Conspiracy (4 page)

She focused on the scene
coming into view ahead. The prospect of a mystery usually filled
her with enthusiasm—and she
was
curious about what was going on here—but they
already had a mission to focus on. They didn’t need something new
right now.

“
You smell good,” Sicarius
said.

Amaranthe’s mouth fell open. “What?”

“
What I was
thinking.”

Sicarius hadn’t lowered the spyglass, and he
continued scanning while she gaped at him.

“
I
do
?” Amaranthe asked. They’d been on
the train for three days and not only did it
not
have bathing facilities, it
didn’t even have a latrine. She did what she could with her canteen
and a washcloth, but his words were a surprise for more reasons
than one.

“
Cherry blossoms and almond
bark,” Sicarius said.

Oh. That was the shampoo Amaranthe liked.
Huh. She didn’t find it amazing that he could identify the scents,
but that he bothered to mention it was a first. Maybe there was
hope for him after all. “Thanks. You smell good too.” She winced.
What an idiotic thing to say. “I mean compared to Books and
Basilard anyway.” Ugh, that wasn’t any better.

Sicarius lowered the spyglass and handed it
to her without comment. Maybe it was better that he usually kept
his thoughts to himself.

Under magnification, Amaranthe could make
out six men milling on the loading dock. A clock hanging from the
eaves read three a.m. Lanterns burned outside, but none lit up the
inside of the building. In fact, the front door was shut with a
heavy lock hanging from the latch. A rusty heavy lock. Curls of
peeling paint adorned the building’s wooden siding, and a hornet’s
nest hung near the clock.

“
Interesting,” she
murmured.

Sicarius touched her shoulder and pointed
into the dark fields. Two pairs of lights were winding through the
foliage. Amaranthe peered through the spyglass, but night hid the
details.

“
Lorries?” she guessed.
“Coming to pick up cargo?”

“
Perhaps,” Sicarius
said.

Despite her earlier thought that they didn’t
need a new mission right now, a tendril of anticipation curled
through her belly. Maybe they had stumbled upon something good.

Or, her practical side
said, maybe there was nothing strange going on. This could simply
be the only time of day when the train could deliver its cargo.
Still, a
legitimate
delivery should have been on the manifest Books had copied
from the train station.

“
If it looks like they’re
going to remove greenhouse kits,” Amaranthe said, “we’ll have to
get the men, gather our belongings, and clear out quickly.” They
had packs and weapons down there, and, before bed, she had noticed
more than one pair of underwear draped about to dry after a
hand-washing. Wouldn’t that be a lovely thing for some farmers to
find hanging from their expensive, imported equipment? At least her
group was more hygienic than most.

Amaranthe and Sicarius ducked their heads as
the train glided to a stop, carrying the locomotive and their car
past the loading dock. The lights in the field drew closer,
bringing the rumble of steam lorries.

Amaranthe pointed the
spyglass in that direction again. Two large vehicles bumping along
a rough dirt road came to a stop by the building. A man in the
closest cab said something to those on the loading dock. Dusty
brown canvas hid the cargo areas from view, but the vehicles did
not appear to be anything more interesting than farm wagons. A sign
on one door read
Doranthe’s Pumpkins and
Squash
.

Two men climbed out of the first truck,
wearing farmers’ overalls and wool shirts. Those on the loading
dock hopped down, and a couple approached the train to open the
rolling door of a freight car.

“
That’s an empty one,”
Sicarius said.

“
You’re sure?” From their
position on top of the roof, they couldn’t see inside, but
Amaranthe wouldn’t be surprised if Sicarius had inspected all of
the hundred-odd cars during the days they had been on board. He had
to do something while he was avoiding being social with the group.
In response to her question, he gave her an
are-you-truly-doubting-
me
look. “Yes,” she said, “of course you
are.”

The people on the ground directed the
lorries to turn around, and one backed toward the open freight
door. A couple of men climbed inside the rail car.

