“Someone inside already,” Amaranthe whispered. She didn’t bother using Basilard’s hand signs since it was dark and Yara wouldn’t be able to understand them anyway.
Maldynado puffed out his chest and indicated that he would go first. Though Amaranthe doubted they would run into more than one or two workers tasked to load coal on the arriving train, she didn’t see a point to arguing with him. She pushed the door open and listened. She thought she heard something-a soft scrape perhaps-but the noise did not repeat.
A new noise from outside reached her ears-the distant chuffing of an approaching train.
Maldynado stepped past Amaranthe. She followed right behind and paused to listen again while her eyes adjusted to the gloom. The earthy scent of coal hung thickly in the air, and dust lingered, tickling her nostrils and coating her tongue. Someone must have been shoveling fuel into the dispensary bin upstairs in preparation for the train’s arrival. But where was that person now? And why wasn’t there any light if someone was in there working?
A set of stairs rose along the wall next to the door, and Amaranthe pointed for Maldynado to check upstairs while she investigated below. He padded up without a word. Amaranthe waved for Yara to stay by the door and eased into the dark room.
The only windows in sight were shuttered, so little light crept inside. Searching by feel, Amaranthe passed double doors and piles of coal, some in bins and some free on the floor. A mountain of the stuff buried the entire back half of the first floor.
She’d completed a circuit around the room and was heading to the stairs when her boot caught against something on the floor. It didn’t feel like coal.
With one hand on the hilt of her sword, Amaranthe squatted down, her other hand outstretched. She encountered clothing, damp clothing, and caught the familiar scent of blood. The overpowering odor of the coal had masked it.
“Body over here,” she whispered to Yara.
“Do you want me to come in?”
“No, someone better guard the door.”
Amaranthe drew a kerchief and wiped her hand before backing away. Deciding to risk a light, she shrugged off her rucksack.
Floorboards creaked above her head. Maldynado walking around, doing his own search. She thought about calling a warning up to him, but she had a feeling they weren’t alone, and she couldn’t risk a loud voice that someone outside might hear.
The ground trembled faintly, a sign of the train drawing close. Amaranthe reminded herself that it wouldn’t go anywhere until it had refueled its coal car and water tanks. But, then, if workers didn’t show up to do so promptly, someone would come to investigate.
Awareness of the need to be swift nagged at her, and Amaranthe almost dropped her lantern when she pulled it out. She did drop the matches she’d been fishing for. She patted the ground, looking for one, and encountered a warm puddle. When she’d chosen this line of work, she’d known she couldn’t be squeamish over such things, but touching bodies and blood never seemed to get easy.
“The blood’s still warm,” Amaranthe whispered. Books could have told her the minutes the owner might have been dead based on the temperature, but she didn’t need a lot of precision to know it hadn’t been long.
A steam whistle squealed. Not much time.
Amaranthe found a match and lit her lantern. Yellow light bathed a supine man in dust-coated overalls with a slit throat. A shovel lay next to him, fallen where he’d dropped it. He’d died with his eyes open, surprise on his face.
The creaks upstairs had ceased. Had Maldynado stopped to study something? Or…
A nervous flutter tormented Amaranthe’s gut. He wouldn’t fall to some assassin. Surely, he had too much fighting experience to be caught unaware like the worker.
The train ground to a stop outside of the refueling station, and Amaranthe had no hope of hearing what, if anything, was going on upstairs. She handed the lantern to Yara and gestured for her to stay by the door.
Amaranthe eased her sword out and climbed the steps. They were narrow with a brick wall on one side and the other side open to the floor. The pesky fingernail-nibbling side of her brain noted that fights on stairs rarely went well for the person in the lower position.
Ears straining, she forced herself to tread slowly-silently-instead of racing into danger. Concern for Maldynado lent urgency to her steps, though, and she wasn’t as cautious as she should have been.
A cry of surprise and pain came from the darkness above. Maldynado.
Amaranthe rushed up the last few steps. Lighting the lantern had affected her night vision, and she almost didn’t see the dark shape sprinting toward her.
She leaped to the side. Instincts screamed in her ears, and she lifted her blade. She couldn’t see much, but she judged the figure’s height and path and angled her weapon so it had a good chance of deflecting a dagger or sword, should there be an attack.
Even so prepared, the clash of steel surprised her.
Amaranthe reacted instantly, with reflexes honed from hours of training with Sicarius. Before the blades had parted, she grabbed the person’s forearm with her left hand and yanked. Her opponent was lighter than she expected, and Amaranthe pulled the figure off balance. She twisted the person’s wrist while ramming her knee upward, angling for the groin.
But her foe was too quick. Finding the gap between Amaranthe’s thumb and fingers, the person tore the captured arm free even as a thigh came up to block the groin attack.
Amaranthe shifted, trying to get around to her opponent’s back, to wrap her arm around the vulnerable throat. She was only partially successful and caught her assailant by the shoulder instead of the neck. She latched on, gripping with the ferocity of a pit bull, and pulled her short sword back to jab at the kidneys.
The blade met only air. Amaranthe still gripped the shoulder, meaning her opponent had remarkable flexibility. She whipped her short sword toward the person’s side, but it collided with metal in a screech. Her foe twisted to face her, wrenching Amaranthe’s fingers. She was forced to release the shoulder grip and did it with a shove, thinking to put space between her and her attacker, so she could restart the encounter from a neutral position. Surely, Maldynado and Yara had to be running up to help.
Luck favored her, though, or perhaps she could claim greater awareness of the terrain. A startled grunt rose over the noise of the train’s engine, and the figure’s arms flailed. The stairs. The person’s heel must have gone over the edge.
Knowing the agile fighter would recover quickly, Amaranthe pounced. She drove her short sword into flesh. The blade scraped past ribs, angling into the tender flesh of the abdomen.
A cry came, and the person fell away. The woman, Amaranthe corrected, her mind catching up to the fact that the voice had been feminine.
She managed to keep her sword, though it was almost pulled out of her hand when the woman tumbled down the stairs. The falling figure almost crashed into Sergeant Yara who was on her way up, the lantern in one hand, an enforcer-issue short sword in the other.
Despite the gut wound, the injured woman found her feet. She jumped off the stairs, one hand clutched to her abdomen, and tried to bypass Yara and sprint for the door.
Yara raised her sword, but the other woman lifted a bloody hand, and steel glinted. A throwing knife.
“Look out!” Amaranthe barked.
Yara dropped to her belly, flatting herself to the stairs, evading the knife by inches. The blade clattered off the brick wall. Yara’s lantern escaped her grip and landed on the flagstone floor. The flame winked out, and darkness engulfed the shed again.
The fleeing fighter yanked the door open.
Grimly determined, Amaranthe judged the distance and hurled her short sword. They couldn’t let anyone escape and draw attention to the refueling station.