Forged in Blood II (8 page)

“Admiral Starcrest is here?” Sespian asked when he reached the top of the landing.

Amaranthe extended a hand toward the open office door. “We ran into him west of the city and brought him back here.”

“That’s amazing.” Sespian rushed forward and gripped her shoulders, glancing at the doorway on the way by. “How did you find him? What did you—”

“It was Sicarius’s doing,” Amaranthe rushed to say. She didn’t want credit for any of this. It surely hadn’t been any brilliance on her part that had resulted in Starcrest’s arrival.

At the name, Sespian lowered his hands, the animation draining from his face. Amaranthe feared she wasn’t going to get any good news. “I’m glad you’re well,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe what happened to us.”

Amaranthe had no trouble believing. She would have said as much, but Sespian’s gaze had been drawn to the doorway again. He seemed torn between wanting to check in with her and wanting to check in with Starcrest.

“I’m sure they’ve been waiting for you,” Amaranthe said, making the decision for him.

Sespian squeezed her arm. “I’ll talk to you later. I want to know everything that’s happened.”

Amaranthe wanted to know, too, but she merely nodded and waved for him to go inside. Someone shut the door as soon as he did.

“Basilard.” Amaranthe gripped his arm even though he stood in front of her, and appeared ready to answer all of her questions. “How did you survive that… catastrophe? And Sicarius? Is he…?” She couldn’t bring herself to say dead.

Basilard lifted his shoulders.
He was out hunting the soul construct. Nobody’s seen him since he left.

A wave of relief almost bore Amaranthe to her knees. She caught herself on the railing. He could still be dead, especially if he hadn’t made it back yet, but for now, he was simply missing. He’d been missing before. He was the sort to stick to a mission until he completed it. She wouldn’t give up on him.

“How did you, Sespian, and Maldynado escape?” Amaranthe asked.

We were in the tunnels. General Ridgecrest, too, though his family was inside when the
Behemoth
crashed.
Basilard grimaced.
He’s in shock. Only two hundred of his men made it out with us. Did you see the… site?

Did she
see
? She’d caused it. She couldn’t bring herself to voice the admission. “I saw.” Amaranthe clawed her stray hair back into a fresh bun and tried to straighten her thoughts as well. She ought to see what Starcrest and all these soldiers were planning to do. After all this… anything except a solution that was truly good for the empire would be unacceptable. She still wanted to curl up into a ball, luxuriating in self-pity, but she drew strength from Basilard’s presence. At least her men had made it out. It would have been beyond horror if they’d given her their hard work and cooperation—and trust—this last year, only to die because of her negligence. “What tunnels are under Fort Urgot?”

Heroncrest’s army brought tunnel-boring machines. While the surface troops distracted us, they were digging routes through the earth to come up in the housing section of the fort. About a half hour before the… crash, they broke through and soldiers ran out. It wasn’t far from Ridgecrest’s section of the wall, and he leaped down, personally leading the charge to kill them or drive them back. Maldynado, Sespian, and I followed him. We collapsed one of the tunnels, but were down in the other one, fighting our way to the borers. Sespian had an idea to destroy the machines so more passages couldn’t be made. We were in the middle somewhere, between the fort and the camp, when… it felt like the world ended.
Basilard rubbed his hand over the three days of growth on his head. With all the scars, it had come in patchy.
So much dirt and rubble poured down
.
We were buried and had to dig our way out. Down there, we couldn’t tell what had happened, except that all of the sudden there was utter silence. The opposition disappeared. The tunnel exit wasn’t guarded. We came out and saw… we saw it all.

“Yes.” What else was there to say?

Are Books and Akstyr all right? I haven’t seen them.

“We’re battered from our adventure, but we all escaped,” Amaranthe said. “Akstyr has grown useful of late. We wouldn’t have made it without him.”

“Oh?” came Maldynado’s voice from the stairs. “Maybe I should take him to the Pirate’s Plunder as a reward. Do you think Yara would—” He glanced back down the stairs, but she wasn’t in sight. Amaranthe was surprised she’d released him so soon.

“Yes, she’d mind if you went to a brothel,” Amaranthe said. “Where’d she go?”

