The Emperor's Edge 2: Dark Currents

The Emperor's Edge 2: Ch. 14 Pt. 1

The first drops of rain spattered, leaving wet stains on the rocks. Wind whistled through the canyon, tugging at Amaranthe’s clothing and battering the tents surrounding her. The moist air smelled of burning coal and a coming storm. The approaching clouds were almost as dark as the black plumes wafting from a pair of steam shovels working on either side of the camp.

Amaranthe sat on her knees before an unlit fire pit. Ropes bound her ankles to her wrists, which were pulled behind her back, making her shoulders ache. The shaman had marched her past piles of limestone on the way in, but she still had no idea what the men sought. Surely not the rock itself.

The shaman strode out of a tent with a slight wiry man at his heels. The attendant clutched scissors in one hand, tweezers in the other, and a bloody rag dangled over his arm.

“Please, wait, sir. I’m not finished.”

The shaman snarled a chain of words in his tongue. The attendant, who had the darker skin and hair of a Turgonian, lifted his arms in bewilderment. “If you would just sit down for a moment...”

The shaman stopped before Amaranthe. From her knees, she had to crane her neck back to find his eyes.

His bone-blade knife came out, and he rested it at her throat. “Before you die, you will speak to me all you know of Sicarius. All weaknesses, all everything.”

She sat straighter. “Does that mean you didn’t find his body? That he’s still alive?”

The shaman had dispatched a team of men to check, but they had not returned yet.

He scowled. “Much rubble. Probably he dead and buried. You tell me his weaknesses anyway.”

“If he has any, I don’t know them.” She shrugged, deciding on a casual response rather than open defiance. She would tell him nothing, but it would be foolish to declare that and imply there was no point in keeping her alive. “Though he is a poor conversationalist. I don’t know, can you use that?”

The shaman glowered. “You are no funny.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Sir,” the attendant said. “You’re bleeding all over camp. Shall I get that pistol ball out first?”

The shaman returned his knife to his sheath. “Yes. Mundane weapons no always best way to get answers, and I must have concentration for other ways. No pain.”

They strode into a nearby tent together, leaving Amaranthe wondering what non-mundane interrogation methods he might subject her to. Best to escape and not find out.

The camp lay deep within the canyon. To escape she would have to run past several pickaxe-wielding workers as well as the ambulatory machinery. One step at a time, she told herself. Hands first.

The bowman sat on a boulder, oiling the limbs of his weapon, glancing at her from time to time. She shifted slightly to keep her hands hidden behind her back while she worked at the ropes, trying to dig a thumbnail into a knot. Inside the tent, the shaman spoke to someone in a language she could not understand. He wasn’t conversing with the Turgonian surgeon. So, who was he talking to?

She had encountered a communication device before, in Larocka’s basement, and wondered if the shaman had one inside. Though he had not asked Amaranthe her name, someone, maybe a lot of someones, would soon know Sicarius was up here. If he wasn’t dead.

Amaranthe did not want to consider that possibility. He was too aware; he would have seen or sensed the attack coming. Even if it was magical. He would have run off the ledge before it collapsed. But, if he was alive, wouldn’t he be doing something to help her escape the camp? And to get rid of the shaman before he could report Sicarius’s whereabouts?