Forged in Blood II

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Even at the height of its power and population, four hundred years ago, the remote island tribe never had more than one hundred and fifty speakers. That does not make it any less of a language.”

  Basilard didn’t look convinced, but was too polite to naysay her.

  “You should make a lexicon,” Tikaya went on. “Draw the gestures and write down what they mean. Surely, you are not the only mute Mangdorian in the world. You could pave the way for others of your people with a speech impediment.”

  At this, Basilard’s mouth dropped open. I… don’t know how to draw.

  Amaranthe hadn’t seen Basilard truly daunted very often. “I’m sure Sespian would help you once everything is settled.”

  “My daughter is skilled with a pen, too,” Tikaya said, “though it’d be difficult to convince her to draw something without fur, scales, or antennae. Still, creating a simple lexicon shouldn’t take long. And once you retire from—” Tikaya shrugged and waved at Basilard’s pistol, short sword, and knives, “—your current job, you could return to your country with the book and find others to teach.”

  Basilard scratched his jaw. I have… another quest, but perhaps someday. It is an interesting idea. Thank you.

  Tikaya nodded.

  “Is your daughter the girl we met on the train?” Amaranthe could imagine the young woman in pigtails drawing fanciful images of winged flying lizards complete with human riders.

  “Koanani is my daughter, yes, and you met Agarik, too, but I’m speaking of my eldest, Mahliki. She’s the reason we’ve detoured in this direction. Oh, are these the private docks?” Tikaya peered around, as if she’d just noticed that they’d turned onto Waterfront Street. “Or… no, those are for fishing and canneries, aren’t they?”

  Amaranthe didn’t point out that they’d been walking north along the street for four blocks. “We have a ways to go. We’ll pass the yacht club—” she glowered to the north, where the familiar docks and buildings hunkered beneath the darkening gray sky, “—and reach the private berths shortly.”

  “Why would your daughter be down by the docks?” Maldynado asked, thankfully not making a comment about the sorts of women one usually found loitering in such locales, at least in the warmer months.

  “This is where she would have arrived.” Tikaya produced a scrap of paper. “Rias’s family owns a small berth here in the capital.”

  Amaranthe stopped. “Didn’t anyone tell you? Soldiers are stopping all of the steamboats and ships coming up the river. They’re searching the public transports and turning away private ones.” She couldn’t fathom why the Starcrests would have sent their daughter on a steamboat or some other ship when the rest of the family had come in on the train. Or had she sailed in on some private yacht? That sounded like a perilous voyage this time of year. Surely, the winter storms were tearing across the Western Sea.

  “That shouldn’t have been a problem.” Tikaya smiled.

  That smile conveyed much. “She’s coming on a submarine?” Amaranthe asked.

  “Indeed so. Rias wanted to stop on the coast to talk to an old comrade of his—he’s the one who sent the train and the troops with us—but we decided it might be wise to have the submarine here in the capital, should we need to escape or, knowing him, launch some subaquatic attack at the enemy.”

  “How old is your daughter?”

  “Seventeen,” Tikaya said.

  “And you sent her all this way by herself?” Amaranthe shuddered, remembering all the things that had gone wrong during her own underwater excursions. She wouldn’t want to face a kraken, octopus, or even a particularly nettlesome snarl of seaweed down there on her own.

  “She’s quite able to pilot and maintain the craft,” Tikaya said, “but her cousin Lonaeo came along to share the duties. Or—” her voice lowered, and Amaranthe almost missed the rest, “—distract her in such a way that they never arrive.”

  “Pardon?” Amaranthe’s first thoughts were of a sexual nature, but surely the Kyatt Islands weren’t that liberal, that cousins should openly, ah… Lonaeo, was that even a man’s name?

  “He’s an entomologist and she’s a biologist,” Tikaya said. “They’ve been wandering off in the forest together to poke under rocks and in logs since they were children. Lonaeo is eight years older. He was supposed to be the babysitter, the mature one who kept her out of trouble, but she had this tendency to get him in trouble. Five years old and she somehow convinced him that they needed to capture a wasps’ nest for study, and she had this marvelous plan for removing it without anyone being stung. She didn’t get stung. Lonaeo still has scars. And that section of forest up in the mountains hasn’t completely regrown. It’s a wonder—well, I knew what I was getting into when I married a Turgonian. A terribly bright Turgonian at that.”

