“They wouldn’t use the weapons against Mareaux, though. Or Demicus. We’re the only enemy on their border.”
“If we’re lucky,” Cristof said, “they’ll use the weapons against each other.”
Taya made a face. Alzana was a large country full of feuding aristocratic families loosely united under a king. It wasn’t impossible to imagine some progressively minded Alzanan nobleman purchasing Ondinium weapons to use against an unwanted neighbor, although she didn’t think Cristof needed to sound so cheery about it.
She leaned back in the straw, closing her eyes. If they ever visited Alzana, she’d have to make sure her husband wore his mask full-time. Keeping him mute would be the only way to prevent a war….
Later she awoke with a gasp. The train was slowing down to the sound of whistles and the shrieking of metal on metal. Brakemen’s feet pounded on the roof over them.
“Cris!” She sat up and found him curled around her. “Wake up. We’re here!”
He yawned and sat up, blinking like an owl and fishing for his glasses.
The boxcar began filling with sooty, choking smoke as the train stood still but the engine continued to puff and chug. Taya wondered if they’d arrived in Safira or if Amcathra had ordered the train stopped on the tracks. She and Cristof stood, brushing off straw and dirt.
“There might be a delay in the yard,” Cristof suggested after ten minutes had passed. “We’re a freight train, not a passenger train, so we don’t have queuing priority.”
After another twenty minutes passed, the train began moving again, picking up speed. Taya turned a questioning look on her husband.
“A fuel and water stop?” he suggested. He pulled out his watch and snapped it open. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“It’s three in the afternoon.”
“I thought we’d be in Safira by one!”
“Well, I didn’t bring a train schedule with me!” He took a calming breath and rummaged through his pack. “Let’s look at the map.”
Taya nodded, trying to figure out which side of the car the sun was on. It wasn’t shining through the door. Engel was northeast of Ondinium, so if they were heading into Safira, the afternoon sun should be on their… right.
Shining through the door.
No— wait. She rummaged through her flight suit pockets for her compass. She’d never needed it in Ondinium, but it was standard safety equipment. Her fingers closed on the small metal case and she pulled it out.
“Perfect,” Cristof said, taking it and laying it next to the map. They stared at the needle, and then at each other.
The train was heading north. Away from Safira and Mareaux.
“Tracks don’t go in a straight line,” he ventured, the crease between his eyebrows deepening. “Maybe we’re just going around an obstacle.”
“Then we’ll change directions in a few minutes.”
“Almost certainly.”
But they kept watching, and although the needle shifted a few times as the train went around curves, their overall trajectory remained unchanged.
The train was headed north, not south.
“Cris,” Taya asked, frightened. “Where are we going?”
He leaned over his map and began scribbling calculations on the parts of his journal cover that weren’t covered with sketches of machinery. At last he shook his head.
“Well?” she pressed.
He measured off the scale with the graphite pencil and began plotting alternate courses. “Eight hours is a long time, even including stops. The question is, have we been going north the whole time?”
Taya dug in her pockets until she found the bill of parcel. She tilted it toward the light, searching for the scrawl in the box labeled Destination. Her stomach sank.
“This says Kovolo, Cris. Not Mareaux. Where’s Kovolo?”
He frowned, running an ink-stained finger over the map’s folds.
“Kovolo, Kovolo… it sounds Demican.” His finger stopped, high on the page. “It’s one of the border towns. We’re heading to Demicus, not Mareaux.”
“Oh, Lady. We just assumed….”
“That goods ordered by a Mareaux shell company would be delivered to Mareaux.” He looked grim. “But the Mareaux are strict about import/export inspections, whereas the Demican border is only minimally supervised. Illegal weapons would be much easier to smuggle through Demicus.”
Taya licked lips that suddenly felt very dry.
“How far away is Kovolo?”
Cristof was already measuring off the distance. “This map doesn’t show rail routes, but I’d say a day, if the line’s fairly direct. Two, if it isn’t.”
Two days without heat, food, or water? In this crowded, rocking, confined little space? Taya sank down and wrapped her arms around her knees.
Cristof folded the map and slid it into his pack, then sat next to her.
“It’s just a guess,” he said, quietly. “But at some point the train will need fresh fuel and water again. We can pound on the boxcar walls.”
“Amcathra probably thought we were headed to Mareaux, too,” she said, after a moment. “He won’t be happy when he can’t find us.”
“He’ll figure out what happened.”
“I’ll bet he orders every train in Ondinium stopped and searched.”
Cristof put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.
“That wouldn’t surprise me at all,” he said. “And when we get back, he’ll tell us exactly how stupid we were to get locked in a boxcar and shipped to the border.”
Chapter Eighteen
The car was getting dark when Taya stood and began to pace. Cristof put down the journal he’d been squinting over. Neither of them had suggested lighting the lantern again. They both knew that they had to conserve its fuel.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m hungry.”
