by Joseph Lallo
A ladder on the catwalk led up to the charging platform, where workers could shovel ore, coke, and limestone off the skip car and into the belly of the fifty-foot beast. When Amaranthe’s sleeve brushed one of the metal rungs, the heat sprang through the cloth, and she jerked her arm away.
She inched forward and finally spotted men on the ground. A lot of men.
Between the front door and the base of the blast furnace stood at least twenty warriors. Clad in gray fatigues with no insignia, the broad, muscled men bore muskets, swords, or battle axes. A few men wore blood stains, but none appeared injured. This must be the party that slaughtered the emperor’s guards.
A couple men watched the furnace where a worker in insulated uniform, gloves, and helmet stood. Most faced the perimeter, weapons ready. They were expecting someone.
“Time grows short, Sicarius,” a muffled female voice called. Larocka?
Surprised, Amaranthe leaned through the railing. It seemed Larocka was the worker at the base of the furnace. From Amaranthe’s angle, she could not see through the helmet’s glass faceplate, but the voice had certainly come from within. That uniform would do a fine job of protecting her from a throwing knife as well as the heat.
“You tripped one of the magical alarms Arbitan set before—before...” Larocka clanked her hand against the face shield of her helmet, as if trying to wipe her eyes or nose but forgetting about the barrier. “If you think you’ll sneak up on us, you’re mistaken.”
Uh oh. Amaranthe shifted back from the railing. What if she had tripped the trap? What if Sicarius wasn’t there at all?
She had to find out. She eased farther along her perch, but when she passed a clump of piping two men came into view. They stood on the catwalk with her, stationed between her and the front door in a place they could see the entrance and also signal to Larocka. The intervening pipes and machinery had kept Amaranthe from seeing them—and thankfully them from seeing her. But all one would have to do was decide to take a walk, and her hiding place would be very open from their point of view.
Amaranthe crept back to hunker in the shadow of the blast furnace.
“It’s time for the emperor to die,” Larocka yelled. “I thought you’d want a front row seat, but I suppose knowing you’re here is good enough.” She placed one gloved hand on a lever, and Amaranthe imagined her vengeful smile behind that glass faceplate.
Not certain what the lever controlled, Amaranthe grabbed the hot metal rail and leaned as far past the edge of the catwalk as she could.
The sight below almost made her lose her grip. Sespian lay naked and spread-eagle, wrists and ankles bound by taut chains. He was under the spout that released molten iron. If Larocka pulled that lever, the floodgate would open, and Sespian would be seared alive. Even now, he was too close to the furnace with no protective clothing. His skin was red and dry. Heat stroke. He could die from that alone, even if the molten iron never came.
Larocka turned toward the lever and started to put weight on it.
Amaranthe tried to think of something to do, anything to buy time. She opened her mouth to yell.
“Wait!”
Sicarius.
He stepped out of the shadows, palms open, arms away from his weapons. Twenty men raised swords and muskets toward him.
“Whatever for?” Larocka asked sweetly.
Indeed, what for? What could he do? What can I do?
“I need the head,” Sicarius said.
Sespian’s head lolled to the side, dark eyes focusing on Sicarius, but only briefly before his chin slumped. He did not look good.
Amaranthe pulled herself back onto the catwalk. Sicarius was buying time. She needed to do something useful with it.
“What?” Larocka asked after a stunned moment.
“The head,” Sicarius said. “My employer requires it as proof of an assignment completed.”
Amaranthe groaned as she crawled toward the ladder leading to the top of the furnace. Of all the ways Sicarius could have bought time...surely that was the most condemning. Even if they made it out of this, Sicarius would be suspect in Sespian’s eyes.
When she reached the ladder, she stuffed her hands into the gloves. They were far too large, and her fingers swam in them, but they let her grip the scorching rungs.
“You’d have me believe you’re here to ensure the emperor is killed?” Larocka asked. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
Amaranthe climbed, hoping the new position would not let the guards on the catwalk see her. Her boots protected her feet from the rungs, and she made it to the charging platform.
