“Search me,” I choked, missing my blood-soaked scarf I’d tossed in the canal earlier.
As we neared the next room the pungent smell grew even stronger, burning my eyes. We hesitated, neither wanting to go in, but there was nothing for it, so we stepped across the threshold and my boot immediately slid in shit. The room was covered in it, from small mouselike droppings smeared across the floor to paste that spilled from the tops of the rows of large, wide-mouthed urns that filled the room. Masks and aprons hung from the walls and gloves were stacked on a table on the far side of the room.
“This smells worse than pig shit,” Eld gasped.
I nodded. “It’s not pig, though.”
“What then?”
“Sin?”
“I can tell you what it is, but you’re not going to like it.”
“Why’s that?” I felt him smirk in my mind. “Tell me.”
“You’re going to have to taste it,” he said.
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“You suck arsehole.”
“Ah, you’ll soon be able to tell me what that’s like.” He laughed. “A bunghole too far?”
I could sense he was going to keep it up, so I slid a finger along the edge of one of the urns and quickly, before I could think about it, put the barest tip of that finger against my tongue. My tongue burned at the touch, my taste buds recoiling in horror at the depravity I’d inflicted on them. Hearing Eld throw up behind me, I gagged, but managed not to vomit. In my mind, I was calm. As calm as one can be after eating shit.
“Well?”
“I can’t believe you did that,” Sin whispered.
“I guess I know what it means when I tell someone to eat shit,” I muttered. “Now, what is it, and is it important?”
“Processing,” he said. “The first is easy. It’s guano.”
“Speak Imperial.”
“Guano. Bat poop.”
“Bat poop.” I rubbed my tongue against my sleeve, trying to scrape the burning stench off my taste buds. “Hmm.”
“I think it’s important,” Sin said. “It was used in making explosives and incendiary devices in Her time.”
“It must be one of the missing components of the Serpent’s Flame.”
“Safe bet,” Sin agreed.
“W-was it? Feces?” Eld was wiping his lips with the back of his glove. He saw my nod and shuddered. “Nasty,” he whispered.
“I’m not exactly enthused about it myself,” I told him, then repeated what Sin had told me. “Let’s keep moving, I’m starting to get used to the stench and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or if it means all of my sensory glands have been burned out of existence.”
Eld studied me and shook his head. “Nasty.”
“C’mon,” I said, rolling my eyes. “We’re getting closer, I know it.” He didn’t say anything. “It kind of tasted like burned candied almonds,” I teased. Roasted almonds were one of Eld’s favorite treats.
“Nasty.”
42
We continued exploring, finding more filled storage rooms. Barrels stamped with marks indicating oil were piled beside others marked as tallow. I saw enough gunpowder to supply a small army and enough quicklime to scorch the lungs of half of Servenza.
In this part of the tunnels, the air seemed drier, as if all the moisture had been sucked away. My tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth and I heard Eld try to quietly clear his throat. We’d not seen or heard anyone since we’d killed the guard, but given the number of gangs involved, there had to be several hundred people in on Sicarii’s plan, whatever it was. I kept wondering why there was no sign of anyone in the tunnels and marveling that more of her schemes hadn’t leaked in the streets above, given that information poured through Servenza like a sieve. If Sicarii could keep that many people quiet, what else could she do?
Blackmail the Gods. I felt Sin snarl in my mind and almost smiled. It wasn’t quite what I intended to do, but it was close enough that I could almost admire the woman. Save she’d killed Quenta and half a dozen of my other little fish, nearly killed Eld and me, and I didn’t believe she was out to save the world; she wanted to own it. Get in line.
We came to a door with a large red X painted on it. Sin’s magic made my ears burn again, soothing the high-pitched whine that had remained from Eld’s earlier pounding on the door. I strained, listening. Nothing. I exchanged looks with Eld and he shrugged.
“Perhaps we caught them on a break,” he suggested.
“Makes sense that they wouldn’t be down here all the time.” I inhaled the dry air, catching a hint of something that I couldn’t quite place. “If they were, people would realize that the gangs weren’t out in force. Especially with them pushing this false gang-war narrative.”
