Steamsworn (Steamborn Series Book 3) (35 page)

“Ancora is a city full of burdensome halfwits.”

“So you’ll kill them and bring new blood,” Jacob said, keeping the air cannon leveled at the Butcher’s head. “Why help Ballern?” It had been eating him up inside, not having an answer, not having a clue why this man would rain hell down on every city in the Northlands. “I understand Fel. It’s ruled by your brother.”

The Butcher narrowed his eyes. “Mordair is ambitious, visionary. I only want Ancora, and the answers it holds.” The Butcher leaned back in the throne so the sweep of the ornate back looked like a crown. “You are picking the losing side. Not even my death can stop what is in motion, and your resistance will not live to face it.”

“Your guards outside are long dead, if that’s what you’re stalling for.”

The Butcher twitched. He hadn’t known his guards were dead. Jacob could see it on his face. “My brother will shatter Bollwerk and burn Belldorn to the ground, as they should have in the Deadlands War.”

Jacob narrowed his eyes. “You’re still carrying a grudge?” He watched the Butcher’s hand inch ever lower over the side of the throne. Jacob had little doubt there was a weapon there.

“Their payment was hard to resist as well. Ancora needs a firm hand.”

“Money. You already had everything you could want.”

“Some payments must be in blood.” The Butcher’s hand flexed around a knob.

Jacob pulled the trigger. The air cannon boomed and echoed in the cavernous throne room. The man’s fingers collapsed into broken, mangled strips of meat. The Butcher screamed and clutched his hand. His gaze flashed back to Jacob, eyes wide as he must have realized he’d underestimated the boy from the Lowlands.

“Stop! I’m the only one who can save your allies in the catacombs.” His voice broke as he winced and held his hand. “Even as we speak, my stablemasters are preparing to release a horde of Red Death onto them.”

Jacob stepped closer, rounding the throne beside the Butcher. “Charles couldn’t finish his mission, but he didn’t fight alone. I’d like to resolve his biggest regret.” Jacob heard the doors fly open and slam against the wall behind him. It was either Alice, or he was already dead.

“Jacob!” Samuel said.

He heard Drakkar shouting to Smith before Alice said, “Finish it.”

“Charles was a fool,” the Butcher said, his voice cracking and trembling behind the pain of his wound.

Jacob stepped forward and slammed the butt of the air cannon into the man’s face. When the Butcher’s head rebounded off the throne, Jacob met it with the metal brace on his right arm and a snarl. “Charles built this arm, Newton, and he’d be proud to know it was your end.”

Jacob clicked the igniter on a Burner and slid it into the bracket at his elbow. His arm began to shake and the Burner smoked.

The Butcher lunged forward, a short dagger glinting in his good hand.

Jacob knocked the blade away with the air cannon, twisted at his hips, and screamed as he punched the Butcher in the chest. The gears in the brace let go, firing steam and smoke and fire into the air. The Butcher’s ribcage collapsed with a horrific crunch. The dagger clattered to the floor as the man’s body slammed back into the throne. Gurgling, choking gags echoed around the room before he slumped to the side. Jacob grabbed the Butcher’s collar and threw him onto the polished stone floor.

The body came to a stop at Alice’s feet. She glanced at the face and slowly turned away.

Jacob’s mother had once told him there was no joy in revenge, no joy in the act of bringing another wrong into the world. He understood what she meant. Jacob didn’t feel joy, but he felt justified in bringing an end to Newton Victor Burns.

Samuel and Drakkar stared at the ruin Jacob had wrought upon the Butcher. The guardian was somber, but the Spider Knight smacked Jacob on the back and said, “Nicely done, tinker.”

Jacob looked to Samuel. “The catacombs.”

“What?” Drakkar asked.

“It’s a trap,” Jacob said. “There’s an ambush waiting.”

“Son of a bitch.” Samuel pushed down on the helmet covering his head and cursed again. “We tore the gates down. They could get up into the city … They’ll kill everything.”

Jacob looked at the Butcher of Gareth Cave. His actions had birthed the Steamsworn and helped bring a new order to Bollwerk. With his final days, he’d brought war upon the Northlands. Jacob bent down and slid the ring from the man’s hand, an extravagant thing carved with
NVB.

“Jacob.”

He turned and looked at Alice.

“We have to go.”

Jacob looked back at the Butcher once more. He’d killed the man. He should have felt remorse, or joy, or something, but all that was left was an empty hole. Jacob stuffed the Butcher’s ring into a pocket on his chest.

Alice turned to leave, and then she stopped, turned, and spat on the Butcher’s corpse.

Smith shouted from the doorway. “Alice! Jacob! Move!”

They ran.

*     *     *

Mary stared at
the glowing horizon. She knew that light wasn’t natural. She knew those were the very fires Smith had told her of. Taking the Skysworn into battle by herself would be madness, but she’d never been one to linger against the wall.

She glanced at the speakers beside her transmitter. The Butcher was dead, but her friends weren’t out of the woods yet. What if they still had knights arming the ballistae? They could shoot her down with ease. She didn’t have the same maneuverability here that she’d had in the open against Ballern’s ships. Mary cursed and the Skysworn lurched forward. Madness or not, she wasn’t sitting idly by.

Mary glanced at the transmitter beside her. She cursed and pressed the button. “Warship One, this is the Skysworn, come in.”

*     *     *

Jacob and Alice
hurtled into the streets behind Smith and the others. Gladys and George waited by a gutter full of bodies, and Jacob almost screamed. The mercenaries were still fighting. The resistance was giving as good as they got, but it left almost two dozen dead strewn across the courtyard.

