Emperor's Edge Republic (54 page)

Basilard gave him an affirmative, then waved with urgency and pointed toward the south side of the lot. Maldynado couldn’t see anything over there, but he scooted backward, assuming the guard was coming. Or maybe their guest had shown up early. If the sniper spotted Maldynado up on the beam, he would know something was wrong and would flee without ever taking a shot.

“Or he’ll take a shot at
me
,” Maldynado grumbled.

As he reached the closest vertical support post, a lantern came into view around the corner of the building. Yup, that night watchman was ambling along at a good clip. Maldynado skimmed down the post, ignoring the rivets bumping at his legs through his trousers, and landed on the cement slab at the bottom, careful to slow down for a soundless landing.

Without any lights on the site, Maldynado would have expected the shadows to hide him, but a bright three-quarters moon had risen, and the guard was squinting in his direction. Someone must have chosen the midnight hour for sabotage, knowing it wouldn’t be too dark for the sniper to see his target. Good for the sniper, bad for Maldynado. He slipped behind the thick steel post, hoping the guard wasn’t certain he had seen something. Basilard had already melted into the shadows somewhere.

But the guard dropped a hand to a pistol and changed his path, heading straight for the post. Maldynado was debating whether to flee or to attempt to explain himself when the man spun about, facing in the opposite direction. He raised his lantern and pulled the pistol from its holster.

Maldynado didn’t know whether he had Basilard or Sicarius to thank, but he took off in the opposite direction, using the shadows beneath the looming framework to hide his retreat. By the time the guard turned around, Maldynado was out of sight behind the dumpsters at the corner of the lot.

A moment later, Basilard joined him there.

“Are you the one I have to thank for that distraction?” Maldynado whispered.

It was too dark to see Basilard’s response, but he pointed toward an alley across the street. Yes, good idea to leave the site—and the guard who was poking his head around posts and beams, looking all over the place now. They ran across the street, then followed the shadows along the buildings until they reached an alley that had a view of the jug. It would have a view of it for someone with eagle eyes anyway.

“Can you see that from here?” Maldynado asked.

Basilard pointed at the beam.

“That smudge? Are you sure?”

Unfortunately, the alley was also too dark to read his signs.

“It will be easier to see from a rooftop,” Sicarius said from behind them.

Maldynado nearly jumped out of his boots.

You invited him, he reminded himself. No complaining about stealthy approaches.

“A sniper may choose to shoot from the building to our right or the one to the right of it. The lower roof to our left would provide a poor angle.”

“Guess that means he can see it too,” Maldynado said.

“Someone approaches,” Sicarius said.

“Someone with a bow or a rifle who’s obviously here for heinous purposes?”

“It’s Sergeant Yara.”

“Oh, probably not then,” Maldynado said.

“I will watch the rooftops for the approach of this saboteur.”

Maldynado tried to decide from Sicarius’s tone if he thought this mission a waste of time. He definitely gave the impression he had somewhere else he would rather be. Of course, emotionless features and monotone voice notwithstanding, Maldynado usually sensed that from him.

Several seconds later, the soft clinking of handcuffs bumping on a utility belt foretold Evrial’s approach. Maldynado stepped out of the alley to lift a hand toward the shadowy figure, though he would not have been certain it was she and not some other enforcer if not for Sicarius’s warning. Maldynado wondered how he could tell—her height was tall for a woman but not for a man, and the bulky uniform jacket hid her curves. He trusted Sicarius’s instincts though.

“Good evening, my lady,” Maldynado said. “Did you come because you were unable to sleep after your shift, due to the cold emptiness beside you in bed?”

“I came because I was sure you would be arrested by dawn if I didn’t.” Yup, that was Evrial.

Basilard signed something, though Maldynado could only pick out a couple of the gestures. He got the gist though. Basilard’s vote was for Maldynado getting arrested well
before
dawn.

“I also came to tell you that our block has been added to the evacuation list,” Evrial said. “You might want to come back to the flat and pack whatever belongings you don’t want to see devoured by the plant.”

“I can’t leave until we’ve found out who’s behind the sabotage here.”

