Dead Iron

by Devon Monk

  “Almost out of steam,” Bryn called over the boiler’s thunderous noise.

  Evergreen branches whipped against the sides of the basket and snagged up the lines tethering the balloon.

  “Too many blasted trees!” Alun yanked on a sail line, dislodging a limb, and Bryn worked a lever to angle the fans and push the balloon out of the tree’s reach. But they were still falling too fast, branches slapping, cracking, catching at the aircraft, grazing over the delicate balloon fabric.

  “Give us a sign, brother Cadoc,” Alun said.

  The unmistakable rasp of material tearing sent a cold wave of fear down Rose’s spine. The balloon was broken. They weren’t going to land. They were going to crash.

  “There!” Cadoc pointed to a clearing not far from the rail. They were just a ways, maybe half a mile, down from the building end of the track.

  “Down,” Alun yelled. “Put ’er down, quick, Bryn!”

  The boiler stopped rattling, completely burned dry of water. Wind rushed by, cold and wet from the steam gouting out of the balloon above them.

  Alun and Cadoc heaved on the lines, opening pockets in the fabric, trying to push the balloon toward the clearing.

  They sped down. Fast and faster.

  Rose clutched the rail of the basket and watched, transfixed, as the skeletal giants of moonlit trees slapped at them with silvery fingers.

  The fans whirred like hornet hives as Bryn put all the steam, and likely all the glim that was left, into them. “Brace for it!” he yelled.

  Rose sucked in a deep breath and said a prayer.

  The basket rammed into something solid, then just as quick was whipped the other way. Rose lost hold of the edge of the basket and fell as the entire craft tipped. She caught a glimpse of sky, trees, basket, the wind rushing past her, and then was caught by strong hands around her waist.

  “Hold on!” Alun yelled.

  Rose, half in and half out of the basket, facedown to the ground, couldn’t hold on to anything, but Alun Madder’s hands were a vise around her ribs. The basket tumbled, bounced, and then even Alun Madder’s strong hands couldn’t keep ahold of her.

  Rose spilled free of the basket and hit the ground so hard, all the air was knocked out of her lungs. It took her a full minute to get air back in her chest and wits back in her head. And when she did, she realized two things.

  One, she was on the ground. Scuffed, bruised, and mussed, but by most parts whole and undamaged.

  And two, the Madder brothers were all laughing their fool heads off.

  She pushed up to sitting, and tried to get her bearings.

  Somehow, they kept the basket from breaking apart. Somehow they brought the basket down, close enough, and, more important, slow enough, that when the basket finally struck the earth, they hadn’t all perished falling out of the thing.

  The balloon, however, was caught up in the tree branches, and torn open like a child’s wayward kite.

  “Fine a landing as ever, brother Bryn,” Alun, who sat no more than a few feet away from Rose, said.

  “Thank you, brother Alun.” Bryn chuckled and heaved up to his feet. He swayed a little, then seemed to get his footing and stomped over to the tipped basket. He twisted a valve, and threw open the burner grate. There was not a coal, not a stitch of fuel, left. “Well, she won’t burn the forest down.”

  “Looks like a one-way ticket,” Cadoc said from where he was sprawled on the ground, staring up at the tattered balloon in the tree above him thoughtfully. “Pity. I do like air rides.”

  “We’ll make you another balloon, Cadoc,” Alun said. “And you can try your hand at flying it.” He slapped at his shoulders and trousers, then stood. “Miss Small, are you in one piece?”

  Rose took a deep breath to steady herself. She felt jostled and rattled as if she’d ridden a day in a horse-drawn carriage, as if every inch of the space they had traveled had rumbled beneath her as they passed over it. But that had been flight. Her first. And she had loved it.

  She stood. “I’m fine enough, thank you, Mr. Madder.”

  “Good,” he said, “that’s good. Thought I might have lost you there at the end, what with you jumping ship.”

  “I assure you, I did not jump,” Rose said.

  The brothers all laughed again, and went about reclaiming their weapons and supplies.

  Rose wanted to know how they had built the ship, wanted to know what the balloon and sails were made of and how the tubes and hoses and steam and glim had powered it, but there was no time.