  From behind them, Maldynado made a sound somewhere between a snort and a chortle. “Sounds like your long-lost sister, boss. You two should get along famously.”

  “Er, maybe. Though I’ve never burned down a forest.”

  “Surely only because of the dearth of them in the city,” Maldynado said. “You’ve blown up countless things though. Professor Komitopis, I know you’re a learned lady, but I suggest you not visit the Gazette for a tour of the capital’s oldest continuously publishing newspaper institution at this time.”

  “I… shall keep your suggestion in mind.” Tikaya considered Amaranthe anew—wondering if she would be a bad influence on her daughter?

  “Thank you, Lord Tour Guide Maldynado,” Amaranthe hissed, trying a version of Sicarius’s icy stop-talking-or-I’ll-hurt-you glare.

  “No problem, boss.” Maldynado’s cheery wink didn’t show signs of concern.

  She caught a smirk on Basilard’s face too. Grumbling under her breath, she resumed walking, picking up the pace as they strode past the yacht club. It was chilly and getting darker every moment. No need to dawdle.

  Perhaps she will grow out of finding trouble, Basilard signed to Tikaya. Biology sounds like a sedate career.

  “Not the way Mahliki does it,” Tikaya murmured. “Is this the spot?” She looked from a piece of paper in her hand to a plaque full of dock numbers.

  “What’s the address?” Amaranthe asked.

  “1473. Yes, there it is.” Tikaya tapped the second to last number on the plaque.

  They had stopped at the head of a long dock with dozens of boathouses and berths to either side, all empty at this time of year. A layer of ice had finally formed, crusting around the pilings and stretching across the entire lake. It didn’t appear thick, but it would be soon.

  “When did they arrive?” Amaranthe asked as they started down the long dock.

  “I’m not certain if they’re here yet, but it wouldn’t have been long ago if they are. They had to go around the Cutter Horn, through the Tiberian Gulf, and up the Goldar River, a much less direct route than our train trip through the heartland. If they’re not here, I’ll leave a note as to where they can find Rias.”

  Amaranthe chewed on her lip, not certain how she felt about leaving notes with directions to their hideout. But with hundreds of soldiers now occupying the factory, it wasn’t going to remain a secret to their enemies for long anyway.

  Maldynado tossed a snowball at an icicle hanging from the eaves of a small boathouse. It shivered and fell, shattering on the ice below. “Will they be able to come up through all that if they’re in a submarine?”

  Tikaya paused to peer over the side. “I’m not very familiar with ice—how thick is that? Can you tell?”

  “Less than two inches,” Amaranthe said. “I wouldn’t walk on it yet.”

  “Ah, they can break through that then.”

  “And if it gets thicker before they get here?” Maldynado adjusted his hat and pushed a tendril out of his eyes. “Huge trucks drive out there in the winter, you know.”

  “Do they? That must be an interesting sight.” Tikaya resumed her walk down the dock. They passed the structural remains of a boathouse that had su
ccumbed to fire recently, its singed frame leaning precariously toward the lake. “I’m sure they’ll figure out a way to break through. If nothing else, it being a Starcrestian design, there are weapons.”

  Amaranthe was imagining what sorts of weapons might work underwater when they passed the corner of the last boathouse along the dock and came face-to-face with two enforcers. The men were staring down at a jagged hole in the ice with a dark gray hatch visible in the middle of it. Before Amaranthe waved her men forward, Basilard and Maldynado were already in motion. She allowed herself a smidgeon of pride at the quickness with which they flattened the enforcers to the dock. Their crossbows and short swords skidded across the frosty boards to stop at her feet.

  “Tie them, boss?” Maldynado asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  The four soldiers assigned to Tikaya made a few choked noises and sent silent queries toward her. For them, enforcers weren’t enemies, and they had to question this manhandling.

