Conspiracy (14 page)

Seconds floated past as Sicarius continued
to face her, but she thought his gaze felt less hard, less intense.
He finally released her from his stare and sat back in the
seat.

“
You should be negotiating
with these Forge people instead of sneaking about,” Sicarius
said.

“
What? Why?” Amaranthe
asked, startled by the topic shift.

“
Because talking people
into things is your gift.”

Despite the bleakness of the night’s events,
Amaranthe managed a faint smile. “Does this mean you’ll drive after
all?”

Akstyr jumped and caught the lip of the
trapdoor. He pulled his head through the opening and braced his
elbows on the roof. Dawn was creeping into the sky, revealing the
outskirts of Stumps. The greenhouse supplies in their car and
everything else on the train—except the secret weapons—had been
delivered at a stop in Ag District Number Seven. Apparently the
last stop would be in the capital.

Akstyr looked forward to returning to town
so he could put his plans into motion. He had some ideas on who he
wanted to contact first and had ruled out gang members. Some of
them had money, but they couldn’t be trusted not to backstab him.
There were a few mercenaries and bounty hunters he’d heard of with
reasonably honorable reputations. They charged enough for their
services that they might be able to afford Akstyr’s finder’s fee,
and they might be ambitious enough to want a chance at taking down
Sicarius.

Maldynado popped up beside Akstyr and
propped his elbows on the roof of the car. “Finally. We should be
able to find out where those weapons are being delivered and get
back to regular life for a couple days. And women.”

“
Is that all you ever think
about?”

The train was rumbling through the rolling
hills north of Stumps where some of the oldest aristocratic
families maintained orchards, farms, and ranches. Akstyr had heard
that most of them didn’t even pay helpers, because it was supposed
to be an honor to work for the warrior caste.

“
After a week stuck with
you, yes,” Maldynado said. “And don’t tell me you don’t think about
girls. You’re too young not to. If you could actually talk to them,
you might be able to get one without having to pull out your
purse.”

“
I can talk to girls just
fine,” Akstyr said.

“
Oh, yes, that stammering
you do in front of them is endearing. I’ve been waiting to see if
you’d grow out of that, but I think I’ll have to intervene. We need
the young women of Stumps to find out that you’re the type of bloke
who can hurl a cutlass across a moving train car to vanquish an
enemy wizard. Girls
love
that stuff.”

The train crested a ridge, offering a view
of the city core with its miles and miles of brick and stone
houses, buildings, and factories. The black smoke of the industrial
district smudged the horizon and hid the lake from sight. This time
of year, thousands of other chimneys added to the pall, and it all
settled in the old part of town where the gangs squabbled for
territory. Akstyr hadn’t been sad to leave the cesspit, though it
was true he wasn’t sure how to talk to girls from better parts of
the city.

“
Just because you failed to
set Am’ranthe up with that journalist doesn’t mean you should start
working on me,” Akstyr grumbled, though he wouldn’t object more
vehemently than that. If Maldynado could find him someone who
didn’t look at him like he was some mentally damaged gang thug...
that might be all right.

“
Someone has to,” Maldynado
said. “You’re always holed up with those dusty magic tomes. That’s
not entirely horrific for someone old and curmudgeonly like Books,
but you’re a young fellow. Your snake will wither up and die if you
don’t get it greased once in a...” Maldynado frowned at the tracks
ahead. “Nobody’s out operating the switch.”

“
Huh?”

Maldynado pointed toward a section of the
railway where several tracks converged and split off, heading in
different directions. “If the train’s going to turn south and into
the city, someone needs to pull the switch.”

“
Maybe we’re not going to
the city.”

“
Where else would we
go?”

Akstyr shrugged. “A different city?”

“
Obervosk?” Maldynado
asked, naming the next closest population center to the east. “Why?
There’s nothing going on there except pit mining and orchards.
Besides that’s not on the official itinerary.”

“
Neither was stopping to
pick up secret weapons.”

Basilard squeezed in beside Akstyr and
Maldynado to poke his head through the trapdoor opening. He yawned,
rubbed an eye, and peered about. They had passed the switch and
were barreling through the training grounds around Fort Urgot. Rows
of trees edged the fields, dropping their red and orange leaves
onto mud marked by vehicle tires and thousands of boots.

Basilard signed,
We go to the army fort?

“
Nah,” Maldynado said. “I’m
sure we’re just passing through.”

Passing through to where?

While Maldynado pondered an answer, the
rumble of the train grew less pronounced. The wheels were
slowing.

The walls of Fort Urgot came into view.
Running east to west, the railway passed north of the water tower
and the army installation itself, but a depot station waited ahead.
A pair of black lorries, their stacks sending plumes of smoke into
the crisp morning air, idled before a warehouse with a loading
dock.

Though Akstyr didn’t see any companies out
for morning exercises yet, he decided it was light enough that some
bright-eyed sentry might be able to see heads poking out of the top
of the train, so he sank back down, out of view. The other two men
joined him. Maldynado sat down hard, a stunned expression on his
face.

“
Did we thump up the wrong
men?” he asked. “Are the blokes we threw from the train working for
the army?”

“
If we did, we might be in
trouble once they wander back to civilization,” Akstyr said.
“Especially if they’ve got broken bones and stuff. They’ll be
madder than a Caymay fiend who got his sniff stolen.”

“
Emperor’s warts.”
Maldynado rubbed his face. “If Amaranthe and the others tracked the
weapons to their source, I hope they didn’t do anything they’ll
regret.”

“
I don’t think Sicarius
regrets anything, ever,” Akstyr said.

Basilard waved for their
attention.
Why would civilians be making
weapons for the army?

