Conspiracy (The Emperor's Edge Book 4)

by Lindsay Buroker

  She found the brick forges by feel and eased between two. With the full bags pressed against her chest, she groped her way toward the big machine with the towering flywheel. She had a spot in mind for placing the powder, but groaned and halted. With her lantern out, she had no way to light the fuse.

  “Don’t kick over that lantern,” she called out. “I’m going to need that flame in a moment.”

  Amaranthe pressed onward. She’d set the bag into place first and then go for it.

  “I see. It’s the—” The sound of rubble raining down interrupted Sicarius’s words. He coughed before saying again, “It’s the lantern you’re worried about.”

  Amaranthe smiled. If he could make a joke, he must be managing sufficiently up there.

  She found the flywheel by clunking her knee against it. Grumbling, she leaned the rifle against it, left one bag of powder on the floor, and climbed the wheel with the second in hand. There were only a couple of inches of space between the top of the machine and the ceiling. She stuffed the bag into the gap and unraveled the fuse so that it hung to the floor. If it hadn’t been cavern dark at her end of the chamber, she might have jumped off, but she took care to climb back down carefully.

  When she turned to grab the rife, four blazing crimson eyes stared at her.

  “Bloody ancestors!” Amaranthe blurted and dropped to her belly.

  Beams shot out, burning through the air inches above her head. She grabbed the rifle and scrambled behind the machine. She tried to find the second bag of black powder as she fled, but couldn’t find it and wasn’t about to go back. That cursed thing was only a few feet away. And she wagered it could see a lot better in the dark than she could.

  The grinding clanks approached. Amaranthe rounded the back of the stamping machine, using it for cover. Through the gaps in the flywheel, she glimpsed red eyes burning in the darkness as the sentry rolled past the front.

  “Did you lose something?” Amaranthe shouted.

  A couple of heartbeats passed before Sicarius answered, “No.”

  “Then there’re three now.”

  Amaranthe rose from her knees to a low crouch. She circled to the left, trying to keep the machine between her and the sentry.

  It paused, and one of those eyes swiveled. A beam sizzled through a gap in the machine. The metal deflected part of the attack, and it missed Amaranthe, but it sliced into the nearby brick of a forge. Shards pelted her back and bare neck.

  The sentry rolled back into motion, and she moved again. She’d come all the way around and almost tripped over the discarded bag of powder. The darkness was disorienting, and she wished the glowing eyes put out light. Something warm trickled down the back of her neck. Blood.

  “I’ve been able to cut off several of the antennae,” Sicarius called.

  Amaranthe was reaching down for the bag when his words came. She left it, instead taking cover behind a forge, and she lifted the rifle to her shoulder. If his fancy knife could cut the antennae, maybe one of these fancy bullets could do the same thing.

  Amaranthe leaned out, and as soon as one of the red eyes came into sight, she fired. In the dark, she could only estimate where her target lay, but her shot was true, and the crimson ball fell to the ground with a soft clink. The glow winked out.

  “Hah!” Amaranthe said.

  Her victory was short-lived, for the three remaining eyes swiveled to point at her.

  She ducked behind the forge, hoping the solid construction offered enough protection. Three beams chiseled into the bricks, spraying shrapnel and dust everywhere.

  Staying in a low crouch, Amaranthe scrambled around the forge, wanting to catch the sentry from behind while it was still firing at her original position. She made it to the other side and raised the rifle to shoot, only to have nothing happen when she pulled the trigger.

  She cursed under her breath. There’d been some kind of loading lever, hadn’t there? To push the next round into the barrel? She fumbled for it, but the sentry was already spinning toward her. She dove across empty ground and skittered behind the machine with the flywheel again.

  A beam lanced out, but missed her. It hit something though, for the scent of burning kerosene wafted into the air.

  Amaranthe’s eyes widened. Her fuse.

  She bolted back toward the forges. Her hip clipped one, and she gasped but didn’t slow down. Hands outstretched, she groped her way down one of the aisles toward Sicarius’s lantern.

  “Boom coming!” she yelled.

