Steamborn (7 page)

“You could put a steam engine in this one too,” Jacob said.

“It’s too small,” the vendor said.

“Charles could do it. He could put a little boiler under the spider’s abdomen and use a tiny Burner for it.”

“Ah,” the vendor said with a smile. “You know Charles?”

“He’s Charles’s apprentice,” Alice said.

“I was Charles’s apprentice once too,” the vendor said. That was before I worked with the city smith of course. Eventually I decided I liked springs and clockwork more than steam and weapons.”

“Weapons?” Jacob asked.

“Oh, that’s an old story for old men,” the vendor said with a smile.

“Would you sell one for five coppers?” Alice asked as she fished around in her purse.

“I can’t afford that,” Jacob said before he sighed. He’d thought about coming back later to see if he could steal one of the little contraptions, but now that he knew the vendor was a friend of Charles’s, he couldn’t do it.

“For a fellow apprentice?” the vendor said. “I would indeed.”

Alice handed him five coppers, and he took them with a nod before picking up the little sphere and placing it in a roughly woven beige sack.

“My name is James,” the vendor said. “Charles always liked to call me Jimmy, but do tell him I said hello, won’t you?” He held the bag out to Jacob.

Jacob looked over at Alice.

“It’s yours,” Alice said. “I don’t need that much more candy, and I’ve still got a few coppers left.”

Jacob took the sack and stared at it. “Thank you,” he said, not entirely familiar with people doing nice things for him. “Thank you.”

Alice patted his shoulder. “What are friends for?” She reached out and flipped the bronze switch on the side of a small rectangular box. It looked like a modest jewelry case, silver and adorned with intricate etchings. A run of high-pitched notes played, bright and happy.

“A music box?” Jacob asked, somewhat unimpressed, even if it did have a beautiful melody.

The lid popped open and a strange white bird waited inside. It spun to one side and then the other as it flapped its wings.

“Oh, wow,” Jacob said.

They all cringed when a horrible sound blared from the music box before the bird’s wings folded in and the lid snapped closed.

“Ouch,” Alice said. “Is it broken?”

James shook his head. “It’s a cock-a-doodle-doo. That bird went extinct a long time ago. It couldn’t fly very well.”

“It’s … great?” Alice said.

“The mechanics are pretty amazing,” Jacob said, “but that was an awful sound.”

Alice shrugged. “If I could fly like a bird, I wouldn’t much care what I sounded like.”

James laughed and wound up the old music box again. “Go on now, you two. Enjoy Festival!”

“We will!” Alice said as she grabbed Jacob’s arm and pulled him down the street.

They walked for a while before Alice said “Look” as she pointed toward the courtyard outside the Hall. “There are more games. It looks like someone set up more Cork fields.”

“You want to play?” Jacob asked.

“I want to win,” Alice said, laughing and dragging him toward the nearest game.

Jacob wasn’t sure how long they’d been playing games, but they’d won almost every one. He groaned and put his hand over his stomach when he and Alice flopped onto a wooden bench.

“Too much candy?” Alice asked.

Jacob looked up at the sky. “Too much … everything.” It was starting to get dark now, and the brighter stars were already plain to see. It wouldn’t be long before the only other light came from the street lamps. He couldn’t remember how many matches of Cork they’d won. Alice had a great arm, and her strategies could be even crazier than his at times. Their victories had led to food and candy and more food.

“I think I’m going to explode.”

Alice unwrapped a hard candy, a butterscotch, and Jacob looked away in revulsion.

“You couldn’t pay me to eat another bite,” he said.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I could,” Alice said.

Jacob watched her for a moment. “You’re a fantastic Cork player.”

Alice flashed him a smile and said, “Thank you.” She finished her candy and leaned into the back of the bench. “Did you ever think about trying out for the city league?”

Jacob shook his head. “No, but you should. That one shot you had? Where you looked at one goal, but aimed for a different one?”

“My granddad taught me that before he died. He was one of the best players around.” She crumpled up a candy wrapper and stuffed it into her purse. “I could never play for the city league.”

“Why?” Jacob asked. He immediately felt like an idiot. “Right, you’re a girl. Well, they’re dumb. You’d be a great player.” He paused. “You
are
a great player.”