“
Somebody’s gotta make
them,” Maldynado said. “The army has contracts with all sorts of
civilian companies for everything from tins of food to blankets to
steam vehicles. But if everything is legitimate, I don’t know why
the manufacturing facility would be out in the hills or why there’d
be all that secrecy during the loading.”

Perhaps the army doesn’t
wish enemy spies to learn of their new weapons
, Basilard signed.

“
Can’t be that secret if
the train is stopping at the depot beside the fort,” Akstyr
said.

Maldynado stuck his head outside again
briefly. “It’s in plain sight of the fort, but there’s not anyone
around to watch the train.”

“
That’s because it’s
early.”

We have often jogged past
the fort at this time of the morning
,
Basilard signed.
Soldiers are usually out
early doing exercises.

“
Is it a holiday?” Akstyr
couldn’t remember. Though Amaranthe was open to giving the men time
off, Sicarius usually made them train in the mornings anyway, so
Akstyr didn’t pay much attention to imperial holidays.

The train’s steam brakes squealed. Akstyr
poked his head outside, though he kept his shoulders low. Voices
sounded by the loading dock, but he couldn’t make them out over the
rumble of the engine. A couple of cars down, a wooden L-shaped arm
hung over the train for transferring mailbags, but nothing dangled
from it now. This was a delivery run, not a pickup.

Maldynado crawled past Akstyr, keeping his
head down as he eased onto the roof. “Let’s see who’s picking these
weapons up.”

Akstyr shrugged and wriggled onto the roof
beside him.

As the train came to a stop, two men stepped
out of the closest lorry. One wore black fatigue trousers and
jacket, typical workday wear for a soldier, though a brass emblem
on his matching gray cap meant he was an officer, a high-ranking
one if the amount of brass was any indication. Gray mixed with the
brown in his hair, but he had the sort of chiseled jaw and rugged
looks that women liked, and Akstyr promptly hated him for that. The
man had an arrogant tilt to his chin too. In fact, he looked like
an older, stuffier version of Maldynado.

The man at the officer’s side might have
been a soldier too—his white hair was cut short in the military
style—but he wore plain black clothing without a hint of insignia
or ornament. While he waited for the train, he pulled out a wicked
trench knife with brass knuckles incorporated into the handle and
the sort of three-edged blade that tore a man up so much that
surgeons couldn’t easily fix him. A crescent-moon-shaped scar
cupped the bottom of his right eye.

The officer said something to him, then
headed to the front of the train where the engineer was climbing
down. Akstyr flattened himself to the roof to stay out of sight.
Maldynado was already flat, his eyes rounder than cannon balls.

“
That bastard looks like an
older version of Sicarius,” Akstyr whispered, figuring Maldynado
had made the connection too.

“
That
bastard
is my brother.”

“
Uh, are we talking about
the same bastard?” Akstyr asked before realizing Maldynado must be
referring to the officer, not the man in black.

Maldynado shook his head as much as he could
with his cheek plastered to the roof of the rail car. “I don’t know
the other one, but the officer is Ravido, my eldest brother. He
made general last year, and, last I heard, was the fort commander
at Averkorke down south.”

“
What’s he doing up
here?”

“
I don’t know. My kin
haven’t seen a need to keep me abreast of the latest familial
developments.”

“
Because you’re disowned?”
Akstyr asked.

“
No, because I forgot to
leave a forwarding address for my mail.”

Tension tightened Maldynado’s eyes, a stark
contrast to his usual insouciant mien. Akstyr didn’t know anything
about Maldynado’s family or even what his surname was. Maybe he had
a whole passel of older brothers who used to beat him up when he
was a boy. Akstyr did not find that notion unpleasant.

Metal scraped, and a door rolled open a few
cars away—the men checking on the weapons.

“
Where’s the delivery
team?” someone with a resonant baritone asked. That had to be
Ravido. He even
sounded
like Maldynado.

Akstyr lifted his head again so he could
see. The two men had disappeared into the rail car. Akstyr chewed
on his lip and tried to remember if he, Basilard, and Maldynado had
lifted up the crates next to the bodies to clean up blood that
might have seeped under them. They hadn’t anticipated a military
inspection.

Someone tapped on Akstyr’s
shoulder. Basilard. He lay on his belly and signed,
Anything suspicious?

“
Maldynado’s brother is
accepting delivery of the weapons,” Akstyr whispered.

I meant, have they found
anything suspicious in the car?
Basilard
glanced at Maldynado who had his head down, buried beneath his
hands.
Though that information is
surprising too.

Before Akstyr could respond, Ravido
hollered, “Corporal Mitts!”

A man hustled out of the second lorry and
ran up to peer into the rail car. “Yes, sir?”

“
Get your team in here and
take inventory. I want a complete report on my desk. If anything’s
missing, Jovak better be prepared to replace it, or Wolf Company’s
next training exercise is going to be headhunting the thieving,
bottom-rung workers that hopped out of this train.”

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Looks like we’re not going
to get in trouble,” Akstyr whispered.

As long as they don’t
search the train
, Basilard
signed.

“
And as long as Amaranthe
and the others didn’t do anything to tear up things on the other
end,” Maldynado said. “The last thing we want is to pick a fight
with the army.” He slithered back through the open trapdoor and
disappeared inside the car.

More soldiers were moving about below, going
from the lorries to the rail car and moving weapons out. Akstyr lay
flat on his back to stay out of sight.

“
Looks like this whole side
trip was a waste of time,” Akstyr whispered. “This is all
legitimate. Weapons for the army.”

Basilard was still watching
the scene. He’d produced a collapsible spyglass.
Perhaps
, he signed with
one hand.

“
You think there’s
something going on?”

Basilard lowered the
spyglass.
Would a general normally oversee
something so simple as a weapons shipment being
delivered?