Deadly Games (2 page)

“It’s fine,” Amaranthe said. “He’s my most
trusted ally.”

“That’d be more comforting if you hadn’t just
admitted to being wanted by the law,” Fasha said.

“You didn’t think you’d find a Science-savvy
mercenary team in the empire without a few eccentricities, did
you?” Amaranthe asked.

“The barracks,” Sicarius repeated, cutting
out whatever reply Fasha might have made.

“I’ll sneak by the enforcers and check it
out,” Amaranthe told him. “I won’t be long. You can wait outside.
If they try to drag me off to Enforcer Headquarters, you can be
nice and provide a distraction so I can slip away. A
non-death-causing distraction.”

“The last time you went into the enemy camp
while I waited outside,” Sicarius said, “someone threw a blasting
stick at me.”

“As I recall it was
at
the position
you’d recently vacated, but, thanks to your hyper-vigilance, fast
reflexes, and quick mind, you evaded the attack and were long gone
when the cliff top crumbled.”

Amaranthe smiled, hoping to tease a light
response out of Sicarius, something that might show Fasha he had a
side that was not entirely dark and scary.

Birds twittered in the branches of trees
lining the road. Thunks and whistles of steam came from within the
stadium, signifying the Clank Race gearing up.

Finally, Sicarius spoke. “I see. Your plan is
to flatter your way past the enforcers.”

Amaranthe’s smile did not fade. “If the plan
doesn’t work, maybe so.”

She left Sicarius to the shadows and led
Fasha to the athlete complex, a mix of permanent structures and
brightly colored tents set up to house visiting competitors from
across the empire. Men and women jogged or bicycled past, some
heading off to train, others stopping at the food pavilions first.
A steam carriage chugged past, rumbling up a circular drive to the
majestic travertine lodge reserved for warrior caste athletes.
Enforcers guarded the front door of the women’s barracks. Amaranthe
mulled over how to get in and out before full daylight came, making
it easy to recognize faces.

Instead of veering in that direction, she
angled off the main road toward a pair of dome-shaped brick
buildings: men’s and women’s bathhouses. Smoke wafted from the
chimneys, signifying the floors and pools were already warm.

“You wish to bathe before investigating?”
Fasha asked.

“I could use it.” Amaranthe plucked at her
shirt, still damp from the stair-running session. “But, no.”

She headed for the entrance of the women’s
bathhouse—no enforcers guarded those doors.

Steam wrapped about them as they headed in,
obscuring visibility, but Amaranthe had visited the complex before
and knew the layout. She slipped into the dressing room, found no
one inside changing, and plucked someone’s white togs out of a
niche.

“You’re stealing people’s clothing?” Fasha
asked.

Already changing, Amaranthe thought about
spouting some justification about it being for the good of the
empire, but she never would have bought that from a thief when she
had been an enforcer. Oh, well. “Sandals, too,” she said.

On the way out, she grabbed a few towels. She
wound one around her hair, draped another across her shoulders, and
handed Fasha a third. She found a satchel and hid her own clothing
and her knife—the closest thing to a weapon she had brought for the
morning training session—inside.

“Two lady athletes returning from the baths
to change before breakfast,” Amaranthe said.

Fasha sniffed at her. “Let’s hope the
enforcers’ sense of smell is as poor as their sense of magic.”

“Your Turgonian is quite good,” Amaranthe
said instead of responding to the dig.

It occurred to her that this could be a
setup. What if some early-rising enforcer had spotted Sicarius and
her training and, knowing he could not take them on in the open,
arranged a trap? More than one bounty hunter had attempted to get
close by feigning an interest in hiring them.

“I’m the daughter of a chief,” Fasha said.
“I’ve been educated.”

“What did you say your sister’s name is
again?”

“Keisha.”

“And she’s how old?”

“Sixteen.”

“Why don’t you tell me more about your tribe
and why you’re here competing,” Amaranthe said, heading toward the
barracks.

Fasha’s brow crinkled, but she complied.
Amaranthe listened to the story and asked more questions as they
walked, seeking inconsistencies or hesitations that would suggest
the woman was making it up as she went. Everything sounded
plausible, though, and by the time they neared the barracks,
Amaranthe decided she was being paranoid.

