Wintercraft (13 page)
Outside the train was a wide stone platform divided in two by a high wooden fence. The right-hand side was for the wardens and prisoners being taken off the train and the left side was filled with people shouting at them, waving pouches of coins and craning their necks to get a good look inside the carriages before anyone was brought out.
‘Tailors!’ shouted a woman, her shrill voice carrying above the rest. ‘I’ll pay five gold for a seasoned stitcher, two for an apprentice.’
‘Housekeepers!’ barked a man beside her. ‘Four gold apiece for a strong woman and boy!’
‘Dancers!’
‘Builders!’
‘Bakers!’
‘Servants!’
And so it went on. A rage of voices, all desperate to buy the prisoners like they would buy animals at a market. Offers were made, bids were argued and increased, and all the while cages were wheeled out of the carriages and the people of Morvane were fed into the belly of Fume one by one.
No daylight poured in to brighten the station. More braziers spat and hissed along the ceiling, arranged in line like a fiery spine, and there were two torch-lit exits to the left of the platform: one for the crowd and one with a fenced path leading to it from the prisoners’ side.
Kate pressed her back against her bars, trying to stay out of the crowd’s sight, but not before she had spotted something else waiting on the opposite side of the platform. A second train, sitting on a parallel track. Kate had never heard of a second train existing in Albion. Its engine was barely half the size of the Night Train. It looked newer and more carefully pieced together, with carriages built like huge metal crates, its doors barred and its livery shining a deep dark red.
Most of the male prisoners were not for sale, and they were pulled straight on to the red train to the groans and disappointed shouts of the onlooking crowd. Kate watched as a small group of pickpockets were allowed to squeeze in through a gate and snatch whatever they wanted from the prisoners being taken on board. Cloaks, shoes, coins, anything that could be grabbed through the cage bars was taken, but the thieves paid a price for what they took. Not one of them skulked back into the crowd without a bruise, a broken finger or at least a dazed look in their eyes once Morvane’s men were through with them.
Kate looked for Artemis among the steady stream of people being wheeled across the platform, but there was no sign of him.
‘Wait here,’ said Silas, walking to the doorway and kicking the three steps down on to the platform. ‘I will come back for you.’
Silas stepped off the train into full view of the crowd, and the effect his presence had upon the people was incredible. All shouting stopped at once. The station fell silent as he swept his eyes around it, scrutinising every face, every movement and every breath taken around him.
Kate could almost feel his concentration. She could sense dominance emanating from him without him even saying a word. He was completely in control of every person in that station. Not one of them would dare to defy him. Fume was his city. His territory. In that place he was not just another face among many enemies. He was known and feared for reasons far beyond the reach of any ordinary warden. No one looked at him directly, careful not to attract his attention, and the air hung with the anticipation of his words. When at last he did speak, it was to give one simple instruction. ‘Carry on.’
With Silas’s blessing, the crowd burst into life again. The frenzied bidding continued, the station was a mass of ordered chaos and then one bidder’s shout stood out above the rest.
‘Scholars. Historians. Booksellers! Paying a high price!’
‘If you’re not interested in this batch then keep your mouth shut,’ growled a warden, glaring at a small man who was waving a hat in the middle of the crowd. ‘Wait your turn.’
Three more cages rolled by before the man called out again. ‘I represent a member of the High Council! I must be heard. Scholars! Historians! Booksellers! Name your price.’
That got the wardens’ attention.
Orders were passed along the platform. There was a burst of activity further down the train, and a cage was lifted out before its turn.
‘All right then. One bookseller. The only one we have. He’ll do.’
Kate moved around her cage, trying to get a better look. There was only one bookshop in Morvane and, as far as she knew, Edgar had not been captured by the wardens. The only bookseller on that train had to be Artemis.
‘Does he know his trade?’ asked the buyer. ‘My mistress demands someone skilled in history and literature. Nothing less.’
‘He’s all we’ve got. Either take him, or clear off.’
The buyer pushed his way to the front of the crowd, money changed hands and the warden gave another signal to his men. A cage was pulled forward by two brown horses and there, sitting inside it on his own, was Artemis, looking pale and sickly in the firelight. The man inspected him briefly - ‘He’ll do’ - then Artemis was rolled off towards the prisoners’ exit tunnel and Kate could only watch helplessly as he was taken out of sight.
‘Next!’ bellowed the warden, pocketing the fat coin pouch.
She had to do something. She had to get out!
Kate was struggling to break her lock when a shout carried along the platform, a sound like a screaming cat ripped through the air and green fire streaked past the train before exploding not far away. Silas turned, his face veiled in anger as a second streak chased the first - red this time - with a silver sparkle right on its tail. The crowd ducked as one and a blaze of white sparks blossomed above their heads, accompanied by an ear-splitting bang.
Someone was setting off fireworks in the station.
Wardens converged on the source of the commotion and their frightened dogs struggled against their leads as they barked and clawed the ground. Kate was too far back to see anything clearly. More explosions burst above the platform, a green flash erupted right above her carriage and when she looked up she saw someone slither down through the roof, grab on to one of the cages and drop into the dark. The hot smell of hay and horse manure wafted Kate’s way and a very dishevelled-looking Edgar crept over to her with hay sticking out of his wild hair and soot from the cellar fire still clinging to his clothes.
