Conspiracy ee-4

by Lindsay Buroker

  Amaranthe closed her eyes for a moment, steadying herself, then focused on the balcony. She’d hoped she might get lucky and that she’d be going under the coupling after the men had already charged inside, but that wasn’t the case. The noisy hum of the wheels kept her from hearing voices, but people’s movements stirred the shadows.

  Something touched her foot. Sicarius, inching along the beam after her. The other men would be coming through if they hadn’t already. Amaranthe couldn’t delay.

  She stretched her hand toward a bar at the base of the balcony. Her forearms were starting to burn from the effort of holding her body above the rails, but she told herself to toughen up. There were still three more cars to pass under.

  Picking her way from bar to metal protrusion to bar, she eased into the space between the cars. Dots of light came through the grating on the balconies, and boots stamped about, inches above Amaranthe’s nose. She thought the darkness would protect her if anyone looked down, but crawling beneath all those soldiers made her nervous. Sweat moistened her palms. She winced. The last thing she wanted now was a damp grip.

  She reached the end of the balcony and considered the sturdy coupling between the cars. Grabbing it would take an athletic feat, but she was more worried about the soldiers looking down and spotting an arm wrapped around it. The darkness might be enough to hide her through the grate of the balcony, but this was far more exposed.

  Amaranthe inched forward and watched the faces through the grating. Men were standing on both balconies, not pushing at each other but leaning forward, poised to surge in to help the emperor as soon as they got the chance.

  “Fire!” someone shouted. “The bastards lit the car on fire!”

  “They’ll only fry themselves.”

  “And the emperor. Get in there, private!”

  Hoping they were suitably distracted, Amaranthe stretched an arm toward the coupling. Her fingers brushed the cold iron several times before she found a good grip. The men, with their longer limbs would have an easier time of it.

  She managed to get her other hand on it, but her feet had reached the end of the beam. She tried find a spot to brace them on the underside of the balcony. Her foot slipped and her heel bumped the ground before she jerked it back up. A jolt of pain surged up her leg. She bit back a yelp-any noise would draw the soldiers’ attention-and flexed every muscle in her torso to keep her legs up as she pulled herself across to the next balcony.

  No shouts arose as she squirmed beneath the next car. Good. So long as the others made it through too. Maldynado might have trouble because of his size, and Sicarius… She couldn’t even fathom taking this route with a full-grown man strapped to her chest.

  Amaranthe found a beam to follow on the next car and continued forward. A few shouts drifted to her, loud enough to be heard above the roar of the rails, but she couldn’t distinguish words. She could only hope the soldiers were yelling about the fire, not that they’d spotted her men.

  By the time Amaranthe reached the coupling for the next car, her fingers and forearms were quivering. Sweat bathed her face, dripping down the sides of her upturned cheeks. More than once her fingers slipped, and she had to react quickly to keep from losing a hand or arm between the wheels.

  There were no soldiers waiting on the next set of balconies, and she took her time crossing beneath the coupling. She thought about crawling out and finishing the trek via the roofs or even running through the car, but with the luck she’d had thus far that day, she’d probably run smack into a platoon of soldiers hanging back to solidify their strategy.

  By the time she reached the next coupling, her shaking forearms were cramping up. She pulled her legs up and hooked them around the entwined pieces of metal, trying to give her upper body a break. The position left her staring at the coupling. It’d certainly be convenient if she could simply have Maldynado unhook it after he passed through. The idea of her team pulling away on the locomotive while the rest of the train rolled to a stop was an appealing one, but the stout metal hooks looked like they’d take machinery or at least stout tools to unfasten.

  A touch on her boot reminded her that Sicarius was behind her. Enough resting.

  Amaranthe pulled herself beneath the next balcony and didn’t pause again until she approached the coal car. Once there, a new thought invaded her mind. What if some of the soldiers had thought to check on the locomotive as soon as they realized they’d been invaded? What if men were even now waiting in the coal car, prepared to attack any intruders who showed up there?

  Those thoughts stirred anxiety in her belly, and the more she dwelled on them the more certain she became that the soldiers would have sent someone to check on the engine. But, when the balcony came into view, nothing but cold, dark sky waited above the grate.

