Forged in Blood II (11 page)

“Very funny, Bas,” Maldynado said.

Tikaya looked back again, this time studying Basilard’s hand signs. Keeping an eye out for soldiers and enforcers, Amaranthe missed half of the quick comments, though she did catch something about Sicarius applying his knife to the hat much the way he had to Akstyr’s hair.

Sicarius. Amaranthe shifted her focus from the streets around them to the lake and the fields and foothills in the distance on the other side. Was Sicarius out there somewhere, even now? Still hunting the soul construct to ensure it couldn’t harm Sespian? She couldn’t help but feel he should have found it by now if he sought it, for it’d happily seek
him
with its claws and fangs blazing as soon as he drew close. If he was… still alive, he should have returned by now. What else could he be doing? Hunting the practitioner that had summoned the construct as well? A dangerous mission for one man, even one as formidable as he.

“What is that language?” Tikaya asked, walking backward now, watching Basilard’s half of the continuing conversation. “It reminds me of the Mangdorian hunting code, but—” Her heel slipped on the slick cement street, and she stumbled, arms flailing.

Though startled, Amaranthe reacted reflexively, catching the professor’s elbow and shifting her weight to keep her from hitting the ground. Barely. Arrows spilled from Tikaya’s quiver, and her rucksack slid halfway off her back. Maldynado and Basilard rushed forward to help right her. The soldiers, no doubt under orders from Starcrest to keep his wife safe, rushed forward, too, and Amaranthe found herself pushed out of the way.

“I’m fine,” Tikaya said, straightening her pack and waving away the small legion trying to help her. “Thank you.” The freckles and pale skin did little to hide her reddening cheeks. “I believe I’ll walk facing forward now.”

“Always a good idea when visiting a foreign nation, my lady.” Maldynado smiled at her and bowed, the felt tendrils flopping about his face.

More usefully, Basilard picked up her fallen arrows and handed them back to her.

“Thank you,” Tikaya said again, returning them to the quiver. “Good advice, yes, though I can trip when I’m facing forward too. Rias is usually around to catch me, fortunately, and I’ve yet to break any bones. Though I imagine sprains are slow to heal here without the use of—are practitioners still forbidden here?”

“Not so much forbidden as hanged when spotted,” Amaranthe said as they resumed walking. “Would you like me to carry anything?”

Thanks to the professor’s six feet of height, the rucksack didn’t seem oversized or unwieldy on her, but it
was
bulky and heavy, with jars or something similar pushing bumps into the canvas. In addition, the longbow and quiver were attached to it.

“I can handle it, thank you.” Tikaya waved. “You have your own load.”

“Just food and water and first aid supplies. You’re right in that nobody here can fix a sprained ankle with his mind.” Amaranthe thought of mentioning Akstyr, but he was still sleeping at the factory and hadn’t come along. Amaranthe ought to be sleeping, too, but she’d woken from a nightmare during her attempt at an afternoon nap and had had no wish to return to her bed.

Basilard moved up to walk on Tikaya’s other side, so she wouldn’t have to crane her neck around to observe him. He signed,
Hunting code. Yes. With additions.
He raised his eyebrows.
You understand?

“The original language, yes,” Tikaya said. “Additions, interesting. Because you can’t speak?”

Basilard touched the scar tissue at his throat and nodded.

“Ah, I’d be most curious to learn what you’ve done with the simple code. Has it been documented anywhere?”

Basilard shook his head.
It’s all made up. Nothing real.

“That’s how
all
language starts,” Tikaya said. “Words are born out of necessity to communicate.”

But only a few of us speak it.

Tikaya couldn’t know anything except the original terms, but she seemed to read between the lines—or the signs, as it were—and picked up the gist of Basilard’s sentences now that she knew what she was looking for. “In the Pasas Unius Chain, there are only seven people left alive who speak the aboriginal tongue of D’skhmk Mk.”

Amaranthe blinked at the name or word or whatever it had been. Had there been any vowels? She didn’t think so.

“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 succumbed 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?”