Conspiracy (39 page)

Sicarius popped back up. “It’s doable. You
go first.”

“
Because this was my absurd
idea?” Amaranthe joined Sicarius on the other side of the hole, so
that she faced the front of the train, and dropped to her belly.
She could hardly object to leading the way. It
was
her idea.

“
Because you need to get to
the engine first to figure out your plan for keeping the soldiers
busy until we reach the pass.”

Amaranthe offered a bleak, “Ah.” Yes, she
had promised to come up with something.

“
And the farther back
someone is, the more likely it is that one of the soldiers will
have noticed someone going under the couplings and will be ready to
shoot,” Sicarius added. “You’re not expendable. Neither is Sespian,
so I’ll go after you.”

Amaranthe hoped Basilard and Maldynado
weren’t listening just then. She also hoped her plan wasn’t going
to condemn anyone.

She ducked her head through the hole. It was
deafening down there, with the wheels grinding and clacking past
each section of the tracks. There was no light either, so they’d
have to go by touch. She had a vague sense of a two-foot clearance
but also saw the dark bumps of beams and protuberances that would
make it closer to a foot in places.

“
Boss?” Maldynado was
behind her, and Basilard behind him. Blood streaked both of their
faces, and a bruise swelled on Basilard’s temple. “We piled up the
furniture,” Maldynado said.

“
We’re taking the shortcut
back.” Amaranthe pointed to the hole. “You two can figure out who’s
coming last.” She lifted the torch. “Last one to leave gets to
light the place on fire.”

Basilard’s eyebrows flew up. Maldynado
grinned and grabbed the tool.

“
It’ll distract them,”
Amaranthe told Basilard, “keep them from figuring out where we went
at first. It might split their forces, too, if it means nobody from
the back cars can get to the front.”

“
Enough,” Sicarius said.
“Go.”

“
I’ve got the lock,”
someone shouted from outside the backdoor.

Amaranthe nodded. Yes, no time to waste. She
squirmed onto her back so she would be facing upward after she slid
headfirst through the hole. She paused to look Sicarius in the
eye.

“
Are you going to be able
to carry Sespian through this? There’s not much
clearance.”

“
I’ll figure it out.” He
pointed at the hole. “If you want these soldiers to live, go
now.”

“
Right.” Amaranthe caught
Basilard looking at her with concern in his blue eyes, and she
forced a reassuring grin onto her face. “Someone told me cleaning
fish doesn’t get any easier for having put the task off.” That was
one of his grandfather’s sayings, as she recalled.

Basilard managed a quick grin, but the
concern didn’t leave his eyes. Then a bang drew his attention, and
he vaulted over the hole with his weapons in hand. Sicarius was
busy with a coil of rope, figuring out a way to tie Sespian so he
could carry him.

Amaranthe lowered her head below the floor,
reaching her arm through the hole to grip the far side of the beam.
The cold, coarse steel offered a ledge a couple of inches wide on
either side, and, if it stretched the length of the car, she
thought she could climb along it reasonably well. Holding on with
her feet might prove more difficult, and she tried not to think
about what would happen if her heels thumped down on the railroad
ties at fifty miles an hour.

“
Stop thinking,” Amaranthe
muttered to herself. The men didn’t have time for her to
stall.

She scooted forward, ready to go, when
Sicarius touched her leg. Amaranthe met his eyes.

“
Be careful,” he said, a
slight widening of his eyes letting her know he’d been listening
earlier and meant it the same way she had.

“
I will.” Amaranthe slid
her other hand through the hole to grip the beam. “No need to get
sentimental.”

He kept a light touch on her leg as she
wriggled the rest of the way through the hole, and she missed it
when it was gone.

As she’d thought, gripping the beam with her
hands was doable—all of Sicarius’s training had its uses, for she
suspected she could hold her body weight from her hands for a long
time—but when it was time to pull her legs through the hole,
finding a place to put them was more of a challenge. The beam was
attached to the bottom of the car, so there was nothing to wrap her
limbs around. She experimented with a couple of positions and
almost wished she’d left her boots behind, because it would have
been easier to grab hold with her toes. She settled for turning her
boots outward and propping her heels on the inside ledges of the
beam. Though she couldn’t imagine a way to feel more awkward, it
took some of the weight away from her fingers, and she was able to
inch forward, one hand at a time, her heels sliding along behind
her.

Less wind whistled beneath the train than
Amaranthe had expected. If not for the noise in her ears, and the
reverberations emanating from the beam, she could have pretended
they were standing still.

She came to an axle and had to squeeze
between it and the beam. How Sicarius was going to get through with
Sespian, she had no idea. He’d probably need to go underneath it,
but it would take more strength than she had to manage that
feat.

Light filtered down from somewhere ahead of
her. Amaranthe reached the end of the beam, and tilted her chin up,
trying to see the balcony. A hint of vertigo struck her as she
viewed the railway ties in two places, in the light seeping down
from the nearest balconies and several cars ahead where the
locomotive chugged toward the mountains, its own lights
illuminating the track.

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.

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 blasé, 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.”