Forged in Blood I (48 page)

The beast found its feet, but didn’t leap out of the way fast enough. The lorry pummeled into its backside, sending it spinning again.

Doubting he’d done more than surprise it, Sicarius turned back toward the lake, pushing for maximum speed again. An ominous
clink-thunk
started in the engine, and the cab shuddered with each revolution of the wheels. Finally, the camp came into sight, a few dark buildings and cabins against the white snow. There were no lamps burning behind the shutters. The men must have heeded his warning to flee.

Sicarius glanced behind him again, hoping the soul construct might have taken a few moments to recover, but it wasn’t more than fifty meters back, its legs pumping to gain ground.

Without slowing, he ran the lorry all the way to the bank, jumping free of the cab before it plunged over the edge. Ice shattered beneath its mass, but, before it continued far, it struck a submerged piling or boulder, resulting in a crash that must have been heard in Fort Urgot.

When Sicarius landed, he was already running. As he turned onto the dock, the construct came into sight, tearing around the corner of a building so fast that its paws slipped on the ice and snow. The slip scarcely slowed it down. In one mighty jump, it leaped onto the concrete dock, twisting in the air so it wouldn’t overshoot its target. All four paws touched down, and it bounded after Sicarius.

The red circle painted on the concrete was barely visible under the starlight, and he almost overran his own target. He dove off the right side of the dock, arrowing into the water. Its grasp was so cold, so icy, that the shock pelted his body like a hammer striking an anvil. But he knew he couldn’t hesitate, not for a heartbeat, or he was dead.

His knuckles smashed into steel. The trap, no the hatch. Good. He found the opening and squirmed through it.

The creature smashed into the surface of the water above him. A wave of force propelled him into the trap so hard, he rammed into the bottom. He righted himself and started to swim for the opening on the side, but he paused. What if the construct had landed on the open hatch, slamming it shut instead of swimming in as Sicarius had planned?

He peered upward, trying to see through the inky blackness of the steel-walled trap. The water outside and the sky above were nearly as dark, but he did make out the opening in the ceiling, then the darkness as something blotted out the light. There. It was coming.

Sicarius stroked for the hole in the side. He didn’t want to dart out too quickly, before the construct committed to entering, but if he waited too long, the thing would simply—

Claws raked into his calf, and pain surged up his leg. Sicarius clamped down on the feeling, not letting it stir panic, but it urged him to make a quick escape. He grabbed the lip of the hole and yanked himself out, twisting in the water to grab the hatch on the side. Numbness from the icy lake was already creeping into his extremities, and his fingers fumbled uncharacteristically. He slammed the covering shut, but it took precious time to secure the latch.

Worried the soul construct would have already seen the trap for what it was, Sicarius darted up to the top, angling straight for the other hatch. The cursed darkness made it impossible to see inside the steel cube—was the creature still inside? Had it already escaped? Maybe it waited right behind him, ready to gnash down on his skull.

Sicarius threw the hatch shut regardless. Except it didn’t close. It caught on something. A paw. The soul construct was in there. Good. But it was trying to get out. Not good.

Another paw batted at the hatch from below. In the water, Sicarius lacked leverage. He wouldn’t be able to hold the lid shut once the creature threw some effort into escaping—it must not have quite figured out the situation yet. Sicarius lifted the hatch and hammered it down. He couldn’t hurt the construct, but maybe it’d be startled enough to yank its paw back. If he could get the cover shut, he could throw the latch.

The paw didn’t budge. In the freezing blackness, Sicarius didn’t see it, but he sensed it sweep out, its claws scraping against the steel as they raked about, trying to catch him. Once more he lifted the lid and hammered it down again, trying to grind the hatch shut, to convince the creature to pull its claw back. His leg burned, and his air was running out.

More pressure pushed against the hatch. He’d have to let go, try something else. But what?

A boom thundered, the sound powerful even under water. The force nearly threw him off the hatch, but he kept his grip with his hands, though his legs were flung to the other side. The trap lurched, and the paw disappeared back inside. Sicarius hurried to take advantage, hammering the hatch shut one more time. This time metal clanged against metal. He threw the three latches designed to secure the door against tremendous force. And hoped they’d be enough.