“Could be only the gang leaders are in on it?”
“Has to be more than that,” I said. “Too much shit down here, literal and otherwise, for them to have done it alone.” I returned my attention to the door, noticing that cloth had been nailed around the edges to create a seal. “When you’re working with commoners, it’s a safe bet they can’t read. I tapped the X. “But everyone knows this means ‘keep out.’”
I tried the handle. “Locked.” I pulled out my lockpicks. Selecting the largest of the three, I dropped to a knee and began working.
“Don’t pound on this door, Eld.” I felt the first tumbler yield, but the second was a tricky bastard, and after a moment I let Sin guide my fingers. “I don’t think it would work out half so well as last time.” I twisted the pick and the lock popped open with a click I felt more than heard.
The door swung inward of its own volition and a warm, spicy aroma licked me in the face. Inside, we found a laboratory: long tables laden with gearwork barrels, crates, and other supplies arranged beneath the tabletops. The room was lit by double-walled lanterns, like those used on ships to keep water out, though in this case I’d a feeling it was meant to keep the fire in. Getting up, I pulled a pair of handkerchiefs from my jacket and handed one to Eld.
“Put this over your mouth and nose.”
“Why?”
“Because,” I told him, tying the thin cloth over my face so that only my eyes were visible, “if I’m right, we’re about to find out how Serpent’s Flame is made. Remember what sets it off?”
“Water?”
“Of any kind. Including saliva, a runny nose, any sort of moisture at all.”
“It can’t be that sensitive,” Eld protested. “How would they handle it on an island if it was?”
“Remember the maestro?”
Eld swallowed audibly.
“Want to chance it?”
He shook his head.
“Good. Then step light and keep your hands to yourself. We need to be careful or we’ll send half the island up in smoke and flames.”
As we walked through the room I realized I’d vastly underestimated Sicarii’s operation. This was some form of machined assembly line: here, a mechanism for grinding the powders finer than I’d thought possible; there, a thin-tipped funnel that allowed oil to drizzle onto the powder as it moved along a series of belts and pulleys. A gearwork mortar and pestle was lined with the same, familiar stench as the shit room. At what seemed to be the end, a concave plate rested as if stopped in midmovement, filled with powder that smelled like burned shit, beside a pile of a reddish-orange spice that smelled like cinnamon, but different.
“It’s called cardurry,” Sin said in my mind. “A plant that grows farther south. In the Southeast Island, Cordoban Confederacy, and the like.”
“Something smells familiar,” Eld whispered from behind the handkerchief covering his mouth.
“It’s the spice,” I explained. “Without it, the reek of this Serpent’s Flame would be far too noticeable. Covered by cardurry, it could be a perfume, or the scent of someone who trades in spices, or could otherwise be easily explained away.”
“You’re right,” Eld muttered. “I remember smelling this on som
e of that first lot that tried to kill us. And again when we visited the maestro in the Castello. Not to mention the grenado.”
“Aye, and Sicarii smelled the same when she tried to kill me the other night.” Something tickled the back of my mind, but I couldn’t quite place it. “This stuff must get into your skin if you’re around it long enough.”
“It does,” a voice growled from behind us.
I spun around, heart climbing into my throat, and saw three gang members in the door we’d come through. Movement behind them suggested they weren’t alone. The one in the middle stood head and shoulders above the other two; I could see the tendrils of a tattoo climbing out of his yellowed shirt and up his neck. No, not tendrils—the tentacles of a Kraken.
Eld sank into a crouch and drew a pistole from his sash with a free hand.
“Let’s not be hasty,” one of the others said, her voice cracking. She made no move to reach for the pistoles strapped to the outside of her midnight-blue jacket; I could see that both were equipped with the newfangled, shiny, brass scope sights I’d read about. Adjusting the large feather in her wide-brimmed hat, she said to Eld, “One false move and we could all burn to death.”
“There’s no need for sparks,” the other woman said, pulling twin cinquedeas from somewhere behind her back. The palm-wide blades were stained with something I couldn’t identify. “What do you reckon?”
