Quest SMASH

by Joseph Lallo

  Amaranthe sank into a crouch and buried her face in her knees. She closed her eyes, willing the thing to go away. A drop of hot saliva hit the back of her neck.

  Time seeped by like molasses. The footsteps finally started up again. They padded away and moved beyond the range of her ears.

  For several long moments, she and Sicarius hunkered there, between the wall and the ice. The cold bit through Amaranthe’s night clothes. Her teeth chattered and she shivered. She held her hands close to the lantern, but it gave off little heat.

  “Is it gone?” she asked.

  “Impossible to tell,” he said.

  “Well, I’m freezing. Either one of us is going to have to check or we’ll have to start cuddling.”

  Sicarius climbed the ladder. He opened the grate, peered out, then disappeared over the edge.

  “There’s something wrong with a man who chooses to face death over cuddling with a woman.” Amaranthe grabbed the lantern and followed him out. “Of course, there may be something equally wrong with a woman who goes after him instead of waiting in safety.”

  Once up top, she left the grate open in case they needed to jump back down in a hurry. She looked for Sicarius, but her light did not illuminate much of the icehouse. Snow falling outside the broken-down door caught her eye. The body had been dragged to the side, and only an arm remained in view. Amaranthe swallowed.

  “It’s not inside,” Sicarius said.

  He stepped out from behind the ice stacks carrying a couple of boards. He resealed the door as much as the warped hinges would allow. The splintered wood did not make a reassuring barrier. Sicarius threw the old bar—now snapped in half—to the side and replaced it with the boards.

  “Maybe we should go out and check on that man. See if...” He’s dead Amaranthe. You were too late to help.

  “I wouldn’t,” Sicarius said.

  He was as cool and emotionless as ever, but his unwillingness to leave the building concerned her. If, with all his skill, he did not want to confront whatever stalked the streets, who else could?

  Chapter 10

  Amaranthe woke to Sicarius saying, “Lokdon,” from the doorway of the tiny icehouse office.

  She dropped her legs over the edge of the cot, feeling the chill of the floor even through socks. “We’ve been drooled on by a horrible man-slaying beast together. I think you can call me by my first name.”

  The coals had burned low in the stove, and it gave off little warmth or light. She groped for her boots.

  “Your team is here,” Sicarius said, a hint of bemusement edging his voice.

  Either I’m getting better at reading him or he’s starting to emote. “You sound surprised.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Yes. “Of course not.”

  “Huh.”

  Sicarius left before Amaranthe could inquire who or how many had come. She dressed and left the office. At the bottom of the stairs, Akstyr and Books waited. Books yawned and rubbed red eyes. The bulge of a bottle sagged outward from his jacket pocket, and the sword attached to his belt looked like it hadn’t been used since his boyhood weapons classes. Akstyr slouched against the wall, his baggy clothes rumpled, his hands jammed in his pockets. Bruises and lumps splotched his face.

  The men stood taller when they saw her, though the effect was not particularly inspiring. At least they had come.

  As Amaranthe descended the stairs, Maldynado strolled through the broken door. He wore a jaunty sword belt with a sheathed saber hanging from his left hip. An obnoxious amount of gold gilded the hilt and scabbard. Akstyr’s gaze lingered on the valuable weapon.

  When Maldynado came even with Books and Akstyr, his upper lip wrinkled. “Which one of you boys fell in a vat of cheap wine on the way over here?”

  Akstyr sneered. Books glared. Unperturbed, Maldynado surveyed them further, then pulled out a case and extricated two cards.

  “Your barber?” Amaranthe asked.

  “Tailor. I’ve never seen two people in such need of sartorial attention.”

  “Considering you were wearing a furry loincloth when we met, I’m not sure you should be offering fashion advice.”

  “Ah, but it was a stylish loincloth that showed off—” Maldynado winked, “—everything.”

  She could not argue.

  He raised a finger. “Say, did you know there’s a half-eaten body in the street out there?”