“My opinion of you is irrelevant,” Sicarius said. “If you kill him with lava, it’ll sear his features to the point of being indistinguishable. It matters little to me if yours is the hand to slay him, but perhaps we can negotiate an alternative method.”
“He’s your son!” Larocka blurted.
Amaranthe leaned over the platform to judge Sespian’s reaction. She was even higher now and could barely see him over the swell of the furnace. His face was too far down for her to read. The heat stroke had to be addling his mind. Maybe he was past understanding any of this.
The men watching weren’t, and this was apparently new information for them. They looked about at each other, though their weapons never ceased aiming at Sicarius.
“Because the enforcer bitch believes that story doesn’t make it so,” Sicarius said coolly. “Even if it were, a contract is a contract.”
Amaranthe studied the scant offerings of the charging platform. A shovel and the ore cart, which was about halfway unloaded.
“You should have kept the ‘enforcer bitch’ and her allies,” Larocka said. “At least they weren’t stupid enough to walk into a trap without backup.”
Amaranthe snorted as she rummaged through the ore bin. Most of the pieces were only a couple inches diameter, not large enough to make devastating projectiles.
“But my spies saw you walk away from the house alone,” Larocka said, “angry that your secret was out. You killed Arbitan, you bastard. Now you’ll watch me kill your son.”
“Arbitan was a traitor,” Sicarius said. “A Nurian spy who used you to infiltrate Forge.”
Amaranthe dug out a large piece of ore that must have weighed twelve or fifteen pounds. It would have to do.
“Nurian, yes,” Larocka said, “but not a spy. He defected. He—”
“He talked you into assassinating the emperor, didn’t he?” Sicarius said.
“No! I... You’re lying. You’re stalling, and—stay back!”
Amaranthe leaned over the rail. Sicarius had been advancing as he spoke, a fact Larocka had not missed. He was still too far away to do anything, and the team of hulking men stood between him and Sespian.
“Now you watch him die,” she snarled and turned, putting both hands on the lever.
Amaranthe aimed.
Sicarius surged forward, but the men were expecting it, and they blocked him.
Amaranthe dropped the rock.
She held her breath. Its fall seemed so slow. The lever started downward in its track.
The rock struck the top of Larocka’s helmet. Her hands flew up and she was hurled to her back. She flopped once and lay unmoving. The lever clunked back to its original position, and Amaranthe let out her breath.
Twenty sets of eyes looked up at her. A musket cracked, and a ball clanged off the metal railing.
Sicarius never paused. While everyone else was distracted, he drew a dagger and slashed the throats of the two men restraining him. He plunged through the rest and thrust the blade into Larocka’s chest, taking no chances of her coming after him again.
By then the guards had recovered, and they surged around him.
The sound of boots on metal wrenched Amaranthe’s attention from the scene below. She was about to have her own guards to deal with. The two men on the catwalk thundered toward her.
She should have felt terror, o
r at least a healthy dose of fear, but instead exhilaration thrummed through her. She ought to run, but she had time to get in a few more blows.
Amaranthe grabbed the shovel and threw ore over the side, taking care to aim away from Sicarius. The blond head was overwhelmed by the number of black and brown heads, but he did not try to escape. How could he? Sespian was still tied up and in danger from any of the men near the lever.
She hurled more ore. Any distraction she could provide to tilt the odds toward Sicarius she would. From this height, even the smaller pieces had to hurt when they hit flesh.
“Arwk!” came a cry from below the staging platform.
Amaranthe’s lips flattened in a grim smile. One of the guards must have tried to grab the metal ladder with his bare hands.
Boots striking the rungs told her the men were coming up despite the discomfort. She abandoned the ore cart and took up a position at the top of the ladder, shovel raised over her shoulder.
