Her laconic answer must have made him nervous, for he fiddled with the controls for a moment, then said, “Let’s worry about what we’re going to do when we catch up to the steamboat, shall we? I’m skeptical that we’ll be able to sneak up behind it, toss a rope, and climb aboard without anybody noticing.”
Evrial hesitated to voice her next suggestion, but they’d already tormented a cleaning woman and stolen a boat. Did it truly matter if they added another entry to their list of crimes? “Most of the clothes I found were uniforms.”
“Are you suggesting we impersonate enforcers?”
“You object?” Evrial asked.
“No, but I want to make it clear that your seal is stamped on this so I can righteously proclaim innocence later when I get blamed.”
“I won’t try to shift blame onto you.”
“You say that now, but in my experience, the woman never gets blamed. It’s always the poor sap standing nearby. Usually me.”
“You must spend time with shifty women.” Evrial smiled, knowing he was talking about Amaranthe.
“No argument there. Is there a hat in that cabinet? I don’t think my luxurious locks are regulation.”
Evrial snorted. “No, they’re not, but your hair is going to be the least of our concerns. How are we going to keep the enforcers we tangled with yesterday from recognizing us?”
“Maybe we can avoid them?”
“Or maybe they’ll be the first ones on deck to greet us,” Evrial said and sank back into her chair.
* * * * *
Full darkness had descended on the river by the time the steamboat came into sight. Evrial closed the furnace door and leaned the coal shovel against it. They wouldn’t need more fuel. Now, they’d need some luck.
“It’s awfully bright over there,” Maldynado said from the pilot’s seat. “Did they always have all the running lights and lanterns lit at full strength?”
“They probably did, and we just didn’t notice it from within.” Evrial silently admitted that the boat did seem brighter—and busier—than she remembered. Numerous white-uniformed officers and security guards occupied the decks along with several men in enforcer grays. She didn’t spot a single person in civilian clothing. “There are more enforcers on there than I realized.”
“Or they picked up some in town. There’s no way we’re going to be able to sneak aboard.” Maldynado tapped his uniformed chest. “Let’s hope our ruse works.”
Evrial searched the cupboards until she found a spyglass. She scanned the steamboat decks. “Nobody’s looking this way. That’s surprising.”
“We don’t have any lanterns lit. Unless they spot the smoke we’re venting, we should just look like a dark smudge on the water. Besides, we’re coming in from behind. The helmsman will be facing ahead.”
“Everybody is facing ahead,” Evrial said. “Except for a knot of people around... I think that’s the dining hall entrance.”
“Maybe the troupe is performing again, and there’s not room for everyone inside.”
“I don’t think so. The people outside the door are enforcers and security guards. There are a lot of big, alarmed gestures, and two men just jogged up with a bunch of crossbows. Someone’s running out of the room. He’s clutching a hand to his opposite arm.”
“A bloody arm?” Maldynado asked.
“I can’t tell, but that’d be my guess.”
“Sounds like the work of the team.”
“You don’t think they’re trapped in the dining hall, do you?” Evrial asked.
“It’s hard to believe they’d let themselves be trapped. Unless...”
“They’re guarding magical weapons?” Evrial suggested.
“We better hurry up.” Maldynado urged their stolen boat to greater speed. “They may need help.”
“Wait. There are a lot of people looking out across the bow. I can’t see anything through the boat. Can you veer to the side before taking us in?”
Maldynado muttered something about “delays” and “increasing the odds of being spotted” under his breath, but he angled their craft away from the main channel. Dark trees rose ahead of the steamboat, signifying a bend in the river. Maybe she wouldn’t spot anything. Evrial surveyed the water with the spyglass anyway.
A boat came into sight. The black vessel had a similar style as that of the enforcer craft, but it was much larger with two decks instead of one and with far more guns mounted along those decks. People in uniforms, not enforcer grays but military blacks, stood ready at those weapons. Evrial did a quick head count and doubled it, figuring some of the men rode inside.
