Conspiracy

Chapter 3

Amaranthe woke to sunlight on her face. It was slanting through a gap in the canvas flap hanging over the lorry gate. The vehicle still bumped and thumped over dirt roads, and an uneasy feeling crept into her stomach. How far were they going? As Sicarius had said, the team needed to return to the city in time to catch the train that would allow them to intercept Sespian’s transport.

Books lay flat on his back, eyes closed, mouth agape. Fortunately, he wasn’t snoring. The drivers might notice their stowaways if thunderous nasal noises competed with the engine reverberations.

Sicarius lay next to Amaranthe, propped against his rucksack. The relaxation of sleep softened his face, and, not for the first time, she caught herself thinking how young he looked for a man with a son who would be twenty this winter. No creases lined his forehead or mouth, and no lines edged his eyes. Maybe it was because he never laughed or changed expressions. Or maybe those horrible travel bars he ate had rejuvenating properties.

Sicarius’s eyes opened and focused upon her. Amaranthe blushed, embarrassed to be caught staring.

“We’re slowing down,” Sicarius said.

Amaranthe nodded, as if she had noticed the same thing and had been about to wake him. She lifted the flap to peer outside. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but she got more fields. Rows of butternut squash and pumpkin, some harvested, some still on the vine, stretched on either side of the dirt road.

Sicarius rose to a crouch. “If we don’t wish to be discovered, we should get out now.”

“We might just be slowing for a turnoff.”

“I’m hungry as a bear fresh out of hibernation,” came one of the men’s voices from the front. “Think we can filch some eggs and ham off Ma Kettle?”

“She’s getting paid to look the other way, not feed your fat caboose,” the second man replied.

“The woman can do both.”

Amaranthe waited, hoping the conversation would steer into more illuminating areas, but the men were done talking. The lorry turned and slowed further.

Amaranthe shook Books’s foot. Sicarius already had his pack over his shoulders and was poised to hop out. He pushed the tarp aside, checked behind them, and then climbed onto the gate so he could gaze out over the front of the vehicle.

“Come,” Sicarius said, ducking back in. “There’s little time.”

Books lifted his head. “Huh?”

Sicarius leaped out.

“Time to go,” Amaranthe whispered, shrugging into her own pack.

She waited for Books to grab his gear before jumping out. They’d timed it well, since the lorry was rolling past a cross section of split-rail fencing. Amaranthe ducked low and followed its contours. While it didn’t provide full cover, it was better than streaking through the pumpkin patch. Books clambered after her. She had already lost track of Sicarius.

“Horrible leader,” Amaranthe grumped, heading for a small shed.

Ahead of the lorries, a two-story farmhouse waited. A number of outbuildings dotted the property as well. Carriage house, canning facility, smoking sheds, a bunkhouse… Amaranthe didn’t see anything remotely resembling a weapons manufacturing factory. Smoke drifted from the stovepipe of the farmhouse and also a chimney on the canning building.

Amaranthe slipped behind the shed and waited for Books. Morning sun beat against her face. Normally she would appreciate it, but not when it would make sneaking about difficult. Rolling hills started to the east, and a few deciduous trees with brown and red leaves lined a distant stream, but fields dominated the nearby landscape.

The two lorries rolled into the carriage house. The tall doors stood open, apparently awaiting their arrival. Though it was hard to see inside the building from her vantage point, Amaranthe spotted a tractor and a wall full of hand tools. No rifles. Nothing that even looked like a forge.

She told herself it was too early to worry that she’d made a mistake and that they were now stuck someplace far from the main road and railway. If nothing else, the men who had driven the trucks would know something. Sicarius might get to question somebody yet.

“Where’d he go now?” Books asked.

“I don’t know,” Amaranthe said, continuing to watch the carriage house.

Two of the men stayed behind to put out the vehicles’ furnace fires while the other two headed for the bunkhouse. Usually such a building would be used by workers hired to help with the harvest. Was it possible these fellows were hired hands who had taken the farm’s lorries to deal with their insidious side business? But, no, the one had said “Ma” was being paid to look the other way.

