“We heard you fighting, and the pilot decided it’d be a good time to attack me as well.”
“Oh.” So Akstyr’s investigation had started things. Oops. “Any idea who those blokes were?” Akstyr glanced at Harkon, but he didn’t look like the sort to be intimidated into sharing information.
Books hesitated. “No.”
Akstyr wondered if he had an idea, but wasn’t going to share in front of the pilot. Before he could ask further questions, Books pointed at something outside.
“What?” Akstyr didn’t want to step away from the prisoner to peer through the window.
“There’s a road below that leads into a large, fresh landslide. I do believe we’ve reached our first destination.”
“Good. Now what?”
“Now, we figure out how to land. Any chance you can convince the pilot to instruct me on a way to accomplish that maneuver?”
“Lick my right sack,” Harkon said.
“That’s a no,” Akstyr said.
“I’ll admit I’m not as versed in Stumps’ street vernacular as you are, but I did deduce his meaning.” With rocks and trees no longer assaulting the dirigible, Books relaxed enough to turn around and check on Akstyr and their prisoner. “What is that smell?”
“Am’ranthe’s smoke grenades work real good,” Akstyr said. “What’re we going to do with this thug?”
Books rubbed his lips. “Did you find any closets during your explorations?”
The first two days on the train passed without incident. Basilard and Maldynado played dice while Amaranthe nibbled her fingernails down to nubs and wondered if she was flexible enough to start in on her toenails. She hadn’t spoken to Sicarius. That first morning, he had slipped out to find his own berth and had not returned. In truth, she’d been relieved. When he’d killed the men on the farm, it had arguably been in self-defense, or at least in her defense. With these assassinations… he’d gone out and, in a premeditated manner, killed more than twenty men and women. Even if they’d all been Forge loyalists involved in plots against the city and the emperor, they still would have deserved a chance to face the magistrate and explain themselves. For Sicarius to execute them based only on the fact that their names appeared in Books’s journal…
Amaranthe could forgive Sicarius for his past crimes; when he’d worked for the throne, he’d been raised- indoctrinated — to obey Hollowcrest and Raumesys. But he’d chosen to assassinate the Forge people of his own volition. It was murder, through and through. Even if it’d been born of frustration and a need to protect his son, it upset her. That she could care for someone capable of cold-blooded murder made her question her own integrity.
They were in the middle of a mission, though, and there wasn’t much she could do about the choices Sicarius had made. She still needed his help. At sunset on that second day, she talked herself into seeking him out to make sure he intended to give it.
Amaranthe slid the freight door open and eased outside. As she climbed the ladder toward the top of the car, cold wind whipped at her clothing. They were passing through the same mountains where they had run their exercises the week before. Snow now blanketed the craggy hills. The train was approaching the Scarlet Pass, which meant they were five thousand feet above sea level, and up there it already felt like winter. When she reached the top of the rail car, a dusting of snow coated it as well. She glanced skyward, wondering if she might glimpse Books and Akstyr, but, if they had gone east to check on the shaman’s mine, they would be behind the train. Nothing more interesting than an eagle glided through the air.
Prepared to have to search each car to find Sicarius, Amaranthe was surprised to find him sitting cross-legged in the snow near the head of the train. His back was to her as he faced the mountains, a small black figure surrounded by a white world. Something about his posture made the word “forlorn” come to mind. She shook her head. Someone who had slashed two-dozen throats wasn’t somebody to pity.
And yet… he’d never had a choice about his career, about what he was. Hollowcrest and Raumesys had spent years- decades — molding Sicarius into a weapon, a blade as deadly as that black dagger he wore at his waist. Could one turn a man into a sword and then blame him if all he knew how to do was cut?
Wondering if the others were right and she was crazy, Amaranthe picked her way toward Sicarius. Every time she leaped from snow-slick roof to snow-slick roof she risked a fall. Sicarius had to hear her coming, but he didn’t look back. The train started up a slope and slowed down, so the wind wasn’t battering her so fiercely by the time she sat down beside him, though the cold snow chilled her backside.
“Fair evening,” she said, the first thing that entered her head. Maybe she should have rehearsed.
Sicarius acknowledged her with an impassive look, nothing more. He wasn’t wearing anything thicker than his usual trousers and long-sleeved shirt, and she recalled that he hadn’t been carrying any gear beyond his weapons when he leaped into the train. Killing up to the last minute, she supposed.
“Aren’t you cold?” Amaranthe asked.
“No.”
She touched the back of his bare hand, concerned he might be neglecting his health and risking frostbite, but his skin was warm beneath her own already-chilled fingers. “How is that possible?”
“In their natural habitat, mammals become cold-adapted in the winter, burning summer’s fat stores to efficiently heat the body. When humans clothe themselves in parkas and sleep in artificially warm environments, they fail to achieve this adaptation and do not thrive in the cold.”
“So… what you’re saying is that you have no physiological need to cuddle.”
That comment earned her another impassive look. Maybe someday she’d learn to stop joking with him. He didn’t seem to appreciate it, and trying to make him smile seemed destined to remain a fruitless endeavor anyway. Besides, his cool look reminded her that, murdered men not withstanding, he had a reason to be irked with her too.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Sespian’s… bump,” Amaranthe said. “I didn’t think your knowing could change anything, and I figured you’d worry for no reason.” Though he didn’t pin her with one of those soul-piercing stares, she felt compelled to add, “And I was worried you’d do something… rash if you found out. Which, as it turns out, you did.” She tried to keep her tone light, but a hint of censure crept into it anyway.
“Those who are dead will not trouble us further. Those who I could not reach will be afraid to leave the security of their homes. Men who live in fear rush when patience is called for, and they question their decisions at every turn. They falter and make mistakes.”
Nothing in his tone suggested he would apologize for his action or admit he might have made a mistake himself. Amaranthe wondered if they would ever see eye-to-eye on questions of humanity.
“Now that you’ve taken the action you meant to take, can I have Books’s journal back?” she asked. “He’s not happy that you… Well, he wasn’t done with his research, and I want to give it back to him.”
Though he continued to face forward, a hardness came to Sicarius’s eyes, and she half-expected him to refuse or say he wasn’t done with it, but he reached into a pocket and handed it to her.
“Thank you.”
Amaranthe flipped through the pages, and a chill that had nothing to do with the snow crept through her when she saw the neat, precise check marks penciled next to many of the names. Pencil. Something so sinister and cold ought to be drawn in blood.
She tucked the notebook into an inside pocket on her parka. “Do you still intend to join us in the train infiltration?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Business concluded, his silence seemed to say. Amaranthe ought to leave him be, but she found herself reluctant to do so. Even if he’d been forged into a blade from his earliest years, he’d been born a human being. Deep down, he must have the same emotions and needs that everyone else was born with. Knowing someone cared and wanted to offer him comfort would have to matter. Wouldn’t it?