Tuft outpaced them; Lapis did not care. He could reach the Rams faster than they, and she doubted, if the information came from an angry khentauree, they would disregard it.
“What’s wrong?”
Rin’s seriousness distracted her, and she glanced at him before paying more attention to where she ran. “Nothing I can discuss here.”
“You went white, after you heard those shanks talking,” Lyet said.
White? Not red with suppressed rage? Whatever; they had other concerns.
“Lady?”
“Rin, I said I can’t discuss it here,” she said through clenched teeth. Both squinted, skeptical, but she refused to enlighten them. Apprentices were apprentices, not partners she shared information with. If they needed to know, she would tell them—and they did not need to know.
Light blinded them before they reached the gate; the entire tunnel blazed in brilliant white splendor; after the gloom of the tunnels, the brightness hurt. She blocked most of it with her hand and peered ahead with watery eyes. The doors were closed, and Lapis did not see a way to open them. A burst of panic that the enemy had taken the gate died under the knowledge Tuft would make them into ice statues if they attempted it.
She, Rin and Lyet stopped in front of the closed doors. Should she shout for a guard? Hinges creaked, and the sides swung open. The woman motioned for them to enter the post. Lapis, happy to be out of the blinding glare, hustled in, her apprentices at her heels.
“Thanks for the warning,” she said, hefting her tech weapon up. “We’ll tell Double Catch who to thank.”
“Tuft,” Lapis said. He, after all, raced ahead. The woman laughed as the khentauree turned from the other gate and trotted to them, his movements stiff.
“He’s persuasive.”
“That he is. Do you need help?”
“That’s a nice thought. I’ll accept.” She swept her hands to the rickety chairs shoved to the side as she threw a red-striped switch hidden in a nondescript box attached to the metal wall. The gate swung closed with a reverberating clang. “Have a seat. My backup will be here soon, and you can be on your way.” She pointed to the side passage that led to the smuggling tunnels. “You might want to take that way, though. Fighting at the Undercamp Gate can spill over, so it’s not safe to travel the wider tunnel.”
“So, we have the Drakes, the Beryl, and Diros’s shanks,” Lapis said as she sank into a cold chair. Would her bottom freeze before the backup came? The woman wore thick leather pants and a coat that fell to her knees, so she probably had no difficulty with chill seeping through the layers.
“Yeah,” the woman sighed. “The new Beryl are a pain in the ass. Their previous boss kept them relatively in check, but Klow?” She wrinkled her nose in annoyed disgust. “They play up their hunter roots, but the truth is, those shanks are terrible at their job. It wasn’t that long ago, syndicates would hire the Beryl for dangerous and difficult work. Now? Their competent hunters walked away and all they’re left with are shanks as like to die cutting themselves on their own knives, as completing a stake.”
Lapis wondered how many had departed. Patch thought most of the hunters in Jiy had Klow’s fingerprints all over them, so it seemed odd to go through his training, then leave when he put himself in charge. She would needle her partner about that; she had other questions for the woman. “Seen their lightning gauntlets?”
The woman rolled her eyes. “Fought a shank wearing one,” she admitted. “We heard about the Beryl attacking you in the Lells—well, I did anyway. My mother’s a seller in Mimstone, and I thought she told tales until I faced one with a gauntlet—and he fell just as quick as any shank on dargil. He was overconfident—and when it caught fire, he couldn’t get it off.”
Lyet smashed her lips together with a protesting whimper and Rin slid his arm around her shoulders in comfort. Lapis did not blame her for the reaction; she would not forget the fear and the stench of crispy shank. She shook her head.
“I know of one more who had fire problems. That’s three failures between us. Those gauntlets don’t seem like safe weapons. Why are they still using them, if they’re losing people when they fail?”
“I don’t know, and it’s something we’ve wondered about,” the woman said. She peered down both sides of the tunnel before continuing. “The Beryl have more than a few weapons that look weird and behave oddly. Some of them work, most don’t.”
“Are they getting them from that undermarket seller who has all the strange tech?”
“Could be.” She raised an eyebrow. “That might explain their failure rate. Bet is, that merchant snagged them from a Dentherion storage station when the soldiers got called back. They’ve been looting old, old places for aquatheerdaal, and who knows what they’ve found stashed away and forgotten.”
