The Book of Fire (65 page)

“Can’t take the chance.” Before Paia can protest, Luco has thrown a piece of canvas over her and pressed her to the jouncing floor. “Just breathe easy and keep still!”

The canvas is heavy and she fears suffocating in its folds. Unable to shift it off of her, Paia struggles for a bit. She thinks Luco may be holding the edges down. But she has heard in his voice the same sharp alarm that spun her own senses into a blur. This time it wakes her to vague reason.

Besides, it’s cool and damp beneath the soft fabric. There’s a clean, medicinal smell that Paia finds oddly comforting. The wagon’s rocking eases. They must be slowing down for the gates. She hears the barking of sentries and the driver’s muffled reply. Paia goes still, as Luco has
warned her to, and waits for the back doors to be yanked open, waits to be hauled out and exposed to her would-be assassins. Instead, she is overcome by drowsiness.

She knows she should be more startled by the brief crackle of gunfire, the shouting, and the wagon’s sudden forward jolt. But by then she is more inclined to let sleep take her wherever it will.

O
nce Luther gets his hands back on the reins, the old van cruises right along, faster than these messed-up roads are good for. N’Doch is holding on for dear life. He’s also holding Luther’s pistol, a big old gun with a kick like one of these breakneck mules, that might go off in his lap any second, ’cept it might not be loaded. Luther’s put it to good use at the gates. The barrel’s still warm.

He’d fantasized maybe they’d zip through the walls unchallenged, with the surly guards occupied with the chaos elsewhere. No such luck. The rattle of Scroon’s wagons raised a couple of armed men out of nowhere. Scroon took the challenge, and dealt with it swiftly. Then Luther followed with the mop-up detail. N’doch saw at least three shadowed heaps facedown in the dust as they clattered past, and he didn’t have to lift a finger, except to grab the gun as it got tossed into his lap when Luther piled back into the cab and snatched the reins back from Köthen.

The baron’s still wearing his grimace of disapproval, like this kind of killing’s too easy for his tastes. But N’Doch is ready to be grateful. He’s had enough fracas for one day. And he’s worried about the blue dragon. She’s told them not to check in via the dragon internet, but he hopes if he just sort of hangs his mind open, he’ll pick up a signal. No dice. Just like a woman, he muses. No sooner does he declare his undying devotion than she up and disappears on him.

The girl’s in the same boat, anyhow, and without the dragons, they may be headed for a language problem again. But here’s the surprise. The German’s right there in his
head, even without Water’s help. He’s picked it up. Pretty cool. Dragon osmosis.

It’s crowded in the cab and he’s feeling bruised and battered, being tossed against Luther and Köthen on one side, the girl on the other, and a hard wall of trade goods behind him. He heard new passengers board when they slowed just before the gates. He leans around Köthen.

“Was that Stoksie and Ysa we picked up, back at the gates?”

Luther nods, but oddly. N’Doch’s pretty sure something’s up, more than he’s telling. Like something’s been up all day, maybe even since they were invited along on this expedition. Usually it pays to be suspicious, and N’Doch feels like what he hasn’t been paying is good enough attention.

From the direction they turn after slamming through the gates, he surmises they’re not heading back toward camp. It’s dark as pitch out on the road and Luther’s not volunteering any information. He only breaks his intent driver’s silence once, to ask about the dragons.

“Wich one wuz da Pilgrim?”

N’Doch is impressed that he’s figured out that much. “The blue one.”

Luther nods. “I taut mebbe da odda one wuz yer man heah.” He grins at Köthen. “Till he’s dere shakin’ me outa my daze!”

“I’ll tell him you thought so.” And he laughs, thinking that’s probably what Köthen would like, not to have a dragon, but to be one.

Luther goes back to his reckless driving. The road is not as empty as N’Doch would have supposed. Fairly often, they rumble past the shadows of fleeing villagers, alone or with family and a cart piled high with household goods. When the road forks, Luther veers left. Instinct tells N’Doch they’re headed not up or down the valley but straight for the surrounding hills. The ride is getting rougher, and the mules are laboring. They’re starting to climb. He guesses the plan is to go as far as the mules can manage, then maybe take cover in the boulders on the southern slope. But he’s not sure what they’re still running from, now that they’re clear of the mess in town. He wonders if it was only Stoksie and Ysabel they picked up back there on Main Street. Maybe they had something with
them, some interesting contraband. Maybe the Tinkers run a black market alongside their legal barter. Having watched how Stoksie worked one little piece of jewelry into a half year’s living for forty, N’Doch wouldn’t be surprised.

The van’s really rocking now. N’Doch keeps thinking Luther has got to slow down soon if he wants to have a van left instead of a pile of broken truck parts. But Scroon’s wagons up ahead are pushing it just as hard. He can hear them more than see them, expects every minute to find them crashed along the roadside. Köthen has figured out the van’s side mirrors. He’s keeping an eye on the road behind them. If N’Doch leans forward, he risks being thrown onto the backs of the mules, but since they’ve turned, he can see past Köthen to the flare of torches and burning trade stalls in the town square, and the backlit columns of steam still rising from the doused flames. There’s no pursuit, least not so’s you’d notice, but the Tinkers sure don’t seem to think they’re out of the woods yet.

Suddenly the rocks rise up in front of them like an ocean wave. A solid wall, blacker than black. N’Doch ducks back hard as Luther drags the mules into a turn. He feels the outside wheels leave the ground. He can’t fathom that they’ll make it. The girl grips his wrist and bites back a little scream.

