Tinker's War (The Tinkerer's Daughter Book 2)

by Sedgwick, Jamie

  I ran down the drive, circling onto Main Street at the bottom of the hill and then headed north to the airstrip. The streets were eerily quiet as I ran. All of the citizens were either outside the city, preparing for battle, or hiding in the basements and cellars. It was as if the entire city had been abandoned and I was alone.

  The sound of my breath was heavy in my ears as I ran. Up ahead, I saw the dark shapes of gyroplanes rising into the sky. When I reached the landing strip, I found they were all gone. The pilots had left without me. Analyn was there, waiting for me next to the fire.

  “What’s going on?” I demanded, my heart pounding in my ears, my chest heaving with the exertion of my run. “What did you do? Why?”

  “I’m sorry about the lie,” she said. “I only did what was necessary.”

  I covered my face with my hands and realized they were shaking. I folded them into fists, staring at her. “You let my team leave without me!” I said. “Why would you do that?”

  She stared at me silently, patiently. It made me furious.

  “They can’t go without me,” I shouted, still arguing even though she would have none of it. “They’re recruits. They need me to guide them!”

  “They have Robie,” Analyn said. “He’s a very good pilot.”

  “But they don’t have me,” I protested. “They should have me.”

  I was spitting angry at that point; so angry that I was on the verge of tears. I glared at her, demanding an answer for what she had done. At last, she sighed and stepped forward, putting a hand on my shoulder. “This wasn’t my idea, Breeze.”

  “Then who?”

  “It was Robie’s.”

  My jaw fell open. “Why? Why would he do this to me?”

  “He didn’t do it for you. He did it for his child.”

  My breath caught in my chest and I scanned her face. I must have looked like a fool standing there slack-jawed. “What… what do you mean?”

  Analyn cocked an eyebrow. “Did you really think you could keep it from us?”

  I felt dizzy, as if the world had crumbled away beneath my feet. Analyn put her hands on my shoulders and guided me to the bench, gesturing for me to sit. My mind raced, searching for words that I couldn’t find. I wanted to explain myself in a way, but then again I didn’t. How could I justify the fact that I had been keeping such a secret from them?

  Analyn climbed back onto her steamwagon. “Stay here or go back to the mansion when you’re done,” she said. “I don’t want to see you anywhere near the fighting. If you do, I’ll have you locked up.”

  With that, she left me sitting there in stunned silence, staring into the fire.

  The Vangars arrived at three a.m.

  Chapter 29

  I was still at the landing strip, sitting next to the fire. I had been waiting there for two hours, thinking, trying to decide what I should do. Part of me wanted to return to Tinker and give him a piece of my mind. He could play ignorant all he wanted, but I knew he had played some part in this deceit.

  How? I thought cynically. By waking up at just the right time?

  It didn’t matter. I knew he was part of it. And yet despite my anger, I also wanted to go hold him and be grateful that he’d survived, and had come back to me. Tinker was my father. He was the most important person to me in the world. It had devastated me when the Vangars had taken him and it had terrified me when he’d returned and I’d seen what they’d done to him.

  Then there was the other part of me, the part that wanted to go take up arms and fight the Vangars head on. That part of me wanted to take my rage and frustration out on the enemy. Reluctantly, I had to admit to myself that that part was wrong. Even if I’d been in good fighting health, I wouldn’t have been much use manning a cannon or a gun. I wasn’t that kind of fighter. And the fact was that I wasn’t in perfect health. I was bearing a child, and every decision I made for the next few months should be as much about the child as it was about me. Even more so, since the child was helpless to care for itself.

  So I stayed there at the fire, occasionally stoking it with another log, waiting and wishing everything were different. And then I heard the sound of cannons and saw the flashes of light across the southern sky and I knew the Vangars had come. And suddenly I was terrified.

  I raced back through the ghostly streets of Anora, the sound of my boots against the cobblestones now punctuated by the rhythm of explosive gunfire and the sound of distant screams. People were dying, I realized with a sick twisting feeling in my gut. The cannons went off here and there, concussive explosions so loud that I felt them in my body as the sound echoed back and forth through the city.

