Conspiracy by Lindsay Buroker Page A

body perhaps.”
Sicarius eyed her tapping fingers. “Causing an explosion might not
be the wisest course when we’re beneath so much concrete and
earth.”
    “ How’d you know that’s what
I had in mind?” Amaranthe had been about to ask for his help in
opening a crate. Despite his warning, she held out a hand for his
sturdy dagger.
    “ I know you.” Sicarius
waved her hand away and nodded toward the front of the chamber.
“Come, there are kegs of black powder in the middle aisles. It’ll
be easier to work with in free form.”
    To their rear, the sentry floated out from
behind one of the forges, still hovering an inch above the floor.
Amaranthe sprinted after Sicarius as its red eyeballs rotated in
their direction. She caught the end of the rack and used it to
swing herself around the corner ahead of not one but four beams.
They shot forth in a scattered high-and-low pattern, taking chunks
out of another wall.
    “ At least that thing’s
slow,” Amaranthe said, chasing Sicarius past two rows of racks and
down a middle aisle, though she silently acknowledged that the
device was fast enough to make it difficult to find time to make a
bomb for blowing a hole out of their prison. “We can keep ahead of
it,” she said to reassure herself.
    An ominous grating sounded at the back of
the chamber. Another gate being opened, and another sentry rolling
out? Or something else?
    “ Spoke too soon,” Amaranthe
said.
    Sicarius stopped before a series of upright
kegs and pried the lid off one.
    “ Blessed ancestors,”
Amaranthe said, “there’s enough here to blow up this whole
facility.”
    “ Unwise while we’re
inside.”
    “ I know, I was
just—”
    The grinding rasp of the sentry grew louder
as it approached their row. Sicarius grabbed Amaranthe’s arm and
headed for the opposite end. She snatched a fistful of black powder
before he dragged her away.
    They ran out of the aisle on the far end
before the sentry appeared at the front and shot at them again. As
soon as they turned the corner, Amaranthe heard the grinding tread
of a second device somewhere amongst the machines. She and Sicarius
crept to the worktable wall again and started to turn up the aisle,
intending to circle back to the one with powder once the first
sentry had gone down it, but it was waiting for them at the end of
that row, all four crimson eyes focused in their direction.
    Amaranthe stumbled in her rush to jump back
under cover. Two of the eyeballs flared into burning embers, and
the beams might have caught her in the chest, but Sicarius pulled
her to safety.
    “ Is it just me or are they
getting smarter?” Amaranthe whispered, heart thumping against her
ribs.
    The second sentry rolled out from behind a
flywheel, its wavering antennae in view above one of the
forges.
    “ I’ll distract them.”
Sicarius opened her hand and took her fistful of black powder. “You
make the explosives.”
    Amaranthe knew that was best, but she
remembered the savage wound he’d received once before when
distracting something dangerous for her, the deadly soul construct
in Larocka Myll’s house. She had to force herself to nod. “All
right. Be careful.”
    He was already slipping past the forge
toward the second sentry.
    “ That’s not being careful,” Amaranthe
whispered.
    Sicarius acknowledged her with a lift of the
fist that held the black powder. Amaranthe grumbled to herself, but
resolved to focus on her half of the problem.
    She peeked back into the aisle closest to
the wall. A blur of red streaked toward her. She jerked her head
back as the beam cut into the corner of the rack, inches from her
nose. The metal support bar melted before her eyes. The top corner
of the unit crumpled, and a handful of rifles spilled onto the
floor. On a whim, she snatched one, though she feared firearms
might not work on the sentries. Using a few of the cartridges she’d
pocketed earlier, she fumbled through loading the rifle. She hoped
she wasn’t putting the