Sicarius swam for the surface. He’d no more than popped up when a burning piece of wreckage splatted into the water, not three inches from his eyes. He blinked up at the sky, not certain if more would pour down, and not knowing at first what could have exploded.

Oh, he realized, as he swam for the dock. The lorry. He snorted and pulled himself out of the water. The smoldering wreck in the shallows was still spitting burning coal and shrapnel into the night. Amaranthe would be proud.

A stiff gust of wind battered at Sicarius’s damp clothing. He needed to strip and find a place to warm up, or he’d be in danger of losing digits—maybe more—but he had one more task to complete.

He raced to the base of the dock and around the building to find the crane. He’d stoked the furnace before he’d left, and it didn’t take much to stir the coals to life. The water in the boiler was still hot, and it held enough steam to drive the crane down the dock and out to the red paint. He maneuvered the arm with numb, shaking hands, trying to find the hook in the top of the trap by feel. His legs were numb, too, and when he tried to wriggle his toes in his boots, he couldn’t feel them. Blood as well as water ran down his leg.

Sicarius finally found the hook, and lifted the trap out of the water. Numb hands or not, he could feel the reverberations as the construct flung itself against the steel walls of its new cage. As soon as it cleared the water, Sicarius maneuvered the vehicle toward the end of the dock. He drove it as far as he could, then swung the crane back and forth a couple of times. The cables creaked and the crane groaned beneath the weight, but he managed to use the momentum to release the trap at the right time, hurling it into deeper water. With luck, the construct would remain down there for a very long time. He’d have to deal with the practitioner to ensure nobody would find it and release it any time soon, but not tonight. He gazed north over the placid black waters of the lake, toward Fort Urgot. The sky was brighter there, an indication of all the lanterns and perhaps fires burning in that direction.

He hopped out of the crane, intending to run all the way to the fort, but a massive gush of water sounded behind him. He whirled back toward the end of the dock… and stared. A massive dome shape was rising from the lake, its body blocking the entire view of the city on the opposite shoreline.

The Behemoth.

Amaranthe. Sicarius swallowed. Was she on it? Was she the reason it was coming out of the water? Or had Forge chosen this moment, when the city was all indoors, staying out of the cold night, to move the craft? Maybe they’d captured Amaranthe and decided they had to run before someone else came down after them.

Sicarius had never seen the
Behemoth
lift off, and he didn’t know what to expect, but the craft had an unanticipated wobble to it. It lurched, half of it dipping back toward the water, then recovered. He backed up, feeling vulnerable on the dock. But the craft wasn’t heading his way. It continued to climb until he could see the city lights again beneath it. He thought it would keep going, disappearing into the starry night, but it lurched again, one side dipping.

Then it plummeted, not back into the lake, but downward at an angle. His breath froze. A northward angle. Toward Fort Urgot.

• • •

Amaranthe didn’t waste words as they raced through the corridors. She simply ran, Books and Akstyr pounding after her, and they veered onto the nearest ramp leading up. Reaching this lifeboat wouldn’t be enough. They’d have to figure out how to get inside and how to fly away. Or swim away. Or… who knew? She had no idea if the
Behemoth
was in the air, on land, or in the water. The blasted thing could at least have a window here or there.

“That should be it.” Books pointed to a short dead end.

Amaranthe raced to the far wall.

Akstyr hesitated in the intersection. “Are you sure? Those cubes are right behind us. We’ll be trapped if we get stuck down there.”

“Books?” Amaranthe waved uselessly at the wall.

“Oh, I see. I’m the expert here now.” He tapped about, trying to illuminate the runes that should be there somewhere.

“You’ve opened two doors to my none. That makes you a downright professional.”

Books found the runes, this time on the left instead of on the right and in more of an orange color.

“Uh oh.” Amaranthe didn’t recognize any of them.

“Cubes are in sight,” Akstyr called from the intersection.

“Blighted ancestors,” she said, “we’ll have to run, try another lifeboat. If we can find it.”

Books tapped one of the runes and pushed in and turned another. A door slid upward. “It’s the same pattern as was on that cabinet she opened,” he said.

