Steamsworn (Steamborn Series Book 3) (12 page)

“You’ll see.”

Jacob pondered what Charles meant as they made their way onto the next cobblestone street and continued on a few blocks. There were a lot of people in the shopping district, carrying canvas bags and wheeling carts with handfuls of essential foods while they bickered and bartered.

“Are they safe here?” Jacob asked.

Charles nodded. “Should be. The breakaway point is just inside the base’s walls. If it’s not a clean break, there’s almost a city block between the base and the shopping district.”

Jacob flinched and wrinkled his nose when a terrible stench almost choked him. “What’s that smell? It’s awful.”

“You don’t want to know, kid.”

Jacob felt a little better about the explosives, but he’d also seen how bad things could go when someone made the wrong calculation. City walls could collapse, buildings could fall, and people would die.

“There it is,” Charles said. He pointed to a two-story building with a gray wooden façade. Charles led the way through a cluster of pedestrians, dodging foul-tempered men and women until they eventually reached the front door. It seemed to be nailed shut.

Jacob looked around and didn’t see any patrols. “Looks clear.” The base wall in the distance caught his eye, and his entire body shivered. “Charles …” The dead hung in masses from the walls. Several had been there long enough for scavengers to tear them apart, leaving bits and gore piled along the base of the wall. Clouds of fat flies crawled everywhere, and Jacob had his answer about the smell.

“I know.” Charles paused and looked at the man sitting near the door. When the huddled figure nodded, Charles pulled on the board hammered across the door, opening it with a quiet squeak.

Jacob grabbed the door after Charles slipped through. The gray paint warmed his fingers in the morning sun, and then they were inside. Jacob blinked, trying to make out shapes and people in the sudden darkness of the boarded-up shop, and trying to rid himself of that awful vision of the dead. He wondered about the Carrion Worms that would inevitably show up, but then he remembered the city sat on solid rock. The worms couldn’t burrow through stone.

“You made it.” Jacob recognized Morgan’s voice, but he couldn’t quite make out his face.

“Of course we did,” Charles said. “What are Steamsworn if not reliable?”

“Crazy, in my experience.”

“That too, that too,” Charles said as he rubbed his beard. “Your lookout is somewhat obvious outside. Are you not concerned about him bringing attention?”

“No,” Morgan said. “He’s disciplined and smells rancid. Most soldiers assume he’s a drunk.”

Charles nodded slowly. “Let’s not waste any more time. Where’s the tunnel?”

“Follow me,” Morgan said.

It took Jacob a few more seconds of shuffling his feet in the dim light before he could make out their surroundings. He gasped when he saw the small piles of shredded and discarded bindings. There had to be hundreds of them …
thousands
.

“This is the legacy Fel and the Butcher want to leave behind.” A man moved in the corner, slowly stepping into a sliver of dusty light. “We have to stop them.”

“Clark?” Jacob asked. He recognized the man who had greeted them at the tents when they first arrived at Dauschen. There was a rage boiling within Clark that Jacob could scarcely believe was there. The man was soft-spoken, and deliberate in everything Jacob had seen him do. Now he looked ready to kill.

Clark almost growled. “They built pyres behind the building too. They burned the most ‘vile’ writings before they boarded up the library. Everything here about Bollwerk and the Steamsworn is gone. Every page about Midstream and the genocide of their people is burned and buried. They took it all.”

Jacob turned to Charles. Charles adjusted his glasses and said, “Yes, I knew, and yes, it’s terrible.”

“We have to stop them,” Jacob said.

“That’s why we’re here. Don’t forget it.”

Jacob nodded and pulled at his pant leg. He hadn’t thought about his leg much, but if the invaders were burning books about the Steamsworn, what the hell would they do if they saw someone with a biomech leg?

“Drakkar is at the safe house?” Charles said.

“Yes,” Morgan said. “He’ll keep the transmitter guarded.”

Morgan lifted a false panel in the back of one of the tallest bookcases. His hand vanished into the darkness before a metallic snap echoed through the room. The bookcase swung forward as easily as a hinged door. Morgan clicked the igniter on a lantern hanging within.

Darkness became shadowed stairs, dancing in the light of the dusty lantern. Jacob stepped closer and leaned over the top landing. “How far down does that go?”

“Very far,” Morgan said, “but you two need to go left at the second landing. That will drop you onto the supports. From there, you’ll have an escape hatch every block or so.”

“Escape hatch?”

“Remember the access points to the underground in Ancora?” Charles asked.

Jacob nodded.

“Same kind of thing.

Morgan held out a small brass box. It had a speaker on it, much like the one Mary had on the Skysworn, and a button on the side. “You’ll be shallow, just below the street. We should be able to reach you if there’s an emergency.”

Charles took it and slid it into a pocket high on his vest. “I’ll be lucky if my knees don’t give out on these damn stairs with all these damn bombs.” He stepped into the stairwell. “But this is a blow I want to strike myself.”

“You’re a legend to the Steamsworn, Charles von Atlier.”

Jacob wasn’t sure who was speaking as the bookcase door closed behind them. It was a trio of voices that said, “Fist in hand, we strike together.”

Jacob shivered at the quiet chant.

Charles sighed, pulled the lantern off the wall, and started down the stone stairway.

“It’s … it’s inspiring,” Jacob said. “It makes you not want to let them down. I mean, I didn’t want to let them down anyway.”

“That’s the biggest trick when it comes to war. Keeping people motivated and willing to die for a cause that they probably don’t need to die for. I hate war, kid.”

Jacob wanted to say something about how he thought Charles was great at it, and everyone they met seemed to respect Charles’s thoughts and strategies, but the old tinker’s words stayed with him. Charles hated war. How could you be so good at something you hated? Why would you be so good at it?

