the matron of the farmhouse speak of a female enforcer had left Amaranthe wanting to investigate further.
“Do you know where Ag District Three’s enforcer headquarters is?” she asked.
“No.” Sicarius’s tone suggested he did not want to know.
“It’s on the way back to the city. I’d like to visit Sergeant Yara.”
Sicarius turned on the seat to face her fully. “Explain.” Amazing how much displeasure one clipped word could evoke.
Amaranthe told him what she and Books had overheard from the farmhouse porch.
“ Explain why that warrants a side trip,” Sicarius said.
“Should I step outside?” Books asked.
The lorry was still idling, and Amaranthe figured they shouldn’t linger on the farm. “No,” she said at the same time as Sicarius said, “Yes.”
“I see,” Books said. “I believe I’ll listen to the person with the most knives.” He eased out of the cab and walked several paces away from the lorry.
“We’ve been delayed for long enough,” Sicarius said. “We need to return to the city to ensure we’re in time to catch the last train to Forkingrust. I’m not driving anywhere else.”
“Sergeant Yara was useful to us once,” Amaranthe said, “and she may be again. If she was the one out here, investigating things, she may know more about the weapons manufacturing scheme. What if this isn’t the only facility? What if they’re all over the place out here, funneling supplies into the city?”
Sicarius, she reminded herself in the silence that followed her questions, wouldn’t care about this jaunt to investigate weapons. He was focused on Sespian.
“Remember the note she sent us?” Amaranthe asked softly so Books wouldn’t hear. “Yara has seen Sespian more recently than either of us. She wrote of advisors being present when she met with him, so she may know more about the pressures being applied to him. If we can get more information about how he’s doing before we attempt to kidnap him, we’ll have more to go on. Right now, we don’t even know if he genuinely wants our help or if he’s setting us up for a trap.”
Seconds floated past as Sicarius continued to face her, but she thought his gaze felt less hard, less intense. He finally released her from his stare and sat back in the seat.
“You should be negotiating with these Forge people instead of sneaking about,” Sicarius said.
“What? Why?” Amaranthe asked, startled by the topic shift.
“Because talking people into things is your gift.”
Despite the bleakness of the night’s events, Amaranthe managed a faint smile. “Does this mean you’ll drive after all?”
Chapter 6
Akstyr jumped and caught the lip of the trapdoor. He pulled his head through the opening and braced his elbows on the roof. Dawn was creeping into the sky, revealing the outskirts of Stumps. The greenhouse supplies in their car and everything else on the train-except the secret weapons-had been delivered at a stop in Ag District Number Seven. Apparently the last stop would be in the capital.
Akstyr looked forward to returning to town so he could put his plans into motion. He had some ideas on who he wanted to contact first and had ruled out gang members. Some of them had money, but they couldn’t be trusted not to backstab him. There were a few mercenaries and bounty hunters he’d heard of with reasonably honorable reputations. They charged enough for their services that they might be able to afford Akstyr’s finder’s fee, and they might be ambitious enough to want a chance at taking down Sicarius.
Maldynado popped up beside Akstyr and propped his elbows on the roof of the car. “Finally. We should be able to find out where those weapons are being delivered and get back to regular life for a couple days. And women.”
“Is that all you ever think about?”
The train was rumbling through the rolling hills north of Stumps where some of the oldest aristocratic families maintained orchards, farms, and ranches. Akstyr had heard that most of them didn’t even pay helpers, because it was supposed to be an honor to work for the warrior caste.
“After a week stuck with you, yes,” Maldynado said. “And don’t tell me you don’t think about girls. You’re too young not to. If you could actually talk to them, you might be able to get one without having to pull out your purse.”
“I can talk to girls just fine,” Akstyr said.
“Oh, yes, that stammering you do in front of them is endearing. I’ve been waiting to see if you’d grow out of that, but I think I’ll have to intervene. We need the young women of Stumps to find out that you’re the type of bloke who can hurl a cutlass across a moving train car to vanquish an enemy wizard. Girls love that stuff.”
The train crested a ridge, offering a view of the city core with its miles and miles of brick and stone houses, buildings, and factories. The black smoke of the industrial district smudged the horizon and hid the lake from sight. This time of year, thousands of other chimneys added to the pall, and it all settled in the old part of town where the gangs squabbled for territory. Akstyr hadn’t been sad to leave the cesspit, though it was true he wasn’t sure how to talk to girls from better parts of the city.
“Just because you failed to set Am’ranthe up with that journalist doesn’t mean you should start working on me,” Akstyr grumbled, though he wouldn’t object more vehemently than that. If Maldynado could find him someone who didn’t look at him like he was some mentally damaged gang thug… that might be all right.
“Someone has to,” Maldynado said. “You’re always holed up with those dusty magic tomes. That’s not entirely horrific for someone old and curmudgeonly like Books, but you’re a young fellow. Your snake will wither up and die if you don’t get it greased once in a…” Maldynado frowned at the tracks ahead. “Nobody’s out operating the switch.”
“Huh?”
Maldynado pointed toward a section of the railway where several tracks converged and split off, heading in different directions. “If the train’s going to turn south and into the city, someone needs to pull the switch.”
“Maybe we’re not going to the city.”
“Where else would we go?”
Akstyr shrugged. “A different city?”
“Obervosk?” Maldynado asked, naming the next closest population center to the east. “Why? There’s nothing going on there except pit mining and orchards. Besides that’s not on the official itinerary.”
“Neither was stopping to pick up secret weapons.”
Basilard squeezed in beside Akstyr and Maldynado to poke his head through the trapdoor opening. He yawned, rubbed an eye, and peered about. They had passed the switch and were barreling through the training grounds around Fort Urgot. Rows of trees edged the fields, dropping their red and orange leaves onto mud marked by vehicle tires and thousands of boots.
Basilard signed, We go to the army fort?
“Nah,” Maldynado said. “I’m sure we’re just passing through.”
Passing through to where?
While Maldynado pondered an answer, the rumble of the train grew less pronounced. The wheels were slowing.
The walls of Fort Urgot came into view. Running east to west, the railway passed north of the water tower and the army installation itself, but a depot station waited ahead. A pair of black lorries, their stacks sending plumes of smoke into the crisp morning air, idled before a warehouse with a loading dock.
Though Akstyr didn’t see any companies out for morning exercises yet, he decided it was light enough that some bright-eyed sentry might be able to see heads poking out of the top of the train, so he sank back down, out of view. The other two men joined him. Maldynado sat down hard, a stunned expression on his face.
“Did we thump up the wrong men?” he asked. “Are the blokes we threw from the train working for the army?”
“If we did, we might be in trouble once they wander back to civilization,” Akstyr said. “Especially if they’ve
