Empress of Rogues

by Carrie Summers

  The Nightblade rogue rolls her eyes as if to suggest she needs no reminders but nods anyway.

  “Okay,” Myrrh says. “Up then, and quietly. Silver first.”

  To her friends’ credit, no one acts terribly surprised when Silver wiggles her fingers and vanishes into an angular collection of shadows. Myrrh contains a smirk as she imagines the woman’s annoyance at the lack of reaction. She turns down the wick on the oil lamp, dimming the light to the barest glow, as the upper hatch creaks open and Silver climbs silently into the smelter building. The scent of cinders drifts down through the opening—even with the furnace cold, the fumes are stronger than the customary acrid scent that fills Smeltertown’s streets. Working in the building when the fires are stoked must be awful.

  After waiting for a ten count to make sure the Nightblade gets clear of the exit—and in case there’s a problem and Silver thinks it’s worth alerting the group—Myrrh carefully climbs the ladder and peeks into the room above. She can’t track Silver’s progress, but she imagines the woman is already moving toward the front door where two stout Shields stand with bored expressions and hands on their short swords. To Myrrh’s left, the hulking mass of the furnace blocks her view of the exit to the yard. Across the room, though, she spots six guards sitting around a table and throwing dice. An open bottle of amber-colored liquid suggests they won’t be particularly alert to the thieves’ furtive motions as they prepare to free the captives.

  As soon as her feet clear the ladder, Myrrh scurries behind the furnace so she can get a view out into the yard. She expected the door to be closed and is surprised to see that not only is the door to the yard open but some of the prisoners are inside and now huddle against the walls as shelter against the spitting rain. Overconfident, apparently, the guards pay them no mind, except when a patroller from outside stops in the doorway and casts a longing glance at the dice game. Then the gamblers make a token effort to appear alert, running eyes over the shivering wretches against the wall.

  Slipping her cloak over her head, Myrrh heads toward the exit. Between her smudged face and the ragged state of her clothing, she looks no different than the one hundred or so Rat Towners held captive, and now that she’s inside, the guards don’t give her a second glance as she passes them.

  So far, this is much easier than she expected. At the very least, she assumed there’d be a need to bluff her way past guards at the door—or more likely, to climb through a window to exit the building. Just walking out the door is simple.

  But of course, that usually means she’s in for a different surprise.

  Before she steps into the yard, Myrrh casts a glance back to make sure the others are settling into place. All seems in order, with Nyx slouching toward a group of captives huddling against the wall, and Resh and Ivy silently slipping toward the guard table, eyes alert for advantages and distractions. Their job will be to capture and hold the gamblers’ attention long enough for the fleeing Rat Towners to turn the scene in the smelter to chaos.

  Good. Now all Myrrh needs to do is get the prisoners ready to bolt.

  Chapter Eighteen

  WHEN MYRRH SPIES Hawk across the yard, the tension in her chest unwinds, more than she’d like, if she’s honest. Her knees wobble, and for a moment, she wants to run to him and lay her head on his shoulder and stop worrying about her crumbling syndicate and Glint’s cage and the hard-faced guards wandering around the yard with cudgels in their grip. She stops herself, forces a breath, and then banishes the weakness. She built Ghost Syndicate without Hawk, and she’s here as his would-be rescuer, not the young pickpocket he pulled from the gutter ten years ago.

  Raising her chin, she starts across the yard through the scattering of Rat Towners. They crouch and stand and sit on empty ore crates in the rain, eyes downcast. Tears have cut streaks through the dirt on their cheeks. Myrrh clenches her fists and moves quickly, but after a few steps she realizes how this confidence must make her stand out. Ducking her head, she forces her shoulders into a hunch and shuffles forward as if she feels as miserable as the rest of them. Cutting a straight path to Hawk won’t do either, so she takes a winding course as if wandering aimlessly. Finally, head down and hands curled around her belly, she comes up behind her former mentor.

  “Hawk.”

  Her low-spoken word reaches the man’s ears, and he turns, brow furrowed as if trying to place the voice. When he spies her, his eyes widen for a moment, but his face quickly flattens.

