“Yes.”
“Tell me what you know.”
Cristof quickly summarized the matter, avoiding any mention of Alister and punch cards. The lictor listened in silence as the lift reached the top of the cliff.
“Very well,” he said as they disembarked. Porters from the junction station began lifting out their luggage. Taya grabbed her wings before anyone else could touch them. “I will keep you isolated for the rest of the trip.”
“We should be safe now that we’re back in Ondinium,” Cristof objected.
“Isolating you is a simple precaution. And it will give you a day of privacy with your wife.”
Taya grinned at the lictor as she pulled on her wings.
“Oh. Well.” Cristof blinked. “In that case, I appreciate the precaution.”
“Indeed.” Amcathra turned to give orders.
They waited for the rest of the staff on the observation platform at the top of the junction lift. On a nice day, the platform would provide a panoramic view of Terminal and the forested mountains beyond. Today all they could see was whirling ice and snow. Cristof raked his hand through his hair, which kept whipping into his face.
Taya smiled, leaning on the railing and looking up at him. Her husband’s heavy black coat flapped around his legs and his silver-rimmed spectacles gleamed on his sharp-featured face. His long black hair made him look more exalted than he had when she’d first met him, but he still had an unkempt air.
“What?” he demanded, noticing her gaze. She straightened and grabbed his coat lapels, rising on her toes to give him a swift kiss.
“I’m happy to see my crow out of captivity.”
He leaned over to rest his forehead against hers, his hair blowing around their faces like a curtain.
“And it’s good to see you in your wings again. I’m sorry the weather’s so miserable.”
“Not your fault.”
“But I’m still not going to let you wear them to bed.”
“Maybe you should consider the possibilities.”
He pulled his head back, cocking it as he studied her face. Taya tried to keep her expression as earnest as possible, but at last she broke into a laugh. He looked relieved.
“I could see the gears turning,” she teased.
“I was thinking that an armature’s straps would chafe without a flight suit.”
“You could fix that.”
“And your wings would get tangled in the four-poster.”
“True. We’d have to go someplace else.”
“I’m not going flying again.”
“Not without a flight suit, anyway. Not unless you fixed that chafing problem.”
Cristof rubbed his forehead. “As if baring my face in public weren’t scandalous enough.”
She laughed and he gave her a crooked smile.
From the lift it was a short, muddy walk to MB-1 Junction. The train waiting there consisted almost entirely of freight cars. Amcathra pointed to the only two passenger cars, at the back of the train.
“The exalted and the icarus will ride in the last car,” he said. “The rest of us will ride in the dining car. I will post a lictor at your door for the duration of the journey, Exalted, to ensure that you are not disturbed.”
“You’re a good man, Janos,” Cristof said. Amcathra raised a pale eyebrow and turned, directing the porters to carry the trunks inside.
Chapter Nine
Iron chains rattled on her armature and the crystal glasses chimed in their racks. The train was straining up another steep, curving incline. Oil lamps rocked, suspended by gimbals on the ceiling, and provided a warm glow over the wood, leather, and brass interior of the car.
Taya pulled the railway blankets closer around her bare shoulders.
She couldn’t see anything through the windows except a swirling grayness, although she heard something tap against the glass. Either the sleet was getting worse or it had turned into ice rain.
She looked around for her flight suit. Cristof’s vest was closer, so she reached over his shoulder and grabbed it, fishing his gold watch out of its pocket.
A little after four.
Cristof yawned and slid his hand over her leg.
“What is it?” he asked, sleepily.
“Nothing.” She burrowed back under the covers and rested her head on his shoulder. “Just checking the time. Four fifteen.”
He groaned.
“We’re supposed to reach the cable-haul by five.” His arm tightened around her, hugging her close. They shared a long kiss.
“There’s no rush,” she murmured, loathe to give up her quiet, warm haven. “I’m sure we’re behind schedule. This ice can’t be any good for the tracks.”
“What ice?” He rolled to one elbow and squinted toward the windows, then groped around the expensive Cabisi rug for his spectacles. She found them first, tucked under one of the chairs. He slid them on and looked up again. “I can’t see a thing out there.”
Taya sighed, sensing the end of their comfortable idyll. Just as well, she supposed. No doubt Amcathra would knock on the door soon to make sure they were ready for the haul.
“If the ice gets bad enough, will the train get stuck?” she asked.
“The engineers have bags of salt and sand for the tracks,” Cristof assured her, gathering his clothes and starting to dress under the blankets. “Although if the weather’s bad enough, we might get stuck waiting at the cable station for the storm to blow over.”
He sounded enthusiastic; Taya imagined he was looking forward to poking at the station’s inner workings. She pulled on her clothes and hoped they wouldn’t be delayed. She was ready to sleep in their own bed, on their own sheets and pillows, and enjoy their own fireplace and kitchen and water closet and wardrobe. She expected it would be several months before she felt the itch to travel again.
By a quarter to five, they had straightened themselves and the car back up and secured the trunks and cabinets.
“I’ll see if we’re still on schedule,” Cristof volunteered while Taya secured her case of ondium counterweights. “Do you want anything from the dining room?”
