“Not a logging camp?” she asked dryly.
“No,” Sicarius said. “Tents and the enforcer vehicle.”
“Many people there?”
“Not immediately visible, but I came back to find you before scouting.”
The heron ruffled its wings and turned to face them squarely. Amaranthe wondered if a shaman could spy on people through an animal’s eyes.
“I sense something.” Akstyr stood, eyes closed, hands spread.
“Indigestion?” Maldynado asked. “You didn’t eat any of that glowing vomit, did you?”
Akstyr opened one eye and issued a cold glare Sicarius could not have topped. “It’s a presence, an…emanation. Yes, that’s the word. Like you feel handling that key fob from the gambling house.”
Amaranthe had felt nothing except warmth when she handled the fob, but she nodded for him to explain further.
“Much, much stronger though.” Akstyr closed his eyes again. “Like the difference in light between a star and the sun.”
“It’s a device?” Amaranthe asked. “Not a person?”
“A Made artifact, yes.”
“Is it what’s causing the problem with the water?” she asked.
“I can’t tell what it is or does, just that it’s here.”
Amaranthe turned to Sicarius and Books. “Thoughts?”
“Nothing natural is causing the peculiarities with the wildlife,” Sicarius said.
“Agreed,” Books said. “I don’t know much about magical devices-”
“ Made artifacts,” Akstyr said.
“Right,” Books said. “I don’t know much about them, but it seems likely this is the source of our problems.”
“Where is this artifact?” Maldynado was lounging against a tree, exchanging glowers with the heron. The bird seemed transfixed by the feathered plume jutting from his hat-angry that some fellow bird had died for fashion? “We’ll send Amaranthe in with her pistol to shoot it like she did the other one.”
She sighed. She should not have shared the details of her brief incarceration in the gambling house.
“I think,” Akstyr said, “it’s at the bottom of the lake.”
“That sounds…problematic,” Amaranthe said. The steep walls of the valley, carved from glaciers long ago, probably extended below the water’s surface. She doubted this reservoir had many shallow spots.
Maldynado stroked his chin. “How long can you hold your breath, boss?”
“Even if it was a long time,” she said, “black powder doesn’t light underwater.”
“What’s the plan?” Sicarius asked.
Yes, time for action. “You, Basilard, and I will check the camp. Books, Akstyr, and Maldynado, I’m putting you on artifact-investigation duty.”
“Investigating something at the bottom of a lake will be difficult,” Books said.
“I agree,” she said. “That’s why I want your brain cogitating on how to do it.”
Books lifted his chin. “I understand.”
Maldynado snorted. “Books’s brain will probably tell him to give it a lecture.”
Books sneered at him.
“Books, you’re in charge of those two,” Amaranthe said. “Use them as you see fit.”
His irritated expression turned speculative, and a faint smile crept onto his lips. “In charge, you say?”
“Wait a minute.” Maldynado pushed away from his tree. “Books is in charge of me?”
Amaranthe waved his objection away. “Akstyr, get them as close as you can to the artifact. Books will figure out a way to take a look at it. It’ll be dark in a couple of hours, so you better get moving. I probably needn’t say it, but stay out of sight. The soldiers are here to investigate the same thing we are, and they may have patrols around the lake. Patrols that would be happy to shoot outlaws foolish enough to cross their path.”
The heron ruffled its wings, then flapped them and took off.
CHAPTER 17
A surprising amount of smoke thickened the air, hanging low amongst the ferns and evergreens. The soldiers were certainly not being discreet. The smoke stung Amaranthe’s eyes and tickled her nostrils. She blinked away the irritation and hung back, letting Sicarius and Basilard lead the way toward the camp. After her admonition to the others to be careful, she did not want to be the one to step on a twig and alert everyone to their approach. The last time she had been forced to fight enforcers with Sicarius at her side, it had gone poorly…for the enforcers. A victory against those she wanted as allies was no victory.
Sicarius had offered to scout the camp on his own, but she wanted to see what the enforcers and soldiers were up to. Assuming they had the same goal she did, they had a day’s head start. What had they done with it?
Ahead of her, Basilard and Sicarius stopped.
Much smoke, Basilard signed.
No cook fire, Sicarius signed back.
Amaranthe had not realized he had learned Basilard’s hand code, nor had she seen him use it, but he did so now flawlessly. She crept up and joined them. They found a spur of high ground where they could gaze down upon the camp with copious trees in between for cover. On the pebbly shore, a huge bonfire burned, easily eight feet long. The two male enforcers tended it, tossing on more wood.
Not a bonfire, Amaranthe realized. A funeral pyre.
“Looks like they had an eventful night,” she murmured, wondering if it had been wise to split her group.
The female enforcer sergeant paced into view.
“We should be in there with them.” The woman clenched her fists as she stalked about the pyre.
“You’ve got to stay here, Sarge,” one man said. “Those monsters like women.”
Basilard’s head jerked up.
“They seemed to like the men fine too.” The sergeant jabbed her hand toward the funeral pyre.
Amaranthe leaned forward, resting her hand on the papery bark of a birch. She wanted more information, but the woman paced back into a tent. The men at the fire said nothing. If there were others in the camp, they were in the tents or otherwise hidden from view.
Sicarius signed, Go?
Amaranthe exhaled slowly, tempted to watch longer or even approach. If there were only three people in there…
She pointed at the camp and signed, Number?
Sicarius’s eyes narrowed slightly. He probably sensed her scheming something.
She smiled innocently.
He flicked a finger for Basilard to go one way while he went the other. Amaranthe stayed by her tree and nibbled on a fingernail while she watched the enforcer men pile more wood onto the fire. The longer she watched, the more sure she became that she wanted to question the sergeant.
Sicarius returned first. Three sleep in tents.
Amaranthe had not seen him get close enough to check inside the tents. Actually, she had not seen him at all between the time he left and the time he returned. She held up six fingers, not sure if he had counted the woman.
He nodded. Basilard checks… “lorry,” he mouthed. No signs in Basilard’s hunting code for steam machinery.
A moment later, Basilard returned and informed them no one was on the road or in the vehicle.
Amaranthe backed away from the camp so they could talk more freely. Irritated birds jabbered at each other in the trees. One dove at another for no reason-neither was carnivorous. The weaker shrieked and flew off, while the larger assumed a surly pose on a branch.
“I want to talk to her,” Amaranthe said. “If there’s something dangerous in the dam, it’d be useful to know what before we walk in.” She recalled the three dead men, men she believed came from this very dam, and the huge gashes on their bodies. Monsters, the enforcer had said. More soul constructs crafted by a wizard or shaman? Or natural creatures twisted by the water’s power?
“Is the dam a priority?” Sicarius asked.
She caught her lip in her teeth. He had a good point. Destroying or nullifying that artifact in the lake had to be their main goal if it was responsible for fouling the water.
“If something’s killing soldiers and city workers, I’m sure the emperor would appreciate us taking care of it,” she said.