Amaranthe looked toward the front of the
train, wondering if the engineer would come out of the locomotive.
As far as she knew, he and his fireman were the only crew members.
But nothing stirred up there beyond the plumes of smoke wafting
from the stack.

Sicarius took the spyglass back. Men rolled
up the flap on the back of the lorry, and Amaranthe blinked. It
wasn’t an empty bed awaiting cargo. It was stuffed to the brim
with...

“
Are those rifles?” she
whispered.

Two men climbed into the
truck and started handing bundles to someone on the ground who
passed the load to the men in the train. They definitely
looked
like rifles,
shiny, new ones at that.

“
That’s not the sort of
produce one expects from a pumpkin patch,” Amaranthe
whispered.

Next to her, Sicarius lay still, eye pressed
to the spyglass, intent on the scene below. “Those aren’t
percussion-cap or flintlock weapons.”

“
Oh?” Amaranthe remembered
stumbling across new military technology during a brief mission the
summer before, but she’d thought those had been prototypes, weapons
that were heavily guarded behind army fortress walls, not roaming
the countryside in beat-up farm lorries.

“
Cartridge-based guns where
the powder and charge are self-contained in the bullet,” Sicarius
said. “They appear to be able to hold multiple rounds.”

Amaranthe thought of the repeating crossbow
in the train with her gear. One of the reasons she kept it—aside
from the fact that, inside the city, black-powder weapons were
outlawed to all except military personnel—was that it could hold
five quarrels as opposed to the single shot capability most rifles
and pistols offered.

Sicarius handed her the spyglass for a
closer look. More bundles of sleek rifles went into the train,
followed by crates of ammunition. Two men worked together to lift
something larger out of the lorry. It resembled a cannon on a frame
with two big wooden wheels, but it had multiple barrels and a
hand-crank.

“
Advanced artillery weapons
as well,” Amaranthe murmured. “This train is on its way back to the
city after its last stop. These people will have a hard time
unloading that cargo in the main train yard.”

“
Perhaps the engineer will
make another detour,” Sicarius said.

Amaranthe lowered the spyglass, amazed as
more and more rifles and artillery devices were transferred into
the train. “That’s a lot of weapons. You don’t think someone is...
planning to occupy the city, do you?” It was hard to imagine. With
Fort Urgot so close and with more soldiers stationed in the
Imperial Barracks, how could anyone come up with the numbers
necessary? There were a million people in the capital, half of them
men. Most Turgonian men knew how to fight and were darned patriotic
about doing it too.

Of course, a force with superior firepower
would have an advantage. What if this was only one of many
shipments of advanced weapons heading into the city?

“
I can question the
engineer,” Sicarius said.

Amaranthe grimaced, knowing he did not
differentiate between questioning and interrogation. “He’s probably
just some paid-off lackey who doesn’t know much.”

She felt Sicarius’s gaze upon her. Was she
putting feelings about torture and killing ahead of pragmatism
again? Sicarius’s ways were heartless, but effective.

“
He knows where the train
is going,” Sicarius said.

“
So will we, if we stay on
it. Although... I’d like to know where those weapons originated,
wouldn’t you? Maybe we could sneak into one of those wagons for a
ride back to... wherever they came from.”

“
We already have a mission
to prepare for,” Sicarius said.

“
We’ll have plenty of time
to get back to the city and catch the train to Forkingrust, just as
we planned. This should only be a short detour.” Amaranthe waved to
the pumpkin sign on the cab door. “Those trucks look
local.”

Sicarius’s gaze grew flinty. Amaranthe
doubted he was thinking about her hair this time.

“
We’ll take a quick look
around, that’s all,” she said. “If there’s something worth
investigating further, we can save that for after we get
Sespian.”

“
He must be the
priority.”

“
He is,” Amaranthe said,
“though I’m sure
he
would put the city ahead of his personal welfare.”

Sicarius eyed the lorries, his jaw set. “If
we do not finish in a timely manner, I will go get him on my
own.”