“Something hot. Tea, maybe?”
“I’ll bring back a pot.” He opened the door, letting in a blast of even colder air and a swirl of snow. The lictor greeted him as he stepped through.
Taya rattled the chains holding her armature in place and made sure the key was in her flight suit pocket. Then she walked over to the nearest window and pushed the pane down. Cold air swept through the car, and she still couldn’t see a thing. She thrust her hand outside. Ice stung her fingers.
Ugly weather. She closed the window and wiped her fingers on the leg of her flight suit. They were in the high passes now. They would drop a little before reaching Safira, but O-Base-0 was still higher than Terminal by several thousand feet. She suspected the weather was going to be bad there, too.
Spending the night at a cable-haul station wouldn’t be much fun, but Safira boasted a number of comfortable hotels for the mercates who traveled back and forth….
The train jerked and she stumbled, grabbing the nearest chair. A deep, low whistle sounded as the train jolted again, making an unnatural shuddering movement. Taya’s heart sped.
Something pounded against the roof of the car, like running footsteps. The air filled with the screech of tortured metal and a sharp but muffled retort.
“Cris? Cris!”
The train shuddered again and people in the next car began shouting. Taya pulled herself toward the door, fighting to keep her balance as the train jolted and rocked. The door burst open before she could reach it and Rikard threw himself inside. Snow covered his hair and overcoat, and he held his air-rifle in one gloved hand.
“Where’s the exalted?” he demanded, looking around.
“What—” Taya gasped
as the young lictor grabbed her and pushed her against the paneled wall of the car.
“Where is he?”
The train’s whistle gave three more urgent blasts as the cars shuddered. Taya grabbed Rikard’s arms just as she heard a crashing sound.
The lictor yanked her down into a crouch as the train began moving backward, sliding the wrong direction on the tracks with a sickening shimmy. Someone was screaming, the whistle was blowing, and the car’s heavy, leather-covered chairs and tables began to slide across the Cabisi rug.
Then everything gave a sharp lurch. Rikard wrapped an arm around her as the metal of the train shrieked. His rifle hit her in the shoulder. Taya stopped trying to resist him and clung to his coat lapels instead. She cried out as the car rolled, bouncing them like rocks in a box. Tables and chairs tumbled around them and the oil lamps went out. Something hit her head. She heard shattering and crunching and more screams. Her cheek was pressed against glass and she realized the car was on its side and a window’s glass was cracking beneath her. The train jolted and ground against rock and dirt, shrubbery and trees.
Then the car gave another jerk. She and Rikard began to slide backward. She looked over her shoulder but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Blood ran down her face— she tasted it as it trickled between her lips. She clawed for something to hold on to, feeling Rikard doing the same, one hand still locked around her flight suit collar. Then the car hit something big — a boulder, a tree, another car, maybe — and they were torn apart. Metal screeched and tore. Taya screamed, panicking as the train self-destructed around her. Glass slashed her palms, her shoulder hit something hard, and a heavy object slammed into the side of her head with sickening finality.
* * *
Taya awoke to the sound of a gunshot and shouting. She couldn’t move. She hurt all over. A scream, a Demican curse, a quieter pop. She smelled gunpowder and blood and burning wood. She tried to open her eyes, but they were glued shut.
“Icarus!” The hands on her were cold, and so was the ground beneath her head and back. She groaned. Rough hands ran down her arms and legs, then prodded her ribs. She twisted and gasped at the pain in her neck and back. Her head pounded as if it were going to split open.
Then the intrusive fingers pushed her eyelids open. Sticky, crusting blood crumbled into her eyes. She blinked back involuntary tears.
“Icarus.” Flames danced off a bloody mask. The voice was rough and gravelly but familiar. Taya blinked again, feeling cold tracks running down her face as her tears overflowed; or maybe it was the ice rain. She tried to focus. Pinpoints of light flared around the edge of her vision.
“Lieu—”
“Can you fly?”
She stared, struggling to understand. His face and pale blond hair were black with blood and soot and there was something in his expression that she had never seen before. His hands tightened on her shoulders as he pulled her into a sitting position. She cried out as her strained muscles protested.
“Can you fly, Icarus? We need help.”
This time the words registered, and so did his expression.
She crooked her head to one side, wincing at the effort.
Amcathra had jammed a makeshift torch between two sheared-off edges of metal jutting from an overturned train car. Broken glass glittered around them. Or maybe it was ice, because the ice rain still pounded, clanging off torn metal and skittering down the lieutenant’s tattered and bloody uniform. He held his rifle in the crook of his arm.
At the edge of the torchlight she saw another person, prone. Rikard’s blue eyes stared blankly at her as snowflakes fell on his face. Steam rose from the blood that covered the front of his uniform jacket and the snow around him, shockingly red in the unsteady torchlight.
Dead? Rikard was dead? How many— who else—
“Cris!” She lurched forward, grabbing Amcathra as she struggled to stand. He hissed in pain and collapsed, and she realized he’d been crouched with one leg stretched out, off-balance. She ignored him, ignored the pulling sensation in her muscles as she got to her feet, ignored the way her vision blurred and darkened. Tears ran down her face. She spun. There, on the edge of the firelight, another corpse sprawled in a pool of blood with a percussion-style pistol in one hand. She drew in a ragged breath, feeling as though somebody had hit her in the stomach. “Cris!”