  Before the last word escaped her mouth, light flared behind Amaranthe, and an explosion roared through the chamber. The ground heaved beneath her running feet. Around her, the racks rattled and wobbled, hurling weapons off the shelves. Behind her, thumps and bangs sounded as earth and cement sloughed to the ground.

  She raised her arms, deflecting the weapons flying from the racks, and she sprinted the last few meters to come out in the front of the chamber. She almost tumbled into Sicarius’s arms. He caught her and grabbed his lantern. His two sentries were rolling about, their antennae chopped down to stumps, their eyes missing. The constructs kept bumping into piles of sod and cement on the floor.

  “Emperor’s eye teeth,” someone outside snarled.

  “Watch out,” another said. “Don’t get too close to the edge.”

  The voices were no longer muffled, and a draft of cold air whispered against Amaranthe’s cheek. She took note of Sicarius’s lantern and said, “There’s another bag of powder wrapped up with a fuse. If it didn’t explode when the first one went off...”

  Sicarius cut off the lantern and placed it in her hand. “Stay back for a minute. They’ll be watching the hole.”

  He headed for the shadows made by flames dancing on the other end of the chamber. Though she remembered mostly metal in that machine area, there must have been a few things capable of catching fire.

  She followed him, navigating over and around heaps of rubble. She passed the workbench where he’d disassembled the rifle and snorted. They could have left it disassembled. There was no hiding that they’d been there now.

  Voices drifted to her from outside, but the men were being quieter now. Lying in wait.

  When Amaranthe reached the first forge, a gaping ten-foot-wide hole in the ceiling came into view. A set of metal reinforcing bars had survived the blast and stretched across the gap, but they were far enough apart that she and Sicarius ought to be able to wriggle out. Lanterns burned somewhere above the hole, highlighting singed tufts of grass dangling over the rim. On the floor below, scattered pieces of coal that had flown from one of the bins were burning or smoldering.

  A shadow moved above the hole, but the men were careful not to step into view. Amaranthe imagined them up there, on their bellies, rifles aimed at the gap, ready to shoot anything that came out.

  She looked for the machine with the flywheel, figuring Sicarius would be there, hunting for the other bag of powder. She almost didn’t recognize it. The giant wheel was warped and had toppled against one of the forges. What was left of the forges, that was. Two of them were nothing more than heaps of rubble.

  Something brushed her arm, and Amaranthe jumped.

  “I found it,” Sicarius whispered.

  “Good. We can light it, throw it up there for a distraction, and sneak out under the cover of the smoke.”

  Sicarius considered her for a moment, but all he said was, “Stay by the wall.”

  While he darted in to pick up one of the burning coals on the flat of his dagger, Amaranthe watched the hole, making sure nobody leaned in. Sicarius held the smoldering ember to the fuse. He had cut it much shorter than the one she’d originally made, so when he lit it, Amaranthe gulped, realizing how quickly it would burn down.

  In one sure movement, Sicarius tossed the bag toward the hole. If it bumped into one of the bars and dropped back down...

  But Sicarius’s aim was better than that. The powder-filled bag lofted between the bars, sailing above ground toward the earth outsid
e the hole.

  Guns fired. It sounded like an entire army out there.

  The powder exploded with a boom. The charge wasn’t as powerful or loud as the first, but the ground still trembled beneath Amaranthe’s feet, and she had to brace herself against the wall. More rubble rained down around them, though fortunately small pieces. Smoke filled the air outside. Men coughed and cursed.

  Sicarius wasn’t watching the hole; he was watching her. Amaranthe tilted her head, expecting him to ask her something. For a second, it looked like he might, but then he firmed his jaw and simply said, “Give me two minutes, then follow.”

  Before she could ask what he meant to do, he bounded on top of one of the machines and launched himself toward the hole as easily as a squirrel navigating trees. He slipped between two bars and disappeared into the smoke.

  Amaranthe waited, anticipating the sound of gunfire. Concern for Sicarius formed a lump in her throat. As seconds passed and the silence went on, her concern shifted to what Sicarius was doing.

