by Wen Spencer
They’d walked for only half a mile before Law could pick out voices in the distance. She moved back into the shadows of the forest. The ironwood trees had been trimmed back to make room for the siding. The switch was set to let the main line trains pass. Because of the thick row of trees between the two sets of tracks, the passing trains couldn’t see the mystery train sitting in the siding.
It was a twelve-car passenger train. Its wedge-nosed diesel engine purred in a rough idle, facing west toward Pittsburgh. Royal marines moved purposely in and out of the forest beside the siding. It looked as if all eighty-four seats of the passenger cars were full, putting the number of marines on board at a thousand. The last car was a general-purpose flatcar. It was stacked with the tents like the ones she’d seen the marines loading onto the horse-drawn wagons at Union Station.
Law crouched in the shadows, feeling relieved and disappointed. The mystery train was just another troop carrier bringing in more royal marines. The other two inbound trains were probably more of the same. Law couldn’t tell why this one had stopped or what the marines were doing. Something felt very wrong but she couldn’t put a finger on it.
She cautiously worked her way toward the trees where the marines were coming and going. Any time she’d dealt with the Fire Clan troops, they’d always been curious and nonthreatening, but that was in Pittsburgh, where they expected to find humans. They might not be so friendly if she popped up unannounced in the woods.
The marines had beaten a path through the bracken. Their footprints were deep, as if they had carried something heavy into the forest. She’d gone several hundred feet down the path before she found the naked body.
Law stumbled to a halt, covering her mouth to keep in a shout of dismay. It was a young male elf. His hair was Fire Clan red. His skin was a strange cherry color. Law tore her gaze from the body and scanned the area. Ahead of her lay hundreds of bodies, all naked, all cherry red. What in hell happened to them? Why were the marines dumping them here? Elves had a thing about cremation; they thought it freed the soul from the body. This was an abomination to them.
She stumbled deeper into the forest, trying to understand what she was seeing. She wasn’t even sure what killed the elves. They appeared to be all in the same stage of rigor mortis, which meant they all died about three hours earlier.
An odd shift of shadows and the scent of bruised apples told her that Bare Snow was beside her.
“Kyanos poisoning,” Bare Snow whispered. “I wonder how the oni poisoned them. It could not have been by something they drank or ate or they would not all have died at the same time. I know of no magic that could do this.”
Traps were tricky things. A crayfish trap was only effective for a short time; given enough time, even brainless crayfish figured out a way to escape. How could you kill a thousand people?
“I don’t know about this kyanos poison,” Law said. “If it can be made into a gas, it would be a way you could kill this many people at once. The train goes through several tunnels. That would restrict the airflow. If they released a gas just as the train entered a tunnel, then it would remain trapped in the passenger cars. It would be like a mobile gas chamber. But why kill them? Who are they?”
“These are laedin-caste Fire Clan. These must be the real royal marines. What we saw were disguised oni in stolen uniforms.”
“Are you sure?”
“How those others move is wrong. There is no cohesion. Their stride is too wild.”
Law thought of the troops she’d seen in town. Despite their fearless curiosity, the marines still moved like soldiers. They set guards that stood at parade rest. They unconsciously matched strides when they walked abreast. What’s more, she had only seen males at the siding. The elves did gender equality in spades; between immortality and their low birth rate, females weren’t restricted to support positions. The marines in town had been an equal mix of males and females.
“Half of Pittsburgh is going to be here,” Tiffani had said. “It makes for a damn big target. I’m going to walk up to the train tracks…they’re right there close enough to touch.”
“Shit!” Law hissed. The oni were going to attack Oktoberfest dressed as elves! It would be a massacre. Anyone that survived would testify on the victims’ grave that the killers were royal marines. Every human in Pittsburgh would take up weapons against the elves.
