Conspiracy (41 page)

A return volley came, rifle balls clanging
off the metal around Sicarius. He flattened himself against the
body of the car. The soldiers didn’t seem to be able to get the
right angle to hit him.

“
Can you cover me, so
nobody sees me slip under here?” Amaranthe asked during a pause in
the shooting.

He looked back and down, taking in her and
the crowbar. Though she hadn’t explained her plan, he figured it
out. “No. You stay here with the crossbow. I’ll go.”

While Amaranthe debated whether that was an
appealing offer or not, Sicarius shot another two quarrels. She
wondered how he could reload the crossbow while hanging from the
side of the train.

“
Prepare to fire!” someone
shouted from the coal car. “Fire!”

Before any guns went off, a stream of
garbled curses flowed from the same direction.

“
Water?” someone
sputtered.

“
Look out,
it’s—Sergeant!”

Amaranthe allowed herself a bleak smile.
Basilard’s hose work ought to add to the distraction.

Sicarius slid down beside Amaranthe,
offering the crossbow. The idea of returning fire did sound less
fraught, if not less dangerous, than clambering around beneath the
moving cars, but she asked, “Is this because you think I’m not
strong enough to pull apart the coupling or because you’re worried
I’ll mangle myself trying?”

“
You’re as proficient with
the crossbow as I am, and you make a smaller target for them to
shoot at.” Sicarius slipped the crowbar out of her grip and stepped
around her, leaving the crossbow and ammo pouch in her hands as he
passed.

“
Don’t think I didn’t
notice that you didn’t answer my question,” Amaranthe
said.

Without glancing back, Sicarius stuffed the
crowbar through his belt and climbed on the side of the engine
toward a gap between sets of wheels. He rotated his body upside
down and angled for the opening, scaling the side as effortlessly
as a squirrel scampering down a tree.

Amaranthe almost yelled, “Be careful,” after
him as he moved out of sight, but she didn’t want to alert the
soldiers that someone was attempting to circumvent them.

A gunshot clanged off metal a few feet from
her head, reminding her that she should be paying attention to what
the soldiers were doing. She reloaded the crossbow from the
relative safety of the doorway before creeping back out onto the
ledge. Before she’d gone halfway, the coal car came into view.
Several soldiers knelt behind the black hills her team had formed,
ducking a thick stream of water shooting from Basilard’s side of
the cab. More soldiers filled the balcony of the first passenger
car, and more still knelt or stood on the roof behind them,
staggered so they could fire at will. Sicarius was going to have a
hard time opening that coupling without any of the soldiers on the
balcony or the roof spotting him. Maybe it was pusillanimous of
her, but she was glad he had volunteered for the task.

Farther back, flames poured out of broken
windows and burned on the roof of the emperor’s old car. More
soldiers occupied balconies behind it, many leaning out and
shouting or simply trying to figure out how to bypass the fiery
obstacle.

Men on the roof of the closest car spotted
Amaranthe and fired.

She flattened her chest against the body of
the cab for cover. The bullets clanged off or flew wide, but the
soldiers had another plan to try. One man on the roof leaned out,
his rifle in his outside hand while a comrade gripped him by the
inside arm. That put Amaranthe in his line of sight. She scooted
back, ducking into the cab before his weapon fired.

When she poked her head out again, someone
was passing the man another rifle. She squeezed the trigger of her
crossbow, and a quarrel sprang free. The wind—or maybe the fact
that she was hanging out of a train—affected her aim, and it
disappeared into the night. She ducked back in to chamber another
round, then played gopher, sticking her head in and out, until she
drew the soldier’s fire again. While someone was handing him
another loaded weapon, she leaned out and took more careful aim
this time. She still missed her target by a couple of inches, but
the quarrel caught the outside of the man’s leg. He dropped his
rifle. It hit the ground butt first, fired, and bounced into the
forest. The soldier clutched at his leg, and his comrades pulled
him back before he fell off the roof.

