Free Forged in Blood II by Lindsay Buroker

resulted in Starcrest’s arrival.
    At the name, Sespian lowered his hands, the animation draining from his face. Amaranthe feared she wasn’t going to get any good news. “I’m glad you’re well,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe what happened to us.”
    Amaranthe had no trouble believing. She would have said as much, but Sespian’s gaze had been drawn to the doorway again. He seemed torn between wanting to check in with her and wanting to check in with Starcrest.
    “I’m sure they’ve been waiting for you,” Amaranthe said, making the decision for him.
    Sespian squeezed her arm. “I’ll talk to you later. I want to know everything that’s happened.”
    Amaranthe wanted to know, too, but she merely nodded and waved for him to go inside. Someone shut the door as soon as he did.
    “Basilard.” Amaranthe gripped his arm even though he stood in front of her, and appeared ready to answer all of her questions. “How did you survive that… catastrophe? And Sicarius? Is he…?” She couldn’t bring herself to say dead.
    Basilard lifted his shoulders.
He was out hunting the soul construct. Nobody’s seen him since he left.
    A wave of relief almost bore Amaranthe to her knees. She caught herself on the railing. He could still be dead, especially if he hadn’t made it back yet, but for now, he was simply missing. He’d been missing before. He was the sort to stick to a mission until he completed it. She wouldn’t give up on him.
    “How did you, Sespian, and Maldynado escape?” Amaranthe asked.
    We were in the tunnels. General Ridgecrest, too, though his family was inside when the
Behemoth
crashed.
Basilard grimaced.
He’s in shock. Only two hundred of his men made it out with us. Did you see the… site?
    Did she
see
? She’d caused it. She couldn’t bring herself to voice the admission. “I saw.” Amaranthe clawed her stray hair back into a fresh bun and tried to straighten her thoughts as well. She ought to see what Starcrest and all these soldiers were planning to do. After all this… anything except a solution that was truly good for the empire would be unacceptable. She still wanted to curl up into a ball, luxuriating in self-pity, but she drew strength from Basilard’s presence. At least her men had made it out. It would have been beyond horror if they’d given her their hard work and cooperation—and trust—this last year, only to die because of her negligence. “What tunnels are under Fort Urgot?”
    Heroncrest’s army brought tunnel-boring machines. While the surface troops distracted us, they were digging routes through the earth to come up in the housing section of the fort. About a half hour before the… crash, they broke through and soldiers ran out. It wasn’t far from Ridgecrest’s section of the wall, and he leaped down, personally leading the charge to kill them or drive them back. Maldynado, Sespian, and I followed him. We collapsed one of the tunnels, but were down in the other one, fighting our way to the borers. Sespian had an idea to destroy the machines so more passages couldn’t be made. We were in the middle somewhere, between the fort and the camp, when… it felt like the world ended.
Basilard rubbed his hand over the three days of growth on his head. With all the scars, it had come in patchy.
So much dirt and rubble poured down
.
We were buried and had to dig our way out. Down there, we couldn’t tell what had happened, except that all of the sudden there was utter silence. The opposition disappeared. The tunnel exit wasn’t guarded. We came out and saw… we saw it all.
    “Yes.” What else was there to say?
    Are Books and Akstyr all right? I haven’t seen them.
    “We’re battered from our adventure, but we all escaped,” Amaranthe said. “Akstyr has grown useful of late. We wouldn’t have made it without him.”
    “Oh?” came Maldynado’s voice from the stairs. “Maybe I should take him to the Pirate’s Plunder as a reward. Do you think Yara