Steamsworn (Steamborn Series Book 3) (8 page)

Charles dragged his backpack over to the nearest support and held up his lantern.

Jacob walked over to the cave wall. “This used to be a copper mine, but it looks strange.”

“Yes,” Charles said. “There’s a webwork of copper running all through these caves. I’ve never seen anything else like it, personally, but copper will stop a signal from just about anything.”

Jacob frowned and followed the line of Charles’s lantern. “How’s the remote trigger going to work?”

“We’ll know when we get back to the safe house. There’s no sense worrying about it until then.”

Jacob knew Charles was right, but the thought of the remote trigger not working made him shiver. That would mean someone would have to light a fuse by hand. He knew enough about mining to know there were a thousand little things that could go wrong with that.

Worrying wouldn’t fix it. Jacob opened his backpack and pulled out a length of blasting coil. Even if they had to light a fuse, they’d still need the coils in place.

*     *     *

Charles eyed the
ring of explosives. It was the third ring they’d set up and mounted with a receiver and blasting coil.

“We used six bombs on each,” Samuel said. “We’re going to need more charges.”

Charles nodded. “You aren’t wrong. We’re going to have to drop onto the outer supports from up top.”

Samuel blew out a breath and turned to Charles. “Are you insane? How can we possibly drop in from somewhere else, loaded down with explosives, without getting detected.”

“It’s more than that,” Charles said. He rubbed his hands together. “I don’t know if we’ll all fit. The crawlspaces around the cross supports are going to be short and tight.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it should just be me and Jacob. Don’t even start. I know you don’t like it, and neither do I, but he’s the only one here I trust with these triggers.”

Jacob swelled with pride at the old man’s words, but he knew he didn’t know as much as Charles.

“I know,” Samuel said. “I know. Let’s just get it over with.”

“We’ll finish the last ring and then head for the safe house. Once we know if the trigger will work, we’ll make our plans from there.”

“And if it didn’t work?” Samuel asked.

“Then things get interesting.”

“G
eorge!” Gladys said
for the third time, ever more irritated with the royal guard’s ability to ignore her.

“Yes … Princess?”

“How many more of these things do we need to make?” She looked at the workbenches full of shells and bullets and gunpowder. Having so much of the explosive in one place, and indoors no less, seemed like a terrible idea. She still remembered when the old factory in Midstream had gone up like the Burning Forest. It had been beautiful but tragic. Many people lost their lives.

George ran his finger along the top row, counting the massive cannon shells. They’d been assembling them for two days now with help from some of the other Midstream tinkers, though it felt like years. It was unbelievably boring. Gladys wished she were with Alice, exploring the lost city of Belldorn, but she knew the tasks from Archibald were important.

“Twenty rows deep,” Gladys said when George started counting down.

George nodded. “Twenty deep, almost fifty across. We are close to one thousand rounds.”

“No wonder I’m bored,” Gladys muttered. “How many more could they possibly need?”

“You never know, until you run out.”

“Sometimes I hate you, George.”

George smiled. “There is something your father used to say to me, and to your mother, when we would complain of our boring lives. ‘Be thankful for the calm, for the storm will take everything away.’ I will take those words to my grave, Princess, for they are some of the truest I have ever heard spoken.”

“Now I’m bored
and
depressed.”

If Gladys was being honest, she wasn’t as bored as she had been when the other two tinkers were still in the room. She’d felt like she needed to conduct herself in the ways of the Midstream Court, and that certainly didn’t involve heckling George.

“Are we going to take these to the warships soon?” Gladys asked.

“We will let the other tinkers take them, as not everyone in Bollwerk even knows who they are.”

“Safer?” Gladys asked.

“I think it will be, yes.”

She sighed and set another brass shell on the scale. The counterweight sat flush with the workbench’s surface until the tiny grains of gunpowder began to clink and shift as she poured them through a funnel. Slowly the counterweight rose until the scale balanced. Once done, she set one of the massive gray metal bullets in the neck of the brass and slid the entire assembly into a press.

Gladys pulled the lever down. She grunted and put all her weight on it. The cylinder rose into the shaped die above it, and when she lowered the press, the bullet was seated, ready for firing. Fully assembled, the monsters weighed almost a pound each. Gladys knew she was building death dealers as she set the assembled cartridge onto the workbench and lined it up with the others.

These shells wouldn’t light up the night sky in a blinding array of beauty. These were made to destroy, and she had no illusions about what they’d wrought.

“They are necessary,” George said. “You have that look on your face.”

Gladys smiled. “I don’t like killing, George.”

“That is not a bad thing, but sometimes war is necessary. With war comes death. It is the way of things.”

“I still don’t have to like it.”

“No sane person does, Princess.” George shifted a shell to start another row on the workbench. It would be the last row they could fit on the wide bench. “If it is a choice between death and survival, take up arms. Defend your people and your country, but do not go looking for death. That is a fool’s errand.”

“We’re breaking almost half a century of peace, George.”

George turned away from the assembled cartridges and faced Gladys. “Our people still suffer in that peace, Princess. Our lands taken by warlords, our families forced to depend on the generosity of this city. If your friends had not killed Rana and his men, you may be dead. You are the last of the royal line. If there is any glimmer of hope for our people, it lies within you.”

