Ice Cracker II (emperor's edge)

by Lindsay Buroker

  Footsteps pounded on the stairs. Amaranthe opened the door wide enough to shoot two rounds. A yelp of pain promised that at least one hit home.

  “Need another sword?” Books asked.

  “Not yet,” she said. “If they all charge at once… Well, at least they can only come at us two at a time on the stairs.” Keeping the door cracked and one eye on the mercenaries, Amaranthe slid a few replacement quarrels into her magazine.

  “Who are you?” Books asked the boy. “Do you want to come out?”

  The child shook his head, and his bangs flopped in his eyes.

  “That was probably his father,” Amaranthe said, nodding toward the front of the distillery.

  Books felt as if one of her quarrels had thudded into his chest. Of course.

  “I’m sorry, son,” he rasped. “We didn’t kill your father, but we’re going to stop the men who did.”

  “I killed him,” the boy whispered.

  Books knelt to lean closer. He could not have heard correctly. “What?”

  “I killed him. It’s my fault. I made them come.” The boy hiccupped and tears swam in his eyes.

  “I’m sure that’s not possible,” Books said. “Ah, what was your name?”

  “Terith.”

  “Ask him what these mercenaries are doing here.” Amaranthe leaned out the door and popped off another shot. “And if any more are on the property. It’d help to know how many we ultimately have to deal with, especially since you just promised him we’d take care of everyone.”

  “Er.” This hardly seemed the time to interrogate the boy-had he witnessed the quarrel strike his father down? Books had seen the knife go into his son’s chest, though he had been too far away to do anything. He rubbed his face, trying to push back the memories. This “distraction” was proving anything but. “How’d you bring the mercenaries?” he asked gently.

  “I just wanted to help.” Terith pawed at tears in his eyes. “Mother died last winter. She ran the business stuff. Father knew about trees but not the rest. He didn’t like running things.” The boy sniffled mightily.

  “What happened after your mother died?” Books groped for a path to relevance in the boy’s rambling response.

  “Father tried to run the business. He tried real hard. But he hated it. I wanted him to be happy again and not yell all the time. I made him think this place was haunted.”

  Amaranthe’s head jerked away from the door. Yes, here was the link to the story that brought them out here.

  “How?” Books asked.

  “Hid stuff, moved stuff, said I saw ancestor spirits.” Terith shrugged. “I thought Father would think Mother’s spirit wanted him to sell the business, and he could go work on someone else’s trees and be happy again. But he thought somebody was trying to scare him off his land, and he got real mad. He decided to hire mercenaries.”

  An explosion hit the stairway, and the office trembled.

  “Howmanymercenaries?” Amaranthe peeked out, frowning at whatever she saw.

  Terith shook his head. “Father asked a bunch. He wasn’t sure if any would come.”

  “Trust me, boy,” Amaranthe said. “If you own a distillery, it’s never a problem enticing mercs to work for you.”

  “They shot him. He didn’t have enough money, and they wanted to take all the brandy, and he wouldn’t let them, and they-” Terith’s voice broke off in a choked sob. “It’s my fault.”

  “Easy, son.” Books gripped his shoulder. “We’ll work that out later. Now, we have to get out of here.”

  He frowned at the small window. Terith might be able to crawl through it but neither Books nor Amaranthe could.

  “Is there another way besides the stairs?” Book asked.

  Amaranthe’s crossbow twanged. A pistol ball thudded into the frame above her head, raining splinters. She slammed the door shut.

  “They’ve got, or they’re making, explosives,” she said.

  “How many quarrels do you have left?” Books asked.

  “Five.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.” Her usual smile was bleak.

  “Terith.” Books resisted the urge to shake the boy. This had to be done gently, or Terith would break down altogether. “We really need your help. Is there another way out?”

  Terith dragged a sleeve across his eyes. “There’s an attic, but the trapdoor is out there.”

  “Of course, it is,” Books muttered.

  He grabbed the toolbox, hopped onto the desk, and knocked at the ceiling. The first solid thud made him grimace, but he found a hollow spot next to it. If he could cut a hole between the joists, maybe they could squeeze through.

