Forged in Blood II (2 page)

“Yes,” he sighed and started climbing. “But promise me I can curl up in a corner and sleep the rest of the way back to the city.”

“It’d probably be best to stay on the roof,” Books called down, “so they don’t know we’ve sneaked aboard. You can sleep up there.”

“Sounds cold.”

Amaranthe secured her rifle across her back and climbed up after them without commenting, though she agreed the roof might be best. That way, they could jump off the train as it was pulling into the checkpoint, before any soldiers climbed aboard to search.

By the time she joined the men on a ledge halfway up the tower, the train was lumbering into view, its pace slow as it wound its way up the mountainside and into the pass.

“Dead ancestors with caltrops,” Amaranthe said when she spotted black-painted cars with golden imperial army logos on the sides. Those cars, dozens of them, would be filled with soldiers. More troops to support Flintcrest? Or Heroncrest? Or even Ravido? Whoever’s men they were, they wouldn’t be coming to join Sespian.

“
Definitely
best to stay on the roof,” Books said, “or avoid getting on altogether. How do you feel about waiting for the next train?”

Akstyr groaned, doubtlessly displeased at the idea of climbing back down, then having to climb back up again later. And then there was the cold and the limited food supply. Amaranthe flexed her numbed fingers within mittens made to ward off the chill during a quick outing into the city, not to protect digits from sub-zero mountain temperatures. Thanks to the wind, she already couldn’t feel her nose, and white crystals had frozen her lashes together. Now that they’d stopped moving, the chill was more noticeable. The sun might bring a reprieve, but another storm could come in that day too.

“We have no idea how long we’d be waiting,” she said, “and the next train might be more of the same. Someone ought to block the pass so all these reinforcements can’t continue to trickle in.”

“
No
,” Books said, sounding like Sicarius for a moment, he being the only one of the men who blatantly naysayed her.

Amaranthe had simply been musing aloud, so she wasn’t affronted by his vehemence. Their priority should be getting back to the city, not attacking supply lines, and she knew it. Yet… she had a hard time dropping the idea now that it’d formed.

“We don’t have any explosives,” Akstyr said. “And I’m too tired to make a landslide.”

“We wouldn’t necessarily need anything so permanent. What if we jumped on behind the locomotive, and decoupled the rest of the cars, the same as the last time we hopped a train? The soldiers would be stranded, and the railway into the city would be blocked until someone got another locomotive out to move the cars.”

Books was staring at her. “Can’t you ever take the easy route? Why can’t we catch a ride into the city and leave it at that?”

“You disagree that it’d be wise to deny reinforcements to the generals competing with Sespian for the throne?”

“No, but why do
we
always have to do these things?” Books sounded tired and frazzled. They’d all been up for too long without sleep.

“Who else will?” Amaranthe asked.

He growled. “Maybe we should stand back, let them all fight each other until they’re tired of it, then come in and offer a less bloodthirsty system of government to the survivors.”

“You think it would be that easy?”

Books sighed and leaned his head against the steel beam. “No.”

“It’s going to be here in a second.” Akstyr pointed at the oncoming train, the black locomotive leading the way, its grill guard like a wolf’s snarling face, full of sharp fangs.

Amaranthe shifted her weight on the ledge, readying herself to jump. “Coal car,” she instructed.

Books didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t resume the argument.

The pass was flat compared to the terrain the train had finished climbing, and it picked up speed as it bore down on the bridge. They’d have to time their jump carefully. None of them were fresh.

Judging the approach in her head, listening to the clicketyclack of the wheels rolling over rail segments, Amaranthe said, “Now!” and dropped from the tower. Wind roared in her ears, then faded as her feet hit the coal.

Elbows jostled her as she turned the landing into a roll, Akstyr and Books doing the same. They couldn’t have dropped in any closer to each other if they’d held hands. She banged someone with her rifle, and the coal scraped her fake nose off, but that was the worst of their injuries. As one, they rose into low crouches, careful to keep their heads down. If someone in the first troop car had seen them drop, or noticed them now… She was all too aware that Sicarius, Maldynado, and Basilard weren’t with her this time. As much as her ego wanted to reject the notion, she, Books, and Akstyr were the weakest fighters on the team. When she’d been separating everyone into neat parties, she hadn’t planned on combat for her half. Naive, that. She hoped Sespian was finding her men useful in Fort Urgot.

Books pointed to the locomotive and signed,
Do we take it first? Or try to decouple the rest of the train?

The last time the team had decoupled cars on a moving train, Sicarius had been the one to do it. Even though she’d suggested it, the idea of attempting the maneuver herself daunted Amaranthe. She didn’t know how much physical strength it would take. At least nobody was shooting at them this time. Yet.

She eyed the route ahead. The locomotive had sped off the bridge and was on a downhill slope, picking up speed as it went. More snowy peaks loomed ahead, so there’d be more uphill swings.

Let’s wait to do that
, Amaranthe signed and waved at the rest of the cars,
until we slow for another climb. It’ll be less dangerous then. Besides, the engineer and fireman will be alert and ready for trouble if we try to take over after the majority of their train wanders off of its own accord.

Agreed,
Books signed.

We’ll take care of those men first.
She pointed at the locomotive.

Books grimaced, but didn’t argue. Akstyr yawned. Such heartening support.

On a military train, the men in the locomotive would be trained fighters, a soldier and an officer shoveling coal and working the controls. Knowing the transport was heading into trouble, its commander might have placed guards up front as well.

I’ll go left
, Amaranthe signed,
and you go right, Books. With luck, there’ll only be two of them, and we can stick our rifles in their backs and convince them to tie themselves up.

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.