Conspiracy (47 page)

Amaranthe might have laughed, but she didn’t
want to draw Sicarius’s ire. She simply said, “What if it’s a
man?”

“
A what?”

“
A man in charge of the
enemy craft,” Amaranthe said. “Would you still be willing to seduce
him so the team could escape?”

“
I... uhm.”

“
Just wondering how far
into the realm of self-sacrifice you’d be willing to travel to help
your comrades.”

Maldynado propped his hands on his hips and
gazed out one of the front windows. “Is it a pretty, young man, or
an ugly old curmudgeon?”

Basilard’s eyebrows arched, and Yara looked
over her shoulder at Maldynado.

“
What?” he
asked.

Amaranthe decided to join Sicarius at the
furnace before he started throwing knives around again to silence
the conversation. His grimness worried her, and she wished she’d
tried harder in the past to pry out the story of where he’d gotten
that dagger.

Sicarius lifted his foot from the pedal,
letting the furnace door swing closed. He gripped the shovel and
watched the tracks ahead. The snow was picking up outside, cutting
down on the visibility, but Amaranthe spotted a hint of red light
in the distance. That search beam.

“
I’d have more ideas if I
knew more about what this is,” she said.

“
I have no facts, only
conjecture,” Sicarius said.

“
That’s more than the rest
of us have.”

The train headed around a slight curve, and
Amaranthe had to grab the wall to brace herself. The floor quaked
beneath them. The needle on the speed gauge had passed the last
line and was pressing against the rim.

When the tracks straightened out again,
Sicarius pointed through the snow. “There.”

In the distance, a towering cliff rose with
a dark tunnel entrance in the center of it.

“
We’re going to make it,”
Amaranthe said, “and then you can take the time to enlighten us
while we’re hiding in the dark.”

The domed top of the black craft came into
sight above the cliff.

“
Or not,” she
murmured.

The craft was still a ways from reaching the
edge of the cliff, and its beam swept back and forth over the rocky
hillside above the tunnel, but it was covering ground rapidly.
Amaranthe remembered math problems from school where she’d had to
calculate when the paths of two trains coming from opposite
directions would cross. She chose not to attempt such a calculation
now. It was going to be close, and she didn’t want to know if
they’d be on the wrong side of that closeness.

“
What’s the worst thing
that can happen if they spot us?” Amaranthe’s voice vibrated with
the trembling of the locomotive.

Sicarius shook his head once, then pinned
Sespian and Yara with his stare. “Increase speed.”

“
If we go any faster, the
train will fly apart,” Sespian said.

“
Let it,” Sicarius
barked.

As the train closed on the tunnel, the cliff
seemed to grow larger, filling the sky, and the black craft
disappeared from view. It hadn’t gone anywhere though, and
Amaranthe could see it in her mind, drawing ever closer.

“
Can that beam do more than
light up the scenery?” she asked.

Sicarius didn’t answer.

“
Even if it’s just to tell
me that you don’t know, or that my questions are annoying, some
kind of response would be appreciated,” Amaranthe whispered to
him.

Sicarius met her eyes, his gaze considering,
and he opened his mouth to say something, but a loud clank came
from the engine. Resounding thunks followed as something dropped
off the bottom, banged against the wheels on its way by, then flew
out onto the tracks behind them.

Maldynado stuck his head outside, watching
behind them. “I hope that wasn’t an important part.”

“
A few more seconds, and
we’ll be in the tunnel,” Yara said.

An ominous shadow fell across the train. The
snow stopped abruptly. No, it hadn’t stopped; it was being
blocked.

Amaranthe grabbed the side of the doorway
and stuck her head outside. The sky was gone. She couldn’t see
anything above the trees except the flat black bottom of the craft.
There was nothing to look at except that blackness, no protrusions,
no color, no etching or detail. Under daylight it might be
different, but now Amaranthe had the impression of the same inky
alloy as that of Sicarius’s dagger.