Two men with short swords and crossbows stood
guard on either side of the front door. She did not recognize
either—since Barlovoc Stadium was located on the southern end of
the city, there was little chance of her running into someone she
had worked with—but that did not mean they would not recognize her.
Though her wanted poster did not decorate the city as profusely as
Sicarius’s, it was out there.

Amaranthe adjusted her towel wrap and climbed
the stairs. “You didn’t run here last year, so you don’t know,” she
told Fasha, “but the sand on the track doesn’t feel very well
packed. It might make it easy to lose your footing.”

“Uhm, yes, maybe so,” Fasha said. “Do you
think...”

One of the enforcers grabbed Amaranthe’s arm
as she tried to walk through the door. Cursed ancestors, she had
hoped to at least get inside to snoop about before being
caught.

“What are you doing with her?” the enforcer
demanded.

Amaranthe blinked. “What?”

The enforcer, a young man who could not be
more than a year or two out of the academy, pointed at Fasha while
scowling so fiercely he threatened to snap a tendon in his neck.
“She’s a Kendorian.”

Ah, of course. There must be quite a few
annoyed with the new policy, allowing foreigners into the Imperial
Games.

Amaranthe shrugged. “She’s running in the
same events as I am.”

The second enforcer, whose rumpled uniform
and bleary eyes might have meant he had been on shift all night,
stabbed Fasha in the shoulder with a finger. “She was out here,
spouting about magic last night. We ought to have thrown her in the
wagon. And any imperial woman who colludes with her as well.”

Amaranthe groaned inwardly. She had never
seen Sicarius laugh, and she did not want the first instance to
come because she was foolish enough to get arrested for someone
else’s crime.

Fasha lifted her chin. “I’ve done nothing
wrong. You ignorant Turgonians should be ashamed of yourselves for
heckling athletes.”

“Ignorant?” The first enforcer reached for
the handcuffs dangling from his belt hook. “You—”

Amaranthe pushed Fasha back and glided
between the enforcers. She lifted a hand to her lips and whispered
out of the side of her mouth, “I’m on it.”

“Er, huh?” The enforcers shared perplexed
looks.

“Watching the suspicious foreigner,”
Amaranthe murmured. “She came to the track babbling about
kidnappings and magic. As if either would happen at such a
well-guarded venue.”

The wrinkled foreheads smoothed. “Oh. Of
course, that’s right.”

“You gentlemen can’t go inside the women’s
barracks,” Amaranthe said, “but I can.
I
can watch her and
let you know if she does anything suspicious.”

“Yes, yes, right,” they murmured. “You let us
know.”

They drew back and nodded for her to go
inside. Fortunately, Fasha kept her mouth shut and did nothing to
antagonize the men as they passed, entering an open bay dominated
by two long rows of bunk beds. A few held slumbering figures, but
most had been vacated. Women in various states of undress chatted
and tended to their morning ablutions.

“That was embarrassing,” Amaranthe said, as
she and Fasha walked down the aisle.

“That your people are so ignorant about
magic?”

“That those enforcers fell for that. Academy
standards must be slipping.” Amaranthe waved toward the bay.
“Where’s your room?”

“Down there.” Fasha pointed toward a hallway
at the end.

Conversations ceased as they passed.
Amaranthe wondered if she had made a mistake coming in with a
foreigner. She might have acquired information more easily if she
chatted with people independently. One of these women might very
well have something to do with the kidnapping. Another plot to oust
outsiders?

The sound of running water came from latrines
farther down the hallway. Amaranthe would check that direction
later. The back door ought to be guarded similarly to the front,
but perhaps someone could have escaped with a prisoner through a
window, especially if some magic had rendered the prisoner
unconscious. She shook her head, reminding herself she had not yet
determined if anything was truly amiss. Even if Fasha’s sister had
been a daughter of the warrior caste, the enforcers would not have
started searching for her after only one night missing.

Fasha pushed open a door that lacked a lock.
They walked into a simple room with footlockers, two narrow beds,
and a chest between them doubling as a side table. Two tea mugs and
a bag of nuts rested on top next to a low-burning kerosene
lamp.

