“Are you sure you don’t want to start with one of the lower ranking traitors, Sire?” Dunn asked.
No, he wasn’t sure. Sespian hated the idea of confronting a man thirty years his senior, but he’d make more headway starting at the top. If he could get one of Hollowcrest’s generals on his side, maybe he could win over other men from that list. Better a bit of politicking than dozens of hangings.
“I’m sure,” Sespian said. “Get your men ready. You’ll need to take Lakecrest into custody after this. He can’t be allowed to speak with Hollowcrest before we lay our tiles.”
“Yes, Sire,” Dunn said.
Sespian set his jaw, pushed back his shoulders, and strode into the office.
General Lakecrest rose from a wingback chair beside the low cider table. His concave frown mirrored the curve of his bald head, though the expression looked natural on him, rather than an indicator of nerves or concern. Enough medals and badges armored his uniform jacket to deflect arrows.
Sespian’s instinct was to wave the general back into his seat, but he waited for the salute and seated himself first. This man was not a friend, not someone for whom rituals should be relaxed.
“Did you know about the poison?” Sespian asked abruptly, wanting to unsettle his guest.
Lakecrest blanched. His expression, filled not with surprise but dread, answered Sespian’s question as surely as words: yes.
“Because,” Sespian continued, “if you didn’t know, I could forgive your unwavering devotion to Hollowcrest, who is theoretically supposed to be serving me. But if you did know he was drugging me and didn’t do anything to warn me—well, that’s treason, isn’t it? Punishable by death. And of course you’d be stripped of your warrior caste status, title, and holdings. Your family would lose everything. Your daughters, I understand, haven’t much of an aptitude for business or snaring husbands. I suppose it would be hard for them to support themselves, and without that warrior caste title, they’d be even less appealing as marriage candidates.”
Sespian forced himself to stare into Lakecrest’s eyes as he spoke, all the while hating himself for the threats coming out of his mouth. If this was what it took to get his power back from Hollowcrest, he would do it. Later, he could wonder if he had done the right thing.
“I see.” Lakecrest leaned back in his chair and considered Sespian through new eyes. “The real question is not of what I know or don’t know. It’s whether you have the gumption and the wiles to challenge Hollowcrest.”
Sespian withdrew a folded paper from his pocket. He opened it and placed it on the table before his guest. Lakecrest leaned forward. It was Dunn’s now-complete list of men working in Fort Urgot and the Imperial Barracks who were loyal to Hollowcrest. When Lakecrest’s frown gave way to a slack-jawed gape, Sespian felt a thrum of satisfaction in his breast.
“I’ve discovered that Hollowcrest has an appointment that will take him out of the Barracks tonight.” Sespian didn’t know where or with whom, but he could find that out later. “While he’s gone, I’m having all these men arrested. Without their support, Hollowcrest will be easy to oust.” Unless, of course, Hollowcrest already knew what Sespian was doing and had some plan in place to outmaneuver him. The old warthog had seemed distracted the last couple days, but that could be an act. Sespian cleared his throat and forced his mind back to Lakecrest. “If I arrested you, it would leave Urgot without a commander, and it seems a shame to dethrone a man of your experience. If you willingly choose to come to my side, perhaps some of the soldiers in your command could be spared.”
“Spared?” Lakecrest’s frown deepened. “You’re planning on killing the men you arrest?”
Here was where the acting came in. Sespian could not imagine killing anyone in cold blood, whether they were Hollowcrest’s lackeys or not, but... “That is the law, is it not? Traitors are always put to death.”
Lakecrest slumped in the wingback and massaged his jaw. All the while, he stared at Sespian, who did his best to look determined and righteous.
It either fooled Lakecrest, or he was feeling magnanimous, for he said, “It seems the boy has become a man.”
Something that tended to happen naturally when drugs weren’t involved. All Sespian said out loud was, “You’ll join me, then?”
“I shall not impede your plans.”
It was not exactly an endorsement, but it was as much as Sespian had dared hope for.
* * *
Drips of melting snow pattered from the eaves of the icehouse. Inside, darkness and layers of sawdust insulated the frozen blocks from a similar demise.
