you think I’m not strong enough to pull apart the coupling or because you’re worried I’ll mangle myself trying?”
“You’re as proficient with the crossbow as I am, and you make a smaller target for them to shoot at.” Sicarius slipped the crowbar out of her grip and stepped around her, leaving the crossbow and ammo pouch in her hands as he passed.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t answer my question,” Amaranthe said.
Without glancing back, Sicarius stuffed the crowbar through his belt and climbed on the side of the engine toward a gap between sets of wheels. He rotated his body upside down and angled for the opening, scaling the side as effortlessly as a squirrel scampering down a tree.
Amaranthe almost yelled, “Be careful,” after him as he moved out of sight, but she didn’t want to alert the soldiers that someone was attempting to circumvent them.
A gunshot clanged off metal a few feet from her head, reminding her that she should be paying attention to what the soldiers were doing. She reloaded the crossbow from the relative safety of the doorway before creeping back out onto the ledge. Before she’d gone halfway, the coal car came into view. Several soldiers knelt behind the black hills her team had formed, ducking a thick stream of water shooting from Basilard’s side of the cab. More soldiers filled the balcony of the first passenger car, and more still knelt or stood on the roof behind them, staggered so they could fire at will. Sicarius was going to have a hard time opening that coupling without any of the soldiers on the balcony or the roof spotting him. Maybe it was pusillanimous of her, but she was glad he had volunteered for the task.
Farther back, flames poured out of broken windows and burned on the roof of the emperor’s old car. More soldiers occupied balconies behind it, many leaning out and shouting or simply trying to figure out how to bypass the fiery obstacle.
Men on the roof of the closest car spotted Amaranthe and fired.
She flattened her chest against the body of the cab for cover. The bullets clanged off or flew wide, but the soldiers had another plan to try. One man on the roof leaned out, his rifle in his outside hand while a comrade gripped him by the inside arm. That put Amaranthe in his line of sight. She scooted back, ducking into the cab before his weapon fired.
When she poked her head out again, someone was passing the man another rifle. She squeezed the trigger of her crossbow, and a quarrel sprang free. The wind-or maybe the fact that she was hanging out of a train- affected her aim, and it disappeared into the night. She ducked back in to chamber another round, then played gopher, sticking her head in and out, until she drew the soldier’s fire again. While someone was handing him another loaded weapon, she leaned out and took more careful aim this time. She still missed her target by a couple of inches, but the quarrel caught the outside of the man’s leg. He dropped his rifle. It hit the ground butt first, fired, and bounced into the forest. The soldier clutched at his leg, and his comrades pulled him back before he fell off the roof.
Amaranthe inched forward and shot two more quarrels. They both sank into men’s thighs. She was careful not to aim at vital targets, but she wanted to convince the soldiers that loitering on the roof might not be a good idea. Her next two quarrels dove for the men on the balcony. Sicarius ought to have reached the coupling, and she figured he’d appreciate it if she distracted the people standing over him.
After that, she had to duck back into the cab to reload. Yara must have found the right controls, for the train was slowing. Amaranthe hoped she could control the deceleration, and that they didn’t stop completely. If that happened, all those soldiers could jump to the ground, race up to the locomotive, and swarm her small team by the platoon.
“Charge!” someone in the coal car bellowed.
Amaranthe had only loaded three quarrels, but she rushed back out to the ledge in time to see four men springing to their feet.
They braved the power of the hose to sprint for the locomotive. They ran toward the center instead of to the sides, where Amaranthe and Basilard waited. They must have intended to climb onto the roof and attack from that direction. Basilard’s stream of water struck one man full in the chest with enough power to knock him on his butt. A knife-one of Basilard’s-spun through the air and sank into a second man’s thigh, dropping him with a howl of pain.
Amaranthe lifted her crossbow to shoot at another man, but two soldiers protected by the coal piles fired at her. She should have seen it coming, but she didn’t duck out of the way quickly enough. A burst of pain seared her shoulder.
In her haste to leap back and get out of the soldiers’ sights, her heel slipped over the edge. She dropped and her other knee slamming into the ledge. She caught a handhold with her left hand-barely-but the crossbow slipped from her grip, hitting the ground and disappearing into the darkness.
A soldier jumped around the corner and onto her ledge. Another leaped onto the roof.
Amaranthe grasped the edge of the door with her left hand and yanked herself into the cab. “Help!” she blurted.
Amaranthe stumbled into one of the prisoners and pitched to the floor, landing on the injured shoulder. Agony surged through her, and she couldn’t bite back a cry of pain. Fortunately, Maldynado sprang past her, taking her place at the door. Metal clashed on the ledge outside as blades engaged.
Someone caught Amaranthe beneath the armpits and helped her to her feet. Sespian.
“Thanks, Sire,” she managed through gritted teeth. She took a second to inspect her wound.
Blood saturated her upper shirtsleeve, and the bullet had gouged a hole in flesh as well as clothing, but she didn’t think it had lodged in her shoulder. No excuse for not being able to keep fighting.
With Maldynado on one ledge and Basilard on the other, she didn’t have anywhere to go though. Amaranthe backed up to the furnace, so she could watch both doors. She had a feeling someone would slip in before long. Footsteps on the roof lent credence to that notion. She glanced at the clock. Only ten more minutes had passed. Maybe she shouldn’t have told Yara to slow down the train.
Maldynado was pushed back to the door, and swords clashed within view of the window, his rapier and a soldier’s cutlass. The shorter blade was an ideal weapon for the tight quarters of a train, but Maldynado held his own. His own dueling style, which favored using the point of the weapon instead of the edge, worked in the narrow fighting space. After a long clash of steel where swords struck in such rapid succession that it sounded like one continuous clang, his rapier slipped past the soldier’s defenses and sank into the flesh of the man’s shoulder. The soldier screamed and tried to back away, but he had the same problem Amaranthe had had. His foot slipped off the ledge, and he pitched off the train.
“We still trying not to kill people?” Maldynado shouted into the cab.
“That’s the goal,” Amaranthe said. “Knock them overboard if you have to.”
“Yeah, I’ve already been experimenting with that strategy.”
Maldynado looked up a split second before a set of legs kicked toward him. Without hesitation, he ducked, avoiding a pair of heels that would have taken him in the chest. He popped back up and caught the soldier by the belt. He yanked downward, nearly toppling off balance himself as he hurled the man from the train. Amaranthe rushed forward and caught him by the back of the shirt, stirring a fresh wave of pain in her shoulder.
Maldynado had to leap back onto the ledge to meet the attack of another soldier before he could yell a thank-you.
“Basilard,” Amaranthe called, stepping over prisoners to check on the other side of the cab, “do you still need the water?”
She was afraid they’d run out if they left it on. Without water in the tanks, they could end up stranded in the woods. Or, even more unappealing, the boiler might blow up.
Basilard ducked something and lunged out of view. Amaranthe couldn’t tell if he was still using the hose.
“This isn’t chaotic,” she said. “Not at all.”
“Can I help?” Sespian had picked up one of the prisoner’s swords.
Amaranthe waved the offer away. “No, Sire. That wouldn’t be a good idea.”
His chin came up. “I know you’re only familiar with me as a drugged simpleton with a sketch pad, but I have had some training. I’m not completely inept with a blade.”
“Of course not, Sire. I don’t see how you could be.”
