Basilard managed a quick grin, but the concern didn’t leave his eyes. Then a bang drew his attention, and he vaulted over the hole with his weapons in hand. Sicarius was busy with a coil of rope, figuring out a way to tie Sespian so he could carry him.
Amaranthe lowered her head below the floor, reaching her arm through the hole to grip the far side of the beam. The cold, coarse steel offered a ledge a couple of inches wide on either side, and, if it stretched the length of the car, she thought she could climb along it reasonably well. Holding on with her feet might prove more difficult, and she tried not to think about what would happen if her heels thumped down on the railroad ties at fifty miles an hour.
“Stop thinking,” Amaranthe muttered to herself. The men didn’t have time for her to stall.
She scooted forward, ready to go, when Sicarius touched her leg. Amaranthe met his eyes.
“Be careful,” he said, a slight widening of his eyes letting her know he’d been listening earlier and meant it the same way she had.
“I will.” Amaranthe slid her other hand through the hole to grip the beam. “No need to get sentimental.”
He kept a light touch on her leg as she wriggled the rest of the way through the hole, and she missed it when it was gone.
As she’d thought, gripping the beam with her hands was doable-all of Sicarius’s training had its uses, for she suspected she could hold her body weight from her hands for a long time-but when it was time to pull her legs through the hole, finding a place to put them was more of a challenge. The beam was attached to the bottom of the car, so there was nothing to wrap her limbs around. She experimented with a couple of positions and almost wished she’d left her boots behind, because it would have been easier to grab hold with her toes. She settled for turning her boots outward and propping her heels on the inside ledges of the beam. Though she couldn’t imagine a way to feel more awkward, it took some of the weight away from her fingers, and she was able to inch forward, one hand at a time, her heels sliding along behind her.
Less wind whistled beneath the train than Amaranthe had expected. If not for the noise in her ears, and the reverberations emanating from the beam, she could have pretended they were standing still.
She came to an axle and had to squeeze between it and the beam. How Sicarius was going to get through with Sespian, she had no idea. He’d probably need to go underneath it, but it would take more strength than she had to manage that feat.
Light filtered down from somewhere ahead of her. Amaranthe reached the end of the beam, and tilted her chin up, trying to see the balcony. A hint of vertigo struck her as she viewed the railway ties in two places, in the light seeping down from the nearest balconies and several cars ahead where the locomotive chugged toward the mountains, its own lights illuminating the track.
Amaranthe closed her eyes for a moment, steadying herself, then focused on the balcony. She’d hoped she might get lucky and that she’d be going under the coupling after the men had already charged inside, but that wasn’t the case. The noisy hum of the wheels kept her from hearing voices, but people’s movements stirred the shadows.
Something touched her foot. Sicarius, inching along the beam after her. The other men would be coming through if they hadn’t already. Amaranthe couldn’t delay.
She stretched her hand toward a bar at the base of the balcony. Her forearms were starting to burn from the effort of holding her body above the rails, but she told herself to toughen up. There were still three more cars to pass under.
Picking her way from bar to metal protrusion to bar, she eased into the space between the cars. Dots of light came through the grating on the balconies, and boots stamped about, inches above Amaranthe’s nose. She thought the darkness would protect her if anyone looked down, but crawling beneath all those soldiers made her nervous. Sweat moistened her palms. She winced. The last thing she wanted now was a damp grip.
She reached the end of the balcony and considered the sturdy coupling between the cars. Grabbing it would take an athletic feat, but she was more worried about the soldiers looking down and spotting an arm wrapped around it. The darkness might be enough to hide her through the grate of the balcony, but this was far more exposed.
Amaranthe inched forward and watched the faces through the grating. Men were standing on both balconies, not pushing at each other but leaning forward, poised to surge in to help the emperor as soon as they got the chance.
“Fire!” someone shouted. “The bastards lit the car on fire!”
“They’ll only fry themselves.”
“And the emperor. Get in there, private!”
Hoping they were suitably distracted, Amaranthe stretched an arm toward the coupling. Her fingers brushed the cold iron several times before she found a good grip. The men, with their longer limbs would have an easier time of it.
She managed to get her other hand on it, but her feet had reached the end of the beam. She tried find a spot to brace them on the underside of the balcony. Her foot slipped and her heel bumped the ground before she jerked it back up. A jolt of pain surged up her leg. She bit back a yelp-any noise would draw the soldiers’ attention-and flexed every muscle in her torso to keep her legs up as she pulled herself across to the next balcony.
No shouts arose as she squirmed beneath the next car. Good. So long as the others made it through too. Maldynado might have trouble because of his size, and Sicarius… She couldn’t even fathom taking this route with a full-grown man strapped to her chest.
Amaranthe found a beam to follow on the next car and continued forward. A few shouts drifted to her, loud enough to be heard above the roar of the rails, but she couldn’t distinguish words. She could only hope the soldiers were yelling about the fire, not that they’d spotted her men.
By the time Amaranthe reached the coupling for the next car, her fingers and forearms were quivering. Sweat bathed her face, dripping down the sides of her upturned cheeks. More than once her fingers slipped, and she had to react quickly to keep from losing a hand or arm between the wheels.
There were no soldiers waiting on the next set of balconies, and she took her time crossing beneath the coupling. She thought about crawling out and finishing the trek via the roofs or even running through the car, but with the luck she’d had thus far that day, she’d probably run smack into a platoon of soldiers hanging back to solidify their strategy.
By the time she reached the next coupling, her shaking forearms were cramping up. She pulled her legs up and hooked them around the entwined pieces of metal, trying to give her upper body a break. The position left her staring at the coupling. It’d certainly be convenient if she could simply have Maldynado unhook it after he passed through. The idea of her team pulling away on the locomotive while the rest of the train rolled to a stop was an appealing one, but the stout metal hooks looked like they’d take machinery or at least stout tools to unfasten.
A touch on her boot reminded her that Sicarius was behind her. Enough resting.
Amaranthe pulled herself beneath the next balcony and didn’t pause again until she approached the coal car. Once there, a new thought invaded her mind. What if some of the soldiers had thought to check on the locomotive as soon as they realized they’d been invaded? What if men were even now waiting in the coal car, prepared to attack any intruders who showed up there?
Those thoughts stirred anxiety in her belly, and the more she dwelled on them the more certain she became that the soldiers would have sent someone to check on the engine. But, when the balcony came into view, nothing but cold, dark sky waited above the grate.
Arms trembling more fiercely than the train itself, Amaranthe gripped the thin balustrades on the end of the balcony and hauled herself upright, again having to flex every muscle she had to keep her legs from dipping down to strike the ground. When she finally pulled herself over the rail and both feet stood upon solid metal, she wanted nothing more than to flop down on her back for a rest. Sicarius’s hand fastened onto the edge of the balcony, though, and she squatted down to see if he needed help.
He pulled his way up, using the balustrades with one hand and the back of the coal car with the other. With Sespian strapped to his chest, he couldn’t easily climb facing a surface, but he scaled his way up between the two, like someone crawling up the inside of a chimney. Sicarius bypassed the balcony and pulled himself straight into the coal car.
