Skyborn

by Eric Asher

  “Caveworms don’t still live here, do they?”

  “No,” Drakkar said with certainty. “No Caveworm has been seen in decades.”

  “Decades?” Samuel asked. “That … that doesn’t seem like that long.”

  “You worry too much, my friend. It is a creature like any other. Do not anger it, or entice it, and it will leave you in peace.”

  “Okay, let’s talk about something else. I’d rather not think about the fact we’re walking through caves carved by some giant slimy worm.”

  Drakkar raised his torch to the wall, revealing a triangle. “Look, Samuel. These arrows were carved into the stone over a century ago, long before the Deadlands War, and even before Bollwerk rose to be the power it is today. They are untouched by man or creature. You have nothing to fear in this place.”

  Samuel’s concern eased to a small degree, but he had a keen understanding of the creatures that liked to live in the dark underground. And very few of them were benevolent.

  * * *

  Samuel had grown accustomed to the ribbed floor by the time Drakkar stopped. Sections had been smoothed away, but several maintained their form. Samuel wondered if that was because there was more than one way through the caves, and some had simply been worn down over the years.

  “I thought some of the old folks might still be here. But I see no light.”

  “Be where?” Samuel asked.

  Drakkar pulled on a handle sunk flat against a stone ledge, grunting as he freed it from rust and age with a squeal. He reached out with his torch, and something sparked in the darkness. A boiler started to hiss before a thin line of flame raced forward, cutting through the shadows like a knife of flickering light.

  Samuel took a step backward when the flame arced over their head. Not a flame, he realized, but a series of tiny bulbs slowly brightening in the cavern above.

  “Engines still work,” Drakkar said. “You have to give it to the old tinkers. They did not always have the most elegant of solutions, but their creations often age well.”

  Samuel stepped closer, watching the rhythmic bursts of fire deep inside the stone. Warmth rose from the churning gears and pistons in the flames below. “What is that?”

  “Combustion,” Drakkar said. “An older type of engine. Charles thought them more efficient, but too dangerous when compared to steam. An irony when you consider he used steam engines to build weapons of war.”

  “What about the lights?”

  “Gas and filaments of some sort. Horrendous to maintain, from the stories I have heard. They once had a team of citizens whose only tasks were to replace the expired lights. Come.”

  Drakkar led the way through a maze of stout stone homes. There was not a mixture of metal and wood here like Samuel had seen in Cave. This was the masterful work of gifted masons. Samuel hoped the masons Cave was sending to Ancora would have some of those skills.

  The Cave Guardian wrapped his torch in cloth as they walked, extinguishing it so only the lights above remained in the cavern, like the spirits of some long-dead civilization. Samuel shivered at the thought.

  Drakkar paused at the next intersection. “This is the last street, but I do not recall if … Ah! There is the bakery.”

  “The bakery?” Samuel asked.

  “There is a particular workshop I would like you to see. Many horrors of the Deadlands War were created here, Samuel.” He turned to meet Samuel’s gaze. “It is sacred now, and cursed.”

  Drakkar stood before a simple wood door laid perfectly square into a slab of stone, a perfect arch chiseled away to frame the door, and above it, so small he almost missed the symbol, was a Steamsworn Fist. Green and tarnished and crusted with something white.

  Water splashed down onto the fist and Samuel looked up. “Groundwater?”

  “No, we are under the Sea of Salt here.”

  “Well, that’s terrifying.”

  “It has stood guard over these caverns for millennia. You are quite safe, brave Spider Knight.”

  Samuel blew out a laugh as Drakkar pushed down on the latch to the old workshop and stepped inside. The Cave Guardian pulled a long black lever until it clicked against the stone, and a series of square lanterns overhead burst into life.

  Only, they weren’t lanterns at all. They were very much like the city lights in the Highlands of Ancora. Samuel’s gaze traveled the room, taking in each station. Spools of wire and tensioners and strange wrenches he had no name for lined one station. Another held jars and gears and cogs and enough notebooks that it would take a lifetime to read, much less write.

  Samuel moved closer to the bench, covered with a scattered array of schematics and letters. What he saw on the wall called to him immediately. A single photograph pinned to the wood. A man in a leather tunic. His hair wasn’t so wild, and the beard not nearly so white in the monochrome frame. But the posture, and the smirk, and the penetrating eyes Samuel knew.

  “Charles.”

  “Atlier,” Drakkar said. “Yes, as our stories speak of him.”

  “I wish Jacob could see this place. We should bring him here.”