  “Yes.” Since she did not want to alarm her troops this early into the mission, lest they decide to leave, she decided on nonchalance. “It’s not the best neighborhood.”

  “On that we can agree,” Books said.

  Maldynado waved a hand in front of his face. “Is your breath always that rank?”

  “If I offend you, you have my permission to move to the other side of the room.” Books lowered his voice. “Or the empire.”

  “Since you’re the offensive one, maybe you should do the moving so the rest of us can breathe. There’s a dumpster down the block where you might feel at home.” Maldynado turned to Akstyr. “Do you believe this fellow?”

  “Who cares?” That surly curl to Akstyr’s lip seemed permanent.

  Amaranthe realized getting these men to come had been the easy part. Getting them to work together without blood, and business cards, flying would be the true test.

  “You said you’d have food. And a place to sleep.” Akstyr eyed the towers of ice. “Figured it’d be warmer inside than outside.”

  “We won’t be staying here,” she said. “As soon as Sicarius returns, he’ll show us to the place we’re going to set up. We’ll buy food then.”

  “That was him, wasn’t it?” Akstyr’s tone changed for the first time. He sounded reverent. “The one who let us in? Is it true he’s a Hunter?”

  A what?

  “I’m not sure,” Amaranthe said. “You can ask him.”

  Akstyr prodded the sawdust with his toe. “I wouldn’t want to annoy him.”

  “I’ll ask him for you,” she said.

  “Who asked you to?”

  So much for the reverence.

  “I’ll let you know what I find,” Amaranthe said dryly.

  “Whatever.”

  “Wait,” Maldynado said. “Are we talking about the same fellow who trounced me last night?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “That was Sicarius? The Sicarius? The assassin?”

  Surprised someone from the upper echelons of Turgonia’s social hierarchy had heard of him, she only said, “Yes.”

  “I wish you had told me that last night before the fight. When he slaughtered me, I wouldn’t have felt so...” Maldynado’s mittened fingers flexed in the air as he groped for the word.

  “Inept?” Books suggested. “Inadequate? Unmanned?”

  Maldynado scowled at him. “I’m manned just fine, thank you.” He turned back to Amaranthe. “I figured he was just some random thug you picked up at the docks.”

  “Not a random one,” she said.

  “Is Sicarius working for you?” Akstyr asked dubiously. “Or are you working for him?”

  Amaranthe hesitated. Her “team,” especially Akstyr, might be more inclined to obey her if they believed she commanded Sicarius, but his cooperation was just that, cooperation.

  “It’s my plan,” she said. “He’s going along with it for now.”

  “But you’re giving him orders?” Akstyr asked.

  “I’d call them suggestions.”

  Sicarius chose that moment to return from wherever he had been skulking. She wondered how much he had heard.

  “We should go,” he said. “That body is likely to draw enforcers.”

  “Lead the way,” Amaranthe said.

  Several more inches of snow had dropped during the night, obliterating the creature’s footprints. Sicarius stepped around the corpse, which dogs had partially uncovered. Amaranthe could not keep herself from looking and remembering. If she had been fast
er, if she had not hesitated, she might have saved the man’s life.

  Under the surface gnawing, longer and deeper wounds ravaged the chest. Wind gusted, and a few snowflakes flitted off the corpse’s frozen hand, revealing a Panthers’ mark. Amaranthe never thought she would feel sympathy for gang members, but it seemed these folks were being preyed on from every front.

  Her group traveled along the bottom of the hill fronting the lake. Despite the fresh snow, a handful of young athletes jogged past on their way to the lake trail. It was months until the summer Games, but the dedicated souls trained all year around.

  A wagon loaded with ice rumbled through a cross street, and the driver whistled at Amaranthe. Maldynado snickered, and she quirked an eyebrow at him.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Am I supposed to defend your honor when they do that? I’m a little unclear on the boundaries of our agreement.”

  “No, I was just wondering why it was funny.”

  “Because he was eyeing you like he thought you’d be a good time, and you’re...ah...”