“He is alive,” Amcathra said, his voice tight. “Fly to the cable station. He needs help.”
“Oh, Lady!” She started toward the body with the pistol. Amcathra reached up and grabbed the armature buckles around the waist of her flight suit. She staggered, ready to strike out— but that look in his face stopped her.
“That is not your husband. Listen. The exalted was bleeding. I stopped it. But he needs help. Now.”
Taya felt a roaring in her ears. Cristof was bleeding? Cristof was in danger? But now she saw that the second corpse was also a lictor, also shot to death.
“Where is he?”
The lieutenant fought back to his knees and clutched his injured leg. Sweat or melted ice ran down his face. He lifted his arm, pointing.
She turned. Cristof wasn’t there, but her wings were visible, half-caught in an open window, still locked to the floor of the passenger car.
“No, no… where’s Cris?”
“Now, Icarus!” he roared. “Before anybody else dies!”
The threat snapped her back to her senses.
“Oh, Lady,” she whispered again, staggering toward her wings and fumbling for the key with blood-covered fingers. “Oh, Lady, no. Not yet. Not now.”
She tried to climb up the bent side of the car, slid back down, screamed with frustration, and tried again. Ice and blood made her hands slip on the cold metal. She threw herself against it and dug her nails into the splintered oak paneling that bore the train’s name and the car’s number. Her grip held and she dragged herself forward until she was flat on the tilted side-turned-roof. She reached down and groped for the armature’s locks.
The key fell from her numb fingers into the darkness below.
Taya howled oaths and pounded her fist on the side of the car, then looked at Amcathra. The lictor had pulled himself back to his feet and held up the torch to give her more light. His face was drawn and horrible, and his back was turned to his dead nephew.
With a surge of shame, Taya forced herself to sit up and swing her legs into the shattered window. She let herself drop.
Her legs collapsed beneath her and she fell to her knees, groaning. Her head pounded. The torchlight didn’t reach inside the car; everything was pitch black.
He needs help. Now.
“Please, Lady, please,” she moaned, her voice cracking as she ran her hands over shattered glass and threw broken furniture out of the way. Then, as if in answer to her prayer, her fingers touched the key. With fervent thanks, she yanked her wings toward her, ran one arm through the keel struts to hold it in place, and turned the key in the lock.
It opened. She pulled it from the chains, letting them fall.
Now. She had to get back out again.
Taya groped around for something to stand on— one of the pieces of furniture she’d thrown aside. Her fingers touched a smooth edge and she pulled it forward, startled by its lightness.
The case of counterweights.
Her free hand shook as she unsnapped the latches and felt the long, flat counterweights buckled against the sides of the case. She pulled out the ondium oblongs and slid them into the counterweight pockets on her flight suit belt, then shoved the rest into the tool pockets that ran along her suit’s arms and legs.
Nearly floating, she latched the case and set it on its end. She pulled the armature toward her, low enough to run her uniform straps through it. Wing feathers rattled against the metal edges of the window.
Still trembling, Taya climbed up on the edge of the narrow case and re
ached as high as she could. Her shoulders ached. The case tilted beneath her and she stopped, catching her balance. Moving more slowly, she reached up again. Her fingertips brushed the edge of the window.
If she had time, she’d check the feathers for damage and examine the rest of the armature for bends, cracks, and foreign matter. But she’d wasted enough time already.
He needs help. Now.
Taya jumped, her hands closing on the edges of the window sill. She twisted as the case tipped and fell beneath her and pulled herself through.
Ice rain pelted her head and face as she knelt on the side of the overturned car. The gusting wind caught her feathers and shoved her to one side. She’d counterweighted herself too much for a storm, but she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get aloft without its help.
Amcathra picked up his torch and turned to leave.
Taya ran her suit’s straps and buckles through the struts and snapped the keel around her chest, watching as the lictor paused next to Rikard’s bloodstained body. He started to reach down, then jerked his hand away and limped into the wasteland of broken trees and twisted metal.
Her vision blurred, turning the lictor’s torch into a fuzzy ball of fire.
She wanted to stop what she was doing. She wanted to run after him, screaming for Cristof. She wanted to find out what he meant when he said her husband had been bleeding.
Nightmare images swam before her mind’s eye.
She shoved them away, although she couldn’t stop the tears that ran down her face. Then, stifling another groan, she lifted her arms and slid them into her wings, shrugging out of the locked-high position.
Lady save her, there was no way to get a running start in this field of natural and man-made wreckage. She swallowed, looking at the tilted, ice-slicked surface of the car, then stamped her feet, wincing as the jolts made the pain in her head even worse. Light flared in her vision again and she blinked it away.
Now.
Why was she wasting more time?
Taya backed up as far as she could, put her back to the wind, and sprinted down the truncated length of the wrecked car.
Clockwork Lies: Iron Wind (Clockwork Heart trilogy) Page 13