Someone shook Books. He pushed away the fog hazing his mind and focused on the face above him. Basilard. A rifle fired nearby. Akstyr.
“Mal?” Books rasped. A film of fine dirt caked his tongue.
Basilard pointed into the chamber.
“Is he...?” Books started.
A commotion interrupted him.
“Hah, missed me, you badger-kissing slag pile!” came Maldynado’s voice from the far side of the chamber.
Books rolled onto his belly. Pain pulsed through his head, but he squinted through it and found Maldynado. He harried the constructs with his rapier, though the thin blade did little against their metal hides.
“Making friends, is he?” Books knelt and crawled to the edge of their dwindling perch. Another shot or two from that cannon, and the ledge would be dust.
But the constructs had changed their focus to Maldynado. He jumped and waved, evading their projectiles.
“Idiot,” Books said. “What’s he doing? If he can do that, he can make it back up here.”
“He said he’d distract them so you could come up with something bright,” Akstyr said.
“Oh. That’d be noble if it wasn’t...stupid.”
“You calling Maldynado nobly stupid?” Akstyr asked. “Or stupidly noble?”
“I can hear you!” Maldynado jumped out of the path of two bipeds trying to corner him.
Come up with something bright, Books thought. Yes, that was supposed to be his job. “Akstyr, Basilard, give me your powder.”
They poured out a few rounds worth, then complied. Books found the other fuses and crafted two more explosives. How could he take out all of the constructs with so little? He had to get them all in one place somehow.
Maldynado yelped in pain. “Metal-headed dogs!”
Books did not look up in time to see the attack, but Maldynado clutched his arm. Blood flowed through his fingers. Still cursing, he dodged another harpoon, but all of the constructs were targeting him, pressing him back against the wall.
“Get out of there, fool!” Books called.
Basilard shot, but his ball ricocheted off without deterring the target. Books still had the unloaded pistol, and he could light one of the fuses, but Maldynado was in the middle of the mess.
“I’m trying!” Maldynado faked a step one direction, then angled for a gap between two of the constructs, but, through some intelligence no machine should have, they anticipated him and narrowed the opening.
A serrated blade spun out, veering toward his head. Maldynado scrambled backward, but his heel caught on the uneven ground. He went down.
Basilard jumped off the ledge and sprinted in to help. Books snapped the hammer on the flintlock, trying to light the fuse. Maybe if he threw the powder toward the backside of the constructs....
Before a spark landed on his fuse, he spotted movement at the tunnel entrance.
“Now what?” he groaned, fearing the shaman had decided to come help his creations.
But Sicarius burst out of the tunnel, and Amaranthe hustled after, an arm clutching her belly.
Taking the situation in with a glance, Sicarius flowed across the chamber and leaped onto the back of the construct with the saw. His black knife appeared in his hand, and he slipped it into creases between sheets of metal covering the machine’s innards.
YOU ARE READING
The Emperor's Edge 2: Dark Currents
FantasyIt's been three months since former enforcer Amaranthe Lokdon and the notorious assassin Sicarius thwarted kidnappers and saved the emperor's life. The problem? Nobody knows they were responsible for this good deed. Worse, they're being blamed for t...