Jacob stormed forward and screamed, “Stop! The Butcher is dead!” He raised the ring he’d taken from Newton’s hand. “Your contract is done!”

Even the men close enough to hear him didn’t listen. No one listened. Blood and viscera flashed in the moonlight, and the keening screams of the dying filled the night.

“I don’t think the Butcher held their contract,” Samuel said. He grabbed Jacob’s shoulder and pushed him forward. “You’ll only get yourself killed. Now run! Get to the catacombs.”

“I thought they only had fifty mercenaries,” Smith said as he picked up a steady pace beside them.

“They had more,” Drakkar said. “and it is horrible.”

A towering form limped across the street in front of them. The sword in his hand caught the streetlight first, and then his bloodied face came into view.

“Bartholomew!” Samuel shouted, his voice rising into a near scream. “Bat, no!”

Bat went down onto a knee, and one of the knights ran out of the alley behind him with a bloody sword. The knight bled from a head wound but charged at the larger man regardless.

Samuel ran at the knight, but it was a smaller form that reached the man first.

Gladys’s first blade sank into the man’s thigh. The next cut his hamstrings and took him to the ground. She brought both blades into the fallen man’s neck and then tore them out through the front of his throat. Blood fountained onto her chest. She booted the knight in the head for good measure as she stood up.

“Well done,” George said. Gladys slowly backed into the group again.

Samuel was already at Bat’s side. Bat wasn’t moving.

“Bat, Bat, can you hear me?”

“Yes … I can hear you.” Bat smiled and raised a shaky arm to pat Samuel’s thigh. “They are underground. More than we thought … too many.”

The awful truth of what Bat said sank in. Jacob looked up at Smith. “The knights, the knights loyal to the Butcher—”

“Shit.” Smith bit off the word. “Those were not the men on the railcars. We have been baited from the start.”

Bat’s voice grew weaker. “Cage … sent him to the station … get there … trust him …” A horrible rattle sounded in Bat’s chest, and then he fell silent.

Smith pressed his fingers against Bat’s neck and shook his head.

Samuel’s breath came rapidly and he closed his eyes. Gladys moved herself underneath his shoulder and prodded the Spider Knight to his feet.

“He wouldn’t want you to die out here,” she whispered. “Help us fight.”

Samuel shook, and then he screamed. The cry wasn’t like anything Jacob had heard before. Samuel’s wail pulled at his very bones, and all he wanted to do was help the pain go away. Instead he left it to Gladys and Alice.

Three men charged out of the alley. They weren’t dressed like knights. They dressed like Highlanders. Their long bows and the dark metal of their cannons marked them as something else. The rest of the fighting drifted to the eastern edge of the courtyard.

Samuel drew his sword and stalked toward them.

“Samuel, no,” Alice said. “You’re in no shape.”

Samuel let out a scream that caused the veins in his forehead to throb and the muscles in his neck to bulge. “I will kill you
all!
”

They laughed and raised their weapons. Jacob and Smith did the same, but before either pulled the trigger, a screeching Jumper slammed into the trio. Bessie raised her head and struck over and over, her legs pinning two down while she bit the third. The men screamed, their confidence broken and terror overtaking them in full.

When the last of them stopped moving, Bessie leapt to Samuel’s side. He climbed into the Jumper’s saddle. “Go. I’ll meet you in the station. Burn my uncle for me. I don’t want the Carrion Worms to take him.”

“Samuel …” Alice watched the Spider Knight jump away with the same worry that Jacob felt.

Drakkar watched Samuel vanish over a rooftop, and then he turned to Smith. The Cave Guardian pulled a pouch out of his pocket and sprinkled its contents over Bat. “Rest well, friend. You have given this city hope in its darkest hour.”

Drakkar clicked the igniter on a Burner and dropped it onto Bat’s chest. The flames burst ten feet into the air, hot enough to burn Jacob’s arm almost ten feet away. “Now we end this.”

No one argued with the guardian.

“I
t may not
be the fastest,” Smith said, “but I believe it is the best. We will reach the chainguns before we reach the station. We need better weapons to face a larger force.”

“The door into the wall is locked,” George said, gesturing to the stone barrier. “We
can’t
.”

Smith reached into his jerkin and clicked a lever down on either shoulder. The pistons and gears began to click in the tinker’s biomechanics. “I can.”

Smith braced himself on the stone steps and grabbed onto the iron bars. “Get above me.” Everyone walked up the stairs when shouts sounded below.

“We don’t have time for this,” George said. “We have mercenaries coming up the tower.”

Smith grimaced and pulled. Something screeched inside the hidden hall, and then something crumbled and snapped. The stone door came away in Smith’s grasp as two men with spears rounded the corner.

“Halt!”

Smith didn’t hesitate; he threw the stone door down the staircase. It crashed and flipped and shattered as it rained doom on everyone below.

“Oh,
gods!
” Alice put her hand over her mouth.

The mercenaries didn’t have time to so much as scream. The door crushed them in an instant.

Smith adjusted his biomechanics and then clicked his lantern on. “Move!”

Drakkar flowed into the cavern behind him, followed by Jacob and the others.

“They could follow us through the catacombs,” Drakkar said.

Smith shook his head and stepped around the hole in the floor. “It is done.”

Smith dropped through the floor and grunted when he hit the bottom. His lantern light circled the lower floor before he said, “It is clear. Come.”

They gathered at the other end of the hall, beyond the rusted iron door George thought might be from the old city. Smith wrenched it shut. He pulled a length of spider silk cable out of his pocket and tied the door into its own frame. The tinker gave it a few sharp tugs and nodded.