  I raced up the hill to the mansion and climbed the stairs to Tinker’s room, nausea building inside of me all the way. This sick, twisting feeling in my gut wasn’t pregnancy sickness. It was something else. Something was wrong. I didn’t know what exactly it was, but I could sense it.

  I found Tinker out of bed and half dressed. I stared at him for a moment, shocked. “What do you think you’re doing?” I said.

  He shot me a dark look. “We need to be ready,” he said.

  He pulled on his boots and grabbed his coat, which I noted were still wet and stained with mud, and with his blood. He guided me out of the room in a halting gait, and drew me to the window at the end of the hall. There, he pointed out over the courtyard at the scene playing out to the south of the city.

  I’d been hearing the distant sounds of cannon fire all along and now I saw the explosions going off like flashes of red and orange lightning, both in the air and on the ground. Through the smoke and the flickering darkness, I perceived the vague outlines of dragon ships filling the southern sky. Many dragon ships. My jaw dropped.

  “Thirty,” Tinker said, answering my unspoken question. “They came with at least thirty ships, maybe more. We must leave the city. We can’t withstand this assault.”

  I stared into his face, desperately searching for something, though I knew not what. “Tinker, we can’t just leave!”

  “We can and we must,” he said. “This time, we must.”

  He lurched toward the stairs, dragging me along with him. I resisted for a moment, but then saw that he was about to lose his balance and I rushed forward to support him. I pulled his arm over my shoulders, bearing some of his weight.

  “Move,” he said. “We can’t stay here.”

  I nodded, helping him around the banister and into the stairwell. We made our way awkwardly down the stairs and stopped to rest in the foyer. He was panting, sweat beading up on his forehead.

  “This is no good,” he said breathlessly. “I need a walking stick, a cane. I won’t make it far like this.”

  I remembered seeing one near the entrance. I scanned the room looking for it, but it was gone. One of the mansion’s many visitors must have taken it. I had noticed that a good number of things had quietly vanished from the mansion since the mayor’s departure. As we stood there, a loud kaboom shook the walls. A dusting of plaster fell from the ceiling.

  “They’re getting close,” I said. “We’ve got to move. We’ll find you a cane later.”

  As we hobbled awkwardly down the porch stairs, I turned my face to the south and saw flames rising from the sails of a dragon ship. Tendrils of fire quickly spread across the vessel, crawling up the tethers to engulf the massive black balloon that held it aloft. The ship moved erratically, the hull moaning and twisting under the forces, and then the bow fell forward. The ship plummeted toward the ground. In the flickering firelight, I saw the shadowy forms of Vangar warriors leaping to their deaths rather then be burned and crushed as the hull of the ship hit the ground.

  I lost sight of the dragon ship as it vanished behind the buildings to the south, but I heard the sound of the massive hull splitting apart like so many toothpicks as it struck the ground. A series of explosions followed immediately after the crash, and then one more massive explosion as the flamethrowers’ fuel tanks ignited. The fireball lit up the entire sky. O
nly after that pale orange light had faded did I turn to see the grim expression on Tinker’s face.

  “That’ll make ‘em mad,” he said, pushing back to his feet. “Let’s move before they break through the front line. It won’t be long now.”

  “Are you sure?” I said. “We just took out a dragon ship! What if we can destroy more of them? Tinker, I should go help-”

  “Don’t even think of it!” he snapped. “The only people out there who’ll survive this will be the ones with the sense to surrender.”

  I cast my gaze back in that direction and a wave of anxiety washed over me. I thought of the people I’d come to know in the last few days, of Cabol and Brand and the others, and realized that many of them might already be dead. Analyn, I thought. What had become of her? Had she gone to the front as well?

  And Robie. My heart caught in my chest as I thought of him and it was all I could do not to get sick. I felt Tinker’s hand on my shoulder and I turned to gaze up into his saddened face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for everything.”