Amaranthe had no intention of letting that
happen—though he might get Sespian, his way would surely involve a
lot of bloodshed—but she said, “I understand. I’ll wake the
others.”

“
What’s going on?” Books
asked, when Amaranthe slipped back through the trapdoor.

“
An interesting
development,” she whispered. “Is everyone up?”

“
I’m up,” Maldynado said,
“though I’m disturbed that I woke to someone—who wasn’t a
woman—massaging my chest.”

“
Not me,” Akstyr
said.

“
You’re not a woman or you
weren’t massaging me?” Maldynado asked.

“
That’s three people
awake,” Amaranthe said. “Basilard?”

A patting hand found her shoulder. Basilard.
It must be hard on him, not being able to communicate in the dark,
but she dared not light a lantern with so many men outside.

“
Good.” Amaranthe patted
his hand back. “Akstyr, Maldynado, and Basilard, I want you to stay
on the train. It’s taking on a secret shipment of advanced
weaponry, and I want to know where it gets delivered. We’ll meet
you back at the Stumps hideout as soon as possible, so we can get
ready for the kidnapping mission.”

Basilard gripped her shoulder to let her
know he agreed.

“
All right,” Akstyr said.
He did not sound excited, but he didn’t complain about taking on a
job where payment wouldn’t be involved either. Unusual for
him.

“
Back to the city is good,”
Maldynado said. “Someone here needs a woman.”

“
Dolt,” Books said, “you
were probably massaging yourself.”

“
Books,” Amaranthe said
before their conversation could grow any more colorful. “Come with
Sicarius and me, please. We’re going to sneak aboard the lorries
and see where the guns came from.” She was tempted to send him with
the others since stealth wasn’t his strongest skill, but his
knowledge might prove useful in figuring out what was going
on.

“
How delightful,” Books
said. “Field work.”

Amaranthe smiled. Though she might never get
enthusiasm from him for such a project, at least he did not sound
nervous or intimidated by the task. He would have once.

Amaranthe patted around to find her and
Sicarius’s rucksacks. Her hand brushed someone’s clothing laid out
to dry. “It probably goes without saying, but more than ever we
want to make sure the engineer doesn’t find out that we were here,
so make sure to take everything with you.”

Akstyr groaned. “We have to clean?”

There was the complaining Amaranthe expected
from him. “I’ll compensate you later.”

She belted on her short sword, shouldered
both rucksacks, and slung her crossbow across her torso. Being
stealthy while laden down with all of one’s gear was always a
challenge. She hoped the noise from the train and lorry engines
would drown out any crunches and clunks she might make out
there.

When Amaranthe and Books joined Sicarius, he
took his rucksack and led the way to the ground via the back side
of the train. Nobody was working over there, but Amaranthe was
careful to step lightly on the gravel.

Darkness stretched across a harvested
cornfield on the backside of the train, and the night air smelled
of damp earth and freshly cut plant matter. Sicarius stopped behind
the coal car and hopped onto the connector. After checking in both
directions, he glided into a harvested cornfield on the opposite
side, a cornfield in full view of the loading dock and the men
working there.

His willingness to stride into the open
surprised Amaranthe, but nobody raised an alarm. Indeed, she soon
lost sight of Sicarius herself. The moon had set, and clouds
blotted out most of the stars, leaving visibility poor.

Amaranthe gave Books a “let’s go” pat,
hopped over the coupling, and eased out from between the cars.
After a glance to make sure Books was following and none of the
workers were looking in their direction, she took the same route
Sicarius had.

Fifteen meters away, the workers continued
to load the weapons. Amaranthe took careful steps down a row in the
harvested cornfield. Though common sense told her the workers’ eyes
would be night-blind after being near the light, she felt
vulnerable with nothing more than the six-inch-high stalk remains
offering concealment. Sneaking should only be done in mature,
un-harvested cornfields, she decided.