Amaranthe inched forward and shot two more
quarrels. They both sank into men’s thighs. She was careful not to
aim at vital targets, but she wanted to convince the soldiers that
loitering on the roof might not be a good idea. Her next two
quarrels dove for the men on the balcony. Sicarius ought to have
reached the coupling, and she figured he’d appreciate it if she
distracted the people standing over him.

After that, she had to duck back into the
cab to reload. Yara must have found the right controls, for the
train was slowing. Amaranthe hoped she could control the
deceleration, and that they didn’t stop completely. If that
happened, all those soldiers could jump to the ground, race up to
the locomotive, and swarm her small team by the platoon.

“
Charge!” someone in the
coal car bellowed.

Amaranthe had only loaded three quarrels,
but she rushed back out to the ledge in time to see four men
springing to their feet.

They braved the power of the hose to sprint
for the locomotive. They ran toward the center instead of to the
sides, where Amaranthe and Basilard waited. They must have intended
to climb onto the roof and attack from that direction. Basilard’s
stream of water struck one man full in the chest with enough power
to knock him on his butt. A knife—one of Basilard’s—spun through
the air and sank into a second man’s thigh, dropping him with a
howl of pain.

Amaranthe lifted her crossbow to shoot at
another man, but two soldiers protected by the coal piles fired at
her. She should have seen it coming, but she didn’t duck out of the
way quickly enough. A burst of pain seared her shoulder.

In her haste to leap back and get out of the
soldiers’ sights, her heel slipped over the edge. She dropped and
her other knee slamming into the ledge. She caught a handhold with
her left hand—barely—but the crossbow slipped from her grip,
hitting the ground and disappearing into the darkness.

A soldier jumped around the corner and onto
her ledge. Another leaped onto the roof.

Amaranthe grasped the edge of the door with
her left hand and yanked herself into the cab. “Help!” she
blurted.

Amaranthe stumbled into one of the prisoners
and pitched to the floor, landing on the injured shoulder. Agony
surged through her, and she couldn’t bite back a cry of pain.
Fortunately, Maldynado sprang past her, taking her place at the
door. Metal clashed on the ledge outside as blades engaged.

Someone caught Amaranthe beneath the armpits
and helped her to her feet. Sespian.

“
Thanks, Sire,” she managed
through gritted teeth. She took a second to inspect her
wound.

Blood saturated her upper shirtsleeve, and
the bullet had gouged a hole in flesh as well as clothing, but she
didn’t think it had lodged in her shoulder. No excuse for not being
able to keep fighting.

With Maldynado on one ledge and Basilard on
the other, she didn’t have anywhere to go though. Amaranthe backed
up to the furnace, so she could watch both doors. She had a feeling
someone would slip in before long. Footsteps on the roof lent
credence to that notion. She glanced at the clock. Only ten more
minutes had passed. Maybe she shouldn’t have told Yara to slow down
the train.

Maldynado was pushed back to the door, and
swords clashed within view of the window, his rapier and a
soldier’s cutlass. The shorter blade was an ideal weapon for the
tight quarters of a train, but Maldynado held his own. His own
dueling style, which favored using the point of the weapon instead
of the edge, worked in the narrow fighting space. After a long
clash of steel where swords struck in such rapid succession that it
sounded like one continuous clang, his rapier slipped past the
soldier’s defenses and sank into the flesh of the man’s shoulder.
The soldier screamed and tried to back away, but he had the same
problem Amaranthe had had. His foot slipped off the ledge, and he
pitched off the train.

“
We still trying not to
kill people?” Maldynado shouted into the cab.

“
That’s the goal,”
Amaranthe said. “Knock them overboard if you have to.”

“
Yeah, I’ve already been
experimenting with that strategy.”

Maldynado looked up a split second before a
set of legs kicked toward him. Without hesitation, he ducked,
avoiding a pair of heels that would have taken him in the chest. He
popped back up and caught the soldier by the belt. He yanked
downward, nearly toppling off balance himself as he hurled the man
from the train. Amaranthe rushed forward and caught him by the back
of the shirt, stirring a fresh wave of pain in her shoulder.

Maldynado had to leap back onto the ledge to
meet the attack of another soldier before he could yell a
thank-you.