“I’m not packing your hat collection for you.”

“I don’t need you to. I’ll risk the loss.”

“Fine,” Evrial said. “Though I don’t see why you’re so worried about this building. I can’t believe they’re even continuing with construction in the face of everything that’s going on.”

“Because...” Maldynado turned around, intending to ask Basilard to give them some privacy, but he had already slipped away, joining Sicarius on the rooftops perhaps. “Because this is my chance to prove myself to Starcrest. He thinks... well, I don’t know what he thinks, but I’m guessing he believes me a tad... superfluous.”

“I doubt that’s the word that comes to his mind when he thinks of you.”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not flattering. I haven’t had a chance to make a good impression on him yet. If I can solve this problem, this is my chance to show him I’m... useful.”

“Still angling for a statue?” Evrial asked.

“No, a job.”

She was silent for a moment, gazing toward the building site, watching the guard, his lantern bumping at his side as he made a new circuit. “A job in the city, I assume.”

“I imagine I would go wherever he might want to send me.”

“Which probably wouldn’t be to a little rural town with two streets.”

“Two streets?” Maldynado asked, trying to lighten her somberness. “Were there that many?”

It didn’t work. Evrial folded her arms and continued to stare across to the construction site. “Do you truly want a job or is this just some... strategy to get me to stay. You can’t leave because you have this important government work to do, so naturally I would be the one who would have to give up my dream?”

“Uhm.” Maldynado might have been thinking along those lines, but he hated to admit it. “Are you so determined to leave Stumps? Isn’t there any way...?”

“Maldynado, this promotion... it’s all I ever wanted, all I ever worked for. To be one of the first women at the top of the enforcer ranks.”

“I thought...” Maldynado cleared his throat. “I had hoped that if I got a good job here, you would be open to staying. I know there’s a promotion for you there, but you have a job here, too, and you’re good at what you do. You would get a promotion here sooner rather than later, I’m sure of it.” Especially if Maldynado could indeed get in with the president. “I just can’t see myself in your little town. With all your relatives.”

“They would get used to you.”

“But what would I
do
there?”

Fortunately, she did not point out that he wasn’t
doing
much here. “I don’t know, but it stings that you would be willing to go wherever
Starcrest
tells you, but you won’t even think about going where I... Never mind. I guess I knew from the beginning that we’re... too different.”

Maldynado slumped against the cold brick wall. Was he selfish not to consider it? It wasn’t
that
far away from the city. Or was it less about being selfish and more about sensing that deep down, she had had enough of him?

“I thought the differences made things interesting,” Maldynado said.

“They did. They do. But is ‘interesting’ enough to base a life around?”

Maldynado shrugged helplessly. He hadn’t realized she had been planning the rest of her life. He had thought they were still just having fun.

“I need to go back and pack,” Evrial said. “Good luck with your trap. Be careful.”

Maldynado didn’t say anything as she walked down the alley and disappeared around the corner. Maybe instead of trying to arrange love lives for Sespian and Basilard, he should have been worrying about his own affairs. Or maybe it had just been easier—safer—to deal with someone else’s.

Chapter 21

S
espian crouched at the corner of the building with Mahliki. Two lorries barricaded the street to the north and the south, military lorries that should have been there to defend Starcrest. How had those religious zealots acquired them?

On the other side of the building, a few soldiers were rushing to drag in the diving suits the president had ordered while others covered them, hurling blasting sticks into the riled up greenery. Spot fires burned, but the plant itself never caught flame. Craters dotted the ground around the building, and it was as if they were in the middle of a battlefield rather than on the waterfront in the most populous city in Turgonia. But midnight had come, and the citizens had been evacuated, so the only witnesses to this battle were the combatants and the moon above.

On the rooftop, more soldiers knelt or lay on their stomachs in sniper positions, taking shots at the lorries and the robed figures inside. In the few seconds Sespian watched, bullets that should have cut through the glass windows of the cabs bounced off.

“The Science?” he asked.