One hand grabbed the top of the platform. She stomped on it with her heel. The man howled and let go but did not fall off the ladder. She swung the shovel. The metal head struck him in the nose. That time he let go.
He bounced off the railing and missed the catwalk, falling forty feet into the melee below. Three guards went down under him.
“What?” a voice protested in shock.
Amaranthe peered over the edge at the second man, who clung to the ladder, using his sleeves as protection from the hot metal rungs. He was still gawking at his comrade’s rapid descent.
Amaranthe hefted the shovel. “Didn’t your commander ever lecture you on the follies of assaulting a soldier with the high ground?”
The man refocused on her and threw a knife. Amaranthe jumped back, swinging up the shovel as a defense. The blade clanged off her tool, but the distraction gave the guard the time to climb to the top and lunge onto the platform with her.
Though she still had the shovel, it felt inadequate when the man yanked a double-headed axe off his back. The ringing of more boots on metal meant reinforcements were coming.
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you men go to war while women mind the store?” The guard sneered and spun his axe.
Amaranthe retreated until her back bumped into the ore cart. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you there’s no point in fighting a war when your employer is dead?”
“We’ve already been paid, and we’ll collect twice when we ‘save’ the emperor and bring in Sicarius’s head.” He took a step forward.
Amaranthe glanced over the railing. “Looks like your friends are losing that fight.”
Actually, the brief look below told her little about who was winning. She did not even glimpse Sicarius, and only the seething chaos suggested he was still alive and fighting. Her words got the guard to look over the edge though.
She swung at the back of his head with the shovel.
His axe spun up and sliced through the wooden haft. The shovel head clattered onto the platform, leaving Amaranthe with a broken stick.
The guard lunged at her, axe raised for another swipe. She threw the haft at him and jumped into the ore cart. Her weight tipped it over the edge of the platform. She plunged down the steep track.
Too fast! was the only thought she had time for. Then she ran out of track.
The cart crashed into a solid bin, and she flew out. She bounced off a second bin, then smacked into the concrete floor. Her breath whooshed out, and black dots spun through her vision.
Disoriented, Amaranthe fumbled about and managed to rise to hands and knees. That’s when movement from the front door caught her eye. She squinted and struggled to focus.
Soldiers wearing the emperor’s black and gold were pouring inside. Her first reaction was to slump with relief, but then she went rigid. She and Sicarius had as much to worry about from soldiers as Larocka’s guards did. Maybe more.
She lunged to her feet and raced toward the blast furnace. She dodged track, pipes, and bins and darted into the open area she had seen from above. The first body almost tripped her. Downed men littered the floor amongst pools of blood. Where was...
The lone standing figure amongst the carnage, Sicarius grabbed an axe. Black shirt ravaged, blood spattering him from hair to boots, he looked like—he was—the harbinger of death. He stepped to Sespian’s side and lifted the dripping blade overhead to hack at the chains.
“Soldiers,” Amaranthe barked. “We have to get out of—”
The first of the men plunged into the opening. They almost tripped over the bodies, too, but that did not keep them from seeing Sespian.
“Sire!” one blurted.
“Stop!” another shouted to Sicarius. “Don’t hurt him!”
Arms raised, Sicarius hesitated. Less, Amaranthe guessed, because of the soldier’s command and more because he was wondering if Sespian was safe now.
“They’ll help him,” she said, wincing at Sicarius’s condemning pose. “We have to go.”
A musketeer shouldered his way forward, weapon rising to take aim.
Sicarius threw the axe at the approaching men, though awkwardly, not with the intent to kill. They ducked the flying blade, and the musketeer dropped his weapon.
Amaranthe waved for Sicarius to follow and led him to the back door.
“Get them!” someone yelled.
Sicarius passed Amaranthe and kicked open the locked door. With night’s darkness for cover, they raced through the scrapyard into the snow-draped city.