“Forty marines heading toward the steamboat,” she said.
“Forty?”
A second military boat appeared around the bend.
“Make that eighty,” Evrial said.
“Emperor’s warts, this is going to be a bloodbath.” Maldynado pushed his hair back from his forehead, not noticing that he knocked off his enforcer cap.
“For your friends?” Evrial thought of Sicarius’s deadly skills—and his unhesitating willingness to use them. “Or the marines?”
“I don’t know. Both probably.”
CHAPTER 11
The cracks of breaking boards and the squeals of nails torn free from wood assaulted Amaranthe’s ears. She hunkered next to the hole the enforcers had cut, ready to defend the entrance, though she feared there’d soon be too many holes to guard. The enforcers—or maybe it was the marines—were tearing into the stage with crowbars and axes. Light flowed through numerous punctures. They must have guessed Amaranthe and Sicarius didn’t have crossbows or a way to shoot projectiles, for they hacked away with impunity.
Someone tapped Amaranthe on the shoulder. “I have an update,” Books said from the darkness behind her.
“An update I’ll like or one I won’t?”
“We’ve built a framework, mixed the cement, slathered it all around the rockets.”
Slathered didn’t sound as good as totally buried.
“Enough, to smother the light and, I hope, add a layer of protection and make the weapons difficult to access in the future. But the cement won’t harden for...” Somewhere nearby, a board was torn free with a nerve-wrenching crack. “For more time than we have,” Books went on. “We did get a marine mix that’s capable of hardening underwater. I’m hoping that it’s set enough that even if we drop it...” Books might have shrugged, but Amaranthe couldn’t see the gesture in the gloom. “I’m also hoping that the impact of the weapons striking the bottom of the river won’t be hard enough to... I’m hoping for mud down there.”
That was a lot of hoping. What if all their effort resulted in them doing the very thing they’d been trying to stop others from doing? Detonating the weapons?
“If not, better the poison is unleashed here, between towns, than in the capital,” Books said.
Better not to unleash it at all, Amaranthe wanted to cry, then grab his shirt and shake a better plan out of him. Stay calm, she thought, reminding herself that she was in charge and people in charge weren’t supposed to lose their minds.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said. “I’ll... think of something.” Right. Sure, she would. No problem.
“Oh?” Books sounded encouraged. At least one of them was. “We’re heating up the blow lamp to cut a hole in the hull.”
“Good. Tell Sicarius. We’ll—”
Someone thrust a smoke bomb through a newly opened gap, and an acrid scent flooded the tight space. Cursing, Amaranthe yanked her shirt over her nose and crawled toward it. She intended to grab it and throw it back out, but she paused. It was a sphere, rather than the cylindrical cans the enforcers had been tossing in earlier. New weapons the marines had brought?
“Get back,” she told Books, reversing her momentum.
Before she’d gone more than two steps, light flashed and a boom rattled the stage. A concussive force pounded her, flinging her several feet. Her back slammed into something hard, blasting
the air from her lungs. All around her, shards of wood flew into the air. A crash sounded, part of the stage structure collapsing. She tried to suck in a breath and roll to her hands and knees, but the blow had stunned her. Her rigid muscles wouldn’t relax, wouldn’t move.
Hands caught her shirt by the shoulders. Books dragged her backward. Amaranthe wanted to stay and defend the hole she’d assigned herself, but it was too late anyway. There were too many gaps to defend. Dark figures moved about in the smoke, and the marines tore away broken boards. They’d pick their way inside soon enough. Or simply throw more explosives.
By the time Books pulled her back to the grate, a second explosion had gone off, this one at the other end of the stage. Sicarius’s end.
Amaranthe found the wherewithal to rise up to her hands and knees. Something warm trickled into her eye. Blood. Smoke clogged the air, and her first attempt at speaking launched nothing but coughs. She threw her arm across her mouth, trying to stifle the sound. Telling the marines their exact location wasn’t a good plan.
