Forged in Blood I (6 page)

Sicarius took special note of the information; Ridgecrest and his troops might be available to the right man. The only other pertinent information he’d gathered, more through a lack of mentions or sightings than via positive confirmation, was that the Forge people were not staying in the Barracks.

A maid pushing a squeaky mop bucket passed below Sicarius without looking up. He’d wait for the talkative two to leave, then return to his comrades. They’d be restless, waiting for him to come back to the furnace room where he’d left them, and he didn’t want to be away from Sespian for long regardless, not with some other potential assassin roaming the Barracks, agenda unknown.

The maids closed the guest room door and trundled away with their linens cart. Sicarius waited for silence to descend upon the hall, then dropped to the marble floor without a sound. He unscrewed a vent cover, wriggled into the warm duct inside, affixed the grate again, and improvised with a curved lock pick to refasten the screws from within.

Traveling through the Barracks’ hypocaust system was neither quick nor efficient, but it allowed him to bypass halls full of soldiers, guests, and guards without notice. He crawled a few dozen meters, then slipped down a vertical shaft, descending three floors to come out in the furnace room in the basement.

Sespian, Books, and Akstyr were still waiting, though hiding. They stepped out from behind the coal bins when Sicarius popped out of the vent. Someone must have come in to stoke the fires while he’d been gone. It didn’t matter, so long as his team hadn’t been noticed.

“Did you run into trouble?” Books asked.

“An opportunity to eavesdrop.” Sicarius brushed the cobwebs and dust off his black clothing, though he knew he’d return to the ducts again shortly. “Ravido has taken the Barracks.”

“Not surprising,” Books said. “I’m sure he moved quickly and without asking permission.”

Sespian scowled. “Did he wait a week after the announcement of my death to move in? Or was he taking over the imperial suite the very next day?”

“The same day,” Sicarius said.

“Lovely,” Sespian said.

“That’s disgusting,” Akstyr said. “He’s probably in your bed right now, sheet wrangling with some serving wench.”

“Ravido is married,” Books said. “Or he was. I wonder if he’s learned of Mari’s death.”

“Do you think being married would matter?” Akstyr asked. “If he’s half as horny as Maldynado…”

Sicarius was on the verge of saying something to end the pointless diversion, but Sespian spoke first.

“I doubt Ravido has time for wrangling anyone right now. Regardless, I hadn’t moved out of my childhood suite, the last year having been rather fraught and busy.” Sespian scowled again, and Sicarius wondered what wringers the Forge people had mashed him through since Hollowcrest’s death. He had the impression they’d started applying pressure promptly. He’d like more details, but Sespian still didn’t deign to talk to him without Amaranthe in the room, encouraging them to “bond.”

Sespian released the scowl and met Sicarius’s gaze. “I don’t suppose you saw a tan-colored cat with dark brown paws and a mask when you were eavesdropping about, did you?”

“A cat?” Sicarius had been thinking of pains his son had endured in the previous year, and he was worried about… a cat?

Sespian cleared his throat. “Yes, I’ve been worried… I mean, it’s just a pet of course.” His wave of dismissal wasn’t genuine. “But I’m hoping someone’s been feeding him, and that he hasn’t met with… trouble with all those extra soldiers stomping about.”

“I have not seen such a cat,” Sicarius said.

Books patted Sespian on the shoulder, drawing a quick, sad smile.

Sicarius realized that he’d done something wrong—again—in dealing with his son. He should have offered sympathy, or at least the appearance of sympathy. He didn’t know if it was within him to honestly dredge up such an emotion, but the trying might matter to Sespian. Yet Sespian would shy away from a hand pat from him, and that would leave him feeling… awkward. That emotion he could somewhat understand. Unfortunately.

“I will watch for it going forward.” Sicarius pointed to the vent. “Come. I will lead the way to Hollowcrest’s suite.”

“Maybe your cat will be in there, pissing on the old general’s shoes,” Akstyr said.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.” Sespian chuckled. “He has a feisty streak.”

Halfway through the vent opening, Sicarius paused to stare at him. How could Akstyr’s crude, ill-considered comment evoke laughter.
Pleasure
?

