Steamsworn (Steamborn Series Book 3)
THE STEAMBORN SERIES, BOOK THREE
By
ERIC R. ASHER
The Steamborn Series
Steamborn
Steamforged
Steamsworn
Vesik, The Series:
(Recommended for Ages 17+)
Days Gone Bad
Wolves and the River of Stone
Winter’s Demon
This Broken World
Destroyer Rising
Copyright © 2016 by Eric R. Asher
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Produced by ReAnimus Press
Edited by Indie Solutions by Murphy Rae
Cover typography by Indie Solutions by Murphy Rae
Cover artwork by Enggar Adirasa
~
The end shows only a path to a new beginning.
~
J
acob watched the
desert sands drift by as the crawler’s treads pulled them over dunes and rocks alike. The grains of sand in the gusts of hot wind stung his face, but the ride was far smoother than that of a Walker. Here, on the northwest edge of the Burning Forest, the cacti towered higher than any he’d seen before.
A halo of fire erupted from the stone trees in the distance. It looked like the world burned, and the cacti shimmered and danced in the waves of heat. The place bore an apt name.
“Do you really think stopping the army in Dauschen will be enough?” Jacob asked, his thoughts trailing from the fiery landscape to the flames of war.
Charles scratched his wide gray beard. “I know what Archibald said, and he’s not entirely wrong, but strapping all of his forces down to protect Bollwerk is a fool’s gambit. We don’t have the manpower to attack Fel directly. Destroying their army—not just stopping it, but destroying it in Dauschen—should be enough to force a retreat.”
Jacob nodded. He wished Smith had traveled with them, but Jacob knew Mary needed the tinker more. Smith had helped build the bombs, and that was more than most anyone could do.
Jacob was going to miss Alice, too. She’d stayed behind with Gladys and George to train, so if something like Rana’s abduction happened again, they’d be ready. The royal guard from Midstream had signed on with Archibald to help prepare the city for the worst. Jacob thought it was probably unnecessary, with the two giant warships docked in Bollwerk, but he knew enough to know he didn’t know much about preparing for war. If all went well, it wouldn’t be long until he saw her again. Until then, he at least had the memory of her lips on his cheek and the warmth of their parting hugs.
Jacob frowned and studied his hands for a moment.
“I’ve seen that look on a dozen soldiers,” Samuel said, shifting in the front seat of the crawler to look back at Jacob.
“What?” Jacob said as his brain registered that Samuel had been speaking to him.
“You’re either sick about not getting Cocoa Crunch until this little campaign is over, or you miss her.”
“No,” Jacob said. He gave Samuel a half frown. “That’s not …” Jacob sighed and rubbed his head. “Yeah, I miss her. It’s dumb, I guess, but I didn’t really realize it until Rana. After she killed him? I just wanted to take it away.”
“Take what away?” Charles asked.
Jacob glanced at Charles and Samuel in turn. Drakkar stayed silent behind the levers of the crawler. Jacob took a deep breath and a small crease deepened between his eyebrows. “I didn’t want her to have that memory.”
Charles wore a gentle smile as he turned back to the landscape. “You’re a good man, Jacob. You don’t need to worry about Alice. She has a fire in her that will weather any storm.”
Samuel propped his arm up on the back of his seat. The crawler jerked and bounced over a small, nearly dry creek, and the Spider Knight grinned at Jacob before turning around. The mountains soared into the sky beyond the Burning Forest. Beyond them lay the meadows, and then Dauschen.
It was there, below the streets of that fallen place, they would launch the first counterstrike.
* * *
“This is a
hell of a lot nicer when the Tail Swords aren’t trying to kill you,” Samuel said.
Drakkar let out a slow laugh. “It is a good rule to find shelter when the rains come to the desert, and not to be slow about it.”
“It doesn’t hurt to be driving around in a giant metal beast, either.”
“No,” Drakkar said as he pulled one of the brass levers and adjusted their angle into the mountain pass. “It does not.”
The metal treads of the crawler slammed into the stone foothills with a squeal before they gained enough traction to lift the bulk of the crawler at a forty-five-degree angle. Jacob threw his arms out against the seat as he feared getting tossed out the top of the open cabin.
“No need to worry,” Charles said. “There’s a gyro that detects an overbalance. It can fail if you hit something too quickly, of course, but it’s designed to release the gears and reverse automatically.”
“What if you really needed it to try anyway?” Jacob asked. “Like if you’re getting chased by an army of Tail Swords and your only hope is to crawl up a steeper wall?”
“There’s an override,” Charles said.
“Yes,” Drakkar said as he pointed to a plunger with a ruby top. “Although, if it was only Tail Swords, and you were in a crawler of this size, run them down. They are not the smartest creatures in the desert. They will strike the metal of the crawler instead of its passengers.”
“Why the hell didn’t we take crawlers last time?” Samuel muttered.
“Things turned out alright,” Charles said.
“Tell that to the dead people,” Samuel said. “I didn’t exactly have a fun time getting poisoned by Stone Dogs either.”
“You lived,” Drakkar said. “Be thankful for that life, and do the best you can with it.”
“I get what you’re saying, Drakkar, but I kind of feel like I lived just to die somewhere else.”
“We all live to die somewhere else. We die when there is nowhere else for us to be. You, Spider Knight, you still have somewhere to be.”
“Or he’s just a stubborn bastard,” Charles said.
Jacob laughed at the cutting look Samuel threw in Charles’s direction.
“You’re one to talk, old man,” Samuel said. “I’ve already broken my oaths to the city and the Spider Knights. It seems a bit daft to put my life on the line for them now.”
“It’s not for them though,” Jacob said. “We’re doing this for our family, and our friends, and the people who aren’t strong enough to do it for themselves. Like my dad. I mean, if he could, he’d be out here fighting with us. I know it. But he can’t, so we have to.”
“Kid’s right,” Charles said.
“I’m not a kid.”
“He did have sake,” Drakkar said.
Jacob’s mouth twisted at the memory of the awful drink they’d had at The Fish Head. He didn’t think he’d ever want to taste something that terrible again.
Charles patted Jacob’s shoulder. “It’s an acquired taste, boy.”
“Why bother acquiring it?” Jacob asked.
“You will change your mind when you’re older and have less sense,” Drakkar said, shifting the steering levers to swerve around a boulder.
“I thought I was supposed to get
more
sense as I got older. At least my mom seemed to hope so.”
“Jacob,” Charles said as he set his arm on the edge of the crawler’s door. “If men gained more sense as they got older, I would be a damn genius by now.”
“You kind of are,” Jacob said.
Samuel snorted and turned in his seat again. “Now I know why you needed Jacob on this trip, old man. Pad the ego a bit, eh?”
Charles gave the Spider Knight a knowing smile, but Jacob knew why Charles really had him along, and that burden came crashing back into his mind. They were on their way to Dauschen to lay waste to the military base on the southwest cliff face. Jacob’s actions would kill men, and women, and whatever else was standing inside.