When Sicarius matched her pace instead of taking off on his own, she eyed him with hope. Was she forgiven? With the blood staining his blond hair and eyebrows, smearing his neck, and dripping from his chin, he appeared even grimmer than usual, but he met her questioning gaze. As the shouts faded behind them, he nodded and patted her on the back.
Epilogue
That afternoon, Amaranthe left the icehouse to find out what had happened to her men. On the way back, she picked up a few supplies and a newspaper. The front page story detailed the kidnapping, positing the “abhorrent and degenerate Sicarius” as the perpetrator of the “unconscionably heinous attack.” Amaranthe was mentioned at the end as an accomplice—no colorful adjectives for her.
She sighed. So much for getting her name cleared. At least the newspaper said Sespian had survived his injuries and was recovering.
When she returned to the icehouse, she found Sicarius still on the cot in the office. Not surprising after the previous night’s events. Her shoulder ached from the ore car crash, but, between the creature and the twenty guards, he had received a far worse battering than her. His eyes were open, though, and he had bathed and changed clothes. His gaze followed her into the room.
Not sure of his mood—they had not spoken more than two words since fleeing the smelter—she set the newspaper, a couple of straw hats, homespun shirts, and overalls on the desk. Remembering she still had Sicarius’s black dagger, she laid it on the pile of gear next to his cot. She imagined it happy to once again be nestled amongst the throwing knives, garrotes, poison vials, and other mortality-inducing appurtenances.
“You came back,” Sicarius said.
“Yes.” Amaranthe flipped over the empty chicken crate, sat before the stove, and regarded him. Had he thought she wouldn’t? Maybe he was looking forward to returning to a solitary life free of pestering womenfolk. “Guess I’m like a persistent toenail fungus, huh?”
“Hm.” Sicarius sat up on the cot and dropped his feet to the floor. His face betrayed no pain, but stiffness marked his movements. “A stray cat perhaps.”
“Adorable, loyal, and lovable?”
“Nosey, curious, and independent.” His eyes crinkled. “Not something you plan to bring home.”
Amaranthe found hope in his light tone. “But something you appreciate once it’s there?”
Sicarius stood, grabbed the desk chair, and dragged it over to the stove. He sat close, looked her in the eye, and said, “Yes.”
> She held his gaze for a moment, then blushed and studied a whorl on a floorboard. It was silly she felt so pleased. It wasn’t as if he had admitted some undying love—ancestors’ eternal warts, he’d compared her to an alley cat. Still, she thought that yes might have also meant, “I’m sorry I lost my temper, and thanks for coming to help.”
Sicarius picked up the newspaper and read the front page. Though his expression never changed, Amaranthe grimaced in sympathy.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Sespian,” she said. “I’d hoped you would save him, and he would see you save him, and you two could...”
“We completed our mission. Hollowcrest, Larocka, and Arbitan are dead,” Sicarius said, “and, outside the smelter, I found the lieutenant who betrayed Sespian. He had this.” Sicarius showed her a glowing purple stone.
Amaranthe fished out its mate. “Larocka had the other in her office.”
Sicarius nodded. “He won’t be a problem again.”
“That’s good, but any chance you and Sespian had of forging a relationship was dashed. Those things you said to buy time... I don’t know if he heard it all, but the papers make you out to be the mastermind behind the kidnapping. He’ll only fear and hate you after this.”
“Then it is how it’s always been. He is safe for now. That’s the only thing that matters.”
Sicarius spoke as unemotionally and matter-of-factly as ever. And Amaranthe didn’t believe him for a heartbeat. She lifted a hand, intending to pat him on the arm, but, in a fit of courage, she leaned over and hugged him. He did not return the embrace, but he did not pull away either. Though she had only meant to comfort him, she found herself noticing hard muscle beneath her arms, soft hair against her cheek, and the clean, masculine scent of warm skin washed with lye soap.
Amaranthe blushed and withdrew. The blond eyebrow he twitched at her was a little too knowing.
She cleared her throat. “How did you know Sespian was at that smelter anyway?”