The Destiny (Blood and Destiny Book 4) (9 page)

Cid tripped as he stepped into the train
carriage. His toes caught on the step, his legs flew out and bashed into the
sides of the doorframe, and he stumbled ungracefully into the dark.

“Take it easy, Cid,”
Narry said as he joined him.

“That’s what comes from
not sleeping well for days…weeks…months,” he muttered as he moved along the
carriage. It was completely empty—not that he’d expected anyone to be inside. A
musty smell hung in the air, along with an undercurrent of something nasty not
unlike rotting meat. The seats had a neatly formed layer of dust clinging to
the material. Behind them, someone struck a match and lit a lantern, the light
casting shadows along the walls. Cid pressed on, opening the door to the next
carriage, hoping to find the buffet car.

The buffet car was
another three cars down the train. Every carriage was empty, save for the
discovery of a ragged old coat which had been abandoned across a seat. Saunders
insisted on wrapping it around his cousin’s shoulders, which she didn’t protest,
as she was soaked to the bone and shivering as they walked. The buffet car
itself was neatly laid out with tables between the bench seats. Old marks of
cup rings shone beneath the dust layer on the tables. Cid headed directly to
the catering stand, his mind filling with visions of well-cooked steak, boiled
potatoes, and heaps of steamed vegetables. His stomach gurgled, the sounds
filling the silence and echoing over the footsteps of those behind him.

“Whose stomach was
that?” Sandy asked.

“Mine,” Narry said.

“I thought it was
mine,” Cid said as he leaned over the bar and unlatched the piece of wood serving
as a gate.

“I guess we’re all
hungry,” Sandy said. “Let me know if you find any pastries back there, will
you? I want something sweet to get rid of the taste of mud in my mouth.”

“Will do, Miss.” He
crouched down and pulled open cupboards to peer inside. Someone placed the
lantern on the edge of the bar above, giving a little light to help him see.

“I’ll check the rest of
the train,” Lieutenant Saunders said. Cid grunted in response. The cupboard was
filled with cans, and he pulled them out one by one, placing them up on the bar
behind before moving onto the next.

“Beans, soup, preserved
turnips? I suppose hoping for pastries might have been a bit much,” Sandy said.

“We can make a feast
out of those with a pot and a stove. Blessings from the Goddess of Soil and
Seed in canned form,” Narry said as he collected the cans. “Say a prayer for
thanks, Cid.”

“Bloody hell,” Cid
muttered under his breath, regretting having stayed behind when he should have
gone with Larissa. He slumped down onto his backside and rested his back
against the cupboards behind him. The rest of the cupboards were bare; either
they’d never been restocked or had already been cleared out by scavengers. Either
way, his dream of steak seemed doomed to remain nothing more than a dream. He
didn’t feel much like saying a prayer; he wasn’t sure he cared for the Gods any
longer after everything they had put him through—and everything they had done
to Larissa.

He sat in silence—save
for the quiet clattering and clunking coming from nearby as Narry appointed
himself the role of chef, a quiet whistled tune accompanying his efforts. How
the man could act so happy and contented after the harrowing experience they’d
just been through, Cid would never know.

“He tried to talk me
into being his girlfriend,” Sandy whispered from somewhere above and behind
Cid. His eyebrows knitted together as he craned his neck to look up. She sat on
a stool by the bar, leaning her face on her hands, elbows on the wood.

“Narry?” Cid asked.

“Sergeant Boswell. He
was such an idiot, always trying to talk me into kissing him or sleeping with
him.”

“Ugh.” Cid turned to
face the cupboards again, not sure how to respond and equally unsure why she
was sharing this information with him.

“No matter how many
times I turned him down, he still kept on. I wonder now if I should have just
said yes. At least once. It wouldn’t have been so terrible really, and then I
would have that as a memory rather than regret.”

“Shouldn’t you talk
about this with your cousin…the lieutenant?”

“Gods, no. I don’t
think he wants to think about me being with men, or thinking of men in that
way. Especially not men he was in command of and responsible for. I think
that’s part of the reason I always denied Eddy, you know? So as not to upset
Tobin…Lieutenant Saunders. I didn’t want to give him a reason to leave me
behind or send me home. I thought it would be a great adventure, a chance to
get out of the same dingy walls and see something wonderful, or do something
useful. I didn’t expect to see people die. I didn’t expect to care about people
who were going to die.”