‘That should keep them busy,’ he said, grinning as another rocket whizzed overhead.
‘Edgar! What are you doing here?’
‘Helping you. What does it look like?’
‘How did you—?’
‘We don’t have long. Silas’ll find the fuses in a minute. They’ve got crates full of those things out there.’ Edgar pulled a long black key out of his boot and unlocked Kate’s cage. ‘I got this off a wall hook three carriages back. I was starting to think you weren’t on board. Most of the other prisoners are off now.’ The door swung open and he held out his hand. ‘Let’s go then.’
‘Artemis is here,’ said Kate, as soon as she was free. ‘I saw him.’
‘I know. I saw him too, but there isn’t time to … Hang on. Trouble.’
Kate followed Edgar’s eyes. Silas was crossing the platform, heading right for their carriage.
‘Quick! Climb up!’ said Edgar, holding her cage as still as he could.
Kate jumped on to the bars and climbed them right up to the roof beams. She looked down once she reached the top, but Edgar was gone.
‘Edgar?’
Silas’s shadow spread across the carriage and Kate leaned back, trying to stay quiet. It took only a moment for Silas to realise she was gone and the cages crashed together as he began searching for her.
She had to move. She had to get away from him.
The place Kate was sitting was only two carriages away from the Night Train’s engine. She skirted the roof quickly and found the top rung of a ladder taking her right down on to the tracks.
‘
You!
’ Kate heard Silas’s shout in between two more screeching bangs.
You!
’ Kate heard Silas’s shout in between two more screeching bangs.
He had found Edgar.
There was nothing she could do. If she went back, she would be caught - and what good would she be to anyone then? She forced herself to walk away from the shout, down a narrow worker’s path squashed between the train and the station wall. Soon she was right beside the hot black engine and there were only two choices from there: down into the tunnel, or back out on to the platform. There was no way to know where that tunnel came out. Edgar was in trouble, and every second she wasted carried Artemis further away. She had to risk the platform.
With fireworks still lighting up the air, no one noticed Kate climb up off the tracks and squeeze through a broken panel in the side of the wooden fence. Water dripped from the muddy ceiling like indoor rain and tickled her head as she slipped unnoticed into the crowd, most of whom had their arms over their heads for protection, pushing their way towards the arched exit behind them. She was just about to follow them, hoping to find Artemis somewhere on the other side, when Silas dragged one final prisoner on to the platform.
Edgar limped awkwardly into the light, squinting through a bruised eye. As soon as some of the braver bidders saw him they started counting what was left in their coin pouches, weighing up Edgar’s value with eager eyes, but one look at Silas’s face showed that he was not for sale. His eyes scoured the crowd. Kate ducked behind a tall woman beside her and when she looked out again Silas was marching Edgar off to the prisoners’ exit on foot. That must have meant something serious, because the crowd suddenly became angry, squeezing forward to glare and shout.
‘Traitor!’ spat the woman closest to Kate. ‘You’ve earned what you’ll get, boy.’
‘Traitor.’
‘Traitor!’
Edgar turned to look at the heckling crowd. He was trying to put on a brave face, but Kate could see right through it. She knew he was scared and she pushed her way forward, determined to do something,
anything
to let him know she was still there and that he was not alone. She dodged around the heaving bodies and found herself squashed against the wooden fence as Edgar walked by. There was only one safe way to get his attention, so she shouted out loud with everyone else.
anything
to let him know she was still there and that he was not alone. She dodged around the heaving bodies and found herself squashed against the wooden fence as Edgar walked by. There was only one safe way to get his attention, so she shouted out loud with everyone else.
‘Traitor!’
Edgar looked up, recognising her voice, and she waved to him in a small way that no one else could see, trying to send everything she wanted to say to him in one desperate smile. His face brightened a little when he spotted her and sank again as Silas grabbed the back of his neck, forcing him away.
Kate pushed back through the people and forced her way through to the exit leading to the city above. She climbed up a long twist of spiral steps, hoping that the two tunnels came out at the same place, but the narrow staircase was full of people. She tried to run, but the steep steps and heaving bodies made it difficult to move fast.
A burst of sunlight met her at the very top and she found herself standing in the middle of a busy path framed by high stone walls. There was no sign of Edgar or Silas anywhere, so she followed a handful of people in front of her and tried to look like she knew where she was going.
The thin path turned and split like a maze with rusted hand-painted signs directing people to places like Narrow Way North, Traitor’s Gate and Sunken Lake. Kate lost sight of her guides whilst reading one of those signs and decided to take a chance and follow the path marked Traitor’s Gate, hoping it would lead her to Edgar.
The way became dirtier and quieter the further she went, until she had the feeling that the only people who took that particular path were those who were forced to. Then the path turned sharply and Kate froze, face to face with a pair of wardens. They were just guards, standing either side of a small door. There was no way they could have known of her escape, but her terrified face must have betrayed her guilt, because both of them drew their daggers as one. Fear overrode everything else, and Kate ran.
The wardens gave chase, their bootsteps closing in upon her as she raced off down the pathway. She ran as fast as she could go, rejoining the main flow of people and pushing her way through them, and when the path turned sharply, she collided solidly with a small man in a tall hat.
‘You there!’ the man said, grabbing hold of her wrist. ‘What is your business here?’
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