Conspiracy (36 page)

“
I don’t know. Maybe we’d
be better off letting the furnace burn out while we’re getting
Sespian. Then we can grab him, jump off when the train slows, and
disappear into the woods. We can find a way to meet up with the
others and...”

Sicarius was shaking his head. He pointed to
a clock on the wall. “We’re two hours from the pass—nearly a
hundred miles. It’d take us days on foot, and we’d have dozens of
soldiers following us through the forest. Hundreds when word gets
back to Forkingrust.”

Despite their predicament, Amaranthe managed
a smile. “You say that like it’d be difficult for you. I thought
evading soldiers was one of your favorite hobbies.”

“
Not if I can’t harm them,”
Sicarius said, gaze hard and unwavering.

Amaranthe dropped her smile. “Then we better
plan to return here and maintain control at all costs.” She knocked
on the back wall of the cab. “We’ll have a bargaining chip—the
power to control the train—and, if need be, we can defend this
position. It’ll be hard for them to get over the coal car and at us
without exposing themselves.”

“
If we aren’t going to
shoot them, they won’t fear to expose themselves.”

Uh, yes, that was a good point. They needed
a better plan.

Amaranthe grabbed the shovel next to the
furnace. How were they going to defend a position when they
couldn’t use their weapons? She stepped on the floor switch to open
the furnace door. The fire had already burned low in the short time
since Sicarius had taken down the fireman and engineer. She
shoveled fresh coal into the furnace until the red embers along the
bottom disappeared beneath leaping flames. Waves of heat flowed
from within. Maybe they could do something with fire? No, she
dismissed that idea as quickly as it came. She’d end up with the
entire train on fire if they flung flames back toward the coal car.
The mere thought made her glance about until she found a fire
station: an axe, bucket of sand, and hose reel mounted on a narrow
strip of wall behind the engineer’s chair.

Aware of Sicarius watching her, Amaranthe
said, “Don’t worry. I’ll think of something.” She used the shovel
to sweep the coals spilled on the floor back into the pile beneath
the chute.

“
Before or after soldiers
are streaming into the locomotive?” Sicarius asked.

“
I’ll let that be a
surprise.” Amaranthe winked. If only she felt half as confident as
she pretended.

“
Quit pushing,” came Yara’s
voice from outside. “Don’t touch me at all. Ever.” She came into
view on the other side of the window, inching her way toward the
door.

Wind gusted against her, flinging her short
hair to one side, but Amaranthe didn’t think it was the source of
her irritation. Maldynado came into view, crawling along the
outside of the train after her. Ah, yes.

Yara lunged around the corner and into the
cabin, grabbing the back of the engineer’s seat for support.
Maldynado hopped in behind her.

“
You can
not
be any fun in bed,” he told
Yara.

“
You’ll never find out,”
she growled back.

Amaranthe was sweeping the last few coals
into the pile beneath the chute. She was about to say something,
but Maldynado spoke first.

“
Boss, are you
cleaning
? In the middle
of our train-infiltration mission?”

“
No.” Amaranthe blushed and
set the shovel aside. “I’m just tidying what may become a fighting
area. I don’t want anyone slipping on loose coal.” Before he could
make any silly comments, she added, “What are you doing up here,
Maldynado? I told Basilard to get Yara, not you.”

“
I figured that was an
oversight on your part. You know you’ll need me up here.” Maldynado
slid into the engineer’s seat and caressed a few gauges. “Nice,
I’ve never driven a train.”

“
And you’re not going to
tonight either,” Amaranthe said.

“
Thank the emperor’s
ancestors,” Yara muttered.

“
You’re driving,” Amaranthe
told her.

“
What?”

“
Just for a few minutes
while we retrieve the emperor. It’ll be easy.” Amaranthe pointed to
the window in front of the engineer’s seat. “As you can see, being
on a rail means there’s no steering required. You’ll just have to
add more fuel when that gauge over there gets low, and, uh, that
gauge looks important too. Watch that. That one too. It’ll be easy.
You’ll figure it out.” Amaranthe had a notion that if she claimed
the task would be easy numerous times and flew through her dubious
instructions, they’d seem less daunting. “Oh, and you’ll need to
keep an eye on those two men. Sicarius tied them up, so I’m sure
they’ll find escape elusive, but you never know.”