  As he withdrew hammer, chisel, and saw, another explosion boomed, this time right below them. The desk jumped, and drawers slid out, crashing to the floor. Books almost pitched over, too.

  “I don’t suppose you could keep them from doing that,” he said, setting to work.

  Amaranthe looked out the door. Smoke wafted into the room, carrying the sound of ominous snaps and crackles.

  “You boys won’t be able to collect my bounty if my body is charred beyond recognition,” she yelled.

  “You’ll jump down before that happens,” one called back.

  Shouts and laughter mingled with the increasing roar of a fire.

  “I think they’re trying to drop the supports for this room,” Amaranthe said. “You might want to hasten the trapdoor-creation process.”

  Books sawed. “It’s going to be more of a hole than a door.”

  “I’m not fussy. Terith, you fussy?”

  With his story told, the boy had fallen silent. He stood in the corner, watching them.

  “He’s not fussy,” Amaranthe said.

  Books lowered a ragged circle of plywood. “Hand him up, and we’ll see if we can cut our way out on a side where the mercenaries aren’t watching.”

  A thunderous crash came from beyond the door, and the room quaked. The stairs had collapsed.

  Amaranthe lifted Terith onto the desk. Still silent, the boy allowed Books to push him into the attic. A moment later, Books clambered up himself. He bent to offer Amaranthe a hand, but she gave him the lamp and jumped. She caught the edge and pulled herself up without trouble.

  Heat radiated through the floor of the attic, and the smell of warming bat and squirrel dung competed with smoke from below. The lamp spread a wan bubble of light, and metal glinted at one end. At first, Books feared more swordsmen up here, but the metal merely marked a vent.

  “We can get out over there,” he whispered.

  The chisel made short work of the screws, and fresh night air greeted them. Darkness had descended over the orchard beyond the distillery, but a few lampposts dotting the property provided intermittent light. Below the vent, the roof of a firewood lean-to offered an easy way down.

  “That’s convenient,” Books said.

  “Unless there are mercenaries in it,” Amaranthe said.

  “Now who’s being glum?”

  She snorted and stepped up to the hole. Her crossbow caught on the edge for a moment, but she shifted and dropped quietly to the roof. Books lowered Terith, then jumped down after them. He dislodged a shingle, and his foot slid. With an “oomph,” he flopped onto his backside, and the angled roof sent him over the edge.

  At least he managed to land on his feet in a crouch. “So much for convenient.”

  Something slammed into his back. The force sent him sprawling, and black dots slithered through his vision.

  Expecting a second attack, Books rolled sideways and tried to get his feet under him. A blast of fire streaked into the ground he had just left.

  A blond-haired foreigner stood below the edge of the roof, a sword in one hand and a staff in the other. The now-flaming grass illuminated green and black tattoos swirling across his cheeks and forehead.

  “A shaman,” Books groaned.

  The foreigner growled something in his own language.

  “Are you here for the
job, too?” Books asked. “It’s off, you know. The distillery owner is dead.”

  The tip of the carved wooden staff lowered toward him. It glowed red, like a poker left too long in the fire, and Books hurled himself to the side.

  Another gout of flame seared the grass and singed the hairs from his arm. His shoulder struck a rock, and he grabbed it.

  Hurling it at the shaman disrupted whatever attack was coming next. Books scrambled to his feet and yanked his sword free.

  Snarling, the shaman stepped out from under the roof and aimed his staff again.

  With her target now visible, Amaranthe dropped, sword angled for a killing blow. Somehow, the shaman sensed her silent descent. He whirled, sword hefted, and metal screeched as their blades met.

  Her attack sent him back a step, but he kept his feet and parried the succession of blows that followed.

  The shaman’s eyes widened when the burning foliage highlighted Amaranthe’s face. He pointed his staff at her and growled, “Lokdon,” in a heavy accent.

  “Even foreigners are interested in collecting my bounty these days?” She shifted to the side so the shaman turned, opening up his back for Books. “I’m flattered.”

