Steemjammer: The Deeper Truth (13 page)

Will picked up the stokee and raised it high, wanting to finish Bram off. Before he could swing, however, he recalled the horror he felt learning about the invasion of Beverkenfort – at wondering how anyone could kill helpless people. Stunned and only half conscious, Bram groaned, and Will realized he couldn’t do it.

“You get to live,” Will said, “because you cured me.”

“Will, run!” someone cried.

Turning, he saw six men of the men in bowler hats battling people in Steem Museum overalls. He realized Donell must have had them hiding nearby, watching. If not for them, the men in bowlers – clearly Rasmussen agents - would have already captured him.

Sharp spikes came from the tips of their unfurled umbrellas, which they jabbed like spears. Donell’s men were being overwhelmed.

An agent stabbed a man in the leg, and he staggered back, toppling to the floor. The spike tips were drugged. Fixing Will with intense, dark eyes, the agent cocked his arm and charged. 

Chapter 11

A FIN!

Moments earlier, bells had sounded, and a string of brass nozzles shot steam into the air along the front of the stadium seating. This created tall curtains of billowing white vapor, so the fans and crews couldn’t see the striped steemwagon going out to hide the one ton bronze ball somewhere in the middle of the park.

The nozzles stopped, and in moments the vapor was gone. With a signal from Axworthy in his small airship, Stefana shot off a blast from a steemgun. The crowd cheered wildly, and the teams surged out onto the field.

Way up high in the seats, the agents in bowler hats began closing in on Giselle and Cobee. Zylph, who was next to them, made a move. Giselle heard a
pop
and saw something white in her hand.

Trained in combat by her father, Deetricus, Giselle fought instinctively, blocking with her left arm while reaching into her dress pocket and grasping the stokee.

Someone grabbed her from behind. Startled, she accidentally touched the clasp. As luck would have it, it was pointed backwards and tore through her pocket, shooting right into the gut of the Rasmussen agent who’d seized her.

He yelped in pain and fell over backwards, but Zylph, who was tall and very strong, pressed the smelly white rag closer to Giselle’s face. She grabbed Zylph’s wrist and pushed, but it was no good. The rag slowly closed, and she began to feel light-headed from the fumes.

“Cobee!” she screamed, but she saw a blur to her side indicating he had problems of his own.

“Just give in,” Zylph hissed menacingly. “It’s over, Giselle Steem-failure.”

Her words angered Giselle, and she slugged Zylph in the nose. It bought a few more precious seconds, but the tall girl pressed down with the noxious rag even harder. Reaching for the stokee to use as a club, Giselle found that her hand had gone into the wrong pocket, and she felt something small and hard. Unable to think of anything else, she pulled it out and dropped it down the front of Zylph’s blouse.

“What the...” Zylph sneered and then screamed with fright.

The small tortoise, Velocitus, scrambled around as best it could inside her shirt. Confused and not particularly happy that it was sliding further down, the reptile wiggled its little feet with surprising speed, scratching her skin with its claws.

Caught by surprise and imagining that it was a poisonous scorpion or tarantula, Zylph panicked. With a loud shriek, the rag flew out of her hand, and she jumped up and down trying to shake the thing out of her blouse.

“Help!” Cobee cried, and Giselle just heard him over the roar of the cheering crowd.

Two strong Rasmussen agents had him by either arm, dragging him toward the stairs.

***

Nearby, a poisoned umbrella-spike streaked in fast at Will. Only years of Henry’s intensive training saved him, as he reacted without thinking and parried the incoming weapon with the stokee. Unconcerned, the Rasmussen agent drew back his arm and jabbed again and again. Each time Will parried, but the agent drove him steadily back.

It couldn’t be a real umbrella, Will thought, as the heavy weapon knocked the blocking stokee out of his hand. The agent jabbed with the tip, faster and faster, and Will just managed to back out of the way. Then, he hit the stadium wall.

“No place to run, boy,” the agent grinned.