  “Sixes. Where did they catch up with you?” he asks. He glances at her scuffed and rain-soaked clothing, her smudged face and unkempt hair. “I’m guessing they haven’t connected this”—he gestures at her face—“with the notorious woman accomplice in the Maire’s murder.”

  Myrrh gives a little head shake. “Listen. They didn’t capture me. We should have the door open shortly, and you need to be ready to run. We’ll rendezvous at Glint’s Lower Fringe safe house. Not the mansion. The tenement building.”

  Hawk blinks as he takes in the information. His eyes dart to the side, bringing her attention to a pair of guards who are standing over an old man who sits with a broken walking cane across his lap. One kicks the longer half of the cane, sending the stick clattering. The man scrambles for it, and the guards laugh.

  All at once, Myrrh doubts herself. Doubts her plan. It’s always been like this when she has Hawk to rely on.

  “I count twenty-two guards inside,” he says. “Could get ugly.”

  She hardens her jaw. “Ivy and Resh are working up a distraction. They’ll keep the guards from giving chase. Most of them, anyway.”

  He doesn’t say anything else, just nods, and Myrrh has to make fists of her hands to hold tight to her the last shreds of confidence. “Who else is here from Ghost? I need to tell them where to meet up.”

  Hawk swallows, a flicker of darkness on his face that he quickly masters. “Carver. Usually pacing along the back wall.” He glances to her left, and after a moment, he nods. “Like now.”

  Shifting her weight and shuffling her feet while keeping her head down, she peers out of the corner of her eye. Carver is a gaunt figure, stalking along the stone-built wall with what is probably too much confidence given the situation.

  “Who else?”

  He pauses, looking toward the entrance to the smelter, a yawning double door wide enough to accommodate a horse-drawn wagon. A small group of guards stand just outside the opening, looking in with tension knotting their shoulders. Sixes. Have her friends been noticed? Myrrh’s breath freezes in her throat as she mentally prepares to whip out her dagger and fight her way out. But after a moment, one of the guards laughs and cups his hands around his mouth.

  “Miser’s piss pot, and there I thought Grant was gonna win all the coins. Can’t make decent wagers when one guy at the table can outbid you five times over.”

  Myrrh blows through loose lips. It seems the tension had nothing to do with the operation after all. She turns back to Hawk. “So who else is here?”

  Again, a shadow crosses his features.

  “Listen, Myrrh. I hate to say it but Toad—”

  “I heard. He brought the Shields down on the Queen’s Dice.”

  “Myrrh, it’s Sapphire.”

  “What did they do? Is she—”

  He lays a hand on her shoulder and steps aside, revealing a trio of people, two crouching and one sitting, tucked between a pair of hulking iron contraptions. The machines, all heavy bars and metal teeth, strike Myrrh as menacing, and when she notices the threads of fabric clinging to what look like iron spikes meant to crush ore, her eyes widen.

  It takes her a full breath to recognize the woman sitting next to the ore crusher with an arm cradled to her chest, her face so dark and swollen with bruises it scarcely looks human. Myrrh sucks in a sharp breath, unable to hold her thief’s mask. She looks again at the ore crusher, matching the threads on its teeth to the linen weave of Sapphire’s jacket, the dark-blue coat she favors when dealing
games at her gambling establishments.

  Myrrh’s hand comes to her mouth, covering the horror-struck O shape of her lips. Eyes closed—or maybe swollen shut—Sapphire hasn’t noticed Myrrh’s arrival.

  “They wanted information about your location. Sapphire couldn’t have given it if she’d wanted to, I imagine. Regardless, her arm bones are shattered,” Hawk says. “The skin’s more like pulp than anything. If we could get her to a good healer, there’d be a chance of saving it. As it stands…”

  Myrrh can’t drag her eyes away. She wants to go to the woman, but there’s no time. “She has to get out when the doors open. Can you move with her? Help get her to Lower Fringe?” Myrrh’s thinking of the doses of healing serum she used on the Haven member’s daughter and Glint. In both cases, they cured what would have been fatal wounds. Surely she could fix Sapphire’s arm with another vial. But the healing tonic is among the rarest of the Haava substances. She wouldn’t even know where to start looking, not without Glint’s help.