The train sped into the tunnel before the
red of the searchlight crossed over the edge of cliff. Safe,
Amaranthe thought. Maybe. When she glanced back, she saw a scarlet
curtain fall across the tunnel entrance. It must have covered a
quarter mile swath of snowy forest. More, the light caught the back
half of the coal car before the train was swallowed by
darkness.

“
Full stop,” Sicarius
said.

Yara pulled gradually on the brake lever.
Sicarius pushed her out of the way, grabbed the lever, and threw
his weight backward.

Brakes screeched. In the confining tunnel,
the noise blasted at Amaranthe’s eardrums. She was too busy being
hurled forward to notice for long. Someone slammed into her back.
With her cheek already flattened against the window, she was in no
position to complain.

Sparks flew up from the wheels, brightening
the dark stone tunnel walls. The exit, a slightly less dark hole on
the far side, approached rapidly. With the speed the train had been
going, Amaranthe didn’t know if it could stop in time.

The forward force lessened a smidgen, and
whoever was pressed against her back tried to peel away from her.
She planted both hands on the window and pushed herself
upright.

On the other side of the furnace, Sicarius
crouched, leaning back, the tendons in his neck standing out as he
continued to pull at the long brake lever. Smoke poured from the
engine, shrouding the view ahead. If something in there had caught
on fire...

The train halted inches from the snowy
overhang at the end of the tunnel. Smoke continued to leak from the
seams of the engine, though at least the noise abated. Amaranthe’s
ears ached after all that screeching.

“
You’re insane!” Yara
shouted. “You could have wrecked the train and killed us
all.”

Amaranthe stepped toward her and patted the
air with a placating hand. Yelling at someone who carried as many
knives as Sicarius was never a good idea.

But all Sicarius said was, “Your efforts
would not have halted the train in time.”

Amaranthe touched his shoulder and nodded
toward the tunnel exit. “Check it out, will you? I think they came
over the cliff in time to see us go in.”

Sicarius released the brake, slid past
Basilard and Maldynado, and hopped out of the train.

“
That man is a lunatic,”
Yara growled.

Maldynado was pushing his shoulder-length
brown curls out of his face with one hand, and with the other he
patted Yara on the shoulder. “Yes, but he’s a lunatic that’s good
to keep on your side.”

“
Touching,” she snapped at
him.

Maldynado lifted his hand and met
Amaranthe’s eyes. “The man who can tame this woman would excel in a
career of training tigers, sharks, grimbals, and other wild
creatures with bad attitudes.”

“
Are you trying to be
clever?” Yara touched her forehead, where a new knot was rising.
She must have banged against something too.

“
Rarely,” Maldynado
said.

Sespian pointed a shaky hand toward the
ominous black plumes wafting from the engine. “Should we get out of
here? I don’t think our train is making another run.”

“
I concur,” Amaranthe
said.

“
We have to
walk
up to the pass?”
Maldynado asked. “How far is it from here?”

Yara glared at him.

“
I’m not whining,”
Maldynado said. “I’m just concerned we won’t make our meet-up time
with Akstyr and Books.”

Basilard hopped to the ground and Amaranthe
followed him, gravel shifting under her feet when she landed. She
touched the rock wall for balance and grimaced when her hand came
away dirty with algae or some other slick, damp growth. She pulled
out her kerchief.

Basilard coughed and waved at the smoke in
the air. It had a tarry, burning-rubber odor that made Amaranthe’s
eyes water.

“
Are you all right?” she
asked Basilard, figuring he’d been the one to crash into her from
behind.

Fresh blood streamed from a
deep gash on his head, but he merely nodded. When he caught her
eying it, he signed,
New scar.

“
We may all have them by
the time this is over,” Amaranthe said.

Whose idea was it to let Sicarius drive?
That was worse than a Maldynado ride.

“
You haven’t been in a
garbage lorry with him.”

“
I heard that,” Maldynado
said from the other side of the train.

“
Do you have the emperor
over there?” Amaranthe asked, wanting to make sure everyone was
out.