Sespian caught the stare and shrugged self-consciously. “I may have trained, er, encouraged him to do such things. When I was much younger of course.”

“How much younger?” Books asked, his eyes sly.

“Uhm, not as young as you’d think for something like that.”

Akstyr smirked. “He was probably eighteen.”

Feeling the conversation had grown pointless again, Sicarius headed into the ductwork. The others would follow. And if they didn’t… he wasn’t positive he wanted people digging into Hollowcrest’s old files and snooping into his past. He doubted there was anything aristocratic in his heritage that would change the populace’s opinion of Sespian’s right, as an assassin’s son, to rule. Amaranthe was being idealistic. Or maybe she’d designed this side trip so that Sespian would have a glimpse into the harsh childhood Hollowcrest and Emperor Raumesys had inflicted on Sicarius. No doubt she thought it’d evoke sympathy in the boy. Sicarius did not blame her for trying—he’d come to appreciate that she cared enough to do so—but some things were best left forgotten.

He reached the vertical duct that led to the upper floors and paused, listening for the scuffs and exhalations that would tell him the others followed. Akstyr and Books bumped their elbows and knees against the tile walls numerous times. It pleased him that Sespian moved more quietly, as if he’d had training in the art of stealth. Weaponsmaster Orik’s lessons must have been more thorough than Sicarius realized—or Sespian less adept at evading them than he’d heard.

“Make no noise as we climb,” Sicarius said when the others, Books and Akstyr in particular, were close enough to hear. “As we continue, the ducts will travel between floors and room walls. People inside will be able to hear noises.”

Not surprisingly, the grunts of acquiescence held a sullen undertone. Sicarius found it interesting that Amaranthe always managed to command the men without evoking similar displays of disgruntlement.

Sicarius removed her from his thoughts. He would need his concentration for climbing and remaining silent. It would not do for
him
to make noise.

Hot air swirled about him as they climbed up the shaft. The main arterials of the hypocaust system were made from ceramic tile, and the grouted spots between them offered the only semblances of handholds. He ascended, his palms alternately pressing to either side, feet likewise braced. His mind flashed to a recent instance where he’d been in a similar position, wedged into that smokestack on the steamboat with Amaranthe, her body scant inches from his. It took more effort to push
that
memory out of his thoughts, but he did so ruthlessly, reminded of Hollowcrest’s oft-repeated words, “A distracted warrior is a dead warrior.”

When he reached the third floor, where the suites of the royal family, commander of the armies, and honored guests awaited, he slipped into the horizontal duct that led to Hollowcrest’s old office. He had to wait for the others to catch up and, to keep his mind from straying into distracted territory again, ran through a sensory check—touch, smell, sound, feel—of the dark area. He did such checks automatically, whether he thought of them or not, but the formality of raising it to a conscious level occupied his mind in an acceptable manner.

He turned his nose toward the darkness ahead, detecting… what? He sniffed. It was the Nurian smoke again.

“We’re all here,” Sespian whispered.

“I know.” Despite testing the environment, Sicarius had been aware of the others reaching the horizontal duct and crawling into it. “Come.”

He swirled through the maze of ducts he’d memorized long ago, bringing them into the wall between Hollowcrest’s rooms and the guest suite to their side. One of the vents opened to the bedchamber and another to the office. Sicarius veered toward the latter. As expected, darkness filled the room beyond the grate. The air smelled stale—nobody had opened a window and freshened the suite in some time. Good. Sicarius had begun to wonder if they would encounter the other intruder, going to the same place as they were, but the ducts had branched a few times since he’d last smelled the smoke odor.

Using one of his more versatile picks—and painstaking patience—he once again unfastened the vent screws from within. Soundlessly, he set the metal grate to the side and slipped out. While the others exited, he prowled about, ensuring his first instinct had been correct and that the rooms were indeed empty. He checked the main door leading into the hall and found it locked, no doubt to discourage casual snooping. He wondered who had the key.

“I pulled the curtain so nobody will see any light,” Books was saying when Sicarius returned to the office. “Any thoughts on where we should start searching?”

“Yes.”

In the darkness, Sicarius walked to a coal stove in the corner and pushed one of the rear legs with his toe. He didn’t hear the secret door open, but its draft stirred his hair. In the narrow, windowless room inside, he had pulled several files out of cabinets by the time Books lit his lantern and found him.

