Akstyr, Books signed, you can usually tell how many people there are in a room. Is it just two?
Akstyr closed his eyes, winced, and shook his head. “I can’t right now, sorry.” He didn’t bother with hand signs, and Amaranthe struggled to hear him over the wind and the grinding of wheels on rails. “When I try to summon mental energy, my head hurts like there’s a knife stabbing into the backs of my eyeballs.”
Old-fashioned way then, she signed. Akstyr, you come in after me and help out if there’s more than two people, or there’s trouble.
Akstyr tossed a lump of coal. “When is there not trouble?”
The odds suggest something will go easily for us eventually. Amaranthe winked. It was more bravado than belief, but she tried to use the thought to bolster herself. Rifle in hand, she clambered down the side of the coal car, the wind tearing at the hem of her dress-ridiculous outfit to hijack a train in-and pulled her way along the ledge toward the locomotive.
On the other side, Books was doing the same. Amaranthe trusted they’d make the same progress, but paused to peer in the window next to the cab door before jumping inside. The two men in black military fatigues with engineering patches were as she’d expected, a sergeant leaning on a shovel by the furnace and a lieutenant standing behind the seat overlooking the long cylindrical boiler and the tracks beyond. What she didn’t expect were the two kids in civilian clothing. A boy and a girl, both appearing to be about fifteen years old, shared the cab with the two men. From the rear side window, Amaranthe couldn’t see much of their faces, but the girl had a pair of brown pigtails and sat in the engineer’s seat, pointing at various gauges and speaking, asking questions perhaps. The boy stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the sergeant, a book of schematics open in his hands as the fireman pointed things out inside an open panel.
“What is this?” Amaranthe muttered. “A private tutoring lesson?” She’d be less mystified if this were a civilian transport; she could imagine some warrior-caste lord on a family vacation arranging for special access for his privileged offspring, but what could children be doing on a military train? Was one of the invading generals, having realized he’d be in the capital for some time, having his family brought in? She couldn’t fathom it. Even if there wasn’t much outright fighting in the streets-or hadn’t been when she left-who would bring kids into a volatile situation?
At the other window, on the opposite side of the cabin, Books’s nose and eyes were visible, he too wearing a perplexed expression.
Amaranthe tilted her head, indicating they should go ahead with their plan. They still needed control of the locomotive. The sergeant and officer wore their standard-issue utility knives, and there were flintlock rifles mounted within reach above the cab doors, but the men were otherwise unarmed. Neither of the youths had weapons, as far as Amaranthe could tell, though in examining them, she took a closer look at their clothing and grew even more confused. Beneath parkas suitable for the cold weather, they wore homespun garments of light colors and materials, the styles foreign, though Amaranthe wasn’t worldly enough to put a finger on their origin. She only knew the children weren’t wearing the typical factory-made clothing or styles currently common around the capital.
Books was moving, so she ended her musings. A second before Amaranthe opened the cab door, the boy glanced in her direction. She hadn’t thought she’d made a noise, but she must have. Books opened his own door and jumped inside, rifle at the ready. Amaranthe entered as well, raising her firearm to her shoulder, aiming at the lieutenant’s head. The weapon wasn’t ideal in the tight space, but she had enough room. When the officer spun around, his eyes crossed as he found himself staring at the muzzle.
The sergeant’s hand twitched toward his knife, but Books prodded his arm with his own rifle, and the man scowled and desisted. The youths-siblings, Amaranthe decided, as soon as she saw their faces and the gray-blue eyes they shared-spread their arms to their sides, calmly opening their hands to show they held no weapons. That calm was surprising in people too young to have had military training, and she made a note to watch them, though the soldiers were more of an immediate threat.
“Who are you people?” the lieutenant asked, glancing out the door, as if to assure himself that yes indeed the train was still moving. Rapidly. He also shifted his stance so that he stood in front of the girl. The sergeant shifted so he stood in front of the boy, though his glances were toward the rifles above the door.
“My apologies for hopping onto your train without a boarding pass. We found ourselves lost in the mountains and need a ride to Stumps.” Amaranthe eased forward a couple of inches so Akstyr could squeeze in behind her. “Get their weapons,” she told him without taking her eyes from the soldiers.