  Regardless, with the filthy conditions in the yard, it’s not just a question of whether Sapphire’s arm can be saved. Infection will soon take hold if the limb isn’t cleaned and bandaged. The woman could be dead within a tenday.

  Myrrh takes a shaky breath. “Okay, I need to alert Carver.”

  Hawk nods. “I’ll help Sapphire start toward the building.”

  “And Hawk,” she says, face heating as shock over Sapphire’s condition gives way to rage. She scratches at her calf, pinches an imaginary louse from the leather folds of her trousers, then flicks her fingers as if getting rid of the carcass. Scratching again, she digs into her boot and palms a small blade she keeps holstered there. When she stands, she steps close to Hawk and slips the knife into his pocket. “If you happen to cross paths with the guards who did this to her in the course of escape, see that they lose an eye or two.”

  ***

  With Carver following her lead, winding his way through the crowd and whispering in Rat Towner ears, Myrrh works her way back toward the entrance to the smelter. She tracks the guards in her peripheral vision, making note of which men and women are paying attention to the prisoners, and which are looking for a corner to piss in or checking the smelter building to see if it’s time for a shift change. A pair of hard-faced Shields have taken up posts central to the yard and are using an old wooden pallet to get a better view. Those two will be an issue. When she catches Carver’s eye, she gestures to them with a pair of fingers held close to her thigh.

  He nods, a faint motion that few people would notice.

  The smell of cinders strengthens as she nears the building. Myrrh grimaces. It really must be eye-wateringly bad inside when the furnace is actually running. Even now, her throat stings.

  When she’s almost at the door, she runs through the plan in her mind. Nyx will be near the entrance, watching for her signal. He’ll be in position to pass the command on to Silver, Resh, and Ivy. As soon as Resh and Ivy grab the attention of the gambling off-duty guards, Silver will get the bar off the door either by lifting it while still cloaked in shadow, or by retaking her material form and using a cantrip to misdirect the guards and convince them they need to open the door.

  She spots Carver working toward her flank at a diagonal. They’ll enter the building together, ready to fight as a team if necessary.

  “Hey!” The shout tears through the air inside the smelter, putting a stutter in Myrrh’s step. Her eyes arrow to the building’s interior, but she can’t see anything in the relative darkness ahead.

  She senses Carver at her side, can almost feel the tension in his body. Out in the yard, Rat Towners hurry their progress toward the building, thinking the sudden sound may have been the signal. The sudden motion brings shouted questions and commands across the yard, the guards calling back and forth to each other and demanding the prisoners hold still.

  The orders only increase the abrupt rush for the door. Myrrh’s eyes widen when she sees both prisoners and guards streaming into her path, blocking her view of the position where she expects to see Nyx.

  A loud clatter comes from the building, another shout, and then light spills across the floor as the outer door opens.

  “Sixes, we’re not ready,” she curses as she hurries forward, shoving through Rat Towners in her haste.

  “Miser’s breath,” Carver says as they step into the darkness of the smelter. Myrrh blinks, trying to pick details from the shadows. The gamblers’ table lies on its side, rolling on the circular top. A spray of broken glass decorates a puddle of what looks like the liquor the guards were drinking. It takes her a few breaths to sort out order from the shadows and recognize Ivy grappling with one of the guards. She can’t see Resh or Silver anywhere, and every time she looks toward the outer door, the light from the street blinds her.

  A young Rat Towner man goes stumbling past, limbs flailing, feet stumbling. A guard follows on his heels, cudgel raised. Myrrh darts forward and sticks out a foot, tripping the guard, before heading toward Ivy. A few steps later, the Ghost Syndicate woman drops her opponent with a punch to the neck and shakes her head to wave Myrrh off.

  Whirling, Myrrh turns back, intent on regrouping with Carver. The long-limbed man has a foot planted on the neck of the guard she tripped, and he waves her over as he stoops and yanks the cudgel from the man’s hands.