“
Yes,” Sespian called back.
“Though I think we should move away from the train before the
boiler explodes.”

“
Get back in the train,”
Sicarius called as he ran back down the railway toward
them.

“
In
the train?” Amaranthe asked, not certain she’d heard him
correctly.

“
In. Now!”

A boom sounded somewhere outside. The earth
quaked, and something that sounded like a rifle shot emanated from
the rock overhead. Stones detached from the ceiling and clattered
onto the tracks.

“
Now is good,” Amaranthe
said.

Before she’d taken more than a step toward
the train, Sicarius grabbed her about the waist and hoisted her
inside. He leaped in after her, and lunged to the other side where
Sespian was climbing in. Sicarius gripped Sespian’s forearm and
hauled him in so swiftly that the emperor’s feet flew from the
ground and he let out a startled squawk.

Basilard, Maldynado, and Yara climbed in of
their own accord, the last person ducking inside a second before a
head-sized rock plummeted from above and landed on the
still-smoking engine. It bounced off but left a gouge in the
metal.

A succession of booms followed the first,
some of them so loud that the echoes seemed to bounce around in
Amaranthe’s head. More rock fell, sometimes pebbles, sometimes
boulders. Dust filled the passage, competing with the smoke.
Amaranthe dragged a sleeve across her face, wiping away tears.

“
Would it be better to run
outside?” Even yelling, she wasn’t certain anyone would hear
her.

A boulder slammed into the top of the
locomotive cab, and the ceiling dropped so low it cut into
Amaranthe’s view of the others. An inch to the left, and it would
have smashed in Maldynado’s head. Eyes bulging, he backed away,
then decided that wasn’t enough and dropped to the floor, arms
protecting his neck and skull.

“
Down.” Sicarius jerked his
thumb toward the floor so everyone would see.

Amaranthe dropped to her knees beside
Maldynado. Dust had flooded the cab, and she tied her kerchief
around her mouth and nose.

“
They’re hovering outside,”
Sicarius said. “They want to drive us out. They—”

Another round of booms drowned out his
voice. Rubble poured from the ceiling, and plumes of dust stormed
into the tunnel. Visibility vanished. Even with the kerchief, fine
particles invaded Amaranthe’s throat and nostrils. Shards of rock
flew sideways, ricocheting off metal—and people—inside the cab.

She sank low, her head tucked into her
knees, her eyes clenched shut. They were being buried alive; she
didn’t want to see it.

A sharp rock struck her temple, and she
grunted in pain. Amaranthe felt like she was breathing dirt instead
of air, and a spasm gripped her lungs. Coughs wracked her body. She
fought against panic and the urge to run outside and take her
chances with the enemy craft. By now there might not be an outside
to run to.

A light weight settled on her upper back.
She peeled open one eyelid and found herself looking at Sicarius’s
jaw. He’d draped himself over her, protecting her head.

Amaranthe took comfort from his presence and
forced herself to stay calm, to breathe slowly, to pull as much air
from the dust miasma as she could. What seemed like an hour of
quaking and falling rubble was probably only a minute. The noise
finally faded, and other coughs—and more than a fair number of
curses—filled the air. At least, if her men were cursing, they were
alive.

“
Emperor’s balls,” a raspy
Maldynado said, “we’re trapped.”

Amaranthe lifted her head, and Sicarius
shifted away. Her first thought was to check on the emperor and her
team to make sure everyone was alive, but the walls of rubble
surrounding them on all sides stunned her. Rocks blocked one
doorway and half of the other, and boulders had rolled into the
cabin. The windows were broken. A single wan lantern had survived
the rockfall, and its weak flame flickered, half-choked by the hazy
air. Weak or not, it revealed plenty. As Maldynado had said, they
were trapped.

“
Emperor’s what?” Sespian
lifted his head and brushed dirt and pebbles out of his
hair.

“
Uhm, never mind,”
Maldynado said.

Basilard’s fingers
flickered, their movements exaggerated so the signs were readable
in the poor light.
You’ll have to rework
your curses, given the present company.