“Hijacking an imperial train is punishable by death,” the lieutenant said, glowering as Akstyr removed his knife and patted him down for hidden items.
“Is it?” Amaranthe asked. “Then I probably shouldn’t tell you it’s not our first. Search the children for weapons, too, Akstyr.”
“Children?” the girl whispered to her brother. She had a grown woman’s curves, even if the pigtails made her look young, and Amaranthe probably could have used a different word. Indeed, the speculative consideration Akstyr gave her as he searched her suggested she was plenty old enough by his teenaged reckoning. Amaranthe was thankful his pat down was professional.
“She’s talking about you, naturally,” the brother responded.
They were speaking in Turgonian, but with a faint accent. Again, Amaranthe couldn’t place it. She wondered if Books had a better idea.
“Oh, yes,” the sister said, “I’m certain the three minutes longer you’ve had in the world than I grants you scads of wisdom and maturity.”
“Mother does say I was born with a book in my hands. I imagine that gave me a head start.”
The lieutenant exchanged glances with the sergeant, and the two men lunged, one toward Amaranthe, and one toward the door behind her. She reacted instantly, ramming the muzzle of the rifle into the officer’s sternum, the blow accurate enough to halt his charge. She tried to whip the weapon around to crack him in the head with the butt, but it caught on the doorjamb, and she settled for stomping on his instep. In the same movement, she brought her knee up to catch the soldier angling for the exit. By that point, he was stumbling for the exit, since Books had slammed the butt of his own weapon into the sergeant’s back. Amaranthe lowered her rifle, tapping the side of the lieutenant’s head with the muzzle. He’d bent over under her attack, and didn’t straighten, not with the cool kiss of metal against his temple.
“Next time, we’ll shoot.” Amaranthe hoped they wouldn’t know she was lying.
Akstyr had a knife out and was keeping an eye on the siblings, who were exchanging looks of their own. Amaranthe thought she read an oh-well-we-tried quality in their expressions. They’d been hoping to divert their attackers’ attention with their arguing? Hm.
“Slag off,” the sergeant snarled. Sort of. His cheek was smashed into the textured metal floor, and the endearment lacked clarity.
“Akstyr, tie everyone up, please. The sooner we get to phase two of our plan, the better.” Amaranthe peeked out the door toward the coal car and the rest of the train. As long as everything was attached, anyone could amble up front and cause trouble. For all she knew, shift change was three minutes away.
The girl murmured a question to her brother, not in Turgonian this time. He nodded back.
Amaranthe met Books’s eyes, sure he’d have an answer as to the language.
Kyattese, he signed.
Kyattese? Emperor’s warts, now what? It was bad enough the Nurians were tangled up in this vying for the throne-did the Kyattese want some part of it too?
Amaranthe signed, Any idea who they might be?
She was aware of the siblings watching her, noticing the finger twitches, though she was positive they wouldn’t understand Basilard’s hand code. Even his own Mangdorian people were hard pressed to fo
llow it, given how much he’d added to the lexicon over the last year.
“I’m out of rope and belts.” Akstyr had tied the lieutenant, but not the sergeant yet. He gave Amaranthe an aggravated look.
“Get creative,” she told him.
“My head hurts too much for creativity. I-” Akstyr stood abruptly. “Sci-” He switched to code: Science.
What? Amaranthe stepped toward the siblings. She knew it wasn’t the soldiers, so that only left-was that one of those I’m-about-to-fling-magic looks of concentration on the boy’s face? Though she was reluctant to aim her rifle at a youth, Amaranthe prodded him in the chest with the barrel, hoping to distract him.
Something popped on the furnace, and black smoke poured into the cabin. Amaranthe cursed, left with little choice but to club the kid. As she drew back the rifle to swing, the girl reached into her coat, toward a pocket or perhaps a belt pouch.
“Books,” Amaranthe barked.
“I can’t-ergh.”
