Steamsworn (Steamborn Series Book 3) (7 page)

“That’s … it’s nice.”

“I know all about Ancora and what they call Mechs,” Mary said. “I’m surprised you didn’t run screaming the first time you saw all the work on Smith’s chest and arms.”

“He saved Jacob.”

“He’s saved a lot of people, Alice. He’s a benevolent soul, trapped in a violent era. It happens.”

“A violent era?” Alice asked. “But we’ve had peace for almost fifty years.”

Mary let out a sigh before she glanced at Alice. “Not everyone has had peace. You’ve been safely locked away behind your walls. Until the Fall. There’s always evil in the world, kid. Be glad for the times you don’t have to face it.”

Alice understood what Mary was saying, but it seemed like a sad outlook. Almost as though Mary was saying the horrible things in the world were inevitable, and there was nothing that could be done to change them. Alice didn’t believe that. Her mother raised her to believe that one person could change the world, for better or for worse.

“There it is,” Mary said. She pointed beyond the windscreen.

Alice was blinded by a glare on something below, but another minute of traveling through the pass changed everything. She gasped when the ancient city came into focus. Stone and brick towers higher than the Skeleton in the wastelands seemed to scrape the clouds.

“That’s … impossible.”

“No, it’s not. We may have forgotten how to build them so high, but those monsters were made by human hands. They’ve stood for thousands of years. Most of them, anyway.”

“Thousands?” Alice asked. “We don’t have history books that go back that far. How can anyone be sure?”

Mary shot her a sideways glance. “There is more history in Belldorn than most places. They have records mapping the evolution of bugs into the giants they are today. You know some spiders used to be the size of your hand? Like a young Jumper? That was as big as they got.”

“How can they know that?”

“Books from the Old World.”

Like Archibald’s book? Alice wondered if that was the case, and then she wondered just how old Mary meant. Every thought left her mind when the clouds opened up and she saw the ocean for the first time.

Endless, crystal-blue waters surged and pulsed at the shoreline. She could see people out in the water as the Skysworn descended. The unfathomable stretch of blue, background to the towering city of Belldorn, brought only one word to Alice’s mind.

Impossible.

N
ight came barreling
forward at a breakneck pace. Jacob watched Charles as the old tinker stood up and stared out the window. A man lit the lanterns along the street with a long, sparking pole.

“What are you working on now?” Charles asked as he slid the last bomb into a backpack.

Jacob looked up from the pile of gears and springs he’d been assembling. “It’s a bolt gun, like the Steamsworn were using.”

Charles leaned down and looked it over. “Looks a bit different.” He pointed to a cluster of gears and said, “These aren’t the usual balance for a bolt gun. You have some heavier springs than they would normally use too.

Jacob nodded as he closed the gearbox and ratcheted the assembly closed. He spun the barrels and listened to the springs clicking and locking inside. Jacob slid a belt of crossbow bolts into the breach and turned the barrels two clicks to the right, and then two clicks to the left.

“Have you tried firing it yet?” Charles asked.

Jacob shook his head and slid some of the tools back into the leather pack Smith had given him.

“Here,” the old tinker said. He dragged an old half-rotted chair across the room. “Try it on this.”

“You’re going to fire that in here?” Samuel asked, scooting away from Jacob.

“No sense in testing it outside,” Charles said. “The patrols are skittish enough knowing there are soldiers from Bollwerk within their walls who have supposedly defected. Give it a shot, Jacob.”

Jacob snapped his arm out and smiled when the counterweights shifted and primed the springs. It was a deep, healthy click. He flexed his fingers slightly and then angled his hand downward before curling it into a fist.

The barrels around his wrist spun up faster than he expected, but the result was beautiful. A series of twelve clicks, nearly silent in the dimly lit room, followed by thunks of steel on wood when the bolts found their target. Jacob snapped his arm forward again, and the braided ammo belt fell from the breach.

“I’d say you almost double the rate of fire,” Charles said. “Could be useful, could be a disaster if you run out of ammo too fast.”

“I was thinking it could be a secondary weapon,” Jacob said. “A backup, in case you need it in an emergency.” He knew Charles had heard the story of what happened at the entrance to Gareth cave. Jacob half expected Charles to say more about it, or argue, but the old tinker only nodded.

“It’s time,” Charles said.

Jacob knew what he meant. It was time to start planting bombs. Clark had gotten them the trunks without issue before returning to the refugee encampment. They’d spent the rest of the day building bombs.

Jacob and Charles grabbed their backpacks, and they each took a lantern off the little oak shelf by the door. It looked a lot like the lanterns the miners used in Ancora, but Lottie swore the fuel wouldn’t smell as strongly.

“We’re only planting a few tonight,” Charles said. “If I can’t get the transmitter working as an igniter, we’re going to have to go back and attach blasting coils to everything anyway, and I don’t think we have enough to join them together.”

“It worked from close by,” Samuel said.

“Unless you plan on blowing yourself into a million pieces, that doesn’t do much good.” Charles adjusted his backpack, waited a moment, and then nodded. “Right then, let’s get this done.”

“No one else knows about this passage,” Morgan said. He led them down the hall of the safe house. The leather duster he wore was newly tanned and filled the small space with a thick, pungent aroma. Morgan stopped before he reached the study at the end of the hall. He leaned over and pried at a loose board. It clattered to the floor when he tossed it aside, and then he pulled at the edge of the hole, revealing a set of narrow stairs descending into the dark.

Morgan clicked the button on the torch in his hand and a small flame sprang to life. The reflector at the end of the tube-like light cast a narrow but effective beam. They all followed him down the stairs as he said, “This is just a cellar, like any other, but there’s no external entrance. The old man we bought the place from was quite a paranoid bastard, so we’re guessing he’s the one who built the false wall down here.