Cristof held out a hand and Taya took it, letting him pull her down and wrap his arms around her. She rested her cheek on his chest, staring into the encroaching darkness, and felt a little better.
“So am I. But we’ll be out of here tomorrow.”
“How much water do you have left?”
“Not enough.” He straightened up, and Taya reluctantly moved back. “If we could scrape up snow from outside, somehow….”
“Is the car watertight? Maybe it’ll ice up tonight and we can catch the melting water.”
“That might work, around the door.” He reached over and rubbed a corner of the oilcloth wrapped around the gun barrels. “Not very absorbent— it’d sluice condensation, but it wouldn’t absorb it well enough to be wrung out into the canteen.”
“What about our clothes?”
“I think it’s more important for us to stay warm.” He stood and began shaking out the oilcloth sheets. “Let’s stretch these out by the walls and door, just to see if we can collect any drips. It can’t hurt to try.”
Sleep came poorly to both of them, although they turned two of the crates into straw-packed nests, pulling on their hats and gloves and covering themselves with oilcloth. Eventually Taya felt warm, but hunger, thirst, and fear made her toss and turn all night.
She’d never been in a situation like this before. She felt helpless. Of course Cristof was right— they’d be able to raise a racket at the next refueling stop, and somebody would come investigate. But what then?
Nobody would drag them out and shoot them, would they? She’d convinced herself that there wasn’t any danger back in the AME supply yard, or in Engels, but way out here? They were a long way from the capital.
Of course, Lieutenant Amcathra’s and Professor Dautry’s testimony would point investigators toward AME, but what if Amcathra and Dautry vanished, too? If AME caught Amcathra in the supply yard, how hard would it be for them to figure out that the fo
reign balloonist at the train station had been with him?
And if all four of them vanished? The Council might never figure out what had happened. Their loss would be chalked up to a flight accident.
Taya curled up into a ball.
Allied Metals & Extraction is a corporation, not a group of terrorists, she told herself fiercely. So what if it’s smuggling weapons? Carrying out a little illegal trade on the side is a lot different from committing murder.
Except that somebody had convinced Rikard to kill them, and it could have been Patrice Corundel as easily as the Mazzolettis.
* * *
The next morning Taya pushed off her oilcloth blanket to see Cristof coiling one of the lengths of fabric into a cone and laying it over a stack of crates.
“Did we get any water?” she asked, through dry lips.
“A little.” He moved one of the metal parts that he’d tentatively dubbed a water reservoir under the end of the tarp. “There’s some ice build-up on the metal walls and around the door, too. Help me scrape it off?”
The end result didn’t fill his canteen, but collecting the ice killed an hour of the journey, and they both enjoyed a sip of metallic-tasting water at the end of it.
Taya’s night fears seemed ridiculous in the light of the day, so she refrained from mentioning them. She and Cristof sat side-by-side, leaning against a crate with an oilcloth tarp draped over their laps. The air had grown colder, and the morning sun shined through the cracks around the boxcar door.
“At least we’ve confirmed Alister’s suspicions,” Cristof said. “AME might have been able to squirm its way out of an accusation that it sold prohibited material to Alzana by pointing to the shell corporation, but it can’t deny shipping material under false bills of lading.”
“If it’s shipping to Demicus, shouldn’t it have set up a Demican shell corporation?”
“I don’t think Demicus has any corporations, shell or otherwise. It barely has any cities.”
“Well, since we know AME is breaking the law, can we do something about it when they let us out? You could force the train to stop at a watering station until lictors come, couldn’t you?”
Cristof hesitated.
“Maybe, if the engineer is a law-abiding man and there’s some way to signal from the watering station, but… scrap, we’d lose so much! I don’t want to just stop one shipment— I want to find out where the shipment is going and who’s involved and how far the conspiracy extends. Right now, if we confront AME, it’ll deny everything. Someone will be fired and the account with the shell corporation will be closed, and a few weeks later, the mastermind behind the operation will set up another one, and everything we’ve done — all the information Alister sent me, all those people who died — will count for nothing.”
Taya was taken aback by the frustration in her husband’s voice. She’d been so caught up in her own worries that she hadn’t stopped to think about Cristof’s reaction.
“I thought I was a better investigator than I was an ambassador,” he continued, bitterly. “But it looks like I should just stick to making clocks.”
“It’s not your fault we’re trapped.”
“I insisted we search the crates.”
“We both agreed to investigate the boxcar.” She took a deep breath. I can do this. “If you want to ride with the cargo to its destination, let’s do it.”
“How?”
“We can live without food for a few more days.”
“No. I’m not going to sit here and watch my wife starve.”
“Neither of us is going to starve in three days,” she pointed out, ignoring the hollowness that clawed at her stomach. But her husband was already shaking his head.
“Even if we stayed here, we’d get caught as soon as they opened the door to unload the cargo.”
“We could hide.”
“It’s obvious someone’s been in here.” He waved a hand at the mess they’d made opening and rummaging through the crates.
