Conspiracy

  CONSPIRACY

  by Lindsay Buroker

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2012 Lindsay Buroker

  All rights reserved.

  Acknowledgements

  Before we jump into the next adventure, I’d like to once again thank the folks helping me publish the Emperor’s Edge adventures in a timely manner. So, thank you to Kendra Highley, Becca Andre, and Jeanne Marcella for reading early versions of this manuscript and offering suggestions. Thank you, Shelley Holloway, for making time to edit the novel the same week I sent it over. More thanks go to Glendon Haddix for cover art design and formatting for the paperbacks. And, as always, I’d like to thank you, the reader, for sharing the adventure with my characters. Maldynado is still hoping for his statue, but he’s somewhat mollified by the fact that so many people are reading about him.

  Chapter 1

  The steel framework of the bridge trembled with the train’s approach. Amaranthe Lokdon crouched on a beam overlooking the tracks, steadying herself with a hand on a vertical support pillar. The train chugged closer, approaching the bridge at fifty miles an hour, black smoke streaming from its stack and hazing the starry sky.

  Aware of the full moon shining into the canyon, Amaranthe hoped the engineer wasn’t watching the route ahead too closely. Her form might be visible against the dark sky.

  When the locomotive reached the bridge, the vibrations coursing through its steel frame intensified. Amaranthe braced herself, ready to jump. She made a point of not looking at the moonlight reflecting off of the river hundreds of feet below, though her pesky peripheral vision refused to let her forget about it—and the long drop it signified.

  The massive black locomotive passed beneath her, its smoke obscuring the view of the rest of the cars. The acrid air stung Amaranthe’s eyes. Nerves tangled in her stomach, but there was no time to worry about the view—or anything else.

  As soon as the locomotive and coal car blew past, Amaranthe took a deep breath and jumped off of the beam. She dropped ten feet to the first freight car and landed in a crouch, softening her knees to touch down lightly—and quietly. Though she doubted the engineer would hear anything over the noise of the train, she wagered Sicarius was watching from somewhere, and he would have words for her—or a stern, expressionless stare—if she performed sloppily.

  Amaranthe turned her head away from the coal-scented smoke in time to spot four figures dropping onto the four subsequent freight cars behind hers. Akstyr, Books, Maldynado, and Basilard, landing one after the other.

  Akstyr straightened his legs too soon and flailed his arms for balance. Amaranthe lifted a hand, concern tightening her chest, but he recovered and sank to his hands and knees. Face pale, he glanced over his shoulder at the deep drop and the shallow river below. He raised two fingers in a rude gesture, suggesting the canyon and the train could engage in carnal activities.

  Amaranthe snorted. No need for concern. He would be fine.

  Akstyr noticed her watching and changed the rude gesture to one of Basilard’s hand signs, an arm wiggle and finger tap that meant both good and ready. She returned the motion. Further down, Basilard, Books, and Maldynado gave her similar signs.

  So far, so good.

  This might simply be training for the real mission planned for the following week, but the setting made the potential for injury, even death, quite real. Amaranthe had argued with Sicarius, suggesting they do this during the day, and in flatlands instead of on dangerous mountain terrain, but the discussion had been short-lived. She had given in under the force of his unrelenting glare. He had been demanding near-perfection from the team of late, driving them harder than ever, but she could understand why. He had more at stake than any of them.

  Akstyr and the others were crawling off the roofs and onto ladders leading to the cars’ sliding side doors. Amaranthe pushed her thoughts away and got moving. After all, Sicarius was timing them.

  She dropped to her hands and knees and slithered over the edge of her car, probing for a rung. Again, she had to force herself not to think about the drop.

  Air thick with the scent of wet earth and fallen leaves railed at her, tugging at her clothing and making her eyes tear. Amaranthe descended with care, maintaining three points of contact at all times, just as if she were climbing down a sheer mountain face.

  The short sword belted at her waist caught between the rungs, and she lost a few seconds extricating herself. Farther down, Basilard, Maldynado, and Akstyr had already entered their rail cars. Amaranthe forced herself not to rush or sacrifice safety for time, but tension tightened her muscles nonetheless. Though it was foolish and she knew it, she always felt the need to prove herself as capable as the men, especially when Sicarius was around to witness.