“Thanks, Jacob. Maybe one day I’ll be able to play.”

“It’s just a stupid league. You know some folks in the Highlands don’t even call it Cork? That’s what my dad says. Some of them just call it League.”

Alice nodded. “They use those rubber balls. They don’t use cork. Have you ever played a game of Cork with one of those?”

Jacob shook his head.

“I have to say, they’re better than corkballs. You can bounce them off the ground to score. I mean, you can do that with cork too, but it’s a lot harder to do. I think—”

Someone screamed in the distance. An explosion of sound shook the stones beneath their feet. Jacob’s heart leapt and he froze.

“What was that?” Alice asked, her voice rising to a very high pitch.

Jacob stood up. He could see some dust in the distance, but no more.

“Oh, gods,” Alice said as she stood up beside Jacob. Her hands flashed up to cover her mouth, and there was a choked scream behind them. Another cloud of debris went up in the distance. Something moved on the top of the wall.

Jacob saw a pair of knights pointing to the shadow. It vanished and then reappeared. Whatever it was, it was fast.

It was close.

Too close.

A whistle sounded, and more knights gathered in the Courtyard. More whistles blew.

“No,” Jacob said. The shadow moved near the top of the wall again. Jacob watched with a rising sense of horror as the top edge of the stone began to buckle. “No!” Some of the knights started to run. They all shouted.

“To the city! The wall has fallen! Run, you fools!”

Disbelief caused him to hesitate for only a moment before he grabbed Alice by both her arms and stared into her eyes. “Run, Alice. Follow the knights. Run!” He pushed her toward the knights and turned to start in the opposite direction.

She nodded as tears and terror rolled over her face. “Where are you going!”

“Charles doesn’t know! I have to warn him and find my parents! They stayed home because Dad’s sick!”

“They’ll sound the bells,” Alice said. “I’m not leaving you here!”

Something huge reared up over the collapsing wall. It looked like a Walker, giant and segmented with countless legs, but it was a brilliant blue. Its faceted eyes sparkled as the rest of its body surged up and over the wall. One thing Jacob had learned a long time ago: the most colorful bugs were the deadliest.

“Go!” Jacob shouted, and it sounded far more cruel than he’d meant it to. “I’ll find you!”

Alice turned and ran, following the rush of the crowd.

Jacob watched her for a moment and then dove into a crowd of screaming festivalgoers. Charles and his parents would both be in danger. Jacob grunted as someone bumped him, tripping him and knocking him to the ground. Dirt and grit ground into his palms as he scrambled up off the cobblestones. Something like a chittering screech echoed down the street. It was the cry of the invader, Jacob knew, but he didn’t know what it meant. Another cry sounded in the distance. There were more.

Jacob stayed close to the houses as he ran, and gradually the crowd thinned. Everyone had taken shelter in their homes, or run toward the city walls, while the knights defended the citizens’ retreat.

Something crashed behind him, but he didn’t look back. He pulled his gloves on as he approached the lift. Jacob’s feet pounded the cobblestones, and his heart beat like it was trying to get him to run faster than he was already moving.

Don’t look back.

Don’t look back.

Jacob didn’t pause as he reached the edge of the cliff. He dove for the pole that led deeper into the Lowlands. His hands clamped around it, and he managed to half-hook one of his legs around it in his wild grab. The inertia spun him slightly as he started his controlled fall down the pole.

He glimpsed a black shadow with thin legs and what looked like giant fangs. Then it was gone. Jacob looked to the left as he fell, and he almost broke into tears. The cliff face near the Square writhed with movement. He couldn’t make out what was moving, only that there were a great many things laying siege to the walls.

He barely noticed the lift before he smacked into it. Jacob tightened his legs and slowed his descent as much as he could, but the impact was still brutal. His ankle throbbed as he bounced off the grate and fell to the ground.

Jacob ran as hard as he could, and the pain in his ankle vanished in his panic. He passed the broken wall from the night before. Then he heard it again. A glance backward showed him shattered roofing tiles strewn across the cobblestones. He raised his eyes and choked back a scream.

Long, spindly obsidian-black legs propelled a Widow Maker across the rooftops. It moved effortlessly, calmly stalking Jacob as he pushed himself even harder. Somewhere in his mind, he knew he couldn’t get away. There was no way to survive an attack by a Widow Maker. He ran, and tried to think, and then—

He remembered the whistle.

