“Are you sure this craft is made from the same technology?”
“I would need a closer look under better lighting conditions to be positive,” Sicarius said, “but I deem it highly likely.” His gaze flicked upward, reminding her of the power it must have taken to collapse so much of the tunnel, a tunnel set deep in what had been a very old and stable cliff.
“Suppose you’re right. Are we sure those were Forge people up there, piloting that thing?”
“Who else would want us dead and know where we are?”
Sicarius had a long list of people who wouldn’t mind taking a shot at him, but… “Even Forge shouldn’t have known where we were,” Amaranthe said.
“Sergeant Yara may have informed someone.”
“And then come along so she could put herself in danger? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Akstyr then,” Sicarius said.
Amaranthe grew still. She hadn’t told Sicarius about Rockjaw’s tip, and she was positive Books didn’t regularly confide in Sicarius either. Had he found out another way? And, if so, did he know that she knew and hadn’t said anything? Surely he’d see something like that as a betrayal, even if her only intent had been to keep Akstyr from getting killed.
“What makes you suggest him?” Amaranthe asked carefully.
“He’s not as deeply under your spell as the others.”
“Maybe it’s because he avoids eye contact,” she said, referring to his comment that her eyes had some persuasive quality. “Anyway, how those people figured out where we were is something to dwell on later. For now, we need to escape.”
Sicarius looked toward the crevice leading back to the locomotive. A long moment passed before someone came out of it covered with dust. Sespian.
He paused at the entrance, glancing between Amaranthe and Sicarius with an uncertain expression on his face. When nobody else followed him out, Amaranthe wondered if he might have been concerned at the idea of her wandering off alone with Sicarius.
Amaranthe lifted an inviting hand. “Any thoughts, Sire?”
“I was curious as to whether you’d found a way out.”
“Not yet,” Amaranthe said.
“I was also wondering if you knew who those people were and if they were trying to kill you… or me.” Sespian grimaced, perhaps worried that this mess was his fault.
“We don’t know anything for certain yet,” Amaranthe said, “but Forge is always at the top of my list of conniving misfits determined to make my days bad.”
“Why,” Sicarius said, “is it ‘conniving’ when the enemy does it and ‘planning’ when you do it?”
Sespian’s eyes flickered with surprise at the joke. Amaranthe bit down on her lip to keep a grin from spreading across her face, though she was ridiculously proud of Sicarius for managing the line with a witness-this witness in particular-around.
“Because our motives are noble,” Amaranthe said, “and we’re not simply trying to add gold to our bank vaults. We don’t even have bank vaults. Or accounts for that matter.”
“Most imperial citizens don’t,” Sespian said. “Though that’ll change if those bankers have anything to do with it.”
“Oh?” Amaranthe put on her most attentive and earnest expression, hoping he might explain further.
Sespian glanced at Sicarius and shook his head once. Amaranthe wanted to shout out that Sicarius was his father and that Sespian could trust him more than anyone in the world, but she was afraid-no, she was certain — that statement would only drive Sespian away and raise his suspicions against the group. He’d think it some kind of trick instead of the truth. No, she had to get Sespian and Sicarius to spend some time together before anyone sprang that little fact upon him.
“Anyway, Sire, I don’t think they were after you,” Amaranthe said. “Or at least you weren’t the priority. After all, they’ve been keeping you alive for these last nine months, so why would they try to crush you with a rockfall now?”
“They may be prepared to make their move,” Sespian said grimly.
“Possibly, but we’ve… irked them a few times of late.” She winced, knowing ‘irked them’ might describe her team’s meddling over the water-poisoning and baby-creating projects, but wasn’t an appropriate way to talk about thirty assassinations. She had no wish to take responsibility for that, but she doubted Forge would separate her from “her assassin” as so many people liked to label Sicarius.
“Oh,” Sespian said in a way that suggested he hadn’t considered the possibility.
That probably meant he hadn’t seen recent newspapers or didn’t know Sicarius was responsible for those deaths. If that was the case, she wasn’t going to bring it up.
“Either way, it’s time to get out of here,” Amaranthe said. “I imagine they’ve moved on by now.”
“You have a plan?” Sicarius asked.
“The digging hasn’t been terribly productive so far,” Sespian said.
“I wouldn’t have suggested digging if I’d know about this big sturdy chamber.” Amaranthe strolled over and patted one of the walls, blocking the view of a particularly substantial crack.
“Sturdy,” Sicarius said in a flat monotone.
He must already have an inkling of what she wanted to try.
“You might want to stay here, Sire,” Amaranthe said, then jogged for the crevice. She didn’t want to explain her idea, and handle objections, more than once.
She wasn’t surprised when both Sicarius and Sespian slipped through the dark passage after her. She found Basilard, Maldynado, and Yara sitting inside the cab, digging tools discarded. Given how little progress anyone had made, Amaranthe couldn’t blame them for giving up.
“The secret,” Maldynado was saying, “is to hold your nose while you chew so you don’t taste it. He pulps up the meat pretty good and glues it together with bone marrow fat or something, so the texture isn’t as horrific as you’d think, though sometimes you do get these chewy bits…” Maldynado pointed to Yara’s hand; she was holding one of Sicarius’s meat bars. “Then you’ve just got to swallow quick without thinking too much about it,” Maldynado finished.
Basilard was halfway through one of his own bars, and he merely shook his head as Maldynado went on about them. They’re fine, he signed. Sufficient for the purpose.
“I can’t believe you’d say that, Bas,” Maldynado said, “you being a fair to excellent chef and all.”
You are too used to city food. My people make something similar for travel. We usually add spices and dried berries to give it flavor.
“Flavor, a completely foreign idea to that inhuman-er, hullo boss.” Maldynado noticed Sicarius as he hopped into the cab behind Amaranthe. “And… others.”
Amaranthe plopped down on the coal box next to Basilard and fought back a yawn. The clock on the wall was broken, and she didn’t know how late it was, but she knew they had long since missed meeting with the others at midnight.
“Got any new plans?” Maldynado asked.
“As a matter of fact… yes.” She paused to pick grit out of her eyes, or maybe simply because she had a flair for the dramatic. “Who wants to disable the safety valves and blow up the boiler?”
“What?” Yara asked at the same time as Sespian did. He and Sicarius remained near the doorway behind Amaranthe.
Maldynado leaned toward Amaranthe and peered into her eyes. “I thought you got shot in the shoulder, not the head.”
“We’re close enough to the exit, that blowing up the boiler might clear the rubble for us,” Amaranthe said. “Like using blasting sticks.” She smiled and tried to appear confident, though she wished Books was there to do some calculations. She didn’t know if the explosive power of an overheated boiler could move that many tons of rock, but it ought to at least shift some of the rubble around. Given how close they were to the exit, that might be enough. “There’s a chamber a little ways back where we can hunker down. There should be enough rock between it and the engine that we’ll be protected.”