“People die whether
you’re stuck behind dingy walls or not. It’s no reason to lock yourself away
forever. Better to have met him and felt something, have memories, than to
never have met him at all.” Cid closed his eyes, and for the first time in days,
he thought of Elena. The sheen on her skin, the shine of her hair, the spark of
intent behind her eyes. She was the first woman in more years than he cared to
count who had genuinely wanted him. Being stuck on the hard floor of an
abandoned train the opposite site of the world from her brought the reality of
the situation crashing down around him. Had he promised he would go back? What
a stupid promise to make. The thought of her sitting in the grand palace,
looking out across the skies, waiting for his return made him angry. He should
never have encouraged her. He should have been harsh and cruel and cast her
aside. Sure, she may have felt bad for a short while, but at least she could
have moved on and found someone of her own kind to comfort her. He could have
died in that muddy field—should have died—and no one save perhaps Larissa would
have cared. Certainly no one would have known to send word to Elena of his
demise.

“Good point,” Sandy
said, disturbing his train of thought. She sounded as miserable as he felt.
They certainly weren’t doing a good job of cheering each other up. “So many
dead,” she added quietly.

“Chances are a lot of
them would have died during fighting with Eptora anyway… Oh, for fuck sake.”

“What is it?”

“The war…if they attack
Eptora…if they succeed…” He paused, not wanting to imagine it. If even a small
percentage of those airships or troops got all the way to the palace, Elena
would be slaughtered.

His jaw ached as his
teeth ground together. Even the smell of food cooking couldn’t subdue the knot
of stress forming in his throat, constricting every breath.

“Aren’t we trying to
stop the war?”

“That is the
intention,” he said through gritted teeth. “Not that we’re doing much good
here. Not that we could do much about it even if we weren’t stuck here.”

“There’s still hope. At
least no one will know we’re coming.”

“For all the bloody
good it’ll do us.”

“How’s your prayer
coming, Cid?” Narry called.

Cid bit his tongue,
mumbled a swear word, then silently cursed for swearing at a priest when he
should be saying a prayer.

The sound of the door
opening at the opposite end of the carriage had Cid jumping to his feet.
Saunders returned with a determined stride. “Come with me,” he said, pointing at
Cid.

“What is it?” Sandy
asked. She moved off the stool, making as if to follow after them.

“Nothing. Stay here.
Cut out the lamp and stop the cooking.”

Cid followed after
Saunders in silence. He didn’t know why the Lieutenant wanted him to come see
whatever it was they were going to see, unless it was some mechanical device requiring
his attention. He perked up a little at the thought, then quickly told himself
to stop being so foolish. If it were that simple, Saunders wouldn’t have told
them to cut out the lamp.

They reached the last
carriage at the front of the cars. Saunders stood beside the door leading to
the platform, looking carefully in both directions. It was still dark outside,
and as far as Cid could tell, there was nobody out there. Saunders stepped
outside and waved for Cid to follow. They stalked along the side of the coal
car, half jogging, until they reached the engine. Saunders stepped to one side
and directed Cid into the cab. An ominous smell assaulted his nostrils, and he
didn’t quite have time for his brain to process what it was before he looked
into the cab. He turned away in revulsion the moment he saw what was inside.
Two decomposing bodies hunched over the controls—the engineer and the fireman.

“Gods,” Cid muttered as
his stomach churned. At least he hadn’t eaten the Friar’s cooking before coming
out here.

“There are more. Inside
the station.”

“All murdered?”

“Every last one. Rail
workers, enforcers. Normal people…women and children.”

“Gods.” Cid turned away
and faced down the length of the train. He should have known it wouldn’t be so
simple. They had just escaped one dangerous situation and landed themselves
right in the middle of another. He glanced across the city and groaned out
loud. To think, Larissa had gone out there, walking into Gods only knew what
kind of mess. “What the hell do we do now?”

“No one has been here
for a while. These bodies are old, maybe weeks. We should be safe enough
staying, provided we don’t do anything to draw attention to ourselves. We
should rest, and while we wait for the others to return, it may be prudent to
prepare this train to leave. Do you think you can do that?”