Lapis appreciated the woman’s forthcoming info. A favor for a favor, sure, but she took the Grey and Stone Streets mores seriously.
The woman leaned against the table, eyeing her, then Tuft. “That merchant’s had even odder stuff recently. The last time I passed by, he was showing off tech armor that looked like he’d cut the pieces off a statue and didn’t sand the edges, just put straps on.” She made a circle over her breastbone. “One had an odd sphere right here. It looked like it interfered with the integrity of the breastplate, but he swore it was an important tech part of it. Something seemed so wrong about it, and he was pissed I told him so. Told Double Catch, too.” She took a deep breath. “Those weren’t from statues, were they?” Her gaze focused on Tuft.
“No,” Tuft said, short and buzzy. The woman’s disgust intensified.
“I’ll take that shank out for you,” she promised.
Damn it, who was seeding the Jiy underground with khentauree parts? Who had access to Ambercaast? Hoyt? Gredy? She had no idea where the merc captain escaped to, and he had access to the mines. Or had the scientists hired by the markweza dug their fingers into other places and modded how many more with those spheres? Did someone like Gredy have access to another site?
Too bad Cuddle Bear had not scared him into an early grave and saved them the trouble of hunting him down. She still owed him for forcing Jilvaynan rural lads to join his merc company by threatening their families. And Hoyt? She looked forward to shoving more than his arrogance down his throat.
The woman looked to her right and grinned. A unit of shanks carrying tech over their shoulders walked to them, sharp-horned ram patches prominently displayed on their black jackets. She sighed; she recognized the blond head bobbing behind them, and Armarandos was taller than they were, an easy spot. Still, unless someone knew him, she doubted they would recognize him, with his hair pulled back, a ragged hat low on his brow, and mud-splattered attire. The man knew how to dress with knightly flare, and the guise he wore held no hint of it.
“That was fast,” the woman said, opening the gate for them.
“Patch and Armarandos saw the Beryl and Drakeways meeting up near the Undercamp Gate,” one of them said. “Not hard to figure out they’re trying again.”
Lapis rose and nodded to the new arrivals as the woman motioned to her. “The Lady said her contact overheard Diros’s shanks refusing to join. Scared pups with their tails between their legs.”
“They didn’t fare so great the last time,” one of the men reminded her. She laughed at that.
Patch jerked his chin at Lapis, then the rats and Tuft. “I know a way around the fighting,” he said. Of course he did. The woman opened the gate leading back the way Lapis and her group had come. Armarandos remained uncharacteristically quiet as her partner led them into the smuggling tunnels, and only broke his silence when they were far beyond the Rams’ hearing.
“I was quite surprised to hear you were down here, Lanth,” he said.
“Courier work for Faelan,” she replied. That was true, however much it was not the whole of it. “It was a good training exercise in give and get.”
“Did the Rams tell you ‘bout them chest pieces?” Rin asked.
“Chest pieces?” Armarandos frowned, turning to the rat.
Rin dutifully told him what the woman said as Patch slipped his hand into hers and pulled her close.
“What’s wrong?” he murmured.
“Is Beltin still alive?”
“I think so.” He eyed her, but did not press the point as the other conversation continued.
“The merchant has a new supply of odd things,” the ex-knight said, stroking at his mustache. “We didn’t see breastplates, but there were many other devices that I doubt work as advertised. Flashing lights and strange shapes will convince the unwary to pay his asking price, thinking they are grand tech snatched from Dentheria.” He looked at Tuft. “Do you know how closely the Ambercaast khentauree watch those who went to silence? I’m concerned that shanks are looting what they can, and he’s willing to sell what they bring him.”
Tuft hummed. “If Ambercaast is like the Shivers and Cloister, we honor those who have gone to silence in ceremonies and sometimes we retrieve parts, but we do not guard the chassis. They are hidden, safe from human sight.”
“That’s true, to an extent,” Lapis said. “But a lot of the Ambercaast khentauree went to silence above ground, or in tunnels, and the others left them there to decay faster. It could be, some of those chassis didn’t deteriorate as fast, and the shanks are desecrating those. Was your lead successful?”
“It was,” Patch said. “Just not in the way we anticipated.” Neither elaborated, so she took the unsubtle hint that she would learn about their discovery after they reported, and did not probe further. Instead, unwanted memory crashed through her, and she replayed the worst day of her life, her rage at Beltin growing with each pass.