The wagon tips back, settles, and the rocks swallow them whole.

Miraculously, space opens up before them. Luther braces his legs and hauls back until the mules slow to a panting trot. He drops the reins on his knees and palms sweat out of his eyes with both hands.

“We ovah da bordah nah,” he exclaims softly, but N’Doch hears more worry than relief.

The echo of Oolyoot’s wagons in the rear is thrown into reverb as somehow, something massive seals the opening behind them. N’Doch feels the pressure change in his ears and swears a bit until his heart stops running away with him. He’s sure the girl has left nail marks in his wrist. Just saying “wow” starts feeling inadequate. Finally, he gets a few actual words out.

“A tunnel! Man! Where’d all this come from?”

“Oh, reel ole place, dis,” Luther mumbles between wipes. “Frum da baddle daze.”

From the “bad old days” or the “battle days”? N’Doch is not sure. Either sounds interesting enough to occupy his thoughts for the length of time it takes to catch his breath. He sees the soft light of Scroon’s lanterns tossed up on an arched ceiling just a Tinker’s height above the van. The tunnel is two, maybe three wagons wide and looks to have been blasted out of solid rock. What’s weirdest is how smooth the floor is. It’s too dark to tell, but he’s willing to bet it’s been paved.

“So when did . . .” he begins, but Luther waves him silent.

“Latah, Dockman. Der’s big t’ings happinin’. I showyu sum’un give bettah ansas den me.”

“Sure, man, you got it.” N’Doch wishes the Tinkers had let him in on
all
of their plan, but he decides to see if being patient is part of his new persona. He checks on the girl. She’s heard Luther’s request for silence, but she’s got her shoulders all hunched up, like it ain’t easy for her either. Köthen’s sitting still and quiet, just taking it all in stride, like he can’t wait to see what other bizarre adventure awaits him around the corner.

And then they roll out of the small tunnel into a much bigger one. N’Doch can tell by the echo timing of the wagon rattle and the swallowing up of Scroon’s reflected light that the ceiling just got a whole lot higher. They trot along in blackness for a while. The mules must know the route ’cause he’s sure nobody else can see where they’re going. Then there’s a ghosting of light up ahead, and a new sound, a low-register moaning all around him, both huge and quiet. As the wagons approach, the light resolves into scattered point sources that vanish and reappear at regular intervals. As N’Doch’s eyes adjust, he sees more distinct shapes, sharper edges. Pillars, then, of some kind. Rows of them, leading off to either side. The space is even vaster than he thought, because the lights are lanterns, the brightest nearby as the wagons move in among them, the fainter ones at least a soccer field’s length away. Then the wagons slow to a crawl and there are tables and chairs and boxes and other wagons, and people getting up and crowding toward them.

It’s an encampment. A huge one. N’Doch glances up, wondering if he’ll see the faint ruddiness of the night sky.
But the darkness overhead is profound. The big quiet noise has to be the wash of air through this gigantic cavern. He purses his mouth in a silent whistle. Hell of a ventilation system. He can see he’s about to learn a whole lot more about these Tinker folk and their hidden resources. But it’s more than that he’s feeling. The whole place is resonant, like being inside a big bass woofer. Resonant in his head, in the place where the dragon usually lives.

N’Doch nudges the girl. “Does it feel weird to you in here?”

She nods mutely.

“What is it, do you think?”

She shakes her head. Her eyes are wide, but more with anticipation and awe than with fear. She’s been so scared in her short life that she’s way beyond fear by now.

They’re nearly there, wherever “there” is. Soft greetings float up around the Scroon wagons, head-counting, status-checking. The Scroon riders drop off even before their wagons roll to a stop, stumbling into glad embraces and back-pounding. Shadows surge up around Luther’s van. N’Doch recognizes the murmur of Blind Rachel voices long before he can pull out a face from the gloom. People gripping hands and shoulders. Hugs of relief. No shouts or loud laughter. Everyone’s keeping their volume down, but they’re here, all those left behind in the gray morning. The rest of Scroon Crew, too, he guesses, and Oolyoot and who knows what else. He’s amazed that so many people can make so little noise.

“Made it thru!”

“So fah!”

“Whadda run! Shuda seen us!”

N’Doch nudges Luther. “Why are we whispering?”

The reply is a gentle warning. “Da Monsta has reel gud eers.”

The six wagons pull up in a line. Lanterns bob alongside. N’Doch spots Ysabel climbing down from Oolyoot’s lead wagon. All’s needed now is Stoksie to make a full ten.

Luther tosses down the reins like a man glad to have a long day’s work finally over and done with. “Ev’rybuddy out.”

N’
Doch nods Köthen off the side, then jumps down after him. He’s not sure what to do next in this milling of relief and greetings and bobbing lanterns. Just standing there, he gets his own hugs and pats from Blind Rachel Crew, and that makes him feel good, like he’s a part of their family, now he’s risked his life for them. He senses a general drift toward the back of the wagons. Time to unload. These Tinkers don’t waste a minute when it comes to counting their loot. But he’s forgotten about Luther’s extra cargo.

All the Crews, plus a lot of other folks who look more like farmers and villagers, are gathering at the rear of Luther’s van. Dark, eager faces full of unspoken questions. Someone’s up on the roof of the van hanging lanterns from the corners. Luther comes around from the side and eases them back a bit so he can unlatch the door and swing it wide. Stoksie is waiting just inside. Even in the near dark, N’Doch knows him by his slow, stiff moves as he clambers down, waving back the hands held out to help. But there’s another guy behind him, a stranger.