Amaranthe chose to take the warming weather as a positive sign, though that didn’t make her any less nervous. Broom in hand, she was cleaning everything in sight as she rehearsed her words for the meeting.
Sicarius took a break from running a new obstacle course he had set up for himself, and Amaranthe waved him over. He grabbed a jug of water and joined her. His hair stuck up more than usual, but he was otherwise neat in his typical black. If they lived through the mission, she decided to buy him an obnoxiously cheerful shirt. Something in sunflower yellow, perhaps.
The other men were swatting at each other with swords near the back wall. Maldynado was supposedly leading a fencing practice, though copious amounts of chatter punctuated the clanks of metal. All that mattered for the moment was that the others were out of earshot.
“Tonight’s the night,” she told Sicarius. And then winced. Emperor’s teeth, could she have uttered anything more inane?
Predictably, he said nothing.
“There’s something I need to know.” Amaranthe brushed a shred of sawdust off her sleeve. How could she say this without alluding to the note? “Tonight when Hollowcrest shows up...” No, wait, she had to explain why she was doubting him. “Uhm, Mitsy Masters from the Maze said you’re still Hollowcrest’s man and the bounty is just a cover. I don’t believe that, otherwise you wouldn’t need me to help the emperor, because you’d be right there in the Barracks, but I do believe you worked for Hollowcrest in the past and...” I spied on you and read the note where he invited you back. No, couldn’t say that. “Anyway...” She should probably be looking in his eyes. She lifted her gaze but only made it as far as his chin. “I certainly owe you a lot—you’ve saved my life half a dozen times in the last couple weeks—so I’d like to trust you one-hundred percent, but you’re always so reticent and I’m never sure...” Amaranthe took a big breath. “What I need to know is if we’re all out there tonight, me and Hollowcrest and the Forge people, who are you going to back if there’s a physical confrontation?”
Finally, she met his eyes.
If her doubts troubled or insulted him, he did not hint of it. Sicarius returned her gaze without evasion—and without answering.
Swords clashed and laughter sounded on the other side of the icehouse. Between Amaranthe and Sicarius...silence.
Frustrated, she wiggled her fingers in a give-me-something gesture. “Please, Sicarius? I need to know how to plan.”
“I’m not backing anyone,” he said. “My only concern is protecting the emperor.”
“So I should plan this as if you won’t be there?” She struggled to keep the disappointment out of her voice. It wasn’t as if he had ever implied he was doing things for her. From the beginning it had been the emperor’s name that had swayed him to her side. “Very well.”
He turned back toward the obstacle course.
“Are you ever going to tell me what he is to you?” she asked.
Sicarius did not answer.
* * *
Amaranthe’s group arrived at the Oak Iron Smelter a half hour before midnight. The huge plant lay dormant, its massive smokestack black against a starry sky. Carts on railroad tracks walled in one side of a huge scrapyard that stretched for a block around the central building. Mountains of raw ore, scrap metal, and coal created snow-covered hills, and she led Books, Akstyr, and Maldynado into the valleys. All four of them carried swords, and Aksty
r and Books toted the repeating crossbows taken from the enforcers. Sicarius had disappeared with the remaining crossbow before they arrived.
Amaranthe had left the majority of the counterfeit bills behind, stored amongst the rafters in the ice house. She carried a knapsack with a sample of their work, enough—she hoped—to give her adversaries cause for alarm.
As they walked, her kerosene lamp created a yellow sphere that wobbled along the ground litter. Silvery splashes of hardened metal glinted on a discarded mold. She stepped over food wrappers, scattered ore, and spilled slag. What snow melted during the day had frozen into ridges of icy slush that made the footing capricious. A cold breeze scraped at her cheeks, and her breath fogged the air.
“Maldynado, you’ll come with me to the meeting, where I need you to look big and imposing,” Amaranthe said.
“And dangerous?” Maldynado asked. “Like someone deserving a huge bounty on his head?”