“To find soap and to heat water. After her initial pleasure at seeing me wore off—” he smiled at this memory, “—she insisted on bathing me before engaging in more amorous activities. Oh, and I wasn’t going to ask if she minded if I went to a brothel. I was going to ask if you thought she’d like to come along.”

“She’d mind that even more. I’m sure Akstyr would be fine with a celebratory pie.” Though now that she knew of Curi’s questionable allegiance, Amaranthe wouldn’t be shopping for sweets there.

“Pie. Just when I think you know men fairly well, you say something like that.” He met Basilard’s eyes, giving him a women-are-surely-odd look.

Amaranthe tried to smile, but her soul felt so weary, so pitted and ravaged by guilt, she didn’t manage it.

I should also seek a bath,
Basilard signed.

“I wasn’t going to comment on the matter,” Maldynado said, crinkling his nose, “but, yes. Yes, you should.”

“Before you go… does either of you know where Sicarius went to look for that soul construct?” Practically speaking, finding him shouldn’t be her priority, especially when he preferred to hunt alone anyway, but Amaranthe would worry about him until she knew he was safe.

Both men shook their heads.

Maldynado waved vaguely in the direction of the lake. “Sespian was the last one to talk to him. You should ask him.”

Basilard eyed the closed meeting door, then gave a parting wave and descended to the factory floor. Maybe he wasn’t certain whether having this legendary Turgonian admiral show up was a good idea or not. Maldynado was giving the door a wary look, too, though perhaps for other reasons.

A one-eyed, gray-haired man with a fierce glower stomped up the stairs. He pushed past Maldynado and entered the meeting room without a word. Numerous raised voices flowed out before the door shut again.

“That’s General Ridgecrest,” Maldynado said. “I reckon the meeting will really be getting started now.”

“I should join them,” Amaranthe said, “if they’ll let me.”

She reached for the doorknob, but peeked in the window first and paused, intimidated by all the uniformed men sitting around a conference table comprised of several desks and bookcases that had been pushed together. Lanterns blazed, lighting up the room, and general’s and colonel’s ranks glinted on all the uniforms. Sespian sat amongst them, his clothes as grimy, ripped, and stained as Maldynado’s, but he didn’t appear daunted by the company, most of it gray-haired and stern of face. By his choice or theirs, he’d taken the head of the table. Starcrest, also in civilian clothes, albeit much cleaner ones, leaned against the wall to the side, his arms folded across his chest, his eyelids half drooped, listening rather than talking. Or
trying
to talk. Judging by the gesticulating and the raised voices, three people were speaking at once. Maybe Starcrest had decided to absorb information for now. After all, he couldn’t be that current on events, if he’d been traveling for weeks. She could only guess at how much he’d kept up with Turgonian news in the years prior.

Amaranthe wondered where the professor was. She would have felt more comfortable walking in if there’d been another woman in the room—or if she didn’t have that pesky bounty on her head. Or if Sicarius were at her side, glaring over her shoulder at anyone who belittled her.

She sighed. She wouldn’t have relied on him so heavily in the past—when had she grown so gun shy?

“When everything started going wrong,” she muttered.

“What’s that?” Maldynado asked.

“Nothing.”

“You’re not afraid to go in, are you? I’m sure Sespian won’t let anyone shoot you.”

“Comforting, thank you.”

Maldynado scratched an armpit, glanced back down the stairs, then met her eyes. “Want me to go in with you?”

“Do you
want
to go in with me?”

“Dear ancestors, no, those generals are intimidating.”

Amaranthe snorted. “Who’s afraid now?”

“Oh, that’d be me. I’m still disowned, you know. Those people are all… owned. They won’t appreciate my irreverent charm. Besides Yara might have my water ready by now. I just wanted to check in with you and make sure… you’re all right.” He raised his eyebrows.

All right? Not even close.

“I’m fine,” Amaranthe said. “You better not delay your bath. I can smell those armpits from here.”

Maldynado was kind enough not to point out that
she
hadn’t bathed recently either. He simply sniffed one of the offending pits, nodded in agreement, and wandered back down the stairs.

Amaranthe took a breath and slipped into the room. Hardly anyone noticed, as the officers were busy leaning on the tables, pointing sharply, and arguing with each other.