  “I believe those are the uniforms and accoutrements of law enforcement officers,” Tikaya said. “Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Amaranthe said, “but I’ve found it easier to nullify them than to explain that we are indeed trying to help the city. For some odd reason, they rarely believe me.”

  Basilard finished tying his man and knelt back to sign, Might have something to do with the number of wanted posters featuring your face.

  “Possibly.” Amaranthe pointed toward the boathouse. “Put them in there, please.”

  The soldiers were shifting their weight and fingering their weapons. Amaranthe’s response must not have mollified them.

  “We’ll leave their bonds loose enough that they can work themselves free shortly after we’ve gone,” she told them, then pointed at the hatch and asked Tikaya, “Is that familiar?”

  “It is.” She seemed to be looking for a way to reach it. Though the submarine had come up in the 1473 berth, it was about four feet from the dock. Given the water and possibly ice that coated the concave hatch, landing on it without slipping off would prove a challenge.

  “Basilard,” Amaranthe said, “you’re the most agile of us. I don’t suppose you’d hop out there and… knock?”

  Basilard nodded and shrugged off his pack.

  Maldynado frowned. “I’m agile too.”

  “Yes, but I thought the hat might throw off your balance.”

  That drew a snort from one of the soldiers, though his comrades were quick to glare him to silence.

  Basilard made the leap, landing lightly on the hatch, his fingers touching down to steady himself. He considered it for a moment, then, as Amaranthe had suggested, knocked politely. She wondered if the enforcers had already tried that. For that matter, what had drawn them out to investigate? The boom of a weapon being fired to break the ice?

  “You may want to stand in view of the opening,” Amaranthe told Tikaya, pointing her farther out on the dock. “In case they’re the sort to come out armed, a familiar face could keep an incident from occurring.”

  “Yes, of course.” Tikaya picked her way out along the icy arm of the dock.

  The hatch didn’t open though. Basilard spread his hands, asking what to try next.

  “Is it possible they’ve arrived and gone into the city to explore?” Amaranthe asked, though if they’d broken through the surface with some weapon recently—as the enforcers standing around suggested—they shouldn’t have had time to wander off to explore anything yet.

  “It’s possible,” Tikaya said.

  A crack sounded behind Basilard, and he whirled about. A metal pipe of some sort broke through the ice and shot up a foot. There was a perpendicular bend near the tip, and it rotated toward them, the opening at the end reminding Amaranthe of a firearm’s muzzle.

  She yanked out her pistol. “Is that a weapon?”

  “No.” Tikaya waved at the orifice. “A periscope.”

  Realizing the “muzzle” was glassed over, Amaranthe lowered her weapon.

  “You may want to jump back, Mister Basilard,” Tikaya said. “If they come out, they’ll open the—”

  A clank-thunk-clank sounded beneath Basilard’s feet. Eyes widening, he leaped back to the dock. A moment later, the hatch swung open, and a young woman with long raven hair braided similarly to her mother’s appeared in the opening. She had more of her father’s coloring, with olive skin less prone to freckles, but the blue eyes were much like Tikaya’s. It made for a striking combination, and Amaranthe wondered if she’d have to remind Maldynado that he was in a relationship, a monogamous one, insofar as she’d heard.

  “Good to see you, dear,” Tikaya said warmly, still speaking in Turgonian. “Is Lonaeo well too?”

  “Yes,” the girl, Mahliki, Amaranthe reminded herself, said. She didn’t send her mother a greeting, rather she peered in all directions visible from the hatchway. “Is it gone?”

  “It?” Amaranthe and Tikaya asked at the same time.

  “That black cube.”

  Amaranthe rocked back on her heels. “You saw one? Out here?” Her mind spun. Maybe the girl meant something else. Something perfectly ordinary, like a… a… yes, what, Amaranthe?

  “A kelbhet?” Tikaya asked. “You’re sure?”

  “It looked exactly like the ones in your drawings,” Mahliki said.

  “And it shot a red beam at us,” came a male voice from within the submarine.

  “Yes, that was the truly defining trait,” Mahliki said dryly. Her rigid shoulders relaxed when she didn’t see any sign of the deadly device. “It was hovering above the lake when we arrived. We popped out and it veered in this direction. It shot its beam and—ah, yes, there’s the recipient of its damage.” She pointed at the boathouse Amaranthe had assumed burned in a fire.