Thank his ancestors for paying attention.

“Is it safe in there?” Akstyr asked, then yelped and raced toward them. “It had better be!”

A horizontal crimson beam burned through the air in the intersection behind him. Akstyr darted through the doorway and into a dark cubby without stopping to check inside. With few other options, Amaranthe and Books jumped in after him. For all she could see, they might have jumped into a cider barrel without so much as an unstoppered bunghole to illuminate the interior. The only light came from outside, from the door still yawning open.

“Uh, we might want to close that,” Akstyr said.

“I’m trying.” Books was patting all around the opening.

The floor tilted again, down to the left, then quickly back to the right. Were they flying? Or floating on the surface of the lake? Amaranthe wished she knew.

The cubes appeared in the intersection.

“Not good.” Amaranthe lifted her rifle.

They rotated slowly, their crimson orifices coming into view. It’d be useless, but she shot at one. What else could she do?

The cubes didn’t bother incinerating her bullet this time. It simply clanged off the front of one, and it ignored it. They floated closer, the holes glowing in preparation.

“There’s nothing in here,” Books cried, desperation in his voice, something that’d often accompanied his words in tight situations early on. They were perfectly justified this time. “I can’t find it anywhere.”

“Take cover,” Amaranthe said, shooting again.

As if there were cover. She flattened herself against one wall, while Books leaned against the other, but their chamber was so tiny, there were only a couple of inches of wall on either side of the door. Akstyr had fallen to the floor.

“Too tired,” he groaned.

Amaranthe almost grabbed him, but he had as much cover down there as she did. The first beam lanced out, slicing through the air in the center of the doorway. It bit into the metal or whatever comprised the front of their supposed lifeboat. Smoke filled the air.

A second beam joined the first, and they started moving, one beam to the left, toward Books, and one toward the right, toward Amaranthe. She patted about on the wall, hoping to find a weapon or controls for the door. Anything, cursed ancestors, anything.

The beam inched closer. She dropped to the floor beside Akstyr.

“I don’t know who designed a lifeboat without a door that closes, but it’s a severe design flaw,” she growled.

Inevitably the cubes drew closer, and the beam lowered toward the floor, toward Akstyr and toward her. From her back, Amaranthe fired one more time, uselessly.

Her bullet landed, not with a clang, but with a concussive boom. The force of the explosion threw her into the air so hard and so high that she struck the ceiling. Or maybe that was the wall—the entire chamber seemed to flip onto its side. Pain bludgeoned her like a locomotive, her hip and her arm pounding into one wall, and then she hit another wall as the world spun again. Had she somehow blown up one of the cubes? How could such a small object contain such an explosive force?

Cries of surprise and pain came from Books and Akstyr, too, and the lights in the hallway went out. Everything went out. Or maybe the door had finally shut. Amaranthe couldn’t see a thing.

The world stopped moving, and she dropped one final time, hitting the floor with her other hip. She groaned and had no more than lifted her head—though what good that movement would do just then, she didn’t know—when a soft thrum ran through the chamber. There was a brief surge—acceleration?—and then a wan gray light entered the chamber.

After the darkness, even the weak illumination made Amaranthe blink, shielding her eyes with her hand. When her vision came into focus, she found herself staring through her fingers at a starry night sky.

“We’re outside?” she asked.

A stupid question, she supposed, but she was so disoriented that she couldn’t figure out what had happened. Amaranthe tried to sit up, to gauge her injuries. She didn’t think she’d broken anything, but in the morning she’d have lumps bigger than those love apples Maldynado was always talking about.

“Books?” She touched a dark form beneath her, and then the other. “Akstyr?”

They weren’t moving. Everyone was crumpled on the floor, their limbs entangled in the confined space. Amaranthe’s earlier assessment, comparing the space to a cider keg, wasn’t that far off. The rounded walls didn’t possess any visible instruments or gauges, though the front had disappeared, replaced by a window of some sort. A translucent barrier, might be a better term, as nothing so familiar as glass shielded them from the outside. She remembered escaping through a similar door the last time she’d left the
Behemoth
and wondered if that would become the new exit. The old door, the one through which they’d entered this “lifeboat” was sealed shut.