Gladys took a deep breath and opened another crate of empty shells. The wood cracked and splintered when she levered it over the nails. “I may not be alive if Alice hadn’t killed Rana, and we both might be dead if Smith hadn’t gunned the rest of them down.”

“There are times for killing,” George said, his voice soft as he squeezed Gladys’s shoulder.

She stared at the brass and the bullets, sighed, and returned to her task.

*     *     *

Alice leaned on
the deck railing as the Skysworn drifted into the docks. She glanced at the escort hovering beside them. It was unlike anything she’d seen before, with a clear glass windscreen, curved like the section of sphere with a long wooden tail. The pilot sat behind it, just below what seemed to be a fan of some sort that was moving too fast to be seen.

The pilot made a series of hand gestures and then pointed down. Mary gave them a thumbs up from the cabin, and the Skysworn tilted to the left before following the escort down to a lower dock. Alice watched as the contraption landed on a circular pad and the pilot hopped out. There was a loud metallic thump when Smith released the landing lines and threw them overboard.

Below, the pilot scrambled to feed the lines through some kind of spool-looking anchors on the dock.

“Oh wow,” Alice said when the spools began to turn. The Skysworn lurched slightly as it was dragged toward the dock, finally stopping when it gently met the bumpers.

“What was that?” Alice asked when Smith started extending the gangplank.

“The copter? It is a death trap, if you ask me. Leaving your life in the hands of a few spinning blades and a pile of wood?” Smith shook his head. “No thank you.”

“They aren’t
that
bad,” the pilot said as they walked up to the edge of the gangplank. Alice gasped when the pilot removed her helmet, revealing skin as pale as Alice’s and hair almost as red. “A lot safer than one of these gasbags.”

Mary stepped out of the Skysworn’s cabin and started down the gangplank. “Eva,” she said as she opened her arms.

Eva laughed and then threw herself against Mary, hugging her like a long-lost love. “I didn’t know you were coming back!”

“I didn’t either,” Mary said.

“Ma’am,” Smith said with a nod.

“Ma’am?” Eva said with a grimace. “Let’s not ever call me that again, okay?”

Smith smiled and crossed his arms.

“You’ve met Smith,” Mary said, “and this is Alice.”

Eva turned her bright blue eyes onto Alice. “You’re of the old blood.”

“I told you they’d recognize the bloodlines,” Mary said, with more than a bit of satisfaction threading through her words.

“I still see your parents almost every week,” Eva said as she pulled Mary toward the docks. “They still eat at that awful fish place you liked so much.”

“The one with the fried Sweet Bread?”

Eva frowned. “You’re going to make us eat there, aren’t you? Bittersweet reunion indeed.”

“Stop whining. We aren’t fifteen anymore.”

Eva’s face fell a little. “No, Mary. No, we’re not. I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

“So why are you really back?”

“We need to speak with the House. There is grave news from Archibald’s spies, and more from Archibald himself.”

Eva didn’t ask any more questions; she only gave a brief nod and pulled Mary forward toward one of the lifts set at either end of the docks.

Alice started after them, with Smith trailing behind her. Before she reached the pair on the lift, Alice overheard Mary tell Eva, “The Skysworn is mine. We can go anywhere now.”

Anywhere
, Alice thought. She looked out toward the city with its towering brick-and-copper spires. A clocktower rose close to the city center, covered in gargoyles and lightning rods and a thousand wrought iron windows.
Why would you want to be anywhere else?

Smith stepped into the lift behind Alice and slid the grate closed. Eva threw a lever, and the lift started down without so much as a hesitation. Mary kept Eva’s hand wrapped in her own and the pair seemed to do nothing but stare at each other.

“Who is the House Speaker?” Mary asked.

Eva stepped away slightly and straightened her jacket. “The Lady Katherine has been for the past seven years.”

“She’s still in power?”

“Yes. She’s pushed Belldorn to be more progressive. It’s caused some hostilities in the House among the older Ladies. There have even been marriages that were not arranged.”

“Truly?” Mary asked.

Alice yawned and popped her ears. The pressure seemed high as the lift reached the bottom. “How low are we? My head feels like it’s getting crushed.”

“We’re at sea level,” Eva said. “It is quite a bit lower even than Bollwerk.” Eva glanced at the sky. “I’ve been ordered to take you to an audience with Lady Katherine. Let’s hurry.”

Mary eyed Smith and then Alice in turn. “Stay close to me. I don’t want either of you wandering off until we speak to Lady Katherine. Or at least until one of her underlings approves your presence.”

Alice nodded, wondering just how strict Belldorn was about visitors.

Smith slid the gate open, and Alice stepped out into the city. Something about it reminded her of Ancora, with all the brick and stone construction, but it was infinitely larger, taller, and more imposing. Alice imagined it would be a long ride to the House. She followed Eva across the busy street, crowded with citizens wearing tight-fitted leather jackets and utilitarian pants. A few ladies wore skirts, but they were long and narrow, and Alice could scarcely imagine trying to move her legs in something so restrictive.

The noise of the street increased as they reached a wide, ornately carved door. Eva pulled it open and ushered them all inside. Alice caught a glimpse of Dragonwings and huge ships that sailed on the sea etched into the door.

“It’s nice that they built the docks so close to the Hall,” Mary said.