She had to stop that train. Somehow. She thought of the thousand armed oni dressed as marines. First she should warn someone, just in case she failed. She ducked behind a massive ironwood and took her phone out of her pocket. There was no signal. She waved her phone about, hoping to pick up something.
Who should she call? The EIA? She didn’t trust them. Pittsburgh Police? No, getting more humans involved would just play to the Skin Clan’s plan. It had to be elves. She needed to get hold of someone like Chili Pepper; he’d listen to her. The enclaves, however, didn’t have phones.
Thinking of Chili Pepper reminded her of her conversation with Alton. The Kryskills had connections with the tengu; otherwise Alton wouldn’t know where Jin Wong was or how to get hold of him. The elves trusted the tengu because they belonged to Tinker. Alton could get a message to Windwolf through the tengu.
One bar appeared in her phone’s signal indicator.
She tapped Alton’s number. “Come on! Go through!”
Alton answered his phone with, “Who’s this?”
“It’s me, Law!” she whispered.
“Lawrie? Did you find Oilcan? Where is he?”
“Shut up and listen! The oni have control of one of the passenger trains.”
“What? Say again?”
She risked talking louder. “The oni captured a passenger train! They have an inbound train.”
There was a pause and she was afraid she’d lost her signal. After a moment, Alton said, “Roger that.”
“Get a hold of Windwolf and the elves. They have to get to Station Square.”
“Say…” The line went choppy. “Lawrie? Windwolf needs to go where? Union Station?”
She peeked around the tree toward the sidling. There were no oni in sight. She spoke louder. “Oktoberfest! Station Square!”
“South Side?”
“Yes! The oni are going to attack the festival!”
“Say…”
Her phone went silent. “Shitshitshitshit.” The signal indicator was blank. She turned in a circle, trying to pick up a signal again. Nothing.
Hopefully Alton had gotten enough to do something. She swept her phone in a circle. She should call Usagi and the others and tell them to go home—
There was a loud metal clank from the direction of the siding. Law jerked around. The engine seemed louder than before. The air brakes hissed loudly as they released.
The oni were leaving!
Law took off running. Usagi and the kids! Ellen! Trixie! They would all be caught in the gunfire. If Alton didn’t understand the message—if he wasn’t connected as tightly with the tengu as she thought—if he wasn’t the man she thought he was…
The consequences were sickening.
At the edge of the forest, Bare Snow caught her. She jerked Law to a halt still deep in the shadows. “Wait! They’ll see you!”
The train was pulling away.
“We have to stop it!” Law whispered fiercely. She tried to tug free.
Bare Snow tightened her hold on Law’s wrist. “They will kill you if they see you!”
“I have to try!”
“You will fail.” Bare Snow was frustratingly calm. “I could hide from a thousand eyes, but you cannot. It would only take one oni with a gun and I’d be alone. I would not be able to kill them all and I cannot stop the train without you. We must find another way.”
“There isn’t another way!” Law wanted to shout, but locked her jaw against it. Bare Snow didn’t know anything about trains. It was impossible to leap onto a train once it was up to speed unless you were moving at the same speed. The track bed was too wide to jump from a ve
hicle on the service road. Law could drive the Dodge onto the tracks, but the ties would make jumping from the hood to the back of the train iffy as hell. There was also the question of who was going to be driving while Law jumped. The same reason she could get the Dodge onto the tracks also meant it could easily go back off. Bare Snow knew the mechanics of driving but still constantly stalled the Dodge.
How else could they catch the train? Law tried to recall everything her grandfather told her about the tracks east of the city. There wasn’t another siding until the split of the rails just before Station Square and that was too close to the crowd. If they derailed the train there, it could go flying into the Hooters parking lot.
There was the supply terminal. During Shutdown, barges on the Monongahela River offloaded rail supplies at Charleroi. Since there wasn’t a service road for most of the tracks eastward, the railroad had a fleet of maintenance vehicles that could travel on the rails.
