Steamsworn (Steamborn Series Book 3) (18 page)

J
acob stared at
the monster docked beside one of Bollwerk’s warships.

“I told you,” Alice said.

He leaned forward and wrapped his fingers around the railing before shaking his head. “I know … but … it’s a lot different when you actually see it.”

The ship wore cannons like a bird wore feathers. It wouldn’t have to aim to hit its targets. It would only need to fire the right cannon, and it must have had a hundred to choose from. Some were long and lean like a rifle, and others looked wide enough to fit a person.

“I thought the big ones were smokestacks the first time I saw it,” Alice said.

“The one that looks like it could fire a full-grown Pilly?”

She laughed. “Yeah.”

“Targrove used to call the Porcupines ‘Madness given life,’ ” Smith said from behind them. “Of course, he died before they ever finished building them.”

Smith went below deck with Samuel and Drakkar when something started whistling, which was never a good sign around high-pressure engines. Jacob and Alice stayed at the railing while Mary guided the Skysworn into the docks. They helped drop the landing lines to the workers below when a man in a royal-blue jacket caught his eye.

“Is that Archibald?”

Alice squinted at the dock below while the gears slowly pulled the landing lines in, securing the Skysworn to the moorings.

“Mary!” Jacob shouted.

“I see him.” Her voice echoed out of the pilot’s cabin. “Drop the gangplank, would you?”

Jacob did. The railing dropped into the deck while the plank extended out to the docks. It didn’t seem as magical now, how the gears worked to move all the metal around. It seemed slow, like it was keeping him from where he needed to be.

Finally it locked into place, and Archibald started across. Mary came out of the pilot’s cabin to meet him.

“Where are Smith and the others?” the Speaker asked.

“Below deck. One of the turbines overheated. Drakkar and Samuel are helping replace two of the valves.

Archibald nodded. “Let’s go to them. We don’t need to talk about this in the open. I have no wish to cause a panic.”

“Why don’t you ever visit when you have
good
news.”

Archibald smiled and patted Mary’s back. “Good news is in short supply these days, but the Porcupines are here to help us, and that is the best sort of news.”

Mary led the way to the ladder and held the hatch for Archibald. She glanced at Alice and met Jacob’s eyes briefly. “Go on. Let’s get this over with.”

Jacob followed Alice into the yellow light of Smith’s realm.

There was a string of cursing followed by metal slamming against metal repeatedly. Footsteps echoed in the silence that followed.

They turned a corner and found Smith and the others gathered beside a wide copper pipe. Smith shook a smaller pipe beside it, tapped on a gauge, and said, “Huh, it would appear that fixed it.”

“Sometimes you just need to hit things,” Samuel said.

“Is it any wonder how the Spider Knights received their reputation?” Archibald asked.

The trio glanced up, and Samuel snapped to attention beside Smith. “Sir, I didn’t realize you were there.”

“Thank you for your service, Samuel” Archibald said with a short nod. “I am sorry for the loss of Charles. He was a good friend.” Archibald took a deep breath. “We have news from the West. Ballern’s destroyers have been spotted in Fel.”

“They attacked?” Mary asked.

“No, no they didn’t.”

Archibald’s words hung in the air. If they hadn’t attacked, then they were welcome there. If they were welcome there, they were allied to some extent with Fel.

It was Alice that broke the silence. “Then Ballern really did ally with Fel. Who are they attacking?”

Archibald nodded at Alice. “Correct. Their combined fleet is already on its way. If not for the spies there, we would have been blindsided by their attack. If their course holds true, they’ll be close enough to strike late tomorrow morning.

“Ballern has spies in Belldorn. Two of Lady Katherine’s guards vanished after your audience there. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that Ballern’s fleet is moving against us now.”

“Why now?” Smith asked. “The city is better protected than it’s ever been with two Porcupines to watch over the walls.”

Archibald rubbed his forehead and took a deep breath. “They aren’t moving against Bollwerk directly. According to the spies, they’re coming for the Porcupines.”