“Precisely so. Books and Akstyr, I want you on top of the mountains of junk where you can see us and shoot at troublemakers if you need to. I’m hoping this won’t devolve into a fight, but if it does, be ready.”
“What’s Sicarius doing?” Akstyr asked.
“Being independent,” she said.
“How new for him.” Books lifted a finger. “May I speak with you for a moment, Amaranthe?”
They stepped away from the others and into the shadow of a warped flywheel.
She gave him a frank look. “If you’re going to tell me that I’d be better off with Sicarius by my side, I already tried to talk him into that. He has his own reasons for being here, but that’s fine. I know what I’m doing.” I think.
Books held out a fist full of crossbow quarrels. “I merely need to know how to load this contraption.”
“Oh.”
She plunked the quarrels into the magazine and showed him how use the lever to chamber new bolts. Books thanked her and jogged between two rubble heaps. Before disappearing from sight, he slipped on a frozen puddle and rammed his shoulder against a junk pile. Shards of metal rained down around him. He staggered to his feet, acknowledged his survival with a wave, and continued into the maze.
It’ll be a miracle if I walk out of here tonight without being shot by my own team.
Akstyr, too, disappeared into the scrapyard. Amaranthe and Maldynado resumed walking.
“If this doesn’t work out tonight...” he started.
“I’ve enjoyed working with you, too, Maldynado. You’ve been a tremendous help, and it’s been an honor knowing you.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Isn’t that the sort of thing you were going to say?” she asked.
“I just wanted to ask...” Maldynado cleared his throat. “If I get porcupined full of arrows tonight, could you tell my mother I died a hero?”
“Of course. And if this does work out, you never know, you could be a hero.”
“Like with a statue?”
“Sure, why not? The emperor is an artist. Maybe he’d design it himself.”
“That’d be a step up from a wanted poster,” Maldynado said. “As long as it isn’t a small statue.”
“Still miffed about the meagerness of your bounty?”
“Two hundred and fifty lousy ranmyas.” He kicked a rusted doorknob into a pile of equally rusted scrap metal.
The silver light of a quarter moon easing over the smelter made maneuvering through the metal heaps easier, so Amaranthe dimmed her lantern. They reached the center of the yard, a rubble-free area with a steam shovel quiescent on one side. Against the night sky, its tall silhouette reminded her of a skeleton she had seen in the Stumps Museum as a girl, the bones of a giant carnivorous reptile from a southern rainforest.
She deemed the clearing the most likely meeting place and tugged Maldynado into a shadowy nook where they could observe.
At midnight, voices sounded, accompanied by the clanking of mail armor. Amaranthe tried to count the people based on the sounds of their footfalls, but there were too many. Sicarius would know. He would probably know not only the numbers but the height and weight of each man. She wished she had him at her side, stern and dangerous as he glared at her foes.
Before she could decide whose troops approached, another collection of voices and clanking armor arose from the other side of the yard.
“You weren’t supposed to tell them to bring armies,” Maldynado whispered in her ear.
“I didn’t. Considering they’re both committing treason, I didn’t think they’d want to involve many people. Seems they’re more paranoid of each other than of revealing their secrets.”
The two parties entered Amaranthe’s vision. They met in the cleared space and faced off, Hollowcrest on one side, Larocka and Arbitan on the other. Fifteen to twenty armed fighters backed each party. They bristled with swords, muskets, and pistols. Apparently, neither side was concerned about the legality of the weapons choices. Several men carried lanterns as well, which illuminated the clearing but left the junk piles in the shadows.
“Sorry, Hollow,” Arbitan said with none of the respect the office of Commander of the Armies required. “You weren’t willing to put into place any of our reasonable requests, and we’ve decided the emperor must die. The Strat Tiles have already been laid, so it’s too late for whatever scheme you’ve thought up.”
“What are you talking about, you power-hungry commoner?” Hollowcrest glared. “You’re the one who wanted a meeting.”
The two men fell silent, staring at each other, gazes more frigid than the surrounding air. Larocka, arm-in-arm with Arbitan, whispered something in his ear.