“Yes.” Mahliki waved toward the nearest vehicle. “Someone is maintaining shields—the vehicles don’t have the feel of Made devices. The practitioners out there feel clunky—like they’re expending a lot of effort to perform small tasks—so I don’t think they’re particularly well-trained.”

“They don’t need to be to make trouble for us, seeing as we lack anyone with those talents.

“True, but there aren’t that many of them. Maybe three or four with any skill. The rest of the robed men are bruisers acting as bodyguards and cannon fodder for our soldiers. If we can get to the practitioners and knock them out or take them out of the equation somehow, then this simply becomes a firefight between two parties of mundane warriors.”

“Do you think you can identify the practitioners?” Sespian asked.

“They’re in the cabs, those two, I think. I wonder if they’re only shielding the fronts of the lorries or if they’ve thought to extend their defenses to the bottoms as well. A well-placed blasting stick...” Mahliki looked Sespian up and down in the dancing shadows from the nearest fire. “I don’t suppose you brought blasting sticks?”

“No, sorry. Those are
our
lorries after all, the military’s. I didn’t think blowing them up would be a goal.”

“Better them than the
Explorer
. Sespian, if Father doesn’t get that sub fixed up and down in the water... those priests are going to be the only ones who can harm the plant, and I don’t think they realize the magnitude of the problem. A few lightning strikes will be like stealing grains of sand from the beach. Even if they do understand and have something great planned, do we want to be rescued on their terms?”

Though Sespian wasn’t sure Starcrest would approve of his seventeen-year-old daughter running into the middle of this danger, he couldn’t deny her argument. The soldiers had orders to stand their ground and protect the president—and the submarine. He and Mahliki might be the only ones who could try to sneak behind enemy lines to stop the practitioners.

“I’ll get some blasting sticks,” Sespian said.

Mahliki flashed a smile. “Good.”

He darted back into the building through the gaping hole in the side. The fire at the front door had been put out by some of the men on the roof, but the priests were still targeting that area—some of them had rifles as well. Clangs and clanks continued to echo from within the submarine, the sounds faster and more frenzied now. Sespian hoped Starcrest was almost done in there, but at the same time, he was relieved nobody was outside the craft to notice him racing back through the hole with matches and an armful of blasting sticks. He didn’t want to have to explain, “Uh, yes, My Lord, they’re for your daughter.”

He almost tripped and sent the explosives flying when he ran outside to find Mahliki with her back to the wall and two thick vines swirling in the air around her head. She jabbed at the closest one with the electrifying prod. Like a living beast, it jerked away from the attack before she could deliver more than a quick jolt. The lightning scorched it, but didn’t slow it down.

Sespian set down the blasting sticks and raced to join her. He yanked the black dagger out of his belt, jumped, and grabbed the nearest vine. With one hand, he hacked into it, and with the other, he tried to wrestle it to the ground. The tendril, as thick as his forearm, was as unyielding as a tree trunk. Only after he sliced into it several times, cutting halfway through the meaty stalk, could he push it to the ground. It took all of his body weight.

He thought Mahliki was busy with the other vine and that he would have to saw the top of his off by himself, but she pounced like a cat, trapping the tendril with the forked tip of the steel prod. Lightning poured from the tool, searing the plant.

It shocked Sespian was well, and he leaped free, feeling as if his heart would shoot out of his chest. The singed scent of the vine tainted the air, mingling with the wood smoke from the charred building. Soon the attacking vine went limp, its flesh shrunken and black. Mahliki had managed to take down the other tendril as well. More of the green stalks writhed scant meters away. They reminded Sespian of hissing cats backed into a corner.

“We might not want to stay here,” he said, gathering the blasting sticks.

“I know. I wish we could circle around somehow and get behind the lorries, but I’m not going through that jungle.” Mahliki peered into the gloom behind the building—the dark lake waited back there, along with the remains of the dock where the submarine had been unloaded. The plant had since destroyed most of the structure and taken over the shoreline. “We’ll have to dart across the street. Let’s head for that alley. If we can slip between those buildings and get onto the next block, it’ll be dark over there. Maybe we can sneak up on them from that direction.”