Books removed his pack and sat on the ground. “It’d be nice if he stayed with us, especially to help with such fraught activities as sneaking into the enemy’s transport vehicles.”

“I imagine he leaves us during such endeavors because we’re more likely to get caught. If he stuck by our sides, he’d be caught too.”

“So, for self-preservation purposes, he abandons us at every opportunity?” Books asked.

“Er, yes, but in doing so he puts himself in a position where he can rescue us if we’re apprehended.”

Books snorted. “I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for him to rescue me.”

“Didn’t you say he came to your assistance the first time you two met?” Amaranthe eased back from the corner. The last two men had gone inside, leaving little of interest to watch.

“Because he needed something,” Books said. “I don’t believe for a moment he’d put us ahead of his own interests, or even that he’d bother to ‘rescue’ us if he had something more interesting on his plate.”

When Amaranthe faced Books, she found Sicarius leaning against the far corner of the shed behind him. She wondered how much of the conversation he had heard. All of it probably. Oh, well. By now he knew his aloof ways had not won him many friends in the group.

“I doubt that. Have you seen the sorts of meals he puts on his plate?” Amaranthe met Sicarius’s eyes and smirked at him. “I wouldn’t call any of those interesting.”

Sicarius held her gaze in return. “Only because your palate is accustomed to sweets.”

Books jerked his head around and cursed under his breath.

“I know,” Amaranthe said. “The worst part about being out here is the distance from Curi’s Bakery.” She hadn’t told him that she paid a university student to buy sweets for her a couple of times a month-she wouldn’t risk going to Curi’s on her own, not when it was a popular stop for enforcers-but a girl couldn’t let outlaw status get in the way of apple cinnamon tarts.

Sicarius said nothing, though she knew he disapproved of her vice. Time to get back to work.

Amaranthe waved to encompass the farm. “I don’t see anything blatantly inimical happening here. It seems I was a tad impulsive in assuming that following those boys home would lead us to the source of those weapons.”

“Perhaps not.” Sicarius crouched and placed the flat of his palm on the ground.

Amaranthe lifted an eyebrow but did the same. Dry tufts of grass scrapped at her palm. She focused on the cool earth beneath them, trying to feel… whatever he thought was worth feeling.

Slight tremors pulsed through the ground, similar to what one might sense touching a railway track when a train was still miles off. More, faint rhythmic clanks reverberated through the earth as well.

“It could be machinery in that canning building.” Amaranthe pointed to the smoke wafting from its chimney.

“We wouldn’t feel that this far away,” Sicarius said. “Also, the banging is irregular, made by man, not machine.”

Books also placed a hand on the ground. “An engine… and a smith at a forge?” he guessed.

Amaranthe stood, her interest in the farm rekindling. “Like someone hammering steel into gun barrels?”

“That process is usually automated these days,” Books said, “but, yes, a smith would still be required for fastening the stock and firing mechanism.”

“And where would this be happening?” Amaranthe waved toward the bucolic setting.

“Underground,” Sicarius said. “There are a number of sleeping areas in that bunkhouse, far more than there are people visible working on the farm right now.”

“People on the day shift, eh?” Amaranthe said.

“It’ll be difficult for us to explore with the sun out,” Books said.

Sicarius flicked a glance down at him, and, though his expression never changed, Amaranthe thought she read “Speak for yourself” in it.

“Maybe you can scout around,” Amaranthe said to Sicarius, “while Books and I seek out…”

“Trouble?” Sicarius suggested.

Books’s eyes narrowed.

“Not necessarily. I thought we might have a chat with this Ma Kettle.” Amaranthe smiled and took up her idea of a backwoods drawl. “On account of how we come up from the south, hoping to help with the harvest, and mayhap she has some work left here for a couple of sturdy hands.”

“Trouble,” Sicarius said.

“I concur,” Books said.

“So nice when you two are in agreement.”

