers in the city, and she might die before he could reach a doctor, regardless.

  She lifted her arm, and he pressed the dagger harder against her throat, wary of an attack. If she knew she was dying anyway, she might try anything to take him with her.

  But her shaking fingers clutched weakly at the air, then locked onto his arm. “Your son… he—” she coughed, trying to clear her throat, but phlegm—or blood—made it a rough gurgle. “He owes me... favor.”

  “I am aware of the arrow you shot at him,” Sicarius said. He did not believe Sespian considered himself indebted to the woman, but he did not say this. She had few words left. He would hear them to see if they contained useful information.

  She licked her lips and spat blood. Struggling to enunciate clearly, she said, “Three-seventeen Dee-Four Windy Lane.”

  Sicarius said nothing, waiting for more.

  “Tell—you will tell him?” she asked.

  “I will tell him.”

  “Tell...” She had a coughing fit, and Sicarius leaned back, removing the blade from her throat. She was no longer a threat. “Tell Serpitivich... he’s... a bastard. I’ll... haunt him... ’til he dies.”

  The vice president? He was among those who were plotting against the president? Did Colonel Starcrest know? Or maybe this woman had some other grievance against Serpitivich. Sicarius thought to ask for clarification, but her grip on his arm slackened, then fell away. He touched his fingers to her throat, felt the last beats of her heart, then stood, aware that he hadn’t been alone for the last minute.

  Basilard stood a few meters away. Someone else was climbing a ladder on the side of the building—Maldynado, judging by the weight of the tread on the rungs. They all would have heard the woman’s screams.

  “She is dead,” Sicarius announced.

  When Maldynado clambered over the side of the building, he had a lantern with him. He walked over, the light telling Sicarius nothing he didn’t know. It did, however, allow Basilard to communicate with them.

  What’s at Three-seventeen Dee-Four Windy Lane?

  “My guess is a seven-year-old child,” Sicarius said.

  Chapter 22

  When the priests had shuffled Amaranthe and Deret into the sewer tunnels, she had thought the plants might leap out and devour the green-robed men, but they had encountered nothing except for a few blackened husks, meaning someone in the group must be a lightning-summoning practitioner. Based on that—and Amaranthe’s hope that she and Deret would be taken to the leader of the outfit—she didn’t try to escape.

  The detour through the tunnels was short, followed by a climb to street level and into the back of a lorry, along with most of the robe-wearing crew. The lemongrass odor lingering about them didn’t quite block out the scent of unwashed bodies. Whatever naughtiness they had been engaged in lately apparently precluded time for bathing.

  The men had kept their hoods up in the back of the lorry, so she didn’t catch any faces, though given the height and breadth of the bodies packed against her on the wooden bench, most of the priests were male. They kept their pistols pointed at Amaranthe and Deret for the duration of the ride, a gesture that made her nervous when they left the smooth city streets to bump and jolt up a dirt road. The back flap had been pulled down, so she couldn’t see where they had gone, but the earthy scents of vegetation—natural vegetation—drifted to her nose over the sweat and lemongrass potpourri. If she and Deret managed to escape, they would have a long walk back to town. The priests had let Deret bring his swordstick with him to navigate the sewers, but she wasn’t sure if he still had it. Several men separated them on the bench, and she hadn’t tried to speak with him. Given that it was a weapon as well as a cane, she thought they might take it from him, but maybe they hadn’t noticed its dual functionality.

  The lorry made a turn onto a rutted dirt road worse than the last. It jostled the priests into each other—and Amaranthe—and almost tossed her onto the floor a couple of times. She was relieved when the vehicle finally slowed down. The scent of wood smoke crept into the mix. She hoped that whatever rustic homestead they had arrived at included the leader of this old/new religion, so she could attempt to talk him into giving up his felonious ways. And if that didn’t work, she would settle for painting a target on his back for some sniper under Dak Starcrest’s command. Amaranthe wondered if the colonel had any idea about this place.

  The lorry halted, and someone pushed up the tarp. A few men piled out, but others remained inside, keeping their eyes on Amaranthe and Deret.

  “Where are we?” She didn’t expect an answer—the men hadn’t proved a garrulous lot thus far—but one never knew.

  “Your final destination,” one said.

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “Good.”

  Before Amaranthe could come up with another question that might or might not be answered helpfully, the muzzle of a pistol jabbed her ribs. “Get up. Get out.”

  “You too,” someone said farther down, addressing Deret.