“I heard the Poisoned Eels were wiped out,” I said, taking a half step back. “By the Krakens, as it were,” I added, taking another step back. Eld followed suit. The door behind us was only a few paces away. “Look at you all, being buddy-buddy and unwiped.”
“You heard what she wanted you to hear,” the Poisoned Eel woman said, flashing kan-white teeth at me. Her eyes flicked back and forth between Eld and me, then over the room and back to Eld so quickly that I knew she’d been drinking kan all day and was flush with it. “Sicarii is a maestra of whispers.”
“So it would seem.” I nodded toward the other woman. “Sharp Eagle?” She nodded in return. “Sicarii’s motivations I understand,” I lied. “But what’s in it for you lot?”
“Give her nothing,” the man snapped. “We didn’t come to talk, girl. We came to find who murdered my man and use their bones for tallow.”
“Fat.”
“What?”
“Tallow comes from fat,” I said. “Tight spot, Sin,” I whispered mentally.
“Seems it,” he agreed.
“Any ideas?”
“A few. I’d be better off if we knew the range of possibilities with this liquid-fire bullshit.”
“Uh-huh. Let’s us both start thinking and I’ll keep them talking.”
“Animal fat usually,” I said aloud, picking up where I’d left off, “but I suppose human could serve as well.”
“You playing the smart-arse with us?”
“I don’t know how smart my buttocks are, but my brains are pretty damned smart,” I said.
“You’ve a file for a tongue, woman,” the Sharp Eagle said.
“You’re not the first to notice,” Eld muttered.
“He speaks!” The Poisoned Eel laughed. “We’ve talked long enough, en’t we?” The man nodded. “Sent a few lads and lasses the long way around, so you lot won’t be going anywhere. I don’t care if you burn or bleed—dead is dead—but if you want it to be a quick death, you’ll toss your weapons down now.”
“Is this any way to treat guests?”
“Guests?” The man’s voice rumbled in his chest as he laughed briefly.
“Your man did throw open the door for us,” I said. “Didn’t roll out the red carpet, true enough, but his blood made a reasonable facsimile.”
“Fax—what?”
“Facsimile,” I repeated with a smile. We’d kept edging away; the door was less than a pace from us. Given the other door had swung inward, I was guessing this would do the same, so we couldn’t just turn and run. “It means a copy or a replica. His blood in the sand did sort of look like a carpet, don’t you think?” We needed a distraction. But what?
The Kraken glanced at the Poisoned Eel at his side. “I want to see both of them drowning in their own blood. You cut a tentacle off a Kraken, two more grow in its place. I want those two dead.”
“I think you’re mixing analogies here,” I said. Slingshot in inner left jacket pocket above stiletto. Bullets in pouch. Two steps to right puts table between us and—I’d forgotten the thick-bladed short sword in my hand. I was good and with Sin I was better, but I couldn’t shoot a slingshot one-handed. I didn’t want to drop the sword: it would be useful if they closed. It was still wet with blood from the guard I’d killed. Hmm.
“Eld?”
He glanced at me.
“Ready, Sin?” I felt his nod in my mind and couldn’t keep the snarl from my lips. “Be hasty, Eld.”
“What?”
“Be.” My eyes flicked to his pistole. “Hasty. You’ve my permission.”
“Huh? Oh. Oh.”
The pistole bucked in his fist, belching smoke and flame, and the blade the Poisoned Eel held leapt out of her hand with a shrill whine as the bullet struck it and ricocheted off, screeching through one of the brass machineries and slamming into the stone wall with a thump. I could tell by the look on Eld’s face he hadn’t meant to do that. The pistole’s barrels rotated from over to under and he turned it on the rest.
“You motherfuckers!” the woman screamed, holding her broken and bleeding hand with the other. “I’m going to carve you to—”
Even as she shrieked, I spun on one leg, whipping the other around. Sin’s tingling magic added an extra snap as my boot connected solidly with the plate of cardurry. It flew through the air, spreading a hazy plume of reddish orange in its wake. The Kraken grunted, the Sharp Eagle screamed, and all three hit the floor, fearing the worst. I wasn’t worried. The spice wasn’t what would kill us.