Amaranthe adjusted her borrowed straw hat, pulling it lower over her face, then walked up the porch steps to the farmhouse’s front door. To her side, Books alternated glancing over his shoulder toward the bunkhouse and fidgeting with his own straw hat, one she’d embellished with feather-and-bead tassels dangling from the brim. “So they won’t recognize it,” she’d told Books while he glowered fearsomely at her. They’d found the headwear in the shed, and, while hers was plain and forgettable, his had blue flowers on the brim, flowers now hidden by the tassels. She was glad Maldynado wasn’t there to comment, though she wasn’t sure whether it would have been to mock or approve; she’d seen him wearing hats as silly, and he had no qualms about donning tassel-bedecked clothing.

To further their disguises, Amaranthe and Books had smeared dirt on their faces-after the night’s adventure there’d been no need to add grime to their clothing. Amaranthe’s fingers kept straying toward a kerchief in her pocket, and she had to clench her fist to keep from grabbing it and cleaning the mess off.

She knocked on the door, putting the fist to good use. Books checked over his shoulder again.

“Relax,” Amaranthe said, ostensibly to him though the word could have been for her as well. She worried that the information they might get out of this woman wasn’t worth the risk of being identified later. She glanced at the shuttered windows on either side of the wooden porch.

“I’m not very good at extemporaneous mendacity,” Books said. “Or carefully rehearsed mendacity either.”

“Think of it as acting.”

“What, in the credentials I gave you when we met, suggested I’d be good at acting?” Books asked.

“You can’t be any worse than…” Amaranthe inclined her head toward the field, though naturally they could not see Sicarius about anywhere.

“He acts?”

“He stands there and goes along with me, answering my prods in a monosyllabic monotone.”

“So, the same as usual,” Books said.

“Essentially.” Amaranthe knocked on the door again. She’d seen a woman come out onto the porch earlier to beat dust from a rug, so she knew someone was home.

A shutter on one of the windows opened an inch. Amaranthe pretended not to notice, figuring the person wanted to make a secret inspection of them. Though she doubted rural farmers were up on the latest wanted posters, she kept her chin tilted downward, so the hat would hide part of her face.

Wooden floorboards creaked on the other side of the door.

“Who is it, Ma?” a voice called from the depths of the house. “That enforcer woman again?”

For a stunned second, Amaranthe thought “enforcer woman” referenced her, but nine months had passed since she’d been employed in that capacity, and she’d certainly never visited this place. Because there weren’t many female enforcers, her next thought was of Sergeant Yara, the woman they’d dealt with on the dam mission. This was her district.

“No,” came a voice from the other side of the door. “Go back upstairs.”

Her mind caught on the notion of enforcers visiting, Amaranthe barely heard the words. If the local authorities were already snooping around, aware of illegal weapons being manufactured in their district, that was good, but it meant this might not be quite the discovery she’d thought.

“What do you want?” a woman asked, voice directed toward the door this time, though she did not open it.

“Friendly,” Amaranthe mouthed to Books, before calling out, “We’re two hard workers wondering if you’re hiring help for the harvest, ma’am.”

“No.”

“And blunt,” Books mouthed back.

“We’re real good workers, ma’am, and help for nothing more than a hot meal and a chance to sleep in one of your sheds.” Or perhaps whatever building was hiding the machinery they’d felt…

“Don’t need no more help,” the woman responded. “Go away.”

“It seems my acting skills won’t be called upon after all,” Books murmured.

Amaranthe liked to think she was decent at negotiating, or, as the men put it, talking people into things, but it was hard to get a read on someone through a door. If the woman was already being paid well to look the other way, Amaranthe didn’t know what she might entice her with. Perhaps simply an appeal to her humanity?

“Please, ma’am, would you let us talk to you for a moment? We’ve come down out of the mountains on foot. Our rations are low. If you don’t have work, we understand, but perhaps you could point us in the direction of-”

“If you ain’t off my porch in five seconds, I’ll sic the hounds on you.”