  The thump of steam exhausting a stack rolled through the air from up the track and a long hiss followed. The matic that Shard LeFel rode was somewhere up the rail ahead of them and coming closer, like as not headed to LeFel’s railcars.

  “Bring your weapons, lady and gents,” Alun said, jumping free of the basket. “It’s time we see to the end of Mr. Shard LeFel.”

  They gathered their gear, and Alun pressed a modified Winchester rifle into Rose’s hands. “As a thank-you. For the use of the glim,” he said.

  She nodded and turned to one side to sight the gun.

  “You’ll want these.” Bryn pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket—well, more like modified goggles, thin brass out to the edges and wide round lenses, clear, set in permanently, with a tiny brass loupe over the right-hand corner of each lens. A spray of other colored lenses fanned off on one side.

  Rose put the goggles on her forehead. “I don’t know that I understand this gun,” she said as they strode up the track. “Or these glasses.”

  “Each lens is for a different distance,” Bryn said. “There’s a small tube there by your left ear.”

  Rose reached up and touched the side of the goggle.

  “There’s a retractable clamp on the barrel. Connect the two, and the brass loupe will show you your target.”

  Rose slid the goggles over her eyes and connected the tubes. Nothing seemed to happen.

  “It’s powered by pumping in a round,” Bryn said.

  Rose stopped, and Bryn stopped with her, though Alun and Cadoc kept walking, their boots crunching in the gravel, their heads turned up to watch the moon more than their feet.

  Bryn handed her a box of bullets from his pocket, and she loaded a single shell. The lever load snapped the bullet into place and the brass loupe on the goggles shifted to the lowest corner.

  She raised the rifle to her shoulder and looked out along it. The brass loupe shifted smoothly like oil on water to show her exactly where her bullet would strike: rock, tree, leaf.

  “Isn’t that glimsweet?” Rose said. She lowered the gun and pulled the goggles back up to her forehead.

  “Thank you.”

  “Wouldn’t want you injured in this fight, Miss Small. You’re a right special woman to survive traveling twixt-wise as we just did.”

  “Survive?” Rose asked, surprised. “Think that would have killed us?”

  “There’s not anything in this world without risk,” he said. “Especially untested devices.”

  Rose shook her head. “I’m sure I agree with you there, Mr. Madder.” She hefted the gun. “But I enjoyed every second of it.”

  A crashing squeal of metal on metal ground into the night behind them, coming up the tracks as if something huge was being dragged. If LeFel’s matic was coming from ahead of them, Rose had no idea what sort of thing was coming up from behind.

  “Don’t dally,” Alun yelled back to them, jumping to one side of the track, and still jogging while he navigated a way through the bushes. “Sounds like the fun’s just beginning.”

  Bryn turned and jogged to catch up with his brothers, and after a moment’s hesitation, and a moment’s prayer, Rose did the same.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Cedar Hunt stalked the perimeter of the dozen or so tents and cook pits of the workers in Shard LeFel’s employ. Unlike most railmen, who brought a crew of stragglers and ruffians to work the rail, LeFel had only a handful of men he brought along, and had hired up anot
her handful or two of men from the town. For the rest of the rail work, he used his matics and tickers.

  The men were sleeping, vulnerable, lying quiet and easy for the kill. The cook fires had gone to ash and smoke. No sentries watched over the rail. Even the matics were powered down, cold, silent, unmoving sculptures of iron and leather and oil made supple by moonlight.

  It would be easy to kill the men. But it was not men Cedar hunted. It was the Strange. And the tuning fork that whispered against his heart said the Strange were close.

  Cedar had to find Wil, dead or alive. Had to find the boy, Elbert, dead or alive. And he had to kill Mr. Shunt. He may not have been able to save Mae Lindson, a sorrow that made him want to keen, but he had made her promises, and he would see them through.

  Mr. Shunt would likely return to the three railcars on the track, down a ways from the men’s tents and matics. Cedar headed that way. He didn’t know why a man like Shard LeFel needed three cars, but he had a suspicion. One car to live in, maybe one car to work in. And likely one car to hold his prisoners in.

  Cedar slipped through the darkness to the railcars on the spur off the main rail, staying in shadow, silent as the moonlight.

