Steamscape (4 page)

Drina shrugged. “Sell it for a couple of horses then.”

He shifted his weight onto his metal leg. “I don’t like horses. But I suppose I’m game if it gets us out of the country.”

“Remember why Mark didn’t do that seventeen years ago?”

“The borders can’t possibly be as well guarded now with the war on. Besides, nobody’s looking for teenagers.”

“What does that mean–” Solindra started.

A steam whistle blasted four short notes and a long from the nearby train yard. The ground underneath their feet shook at the weight of the rolling cars. Solindra’s expert ears picked up that this was a fully loaded passenger train slowing to a stop.

“Four and a long?” she asked. “Haven’t heard that combination before.” She smiled. “Why don’t we catch a train?”

“Not that one,” Jing said darkly. “I read John’s– Calvin’s reports. We’re not going into that yard.”

The girl finished chewing on the bread. “Then why not a stagecoach? I’ve always wanted to ride in one. Even one of those that are pulled by horses.”

The mechanic mused, “Buying a cheap farm cart might do it. Couple of draft horses. We’d be just another family of refugees.”

Drina shrugged. “We’ll probably have to bribe our way out of the city if we leave by road.”

Jing sighed. “And neither one of us were the best at that.”

The cook curled a hooked smile. “There’s always my way.”

“As if that wouldn’t raise the alarm?”

“Not at all.” Drina smoothed her short skirt. “They’d just blame it on Steampower, and us with the vessel–”

“What is a vessel?” Solindra pulled out the red sancta from a skirt pocket.

“It’s nothing,” Drina and Jing replied in unison.

The girl frowned. “This may be my first time off that blasted mountain, but it’s not nothing.”

Drina smiled sadly and folded the sancta down lower in Solindra’s hands, out of view. “A vessel, is, ah, a rare person who both Steampower and Codic used to be after.”

“Why?”

“Different reasons. They tried to ma– bree–
train
infants to be crypters. Real ones.”

Solindra jerked the sancta free and jumped back. “I am not one of those freaks! How could the capital or Steampower give credit to those crazy ideas?”

Drina frowned. “So says the girl in the closet trying to find her father in the steam.”

“It didn’t work now, did it?” the young woman snapped. She gasped and lifted up the device. “This sancta-thing is a cipher medallion, isn’t it? No. No! My dad was
not
one of those occultists!”

“No, he wasn’t.” Jing shook his head. “He was unfortunate enough to know the truth.”

Solindra crossed her arms. “Which was?”

“He never said, Cyl. He wanted you to live a good life.”

She tossed the device up in her hand and caught it again. “I say let’s destroy the damn thing. Ain’t worth nothing to me.”

Drina caught it on the next toss. “Not right now. Mark thought you would need it if events came to pass, like the puzzle box. And since it probably
is
a cipher medallion, I’d suggest keeping it out of sight, young lady.”

Solindra grumbled, but tucked the sancta back into her pocket. She jumped at the four-short-extra-long whistle combination again, blasting off right behind her. She turned and gazed through the tall, barbed fence between them and the train yard.

And then she saw a thousand or so people crammed into cattle cars. Only dullness splashed across their faces as they stared at the ground through the slats in the cars. Soldiers surrounded the train, sometimes even pointing their rifles directly at the people, who didn’t seem to react to the threat.

Drina rubbed the girl’s shoulder and Jing limped to stand between them and the fence. Solindra started heaving for air. “What is that?”

“It’s called the Killing Train,” Drina said. The woman paused; she and Jing exchanged a glance. “Some guilty, but most probably just happened to live on the wrong side of the new border dividing the country. Codic’s clawing its territory back, you see? Steampower’s got the better weapons, but Codic’s got the men.”

Solindra continued to gasp. “Killing Train? But those are people. They’re
people
.”

“They’re just numbers to Steampower and to the capital.”

“They’re people.” Her face had faded to a shade of old porcelain, and she started to sway like wheat in the wind.

Drina steered her ward away from the fence by her shoulders. “Nothing we can do, Cylinder. I’m so sorry.”

“But they’re people!”

“We can’t help them.” Jing stepped in way of her view. “I’m sorry.”

A couple of patrolling soldiers drifted past on the other side of the fence. Solindra flinched at them, blinking back tears in her gray eyes.

Drina rubbed her shoulders, pushing the girl away from the train yard. Jing followed, his metal leg thumping against the brick street.

The mechanic stopped, raising his nose into the air. “Do you smell burnt garlic?” His expression changed to wide-eyed comprehension just as the first explosion rattled the street. Metal squealed briefly as the blast shredded the roof of a nearby factory. Its steampipes ripped open in a blossom of flame.

Fire consumed the nearest boiler tower from inside. A second, smaller explosion erupted from the top of the dome. The ancient masonry of the castle started to crumble away like a snake shedding its skin to reveal the body of the burning boiler. People streamed out of the collapsing building, not even yelling and instead saving all their concentration for escaping.

Solindra crashed down onto her knees, her cries lost in the sudden roar and stampede of the crowd. More explosions tore apart the steampipes leading from the nearest boiler in buildings on either side of them.

Drina wrapped her arms around the young woman and forced them to squat. Jing leaned over and shielded both of them. They backed up to the train yard’s fence, having no avenue of escape.

Jing wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Chalk that one up to Steampower saboteurs.”

“We’re being attacked?” Solindra covered her ears with her palms.

“Eh, not so much,” Drina replied, a treacherous grin on her face. “Maybe it’s just an accident.”