Books scooted down the steps so quickly, Amaranthe wondered if he had a dog phobia. She followed, though she hated admitting defeat.

“It seems I’ve lost my touch for talking people into things,” she said as they walked away.

“I don’t know about that.” Books removed the hat and flicked at the tassels. “You got me to wear this.”

It didn’t take long for men to come searching for their missing comrades. Akstyr was standing guard-actually he was sitting and practicing some of his mental science exercises-when new footsteps clomped on the roof. He kicked Maldynado’s boot to wake him up and stop a bout of snoring that had probably already given away their position. He tossed an empty food tin at Basilard, clunking him in the chin and waking him instantly. Akstyr might have woken them more gently, but he wasn’t feeling accommodating after they stuck him with the watch.

Overhead, the footsteps ceased. Akstyr grabbed one of their new rifles. By the early morning light slanting through gaps in the wooden car walls, he’d figured out that it was loaded with six rounds.

Basilard squatted next to him and put a restraining hand on his arm. Akstyr squinted to read Basilard’s hand signs in the morning gloom.

That’ll make too much noise. The engineer might hear and halt the train. We need him to make the weapons delivery, so we can see where they go.

Akstyr doubted the engineer could hear anything over the noise of the locomotive, but he shrugged and set the rifle aside. He had other ways to deal with people.

The footsteps resumed, and Akstyr tracked them across the top of their car. It sounded like two men again, but this pair didn’t try to open the trapdoor. They moved on to the next car.

“What do you boys think?” Maldynado asked when the footsteps had been gone for a minute. “Should we try to pick them off on their way back?”

Perhaps they will give up and return to their car when they don’t find their comrades, Basilard signed.

“They’ll think it’s strange that their buddies are missing. It’s not like the train has stopped and people could have strolled away. I think they’ll keep looking. I’d look for you two if you went missing.”

“Yeah,” Akstyr said, “but you probably like us more than they like each other. We’ve been through heaps together.”

“Easy, boy, don’t get sentimental on me.”

Akstyr snorted. He should have kicked Maldynado harder.

Maldynado slid the trapdoor open a couple of inches, and a slash of early-morning light slipped into the car. He winked. “Let’s see how observant they are on the way back.”

Basilard signed, Same plan?

“What plan is that?” Akstyr asked. “The one where you two pummel them while they’re looking at your underwear?”

“That’s the one.” Maldynado scooted into the shadows. “Though it’s too bad Amaranthe’s pack isn’t here. Her underwear would be a lot more likely to distract hardworking rural men who probably haven’t seen too many ladies in a while.”

Basilard and Akstyr eased away from the trapdoor to hug the shadows as well. They did not have long to wait before the two men returned, and the fellows did indeed stop to investigate the open door. Subduing them was painless, and Maldynado and Basilard were soon atop the rail car, dusting their hands off and sharing congratulatory pats for work well done.

Akstyr rolled his eyes as he climbed outside with them. After the months of training they had spent under Sicarius’s elite tutelage, subduing two common laborers and dumping them off a train wasn’t a meaningful victory. At least he’d gotten to practice a little more of his art.

Basilard signed, What now? Wait to do it again?

“Did anyone see how many men stayed on the train with the weapons?” Maldynado asked.

Basilard shook his head.

“I can figure it out,” Akstyr said.

With the freight car trembling beneath him and wind tearing through his hair, he wasn’t sure how well he could concentrate, but he liked it when he got a chance to show off how useful his skills could be. He sat cross-legged on the roof and closed his eyes.

The first Science book he had found, the one from Larocka Myll’s mansion, had been on Thermodynamics. It was a beastly hard text to understand, and it didn’t help that Akstyr had to have Books translate the language for him, but Akstyr had figured a couple of things out from it. For one, he had learned how to sense heat. At first, that hadn’t seemed very useful, until he’d realized that living things had body heat, and he could detect it at a distance. Not a great distance, but he was improving all the time, and he thought he could sense people a few cars away.