Amaranthe turned the flame up.

“I looked around to see if she left a
message.” Fasha lingered in the doorway. “But I didn’t touch
anything otherwise.”

“What did you sense exactly to make you think
the Science was involved?” Amaranthe poked about, looking for
anything out of place. She dropped to her belly to peer under the
beds, and her towel wrap flopped off her head.

“It’s hard to explain. Like a residue in the
air.”

One of the tea mugs was half full. Amaranthe
sniffed the herbal concoction. “Is this hers or yours?”

“I’m not sure. They’re from yesterday
morning, I think.”

“Hm.” That would be a slow-acting drug if it
had taken all day to go into effect. Amaranthe wished she had more
of a feel for what was and was not possible in the realm of magic.
She might have to find Akstyr and come back to—

“Has anyone seen Anakha?” a woman asked in
the hallway.

A black-haired, bronze-skinned Turgonian
woman strode past the door, bumping Fasha without noticing. She
strode out of sight, but Amaranthe followed her to the bay.

“Anyone?” the woman asked again. “Anakha?
Tall woman with more muscles than the men.”

“Haven’t seen her since yesterday,” someone
said.

“She never came to bed.”

Murmurs of assent came from others.

“Great grandmother’s bunions,” the original
speaker growled and strode through the bay and out the front
door.

Amaranthe returned to Fasha. “Have you heard
of any other kidnappings?”

“No.”

“This Anakha, she’s Turgonian?”

“If she’s who I’m thinking of, yes. There’re
only a few of us from outside of the empire.”

“Huh.” Amaranthe scratched her jaw. If this
other missing woman had disappeared in the same manner as
Keisha...it would stomp out her theory of this being a plot against
foreigners.

She spent another ten minutes searching the
room, hoping to find something that would justify this trip into
the barracks, but she found nothing, not even dust balls. “I better
get going. I’ll come back tonight or tomorrow night and bring one
of my men.” Assuming Maldynado had not taken Akstyr to some
week-long brothel experience to celebrate their vacation. Only
Books had spent the night at their latest hideout. Even Basilard,
not a notorious brothel-goer had been gone when Amaranthe awoke.
“If you need help before then, you can find me in the locomotive
boneyard. It’s near the tracks, two miles south of here.”

“You live in a...junkyard? Is that what
boneyard means?”

“Temporary lodgings.”

Amaranthe took the towels, prepared to create
another bath-house-inspired costume, but, when she left the
barracks, nobody stood guard at the top of the steps. She did not
see the enforcers anywhere. A shout almost made her misstep and
tumble down the stairs.

“Sicarius!” a male voice cried. “He went that
way! Enforcers! That way!”

Amaranthe groaned.
What
was he
doing?

* * * * *

The early morning sunlight brightening the
city did not reach the alley where Basilard stood on a half-rotted
wood stoop before a door. Gang graffiti marked the chipped and
broken brick walls around it, and rusty bars protected a window
closed off with oilskin rather than glass. A homeless man snored on
a stoop farther down while a mangy dog pawed through excrement
dumped on the ancient cobblestones. This old neighborhood was not
on the city sewer system, as the smell attested.

Thanks to the knives at his belt and the
scars covering his hands, shaven head, and face, Basilard doubted
anyone would bother him. He was more concerned about dealing with
the woman inside. A sign dangling from rusty hinges read
Apothecary
.

Basilard lifted a fist to knock, but paused.
A bushy tuft of greenery sprouting from a crack caught his
attention. Soroth Stick? Like dandelion and lizard tail, the
Turgonians treated the plant as a weed, but he hopped down from the
stoop and plucked several leaves. They made a tea that soothed
cramps, and, given how much training the team did, such a beverage
was often necessary for replenishing the body.

Since he did not have the foraging satchel he
carried in the wilderness, he tucked the leaves into an inside
pocket in his vest, with a mental reminder to wash them well before
using them. Given this dubious locale, they had probably been peed
on. By multiple species.

Basilard returned to the stoop, but he cast
his gaze about, wondering if the grungy alley might host any other
edible plants.