“Hell,” Jacob said. “How come I never noticed that before?”
“Too busy spending them, perhaps,” the general said.
“So, you couldn't copy this?”
“We tried, but we couldn't get the eyes to shift colours, at least not in the same way. Our fakes were spotted swiftly in several trial trades, so we abandoned the idea. Project Ironeyes, we called it. Such a pity we were never successful, as that's when I had to go begging to the Treasury for loans, and I'm not much of a begging man.”
“You should have put me in charge of Project Ironeyes,” Jacob mused. “You never know what I might have done.”
“Well, you weren't Resistance material back then, now, were you?” Rommond asked. “And we never know what you might still do.”
* * *
The trucks drove with very little light. Rommond revealed that many in the Clockwork Commune were virtually blind, and could not detect the dimmest light. Jacob was not so sure about that, but he had paid little attention to the whispers and rumours he heard from other smugglers. The chink of coils drowned out everything else.
It was not just the light that was turned down. Anything inessential was turned off. The trucks chugged along at the slowest of speeds, barely rolling forward at all. It was so quiet that they could hear the gentle crunch of the tires against the earth.
“Is it true?” Jacob asked, when the silence got to him. He glanced at Whistler to make sure he was still asleep. He felt like he was asking about a nightmare.
“Is what true?” Rommond asked in turn.
“That they killed their maker.”
“I never got close enough to ask them.”
“Well, you have your sources, right?”
Rommond gave the slightest of shrugs. “I don't really care how they began. I care what they do now. And now they're a nuisance.”
“Kind of like the Armageddon Brigade.”
The general grumbled. “Kind of like you.”
The sudden sound of scurrying seized Jacob's attention.
“What's that?” he asked.
Rommond slowly raised his index finger to his lip to shush him. He reached with his other hand for his gun.
They heard what sounded like the ticking of a clock, yet faster, a mechanical heartbeat. Then they heard it again from somewhere else, and again, until it seemed that there were many little beats, some in the same rhythm, others faster, and others slower. There were at least a dozen independent noises out there, all joined together in a commune of sound.
In the rear-view mirror, Jacob saw Whistler stirring from his slumber, wiping his eyes. He also saw something stepping out onto the road behind them.
6 – AVALANCHE
“Step on it!” Rommond ordered. “They know we're here.”
Jacob revved the engine and stomped on the accelerator. He could hear the other truck following suit, thundering along just inches behind them, close enough that he could see Armax's eager eyes in the mirror.
The trucks hurtled along the Rust Road, clipping the butchered ruins of vehicles that jutted out of the towering iron walls on either side. The trail twisted and turned, sometimes sharply, forcing Jacob to turn even sharper, and almost topple the truck in the process.
Behind, in the darkness, the ticking and shuffling grew. The Clockwork Commune were made of many things, and some of them were steamtruck wheels and landship tracks. They salvaged speed, and used it to help them salvage everything else.
The other truck pulled up beside Jacob's, bumping into the side. Armax grinned at him, hunched his shoulders, and pressed his head closer to the wheel, as if he thought that would help him gain speed.
“He thinks it's a race,” Jacob said.
“It is,” Rommond replied, “but not between us.”
The Commune gained on them, a mangled mass of rotating wheels and cogs, and scurrying limbs that were most in need of oiling. The sound was deafening, like a thousand factories chugging away at once, each part of the machinery competing to drown out the next.
Armax sped by, a distraction from the chase, and Jacob took the next corner too early, slicing into one of the outcropping cars. The force of the impact spun the truck around and rocked it on its weathered wheels, but it also dislodged the car from its cage, and left the one above it dangling precariously and creaking loudly.
The people in the truck had barely caught their breath, and Jacob had barely reorientated himself, when they heard the groan of the metal grow louder.
Rommond shook his head. “God no.”
The dangling car slid down a notch, then caught in the torn metal of another. This, in turn, set the next vehicle off, and the shifting and creaking spread from one to another like a set of iron dominoes—a set which spanned the entire Rust Road.
“Drive!” Rommond screamed.
Yet despite Jacob's every effort, the truck would not move.
“I'm trying!” he shouted back.
He pressed the accelerator with even more force, and he could feel and hear the wheels of the steamtruck spin, but it barely rocked in place.
Whistler hung out one of the windows, like a dangling car of his own. “There's something stuck there,” he cried. He opened the door and hopped outside, where he could see what looked like part of a car door wedged between the axle of the front wheels, the other end buried deep in the sand. “I see it!” he said, and tried to pull it out, but he did not have the strength to remove it.
Algan and Rommond joined him, and even they struggled to dislodge the piece. “Reverse up,” he called to Jacob. “Reverse up!”
Whistler yanked on Rommond's coat and pointed with a shaking hand to the path they had come from. There they could see several dozen misshapen figures racing up towards them, a horde of steel, waving jagged bits of metal, salivating oil in the search for more.
They freed the truck just in time, leaping back inside and slamming the door, even as a little metal hand tried to grab it. Jacob fired up the engine, and the vehicle sprang forward, sending a burst of smoke at the attackers.