“We could get one of the hi-rails.” Law turned toward the Dodge. “It’s a pickup truck that can be driven either on the highway or tracks. The railroad has some Land Cruisers that have conversion kits mounted on them. They’re also automatics with cruise control.”
“They have what?” Bare Snow released her hold on Law.
“It will stay at the same speed by itself. You don’t need to keep your foot on the gas. There should be at least one Land Cruiser at the terminal.”
Once they had the hi-rail, they could ambush the train.
* * *
“Here it comes.” Law gripped the wheel of the hi-rail.
She couldn’t actually see the engine; they’d decided to hide the Land Cruiser behind the Charleroi Water Filtration Plant. The low red-brick building stretched for several hundred feet beside the tracks. Traveling at sixty miles per hour, the train had triggered the crossing on the next block. The automatic system clanged as it lowered its gate, blocking an intersection that most likely no one had used for years.
Bare Snow was on the long flat rooftop of the water filtration plant. She had Law’s compound bow with her. Once upon a time, Law had cringed over how much money she had sunk into the top-of-the-line weapon. Now she considered it worth every penny.
The engine roared past Law’s hiding space. She braced herself, foot on the brake, counting cars as they flashed past the filtration plant’s driveway. “One. Two. Three.” They were still too far out to pick up a cell signal in the river valley. She wished there had been time to break into the terminal building proper and use the landline. She was counting on Alton to act as backup when really she had no clue if he could. Did he get hold of Jin Wong? Did the tengu spiritual leader convince Windwolf to go to Station Square? Had anyone thought to disperse the crowds? Was Usagi still there with all the children? Usagi had promised the half-elves that they could stay until dusk which was still hours away. “Nine. Ten. Eleven.” She gripped the wheel tightly. Over the whine and ringing of the steel wheels on steel track, she could make out Bare Snow’s running footsteps.
The open car flashed past. There were bodies sprawled on the tents, arrows standing out like exclamation points. One warrior stood in the very back, bringing up his rifle as if he’d just become aware of the death around him. There was a whisper of bowstring and he fell. Did he shout a warning before dying? Would there be a welcoming party when they tried scrambling onto the train?
The Land Cruiser dipped slightly as Bare Snow landed on the roof. She slid into the open passenger window. “Go!”
Law raced the hi-rail down the block, keeping just out of sight of the oni in the last passenger car. They reached the crossing just as the gate came up. She hit the conversion switch. The Land Cruiser’s AI took control of the steering wheel, found the tracks, positioned the SUV, and lowered the steel wheels into place. It only took twenty seconds but it seemed forever.
“Go! Go! They’re getting away!” Bare Snow cried.
“We’ll catch them!” Law hit the gas the moment she felt the car raise up, lifting the regular wheels off the ground. “We can go faster than them.”
They caught up to the train in two minutes. Law eased up until the Land Cruiser’s bumper was as close as she dared bring it to the train. “Get across and I’ll follow.”
A minute later, Bare Snow’s blue hair scarf appeared on the back of the train. Tied to one of the tent poles, it fluttered in the wind. Law set the cruise control. She shouldered a backpack of tools and opened her door. The track bed was a blur of motion under the Land Cruiser.
“This would be a bad time to suddenly be clumsy.” Nervousness rushed through Law as she scrambled up onto the roof of the SUV. Normally she enjoyed rushing into trouble to play knight in shining armor. This was different. This wasn’t some muscle-bound idiot who would underestimate her until she landed her first hit. This was several tons of brute mechanical force. It wouldn’t even notice her as it rolled over her body.
Think of the kids. Moon Rabbit and the others. Trixie. Usagi. Ellen. Tiffani.
Law steeled herself against the fear rushing through her. She took a deep breath. She charged down the windshield, across the hood and leapt.
There was a terrifying moment where she was sure that she wouldn’t make it. The train seemed to suddenly lurch forward, out of her reach. And then Bare Snow had her by the wrist, hauling her onto the train.
