Conspiracy

by Lindsay Buroker

  “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—”

  A shot fired from the coal car. The bullet clanged off something on the outside of the locomotive and ricocheted into the forest, but Amaranthe grabbed Sespian by the wrist anyway. She steered him away from the door to stand next to Maldynado.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard the term friendly fire.” Amaranthe lifted a hand, palm toward Sespian’s chest. “Stay. Sire.”

  His eyebrows flew up, which Amaranthe presumed meant people didn’t treat him like a hound very often, but his lips quirked with amusement instead of irritation. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Surrender the emperor, or be shot down,” a cry came from behind them.

  “Time for water, Bas?” Maldynado asked.

  Basilard held up a fist. Not yet.

  Amaranthe wanted to see if her hose idea worked to keep the soldiers back, but it’d be even better if she could slither under the coal car and decouple the rest of the train before her men needed to push back a mass of invaders. Not that she was certain the train could be decoupled while in motion, but she had to try. It’d put an end to this battle much sooner.

  With the crowbar in hand, Amaranthe headed for one of the exits. She glanced at a clock on the back wall on the way by. It felt as if hours had passed since they first crept back toward the emperor’s car, but it’d scarcely been twenty minutes. Another two hours until they reached the pass. Her hand tightened on the crowbar. This needed to work.

  Outside the exit, Sicarius stood on the ledge, using the body of the train for cover as he fired her crossbow. Amaranthe knelt and peered at the wheels, trying to find a spot where she could wriggle through to crawl back under the train again. Yara hadn’t slowed the train down yet, and the earth and railway ties blurred past at an alarming speed. The idea of going back down there twanged at Amaranthe’s nerves, but she couldn’t walk through the soldiers to get to the coupling between the coal car and the first passenger car. It’d be easier to get to the coupling between the coal car and the locomotive, but her team wouldn’t make it much farther than the engine-less train if they dropped their fuel supply. No, she had to go under and take her chances.

  Sicarius leaned out to fire the crossbow. Perched behind him, Amaranthe couldn’t see the quarrel streak away, but someone in the coal car cursed vehemently.

  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 hi
m.

  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.

  “I need a gun,” Amaranthe barked to anyone inside the cab who might be listening.

  Sespian had retrieved the sword he’d picked up earlier, and he also had a pistol in hand, as if he’d been fearing he might need to use it. Uncertainty flashed across his face, but he extended the firearm toward Amaranthe anyway. He couldn’t feel good about helping his own guards get shot, but she didn’t have time to assuage his fears and promise to aim for non-vital targets.

  “Thanks,” she said, already stepping back outside.

  The soldier behind the coal hill was taking aim at Maldynado again. Amaranthe leaned out and targeted him with the pistol, making sure to move around enough that he saw her. The fellow ducked again.