  She leaned to the side of the ladder, reaching for the metal door latch. Her fingers brushed it. Grimacing, she lifted her leg and groped for a toehold on the inch-wide sill beneath the door, so she could lean out farther. This time, she caught the handle, though it wasn’t easy to open, and she struggled to find leverage without letting her foot slip.

  The train had passed over the canyon and was chugging through a boulder-strewn valley, but a fall could still be deadly. If she landed under the wheels, they’d cut her in half faster than any weapon in the imperial army’s arsenal.

  “Quit it, girl,” Amaranthe muttered.

  She readjusted her grip and twisted and pulled the latch with determination. The handle released with a lurch, but she anticipated it and shifted her weight back to keep her balance. She reached inside, found something metal to grip, and clawed her way into the car. Only when both of her feet were on the textured metal floor did she release a breath of relief. She didn’t relax for more than a second though, not when she was silhouetted against the sky for anyone inside to see.

  The freight car carried seeds, tools, and other agricultural supplies, so she didn’t expect anyone to be inside, but Sicarius had promised the objective would not be easy. She envisioned booby traps, but she had to be prepared for anything. She hoped her decision to split up the team had not been a mistake.

  Amaranthe pressed her back against a stack of crates strapped to the wall beside the door. She pulled a satchel over her head and removed a small lantern and a wooden match nestled in a waterproof case at the bottom. Making a light was a risk, but she had little hope of achieving the objective, or dodging booby traps, in complete darkness.

  The objective was, thanks to her questionable sense of humor and need to interject levity into the strenuous hours of training, to retrieve a fist-sized wooden ducky. Sicarius had said he’d place it in one of the first four freight cars, so it might not be in hers, but she had to check thoroughly. The team had only fifteen minutes to find it and meet him at the end of the train.

  After lighting the lantern, Amaranthe eased into one of two lopsided aisles formed by crates stacked floor-to-ceiling against the walls and head-high piles of seed bags in the center of the car. According to Books’s research, much of the cargo had already been off-loaded at previous stops, and the train was on its way to its final destination in Agricultural District Number Seven, near the capital and home.

  Amaranthe padded down the first aisle, hunting for places where one might stick a wooden duck. The tall piles of seed bags blocked her view of much of the car, and that made her uneasy. She alternated duck hunting and watching the floor, expecting trip wires at any turn.

  Her first circuit revealed nothing, and she went around for another look, this time lifting the heavy bags on the tops of the piles to peek under them. One of sacks leaned precariously, throwing a shadow like a rearing bear against the crates on the other side. She set her lantern down to push the top couple of bags into balance, so the pile had a tidier look, then realized w
hat she was doing and shook her head in disgust.

  “Time frame,” she muttered. “This isn’t the place to clean.” She crouched to pick up the lantern. “Or talk to yourself.”

  Something at the corner of her eye moved.

  Amaranthe spun, her hand going to her sword hilt. Nothing was there.

  A rectangle of moonlight bathed the metal floor near the entrance. It winked out as the train passed tall trees and then flooded the car again. That must be what she had seen. She drew her short sword anyway.

  Leaving the lantern on the floor, Amaranthe returned to her search. She poked through an open crate filled with metal parts for some steam-powered farm implement. No wooden ducks. She shifted a few more seed bags aside to look under them, though her movements were rushed and less methodical than before.

  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 o
f 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.

  “I’m hoping to come up with a plan that involves taking them by surprise,” Amaranthe said, “not fighting them on the roofs of moving trains. If we can’t get Sespian out of his car without killing people...” She tucked escaped strands of hair behind her ear, though the wind simply whipped them free again. “Well, it’ll be hard to convince him we’re good people who want to help the empire—help him.”

  It’d been more than two months since Sespian gave Basilard a secret note, asking to be kidnapped, and Amaranthe still had no idea what had prompted him to choose her team for the request. Did he realize that she had been wrongly accused of plotting against him the winter before, and he wanted to get the real story? Or had he simply been motivated by the fact that her men were the best outlaws around and the logical ones to work with? Or maybe Sespian was working with Forge to lay a trap for her and her team. Though nobody in that coalition had attacked her directly yet, the shadowy business entity had to be aware of—and annoyed by—Amaranthe’s existence by now.