Yara did not seem to be an easily flappable
person, but something akin to terror was creeping into her eyes. So
much for “less daunting.”

“
I know it sounds like a
lot, but the emperor didn’t promote you to sergeant for no reason,”
Amaranthe said. “You can handle this.”

Maldynado slid out of the
engineer’s chair, propped an elbow on Yara’s shoulder, and pointed
to Amaranthe. “She’s like this all the time. She comes up with
these ludicrous schemes and then expects other people to do crazy
things they’ve never done before to make them happen. You’d think
we’d all be dead by now, but oddly enough she’s usually right and
people
can
handle
the things she thinks they can. She’s sort of smart like
that.”

That had to be one of the more convoluted
defenses Amaranthe had ever received. If it truly could be called a
defense. “Remind me not to ever have you speak on my behalf before
the magistrate,” she told Maldynado.

“
What?” Maldynado touched
his chest. “I’m a fine speaker.”

Yara recovered from her
stunned silence and glowered at Maldynado’s elbow. It was still on
her shoulder. “Did we not
just
discuss touching?”

Maldynado lifted his hands skyward.
“Apologies, my lady.”

Amaranthe removed a folded kerchief from her
pocket and dusted off the engineer’s chair. “Ready?” She extended a
hand, offering Yara the seat.

“
No,” Yara grumbled. “But
I’m probably less likely to get killed up here than if I assaulted
the emperor’s rail car with you and your men.”

“
Exactly
.”

Amaranthe turned to tell Sicarius they were
ready—he wouldn’t appreciate this silly chitchat—but he had
disappeared. “Emperor’s warts,” she muttered and grabbed
Maldynado’s arm. “Let’s go.”

Maldynado went first, easing outside and
onto the side of the locomotive. Amaranthe started to follow, but
paused in the doorway.

“
By the way,” she told
Yara, “you’ll need to figure out how to use the brake. We should be
back long before you’ll need it, but it’s possible there’s a small
landslide burying the tracks at the top of the Scarlet
Pass.”

“
Possible?
” Yara twisted her head
around to stare. “What’re you—”

“
Can’t talk now. Need to
run!” Amaranthe gave her a short wave and slipped out the
door.

She picked her way back to the coal car,
wondering if Yara would try to flatten her with a fist when she
returned. She was relieved when she found Sicarius crouching beside
Basilard. The two soldiers were still bound and gagged, their feet
visible behind one of the mounds of coal.

Amaranthe and Maldynado knelt beside
Sicarius and Basilard.

“
Has that first soldier
been back out?” Amaranthe asked. “The one looking for the
corporal?”

Yes
, Basilard signed.
He was with a
second soldier and they were saying they’d have to inform the
lieutenant of the missing man.

“
We haven’t much time
then.” Amaranthe found her rucksack and pulled out the smoke
grenades and canisters of knockout gas. She handed a can of each to
everyone. “Sicarius and Basilard will go in on the far side of the
fourth car. I trust I don’t have to remind anyone that we have to
cross the roofs with the utmost care, because if anyone hears us
and looks outside, our infiltration will be over before it
starts.”

“
Stealthy like a cat, we
can do that,” Maldynado said.

Basilard quirked an eyebrow at him but
simply nodded for Amaranthe’s sake.

Sicarius took the canisters without a
word.

“
Maldynado and I will enter
through the front of the fourth car. We’ll all have to be careful
to drop down onto the balconies when nobody in the adjacent car is
looking out the door. Once on the balconies, we’ll go in promptly
and throw the smoke grenades and unleash the knockout gas right
away.” She demonstrated pulling the tab. “Use the canisters at your
discretion, but try to conserve what we have in case we need more
later.”

Amaranthe looked at Sicarius. Given how
important this was to him, she half-expected him to take charge of
the mission and start issuing orders.