  Myrrh catches a glimpse of the scene in the yard, prisoners and guards pushing and shoving. The horde shoves through the double door, blocking most of the light from the yard and bringing the melee into the smelter.

  “Forward!” Myrrh shouts in Carver’s ear as the room fills with the grunts and slaps and the occasional wet thud of a well-aimed hit. “We have to hold the door.”

  He nods and starts pushing forward, Myrrh guarding the rear. The acrid fumes in the smelter burn her throat and the inside of her nose. She thinks she glimpses Hawk and Sapphire, the gambling house proprietor leaning heavily on the man’s shoulder as she staggers, blind. But a pair of wrestling shadows tumbles across her view before Myrrh can head that way to help. She smells sweat and blood, and shouts of pain and anger fill her ears.

  “Sixes,” Carver says, pulling her attention around. She spins just in time to see a wall of guard flesh move across the front exit. At least six armed Shields have reached the opening first. There’s a momentary tussle as a guard tries to step out and pull one of the doors closed. A Rat Towner spies the gap and dives through. Three cudgels descend, battering the man across the back, and a Shield picks him up by the ragged collar of his jacket and tosses the man back into the smelter.

  “Just hold the opening,” the Shield at the center of the line yells. “Get the mob subdued. Knock them senseless. Kill them if you have to.”

  A few feet away, a loud bellow shakes the air. As Myrrh sidesteps a downed guard, delivering a kick to his gut for good measure, she spies the shiny dome of Resh’s bald head. The man yells again, raising a cask of something over his head. He brings the little barrel crashing down. Wood splinters and what looks like lamp oil spills.

  “Fire,” Myrrh shouts as the bald thief drops to his heels and starts pulling striking sparks from a flint, the little red motes falling on the oil. Rat Towners seem to hear her, and they back away from the puddle of oil as the first spark takes, raising a flame that licks at the oil in almost a desultory fashion. Not very good oil then.

  With a roar of frustration, Resh abandons his attempt to off-balance the guards with the flames, and instead lowers his shoulder and starts charging for the door. Carver spots the motion and falls in step behind. Myrrh’s about to join when a second rank of Shields steps in front of the first. At least a dozen, maybe fifteen, armed guards now hold the door, and many have drawn edged weapons. One strikes, the flat of the blade catching the light from the street for just a moment before a spray of blood flies back into the crowd, and someone cries out in pain.

  “Wait! Carver!” she shouts, dashing forward and grabbing the man’s shoulder. B
etter to go out through the secret tunnel than sacrifice themselves on the Shield’s blades. But that won’t do either, because it leaves Hawk behind. It leaves Sapphire with a crushed arm and ruined face. It leaves all the innocent people from Rat Town who were rounded up because Emmerst decided to crack down on her home district.

  Warrell is on the other end of the tunnel, though, and maybe she can call to him for help. He can run to the Blood Garnets, and maybe they can attack the Shields from the outside, get that exit open so the prisoners can escape.

  As she drags Carver in that direction, her eyes fall on something else. The bellows. A pair of massive wedges with accordion-shaped bladders, they stand on either side of the huge iron furnace. Spouts at the narrow ends of the wedges connect to vents in the side of the furnace through leather hoses the diameter of Myrrh’s calf. Usually, the bellows provide air to the furnace fire, raising such heat that ore in the firepot melts, releasing the metals inside the rock as red-hot streams. Now, they’d blow air on nothing but dead ash.

  Ash that stings the eyes and burns the throat.

  “This way,” she shouts abruptly, all but yanking Carver off his feet. A guard steps into their path, but Carver brings down the cudgel he stole from the Shield’s compatriot, smashing it against the man’s collarbone and sending him staggering. Myrrh steps in, taking advantage of the guard’s stumble, and slashes him across the elbow where a gap in the hardened leather panels of his armor makes it easy to cut through the jerkin into the flesh beneath. He yelps, falls back, and she catches a whiff of liquor as he reels off in search of easier targets.

  At the closest of the two bellows, she yanks the handle up and feels the movement of air at her feet as a flap opens and the bladder sucks in a breath. Pushing down with all her weight, she forces air through the hose and into the furnace.