“I’ll have to look it
over. Make sure there’s no damage to any of the controls. I’d need help moving
those.” He pointed to the two dead men.

“I’ll help. We can
decouple the far carriages and move up to the closest one. It will make for a
faster escape when we’re ready to leave. I’ll check the bodies inside the
station. Maybe the enforcers haven’t been picked clean of their weapons.”

“You can stomach going
in there?”

“When the alternative
is the potential need to fight an unknown enemy without anything to defend
ourselves with? Yes. I’ll manage. I just hope the Colonel and your friends
don’t take too long doing whatever they’re doing.”

“Or run into the people
who did all this,” Cid said, worrying anew for Larissa. “I look forward to the
day when all this madness ends.”

“It’s not over yet,”
Saunders said. “Go get some rest and have something to eat. I’ll take the first
watch... Let me know if you find any smokes.”

“I thought you said
you’d quit.”

“I feel the need to
un-quit.” Saunders pulled himself into the train and began moving one of the
bodies. Cid’s stomach wasn’t grumbling any longer.

Kerrigan fell back behind Holt and
Larissa. His shoulder blades itched knowing they were being followed, and he
half expected to wind up with a bullet in his back as they descended the steps
leading into the darkness. Though he hadn’t seen their pursuers, who had quite
a knack for stealth, they were there, and if Holt agreed, that was good enough.
As much as he didn’t want to acknowledge or appreciate the man, he was secretly
glad for his company, even if it meant Kerrigan was somewhat of a third wheel.

No lanterns burned in
the cab corridors below, and the air was thick with a musty smell. He regretted
not asking Vries to spare a few men to come with them. As capable as the three
of them were, they wouldn’t be much use if they stumbled across hundreds of
thugs and became trapped in such an enclosed space.

They reached the bottom
of the steps and came to a large area with gates leading to several tunnels
arcing off in different directions. The lantern light cast an ominous yellow
glow against the drab grey walls, shadows bouncing from the plinths holding up
the roof at several points. Kerrigan gripped the pistol and moved off to the
side, keeping his back to the walls as he carefully checked around the nearest
plinths for any hidden people awaiting an ambush. Holt passed the lantern to
Larissa and mirrored Kerrigan’s actions in the opposite direction.

Larissa swung her legs
over one of the ticket gates and held the lantern up to a map attached to the
wall between two tunnels. Kerrigan followed after he was satisfied no one lay
in wait, at least not in this section.

“East three stops and
then North,” she said after studying the map for a while. She cast her eyes
downward and sighed.

“What is it?” Holt
asked.

“My apartment is one
stop in the opposite direction. There won’t be anything there now, no reason to
go back. It’s just…”

“You miss home,”
Kerrigan said. He caught the way Holt’s eyes flared up, as if simply talking to
Larissa was against the rules. Kerrigan ignored him.

“I do…and my cat,” she
said as she looked around her ankles, expecting the animal to be there.

“I thought your ghost
thing was still following you about.”

“I haven’t seen him
since we arrived in Daltonia. I’m not sure he’s still with me, or if he’s…”

“Come,” Holt said,
tugging on her arm as he glanced back towards the entrance stairwell. Kerrigan
looked back too. There was no one in sight, but he was more certain than ever
they were being followed and their pursuers were not far behind.

They followed a long
corridor on a constant downward gradient and eventually opened out in two
directions. The sign marked Sallarium West had been damaged, graffiti covering
the name of the city and spreading down onto the wall beneath. The sign marked
East had been split in two, the city name missing altogether.

“Oh,” Larissa said as
she came to a stop.

“What is it?”

“If the city is as
abandoned and run-down as it seems, I’m not sure anyone will be working the
furnaces to power the cab system… In fact, I think the furnace that powered the
infrastructure was located in the Hub.”

“The Hub that
exploded?” Holt said.

“Yes. We may have to
walk after all,” she said with a groan. “I’m sorry, I should have thought of it
before coming all the way down here.” She turned to go back up.

“You’re tired. We’re
all tired. I should have thought of it also,” Kerrigan said.

“The cabs can be worked
manually. We should not go back. Come.” Holt tugged on Larissa’s arm again.