  Books started in, but two mercenaries pounded around the corner of the building.

  “Great,” he muttered.

  His darting gaze chanced on Terith, balanced on the edge of the roof. Amaranthe had removed her crossbow for the sword fight, and the boy now held it. Their eyes met, and Books pantomimed firing it at the approaching men. Not sure whether Terith would understand-or had any idea how to use the weapon-Books found his ready stance, and braced himself for the coming attack.

  Then a quarrel clipped the shoulder of the closest mercenary. He jerked to a halt, grabbed the bolt, and stared at the tip. No doubt, he remembered Amaranthe’s promise about the poison.

  “Shoot any others who come close,” Books called.

  The boy was fumbling-trying to figure out how the lever loaded another quarrel-but the threat made both mercenaries sprint back around the corner.

  Books leapt a patch of flaming grass and angled toward the shaman’s back.

  Again sensing the attack, the foreigner shifted and blocked Books’s swing. Blond braids flying, the agile man retreated under the lean-to and put his back against the woodpile. He kept Amaranthe at bay with his sword and Books back with the staff.

  Growling, Books tried to hack through the carved wood, but magic reinforced it. His blade did not even chip it.

  Though the shaman seemed unable to concentrate on magic while whipping his weapons about, his defensive skills could have made brick walls jealous. He pursued no killing strikes, but all he had to do was last until more mercenaries showed up with guns. Books and Amaranthe had to end this soon.

  Books’s elbow thudded into the pole supporting the lean-to. At first he cursed the obstacle, but realization flooded over him: his sword might not cut the shaman’s staff, but no magic reinforced the poles.

  “Let’s be loggers!” Books barked, trusting Amaranthe to catch on-and hoping the shaman, who would have to translate to his native tongue, wouldn’t until too late.

  Books jumped back, coiled his body, and whipped his sword about with all the momentum he could summon. Steel cracked through wood, and the pole snapped.

  A second crack echoed through the night as Amaranthe sliced through the other support. She kicked the startled shaman, hurling him backward into the woodpile before the roof came down.

  Remembering Terith, Books dropped his sword and caught the surprised boy as the lean-to collapsed. Wood splintered and flew, and dust clogged the air.

  A hand clawed its way out from the wreckage, but as soon as the shaman’s bloodied head appeared, Amaranthe finished him.

  Before Books could congratulate her, Terith pointed. Four mercenaries remained, and they all stood by the corner of the building, staring. Battered and singed, they did not appear that threatening, but Books groaned at the idea of more fighting.

  With one hand, Amaranthe grabbed her crossbow, which had tumbled down with Terith. With the other, she brandished the bloody sword. Books lowered the boy, pushing Terith behind, while he grabbed his own blade.

  “I’m warmed up now,” Amaranthe announced for the benefit of the mercenaries. She jerked her chin at Books. “You?”

  “Oh, yes.” Pretending his battered backside, shoulder, and elbow were not crying out with admonitions about age-appropriate activities, he also pointed his sword at the mercenaries.

  The men appeared more crestfallen than eager for battle though. Their downcast eyes took in the dead shaman and the duo before them, and before they could even discuss the situation, the back two spun and ran into the night.

  “Uhm,” one of the remaining two said.

  “Er.”

  “We, ah…”

  “You can go now,” Amaranthe said.

  “Yes, good idea.”

  A moment later, only Books, Amaranthe, and Terith remained. Only when they were alone did Amaranthe sink to the ground, rubbing her dirt- and soot-grimed face. Though she managed a bleary smile, her hands trembled. She was human, after all.

  With no pretensions to the contrary, Books collapsed on the blackened earth. “As I was saying, next time you notice a glum cast to my face, you need not arrange such a grand distraction.”

  “I’ll remember that,” she said.

  Terith sat between them, pulling up the remaining strands of grass.

  “Do you have any relatives, Terith?” Amaranthe asked him.

  “An aunt and uncle in Korgar,” Terith muttered.

  “We can take you to them,” she said.