“We can straighten up today. Besides, if they notice anything wrong, they’ll step inside to look and we’ll cold-cock them and run outside.”
He stared at her as if he were looking at a stranger.
“The hunger’s going to your head.”
“I distinctly remember you telling me you were good at fisticuffs.”
“You said ‘cold-cock,’ not ‘punch in the face.’”
“Well, whatever it takes. I’m not choosy.”
He exhaled loudly, then leaned back against the crates.
“And after we subdue the inspectors and leap out into the middle of the freight yard, what next?”
“We hide and find out where the crates are being taken, of course.”
“In metropolitan Kovolo.”
“We’re grubby enough now. It wouldn’t be that hard to disguise ourselves as famulates.” She tugged on a long lock of his hair that hung over one shoulder. “Although you’d have to tuck this up under a cap.”
“I could cut it again.”
“Don’t you dare. I like it long.”
“I know, love. That’s the only reason I put up with it.”
“You’re a very obliging husband.”
His expression lightened, and Taya felt a moment’s satisfaction. She’d forgotten how hard Cristof could be on himself. She should have realized that he’d blame himself for their troubles.
“It won’t work, though,” he said after a moment. “You can’t abandon your wings.”
“Oh. You’re right.” She’d forgotten, for a moment, but of course she’d have to escape in her armature. “Then you’ll definitely have to cold-cock the freight yard workers before they see me.”
“I wish you would stop using that phrase.”
“Do you need to use the funnel again?”
“Not as long as you keep reminding me about the temperature.”
“We could hide inside one of the crates. Then they’d lift us out and take us straight to our goal.”
“We can’t hammer the lid back on if we’re inside.”
“Then we just have to hide and sneak out. All we need is a moment when everyone’s outside, or only one person is inside and he turns his back on us.”
“You seem very intent on my hitting someone.”
“It’s less fatal than shooting someone. And I’m no good at hitting people.”
“I beg to differ.”
“That was ages ago, and I was mad at you.”
He smiled, pulling off his glasses and inspecting them in the morning light that trickled around the door.
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” he said, sliding them back on again. He finally looked at her, his smile fading. “Are you serious about riding all the way to Kovolo? It won’t be comfortable.”
Taya shoved away her misgivings.
“It’s important. You’re right— Alister put his life on the line to send you that information, and a lot of other people were killed to keep you from investigating it. We can’t stop now.”
He reached over and pulled her close.
* * *
That night, the train began to slow again. Taya sat up and stared into the blackness.
“Cris? What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Just a minute.” She heard him climbing out of his crate and moving around in the rocking boxcar. A moment later a match flared, illuminating his hands and the face of his watch. “About two.”
“Do you think we’re in Kovolo?”
They listened. The train jolted, its whistle shrieking and its brakes screeching. Soot-filled clouds of smoke drifted down on the cars instead of being swept past by wind and speed. Taya coughed, covering her mouth as she heard the brakemen calling out. Cristof waved out his match as light shined through the cracks around the boxcar door.
“It
’s a station,” Taya exclaimed, climbing out of her crate and reaching for her armature.
“It might just be another refueling stop,” he cautioned.
“With lights? At night?”
Cristof stood and listened while she snapped her armature’s metal keel around her chest. Then, nodding, he began straightening up their sleeping crates.
The smoke in the boxcar increased, and the volume of the engine rose. Was it just a refueling stop, after all? Determined not to believe it, Taya stuffed the map and journals back into Cristof’s pack and, reluctantly, slid a few of her flat lead weights into it, as well. She hated to make him carry more weight, but they couldn’t leave the weights in the car, and if she had to launch herself from the ground, she’d need to be as lightweight as possible.
The brakeman descended the side of the boxcar. Voices rose. People passed by the door, their shadows darkening the car’s interior as they moved. Taya heard loud scraping sounds by the side of the car, and the boxcar bobbed. Cristof did his best to nail down the lids of the two crates they’d left open. Then he moved forward, taking his pack and leaning close.
“They’re uncoupling the cars,” he whispered. “We might not be getting out yet.”
They waited, breathlessly. Shouts, a whistle, and the locomotive’s engine began to chug. Wheels clattered on the tracks, but they didn’t move.
More shouts, whistles. Another engine, growing louder. The brakeman shouted to someone and the boxcar shuddered. Taya looked up at her husband.
“It’s a transfer. We’re being hooked up to a new train.”
“From Kovolo?”
“I don’t know,” he said, helplessly.
Her spirits sank. For a brief moment, excitement at the thought of getting out had made her forget about her aching stomach and dry mouth, but now all the discomforts of two days with no food and little water returned.
They waited. The boxcar began to move, slowly. Taya could tell they were being switched from track to track by the voices around them as brakemen jogged beside the car, shouting to each other.
With nothing else to do, they cleaned up the remaining traces of their presence.
After about ten minutes, the car stopped again. They waited until the voices began to gather outside their car.
Clockwork Lies: Iron Wind (Clockwork Heart trilogy) Page 24