“Does he always haul
you about like that?” Kerrigan asked as he tried not to groan at the thought of
operating the cabs manually. After surviving the crash of the
Eagle
and
fighting for hours, his arms and legs ached and his back felt like he’d been
hauling a boulder around for days.

“It’s a new habit,”
Larissa replied.

The platform leading to
the cabs was devoid of life, and the tracks were bare, no cabs in sight. Holt
jumped down onto the tracks and motioned for Larissa to pass the lamp. He
stomped off up the tunnel alone, bringing darkness to the platform.

“I don’t know if that
means we’re supposed to follow him or not,” Larissa said as she back-stepped to
stand beside Kerrigan.

“He didn’t bark at you
to
come,
so I suppose not.”

“He doesn’t bark.”

“He barks.”

“I don’t mind it.”

“Have I ever remarked
at you being odd?”

“I believe you alluded
to it once or twice, Colonel. I’m aware of my oddness. The odd circumstances I
find myself in at times seem to draw it out of me.”

The lantern light grew
larger as Holt returned, shadows bouncing off the walls with his steps. He
marched straight past them and headed down the opposite tunnel, taking the light
with him. Kerrigan checked behind; he wasn’t sure if they had been followed all
the way down or not. His heartrate increased as the light disappeared almost
completely and something brushed his arm—Larissa leaning against him in the
dark. He thought about putting his arm around her shoulder, then stopped
himself. As much as it would simply be a friendly gesture of reassurance,
having Holt angry at him was the last thing they needed. He wasn’t even sure if
he should act in such a familiar manner with her. If she had royal blood,
surely he should act with more propriety? It was bad enough to know she’d seen
him naked. He chewed on his lip, mulling it over, thinking a little too hard
about it and quietly aware that he did so to focus on anything other than the
fact that they stood in such a dangerous place in the dark.

“Do you hear that?”
Larissa whispered.

He listened intently,
closing his eyes even in the darkness. Somewhere in the distance, something made
a metallic scraping sound, but it seemed too far away to be made by Holt,
coming from a different direction. A knot formed in his chest.

“Why do I have the
feeling these tunnels aren’t as abandoned as they seem?” Larissa said.

“Because they are not,”
Holt said. Larissa squealed and grabbed onto Kerrigan’s chest. He would never
admit how close he came to letting go of his bladder.

“Gods, you scared me,”
she said.

“I shuttered the
lantern. We must proceed in the dark until we are on the cab,” Holt said.
Kerrigan felt a hand grope between his chest and Larissa’s arms to prize her
away from him. “Come.”

The pair moved away,
and Kerrigan could only just sense them in the dark. A moment of panic
flittered through his mind, as he had no idea which direction they were going
and wasn’t sure where the edge of the platform was. Tiredness was taking its
toll. Someone grabbed onto his hand and pulled him along. His first thought was
that Holt had been kind enough to think of him. He almost laughed out loud when
he readjusted his thinking after realising the hand holding his was small and
soft, fingers lacing between his own. At least someone didn’t want to leave him
behind.

They slowed as they
reached the edge, and he crouched down, jumping from the platform onto the
tracks. Larissa pulled him along with her, his feet hastily shuffling through
the dirt and grit on the ground.

“Walk quietly,” Holt
admonished in a harsh whisper from up ahead.

“We can’t walk quietly
in the dark, Holt,” Larissa said.

Kerrigan kept his mouth
shut. He wanted to tell her perhaps
she
couldn’t manage silence in the
dark; he was perfectly capable of being as quiet as Holt. As he tripped over a
stone, hurting his toe and stumbling noisily through the gravel, he was glad he
hadn’t said anything.

They slowed a little,
and light returned as Holt opened the shutter on the lamp. They were deep in
the tunnel and stood beside a cab car. The open-bodied vehicle had six seats, which
looked as comfortable as a bed of nails. Two lines of cable fed through the
underside of the cab and attached to the walls on either side, disappearing
behind a mesh of cogs and pulleys. Holt set the lantern down on one of the
seats, then scooped Larissa up onto the cab, setting her on her backside on the
edge.

“Take a seat,” Kerrigan
said with a smile.