Yet this swift motion also set off another, for the dangling vehicles that made up the metal wall to their left began to topple. One by one, then a dozen at a time, the cars and trucks, the landships and airships began to fall. An avalanche of parts came tumbling down, crushing many of the Clockwork Commune.
But the mountain spanned for miles, and so the avalanche spread, threatening the stability of the entire trail. What the clockwork creatures had spent a lifetime accumulating and arranging in a precarious work of art, the Resistance had spent an artless moment pulling down.
As the steamtruck thundered across the Rust Road, the collapsing cliff followed. That it only followed was their blessing for now, but the threat of a curse grew all the time, for the vehicles further ahead began to rock in place from the force of the tumbling metal tide. It seemed that at any moment the Great Iron War would be over for them, and they would become part of the road that they travelled, just another iron slab in the pavement, just another iron brick in the wall.
Then something fell from the wall, striking the truck and sending it skidding to the side. Jacob regained control, but by the time he did they realised it was not falling debris—something leapt at them and landed on the roof. They could hear it walking above.
Jacob pointed up and pursed his lips.
Rommond reached for the shotgun in the front.
Then a spinning saw cut through the roof at the back where Whistler and Algan sat. They screamed and recoiled, ducking low in their seats as the metal canopy tore open.
Rommond fired at the clockwork construct, but it was quick, and the moving of the vehicle disturbed his normally good aim. The mechanical monster was a collection of arms, with three heads, each with a gigantic eye, making it look like some kind of iron spider.
It continued to saw through the r
oof while it reached one of its claws inside. Whistler and Algan kicked at the metal limb, while Rommond fired a second shot, blowing off the saw-wielding limb, which spun off into the still tumbling pile of junk beside them, where it continued to eat through the husks of vehicles, further destabilising the wall.
The clockwork creature had no more limbs to cut, but it had many left to grab, and it forced part of its torso through the gape in the roof and reached out to Whistler and Algan, gripping them by the legs and tearing through their clothes.
Rommond tried to reload, but he dropped the shell as Jacob took the next corner hard, partly because he had no option to slow down with the approaching avalanche, and partly in an attempt to dislodge their arachnid attacker.
Up ahead, Armax's truck slowed a little, and Nissi smashed the back window with the butt of her gun. She aimed the rifle through and fired, but the bullet missed the monster and shattered the windscreen of Jacob's truck. He shook the splintered glass from his hair.
“Hell, that's not helping,” he said.
Rommond finished loading, fired, cocked, and fired again, tearing off two more of the creature's mechanical limbs. By now, however, it had hauled Whistler upside down and was beginning to pull him, screaming, through the torn roof.
Algan grabbed hold of Whistler and tried desperately to stop him being pulled outside. He bashed at the metal claws, but their grip only tightened.
Rommond struck the nearest claw with the butt of the shotgun, then took out his pistol and unloaded all five bullets into the wiry sinews, until it could no longer clasp anything. Whistler fell back down, but this time the creature seized Algan and pulled him halfway through the gap. Whistler clambered up and grabbed his leg, but he did not have the strength to pull him back inside.
Rommond scrambled into the back seat, reaching up to Algan's disappearing feet. He grabbed a hold, then pushed his torso through the hole to fight the mechanical creature. At that point, just as he had a firm grasp on one of its remaining limbs, a bullet cruised by, fired from the truck ahead, severing the limb and knocking the creature, along with Algan, off the roof.
“Algan!” Whistler cried.
Rommond angrily threw the iron limb aside, looked ahead to Nissi, and back at Algan as he was hauled away by the mangled monster. He hopped back inside and climbed into the front passenger seat.
“We have to go back,” Jacob said, pushing hard on the breaks.
“Leave him!” Rommond ordered, slamming his foot down on Jacob's, forcing the truck back into motion. “There's no saving him now.”
As they drove on, they heard the screams and cries of Algan behind them, carried by the sneering wind. Though Jacob kept his eyes on the road ahead, from the mirrors he could see the Clockwork Commune ripping Algan apart, shredding him in their search for metal. That they were quick was perhaps a mercy, but Jacob could not help but think that they were anything but merciful.
They drove on in silence, and yet the Rust Road made all the noises for them. Algan's screams died off, and the ticking died down, but the creaking and crunching of falling metal continued until they passed through the final stretch of the Rust Road.
The avalanche was over, and the path behind was sealed. The mountain had moved, and from the sounds of creaking metal, it was still moving. A lonely tyre bounced down and rolled by the steamtruck, as if to escape the tumble. Jacob halted the vehicle, and it jerked to a stop, rolling up beside Armax.
Amidst the howling wind and their heavy breathing, there were no sounds of ticking clocks, just the groaning of the scrapyard wall behind them.
“Well,” Jacob panted. “I guess we're not going back that way.”
7 – RIDDLES IN RUINS
Taberah's team rolled out with just two vehicles, her own unarmed warwagon, the Silver Ghost, and Leadman's newly-retrofitted landship, recently delivered from the workshops of Copperfort, with a massive bulldozer blade attached to the front. It flattened the uneven sands as it went, making the journey smoother for them all.
