Sword and Pen (The Great Library #5)(60)

But humans were not machines, and calculations were no guarantee of success, and he didn’t anticipate that the men would have such fast reflexes. Or the instant agony that tore through his body, a shock like a lightning strike that left him utterly limp and helpless. Move, he begged himself; only sluggishly did his brain inform him that he couldn’t. For a horrible moment he thought he’d been shot and was dying . . . but no.

He’d been hit with two High Garda stun rounds.

The men didn’t waste time. One took out restraints and snapped them on Thomas’s unresisting wrists. They tightened like constricting snakes, and as the man checked the fit, Thomas glimpsed a flash of gold from a Great Library insignia. It seemed to be embedded in the man’s skin on the inner side of his forearm. He’d never seen that before, and even panicked and helpless as he was, he couldn’t help wondering what it was, how it worked. It was definitely an emblem that would not be removed. A lifetime commitment, like a gold band, but . . . different.

“No games, Scholar,” the soldier said. “Next time we use lethal force. I’ll give you one rebellion. Not two.”

He couldn’t speak. Could hardly breathe against the continuing waves of agony that convulsed his muscles. All his size and strength meant nothing; he was being taken as easy as a rabbit in a bag. Think, he ordered himself. It was all he could do . . . but even as the pain subsided, he became aware that moving his hands caused the restraints to dig in deeper. And they had teeth, it seemed, because as he struggled to sit up and moved his hands, he felt sharp, biting pain under the metal. He winced.

“The more you fight, the more those cuffs will dig in,” the other soldier said. He was a taller, darker man with shimmering dark hair and clever eyes entirely empty of sympathy. “I’ve seen them saw open veins. Not a pretty death, Scholar. Stay relaxed and you won’t injure yourself.”

“Who are you?” Thomas hardly recognized his own voice; it came out in a low growl, but it sounded vulnerable at the same time. Weak. “Not High Garda, though you wear their cloth.” When they both ignored that question, he tried again. “Why do you want me?”

“Stop asking questions. The next time you open your mouth, I’ll shock it shut. Be a shame if you bit off your tongue.”

Thomas wished he could ask Jess what manner of soldier had access to High Garda equipment and also wore a Great Library symbol embedded in their skin. He wished Jess was with him for other reasons, too; his friend had a gift for twisting his way out of tricky situations. Thomas did not. He was large, solid, and occasionally lucky, but just now he was as trapped as a bull in a cage. So what would Jess think about? Not directly attacking, that much was certain. And when Thomas closed his eyes, he could almost hear his friend whisper, Use your advantages. But what advantages did he have? He was handcuffed, barely able to move. Wherever they were traveling, gravity had shifted him back in his seat. They were going uphill now, at a fairly sharp angle.

Then the steam carriage rocked a little as it passed over a bump in the road, and it came into his mind as clearly as if it was written in fire: Schwingung. Vibration. Oscillation. It was a common complaint that steam carriages, because of the height of their cabs above the ground, and the weight of their steam engines, were inherently vulnerable to toppling in high winds, especially on steep grades of roads. But how to take advantage?

First, get both the men on this side of the carriage.

Thomas was not an actor by nature, but he remembered how the stun round had woken convulsions in his muscles, and he did his earnest best to feign a relapse. He rolled his eyes back in his head and began to twitch and flail; he was careful about his hands, though he used his legs in the effort. One of them shouted at him to stop, but Thomas kept it up, seemingly unhearing, lurching and flopping and crowding the soldier to the right against the far wall. The other one finally moved from his left to take the seat opposite Thomas, shouting at him to calm down. He was over the centerline of the carriage, if not next to the window. It would have to be enough.

Thomas braced his legs against the opposite seat and stopped twitching and moaning, and tried to look very, very unconscious. He didn’t flinch when one soldier leaned forward and checked his pulse. He was waiting.

The carriage hit another bump, a hole that rocked it from side to side as it rumbled forward, and Thomas came upright fast, throwing his weight in the same direction as the carriage’s tilt, then quickly back, then up again, a motion that confused and surprised both soldiers, and in the few seconds it took for them to realize Thomas was doing something, the carriage’s wheels began to bounce and twist. Thomas felt the entire vehicle shudder as it leaned. If the soldier on the far side of the carriage had the sense to move back to balance the load—

But he didn’t; he tried to grab Thomas and hold him still.

Mistake.

Thomas timed his next move precisely. At exactly the height of the unstable side-to-side motion, he threw his entire weight to the right, and it sent the soldier tumbling as the carriage’s oscillation passed the point of no return.

The driver yelled in alarm and jumped free as the carriage crashed over on its side, landed hard, and began to slide. The impact bounced Thomas’s head off the steel frame as they landed. All the glass shattered, covering the three inside with sharp fragments. The boiler, Thomas thought. The risk was that in an accident it could explode; there were gruesome examples of such disasters, though the compartments were supposed to be shielded for that reason.