It seemed strange that he could get tired from using his brain in a big way, but Akstyr always did when he was exercising the mental sciences, and he had to wipe sweat off his forehead when he finished. That didn’t keep him from giving a triumphant smirk and saying, “Four.”

Basilard and Maldynado had flopped down on their bellies and were pointing at something in the countryside and arguing. Akstyr always lost track of time when he was practicing. Since neither man seemed to hear him, he thumped Maldynado on the boot to get his attention, then repeated himself.

“Oh, good,” Maldynado said. “As long as that was taking, I thought we might have to wait and count people as they came out for their morning bush watering.”

Akstyr scowled. Maldynado had no idea how much work went into the mental sciences. He-

Basilard patted Akstyr on the shoulder and signed, Good job.

Akstyr’s disgruntlement faded slightly. He appreciated the words-at least somebody noticed that he was useful in the group-but he shrugged and said, “Whatever.” It was important not to let people know that what they thought mattered. That gave them too much power.

“Let’s pay them a visit, shall we?” Maldynado asked.

Basilard signed, What happens when the train stops to make its delivery and nobody’s there to help unload the goods? The recipients might be suspicious.

“They’d be more suspicious if the people who did arrive said half of their team had gone missing on the ride over,” Maldynado said. “This way, they’ll think there was a mix-up in the communications phase of their plan.”

“That’s actually a good point,” Akstyr said.

“Don’t sound so surprised.” Maldynado nodded toward the weapons car. “Let’s be quieter about our approach than those lard-brains were. Maybe we can take out these four before they wake up.”

Akstyr appreciated that Maldynado wasn’t so strictly warrior-caste that he insisted on challenging the enemy to a duel or fair fight or some heroic storybook thing like that. Sometimes aristocrats didn’t have a clue about the real world.

Maldynado led the way across the rail cars, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, until they reached the one just before their destination. They paused to kneel on the edge before crossing over to it.

“Anyone have a plan?” Maldynado asked.

“That doesn’t involve underwear?” Akstyr asked.

“Preferably. We didn’t bring any along.”

Basilard signed, Akstyr, do you know where in the car the four people are located?

“Two were sitting across from the door, smoking.” Akstyr had sensed the bright points of heat and been tickled when he realized he’d identified cigars. “One was on the floor, so maybe sleeping. Another was by himself in the back.” He waved to indicate the end of the car farthest from them.

“Sleeping?” Maldynado asked.

“I don’t think so. He was sitting or maybe crouching. Reminded me of Sicarius off by himself cleaning his weapons.”

Maldynado grimaced. “I hope we don’t run into any Sicarius types with this crew, or we’re in trouble. Basilard, do you want to charge that fellow? He’ll have the most time to bring a gun to bear, but you’re deadly and scary, so maybe he’ll get worried when he sees your scars.”

If Maldynado had told Akstyr to charge some idiot that probably had a gun, Akstyr would have told him to stuff his fist in his mouth and gag on it. But Basilard nodded. He probably figured he was the best fighter and the logical choice. Akstyr was happy to be a mediocre fighter if it meant not being assigned deranged tasks like that.

“I’ll take the smoking men,” Maldynado said. “Akstyr, you get that fourth bloke and be ready to clean up the mess.”

Akstyr wondered if cleaning up the mess would involve healing Basilard when he got shot.

Maldynado shimmied across the coupling, then reached around and grabbed the ladder. He climbed a few rungs, careful not to clomp loudly at any point, and waved for Basilard to come next. Basilard skimmed down and over, almost as deft as Sicarius. Instead of staying on the ladder, he slid across the door, having no trouble navigating the inch-wide threshold, and perched on the other side. Akstyr couldn’t guess what tiny nubs Basilard was using for hand and footholds. With the train speeding across the flatlands and harsh winds whistling down the tracks, it seemed a tenuous position.

Akstyr clambered down and settled beneath Maldynado on the ladder. He withdrew his sword, a sturdy cutlass good for close-quarters skirmishes, and nodded that he was ready. Basilard grabbed the latch and pulled the door open with one swift motion. He and Maldynado leaped into the car as if they practiced the move all the time. They landed side-by-side and charged into the interior.