  I searched my mind, confused. “What are you talking about? You didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “Not intentionally, no,” he said. “But if I hadn’t set the gears in motion… if I hadn’t started with my steam engines and my airplanes, it never would have come to this. The Vangars only came here for one reason, and that chain of events leads directly to me.”

  “Nonsense,” I said, brushing past him. “Let’s get moving.”

  Tinker had no right taking the guilt for all that had happened. In a way, I was at least as much at fault as he was. I’d been there right beside him, encouraging him. In fact, without my help his airplanes would probably never have flown. I didn’t bother to point all of this out to him, though. Every moment I spent arguing with him was a missed opportunity to get out of the city.

  Tinker took a few steps to catch up with me and I began helping him. We’d gone ten paces when a steamwagon came roaring up next to us. I glanced up to see Analyn and Kale in the driver’s seat. “Help him up, quickly!” she told Kale.

  I didn’t waste time asking questions. Kale and I got Tinker up on the bench and then we piled into the narrow space between the seat and the boiler. Analyn released the brake and we were off, flying up Main Street. There were no pedestrians this time, no reason for Analyn to slow down, so she didn’t. She didn’t ease back on the throttle until we were well out of the city and the road had ended, leaving us nothing but rolling mud-soaked plains. The carriage bounced jarringly as Analyn slowed down and I reached up to steady Tinker in the seat. He moaned, holding his bruised ribs.

  “Go easy,” I said to Analyn. She didn’t respond. All of her concentration was on the dark, rugged prairie under our wheels. It was dangerous driving at night, and we didn’t even have a lantern on the wagon. One large rock or a good-sized mud hole would be enough to do us in.

  “We’ve got company,” Kale said. I turned to follow his gaze and saw three Vangar horsemen riding up on us from the south. They were running at a full gallop, ignoring the dangers of sprinting across the open prairie in the darkness. Their fearlessness gave them an advantage.

  “Let’s hope they catch a hoof and break their necks,” Analyn said. Tinker turned on the seat, wincing as he stared at them. He shot me a worried look. My hand went to my belt and I pulled the revolver Robie had given me. I had loaded it fresh that morning. I just hoped the rain hadn’t gotten inside the cylinder and washed the oil out of the springs. If it had rusted, I might as well throw it like a rock.

  “That’s my girl,” Tinker said, grinning. I grinned back at him, though I didn’t feel very confident.

  I waited for the Vangars to come in range and then I leveled my revolver. All three were riding abreast so I had my pick. I chose the middle. It seemed sensible because if I my aim was off, I still might wing one of the others. I grimaced as the steamwagon bounced jarringly across the uneven terrain, throwing my aim off. It seemed that every time I lined up the sights, we hit a bump or rock and went bouncing all over the place. I lost my aim and realigned my sights three times before I finally just squeezed off a shot.

  My patience paid off. Kale let out a cheer as the middle horseman fell out of his saddle. Unfortunately, I had also lost precious moments and now they were practically upon us. I leveled my revolver at the next horseman just as a spear flew past me, impaling the boiler. Kale screamed as a burst of hot steam struck him on the side of the face. He pushed himself away, tumbling backwards over the seat and right into Analyn. The steam carriage took a sudden turn to the right as Analyn lost her grip on the controls, and we went up on two wheels.

  My first response was to reach out to Tinker to keep him from falling under the wheels. Because of that, I lost my grip on the revolver and it tumbled into the bed of the wagon. The entire vehicle lifted sideways and I was sure we would roll, but Tinker managed to grab the controls and right us just as the Vangars caught up with us.

  The wheels crashed to the ground and I heard the disconcerting sound of something metal breaking underneath us. For the moment, the wagon kept rolling, but Tinker was already slowing the vehicle down in an attempt to keep it under control. Analyn twisted awkwardly, trying to help Kale get upright. He was lying halfway across her with his head down by the floorboards. He was probably in shock after the scalding he’d just received.