  He crept to the first car and sniffed at the underbody. Death and Strange. There were things, Strange things, in this car just waiting to be killed. But the tuning fork did not hum louder. There might be Strange within the car, but it was not the one Strange who had taken Elbert. And that Strange was the one he would kill. First.

  It took everything he had not to give in to the beast’s need to kill. He pulled against the urge, tamped it down, and sniffed at the car again. Something skittered in the three corners of the car, dragging long tails or ropes behind, and then was still. He could not find the boy or his brother’s scent in the death and blood and oil above him.

  There might be prisoners in this car, but they were not Elbert or Wil.

  He moved on to the next car. It stank of oil and steam and burned metal. Faintly, he caught the scent of the boy’s blood. Old. No other smell of him. And still no smell of his brother. The tuning fork remained quiet.

  The last car was filled with scents. The heavy, moldy pall of Mr. Shunt filled his nose. Cedar stifled a growl and licked his muzzle. Mr. Shunt had been there, but he was not there now. He could not kill him, tear him apart, dig out the bits of him that made him tick. There was no movement, no talking, no signs that Mr. Shunt and Shard LeFel had returned to the car.

  Other odors filled the air—Shard LeFel’s rich cologne, meat, liquor, metals, old wood.

  The smell of Elbert was in that car—the musky milk scent of a child deeply sleeping, strong and alive. Cedar’s heart quickened with hope. If that was true, he had a chance to save Elbert, to bring the child back to his father alive.

  All he had to do was find a way into the railcar. He sniffed along the edge of the car, looking for a trap, a latch, a door in. And then he caught the scent of his brother.

  Wil. Here. Above him. Wounded. The rot of infection was already tainting the smell of his blood. But it was new blood. It was not the smell of death. Wil still breathed.

  Cedar wanted to howl with joy, but that joy was short-lived. To save his brother, he had to get into the car. It was not flesh that stood in his way; it was wood and metal, latch and hinge, things that took a man’s hands, a man’s fingers.

  All the claw in the world would do him no good.

  The ground shook. The matic Shard LeFel and Mr. Shunt rode was coming closer. Cedar hunkered down beneath the edge of the car. Shard LeFel’s matic huffed across the ground. It rolled up the ridge and would be at the rail any minute.

  Cedar waited. Waited for Shard LeFel and Mr. Shunt to walk up the stairs and open the doors. And once they opened the doors, he would no longer need them, or their hands.

  The steam-powered matic huffed nearer and nearer.

  Over that noise, Cedar could just make out the sound of men shifting in their tents.

  Easy kill. Heart. Throat. Brain.

  No. Men would not slake his thirst. He wanted the Strange. He wanted the Strange who took Elbert and hurt Wil. He wanted Mr. Shunt. Dead.

  No other creature moved. Not even those who were inside the carriage above him. It was as if the whole of the world held its breath.

  The matic grew louder until Cedar’s teeth rattled from the vibration of it. It stopped next to the tracks in front of the first car Cedar had investigated. A hiss of steam expelled in a roll of heat; then the huffing slowed and slowed, like a heart losing the will to beat.

  Cedar waited for the footsteps. Waited for the stride. Waited for the hands to open the way to the boy, the way to his brother. Waited for Mr. Shunt.

  A rattle of a hinge. The door on the matic swung open. Then bootheels scuffed down metal stairs. One set of boots was Shard LeFel’s; another set of boots shushed and smooth, almost without noise, belonged to Mr. Shunt. And the third set of footsteps was smaller, lighter than Shard LeFel’s. Who?

  Cedar took a sniff, and caught the honey and flower scent of Mae Lindson. She was alive. But captured.

  Rage pushed through him and the beast squirmed under his hold. Kill.

  He bared his teeth, holding back a growl. They needed to be closer. They needed to open the door. Then they needed to die.

  They said nothing as they hurried down the track, Shard LeFel’s cane clacking like a second hand ticking seconds into minutes along the dead iron rail.

  Cedar counted footsteps. Three people. Counted scents. LeFel, Shunt, Mae. Mae was not bleeding, but he could smell her anger. And her fear.