No, the reeking pile of half-paste, half-powder shit on the oval plate would do that. I picked it up with my free hand, thankful I still wore gloves because I was sweating enough to set it off with a touch, and tossed it like I’d seen athletes toss weighted plates in the Arena at Colgna. As it flew through the air with an awkward wobble, I flicked my sword after it. Little flecks of the guard’s blood, not quite dry, winged through the air.
“Eld! Down!” I screamed and followed suit, ducking behind the table. A breath later the room erupted in a geyser of white-hot fire and I heard the gang leaders screaming as the flames caught them up.
Pushing myself to my feet, I ripped the door open. Eld ran past me and nearly impaled himself on another gang member’s cutlass. Left hand to lower-right pocket. There’s a chip on the hilt. Adjust. Eld parried the thrust more from muscle memory than actual skill, and knocked the man back. My stiletto whipped over Eld’s shoulder and tore through the man’s throat. I’d been aiming for his head, but that chip always fucked with my accuracy.
“Eld would call that luck,” Sin said.
“I told you to adjust. That’s not luck. That’s—”
“Magic.”
“Uh-huh.”
I tore past Eld, stooping to pull my blade free, and charged into a woman who came screaming around the corner of the tunnel with a knife in each hand. She kept screaming when I laid her face open with my short sword. Stumbling back, she tripped and fell and I quieted her with a thrust to her chest.
Pistole in hand, Eld peeked around the corner, then glanced back at me. “Clear.”
“Then let’s get the fuck out of here,” I said. “I don’t know how long those flames will last, but there’s enough gunpowder in there to collapse this entire tunnel system.”
“You said to be hasty,” Eld muttered.
“There’s hasty and then there’s hasty.”
I couldn’t tell if the screams behind us were from the Serpent’s Flame or because they wanted our blood, but I didn’t intend to stay to find out. “C’mon,” I shouted, and took off, Eld hard on my heels and Sin’s
magic burning through me.
I could practically feel time racing against us, and this was a footrace we had to win.
43
We ran through half a dozen rooms and passages and the scope of Sicarii’s shadow war became reality. Scores of common pikes and muskets stuck out of barrels, still in their packing tallow. Weaponry I’d never seen before, gearwork like that multibolt crossbow. Should have brought that with us, damn it. Apparatus that looked like backpacks hung on some walls, each with half a dozen blade-bearing mechanical arms sprouting from them. A miniature cannon with a score of musket barrels welded together.
Locking a few doors behind us as we ran through them bought us time, but Eld’s breath was growing ragged in his throat and I was feeling queasy from too much magic and growing hunger. I was about to suggest a rest when we burst out of the room with half-constructed field-artillery pieces into a wide space that hummed with the sounds of running water just overhead. Before us were three passageways: left, center, and right. Which way to go? Straight ahead, I saw a light in the distance; to the right, there were no lights at all. That didn’t necessarily mean anything; a bend or turn would hide lantern light. Eld’s curse spun me around.
A dozen raggedly dressed gang members were charging from the left passageway, gearwork weaponry in hand. Eld leveled a pistole and fired, ruining my vision, but it didn’t matter: I was already moving. Left hand to slingshot in left pocket—need to rearrange that—right to bullet pouch. “Sin. Vision.” My eyes burned and my hands were a blur, finding the cool steel bands that reinforced my slingshot even as I dug a ball from my pouch.
Sin’s magic narrowed my vision, removed the white spots from Eld’s musketry, and focused my aim. Three bodies were down—Eld must have gotten two in one—and only two had made it past them; the rest were still jumping awkwardly over them, knocking into one another. I sighted on the taller one to my right, drew the slingshot back to my cheek, and released. The man fell like a pile of loose clothing as I reached for another ball. Just as I put a woman between the posts of my slingshot, Eld fired. She tumbled in a heap and lay still. Cursing under my breath, I shifted my aim to a man and put one through his chest. The sound of his breastbone breaking was loud despite the gunfire, and his agonized scream slowed the rest.
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