“Hurry,” Sespian whispered, his upper body sticking out of the entrance. “Join us down here. We’ll cover the grate, buy another minute.”
Without hesitation, Books climbed over the edge, jostling Sespian as he passed.
“Sicarius,” Amaranthe rasped, her voice rougher than a saw blade. “Have you seen him?”
“No, but he can take care of himself.”
Not if a grenade had taken him by surprise the way it had her.
“Cut the hole in the hull.” Amaranthe smothered her mouth to still more coughs. The cursed smoke was everywhere. “I’ll get him.”
She crawled past the grate, but Sespian caught her calf, fingers tight and unrelenting.
“Don’t get yourself killed,” he whispered. “This is our only way out.”
Amaranthe yanked her leg away. “I’m not leaving him.”
She could feel Sespian’s gaze upon her as she crawled away, moving as fast as her battered limbs would carry her. The smoke made her dizzy—or maybe she’d hit her head too many times—and she struggled to navigate the maze of gear, much of it charred and destroyed by the explosions. When she neared Sicarius’s side of the stage, she found a huge gaping hole in the top. She couldn’t believe marines weren’t leaping through it, but the hackings of the crowbars had stopped. The shouts outside had changed as well, no longer the calm back and forth of orders being given and acknowledged, but frenzied shouts of distress. And pain.
An inkling of Sicarius’s whereabouts came to her. Instead of continuing to the side entrance, she lifted her head past the smoking edges of the hole and peered into the dining hall. A sea of black and gray uniforms surged about, the crowd trying to pin something—someone—in a corner. She glimpsed short, blond hair.
“Get him!” someone in the back cried. “Finally. This is our chance!”
“Ten thousand ranmyas to the man who brings him down,” an officer cried from the doorway.
There had to be forty men in the room, and more waited outside, bearing crossbows.
“Sicarius,” Amaranthe groaned to herself—nobody was looking her way, “what are you doing?”
Buying you time, her mind answered. What else?
As good as he was, the situation appeared inescapable. Only the officers’ dead ancestors knew how many men they’d sacrifice for a chance to bring down Sicarius.
Though she knew he’d want her to get out of there, to make his distraction—she couldn’t bring herself to think of it as a sacrifice—worthwhile, Amaranthe looked for a way to help. Axes and crowbars littered the deck in front of the decimated stage, the tools cast aside in favor of swords. Little good they’d do her. Then she spotted something better. A bulky rucksack with numerous protrusions pressing against the fabric. Some of the explosives the marines had brought in?
Afraid the men at the door would spot her immediately if she crawled out of the top of the stage, she dropped back below and hustled to the side entrance. She burst out and scrambled around the corner. Using the discarded gear for cover, she dove for the rucksack and tore the flap open. Thick padding protected metal spheres and cans nestled within. She dug past several with fuses and grabbed two with pull-tab ignition mechanisms.
“One’s by the stage!” someone yelled from the doorway.
“Shoot her!”
Amaranthe yanked the tabs and threw the cans to the floor behind the mass of men. She flattened herself to the deck, anticipating fire. Crossbow bolts thudded into the front of the stage, one grazing her hair on its way past. The backpack offered little cover, and she had a sudden image of a bolt hitting one of the canisters, causing it to explode...
Her own explosions came first. The booms weren’t as ear-splitting as they’d been in the confines of the stage, but they served their purpose, hurling the back row of attackers to the deck. Smoke billowed into the air. It was as much cover as she’d get. Forgoing the long route, Amaranthe vaulted onto the stage, her injured back clenching in a protest of pain. Without any grace, she scrambled to the hole. Not until she dropped out of sight did she pause to grab her battered muscles and suck in a deep, bracing breath. Even then, her pause was short. She had to join the others and hope she’d given Sicarius the help he needed to escape the dining hall.
When she reached the grate, Sespian was still there, waiting for her. Relief washed across his face. He looked like he might have been thinking of running after her.