  She climbed on top of the machine closest to the hole, hurrying now, her own safety forgotten. She had said sneak out. If he was up there killing everybody...

  Smoke stung her eyes before she stuck her head through the bars. She couldn’t see anything and hesitated before thrusting her arms through. It hadn’t been two minutes. It might not have been one. Someone standing up there with a rifle aimed at the hole could decide to shoot, even if he didn’t see more than an indistinct shape.

  A breeze whispered through, stirring the smoke. It brought the scent of freshly spilled blood to Amaranthe’s nose, and her gut clenched. With unfailing certainty, she knew nobody was going to shoot her. Nobody was left alive to do so.

  She pulled herself through the bars and had no more than stood when a dark shadow strode out of the smoke.

  “They’re dead?” Amaranthe asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What happened to sneak out?” she asked in a harsh whisper, though there was probably no need to whisper at that point.

  Cursed ancestors, she hadn’t wanted to kill anyone. She hadn’t even wanted to leave a sign that they’d been there. All she’d wanted to do was look around, see what was going on, and then leave without anyone the wiser. Or the deader. Curse it all, why didn’t anything ever go as planned?

  Sicarius took her arm and guided her away from the hole. A numbness grew in her chest, and all Amaranthe managed to say was, “We need to find Books.”

  “Yes,” Sicarius repeated and kept walking.

  They were trying to kill us, Amaranthe told herself, attempting to justify his actions, but she sneered as soon as the thought passed. Of course they were trying to kill us, her mind countered. We were trespassing on their property and, for all they knew, stealing months of their work.

  It was illegal to own firearms, she reminded herself. Making them had to be even worse. Whatever these people had been doing, they weren’t guiltless. Except Sicarius hadn’t likely killed the masterminds behind... whatever this plot was exactly. He’d killed a bunch of men who’d probably only hired on because they needed the pay. Still, even if they had been simple workers, they had chosen to get involved in manufacturing firearms. They had to have known their work was against the law.

  Amaranthe moaned and grabbed her head with both hands. She wanted to yell at her brain to shut up, and might have, but Sicarius’s presence stayed her tongue. Only crazy out-of-control people shouted at themselves, and she wasn’t going to be either, not in front of anyone.

  A fence materialized out of the darkness, the one by the shed where they’d hidden that morning. Amaranthe gripped the cold, rough wood and leaned against one of the supports. She looked back the way they had come.

  Up the road, the farmhouse remained, its shutters pulled tight. Lantern light glowed in an upstairs room, but there was no sign that anyone was going to come out and look at what had happened or search for those who had done it. The bunkhouse was dark and silent. All of the workers must have come outside, or perhaps those left inside were too afraid to venture out. The smoke over the hole had cleared. A few lanterns burning near the carriage house, providing light enough to hint at unmoving bodies in the grass. A coyote pack yipped in the distance, their high-pitched yells sending a shiver down Amaranthe’s spine. The unwelcome thought that they smelled a meal came to her mind.

  “You knew I wouldn’t want this,” Amaranthe whispered. She remembered that long look Sicarius had given her before jumping out of the hole and the way she’d thought he might ask her something. He’d known then that he meant to kill everyone out there, and he’d known she wouldn’t wish it. Yet he’d done it anyway. “Why would you choose to kill them?”

  “Sneaking past them wasn’t practical. Smoke offers camouflage, yes, but not cover. With those rapid-fire weapons, they could have hit us by shooting blindly.”

  Yes, true, but... “Why couldn’t you have knocked them out? Why’d you have to...?”

  “Rendering a man unconscious takes longer than killing him.”

  “Oh, dear ancestors, that’s a sage piece of advice, now isn’t it?” Amaranthe’s voice had grown loud and high-pitched. Calm, she told herself. Yelling at Sicarius wouldn’t change anything. He was who he was. Had she truly been thinking him heroic earlier? She rubbed her face with both hands. Moisture dampened her fingertips. Tears for the dead? No, she hadn’t even known those men, and they had been ready to shoot at her. Tears of frustration, she decided and dashed them away. Time to find Books and move on. Though she couldn’t resist one last question, “How come you could sneak around well enough to kill people but not to escape?”