Morgan reached his hand into a dark square on the wall and fumbled at something. After a short time, there was a click and the sound of a bolt sliding across stone. “There’s a handle on the other side.”

“Thank you,” Charles said as he reached out and shook Morgan’s hand.

“Good luck.”

Morgan, Lottie, and Drakkar stayed behind. Jacob couldn’t be sure, but he thought Drakkar may have remained because Charles didn’t fully trust Morgan and Lottie. They seemed like good people to Jacob, but he’d seen good people do terrible things. He clenched his fist, remembering how someone in Dauschen had leaked information about Archibald’s spies. It had cost several lives.

Charles lit his lantern when Morgan climbed back up the stairs and disappeared into the dim light above. “No sense delaying this further. We make for the intersection on the map. If everything lines up, we’ll split up and plant our bombs along the two western supports.”

“I still think we should do the closest supports first,” Samuel said.

Charles shook his head. “We go to the far side tonight. You won’t fit in the nearby smaller passages. We’ve been over this. It will give us a good idea of travel time and let us map out any potential hazards along the way. It’s the best strategy at this point.”

“It’s your show,” Samuel said.

Charles nodded. “Follow me for now. We’ll make the decision when we reach the northwestern support.

“Good luck, Atlier.”

Charles turned his head up to Morgan’s voice, echoing from the chamber above, and nodded.

Jacob watched as the silhouette disappeared and the hatch closed behind them. The only light came from the brass lanterns clipped to each of their vests.

“Let’s get this done,” Charles said as he pushed ahead, into the darkness of the passage.

*     *     *

Jacob wasn’t sure
how long they’d been walking, but he knew it had been a good while. It was Samuel who finally broke the silence.

“Can we trust Lottie and Morgan?”

“They are Steamsworn,” Charles said as his boots scraped against a rise in the stone pathway.

Samuel adjusted the lantern hooked on his vest. “I know.”

It was odd to see the Spider Knight without his armor, even if it was the smart thing to do to stay hidden. Jacob didn’t see how they could stay much more hidden than being underground, but Charles insisted that Samuel stay out of the armor. The Spider Knight clearly wasn’t happy about it.

“I don’t even have a halberd,” Samuel muttered.

“A halberd?” Charles said, his voice rising. “What in the hell are you going to do with a halberd in close quarters? A knife or a gun in close quarters, always.”

“I’m better with a halberd, that’s all.”

Jacob tripped on the same elevated stone he’d heard Charles’s boots scrape on.

“Careful,” Charles said.

Jacob thought about arguing, but then he remembered the multitude of explosives strapped to his back. There wasn’t anything he should be but careful, and dry.

The darkness, as close as it had been with the rough walls, dropped away from them into a seemingly infinite pool.

“We’re here,” Charles said as he unclipped the lantern from his vest and raised it toward the ceiling. “Gods but that’s huge.”

The light glinted on the steel supports that ran underneath the cliff base of Dauschen. It was their target, though Jacob couldn’t see how they could possible reach it.

“It’s higher than I expected,” Charles said before he cursed. “I’m not sure we can even reach that from here.”

Charles swept the lantern to his left and then his right. A path led out in both directions. To the left, the path descended while the steel seemed to rise ever higher. “Come on. Let’s try following the right path deeper into the cave.”

Jacob adjusted his heavy backpack and followed Charles. Samuel brought up the rear.

The humidity made the ever-narrowing tunnel even more claustrophobic than the space itself should have been. Jacob had never considered himself frightened of small spaces, but by the time Charles had to squeeze sideways through the narrower parts of the tunnel, he was ready for wide-open spaces.

Jacob’s right hand clenched his backpack as he sidestepped down the corridor beside Charles. His left held up his lantern, for all the good it did.

It was only a few more minutes in the tighter sections of the corridor before it opened into a wider cavern and Charles leaned over, taking a deep breath.

“I may be getting too old for this,” Charles said with a weak laugh.

Samuel grunted as he slid out of the narrows. “Yes you are.” He ruffled Jacob’s hair and winked.

Charles raised his lantern and squinted at the wide steel cylinder. “That’ll do. We need more charges at each location,” he said as he patted the steel. “I want to be damn sure this goes down in one blast.”

Something squeaked in the shadows, and the sound echoed all around them.

Samuel swung his lantern around the small cave. “Let’s plant the charges and get out.”

“You’d never make it as a miner,” Charles said.

“A miner? I’m much too pretty for that.”

Charles snorted. “Just an observation.” He lowered his backpack to the ground. He ducked around the steel supports and stretched his arms around them. “I think five charges would probably cut them, but let’s play it safe.”

“What’s safe?” Jacob asked.

“Damn good question there,” Samuel muttered.

Jacob caught a smile beneath the glint of lantern light on Charles’s glasses. “Six should be fine. Tie them down with a length of blasting coil. With the transmitter attached to the igniter, we should be able to detonate these remotely.”

“Should,” Samuel said. “We better be sure.”

Charles nodded and pulled a copper trigger out of his vest. He stared at it for a moment and then pulled the trigger, held it, and slowly released it. “We’ll know soon enough. There’s a lot of rock between here and there, but I’m optimistic. Smith claims the advances they’ve made over the past decade give the transmitters an expansive range.”

“Well, they reach Bollwerk from here,” Samuel said, “but that’s not with thirty feet of stone in between.”

Charles nodded. “I know. Let’s get these charges set.” He slid a brass bar through the copper trigger, tested it to make sure it couldn’t move, and then nodded to himself.

“What’s that?” Samuel asked.

“It’s a safety, so we don’t accidentally blow your pretty face off while we’re underground.”

“Oh,” Samuel said with a frown. “I may not have thought this adventure all the way through.”