“The problem is his legitimacy,” a general she didn’t recognize was saying. “If we throw our men behind him and we’re not successful, if Marblecrest or Flintcrest or someone else comes out on top, we’ll be condemning every single one of our soldiers to the firing line.”

“He who controls the capital can force the issue,” said an earnest bald colonel with stubby sausage-like fingers that he waved about as he spoke. “It’s no longer about legitimacy, it’s about power.”

“I’m not disagreeing with that,” the general said. “I’m pointing out how meager our forces are in comparison with those that the other contenders command.”

“Especially now,” Ridgecrest growled. His single eye was bloodshot. He ought to be in a bunk somewhere, not staying up for this meeting. But then, with the nightmares he’d have, he’d probably rather work than sleep. Amaranthe understood that all too well. “But we do have an advantage that they don’t.” Ridgecrest lifted a hand toward Starcrest. “Even if he’s forgotten all he knew of military strategy in the last twenty years, his name alone will cast doubt into our enemies’ minds.”

“Thank you, Dray,” Starcrest said. “I see you’re as much the flatterer as you always were.”

“It’s just that I don’t know how useful a
naval
commander can be in a city siege. All those pesky buildings are wont to get in the way.”

This conversation caused the rest of the room to drop to silence, most of the men gaping at Ridgecrest for his audacity. Amaranthe recognized the teasing for what it was and guessed the general and the admiral had gone to school together or otherwise known each other for a long time. Starcrest appeared a little younger, but a missing eye could certainly age a man prematurely.

“All of those pesky buildings seem to be confusing Marblecrest,” the other general said—his tag simply read Wranz, making him one of the rare men to rise to such a rank without a warrior-caste surname. “Why is he bothering with the Imperial Barracks? The railways, river, and aqueducts will be the key to controlling the city, especially at this time of year with limited food stores within its boundaries.”

“Because his soft backside prefers imperial suites to camp cots,” Ridgecrest said. “Last I heard his priority was shopping for new uniforms for his troops, so they’ll look good while they’re parading around the city.”

“That’s a Marblecrest for you.”

“Flintcrest has the two major railways,” Colonel Fencrest said, “and Marblecrest does have the river mouth blockaded. I don’t think anyone has considered the aqueducts yet. It’s possible we could start with that. With the lake freezing over, the underground water supply will be all the more important. My lord?” the colonel asked, tilting his face toward Starcrest. “What are your thoughts on the situation? You haven’t voiced them yet.”

A dozen sets of eyes turned toward Starcrest. Amaranthe would have quailed beneath all those gazes, but Starcrest merely gazed back, hard to read. Something about his silence, and his position in the room, made her think he might consider the succession issue the secondary problem, at least for the moment. He’d had firsthand experience with that ancient technology and must have a good idea exactly what the
Behemoth
could do. Amaranthe may have denied Forge its two foremost experts on it, but as long as it was sitting out there in the open, anyone could come and poke around.

“I’ll want to see reports from your intelligence analysts before suggesting targets and troop placement strategies,” Starcrest said, “but laying siege on the city… nobody wins there. Not when it’s our own city. I’d guess the people are already restless and irritated at the martial law. Civilians will be starting to see uniformed men as enemies rather than allies. It wouldn’t take much to uncork the bubble cider bottle and let the contents overflow.”

Amaranthe nodded to herself. She, too, had thought the answer lay with the populace. The tens of thousands of soldiers out there seemed like a lot, but there were hundreds of thousands of civilians living in the city. If one could win
their
minds…

General Wranz shifted. “It’s true. There have already been incidents.”

“We don’t want to try to turn the population against the army though,” Ridgecrest said. “That would set a horrible precedent. Whoever takes the throne next would inherit a mess.” He glanced at Sespian. “Though we haven’t decided on an heir yet, I suppose.”

“You make the job sound so appealing, General,” Sespian murmured, then raised his voice, facing Starcrest. “It sounds like you think we need someone with the ability to charm people to his or her side.”

He didn’t look at Amaranthe, but her belly did a queasy flip, for she had an inkling of what was coming. The last thing she was qualified to do was to try and sweet talk an entire city, especially now.

“You think you’re that person?” Ridgecrest asked Sespian.