Someone grabbed Amaranthe from behind, yanking her away from the siblings and propelling her into the rear of the cab with jaw-cracking force. Though she threw an elbow back, trying to catch her attacker in the ribs, the person evaded the blow. Her rifle was torn from her fingers. She didn’t know if it was the same someone or someone else. Men in black uniforms moved in her peripheral vision, and soon the cabin was so crowded with bodies, she couldn’t have unpinned herself even if someone didn’t have a forearm rammed against her spine. Now it was her face that was smashed against something, her eyes meeting Books’s-he was in a mirror position two feet from her. It was neither the familiar sergeant nor the lieutenant who had him pinned, a cutlass prodding his back, but a grim-faced captain. Strong, calloused fingers tightened around the back of Amaranthe’s neck. She couldn’t see her own attacker, but he spoke from right behind her.
“Captain,” he asked in a rich baritone, that of an older but obviously not-as the grip pinning her proved-infirm man, “is hijacking a train still a capital punishment in the empire?”
“Yes, my lord. It is. In addition,” the captain said, his tone icy, “it is also quite illegal to attack warrior-caste children.”
Amaranthe blinked. It was all the movement she could manage at the moment. Warrior-caste children that muttered to each other in Kyattese? Just who in all the abandoned mines in the empire was standing behind her? Another general charging in to make a claim on the throne?
Books, with his head turned sideways toward her, must have had a better view of the man behind her, or he was simply more adept at assembling the pieces of this particular puzzle, for his mouth dropped open in… Amaranthe was sure that was recognition.
“Enlighten me,” she whispered to him.
“I… I could be mistaken,” Books whispered back, “since I’ve never met the man nor even seen him in person, military history not being my favorite subject in the least, but-”
The captain jostled Books, probably to discourage him from talking. Amaranthe wished the jostle would encourage him to get to the point.
“Who?” she mouthed, wanting the name, not an explanation.
The captain was discussing what to do with “these interlopers” with a third man, another officer. Take them to the capital to face the magistrate or simply hurl them from the train and let the mountain-and the high-speed fall-handle the matter?
“That one is a criminal with a bounty on her head.” A finger jabbed toward Amaranthe’s nose. “The others may very well be too.”
Books finally mouthed a response to Amaranthe’s question. “Fleet Admiral Starcrest.”
Amaranthe sagged insomuch as the iron grip holding her would allow.
One of the empire’s greatest war heroes. And her just outed as a criminal. Oh, yes, this was sure to go well.
• • •
The air smelled of musty tent canvas, coal smoke, and the pungent scent of sandalwood incense. That aroma was popular amongst Nurian practitioners; they believed it focused the mind. An odd odor to find in a Turgonian army tent, but not a surprising one.
Few sounds came from within the canvas enclosure-only the soft hiss of the fire-but outside, men moved about. Some spoke, some grunted and grumbled as they carried gear, and others simply walked past, their boots crunching on snow and ice.
Sicarius opened his eyes. He shouldn’t have. Wakefulness brought awareness.
And memory. And pain.
Finding the former too depressing to contemplate, he examined the latter, assessing his fitness. Though the aches that emanated from his calf, shoulder, and abdomen were not trivial, the physical pain wasn’t as intense as he would have expected. He recalled being shot multiple times, and before that, the soul construct had torn a chunk out of his leg. He grew aware of bandages around the wounds, stiff after being saturated with blood that had since dried. All of his digits responded to orders to move, and he flexed his muscles without untoward discomfort.
The mental pain…
Sicarius closed his eyes again. His son was dead. Amaranthe was dead. The rest of her team was likely dead as well-at the least Basilard and Maldynado would have fallen, just as Sespian had, crushed beneath that monstrous artifact from the past.
Footsteps crunched outside the tent. A moment later, the flap lifted, and cold air flowed inside.
A white-haired general with thick spectacles strode in, followed by two Nurians, one the silver-haired practitioner who’d created the soul construct and the other, a younger fellow with a limp. Enemies, Sicarius’s instincts cried, and he sat up, a hand going to his waist, where his black dagger usually hung. It wasn’t there. None of his knives were. He’d been stripped of shirt and shoes as well. He might have attacked the Nurians anyway, but a strange tingle throbbed at his temple. He found himself lying down on his back again, his muscles operating of their own accord-no, of the practitioner’s accord. In a final humiliation, his hands betrayed him by folding across his abdomen, fingers laced. His face tilted attentively toward the newcomers.