“This is disappointing,” Akstyr said when he stepped inside. He ticked a nail against one of the featureless wooden cabinets that lined one wall. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases occupied the others. There was barely room inside to squeeze past the desk and sit in the chair. “You’d expect a secret inner chamber to be more interesting than a little office.”

“By interesting, do you mean full of decapitated heads and various other grisly trophies of defeated enemies?” Books asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“My fath— the emperor’s tastes were more along those lines.” Sespian squeezed into the room behind Akstyr.

“Can we visit
his
offices?”

“No,” Books said.

Aware of the confined space and the number of people blocking the exit, Sicarius twitched a finger toward Books, then left the files on the desk and returned to the main suite where there’d be room to maneuver in a fight. He would have liked to remove himself further from the conversation, which devolved into further speculation from Akstyr on what the old emperor’s vices might have been, but was reluctant to leave Sespian unguarded. Sicarius
should
check on the imperial suite though. It wasn’t much farther down the hall, and Amaranthe would want to know what Ravido planned next. He might have left documents secured in his new quarters.

Of course, if Sicarius simply killed Ravido, the general’s plans would be moot, and Forge would have to pause to develop a new strategy. Nebulous and elusive, the organization itself would be difficult to decapitate, especially if its members continued to hide behind their technology, but Ravido was a single man, a single target, one who might be on this floor of the Barracks at this very moment.

A throat cleared. “Hear something?”

It was Sespian. He had returned to the larger office and was probably wondering why Sicarius stood motionless, staring at the door.

“No,” Sicarius said. In truth, three people had walked by in the hallway while he’d been contemplating assassinations, but none of their footfalls had slowed down, so he judged them inconsequential.

“Do you think…?” Sespian started, then faltered. He plucked at the seam of his trousers.

Sicarius faced him and attempted to look approachable, though facial expressions were not his strength, especially when he was
trying
. Between his weapons, his black attire, and the shadows, he’d probably fail utterly at “approachable” anyway. “Yes?” he asked, settling on an oral prompt.

“If Ravido is in the Barracks,” Sespian said, “maybe we should do something about him while we’re here.”

By now, Sicarius knew that “do something about him,” didn’t mean kill him, at least not when Sespian or Amaranthe said it. “Such as?”

“I don’t know. Kidnap him?”

“To what end?” Sicarius imagined Amaranthe trying to talk Ravido over to their side. He doubted it’d be possible, but watching her attempt to do so might elicit sensations of levity.

“If we could keep him away from Forge and the army while we enact our plan…”

Killing him would be much easier. Sicarius resisted the urge to say it, though the dozens of difficulties inherent in a kidnapping stampeded into his mind. Even if they found Ravido alone, how could they force him to navigate the ducts—or drag his unconscious body through them—without making noise? Sicarius ought to squash the notion, but if nothing came of his backup plan, and Sespian ended up back on the throne, he’d have to take orders from the boy eventually. That had been what he wished once, he recalled, what he’d had in mind when he poisoned Raumesys.

“I will check to see if Ravido is here,” Sicarius said. “It’s moot otherwise.”

“Agreed. And don’t… I know what you must be thinking. Please don’t take it into your hands to kill him. While I have no reason to love the man and admit there’s a certain practicality to the idea, I can’t win the throne back that way. I don’t deserve it if I have to become the very monsters I wish to displace. Besides, in the people’s eyes, if I had him assassinated, I’d be no better than…” Sespian had been looking Sicarius in the eyes as he spoke, but he broke contact now, studying the floor instead. “It wouldn’t be a popular choice with the people or the rest of the warrior caste. Given that I’m no longer the automatic blood choice, I’ll need a majority vote from the Company of Lords to be reappointed. They’d only approve of me eliminating Ravido if I bested him in a duel or some blood-flinging, eye-gouging, one-on-one grappling competition. Those aren’t exactly my fortes.”

Though Sespian grimaced as he spoke those last sentences, Sicarius wondered if the thoughts represented an opportunity. “If you feel you’re deficient in martial endeavors, I could instruct you.”