He started to jab, but there came a sickening
thud
. The agent jerked as if struck by some invisible force. Eyes glazing over, he dropped his weapon and crumpled to floor. As he fell, a short, bearded man in a kilt was revealed: Donell Ogilvy had clobbered him from behind with a sledgehammer.

Another agent came up. A drugged spike shot out the tip of his weapon, which he brandished menacingly.

“Well, isn’t that just like a Raz scum,” Donell growled, “tah bring an umbrella tah a
sledgehammer
fight!”

He hefted his substantial voormaaker and glared fiercely. The agent stabbed, but the short man was surprisingly fast and side-stepped it easily.

“A FIN!” he bellowed.

The sledgehammer slammed into the agent’s hip. He howled with pain and fell, too hurt to be of any more concern. Donell dragged Will away.

“I told ye tah stick together!” he barked. “Where are they?”

***

Over by a stairwell, Zylph ripped off a button in her effort to get the hideous thing out of her blouse. Reaching in, she at last managed to grab the wiggling creature and fling it away – right into Giselle’s open hand.

“Thank you!” she cried brightly.

Tucking Velocitus back into her pocket, she turned to pursue the agents who’d just dragged Cobee down the steps. As she reached the top of the stairwell, she sensed danger. Instinct told her to step aside, which she did. Zylph, who’d recovered quickly, had been charging recklessly at her back. Unable to stop and with no one in front of her, she tumbled down the stairs.

She came to a stop on the first landing and yelped, clutching a twisted ankle. As Giselle ran past, the Rasmussen girl could only glare helplessly.

***

In the open area under the stadium seats, Giselle came out of the stairwell and saw agents dragging Cobee toward an exit. He bit one on the hand and struggled to break free, but they were too strong. Then, a squat shape appeared in the next stairwell as they went by, and a blur of motion struck one of the agents.

“A FIN!” a familiar voice roared.

The agent crumpled to the floor, but the other one jerked Cobee back. He pointed the razor-sharp spike on the tip of his umbrella at the boy’s throat.

“That’s close enough,” the agent threatened.

Donell took a step, but the agent tensed, ready to stab. Slowly, he dragged Cobee toward an exit.

“Cobee,” Donell said, “are ye forgettin’ something?”

Almost frozen with terror, Cobee had no idea what he meant.

“Cobee,” Donell urged, “the ugly vase?”

“Shut it, shorty,” the agent threatened, “or I’ll stick him!”

“Cobee!” Donell shouted. “
Pocket
!”

The boy’s eyes opened wide as he finally understood. While the agent tightened his grip, he slowly pulled out the stokee and aimed it at the spike-tipped umbrella.

The stokee snapped open, and the agent gawked as his weapon went flying out of his hands. Cobee wiggled free from his grasp and dodged away.

“A FIN!” Donell roared, and with a flash of the sledgehammer, the agent went down.

Giselle ran over, joined by Will, who’d fallen behind and was only now catching up.

“Thank goodness,” Giselle said. “We’re all here.”

“What happened?” Will said.

“A guddle,” Donell shrugged.
A mess
. “Not a muckled guddle, mind ye. Just a guddle. Run, by the way.”

Reaching an exit, they looked through and stopped dead in their tracks. The stadium was set well back from the roads, but an armada of black locomobiles and steemwagons loaded with Rasmussen agents had driven over the curbs and was coming at them. They blew steam whistles, forcing the fans still walking in to dodge out of their way. Overhead, a large and very fast airship circled.

“Och!” the short man groaned. “Now it’s a right muckled guddle!”
A very big mess
! “We need wheels. This way.”

He took off running deeper into the complex under the stadium, and they followed.

“It’s even worse,” Will called as he hustled to keep up. “I know where the Tracium is, but so do the Rasmussens!”

***

“Sir,” the captain of
Skyshadow
said, turning away from a brass speaking tube on the bridge. “Urgent message from an agent below.”

“He’d better be explaining,” Clyve growled, “why they haven’t yet emerged with the Steemjammer children.”

“One moment. They’re still decoding.”

“Where is Bram?”