Flintcrest was eying him through those thick spectacles, chomping on a cigar as if he wished he were chomping on Sicarius. “It’s not a good idea, Kor Nas. Safest to kill him right now, if you can.”
“Of course I can,” the silver-haired man said smoothly, his accent barely distinguishable. “But I wouldn’t have brought my associate to continue healing his wounds if I intended to do that.”
“This man isn’t some soldier,” Flintcrest said. “He’s an ancestors-cursed assassin, a notorious one. He’s killed dozens of high-ranking Turgonians, including one of my fellow satrap governors.”
“I know precisely who he’s killed. The Nurians have also suffered at his hands. But he can be made to work for us now, as surely as my soul construct did. Perhaps one of his first tasks will be to figure out a way to retrieve my pet from the bottom of the lake.” The Nurian’s dark eyes glittered, the almond shapes narrowing further as they oozed menace toward Sicarius.
As far out into the lake as he’d hurled the creature’s trap, Sicarius would drown trying to swim down and open it. Perhaps that was a way to escape this. Better to be dead than enslaved, especially now when there was nothing to live for, nothing waiting for him if he fought and escaped. One way or another, these people would send him to his death eventually. He cared little what happened in the meantime.
“Well, get him fixed up and out of my camp,” Flintcrest said. “My men will welcome him even less than that beast of yours.”
“That is the plan, General. After which target should I send him first?”
Flintcrest grimaced. “You want me to make use of an assassin?”
“You were willing to make use of my beast, as you call it.”
“I… don’t remember agreeing to that exactly either.”
“So long as you agree to my people’s requests for favorable trade agreements,” spoke a third man as he pushed aside the tent flap and walked inside. In his early thirties, with shoulder-length black hair swept into a topknot, he
wore a feathered flute and a long rek rek pipe across his back as others would wear a sword. The items were the symbols of a Nurian diplomat.
Kor Nas waved to the healer. “Finish repairing my new minion.”
“Yes, saison.”
Saison, the Nurian word didn’t mean “master” precisely, more like a term of respect for a high-ranking practitioner, often a teacher, but it might as well have meant it in this case. He’d be loyal to the older man and do as told.
“I have not forgotten, He shu,” Flintcrest told the diplomat. “The trade agreements will be created as promised.”
He shu, that was an address for a male who shared blood with a great chief, close blood usually. After all the missions Sicarius had undertaken for Emperor Raumesys, ensuring Nuria wouldn’t gain a toehold in the empire, it irked him to know that the Nurians might have found a way in anyway. He didn’t know whether they’d be worse than this Forge outfit or not. He decided he didn’t care-what could he do about it at this point anyway? — though he did admit that it bothered him that everything he had endured in his life had been for naught.
The healer laid a hand on Sicarius’s bandaged abdomen and warmth spread from the fingertips. Weariness seeped in as well. He didn’t bother seeking a meditative state, didn’t bother with trying to control his sleep-or his dreams. He simply sank into oblivion.
Chapter 2
Amaranthe, Books, and Akstyr sat against the back of the locomotive cab, their wrists tied behind them and rifles aimed at their chests. This wasn’t quite how Amaranthe had imagined the hijacking going. Judging by the scowls Books and Akstyr were shooting her, they thought the team should have remained in the coal car for the rest of the ride.
The fireman and engineer had returned to their duties, while a captain and colonel stood in a cluster with Starcrest, discussing the situation. In the confined space, one couldn’t have squeezed in any more men, so the captain had been elected to hold the rifle on the prisoners. A redundant security measure, since Amaranthe’s ankles were tied as well as her wrists, with her legs folded beneath her. She couldn’t have started a brawl if she’d tried with all her might. In addition to Starcrest and the army men, the two siblings remained in the cramped cabin; they were standing in the doorway, probably hoping their presence wouldn’t be noticed and they wouldn’t be ordered to go back to the passenger cars. The captain glanced at them a few times, as if he wished to give precisely that order, but he refocused on Starcrest and said nothing.
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