Read Forged in Blood I for Free Online

her. The two with the boxes did too, for the moment. She rose to a crouch and slunk toward Maldynado’s column.
    She almost made it, but the draft she’d been thinking of earlier came, a cold blast from the rear. One soldier held the door open while a second pushed a wheelbarrow full of coal inside. Turning her slink into a sprint so she could escape the influence of the lamps, she darted around the column.
    The man with the wheelbarrow had been facing in Maldynado’s direction as he entered, and he squinted into the gloom.
    Maldynado raised his eyebrows at Amaranthe’s appearance and pointed to whatever he was looking at over the press. She was too short to see it, and there was no time to climb up the column. The soldiers at the door had abandoned their wheelbarrow and were walking her way, their hands resting on weapons, one a short sword and the other a pistol.
    Maldynado leaped from his spot, sliding out his rapier before he landed, and he charged the pair. Amaranthe didn’t know whether he assumed he could handle two trained soldiers on his own, or if he meant to distract them so she could sneak up on them from behind, but as soon as they were focused on him she sprinted from hiding too. She circled wide to stay out of their peripheral vision if possible. The one with the sword had swept his blade out to square off with Maldynado, and the man with the pistol was skittering back, lifting his arm and lining up a shot. Amaranthe didn’t want either gunshots or sword clashes ringing out, or the rest of the soldiers in the building would descend on them in heartbeats.
    Maldynado feinted a few times, deliberately not touching steel to steel, but maneuvering to put his opponent in his comrade’s line of fire. He seemed to know what Amaranthe had in mind.
    Yanking out her dagger, she ran up behind the pistol wielder, trusting the noisy machines to bury the sounds of her footfalls. She flipped the weapon and smashed the hilt into the back of his head. Taking advantage of his moment of surprise, she kicked at the inside of his knee, then darted about to wrest the pistol from his grasp. He recovered and spun toward her, tearing a dagger from a belt sheath, but she thrust the firearm into his face.
    “Drop it,” she mouthed.
    He blinked in surprise a few times, taking in that she was a woman, perhaps taking in that her face adorned wanted posters around the capital. The dagger clattered to the floor. He almost threw it—hoping the weapon would make noise and alert his comrades? Thus far, the fight had taken place behind the press, the bulky machine hiding them from the views of the other men, but that luck couldn’t hold for long.
    Maldynado stood a couple of paces away, near the wall, his rapier sheathed and the newly acquired short sword in his hand. He yawned, standing casually with his elbow on his opponent’s shoulder, the blade resting across his neck.
    “Who left the slagging door open?” someone called from the other side of the press.
    The wheelbarrow stood on the threshold, propping open the door and letting frosty air inside.
    “Let’s get out of here,” Amaranthe mouthed, unable to make hand signs while holding the pistol, and jerked her head toward the exit.
    Maldynado tilted his own head toward his prisoner, silently asking what they were going to do with their captives.
    “Take them for now.”
    Amaranthe twirled a finger, indicating her prisoner should spin and start walking for the door. He glowered at her and eyed the pistol, perhaps wondering if a woman would fire, but he decided in favor of acquiescence, at least for now.
    Before Amaranthe, Maldynado, and their prisoners had taken more than two steps toward the door, another soldier stomped into view, this one rounding the paper roll by the wall. Amaranthe and Maldynado flattened themselves to the side of the press, yanking their prisoners with them. She kept the pistol pressed to her man’s ribs to ensure silence.
    The soldier pulled the