Law scrambled wildly, hissing curses in fear. Wind blasted over her, trying to shove her from the flatcar. She found her balance, splayed out on the tent like a scared starfish.
“This is fun!” Bare Snow said.
“Fun as a barrelful of monkeys,” Law grumbled.
“I’m not sure being in packed into a barrel would be fun for monkeys.”
There was a dead body beside Law; the last “marine” that Bare Snow shot. The arrow had pierced his eye, killing him instantly. His blood stained the white canvas of the tents. Law pulled the spell paper out of her pocket. She took a photo of it with her phone and then used it on the body. She wanted to be sure these were actually oni before she tried killing them all.
It was a weird thing. Nothing seemed to change, and yet he appeared completely different. His hair stayed red and the general outline of his face remained square. His skin took on a reddish hue. His nose was flatter. He had nubs of horns.
“Oni,” Bare Snow stated quietly.
It meant that Law was right about Station Square being the oni’s target.
“Come on.” Law picked her way across the bloodied tents.
The passenger cars had a windowed door at either end. They were hooked together with flexible gangway connections. It meant that once she and Bare Snow were on the roof, they could travel the whole way to the front of the train without jumping. Getting past the first window while they scaled the door was going to be tricky.
Law explained the problem to Bare Snow. “There’s a bathroom at the back of the car, so there’s a buffer between the chairs and the door. If the chairs are all faced to the front, then no one should see us. See me.”
“I’ll check.” It seemed like eternity before Bare Snow called simply, “Go.”
Law leapt on pure faith that Bare Snow had moved out of the way and that the oni wouldn’t see her. It was a fairly easy leap but the landing was a narrow sill. She gripped tightly to the gangway material. She ducked down when she landed. She rose slightly to peek through the window.
The seats faced forward. Most of the oni sat, seemingly bored after the long train ride from wherever they killed the marines. The few stood watching the passing landscape intently, as if waiting to see familiar landmarks. None were looking in her direction.
She stood up and caught hold of the upper sill of the gangway connection. She scrambled up to the roof as quickly as she could.
The train stretched out in front of her like a quarter-mile-long silvery snake.
She and Bare Snow had been moving at top speed since chasing after the train. The high span of the Elizabeth Bridge, though, was already in sight. It leapt from
the ridges that lined both sides of the Monongahela River. Miles were disappearing faster than Law wanted. She wanted to run to the head of the snake and chop it off, but that courted disaster. Unlike freight trains, the passenger car roofs were rounded and smooth. No one was supposed to actually walk across the top. The wind buffeted her, trying to shove her off. If she fell, it would be like being hit by a car moving at high speeds. There would be no getting up.
She started forward, keeping an eye out for low overpasses.
* * *
It was the hardest quarter-mile Law ever walked. There was only a narrow invisible path down the exact center of the cars where the roof was flat enough not to start her sliding toward the edge. The train lurched and swayed unpredictably. Every eighty feet, she needed to scramble across the gangway connection. Three times she needed to duck down as they passed under roads.
They were rounding the corner to Duquesne when she finally reached the engine. Across the wide Monongahela River valley was Turtle Creek with the black tower of the spaceship standing on end, covered with the odd runes of dragon magic.
“I’m here.” Bare Snow kept Law from bumping into her. “There’s no guard on the door.”
The gangway connection hadn’t been extended between the engine and the first passenger car. When the oni killed the marines, it would have been a way to keep the engineer safe from any survivors long enough for him to stop and pick up oni warriors.
“I tried to open it, I could not,” Bare Snow said.
What had the Skin Clan done to the door?
Law’s grandfather ranted often about the lack of security on the Elfhome railroad. The reasoning was that if the humans returned to Earth without warning—like they almost did when the orbital gate failed—the elves didn’t want the humans taking all the keys with them. Law had been able to easily take the hi-rail because the keys had been left in the ignition.