“Because the Porcupines don’t have the rest of the fleet as support this far from Belldorn,” Alice said.

Archibald frowned. “I think that’s exactly it. There are twelve destroyers headed our way. We can’t get our second warship back from Dauschen before they arrive, so I’m leaving it to engage the remnants of Fel’s army there. The Porcupine captains are the best Belldorn has to offer. They can hold their ground, even outnumbered as they are.

“Mary, I want you to take the Skysworn and get back to Dauschen.”

“What?” Mary snapped. “I’m not abandoning Bollwerk.”

“No, you’re going to go back to Dauschen and help Gladys and George.”

Alice’s eyes flickered between Mary and Archibald. “Gladys is in Dauschen?”

“On the warship,” Archibald said with a nod.

“Damn it all!” Mary shouted as she slammed her hand onto one of the metal benches.

“Our infantry is going to evacuate the civilians and remove the remains of Fel’s army,” Archibald said. “If it comes to it, the warship will commence bombing the city. We have to stop Fel from hollowing out Ancora like they did Dauschen.”

“We need to go to the lab first,” Jacob said. “We have weapons we may need.”

“The tinkers already cleaned out everything from the lab that could be used as a weapon,” Archibald said.

“No, they didn’t.”

Archibald eyed Jacob and then Smith. “Fine, but make it fast. I can’t imagine they missed anything down there. I want you and the Skysworn out of here by tomorrow.”

Mary crossed her arms and nodded. “Of course.”

Archibald hesitated and then turned back to the ladder. “I know I can’t force you to leave, but I do hope you’ll listen just this once.”

Mary watched him go. He was out the hatch and onto the deck before she said, “I’ve listened to you many times, Archibald, but I don’t think I can this time.”

“Are we not leaving?” Smith asked.

A savage grin crawled across Mary’s face. “We’re leaving, but not before we take a shot at Ballern’s fleet.”

“We can’t match them in this,” Samuel said as he gestured to the mass of pipes and gauges at the center of the Skysworn.

Mary nodded. “Let’s get back to Smith’s lab.”

*     *     *

They rode a
crawler back to Council Hall, the treads beating a rhythmic tune across the cobblestones of some back road Jacob didn’t recall seeing. The driver swore there was too much traffic on the major roads, and when they swung out of an alley and onto the main street running through the center of the city, Jacob knew he was right.

Alice leaned into Jacob, trying to get a better view of the mess on the roads. Jacob put his arm around her and leaned into the edge of the seat.

“Look at them all,” Alice said, and the awe in her voice was plain.

Women and children and men all carried sacks or crates, or pushed trolleys across the sidewalks and streets. Leafy greens peeked out of one crate, and a small box of rambunctious rabbits kept a small boy juggling the crate while he tried to keep them in place.

“Rabbits?” Jacob asked. “I haven’t seen a rabbit in years.”

“They aren’t too uncommon here,” the driver said.

“They’re rare in Ancora,” Samuel said.

“It’s so loud,” Alice said. “No one’s yelling, but it’s like a thunderstorm. It’s … weird.”

Drakkar looked out across the mass of people. “It is a wall of flesh and chaos.”

The crawler slowed to a stop outside the Hall. “Our Speaker declared a state of emergency,” the driver said. “Everyone has a job to do, and so they’re doing it.”

“Preparing for war,” Samuel said.

The driver nodded. “We have drills every now and then. Some folks think this one is a drill too, but it feels different.”

“Feels like a great storm is closing in,” Drakkar said. “Can you wait for us?”

The driver frowned and then shook his head. “I’ll send another crawler for you, but Archibald gave me other orders.”

“That will be fine,” Drakkar said. “I doubt we need more than an hour.”

“Make it two,” Smith said.

The driver nodded as everyone climbed out and headed for the Hall.

“Be quick,” Smith said. “Two hours does not give us much time.”

The entire group followed the tinker through the front doors and into the rotunda of the Council Hall.

