Forged in Blood I by Lindsay Buroker Page B

come up behind him. He was staring at the dead men. Sicarius walked past him without a word.
    Sespian remained with Akstyr. His face was grim, but otherwise difficult to interpret. Good. A man should not be as readable as a book.
    “This licks street,” Akstyr grumbled after a time, making a crude gesture at the ward.
    “That would be an impressive feat,” Books said, having rejoined them, “given its lack of a discernible tongue.”
    Akstyr gave him a withering glare. “I can’t concentrate with all that noise going on.” He made another crude gesture, this one involving the forearm as well as the fingers, aiming it at the ceiling this time.
    “He has quite the non-verbal repertoire,” Sespian noted.
    It seemed to be a comment aimed at the group, rather than anyone specific, but he glanced at Sicarius. Checking for a reaction? Did he expect disapproval? Or maybe it had been an invitation to comment. And join in the… did this qualify as banter?
    “Yes,” Sicarius said, but his thoughts scattered after that, and he couldn’t think of an appropriate addition to the conversation. “It is unfortunate he does not apply his finger dexterity more assiduously to his blade training.”
    The three men stared at him in unison, then exchanged those looks with each other that implied his ore cart was, as the imperial saying went, missing a wheel.
    “Just what this group needs,” Sespian muttered, “another expert knife thrower.” He gave the bend, beyond which the dead men lay, a significant look.
    For Sicarius, trained so long to hide his emotions, the sigh was inward. “I will stand watch.” Before he headed for the bend, he told Akstyr, “If you cannot deactivate it, see if you can move it out of the way.”
    Sicarius retreated—he reluctantly admitted that retreat was indeed the correct word—around the bend and stood with his back against the wall, out of sight of the others. He wondered if he’d ever be able to talk to his son without a sense of awkward discomfort cloaking them. Perhaps he shouldn’t try when Amaranthe wasn’t around. There was still discomfort when she was part of the conversation, but she didn’t seem to mind filling it with the sort of ambling chatter that put Sespian and the others at ease. He admitted it put him at ease as well. He couldn’t remember when that had started happening. When they’d first met, he’d merely thought her overly gregarious.
    “I think… Did that work?” Akstyr’s voice floated down the tunnel.
    “I don’t know,” Books said. “We can’t see it any more.”
    “Oh. Here.”
    A renewed red glow filled the hallway. Sicarius returned to the group. Instead of floating in the middle of the tunnel, the ward was now wedged into a crevice near the ceiling.
    “It looks like it was protecting a flat area, rather than a whole chunk of the tunnel.” Akstyr pinched the air with his fingers, then spread his arms to demonstrate.
    “A plane,” Books said, perhaps intending to sneak in another geometry lesson.
    “What?”
    “A flat area is—never mind.”
    “I turned it, so the plane thing is along that wall now,” Akstyr said. “We should be able to walk by if we stay by this wall.”
    “Should?” Books asked.
    “We can . I’m sure of it.”
    Books and Sespian looked to Sicarius. For advice, an order, or because they wanted him to go first and be the one incinerated if it came to that? Whatever the reason, it made Akstyr scowl and stick his fists on his hips.
    Sicarius closed his eyes for a moment, sensing the ward instead of seeing it. Yes, Akstyr had succeeded in moving it. Thinking of the bodies in the tunnel behind them, he realized he should have made that suggestion earlier.
    “It is safe.” Sicarius led the others through the tunnel and toward another secret doorway that would let them out into the night. They’d gone perhaps half of the distance, when a startled wail came from behind him.
    “Blood-thirsty butchering ancestors, what