“Thanks,” Larissa
replied. Holt seemed oblivious to the teasing as he set to work pulling on the
cable to draw some slack. Kerrigan didn’t need to be told to do the same on the
other side, and he walked around to repeat the action. He hooked the pistol
onto his belt and rubbed his fingertips together before grabbing the cable and
giving a few swift tugs.

“Come,” Holt barked
down at him. He’d already jumped up onto the cab and sat in the seat beside
Larissa.

Kerrigan couldn’t help
the grumble growling in the back of his throat. He was a Colonel, at least as
far as he knew. Having been declared dead didn’t invalidate one’s rank, did it?
As it was, Holt had been dishonourably discharged and certainly didn’t have his
rank any longer. Even if he did, a captain simply did
not
outrank a
colonel, and he would be within his rights to thump Holt on the nose for
presuming to order him about.

“Thank you, Colonel,”
Larissa said with a gentle smile as he climbed on in silence.

He didn’t know what she
was thanking him for. Had she sensed his discomfort with Holt’s behaviour? Was
she placating him?

“I was the one who
found the cab,” Holt said.

“Yes, thank you too,
Holt,” Larissa said. She turned her face forwards and made a point of not
looking at either one of them. It seemed their journey together was doomed to
be awkward no matter what.

Kerrigan took the seat
beside Larissa and grabbed his cable as Holt tightened his grip on the cable on
the other side, and they pulled together. Slowly, the cab wheels turned, metal
screeching against metal as they moved through the tunnel. If Holt had wanted a
silent journey, this clearly wasn’t going to work.

It didn’t take long for
the vehicle to get up to a decent speed far quicker than walking pace. The
strain of pulling the cables became easier. The lantern had only one shutter
open, so the darkness of the tunnel seemed to loom over their path. The scrapes
of metal echoed all around and seemed far louder to Kerrigan’s ears than he
would have liked. They were certainly making their presence known to anyone
else who may be lurking down in the tunnels with them.

They passed the first
station and abandoned the cab, exchanging for another which sat in wait beside
the platform. The feeling that they were being followed subsided somewhat as the
rest of the station seemed silent. When they made the final switch from the
Eastbound track to the North, Kerrigan dared to hope maybe they had lost their
pursuers.

The nearer they came to
the center of the city, the worse the graffiti became. The walls were coated in
black and red marks, the writing barely legible. Larissa looked nervously at
the
art
as they passed by.

“Not to your taste?”
Kerrigan asked, trying to ease her nerves.

“It never used to be
like this. I can’t help but wonder what we’re heading into,” she called over
the noise of the wheels on the tracks.

“Trouble,” Holt said
with a wave of his hand to indicate that they should slow. Kerrigan dropped the
cable, and after a few more feet, the cab rolled to a stop. “Get behind the
cab,” Holt said as he jumped to the ground, almost dragging Larissa off the
vehicle with him.

Kerrigan stared down
the dark tunnel ahead, straining to see or hear what it was that Holt could
sense.

“Colonel, you too,”
Holt said, his voice curt.

“What is—” Gunshot cut
his question short, and he launched himself over the edge of the cab, crashing
into the hard shingle with his hands and knees. He growled between his teeth
and slipped behind one of the wheels, putting his back to the direction of the
shooter. More shots echoed throughout the tunnel, pinging off the edge of the
vehicle and spraying his legs with gravel as the bullets hit the ground. He
braced himself and tried to calm his nerves. He was a combat soldier, trained
to deal with precisely this sort of experience, not some arrogant Sky Force asshole.
He waited patiently, pulling the pistol from his belt, counting at least three
separate shooters. They were probably nothing more than thugs or pirates—certainly
not trained soldiers who would know better than to shoot blindly into the dark
in the hope of hitting a target. They were wasting ammunition.

As the shooting
stopped, the entire tunnel plunged into pitch blackness. He couldn’t tell where
Holt and Larissa had gone but presumed they had taken cover at the back of the
cab. He took three deep breaths, gripped the pistol lightly in his hand, then
moved out from behind the wheel, his feet gliding silently over the gravel as
he skulked along the wall, knees bent, shoulders low. It didn’t take long
before he heard the shooters’ voices nearby.

“They dead?”

“Sounds like it.”

“You didn’t kill that
woman, did you?”