  Cedar could not suppress the sudden, livid anger at the thought of Mae in that monster’s hand. The beast inside twisted again with the rage of Mae’s capture. He pulled his muscles tight, ready to lunge. They walked up the stairs, Shard LeFel in the front, Mr. Shunt in the back, Mae Lindson between them.

  Wait, the part of him that was a man commanded. Wait for the door to open.

  Shard LeFel pulled a chain of keys out of a fold of cloth and unlocked the bolt on the door, but did not open it.

  “Hurry, Mr. Shunt,” he said. “The moon will soon be at the end of its journey and I will have no time left.”

  Mae Lindson gasped and stumbled up the stairs, pushed or pulled by her captors.

  This. Now. The door. Run.

  Cedar’s muscles pushed.

  A flash of light burned against the southern sky, and the sound of something crashing through the trees rolled like thunder.

  Shard LeFel paused at the door and swore in a language Cedar had never heard.

  “The Madders,” he breathed. “I will not have the king’s dogs keep me from my passage. Go,” he commanded. “Kill them. I want their flesh in bits, and their bones crushed so fine they won’t fill a tobacco box.”

  “And the matics?” Mr. Shunt asked.

  “Yes, yes. Release them. All of them. But keep your Strangeworks near. Kill the Madders, kill Miss Small if she is fool enough to be with them, and kill every man and woman in the town if that is what it takes to keep them from my threshold this night.”

  Rose Small?

  Cedar growled so softly, it was almost too quiet for even his sharp ears to hear.

  But Mr. Shunt paused, his boot soles scuffing the rocks and dirt. His body shifted with a subtle rub of fabric over metal and bone, oil and blood dripping into warm, soft folds of flesh and cloth as he bent to look under the railcar where Cedar crouched in shadow, eyes slit.

  He had a prod in his hands. Just like the one that had wounded Cedar.

  If Cedar leaped now, the door would remain closed. He would have no way to save Wil or Elbert.

  If Cedar held still, Mr. Shunt walked free.

  Both. He wanted the door open and Mr. Shunt dead.

  Cedar held his breath and did not make a sound, though the tuning fork on his chest burned hot enough it felt like it was searing a hole through his fur. If he moved, he knew the fork would ring out. If he moved, he knew he woul
d tear Mr. Shunt apart, lose all reason, and lose his chance to save Elbert and Wil.

  Strange. The Strange who took the boy. Attack. Fight. Kill.

  Cedar pushed back against that belly-deep need, his control of the beast slipping. He needed the door to the car open. Needed it as much as he needed Mr. Shunt’s neck in his jaws.

  The open door would save Wil. Save Elbert. The open door would save Mae.

  “Kill them,” Shard LeFel said. “Quickly, before the moon sets, or I will shatter the Holder, and the door for the Strange will remain closed forever.”

  Mr. Shunt straightened, the whisper of wool and silk stroking his leather boot tops. Cedar could smell the hatred on him. The ever-so-slight whir of a spring coiling and uncoiling beneath those folds of cloth where only bone and blood and heart should be filled Cedar’s ears.

  “Of course, Lord LeFel,” Mr. Shunt whispered. Mr. Shunt took a step away.

  Cedar strained to hear the carriage door open.

  But instead, a great noise roared out into the night. It didn’t sound quite human, but it was a voice, not quite a man’s, raised in a yell of pain, of fury.

  Behind that voice was the ungodly screeching of iron bending, straining, breaking. Something was coming down the rail. Something was tearing up the rail. And whatever that creature was, it was surely coming this way.

  “Go!” Shard LeFel hissed as he finally opened the door.

  Cedar leaped out from beneath the carriage and crashed into Mr. Shunt, knocking him to the ground. He snapped at Shunt’s face, but the Strange snarled and blocked his jaws with one hand.

  Cedar clamped down on the hand and twisted it, jerking back. Mr. Shunt screamed as his arm dislocated with a grinding pop. Cedar pulled harder and tore it the rest of the way off. Severed from the Strange, the arm still ticked and twitched, the gears and bones forcing the hand to open and close.

  But that did not stop Mr. Shunt. He dashed backward so quickly, Cedar could not track his movement. Mr. Shunt stood several feet away and lifted a gun from his pocket. He pointed it at Cedar.

  “Killer,” he hissed. “You will not stop us.”

  Cedar growled and lunged.