  For a moment, Sicarius said nothing. He simply stood next to her, straight as a ramrod, with his hands clasped behind his back. Why the silence now? Was he sparing her some truth?

  “I had to clear the way for two,” Sicarius said.

  Oh. So, maybe he would have been able to sneak out if it’d just been him, but he had to think about her.

  “I...” Amaranthe swallowed. “I would have been willing to accept the risk of getting a stray bullet in my backside if it meant not slaying everyone.”

  “I was not willing to accept that risk,” Sicarius said.

  So, he’d done this for her. Amaranthe closed her eyes. The idea of him watching her back, protecting her, had warmed her when he’d been saving her from booby traps. Killing people on her behalf wasn’t quite as endearing.

  “All right.” Amaranthe couldn’t bring herself to thank him, not for this.

  “They weren’t enforcers,” Sicarius said.

  Amaranthe stared at him. Of course they weren’t enforcers. It was a strange thing to say. Unless... Oh. He was referencing the time he had killed her old partner and several other enforcers to help her and Maldynado with an ambush. She had been furious at him for that. Now... now, she knew what he was. She couldn’t walk around with a lion and then be surprised when it bit someone.

  “I know they weren’t,” Amaranthe said, wondering if he could understand that she hated being responsible for anyone’s death, stalwart citizens or not. Yes, she decided, thinking again of that look. He understood. He had known she would be upset with his choice, but hadn’t believed there’d been time to come up with a better one. So be it. “Let’s find Books.”

  Amaranthe pushed away from the fence, intending to help him search, but he lifted a hand.

  “Stay. I’ll be able to search faster alone.”

  She flopped back against the fence again and tried not to find his statement insulting. Sicarius disappeared into the darkness.

  Long moments passed before a rumble started up from the direction of the carriage house. One of the vehicles that had been used in the weapons delivery rolled outside.

  Amaranthe moved to the side of the shed, so she wouldn’t be visible from the road. Maybe Sicarius hadn’t killed all of the men, and the remaining ones had sneaked out to escape. It was too dark to see who occupied the cab, and the tarp on the back hid the
cargo area from view too.

  When the lorry drew even with the shed, it stopped. Amaranthe sank low in the shadows and found the hilt of her sword.

  The door opened. “Amaranthe?” came Books’s low voice, barely audible over the rumbling engine.

  Ah. And that must be Sicarius in the driver’s seat. Yes, killing people wasn’t enough of a crime. They should steal a vehicle too.

  Amaranthe walked toward the lorry and resolved to keep her sarcasm to herself. It was an abysmal night, but she couldn’t fault Sicarius’s logic. They needed to get back to the city, and it wasn’t as if those men needed a vehicle any more. At least Books sounded like he was uninjured.

  He climbed out as she approached and held the door open, offering her the seat beside Sicarius. She wondered if that meant he had seen the pile of bodies and didn’t want to sit next to the person responsible.

  “What happened?” Amaranthe asked him before getting in. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Books said, “and I’m sorry I didn’t get the door open before they charged in. Two of the men came running out of the bunkhouse, and I barely had time to thump the floor in warning and hide behind the lorries. They knew someone was down there and ran to pull some lever to release... the hounds, that’s what they called them. Did you trip over some kind of alarm?”

  Amaranthe thought of the darts that had shot out of the wall, the darts she triggered. Emperor’s warts, she truly was responsible for all this carnage. If she’d been less impulsive and let Sicarius find a way to disarm the trap, none of the killing would have happened. They might have walked in and out without anyone ever knowing.

  “Thank you, Books,” Amaranthe said numbly. “I’m glad you weren’t injured.” She climbed into the lorry and sat next to Sicarius. Something rustled beneath her boot. She patted the cab floor and found a crinkled newspaper. In case it was recent, she smoothed the crinkles and laid it on the seat for Books. “Let’s get going.”

  “Back to the city, correct?” Sicarius asked as Books climbed in.