“To keep my friends and family safe.”

“Did I say all that out loud?” Jacob asked.

Charles let out a quiet chuckle as they hit the second landing. “Enough for me to hear your questions, yes.” He swung the lantern to the left and nodded.

“It’s musty,” Jacob said. “And … and something’s moving.”

“That’s the smaller river,” Charles said. “Not nearly so large as the river below Ancora, or even the main river below Dauschen, but far deadlier. This one travels through miles of stone before resurfacing. If you fall in, you’re dead. Simple as that.

“We’re not going near it though, right?” Jacob couldn’t keep his voice steady.

Charles didn’t answer.

The back of Jacob’s hand brushed the rough stone wall and came away damp. There was either a concentration of groundwater here, or they were closing in on the river.

Charles fumbled at his vest pocket and pulled out the little brass box. He clicked the button. “Water beetle, over.”

“Received.”

“Water beetle?” Jacob asked, remembering that horrifying creature that almost smashed the life out of him beneath Ancora. “Are those things here too?”

“Never seen one here before,” Charles said. “I’d never seen one in Ancora before either, so take that as you will. Good news is, the signal reaches us here. The detonators should both be in range from the library or the safe house. We can decide which route is better once we finish with the explosives.”

Charles slid his backpack off and pulled something out. It looked more like a Sky Pirate’s grappling gun from one of the stories he’d read when he was a kid than anything they’d use here.

“What is that?”

“Grappling gun, of course.”

“Are you serious?” Jacob asked, half annoyed and half giddy. “What do we need that for?”

“Step up here and take a look.”

Jacob did, and then he froze as Charles raised the lantern. The only word that came to his mind was
chasm
. It was deep—so deep the lantern’s light couldn’t reach the bottom. A few thin beams of sunlight pierced the top of the cavern, but that was it. Everything else was darkness, and shadows, and the menacing sound of a rushing river.

When Jacob’s brain managed to start working again, he cursed. “I won’t have to worry about drowning if I fall into that river.”

“No, I reckon you won’t,” Charles said. He offered Jacob a grin. “You’ll either have a heart attack before you reach the bottom, or you’ll break apart like a fine china bowl on those rocks. See where the lamplight breaks on the stone up there?”

Jacob nodded.

“Those are the supports we need to wire with the charges.”

“Gods, tell me you’re joking. Could we have dropped onto them from above?”

Charles shook his head. “Perhaps in one or two spots, but they would likely be locked. Underground is our best option. When we get closer, you’ll see the branching supports that bear the extra load from the base. Some hatches have a ladder leading to the surface. If we have an emergency, that’s where you go. You get out and head for the safe house or the library. I don’t care what’s happening, you understand me?” Charles turned to Jacob and put a hand on his shoulder. His voice was darker, almost menacing. “You get out. This
is
war now, and these people won’t hesitate to kill us. You have to remember that. Them or us, that’s your mantra in war.
It’s them or us
. It has to be, or you die.

“Now then,” Charles said, changing the tone of his voice so fast it made Jacob’s head spin. “This is one of my favorite inventions, but it has about as many uses as a strainer. By that, I mean it has one use, and it’s worthless for everything else.”

Jacob had heard what the old tinker said, but all that was really going through his mind at that point was,
It’s them or us.

“W
hat?” Drakkar asked,
unwilling to believe the words Lottie had spoken.

“We have a mole. Someone leaked our plans. We have to leave
now
. Morgan and the others should be at the old library.”

“How do you know this?”

“We can find them there. I have the rations in the base. I …”

Drakkar blew out a breath and let Lottie ramble. She was gone, locked into the routine her training had taught her, gathering weapons, gathering food. Whether the threat was real or imagined, Drakkar could not risk himself and Samuel by staying in the safe house. He looked up and met the Spider Knight’s eyes. Samuel nodded and buckled his greaves before tightening his chest plate.

“We have to warn Archibald,” Drakkar said. “If we have been compromised, his communications may have been overheard as well.”

Drakkar opened the closet door, revealing the hidden radio with its tower of glass tubes and brass fittings. He had seen enough people use it now to understand the simplicity of the thing, even if he did not understand exactly
how
one’s voice could travel so far.

He picked up the transmitter and clicked the copper button. “Water Beetle to Nest, Water Beetle to Nest.”

Archibald’s response was almost instantaneous. “Nest.”

“Water Beetle compromised. Mission underway. This is our last transmission.”

There was a brief moment of silence before Archibald said, “Understood.”

“What now?” Samuel asked.

“We make for the library.”

*     *     *

The rest of
the morning had been a blur. Alice remembered packing her things and making the short walk back to the docks, but it was almost like the details were missing from her head. She wasn’t focused, and she knew it.

No, it wasn’t that she wasn’t focused. Her mind was sharp, and she felt jittery because of it. She was focused on other things, like the Porcupines from Belldorn. Smith had shown her a picture and called them madness given life. Each Porcupine was a floating mass of cannons, and they were headed for Bollwerk.

What if the Lady Katherine wasn’t really on their side? What if she was secretly aligned with Ballern? What if this was the perfect excuse to take down Bollwerk? Alice shivered as the questions cycled through her head over and over again.

“You okay?”

Alice looked up to find Mary with her back turned to the windscreen.

“I’m fine.”

“You look like you’re about to gnaw your own hand off.”

Alice offered a weak smile. “I was just wondering what Lady Katherine gains from helping Archibald.”

“Ah, politics. I’ve found it best to keep my head out of politics.”

“Didn’t you get this ship from Archibald because of some kind of politics? Or he owed you something, or … something?”

Mary hung her head and laughed. She glanced back up at Alice before spinning her chair back around. “Well, that’s not the entire story, but it had a lot to do with politics. Might be why I hate them so much.”