The Emperor's Edge 3: Deadly Games

The Emperor's Edge 3: Chapter 10 Part 1

Soft rain pattered onto the cobblestones and railway tracks alongside the street. Amaranthe pedaled up the waterfront, trying to hover above the damp bicycle seat in an attempt to avoid a wet backside. Maldynado rode alongside, his knees nearly clunking his own chin with each revolution—he had been unable to find a taller model left on the communal rack and had refused a couple of larger bicycles that appeared “too feminine.” That it was well after midnight and no one was around to see him riding did not seem to matter.

He also balanced the soldier’s rifle across the handlebars. Tonight, it might be worth risking the unwanted attention of being spotted with firearms in the city. Amaranthe wore a pistol on her sword belt, opposite the blade. A light jacket hid the firearm, and Maldynado could always toss the rifle if potential witnesses spotted them.

They pedaled through darkness punctuated by puddles of light from gas lamps. On the other side of the tracks, water lapped at the pilings of docks, many supporting towering warehouses, all dark this time of night. Amaranthe supposed they would not luck across one with a brightly painted sign that read, “Kidnapped athletes stored here.” This time of year, the docks saw a lot of traffic and would make a poor hideout for those engaging in felonious activities.

“There’s the spur.” Maldynado pointed at tracks veering inland, away from the main line. The wet steel gleamed under the influence of a corner street lamp.

“Let’s check it,” Amaranthe said.

She turned onto the street, glad to leave the bumpy cobblestones for a modern cement avenue. A hill loomed, though, and Maldynado grumbled under his breath, something about it being less work to carry the small bicycle up the incline than to pedal.

Warehouses continued for the next few blocks, and commercial and residential tenements rose beyond that. Amaranthe doubted they needed to search that far up the hill.

“What are we looking for exactly?” Maldynado asked.

“A door large enough to hide that rail carriage.” Amaranthe yawned. She was starting to feel the lateness of the hour. “Though freight cars are sometimes shunted up the sidings, they don’t spend the night. Our kidnappers have to be able to hide their conveyance when they’re not using it.”

“A lot of these doors are big.”

“But are they big with railway tracks leading beneath them?”

“Ah, not all. Just...” Maldynado pointed. “There’s one.”

Amaranthe parked her bicycle against the brick wall of a building on the opposite side of the street. They were between lamp-lit intersections, so shadows would hide them from anyone looking out a window. Not that she expected to chance upon the villain’s hideout in the first place they checked, but one never knew.

A couple of blocks up the hill, a ponderous steam vehicle rolled onto the street with twin lanterns lighting its way. It had the girth of a rail car itself, and swinging mechanical arms stuck out of the upper portion of both sides, like a pair of bug antennae. A stench reminiscent of burning hair wafted down the street ahead of it.

“What is that hideous thing?” Maldynado had also dismounted and leaned his bicycle against the wall.

“You’ve never seen a garbage steamer?” Amaranthe asked. “How can you have lived your whole life in the city without seeing one?”

“I don’t know.” He clasped a hand over his nose. “I tend to run the other way when I smell a stench like that in the middle of the night.”

The vehicle trundled to a stop and a soot-caked man with a greasy beard and hair in need of scissors hopped out. He grabbed a couple of ash cans in an alley and dumped them into the back. He opened the door to an incinerator that burned independently of the firebox powering the boiler. The contents of a bronze waste bin went into the flames.