  Arms trembling more fiercely than the train itself, Amaranthe gripped the thin balustrades on the end of the balcony and hauled herself upright, again having to flex every muscle she had to keep her legs from dipping down to strike the ground. When she finally pulled herself over the rail and both feet stood upon solid metal, she wanted nothing more than to flop down on her back for a rest. Sicarius’s hand fastened onto the edge of the balcony, though, and she squatted down to see if he needed help.

  He pulled his way up, using the balustrades with one hand and the back of the coal car with the other. With Sespian strapped to his chest, he couldn’t easily climb facing a surface, but he scaled his way up between the two, like someone crawling up the inside of a chimney. Sicarius bypassed the balcony and pulled himself straight into the coal car.

  Amaranthe leaned over the side to check on Basilard and Maldynado. In the blackness beneath the train, it was hard to see anything, but she thought she spotted two promising lumps. She thought to wait and help them up, but Sicarius called down from the coal car, his voice low and barely audible.

  “Amaranthe, come.”

  She crawled up to join him. At first, she thought he needed help unfastening Sespian, but Sicarius jerked his head toward the front of the car.

  Amaranthe sank to her knees in the hard coal. The soldiers they’d tied up were gone.

  “They got free,” she said, then chastised herself for stating the obvious again.

  “Or were set free,” Sicarius said.

  Amaranthe thought of Yara. Unless the soldiers had rushed back to help with the emperor, they had to have found her in the locomotive. What if Amaranthe had recruited Yara to help, only to get her killed?

  Sicarius finished untying his load. Sespian startled Amaranthe by scrambling backward, duck-crawling several feet before dropping to his backside, hands bracing him, his chest heaving as he stared at Sicarius.

  Chapter 15

  Emperor’s bunions, when had Sespian woken up? Under the train? That must have been a terrifying way to regain consciousness. Had he realized yet who’d been carrying him? In the darkness, perhaps not, but he would soon enough.

  Without a word, Sicarius left, sprinting toward the locomotive. The wide-eyed way Sespian watched him go told Amaranthe he had figured out who was carrying him. Sicarius had once admitted that Sespian feared him as a boy, and she couldn’t imagine that adulthood had quite stolen that feeling.

  Torn between wanting to check on Yara and reassuring Sespian, Amaranthe blurted a quick, “Good evening, Sire,” then winced. What an inane thing to say at such a moment. But it sounded blase, too, and it pulled Sespian’s gaze back to her. “Welcome to your kidnapping. I imagine you have questions and requests, and I hope to be able to accommodate them shortly, but we have more work to do. Ah, if you don’t mind, wait here. The next two men who pop up will look after you.”

  As Amaranthe raced after Sicarius, she realized she’d not only been insulting, by saying Sespian needed looking after, but that she’d presumed to give him, the emperor of the entire Turgonian nation, an order. Maybe she could later claim it’d been a suggestion.

  Sicarius had already swung down into the locomotive cab via the left side of
the train. Amaranthe headed right.

  Envisioning Yara dead on the floor, her throat slit, Amaranthe scrambled around the outside of the car too quickly. She misjudged a ledge in the darkness, and her feet skidded down the slick metal surface. The sudden weight shift yanked at her shoulders, nearly tearing her fingers loose from their grips. For a moment, she hung by one hand, legs dangling above the rails, the wind threatening to rip her from the train altogether. Her breath escaped in a terrified squeak.

  Her first reaction was fear-mind-numbing terror-but fury replaced it. She wasn’t going to survive crawling beneath the moving train and pulling the emperor out of a car full of soldiers only to stumble and fall for no reason.

  With that thought, she found the strength to fling her arm up where she could reach a handhold again. Once she had solid metal beneath all ten fingers, she hauled herself up, biceps quivering, and pulled her legs back onto the ledge.

  After that, it took a monumental effort not to fling herself into cab-and onto its solid, reassuring floor-before checking to see if it was stuffed with soldiers. She forced herself to approach slowly and peer around the corner before revealing herself.