The
Skyshadow
had been moving into position during the fight atop the stadium, so they hadn’t been able to see it. Grabbing a telescope, Clyve looked down and saw a man in a bowler hat on the stadium roof, waving a pair of brightly colored semaphore flags. Each positioning of the flags indicated a letter of the alphabet.

“Bram is safe,” the captain said with an ear pressed to the tube, “and reports that the Tracium is in the steemball.”

“What?” Clyve snapped. “
Inside
that idiotic bronze sphere down there?”

“He adds that it’s hidden in plain sight, that Ricardus made that ball.”

“Is this true?”

The captain shrugged. “I’m no Steemball fan.”

Clyve turned the telescope on the playing field and saw the steemtraps rolling around, searching.

“Could we pick it up?” he asked.

“We might just handle an extra ton, sir,” the captain replied, “but how could we secure such a thing? It’s not like we could just roll it into the gondola.”

Clyve thought this over and then jotted a message onto a slip of paper, handing it to the captain.

“Give that to your communications officer and have him semaphore it, immediately,” Clyve ordered. “Those children are our main priority, but perhaps ground units can double the prize.”

***

“Hurry!” Donell called. “This way!”

He led them at a full run through the cavernous, open area under the stadium toward a steemtrap painted with black and white stripes.

“No,” Will shouted. He worked to keep up, surprised that the man’s short legs could move so fast. “Didn’t you listen? It’s not a carrier!”

“Huh?” Donell cried.

“We have to get the
ball
!”

Out of breath and wheezing from the sprint, Donell stopped to jerk open the striped trap’s door. Will, Giselle and Cobee came up behind him.

“Have ye gone mad!” Donell said between coughs. “We have tah get tah yer Auntie Klazee’s. This is a spare referee’s trap. Very fast. It’s our best chance!”

“Donell, the Tracium’s in the ball,” Will repeated.

The short man made a face. “Huh? Tha’s craicte!”

“Crazy or not, no one’s realized this until now, when it was announced my grandfather made that steemball.”

“‘Hidden in plain sight!’” Giselle exclaimed.

Donell frowned. “Will, are ye sure?”

“Yes,” Will said, “and so is Bram. They’ll get it if we don’t stop them!”

“Stop them?” Cobee asked, shocked. “
All
of them?”

“No, we have to get the steemball to Klazee’s and put it through the verltgaat.”

Cobee winced. “Steal the
steemball
?”

“
Yes
!”

“From two professional teams? Are you mad?”

“This trap is cold,” Giselle observed. “How long will it take to steam up?”

Donell slapped his head. “Och, she’s right. I dinna think o’ that.”

“There,” Will pointed. “The next teams to compete have rolled in. We take a ball carrier.”

“Och, laddie, there’s no way. We take the fastest one and pray it flies!”

Will grabbed the short man firmly by the shoulders, catching him off-guard.

“Donell, listen to me,” Will said firmly. “My whole life I was trained to see deeper truth and to have goot steem. Enough to get me out of that Raz pit, and enough to beat Bram in a steemsuit.

“Then, you talked me into a plan that I knew nothing about, and that’s the last time, ever. Do what I say, or we lose everything. Do you hear me?”

Donell stared back, awestruck.

“Your plan backfired, Donell,” Will continued. “Bram told me. It’s why they’re coming for us.”

“Backfired?” Donell said, stunned.

A sudden crash back at the main gate made them turn their heads. The lead Rasmussen locomobile had rammed the turnstiles, trying to burst through, but had been stopped. The agents, however, climbed out and ran inside.

“This is my fault?” Donell said, aghast.

“The ball,” Will shouted. “Now or never!”

The short man snapped out of his stupor. “Right.”

At the entrance, a couple of Donell’s people aimed a high-pressure hose, driving back Rasmussens with a powerful stream of water.

“Brave lads!” Donell said, “but they won’t hold long. Go. Find the fastest and best armored carrier ye can, and stoke it tah the max. I’ll get us somethin’ from here and be right behind ye!”

As they headed off, Donell climbed into the striped steemwagon and began searching.