Not only was she aware of time running out, but Amaranthe was growing increasingly uncomfortable. Something grated against her senses, like the wheels grinding on the rails below her. Though she had been all around the car, she had the feeling that something was watching her. Some animal perhaps? A rat? Or-a new thought occurred to her-it could be some person hiding, someone who had stowed away to avoid the pricy fare of a passenger train.
Amaranthe glanced down at the lantern. It would be highlighting her face, a face that adorned numerous wanted posters in the capital city.
“Time to get out of here.” She crouched and cut off the light, leaving a tang of kerosene in the air.
Before she could pick up the lantern, some sixth sense stirred the hairs on the back of her neck. She heard nothing, but instincts told her to move. Fast.
Amaranthe lunged forward, throwing herself into a roll. The lantern flew from her hands and skidded across the floor to clack into a crate. Not important. She kept her grip on her sword and jumped to her feet before the door.
Amaranthe didn’t glance back the way she had come-something told her she didn’t have time. She bolted out the door, jumping to the side and twisting in the air to catch the rungs. She flew up them with none of her earlier caution and only checked below as she was pulling herself onto the roof.
A dark figure jumped out of the car, somehow gripping the top of the doorway and swinging itself up to land in a crouch before her. Amaranthe scrambled to her feet and turned her sword arm toward the person, bending her knees in a ready stance.
The moon came out from behind the trees and shone on the figure’s short, pale hair and familiar angular features. Dressed all in black, he wore daggers to rival a porcupine’s quills, as well as throwing knives sheathed on his forearm.
“Sicarius,” Amaranthe blurted, relief washing over her. “I thought you were-”
A cutlass appeared in his hand, an army officer’s weapon. His face held no expression, and his dark eyes bore into her. She might as well have been exchanging stares with some stranger who wanted to kill her. The training exercise wasn’t over.
Amaranthe had barely prepared herself for the idea of a fight when Sicarius darted toward her, a dark blur under the moonlight. Her instincts told her to leap back, so she had more time to think, but she stood her ground. There wasn’t much space to give up on the top of the rail car.
The cutlass clanged against her short sword, driving it wide. Amaranthe knew the follow-up would slice toward her gut, so she had to leap back, giving herself time to bring her blade back in. She tried to parry, but his second thrust had been a feint, and already the cutlass slashed toward the inside of her thigh.
Metal screeched as their swords came together. She blocked him-barely. The power of his blow sent a painful jolt up her arm, but she kept her weapon in place. If he forced her arm wide, her torso would be exposed, an easy target. Again, though, she was forced to back up, to give ground.
Sicarius didn’t offer her a chance to recover or think. She could only react. Their swords came together, a continuous peal of scrapes and clangs of metal that echoed off the mountaintops. With reflexes honed by months of training, Amaranthe blocked him again and again, even in the poor light, but she could not gain an advantage. Worse, she knew he wasn’t moving as quickly and unpredictably as he usually did, not even close-he knew her skills and her style better than anyone, and he knew how to put himself just out of reach. Usually, he’d stop and offer her advice, but not tonight. Relentlessly, he drove her back.
Amaranthe dared not glance over her shoulder to look for the edge of the car; that would be an eternity during which he could-he would — strike.
Sweat streamed down her face and stung her eyes. She couldn’t pause to wipe it away, not now. Amaranthe tried to think of something she could do, a way to distract him, so she could strike a blow, or at least earn an opportunity to take the offensive, but she had sparred so often with him that he knew all her tricks.
The cutlass dug into her ribs, and she winced, jumping back and banging it away with her sword. Sicarius had used the back of his blade, not the edge, but his point was clear. It was hard to think up strategies when taking her focus away from him and his weapon for a split second resulted in his weapon slipping through her defenses.
The train headed into a curve around a rocky hillside. The car trembled beneath Amaranthe’s feet. She kept her balance, kept parrying his attacks, but she could tell from the amount of roof behind Sicarius that she was getting close to the edge. She had to try something.
The next time she parried a slash toward her torso, she turned it into a riposte, feinting toward Sicarius’s chest, then advancing half a step to strike at his thigh. She made her attacks rapid-her muscles were weary now, relaxed, and she could move faster than at the beginning, when tension had tightened her limbs. Sicarius blocked her strikes easily, as she had assumed he would, but he didn’t turn the attack back onto her immediately. She sensed he wanted her to try something, so she followed her thrusts with a slash toward his sword hand with the edge of her blade. The hand wasn’t a fancy target, but it was closer and easier to get to than the well-protected torso.
Sicarius evaded the attack, but he backed up half a step. Finally. Amaranthe forced him to block three times, each strike as fast as possible without sacrificing precision, and she managed to get inside his arm. She angled her sword toward his shoulder, lifting her front leg with extra emphasis, to show she meant to lunge in and throw everything behind the attack. But she slowed the blade, striking at half of her previous pace, hoping that she’d set him up to expect speed, and that he would move to block too soon. Then she would glide in over his arm and find her target.
It might have worked against a lesser opponent, but Sicarius saw through her ruse.
His cutlass slammed into her sword, sending her arm wide, and she almost lost the blade altogether. Knowing she couldn’t yank her arm back in quickly enough to block his next attack, she skittered backward. Her foot landed halfway over the edge of the car, and, with her momentum going that direction, her heel slipped off.
Amaranthe’s sword flew from her hand. She pitched backward. Fear stole her thoughts, and all she could think to do was flail, to try and catch something, but there was nothing but air around her.
A hand clamped onto her wrist. Sicarius pulled her up and back onto the roof. He plucked her sword from the air before it dropped away.
Amaranthe stumbled against him and clenched her eyes shut. The image of her body being cut into pieces beneath the great metal wheels of the train flashed through her mind. She wiped sweat out of her eyes with a trembling hand and fought to bring her breathing under control. More than exertion had her panting.
After a long moment, she stepped away from Sicarius. He extended her sword, hilt first.
“No, no, I’m fine,” Amaranthe said. “Thanks for asking.”
A normal sparring partner would have apologized for nearly sending her plummeting to her death. Sicarius never bothered with social niceties, though. She had never heard words such as “thank you,” “you’re welcome,” “good morning,” or “sorry I almost got you killed” come out of his mouth. He merely stood there, waiting for her to accept her sword.
Amaranthe took it and sheathed it firmly, letting him know she was done with train-top sparring matches for the night.
“You were thinking too much,” Sicarius said.
“I like to think. It gives my brain something to do.”
“Think to stay out of a sword fight, not once you’re in it,” Sicarius said. “I drill you on routines over and over, so they become an automatic part of your unconscious memory.”
“I haven’t noticed that I can get through your defenses consciously or unconsciously.” Amaranthe waved to the cutlass that he had sheathed in a scabbard on his back. “You’re using an army blade, so I figured you’d be mimicking a soldier, but no soldiers move like you.”
“The emperor’s elite bodyguard is extremely well trained,” Sicarius said.
“You think I don’t know that?”
Amaranthe sounded bitter and frustrated, and she knew it. Taking a deep breath, she willed the feelings to drain away. She would never beat Sicarius in a sword fight, not when he had been trained to kill since birth. They practiced so that she improved enough to beat other, lesser foes. She had to remember that and be happy with the progress she made.