Akstyr gave them a second to get out of the way-and to make sure no bullets were flying-before jumping in after them. He landed with his sword in hand, his feet pointed in the direction he was supposed to run.

Before Akstyr had taken more than a step toward the man on the floor, an invisible force slammed into him. It knocked him backward, then smashed him to the floor. He tried to push himself up, but a weight kept him pressed flat. The memory of a similar situation, at the hands of the wizard Arbitan Losk, flashed through his mind. Against all likelihood, these thugs had a practitioner with them.

“I can’t hold them for long,” a strained voice said from the rear of the cab. “Hurry up and kill them.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Akstyr could see Maldynado and Basilard flattened to the floor as well. Two of their enemies were already down in unmoving heaps, but one remained standing. He nodded firmly at the order and yanked out a dagger.

Akstyr focused on the practitioner. Already, sweat beaded on the man’s forehead and dribbled down his cheeks to drip off his stubbled jaw. This wasn’t someone of Losk’s caliber, and Akstyr himself had grown a lot since the previous winter. Having his physical body restrained did not mean he couldn’t use his own mental powers.

He pursued the first tactic that came to mind. Using telekinetics, he unbuckled the man’s belt. The practitioner’s eyes widened, and his hand dropped in a startled jerk for his trousers.

The pressure weighing down Akstyr vanished. He lunged to one knee and hurled his cutlass. He ran in after it, not expecting the blade to do more than surprise the practitioner and keep him from reapplying his spell, but the sharp sword cut into the man’s neck. He dropped, clutching at his throat as blood gushed out between his fingers.

Akstyr grabbed his fallen cutlass and finished the man off. One couldn’t be too careful when practitioners were involved, though this fellow didn’t look much older than Akstyr himself, and he’d sounded like a Turgonian. An unfamiliar sense of remorse touched Akstyr as he watched the man’s life fade away. What if this had been someone like him? A Turgonian trying to teach himself the best he could?

“Nice work,” Maldynado said.

The praise surprised Akstyr out of his musings. Maldynado never praised him.

Yes, Basilard signed. Good work.

“Uh, thanks,” Akstyr said.

“That move with the cutlass was smooth,” Maldynado said. “You were like a little Sicarius.”

Akstyr snorted. “Whatever.” Despite the snort, he had to wrestle with his lips to keep them from a grin. Sure, he wanted to be a practitioner, not a warrior, but being compared to an assassin was nice.

Basilard gestured to the fallen men-he and Maldynado had finished off their three-and signed, Now what do we do?

Unsecured crates of ammunition and bundles of firearms bounced with the train’s vibrations. Akstyr was lucky he hadn’t tripped over something on his way to the back. Behind the dead practitioner, the bigger artillery weapons were strapped to the wall.

“The original plan was to see where these weapons were being delivered,” Maldynado said, “and I imagine we can still do that. I’m curious myself, now that we’ve seen these people weren’t above employing magic to help things along. That’s not exactly standard imperial operating procedure.”

“I think he was a local boy keeping his skills a secret, to most of his comrades anyway.” Akstyr thought of the way the first two men they’d subdued had seemed terrified by the idea of magic, not like people who’d been exposed to it often.

Someone must have known about his skills and hired him, Basilard signed.

“If we want to find out who,” Maldynado said, “we better remove the bodies and clean up the mess. If the people receiving the delivery think someone forgot to send the help, they won’t suspect we’re around.”

“It’ll take a lot of cleaning to make it look like people didn’t die in here.” Akstyr eyed blood puddles on the floor and spatters on the crates. “Too bad Am’ranthe isn’t here. She likes cleaning.”

I doubt she’d enjoy mopping up blood, Basilard signed. That’s an unpleasant task for anyone.

“I don’t know,” Akstyr said, “she likes spending time with Sicarius, and that’s about the most unpleasant thing I can imagine.”