A howl sounded in the distance. Amaranthe recognized it immediately. Arbitan’s lips curved into a disconcerting smile.
Amaranthe nudged Maldynado, cleared her throat, and approached the circle of light.
“Good evening, gentlemen.” She wanted to surprise no one, especially not the nervous guards with firearms, so she kept her movements slow. “I’m the one who sent the messages, Amaranthe Lokdon. Please forgive my presumptuousness, but I needed to speak with all three of you together.”
She paused at the edge of the light, making the third point of a triangle between herself, Hollowcrest, and the Forge duo. Sword drawn, Maldynado guarded her back.
“Aren’t you dead yet?” Hollowcrest asked, sounding far more annoyed than intrigued by her declaration.
“Indeed, I thought the enforcers I tipped off had slain you.” Arbitan sniffed and added, “What do you want that you didn’t find snooping around our house?”
A flicker of surprise crossed Larocka’s face at Arbitan’s words, but she recovered quickly and joined the two men in glaring at Amaranthe.
“I don’t think they like you,” Maldynado whispered.
Amaranthe waved him to silence. She had to lay out her proposition quickly, before one of the guards decided to fire a musket ball into her chest.
“I want the emperor to live—free of drugs—and be permitted to do the job the people depend on him to do. In order to ensure my wishes are fulfilled, I’ve printed five million ranmyas in counterfeit bills.” Closer to two million. “If you do not cease your manipulations—” she looked at Hollowcrest, “—and drop your assassination plans—” a look at Arbitan and Larocka, “—I will flood Stumps with this fake currency, and I will continue to make more until the entire monetary system of the empire is devalued. Hyperinflation will destroy the economy. If you kill me tonight, it will change nothing. My team will carry on.” Doubtful. “Even now, men are guarding the money. They will begin distributing it at dawn if I do not return and countermand the order.” And finish with a lie.
Would any of them believe her?
A furrow between Hollowcrest’s lowered eyebrows suggested concern. Larocka wore an open-mouthed, appalled expression. The smug condescending smile on Arbitan’s face never wavered.
Amaranthe shrugged her knapsack off her shoulder and tossed it between the two parties. “To prove what I say is true
, I’ve brought a small sample of my work. The paper isn’t quite the same, but every time we’ve used the bills, they’ve passed easily.” Well, Akstyr managed to buy pastries once.
Hollowcrest eyed the bag as if it writhed with live snakes. “You crawled out of my dungeon half-dead—no, dying—less than two weeks ago. You haven’t had time.”
“It’s amazing what a good team can accomplish,” Amaranthe said.
“What team?” Hollowcrest demanded. “You had nothing. I turned the enforcers against you. We confiscated everything in your apartment. You’re lying.”
Amaranthe extended her hand toward the bag. Any satisfaction she might have felt at Hollowcrest’s disbelief was dashed by the amusement on Arbitan’s face. Larocka looked alarmed at the prospect of economic upheaval, but Arbitan...pleased. If he was bluffing, he was doing an utterly convincing job. Why do I get the feeling he’s not fighting in the same ring as the rest of us?
“Let’s see if this young lady is in earnest.” Arbitan sauntered forward and plucked up the bag. He shuffled through its contents, withdrew a bill, and examined it near a lantern. “Excellent forgeries. I’d estimate at least thirty thousand ranmyas here.”
“We can’t let this happen,” Larocka said. “My investments—most of them are in Turgonia. Even global commerce would be affected. The imperial ranmya is the world’s anchor currency!”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Hollowcrest said. “I’ve read the woman’s record; she’s not going to do anything illegal.” He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. Good.
“You’re wrong, sir,” Amaranthe said. “It’s true you have forced me to do something I would have once never considered, but I believe in what I’m doing. Illegal or not, I am committed.”
“How noble for you,” Arbitan said.
A faint click sounded on one of the nearby junk heaps. A crossbow quarrel zipped out of the darkness and struck Arbitan’s chest.
The air in front of him shimmered, and the bolt bounced off, as if it had hit metal.
Beginnings: Five Heroic Fantasy Adventure Novels Page 75