Jacob stumbled as he pulled the silver whistle out of his pocket. He wanted to shout with joy when he saw it hadn’t been destroyed in his fall. He clamped his hand over all twelve holes. He lifted the middle finger of his left hand as he exhaled, followed by his ring finger. He covered all the holes of the whistle again and blew into it as hard as he could.

It cost him more breath than he had. His pace slowed. Something clicked above him, but Jacob couldn’t bring himself to look back. He ran as best he could, but it seemed like he’d been running forever. His breath grew ragged, and roofing tiles still cracked onto the cobblestones behind him. The observatory may have been closer than before, but still too distant for shelter. Maybe the Widow Maker wouldn’t realize he could hide in a building. Charles could help, if he could just—

“Jacob!”

He glanced back toward the voice. The Widow Maker was close. So very close. Its fangs were raised, along with its front legs. The spider readied itself to strike.

Samuel’s lance cut through two of the Widow Maker’s legs, and the beast fell from the roof. Its carapace crunched as it hit the cobblestones, and Jacob watched in awe as the Spider Knight leapt from Bessie’s back and ran his sword through the Widow Maker’s head. Blue blood ran into the gutter as Samuel jerked his sword free.

“You have to get to the city!” Samuel said.

“No, Charles and my parents!”

“That old man can take care of himself.”

“No!”

“Dammit, boy.” Samuel looked at Bessie. She tentatively touched the dead spider with her front legs. “Get on.”

Excitement warred with sheer terror as Jacob swung up behind the Spider Knight. He wrapped his arms around Samuel’s waist, and the knight urged Bessie forward at a bone-jarring pace.

“Your parents are already headed into the city. They were the first block we evacuated to the lift.”

Jacob didn’t say anything. Something unknotted itself in his gut. They still needed to find Charles.

The streets grew more vacant the farther the trio sprinted into the Lowlands. The observatory loomed into view, and Bessie shot up the hill. When they were close to the door, Jacob leapt off the saddle.

He stumbled as he hit the ground, ramming his shoulder into the front door. “Charles!” he shouted as he pushed on the handle and threw open the door. Jacob stopped immediately.

A strange round cylinder was pointed at his face.

“Jacob,” the old man said, raising the cylinder away from Jacob’s head. “Not safe to come barging in at a time like this.” He flipped a switch on the side of the—thing. It looked like wood and copper with some kind of lighted tube and a thick sliding gear running down the side. The cylinder was darker than the rest of it.

“Is that an air cannon?” Jacob asked. The realization of what had just been pointed at his face made his knees wobble a bit.

Samuel pushed in behind Jacob. “Charles, we have to go. They want everyone inside the city walls. This isn’t a normal attack. There are multiple breaches near Festival.”

“Idiots,” Charles said. “I’ve told them for years the thinner walls in the Lowlands wouldn’t hold up.” He started picking things up from his workbench and stuffing them into leather pouches on his vest. “You don’t need Jacob riding on that damn spider, slowing you down. I’ll get him to the city.”

Samuel followed Charles deeper into the observatory. “With what? We don’t have time for—”

No one spoke after Charles threw the tarp off the steambike. Charles didn’t say a word as he leaned down to light the fires. He grabbed a miniature Burner, another of the metal balls that could give off a blast of heat, depressed the igniter, and tossed it beneath the boiler. Jacob stared at the dingy steel gears mixed in with the newly forged bronze that formed the chassis of the bike. The wheels had rubber around them now, and that was new since the last time he’d seen it. He’d always wanted to ride it, but Charles said it wasn’t safe.

“You’re crazy, old man,” Samuel said, but there was something like admiration in his words.

Charles nodded as he holstered the air gun across his back. He handed a leather backpack to Jacob, and Jacob put it on without any questions. It was heavy, but not too much for him. Charles buckled two huge saddlebags closed on either side of the bike before he mounted it. He started pushing it toward the door with his legs. “Get the door behind us, Jacob.”

Jacob closed the heavier of the two doors and pushed a button on the outside. He heard the clockwork come to life, locking the door in a dozen places with bolts of metal.