  “Reserved?” Books suggested. “Dignified?”

  “No,” Maldynado said. “Do you think you’re a dictionary or something?”

  “A thesaurus perhaps,” Books said.

  “Proper?” Akstyr asked. “She’s kind of proper.”

  “No,” Maldynado said. “It’s more...”

  “Focused,” Sicarius said.

  The others considered, then nodded and grunted agreement of this pinpoint description. Amaranthe smirked; at least dissecting her character together kept them from snapping at each other. She might be able to create a cohesive unit after all.

  “Yes, exactly,” Maldynado said. “You didn’t notice any of the men at the gym last night, I guess because you’re busy with your emperor scheme. You didn’t even look at me when you first saw me, and I was very look-at-able at the time.”

  Amaranthe blushed. She had looked.

  “Praise her good taste,” Books muttered, stepping into the street to avoid a lamppost—or perhaps Maldynado’s glare.

  “Old man,” Maldynado said, “you are crippling my serenity. If you keep insulting me, I might have to come over there and—”

  “Gentlemen,” Amaranthe said. “I believe we’re almost there.”

  She decided to forgo her ambitions of creating a cohesive unit. An occasionally functional one with tendencies toward violence seemed more within reach.

  They passed the last of the city’s industrial buildings and crossed the railroad tracks skirting the lake. Along the waterfront, fisheries, warehouses, and boatyards reigned, their long docks stretching into the frozen water. In spring and summer, the area would bustle with activity. For now, it lay sedately under its snowy blanket.

  “This is it.” Sicarius stopped before a tottering wooden structure on a dilapidated dock.

  The building hunched over the lake like an old soldier, arthritic from a lifetime’s worth of battle wounds. Icicles hung from the eaves, and frost edged the panes of broken windows. Age-yellowed buoys and frayed nets dangled from the walls, someone’s idea of decorating. Amaranthe touched a splintered piece of cedar siding. It fell off. The odds of this building keeping that creature out were not good.

  She leaned over the edge of the dock. A few feet below, ice and snow gathered around the pylons.

  Akstyr peered in a window. “A fish cannery?”

  “There are bunks inside, and it has a large work space,” Sicarius said. “It’s winter. Nobody human will bother us.”

  And the inhuman? Amaranthe would wait until she had him alone to ask.

  She withdrew a ten-ranmya bill and handed it to Maldynado. “Will you find the nearest market and buy as much food as you can, please?”

  “Will do.” Maldynado trotted up a street running perpendicular to the waterfront.

  “You’re sending him to purchase supplies?” Books asked. “That overgrown fop from the warmonger caste has probably never shopped in his life.”

  “He’ll get a good deal,” Amaranthe said.

  A sizable lock on the front door of the cannery precluded a direct entrance.

  “I bet I can get in.” Akstyr produced a large clip with at least three dozen keys of various shapes and sophistication dangling from it. “I’ve got a couple of skeleton keys that—”

  “Unnecessary,” Sicarius said.

  He led them to the lake side of the building. The lock in the back also remained in place; however, the door had been removed and was leaning against the wall.

  When Amaranthe stepped inside, glass crunched beneath her boots. Weak light filtering through grimy windows, revealing rows of long counters littered with salt, dented cans, and torn labels. Rotting wooden bunk beds lined one wall. Here and there, rats scurried beneath the fish-gut-spattered sawdust spread across the floor. Only the cold kept the smell tolerable. Sort of.

  “Lovely place,” Books murmured.

  “At least it comes without a meddling landlady,” Amaranthe said.

  “This is true.”

  “Pick out a bunk and settle in,” she said. “As soon as Maldynado gets back, we’ll get started. Sicarius, a word?”

  He stepped over to a corner counter with her as Akstyr and Books explored their new home.

  Amaranthe stacked a few of the scattered cans into a neat pile. “You went shopping for this building before we knew there was a man-slaying creature roaming the streets. Do you still think it’s a suitable hideout.”