  I turned, scanning the bed of the wagon for my revolver. One of the Vangar horseman caught up to us and leapt from his mount onto the back of the wagon. My hand instinctively went to my sword as I struggled to get to my feet, but the Vangar saw what I was doing. He backhanded me so hard I twisted in a circle and nearly toppled out of the wagon. Tinker reached around to steady me. I saw stars flashing across my vision and felt numbness slowly spreading out from my jaw. In the corner of my vision, I saw the Vangar stepping over me.

  Somehow, Kale had managed to get to his feet. I saw him leap at the Vangar. The massive warrior took the brunt of the impact in his gut, but it didn’t even phase him. He lowered his stance and threw his arms around Kale, lifting the young warrior into the air. And then he threw him off the wagon.

  Chapter 30

  I screamed as I saw Kale’s body disappear over the edge and vanish in the darkness behind us. I leapt to my feet, ignoring the blood trickling from my nose, and locked my hand around the grip of my sword. I drew it in a fluid slicing motion that swept across the Vangar’s chest. He danced away, the edge of my sword sliding across his tunic. I had cut through the rough leather, but only barely scratched his skin. The Vangar snarled as he reached for his own massive sword.

  I took another immediate swing at him, but the Vangar easily parried my blow. He countered with a heavy swing from his shoulder that could have decapitated me if I hadn’t ducked out of reach. I thrust up with my sword, hoping to gut him. The Vangar twisted aside and lashed out with his left hand, striking me full on the side of the head. I saw stars, and a ringing noise filled my ears. Dizziness washed over me and I fell back. Tinker must have caught me, because I lost consciousness for a moment.

  I sucked in a deep breath and then pushed myself up, my eyes fluttering as the Vangar’s massive shape filled my vision. He stood over the three of us, his sword raised, a wicked bloodthirsty grin cutting across his face. I stared at him helplessly, completely aware of the fact that I was going to die, but unable to do anything more to stop it. Strangely, I didn’t feel afraid. I was simply disgusted by the fact that the last thing I’d see was his hideous face.

  Then a massive shadow appeared behind him and I heard the rush of wind and the roar of an engine. A gyro came into view. The front wheel slammed into the warrior’s back. The impact lifted him out of the wagon, hurling him forward through the air. He let out a shriek as he somersaulted over our heads and crashed to the ground in front of us.

  Despite the loss of boiler pressure, the steamwagon was still moving. Analyn hit the brakes and twisted the controls, trying to avoid crashing into our fa
llen enemy. I slid back across the seat, taking the place on the floorboards that had recently been occupied by Kale.

  Analyn somehow managed to swerve around the Vangar, once again nearly toppling the steamwagon in the process. The only thing that saved us was that we’d lost most of our steam by that point, and we were mostly just coasting. I pulled myself around, trying to get back to my feet without hurting Tinker too badly. The moment I could, I launched myself back over the seat and frantically began searching the floor of the wagon for my revolver. For a moment, I lost sight of the third Vangar, but I knew he was still there. A second later, I heard a guttural roar behind me and I spun around to face him as he landed on the back of the steamwagon.

  He threw his head back laughing, and pulled a massive axe from a baldric across his shoulder. His matted blond hair billowed like straw in the wind, his blackened teeth shining in the starlight. He took a step forward, raising the axe to finish me off just as my fingers closed around the grip of my revolver. I leveled it at his chest and squeezed the trigger.

  Once again, my aim was off. I shot him in the face. The sound of his laughter vanished with the click of my spring-loaded revolver and he fell backwards, toppling off the end of the wagon. I pushed myself up, scrambling to see him, trying to make sure he was dead. It was only then that I realized we weren’t moving anymore. The Vangar’s body lay twitching on the ground before me.

  I turned to see Analyn and Tinker watching me. We all stared at each other for a moment. Then I heard a noise up ahead and saw Robie running towards us, appearing out of the darkness.

  “Are you all right?” he said breathlessly. “Is anyone hurt?”

  “Kale,” Analyn said. “We lost him over the side.”

  I leapt off the back of the wagon, my eyes scanning the darkness. Robie was right on my heels as I took off running. I cut back and forth across the wagon’s path several times before I finally made out the dim glow of Kale’s body in the distance. I made a beeline for him with Robie right behind me.