The mechanic groaned underneath his breath. “Either way, we’d better get out of here fast.”

Drina eased her grip on Solindra. The girl gripped the fence, shaking so hard that she could hardly stand up on her own. Scents of burnt garlic and oil rolled over them, adding to the falling ash from the sky.

“Garlic?” Solindra frowned.

“Strange. Phosphorus, likely.” Jing nodded almost approvingly. “Started fires in half a dozen warehouses I bet, and look at the boiler. It’ll be so hot it will melt its own metal. They can’t put that out any time soon. Not bad.”

Solindra pulled herself up on the fence to stand, still shaking visibly. “I want to go home.”

Shouts and shots arose from around a corner. A young man was sprinting ahead of several soldiers. A guard leveled his rifle and fired, but the runner had already weaved before the rifleman had squeezed the trigger.

The shot pinged off the fence above Solindra’s skull.

She crouched down and tried to yelp, but the scream froze in her throat. She’d never been on the wrong side of a bullet at Pitchstone!

And now the world was filled with soldiers guarding the Killing Train and a city that didn’t seem to have the heart to care. Its men were shooting on a crowded street!

Another shot rang on the fence further down from them.

“Just breathe, Cyl,” Drina said, watching the runner and soldiers with eagle eyes. “This moment will pass.”

Solindra wanted to scream at the older woman’s calm voice. How could
anyone
be so unruffled right now? A third shot ricocheted off the brick street and back toward them, narrowly missing her thumb. She heard the bullet clink against the fence.

The young woman kept her hands pressed to her ears and watched as the fleeing boy, near enough to her own age, gazed at her for just a moment, before speeding back up.

She looked back between the herd of people bound for the Killing Train and this young man. She stood. “We have to help him!” She jumped forward and nearly careened into the fugitive. Terror lent her enough strength to almost catch up.

“Cyl! No!” Jing leapt after her, but his metal leg weighed him down. Steam hissed out of its joints at the sudden movement.

“Cylinder!” Drina spun around to face the oncoming soldiers instead of giving chase.

A soldier slammed the lever on his rifle home, reloading the chamber, and leveled at the runners. He started to exhale and his finger slowly increased pressure on the trigger. He never saw the piece of brick flying through the air aimed for his ear.

***

“What are you…?” Theo couldn’t finish, he had to breathe instead. He stared in amazement at this flame-haired girl.

That hateful part of him prompted him to think, why don’t you trip her up? They’ll stop chasing you.

“Shut up! Shut up!”

“What?” Solindra glanced behind them. “I’m here to help you. We need to hide.”

“Help me?” He blinked in confusion.

She sprinted ahead, her gaze buried deep into the back of an alley. “There!”

They charged ahead into the darkness. Their footsteps suddenly surrounded them, echoing off the high walls.

Another backstreet corkscrewed away in the middle of this alley. Theo grabbed the girl’s shoulder and tugged. She burped a yelp of panic.

“Don’t! I guess I’m saving you instead.” He stuck his finger in her face. She went cross-eyed, and he felt himself tipping forward into the silver, steam-colored orbs. He had never seen eyes like that before. For just an instant, their grayness brightened and he saw all the colors of the prism, just like the aether bands in the sky.

He shook himself free and yanked her down the curving, ever narrowing alley. “Just don’t.” After two corners they came to a thick, iron gate. He crouched down. Unlike most things that had been made before the war, this one wasn’t all curving patterns and stained glass. It was a simple gate, meant to bar unsolicited passage.

She knelt beside him, shivering like a beggar in a blizzard.

The thundering of boots echoed around the curving corners. The girl flinched. Theo did too, and immediately started brushing off his soot-stained sleeves to hide the action. The footsteps didn’t grow any louder.

After a moment, he exhaled. He cocked a seamless salesman’s smile at her. “What crime did you commit?”

She just shook her head and replaced her hands over her ears.

He held up his hands and widened his smile. “I won’t squeal, I promise.”

“Home,” the girl muttered. “I was trying to do the right thing, but I want to go home. But Dad’s no there, so it hasn’t been home in awhile.”

“What? Where are you from?”

“The mountain.”

“Which mountain? There are hundreds between here and Codic alone.”

She shook her head and rolled against the wall.

Theo sighed and leaned back against the gate. He rubbed his face with his dirty hands, only smearing the sweat and grime.

“Ah ha! Trying to escape, eh? Well, you should have kept running!”

Theo and Solindra whirled.

Five soldiers pointed their rifles at them from behind the gate. The one in front smirked.

The chubby trooper waved his gun at them. “How the hell did they get over it?”

Another one fumbled with his keys and then yanked open the gate. Theo jumped to run, but the leader of the soldiers slammed his shoulder with the butt of his rifle.

He smashed face first into a wall. Two more guards grabbed his arms. Another seized Solindra. “Jing! Drina!
Jing! Drina!
”

She let her feet go limp, but the soldier just dragged her along as the guards hauled them both into the train yard.

After a few minutes, the engine began to chug and wheels started to roll. The whistle hissed its four-one note pattern as the train started to roll out of town.

***

The glass cane clicked over the cooling remains of masonry strewn about the street. Cooper Smith, Esquire twiddled his mustache. His gaze quickly passed over the bucket chain and hoses attacking the smoldering lump of metal that had once been a boiler tower.

He stepped over a corpse of a guard, kept warm by the nearby fire.

The man in black frowned and turned at the sound of an engine’s steam whistle. The glass cane clicked over the brick street as he strolled toward the train yard.