I
nside the lab,
Jacob headed straight for the largest bench. It was the same bench he’d worked at with Charles, building Burners and Bangers and bombs. Jacob kneeled down beside one of the legs, opened a small panel, and threw the switch inside. One of the large flat stones popped up nearby and slowly rose on a pair of pistons.

“How did you know about that?” Smith asked.

Jacob smiled. “Charles hid the junk you had in there inside the vault by all the wires you keep.”

“Of course he did. Of course he did.” Smith crouched down and helped Jacob lift the top wooden crate up and out of the bolt-hole.

“There’s another one too.”

“Looks heavy,” Alice said. She tugged on the first crate. “Wow, it
is
heavy.” She pried the latch open and lifted the wooden lid. “Gods …”

The second crate thumped down beside the first and Jacob grinned.

“How many are there?” Alice ran her hand through the top of the mountain of metal orbs.

“A lot,” Jacob said. “That’s not the best part though. Can you get the lid off, Smith?”

There wasn’t a latch on the second crate. Smith took off his gloves and slowly worked the metallic tips of his fingers into the narrow wooden gap. The outer slat cracked and pulled away. Once Smith could get his hand inside, the rest of the lid popped off easily.

Inside were dozens of iron shells, hinged in the middle.

“Jacob …” Smith said. “I am torn between being furious you helped Charles hide these in my lab, and being extremely grateful you did. If anything had gone wrong …” Smith shuddered.

“What are they?” Mary asked. “Looks like some overgrown Burners.”

“These are Firebombs,” Jacob said as he held up one of the orbs riddled with tiny holes. “Imagine a bomb with the power to fill the entire Council Hall with flames in the blink of an eye, and enough heat to melt lead.” He slid the locking mechanism to the side on one of the Firebombs and started to pull it open.

“What are you doing!” Drakkar shouted.

“It’s fine,” Jacob said. “It’s fine. It needs a Burner to detonate.”

“Thankfully those are at least three inches away,” Samuel grumbled, hopping up on one of the benches. “You’re as nuts as the old man, kid.”

Jacob smiled at Samuel. He knew the Spider Knight hadn’t exactly meant it as a compliment, but that’s how Jacob took it. “You ignite a Burner and lock it down. Charles used to say you better have a really good arm, or a really good head start.”

“You could fire them with an air cannon,” Smith said. He picked up one of the other solid gray spheres and studied it. “What are these? Without the holes?”

“Grenades,” Jacob said. “Same principal as a Banger, but scaled up. You can ignite it with a Burner or a Banger.”

“What?” Samuel asked. “How?”

“It is an impact fuse,” Smith said as he stared at the open half of one shell. “How sensitive is this, Jacob?”

Jacob picked one up and dropped it on the stone floor.

Half the room shouted and raised their arms, like that would help.

Jacob laughed and picked the grenade up. “Not very. It needs a heavy hit from the interior, like a Banger failing. You get a more violent explosion if you use a Banger inside the grenade, but Burners are a lot more consistent with timing.”

“Let’s get this loaded on the Skysworn,” Mary said.

“Not yet,” Smith said. He looked up at Mary and let a slow smile pull his lips up. “Not quite yet.

Smith stood up, grunted, and walked over to the far wall. He slid one of the panels open, revealing his stash of wires and tubes that Archibald’s men must not have thought much of. “No one knows …” Smith pushed two of the metal racks up “… about …” and then two more went down before he lifted the edge of a workbench and pressed a button “… this.”

Something in the wall hissed, and the stone itself slowly vanished into the floor in silence.

Jacob stared at the mass of armor, blades, and the Steamsworn fist that stood tall at the back of the room.

Samuel stepped inside behind Smith and looked around. “Gods.”

“These are what I wanted,” Smith said. “They are much like a crossbow, but you can lock anything into the chamber and launch it at speed.” He pulled the long gray tube of metal off the wall and handed it to Jacob.

It wasn’t nearly as heavy as Jacob expected. “It’s not an air cannon?”