  “Odd,” Tikaya said. “The kelbhet are typically much tidier when they’re incinerating something.”

  Yes, chillingly so, Amaranthe thought, picturing the guards she’d seen devoured by those crimson beams.

  “You said they’d been modified?” Tikaya asked Amaranthe.

  “Yes, by Retta’s assistant,” Amaranthe said. “The first modification changed them so they didn’t target humans, but then she changed them again so that they did. The last I saw them, they were mowing down their own people.”

  “Not their people,” Tikaya murmured.

  “Well, Forge people.” Amaranthe didn’t want to imagine the “people” who had thought incendiary cleaning constructs were a good idea.

  “If it’s safe to come out…” Mahliki considered the thus-far mute soldiers, shrugged, and did something inside, near the lip of the hatchway.

  A panel on the bottom side of the hatch popped open, and a thin metal square with hinges slid out. It unfolded in four segments, creating a gangplank that thudded down on the edge of the dock.

  “I told you it would reach,” Mahliki said into the submarine.

  “Yes, yes, now get your big butt off the ladder so I can get out, will you?” came the cousin’s voice from inside.

  Mahliki rolled her eyes. “My butt isn’t big. It’s contoured.”

  “Please, everything you have is big. You’re a giant, just like Aunt Tikaya.”

  “Not here, I’m not. Lots of Turgonian women are six feet tall, Father says, and the men are even taller, just like him.” Mahliki considered Maldynado and the soldiers, a hint of appraisal in the gaze. It seemed more like a tourist examining the curious natives rather than anything with sexual undertones, but Maldynado naturally straightened and returned this appraisal with a yes-I-am-a-handsome-fellow-aren’t-I smile.

  “Stop dithering around, you two,” Tikaya said. “We have a larger mission to complete tonight.”

  Amaranthe tapped a finger to her lips as she watched the exchange. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but the girl sounded like a normal teenager, rather than some precocious genius.

  It’d been hard to judge height when only Mahliki’s head and shoulders had been sticking through the hatchway, but
on the dock, she stood even with her mother, maybe even a hair or two taller. Amaranthe could understand why someone from Kyatt would consider her a big woman, though neither her butt nor anything else was disproportionate, despite her cousin’s teasing. Rather she had her mother’s curves along with an easy athleticism that captured every man’s attention as she climbed from submarine to gangplank to dock, catching herself quickly when her foot slid in a patch of ice.

  Watching the soldiers puff their chests out, Amaranthe imagined her team of men starting brawls in their haste to gain the young woman’s favor. For the sake of simplicity, she hoped Tikaya intended to send her off to stay with the same grandmother who was housing the other children.

  Mahliki clanked as she walked down the dock to join her mother. Curious, Amaranthe eyed her for weapons—surely, she didn’t have some knife collection beneath her jacket? Although with a Turgonian admiral for a father, perhaps it wouldn’t be that strange. Though, upon consideration, what she’d first thought of as clanks were more like clinks, such as bumping glasses might make.

  Mahliki returned the gaze, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Sorry,” Amaranthe said, “I was wondering why you were rattling.”

  “Ah.” Mahliki unzipped her jacket and displayed rows of vials of various sizes secured to the inside flap, along with a few metal tools, and was that some sort of folded net?

  “Dear,” Tikaya said, “what samples are you expecting to find here? It’s winter.”

  “Not all flora, fauna, and insects die off or hibernate, Mother, and I’ve read that the nymphs of Turgonian flies live in ponds and streams, often under the ice. They feed throughout the cold months and emerge as adults in the spring. I’ve never had a chance to observe insects in a sub-freezing climate. I’m also terribly excited to find a dragonfly for my collection. We don’t have them on the islands. I’ll be curious to study them. They’re vicious predators.”

  Tikaya pulled her parka closer, nodding and casting a wary eye toward the surrounding landscape, as if she expected the empire to be full of vicious predators.

  “Those are for collecting insects?” Amaranthe asked, wondering if the girl knew she and her submarine had popped up in a war zone.