Banichi was last in, and slid the door to after him. Ruso helped shove it, brave girl.
“Good luck, aijiin-ma,” she said fervently, and the door shut with a thump.
Dark came with it, and persisted, until Cenedi produced a penlight and helped arrange seating for the dowager against the wall, on a pile of baggage.
“It smells like fish in here,” Cajeiri complained.
“They are fish,” Ilisidi said. “Hush.”
“Mani-ma.” A pained whisper, next, which no one could fail to hear. “I have need of the convenience.”
“That can be attended, young sir,” Cenedi said, and took the young lad toward a dark, opposite corner of the car, which, fortunately, had plenty of gaps between the boards.
There was mortified silence after Cajeiri returned, silence except for a trembling sigh, as the youngster collapsed onto the wet and mildly fishy floor to sit against the wall, elbows on knees, hands wrapped about his head, a thoroughly miserable picture.
Bren paid his own visit to that small corner. So did others. Life seemed a great deal more bearable, afterward.
The train fired up and slowly, slowly, without the blast of a whistle to disturb the village in the dead of night, got itself into motion, gathering speed with a regular thump of wheels along the rails.
“Ruso says the train will stop briefly for mail at Sidonin,” Banichi said, settling down with a sigh, “which should be just before dawn.”
Sidonin. Next to the Ragi estate of Taiben. It wouldn’t have been a preferred strategy, in Bren’s reckoning of things, to go straight to the heart of the trouble.
But staying aboard into full daylight, when the train reached some town market center, didn’t seem a good idea.
There was a sort of breakfast by flashlight, if one counted Toby’s food bars, slightly crushed by sitting on them—they were glad to have them, even so, and washed them down with melted mouthfuls of fishy ice, to conserve the little left in their water-flasks. The train sounded like one of the old-fashioned sort, a steam-powered relic, which rocked along at a fairly sedate clip, whistling eerily at lonely points of hazard.
The chill of the ice had come welcome after the truckbed, at first, but Bren found the chill seeping into his bones after an hour. He sat in near complete dark, now that necessary moving about was done. His hands and feet and backside grew increasingly numb, the faint taste of fish persisted in his mouth, and he was increasingly convinced those cereal bars would remind him of that fishy taste as long as he lived.
Distaste wouldn’t survive the next pangs of hunger, he said to himself. An upset stomach was the least of his worries. A meal at all was better than none. And he had actually gotten a little sleep in the truck, and caught a little more, in the surreal spaces between blasts of the whistle. He found a way to pillow his head on his computer case, and hoped the fishy smell would not embed itself in his clothes.
Eventually, at one waking, there seemed a ghostly gray light coming in the seam of the door, and they were still thumping along. Banichi and Jago had gotten back into uniform. Ilisidi had bestirred herself, and gotten up onto her feet in the brisk cold. She walked about, relying on her stick for balance, waving off Cajeiri’s well-meaning assistance and Cenedi’s offered arm. Cenedi had arranged a sort of a chair for her, consisting of their waterproof luggage atop blocks of ice of suitable height, and she had rested in the best arrangement of all of them. He was heartened to see her up and moving steadily, if slowly. What it cost the dowager in pain he had no idea, but she was on her feet, and refusing to give up. And if she could, no one else could complain. He began to rub life back into knees and ribs and elbows, and thought about hot tea, which was as remote as the space station.
Squeal of iron wheels. The train began to slow gradually, braking, with attendant squeak and thump and rattle. Cenedi leapt up immediately to steady the dowager, who allowed him to see her to her seat.
“Are we supposed to stop, nadiin?” Cajeiri asked worriedly.
“Likely,” Nawari said, extremely curt, and shushed the question.
The dowager had settled and perched braced with her cane as the train slowed to a stop.
Sidonin, one hoped, the mail stop, edge of the Central Association.
In Sidonin, there was more than a chance of a hostile constable. In the territory of the Central Association, an hour or so by rail from Kadigidi territory, their opposition would have set up shop in far more elaborate fashion than in Adaran, on the coast. Not only a constable, but likely the town authorities as well.
Banichi and Tano heaved the door back while the train was still slowing to a stop. It was the faintest of dawn light, and a lantern showed, when Bren took a quick look outside.
No chance that they could jump out before the train reached the station and avoid the possibility of being spotted. It was a long way down, next to the hazard of the track. Ilisidi couldn’t do it. Cajeiri couldn’t. He didn’t know if he could. For the dowager’s sake—at least for hers, they had to wait for a full stop and get down in better order.
Guns were a real likelihood, in that case. Bren patted his pocket and drew a deep breath. Slower. Slower. Slower. Thump-thump-thump.
Wheeze and stop. Banichi and Jago jumped down onto the graveled slant. Nawari and his mate followed.
And any employees of the rail line who saw Assassins’ Guild black suddenly in evidence beside their train at this hour of the morning were likely to be looking for cover, fast. Bystanders were safe during a Guild operation—if they ducked fast and avoided involvement. Things had to be finessed, Banichi’s favorite word, and that meant delicacy, and avoiding the simply feckless and unfortunate.
Two more of Ilisidi’s men heaved baggage down. Bren passed his computer down to Jago, who shouldered it and held up her arms to steady him as he jumped.
He landed hard. Needles lanced pain through every bone in his cold feet, and he collided with her. He bit his lip, apologized, trying not to fold in pain, and to walk on the edges of his feet, simultaneously looking around and orienting himself on the railroad siding, a steep, gravelly bank, a cluster of small buildings with a faint electric light on the porch. People moved in that light, people they didn’t want to notice them.
They lifted the dowager down gently, silently. Cajeiri simply scrambled over the threshold of the doorway and lit on the gravel on young, strong feet.
The people down there didn’t look to have seen them. Better still, off to the rear of that building there was a small bus parked, one of the sort that served train passengers, to reach town center and other means of transport.
Tano signed in that direction, and Banichi waved them on. Tano and Algini sprinted silently across that dirt yard, and had the door of the bus open in a few seconds, whether or not it had been locked. Before the rest of them could cross the intervening distance, Nawari carrying the dowager at a near run, Algini had gotten under the hood and had the bus started, a startlingly loud noise.
Cenedi helped them get Ilisidi aboard, shoved Cajeiri after, and then shoved Bren up the steps, following after. Nawari heaved baggage into the back door. Two of Cenedi’s men got up onto the roof rack, a great deal of bumping and thumping—carrying rifles, Bren suspected, settling into a bench seat, watching for his own team to come aboard before someone down at the station came to investigate. Or opened fire.
Jago got in. Banichi followed, Tano and Algini followed, Tano closed the door and Algini slid behind the wheel. Jago remained standing, hanging with her elbow about the protective rail next to Algini, who floored it and turned the wheel vigorously. Banichi braced himself with a wide stance in mid-aisle, watching the rear view.