They headed due east into Regime territory, passing over the broken and unguarded track of the Iron Wall, into part of Altadas that was drier and hotter than the rest. They saw no aeroplanes there, nor landships, nor even a fortress to bar the way. No one had prepared for the Iron Wall to fall.
The Silver Ghost halted near a ruined building, one of the old burial places of the bygone dynasty to which the Treasury were the living heirs. No one went there now to pay their respects. Homage was paid with iron in the coffers of Blackout.
“You be safe now,” Taberah said to Brooklyn as they stepped outside. “Are you sure you don't want anyone to come with you?”
“This is my mission,” Brooklyn said. “You have your own, and you need army for it.”
“I need more than soldiers.”
“Then save doctor.”
“I'll try.”
Leadman's landship pulled up close, with the general popping through the hatch.
“Not to press you,” he said, “but don't we have people to kill?”
Brooklyn nodded to Taberah, and she nodded back. If only all goodbyes could be so easy, she thought.
Brooklyn turned, then froze, staring ahead at the ruins.
“There is someone out there.”
“Give them a volley,” Leadman told the gunner below.
The turret fired, and part of the building exploded. They heard a frenzied voice inside. When the dust settled a little, out popped a chequered handkerchief tied to a gnarly stick, which was waved about frantically like a flag of surrender.
“Nothing like a landship to weed out the rats,” Leadman said. “Throw out your weapons,” he shouted to the figure inside the ruins.
“W-w-well, I would,” the man stammered, “but I d-don't have any.”
Taberah thought that the voice was familiar, and the stammer even moreso.
“We don't believe you,” the general said. “Maybe we can send another shell to investigate.”
“I s-s-swear!” the man cried, running out to them, hands waving madly in the air.
“Stop!” Taberah told the general. She shook her head. “I know him.”
“You do?”
“He's my brother.”
Out stepped Alex Cotten. He was middle-aged, but there was something about him that suggested he was always like that, that perhaps he was even born that age. Everything was very twee about him, from his mannerisms to his dress. His clothing was quaint, mostly tan in colour, with a chequered shirt, a tweed coat and waistcoat, and a polka dot bow tie, which was perhaps the most exciting thing about him. His small round, brass glasses gave him an air of intellectualism, but the way he wore his brimmed straw hat, slightly tilted to the side, gave him an air of the buffoon. He was the antithesis of Taberah, with her bold dress and bold colours, and bold personality.
“That's history you're destroying there!” the man shrieked hysterically, pointing back to the ruins while still keeping both hands in the air.
“Well, the sooner you come fully out,” Leadman said, “the sooner we can shoot you instead of those ruins.”
Alex stepped forward, glancing back disapproving at the crumbled building. It took a while for him to notice Taberah standing in front of him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“D-d-dearest me,” he stammered. “It's you!”
“You say that like it's a bad thing.”
“Not at all. I'm j-j-just … surprised, is all.”
His stammers came and went, depending on how excited he was, and it seemed that in those ruins he was very excited indeed. He struggled with his words, as if he had not been around others in quite some time. Perhaps he talked to the statues in the tomb's chambers, the statues that would not judge him or mock his speech, and maybe they merely listened, or maybe they talked back.
“I should have expecte
d to find you lurking in some ruins,” Taberah said.
“Well, yes.”
“I guess this one takes after your mother,” Leadman commented. “Margey Cotten. A fine woman for a bookworm.” He looked disapprovingly at Alex. “I suppose you're more of a sandworm yourself.”
“Eh, a p-p-pleasure to meet you,” Alex replied, adjusting his wide-brimmed glasses. He held his hand up towards the general, but Leadman did not shake it.
“I'm glad one of you followed in the footsteps of your father,” Leadman said, glancing at Taberah. “Just a pity it had to be the girl.”
“I'm glad one of these days you'll be dead,” she replied. “Just a pity it's not sooner.”
Brooklyn seemed awkward between them. “I will let you get on with your mission. I must complete my own. It is long journey ahead, and lonely one.”
“Where are you off to?” Alex asked him.
“Dunedale.”
“Dunedale? I know the way, if you need a g-guide.”
“Guide would be useful,” Brooklyn acknowledged. He had not exactly mapped the route when he was captured and dragged through Regime territory.
“It was good to see you again, Alex,” Taberah said.
“And you!”
They parted ways, Alex scrambling through the broken ruins, and Brooklyn following. They were the symbols of the old world, an archaeologist and a tribesman, wandering on foot, while the great landship and iron transport spat smoke and steam as they rolled away.
8 – RUSTPORT
At the end of the Rust Road, neither truck stopped for long, for fear of the Worldwaker ahead, and the Clockwork Commune behind. They continued until the rising sun highlighted their destination.
“I see it!” Whistler cried. “Look!” He prodded Jacob's shoulder, as if he needed prodding to see the metal towers appearing on the horizon.
Worldwaker: A Steampunk Dystopian Action Adventure (The Great Iron War, Book 5) Page 4