“
Basilard,” Amaranthe
called, stepping over prisoners to check on the other side of the
cab, “do you still need the water?”

She was afraid they’d run out if they left
it on. Without water in the tanks, they could end up stranded in
the woods. Or, even more unappealing, the boiler might blow up.

Basilard ducked something and lunged out of
view. Amaranthe couldn’t tell if he was still using the hose.

“
This isn’t chaotic,” she
said. “Not at all.”

“
Can I help?” Sespian had
picked up one of the prisoner’s swords.

Amaranthe waved the offer away. “No, Sire.
That wouldn’t be a good idea.”

His chin came up. “I know
you’re only familiar with me as a drugged simpleton with a sketch
pad, but I
have
had some training. I’m not
completely
inept with a
blade.”

“
Of course not, Sire. I
don’t see how you could be.”

That earned a puzzled head tilt from
Sespian, and Amaranthe stifled a wince. She’d have to be careful
not to make allusions to his parentage, especially when he didn’t
yet know about that parentage.

“
I just meant that I’m
certain you’re fine with a blade, Sire, but I don’t want you
fighting against your own men. We’re doing our best not to
ki—permanently maim anyone, but...” Amaranthe shrugged. “I’d rather
you not have to do anything that you’d regret later. Unless—” she
lifted her eyebrows, “—I don’t suppose you could order them to
leave us alone?”

Sespian’s expression grew wry. “If it were
that easy, I’d have done so months ago. The soldiers would assume
you were applying duress to get me to issue commands.”

“
That’s about what I
figured.”

“
We’re under twenty miles
an hour,” Yara said, voice raised to be heard above the pounding of
footsteps on the roof and the continuous clamor of weapons outside
either door. “If you want to roll some of the luggage out, now
would be a good time.”

Luggage? Amaranthe was beginning to suspect
the woman of having a sense of humor behind that ever-present
flinty scowl.

“
You could help me with
that, Sire,” Amaranthe said. “It’d behoove us to clear the floor,
in case...” She lifted her eyes in the direction of the
fighting.

Sespian put aside his sword, and they
grabbed the fireman by the armpits and legs to drag him to the
door. Amaranthe’s shoulder flared with pain. You’re a minor wound,
she told it, one that I’m ignoring. It sent an indignant throb down
her arm.

On the way past the furnace, Amaranthe gave
it a nod and said, “Yara, can you check on the coal, please?” She
wondered if anyone else felt like a juggler with one too many
spinning knives in the air.

Amaranthe and Sespian had dropped two men
outside as carefully as they could when a volley of gunfire arose
from the far end of the coal car. Amaranthe’s heart lurched. Had
the soldiers seen Sicarius? She jumped onto the ledge behind
Maldynado, barely noticing that he was exchanging sword blows with
a man on the roof, and tried to see past him.

The soldiers on the balcony were shouting
and waving. And shooting. Several men jumped onto the balcony
railing and catapulted off it, grabbing the rear lip of the coal
car. It took a second for Amaranthe to realize why. Sicarius had
succeeded. He’d decoupled the cars, and the rest of the train was
losing momentum and falling behind.

That didn’t mean her team was safe. No fewer
than fifteen men were swarming the coal car and pressing against
each other for a chance to get to the locomotive. Basilard
continued to spray the hose, pounding high-pressure water into
men’s chests, but with so many targets, people slipped past. Like
the one exchanging blows with Maldynado from the roof. The big man
wore the black of one of Sespian’s personal guards, and he had the
high ground. Maldynado had to keep one hand gripping the doorjamb,
lest he be pushed off the train.

Amaranthe touched the hilt of her short
sword, thinking to help, but she wouldn’t be able to reach the man
from her spot in the doorway. While she was glancing about for some
kind of projectile weapon, she glimpsed a soldier kneeling behind
one of the coal piles, taking aim at Maldynado.

Acting on instinct, Amaranthe grabbed a
knife sheathed at Maldynado’s waist and hurled it at the man. He
saw it coming in time to duck, but it disrupted his shot.

The big bodyguard kicked at Maldynado’s
face. Maldynado ducked, but cursed, almost losing his grip on the
train.