  Sicarius lifted his gaze toward the rafters. Some thirty feet up, solid beams ran from wall to wall below the peaked ceiling. If one could clamber up there, one might be safe. As long as that creature couldn’t jump that high.

  “I don’t see a ladder,” she said.

  “You can climb the support posts,” Sicarius said.

  Amaranthe eyed the dented and scarred wood of the nearest post. “You can do that, I’m sure. The rest of us might find that feat challenging, especially with a monster crashing through the door.”

  “Hang rope.”

  “I guess that works.” The last of the rusted cans went into her organized pile. One counter down, thirty to go. “I’m going to send Books and Akstyr to get a press. I’ll take Maldynado ink and paper shopping. I want to start researching the Forge people, but that’ll probably have to wait until tomorrow. We need to get the press set up, and we need to get money plates made. I don’t suppose you know an engraver and can get that done?”

  “Easy,” Sicarius said.

  “Really?” She had expected this to be a sticking point. Maybe she ought to just let him go and do it, but... “Easy because you know a criminal engraver who owes you a favor, or easy because you’ll pick someone with the skill set, force him to do it, and kill him afterwards?”

  “The latter.”

  “Oh.”

  “Asking someone to help you commit a crime and then leaving him alive to point you out to the enforcers is foolish.”

  “Well, we’ve got three people already who are going to be privy to our plans. Perhaps adding another wouldn’t ma...” A chilling thought whispered into her mind. She glanced at Books, sitting on a bunk, and Akstyr, poking around in discarded debris. “Please tell me your logic doesn’t require killing everyone we work with over the next couple weeks.”

  “You can’t trust random people acquired from the street. Don’t get attached.”

  “Sicarius.” She gripped his arm, distantly aware that she had never dared touch him before. “I did not talk these folks into helping just to have you kill them at the end.”

  “Once our need for them is done, they’re disposable.”

  “And does that go for me too?” As soon as she asked the question, she regretted it. If the answer was yes, what would she do?

  “You’re not disposable,” he said. She almost had time to wonder if he might actually care, but then he added, “It’s your plan.”

  “Lucky me. Well, here’s a
n addendum to my plan: it will not involve killing the men we’ve coerced into helping us, nor will engravers be found in bed with their throats cut.”

  “Propose an alternative.”

  Amaranthe rubbed her chin and gazed thoughtfully about the building. Akstyr was stretched out under a table, digging through dirty sawdust. He came up with a copper coin and grinned.

  “Akstyr,” she called.

  He stuffed the coin in his pocket and threw her a suspicious look. Nonetheless, he slouched over.

  “What?”

  “Where’d you get all those keys?” She jerked her chin at the ring on his belt.

  “Made ‘em.”

  “Are they copies? Or originals?”

  “Copies.”

  “Am I correct in assuming you’re not a trained locksmith?”

  “Yup. It’s pretty easy to make copies of keys, using...” he shrugged, “ways.”

  Amaranthe took that to mean magic. “So, using these ways, you can carve things out of metal. Could you engrave something?”

  “Oh, sure. I used to leave my gang sign all over the city that way. This one time, a man was in the water closet at the baths, and I—”

  Amaranthe lifted a hand. “Sufficient details, thank you.” The width of his grin convinced her she was right in cutting off the story. She fished out a ten-ranmya bill. “Think you could copy this into metal?”

  “Sure, using the Sci—er, my way is even easier than tracing. It’s like burning a brand with your mind. As long as I’m just making an exact copy and not getting artistic.”

  He reached for the bill, but Sicarius plucked it out of the air first.

  “Copying this won’t get us anywhere,” Sicarius said. “It needs to be in reverse.”

  “Like a stamp, of course.” Amaranthe sighed. “Too bad the Imperial Mint is in Sunders City, otherwise we could just steal plates. Though that would—”

  “I’ll make it,” Sicarius said.

  Amaranthe and Akstyr stared at him.

  “Make what?” she asked. “The reverse drawing?”