  Sicarius stood at the far side of the cab with three downed soldiers piled about him, including the fireman they had tied earlier. He wasn’t tied any more. A fourth soldier stood on the side closest to Amaranthe, his back protected by the engineer’s chair. He gripped Yara, using her as a shield as he held a knife to her throat. A cut lip streamed blood down her chin, and both of her eyes were swelling. She hadn’t given up the engine room without a fight.

  Sicarius had been crouched, his black knife in his hand, as if he meant to spring, regardless of the threat to Yara, but he must have seen Amaranthe, for he straightened and lifted an open hand toward the soldier. He said something, though she couldn’t hear the words with the wind whipping at her hair and clothes. An offer to deal perhaps.

  His eyes never flickered toward her, and Amaranthe didn’t think the soldier had noticed her yet. His back was mostly toward her. She eyed the arm holding the blade to Yara’s throat.

  Amaranthe eased her own knife out. She lunged into the cab, her weapon slashing at the soldier’s arm before her feet hit the floor. It sliced through clothing and flesh, and he cursed, but he didn’t drop his own blade. Without releasing Yara, he stabbed at Amaranthe.

  She skittered back, but the blade never came near her. Yara rammed an elbow into the man’s gut at the same time as Sicarius sprang across the cabin. He ripped the soldier away from Yara, and, in one fluid move, fastened his arms about the man’s neck. Under other circumstances, he might have broken that neck, but he merely applied a chokehold. The soldier’s face turned red, then purple, and Amaranthe knew he’d pass out from lack of air shortly.

  Basilard appeared in the doorway that Sicarius had vacated. With so many people sprawled about the floor, he didn’t seem to know where to stand.

  Yara slipped back into the engineer’s seat.

  “Are you all right?” Amaranthe asked. The question earned her a dark glower.

  “I hope you pay your men well if you put them through events like this often,” Yara said.

  “Not really. I think they stick around to see what crazy scheme I’ll come up with next.” Amaranthe nodded to Basilard. “Did you pass the emperor?”

  Basilard signed, Yes. Maldynado banged up his knees and the emperor was helping him into the coal car.

  “Uh, I think we’re supposed to be helping the emperor, not the other way around,” Amaranthe said. “We better bring him up here to keep him safe. We’ll have to find some space.” She chewed on her lip and surveyed the packed cab. Sicarius dropped the purple-faced soldier, adding another unconscious man to the pile. “I don’t quite know what to do with all these bodies though.”

  “The furnace is getting low on fuel,” Yara said.

  Amaranthe threw her a startled look.

  “It was a joke.” Yara touched her split lip. “Mostly.”

  “The rest of the soldiers will figure out where we went before long,” Amaranthe said. “See if you can slow the train down to twenty miles an hour. At that speed, we ought to be able to drop people outside without killing them, but it won’t be so slow that men can jump off and run up here to attack us from the ground.”

  “I haven’t figured out how to adjust speed yet,” Yara said.

  Amaranthe looked around. “What happened to the engineer?”

  “The soldiers who swarmed me untied him, and he was one of the first to attack your assassin when he burst in. Your man sidestepped and assisted him on his way off the train. I’m surprised you didn’t hear the scream.”

  “Ah.” Amaranthe decided not to mention that she’d been busy almost assisting herself off the train at the time. “It’s probably not a good idea to get rid of the people with the knowledge of how to operate the massive piece of machinery you’ve hijacked.”

  Sicarius wasn’t around to hear her comment. He’d stepped out of the cab and was standing on the ledge outside, head turned toward the coal car. Checking on the emperor or keeping an eye out for soldiers or both, Amaranthe guessed. Knowing they’d have company soon, she dropped her chin into her hand and considered the meager offerings of the engine cabin.

  “Basilard,” she said, “can you try to… I don’t know, stack these men up in the back here, so we have room if we need to fight? I’m going to…” Her gaze snagged on the fire station and the hose hanging there. “That might help.”

  Maldynado lunged into the locomotive, making the space even tighter with his bulky form. He shook his head so vehemently, his brown curls flopped about his face. “That was awful. Who’s idea was that?”