“
Understood,” was all he
said. The others nodded as well.

The way they were all listening intently,
trusting her to know what she was talking about, made her nervous.
Too late to doubt yourself now, girl, she thought.

“
Everyone, get your masks
out. We’ll put them on here and get used to breathing through them.
Be careful inside. If anyone punches you in the face or otherwise
knocks your mask askew, you’ll be on the floor, snoring with the
soldiers.”

Hands delved into rucksacks to withdraw the
gear.

“
We’ll take everyone down
as quickly as possible,” Amaranthe went on, “but I’m sure the
soldiers in the other cars will figure out something is going on as
soon as the smoke fills the air in the emperor’s car. We’ll lock,
and if possible jam, the doors as soon as we’re inside. That should
delay reinforcements.”

Maldynado lifted a finger. “What if the
doors are locked right now, and we can’t get in?”

Amaranthe dipped a finger into an ammo pouch
on her utility belt and slid a small velvet bag out from amongst
the crossbow quarrels. She upturned it, dumping two keys onto her
palm, and handed one to Sicarius. “I had Books research the
Navigator class train, including a visit to the smith who keyed the
locks for this one.”

“
See, that’s why we let you
lead,” Maldynado said. “Women think of things like that. If it were
up to us men to plan these missions, we’d end up having to hack our
way in with axes.”

Amaranthe decided not to mention that
Sicarius had first pointed out the locked-door possibility. She
tugged her mask over her head and adjusted the straps. She slung
her crossbow over her back, checked her short sword and knife, then
untied the last item she would need from the outside of her
rucksack, the kerosene-powered cutting torch. “Once everyone is
tied or otherwise unable to give chase, and Sicarius has grabbed
the emperor, find me. If there are soldiers trying to get in from
both ends of the car, we may have to cut our way out through the
roof.”

Sicarius eyed the tool for a moment, and
Amaranthe thought he might object to something, but he nodded and
said, “Ready.”

They piled the gear they weren’t taking into
a corner where they could grab it on the way back to the
locomotive, and it was time to go.

* * * * *

Akstyr had lain on his back in the dark for
a long time. At some point, his wounds had stopped bleeding, though
the leg and shoulder throbbed, competing with each other for
attention. He’d tried to heal himself a few times, but he was
struggling to concentrate through the pain. He thought about
climbing out of the engine room and trying to find bandages, but it
sounded like an excruciating trek. It was silly at his age—he was
within spitting distance of eighteen, after all—but he wished he
had someone there to take care of him. These were the times when he
missed having a mother who cared.

Tears stung his eyes. He told himself it was
from the pain, and not because he was feeling sorry for
himself.

Besides, he
would
have someone to
take care of him if he hadn’t messed everything up. Books would
have helped him, but now that he knew about Akstyr’s stupid plan
with the bounty hunter, Akstyr was lucky Books hadn’t pushed him
back out the hatchway.

Akstyr couldn’t believe he had, even for a
second, thought his mother might have changed. He wondered how much
money she’d been offered to share the information on his
whereabouts. What kind of person told bounty hunters where to find
her own child?

“
Maybe the same kind of
person who would do it to comrades who’ve saved his life,” Akstyr
muttered. He rubbed his face. In thinking of betraying Sicarius,
he’d been no different than his mother. Did he really want to be
someone who’d use people for protection and personal gain, then
betray them? Maldynado and Basilard and the others were the closest
thing to friends he’d ever had. His dead ancestors knew they were
the first people he’d ever known who wouldn’t betray him for five
ranmyas and a mug of cider. Even after learning about the deal
Akstyr had tried to work with that bounty hunter, Books hadn’t
kicked him off the dirigible.

Akstyr rolled over and pushed himself to his
feet. Waves of pain radiated from his injured limbs, but he clawed
his way up the ladder anyway. He found Books in the navigation
cabin and plopped down in the co-pilot’s chair. He couldn’t tell if
the ship had moved. The snow had stopped, but it was still dark
outside with craggy snow-covered mountains looming all about.