  A door slammed somewhere in front of the lorry—someone coming out of the house? A conversation started up, but the speakers were too far away for Amaranthe to distinguish the words. She let the man with the pistol guide h
er out of the lorry. When she hopped down, she almost twisted her ankle on mud that had melted during the day and refrozen after dark. A moon had risen, illuminating an orchard with rows of apple trees stretching away to either side of the road, their branches still mostly bare from the winter. A few lanterns drew her eye toward the buildings in front of the lorry. This was more than a “rustic homestead.”

  Two houses, barns, and numerous equipment sheds formed a loose semi-circle around the driveway. All of the buildings had modern designs with unique angles and oddly sloped roofs that didn’t fit Amaranthe’s idea of a farm—or orchard. There was a wrought iron fence around the largest house with sharp spikes pointing toward the night sky. Interesting, but the speakers in front of the main house demanded most of her attention. Two were robed and had probably come out of the lorry, but a pot-bellied man with gray hair wasn’t wearing any sort of disguise, though the poor lighting made it hard to see the details of his face. Amaranthe tried to sidle closer without being obvious about it.

  “Stop.” A pistol jabbed her in the ribs again.

  “Just trying to stretch my legs,” Amaranthe said innocently. She found Deret in the shadows. He was paying more attention to the buildings than she, and she wondered if they might be a clue. Given the circumstances, she doubted he was simply admiring the craftsmanship.

  She shook out her legs to give credence to her statement and managed to get a little closer to Deret without getting another bruise from the pistol. Maybe the priests didn’t care if they stood next to each other, only if they tried to approach the speakers.

  “Know where we are?” Amaranthe murmured. She wished Deret could understand Basilard’s hand code, as even the soft words drew the attention of a nearby priest. No less than six pistols were pointed their way. Who did these people think they were dealing with anyway? Deret might be a former soldier, but with his limp, he shouldn’t seem threatening to a group this large, and she didn’t think anyone knew who she was, not that she could threaten a group this large, either, not unless Sicarius had followed her out here, and she deemed that unlikely. Silly her, she had decided she should visit Deret alone.

  “Edgecrest Orchards,” he said.

  “Edgecrest... that’s not the first time I’ve come across that name of late.”

  “It’s on a lot of apple cider and brandy labels in the satrap.”

  Amaranthe shook her head. “It’s more than that. I’ve seen it recently. There was a Ploris Edgecrest in Sauda’s date book. And Tikaya had seen another Edgecrest as an entrant to the building design contest.”

  “Ah, Oddak. I don’t think he has anything to do with the family orchard. He’s an architecture professor at the university. He must have designed these buildings.” Deret cocked his head, considering the style. “In his youth.”

  “Is that Ploris, then?” Amaranthe nodded toward the gray-haired man, who was now pointing toward the barn. She had a hard time imagining the attractive Sauda spending time with the double-chinned, pot-bellied man. Of course, her note had mentioned scintillating conversation rather than scintillating looks.

  “Yes. He’s the eldest of several brothers. He’s the one who runs the orchard. The paper has done a few write-ups for the food and drink section.”

  “So is he the lead priest, or is he just letting the clan use the estate for meetings?”

  “I don’t know,” Deret said. “The earlier meeting tonight was at the library.”

  “The library?”

  “Yes, you were expecting a different locale?”

  “For a group of people reviving an ancient religion?” Amaranthe asked. “Yes. Something oozing with history, decorated with cobwebs, and perhaps embellished with blood-spattered walls.”

  Someone nearby snorted, reminding her that their private conversation wasn’t that private. Either Deret hadn’t said anything that was terribly secret yet or... these people weren’t planning on letting either of them go, so what he revealed didn’t matter.

  “If you leave enough in the donation jar by the door, the librarian might have a decorator come in for you,” Deret said.

  “Funny.”

  “Yes, it’s wit like this that keeps the women flocking to my door.”

  “You and the colonel should spend time together,” Amaranthe said, leaving off Starcrest’s name since it hadn’t sounded like it was widespread knowledge that he was working intelligence for the president. “You can marinate in each other’s bitterness.”

  “Does he have trouble getting women too?”

  “I’m not sure, but I haven’t seen any hanging on his arm.”

  “Will Maldynado be finding him someone at his dinner party too?” Deret asked.

  Now Amaranthe snorted, imagining Maldynado hustling the dour one-eyed colonel out onto the dance floor. “I don’t think he was planning to, but perhaps I should mention it. He’s not easily daunted when it comes to finding women.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  The gray-haired Edgecrest went back inside the house, and the priests he had been talking to returned to the lorry. One pointed at Amaranthe and Deret. “Put them in the press building.”