  A part of Books wanted to take the boy himself, for surely he would understand Terith’s pain better than anyone else. But the boy probably deserved someone who understood happiness instead. Besides, a fugitive had no right raising a child. Someday perhaps, when they were pardoned. Not today.

  Books put a hand on Terith’s shoulder. “Son, you’re not responsible for any of this, you understand?”

  The boy shook his head. “It’s my fault.”

  “You had good intentions. You wanted your father to be happy.”

  “If not for me, Father wouldn’t be dead,” Terith whispered.

  “No, it’s not your…” Books trailed off when he caught a knowing look from Amaranthe. She knew his story, how his son had died, and how he had never stopped blaming himself and never would. “All right, Terith, maybe you’re right and you do share some responsibility here. You were trying to help your father, but you weren’t honest with him, and he got himself into trouble because of it. I don’t blame you, but it’s true that you inadvertently played a role in his death.”

  The boy’s shoulders slumped lower, but he nodded. This, he believed. Books saying none of it was Terith’s fault rang false, just as it did for Books when people tried to tell him he could not blame himself for his son’s death.

  “You’ll probably never forgive yourself either,” Books said, “but eventually there’ll be days when you can forget about the pain and find purpose and…contentment in life again.”

  “Is that enough?” Terith whispered.

  Books met Amaranthe’s eyes again, and she raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes.” He gave her a faint smile. “Especially if you have plenty of distractions to keep things interesting.”

  ICE CRACKER II

  Amaranthe ran alongside the frozen lake, thighs weary, calves sore, ragged breaths steaming before her. The short sword belted at her waist felt ten times heavier than it was. An inch of fresh snow blanketed the trail, and thick flakes wafted from the steely sky. They stuck in her lashes and melted down her flushed cheeks.

  The marker came into view, and she dug a pocket watch free as she passed it. She groaned at the time, shoulders slumping.

  “Maybe I can blame the snow,” she muttered. “Or the cold. Or maybe I can blame-” She rounded a bend and almost tripped over two bodies sprawled ac
ross the path, “-the dead soldiers on the trail,” she finished, voice cracking as the breeze shifted and the butcher shop stench enveloped her.

  The soldiers, recognizable by their black uniforms and military-issue pistols, had died recently: slit throats poured steaming blood onto the white trail. A tangle of scuffs and footprints trampled the snow around the bodies, but no trails led away from the scene.

  Exercise forgotten, Amaranthe yanked her sword free. She crouched and surveyed her surroundings, wondering where the killer had hidden to launch the ambush-and wondering if that killer might be there now, waiting to do it again.

  Without their foliage, the skeletal apple and maple trees lining the lake offered little cover. A hundred meters ahead, the industrial section of the city began. Deep, dark alleys ran between warehouses and factories whose smokestacks belched black ribbons into the low gray clouds. Anyone hiding in those alleys would have had to race across a field of snow to reach the soldiers though. Closer to her, a gas lamp sputtered at the head of the first of hundreds of docks lining the waterfront. The dark hollow beneath the boards held her gaze. Between the snow and the coming dusk, the lighting was poor; someone might well have hidden beneath the dock.

  Even as she watched, a crunch sounded. Someone shifting weight on the snow? Her grip tightened on the sword.

  The self-preservation part of her mind suggested returning to her jog and leaving this mystery to another. But thanks to a frame job by a late enemy, she was wanted for conspiring to kidnap the emperor. She wanted exoneration, and for that to happen she needed to seek out noble-and notice-gaining-tasks. This might be the opportunity she needed.

  Amaranthe stepped off the trail. At first no footprints marred the bank, but, six or eight feet off the well-tamped path, fresh boot marks indented the snow. Quite a jump, but not impossible.

  She followed the prints down to the dock. Anticipation quickened her heart, and quick puffs of breath appeared before her eyes. The snow muffled the city sounds; the waterfront stood eerily silent.

  When she reached the dock, she crouched, half-expecting someone behind the pilings. Nobody was there. A couple of packs and bedrolls lay tucked in the shadows, however. Had the soldiers chanced upon this campsite and been killed for their discovery? She crept forward, intending to investigate.