  Amaranthe handled it without trouble, Basilard signed.

  “That’s because she’s little,” Maldynado said. “She’s a woman. They don’t weigh much. I had to hold twice as much weight from my fingers. And squeezing past those axles? While they’re spinning around at a billion revolutions a second? I couldn’t figure out if I was supposed to go under them or over them. I almost lost an important appendage that Lady Buckingcrest would dearly miss, should I show up without it.”

  “Where’s the emperor?” Amaranthe asked.

  Before Maldynado could answer, Sergeant Yara, who was still sitting in the engineer’s chair, turned around and asked him, “Are you whining again?”

  Despite the cramped quarters, Maldynado managed to get an arm around her shoulders. “Of course, my lady. These other blokes are on the quiet side, so one of my duties is being the voice of the group. If I don’t protest the working conditions on everyone’s behalf, how will the boss know which parts of her command need improvement?”

  “Did you assign him that duty?” Yara asked Amaranthe.

  Amaranthe was busy unraveling the hose and hunting for the controls that would turn it on. No fewer than twenty identical red handles adorned the cab. “Uhm, no,” she said. “I believe he assigned that one to himself. Maldynado, the emperor?”

  Maldynado turned sideways. Sespian had slipped into the cab behind him. He stood about six feet tall, with a build similar to Sicarius’s although less muscular, and Maldynado’s height and wide shoulders had blocked the view of him. Amaranthe made eye contact and gave Sespian a reassuring wave. He offered a quick return smile, though it had a strained feel, like that of a man stuck in a grimbal’s den and hoping the massive predator wouldn’t eat him. As far as Sespian knew, Amaranthe and her team might be no better than the enemy he sought to escape.

  “What duties did you assign him?” Yara asked. Nobody else seemed to have noticed Sespian yet.

  “Maldynado?” Amaranthe asked. “His job is to look pretty and get us good deals from female shop clerks and businesswomen.” She handed Basilard the hose nozzle, then screwed the other end into a spigot next to the furnace. She assumed it attached to the water tank and hoped it had plenty of pressure behind it.

  “And to beat things up,” Maldynado said. “Don’t forget that.
I like to thump fellers.”

  “He seems expendable.” Yara pushed Maldynado’s arm away from her shoulders. “Touching.”

  “Men coming,” Sicarius called.

  Amaranthe pointed to Basilard. “You spray anyone who gets close. Maldynado, man the tap.” She pushed bodies aside and pulled her crossbow off her back and handed it to Sicarius. “Five quarrels are loaded and there are more in my ammo pouch.” She unclasped it from her utility belt and handed to him. “Aim for limbs, please.” Whether the crossbow would prove less deadly than a rifle, she didn’t know, but being able to shoot five times without reloading was a boon.

  “Understood,” Sicarius said.

  “Your job is to turn the water on and off?” Yara asked when Maldynado sidled in next to her and placed a hand on the valve. A woman whose face sported so many contusions surely had little reason for mirth, but she seemed to find that amusing.

  “For now,” Maldynado said, “but if any soldiers make it in here, I’ll thump them good, and then you’ll be thanking me for the protection.”

  “Doubtful.”

  “Yara, I need you to figure out how to slow down the train long enough for us to clear out some of this dead weight,” Amaranthe said.

  Yara’s smirk faded, and she nodded curtly, as if she’d been given an order from a commanding officer. Amaranthe pulled open a toolbox mounted on the back wall next to the coal chute.

  “What’re you going to be doing during all of this, Corporal Lokdon?” came a quiet voice.

  Sespian. Amaranthe had almost forgotten about him.

  “Oh, I’m sure I’ll find a dangerous endeavor in which to partake.” Amaranthe rummaged around until she found a crowbar with a hook on the end. She couldn’t tell if it’d be sturdy enough for what she had in mind, but she didn’t see anything more substantial in the box. “Sire, why don’t you come stand next to Maldynado? He can protect you from the fighting, should any soldiers make it in here.”

  “Protect me from my own men?” Sespian asked, then touched his neck. “The woman is the only one who-”