  Press. Amaranthe didn’t care for that word. She imagined her limbs being fed into a massive apple pulper. Pistols prodding her in the back didn’t give her any choice but to go along with the order. The entire group of priests came along. She wished a few of them would wander off to pray or practice magic or take baths, so more escape opportunities might present themselves.

  She and Deret were ushered into a building filled with equipment and vats, including a hulking steam-powered press. Yes, that machine appeared perfectly capable of pulverizing limbs.

  “Sit them down.”

  Two priests brought out casks that had been sawn in half. They upended them, creating chairs of a sort.

  “I’ll stand,” Deret said.

  Someone kicked his swordstick off the ground. He lurched, but caught his balance, leaning more heavily on his good leg.

  “Sit,” the deep-voiced priest growled.

  Deret flexed his fingers, looking like he’d had enough of going along with the priests’ machinations. There were too many, though. This wasn’t the time for a fight.

  Amaranthe sat down on her cask and wiggled her butt. “It could use a cushion, but it’s not bad.”

  Grumbling under his breath, Deret joined her, doing his best not to display his limp. She wished he would display it and then some—the more helpless these people thought they were, the more likely some of them would wander off, leaving only a small detachment of guards Amaranthe and Deret could overcome. That was how she imagined the scenario anyway. In reality... all of the priests, all sixteen of them, queued up along the nearest wall, their pistols in their hands.

  “Are we waiting for someone?” Amaranthe asked cheerfully, still hoping someone might spill something useful. It was hard to gaze imploringly into someone’s eyes to gain sympathy when they had hoods pulled low over their foreheads, hiding their faces. None of them answered.

  “I would apologize for getting you into this,” Deret whispered, “but I did try to have you left behind.”

  “Yes, that was noble of you. Thank you.” Amaranthe’s choice to invite herself along hadn’t been premeditated, and, in reflection, she should have seen if they would let her go out the front door. From there, she could have followed the group, jumped onto the back of the lorry, and ridden along in secret, where she might now be in a position to free Deret and snoop around the premises... She sighed and told herself the priests probably wouldn’t have let her go anyway. She didn’t know if that was true, but it made her feel better.

  “I’m also not entirely sure this is all about me,” Deret said.

  “You think they came to kidnap me? You’re the one wearing their robes.”

  “Exactly. I thought I was... on the inside.”

  “Maybe you thought wrong,” Amaranthe said.

  “Possibly, but you know the president. You’d be a more appe
aling hostage.” He kept his voice low so the priests shouldn’t overhear, but Amaranthe wished he would keep his mouth shut on the matter, in case they didn’t know who she was and whom she knew.

  She turned her head away from him, hoping he would take the hint, and examined their surroundings more carefully. In addition to the machinery, giant fermenters and tanks lined one of the walls. Though she wouldn’t care to duplicate the deadly results of her molasses tank explosion, she wouldn’t be above drenching these priests in alcohol if she could figure out a way to do so. If she had a few minutes unwatched, she ought to be able to rig something...

  A door creaked open.

  Amaranthe twisted in her seat, expecting the gray-haired Edgecrest to walk in. Instead a handsome older woman entered, her long black hair pulled away from her shoulders and face in an elegant coiffure held in place with ivory combs. She wore a luxurious leopard-fur cloak swept back from a suede dress that hugged her hips—and other curvy parts as well.

  It might have taken Amaranthe a moment to identify the woman—after all, she had spied on the house, not the owner—but Deret stiffened with recognition—cold recognition—as soon as she walked in.

  “Sauda Star—Shadowcrest?” Amaranthe whispered.

  Deret nodded curtly as the woman approached. “Yes.”

  “Good evening, Deret,” Sauda said, stopping in front of him. “My condolences on your father’s death, though I assure you it grieves me as much as it does you.”

  The woman didn’t sound aggrieved. But then neither was Deret, so maybe that was the point of the comment.

  “I’ll bet,” Deret said.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in jail?” Amaranthe asked.

  “Why have you brought us here?” Deret asked at the same time.

  “Us?” Sauda gave Amaranthe a curious look. “You were brought here because I have an offer for you, Lord Mancrest.”

  “Yes?”

  “Your father wasn’t as amenable to putting his backing—the newspaper’s backing—behind the new regime as I had expected he might be, given the proper persuasion. Indeed, I spent many nights persuading him, but in the end, he wasn’t willing to cross Rias.”