“Are you...?” He grabbed her arm and helped her into the cubby.
The cramped space, its bottom lumpy with cement and cold with inches of water, was not the oasis she would have preferred to slide into, but at least she could lie on her back and rest for a second. Sespian dragged a dented and charred box over the entrance before closing the grate.
“We’re through,” Books said, his voice strained.
Amaranthe forced herself to roll over. Basilard and Books lay on the far side of the wood-framed lumpy gray mass that encompassed the rockets. Water was entering through the charred, perforated line cut around the mess. The oblong cutout looked like it could drop away at any second, but the men had wedged boards beneath the edges in a couple of spots. Lying on his belly, Akstyr supported his end of the cutout from the side nearest Amaranthe and Sespian. Basilard lay shoulder-to-shoulder with Books on the far side. A wildness haunted Books’s eyes. He alone seemed to realize what might happen if just one of the rockets broke open when the load hit the bottom of the river.
* * * * *
Two security men in ship’s whites approached the railing as soon as the stolen enforcer boat approached. So much for sneaking aboard.
“You better go up top and do the talking,” Maldynado said. “They might recognize me.”
“No faith in your enforcer costume?” Evrial asked.
“It’s just that my blindingly handsome face draws people’s eyes and sticks in their minds, no matter what I wear.”
“Those are men. Somehow I doubt your face has the same effect.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Evrial climbed onto the deck, her head filling with visions of men propositioning Maldynado. She supposed he was pretty enough that it happened.
Their craft bumped against the side of the steamboat. Maldynado matched the larger vessel’s speed—their propeller scarcely stirred the water in comparison to the giant paddlewheel. This close, droplets of water spattered everywhere. Evrial wiped moisture from her cheek, thinking of the last time she and Maldynado had been so close to a paddlewheel. It’d been while fighting piles of enforcers. This situation was far too similar for her liking.
The security men leaned over the railing. “What are you—”
Evrial tossed them a rope. “Tie us, will you? Those marines are taking up all the space up front.” Not to mention that she didn’t want to be noticed by said marines. At the moment, the steamboat blocked her and Maldynado from their view.
One of the men caught the damp rope, shrugged, and bent over a m
etal cleat. His comrade wasn’t so quick to accept the arrival of strangers.
“Who are you? Where’d you come from?”
“Town.” Evrial waved back downriver, chagrinned to realize she’d forgotten the name of the little port. “My captain said he saw some criminals stowing away as you left dock. We’re here to collect them, though...” Evrial gazed up at the deck—smoke was wafting out of the dining hall entrance. “You look like you need more help than we brought. Are they in there? Causing trouble?”
“Trouble.” The man tying the rope snorted. “You don’t know the—”
“You look familiar.” The second man scrutinized Evrial. “Take off your hat.”
Uh oh. Maybe this was one of the security men who’d investigated the cabin the “maids” had infiltrated. None of them had seen her face though, had they?
“Listen...” Evrial climbed up the railing, keeping her head down. “I don’t take orders from security grunts.” She swung her leg over. “I need to see the captain or the officer of the watch.”
Her feet had barely touched the deck when the suspicious man grabbed her arm. He reached for her hat. “I said—”
Evrial planted her weight, then threw her body into a straight punch to the man’s nose. She was two inches taller than he and, despite his wariness, caught him by surprise. He staggered back, almost tripping over his comrade. Evrial lunged after him, grabbed his uniform front, and sank low so she could spring up, using her momentum to hoist him over the railing. He landed on the enforcer boat and bounced into the water.
The second man dropped the rope he’d finished tying and reached for a baton hanging from his belt. Evrial kicked his hand away before he could unclip it. She stepped in, slipped a dagger from his sheath and pressed the blade to his throat.
“Join your colleague in his evening swim,” she said.
The man groaned. “You’re with those cursed outlaws, aren’t you?”
“Apparently.” Evrial leaned into the blade, threatening to draw blood.
Beneath the Surface Page 17