  “Samuel. If we ever bring Jacob here, it will be as a warning. These manuscripts hold some of the worst of Charles’s inventions. Some of his weapons and experiments killed his friends. Allies inside these walls died at his hand. For a great many years, I believed it to have been intentional. That Atlier was the monster our history made him out to be.”

  Samuel eyed Drakkar. “And now?”

  “He was doing what he believed to be right. As he did until the end.” Drakkar crouched down to a brazier in the middle of the room, filled with ash. “This was his final act in this place before it was abandoned. He burned the manual that created the whitedamp.”

  “What’s a whitedamp?”

  “A poison that cannot be seen or smelled or tasted. A death sentence to all who lived in this block. Charles lost friends that day, and it is perhaps that moment more than any other that led him away from his focus on weapons of war.”

  Samuel cursed. He turned back to the workbench, reading through some of the papers. There was history there. Real history. Orders passed down from his superiors in the war. A letter from Archibald. Schematics for spring-loaded traps to be buried in sand. The stuff of nightmares.

  But toward the bottom, Samuel found a strange page, written on the same letterhead as the orders he’d seen. “Look at this, Drakkar.”

  The Cave Guardian stepped closer, and they read the document together.

  “When the dead no longer fall in battle, you’ll know your job is completed.”

  Samuel tapped the date. His eyes flashed up to the row of salt-crusted journals, each with a date range scrawled along the spine. He found the one he wanted and slid it from its home.

  Damned fools, the lot of them. Asking me to modify a soldier so they can’t die. We’ve traded advancements for madness in this war. Archibald is pushing to expand research into biomechanics, but I fear what the addition of more berserkers would do to the war effort.

  That’s to say nothing of the psychological effect on their friends and fellow soldiers. A machine, powered by blood and a human heartbeat. There is little I consider heresy in the goal of our mission, but not allowing a dead man to die crosses a line.

  Samuel flipped a few pages back. The entry was some weeks after the first, and his heart sank at the words.

  We had our first volunteer. It’s not something that can be attempted in our current location. I believe the Cave Guardians and those who have welcomed us into their homes would at best evict us, and at worst slaughter us.

  We have few options but to continue on the fringes. Outside the rule of law.

  “Outside the rule of law,” Samuel repeated out loud. “What does that mean?”

  Drakkar crossed his arms. “There are few who truly function outside the law of the land. But I know the stories of the dead who fight. Their last engagement was near the Skeleton when the Ballern forces pushed south to flank Bollwerk.�
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  “There isn’t anything left at the Skeleton like that.”

  “If there is, it is long buried. Legends say Charles succeeded. Dead men walking into war, fighting until there was nothing left of them. That is the Charles I knew from history, but knowing him in person perhaps taught me more about the duality of man than any history lesson ever could. Gather what you wish to take from this place. We make for Pirate’s Cove.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  There was a time Gladys had been nothing but grateful to the Speaker of Bollwerk. He’d taken her in after her family was lost to Rana and the warlords. But the older she got, and the more George spoke freely around her—she couldn’t push down her growing suspicions.

  For the time being, Gladys would accept Archibald’s help. It was the best option for her people, and her people were by far her highest priority. Her family had let down Midstream and the surrounding villages far too many times for her to let that happen again.

  They’d had warning that the warlords were forming a coalition, and that warning had come years before the raids started. Gladys twisted the ring on her thumb. George told her the plain band had been her mother’s, but she didn’t remember it. Regardless, it now served as a reminder, both of what she’d lost and what she hoped to surpass.

  “Princess?” George asked, sitting down his hooked soup spoon. “What troubles you?”

  Gladys shook her head, returning to the moment. The bar at the last inn at Midstream was no Fish Head, but the soup had remained a staple in her life as long as she could remember.

  “I was just thinking about Archibald.” She took a spoonful of soup. It had cooled somewhat, but the rough-cut vegetables and thick, salty broth were a balm to her worries.

  “You need not concern yourself now,” George said. “He needs Midstream to help defend against Fel. There is little threat while that remains true.”

  Gladys looked away for a moment, studying the reddish-tan plaster along the walls and thick ironwood beams overhead. “He’s done a lot for us, George. I don’t want to think of him as a threat.” She paused. “Not that I don’t want to, but I can’t think of him as more than a helpful grandfather. It’s like my brain won’t get past that.”

  George smiled. “In a year, you will be fourteen, old enough to take the crown. Archibald will seek an alliance with us because you will have reunited the Deadlands. The villages are scattered, some still under threat from the surviving warlords. But that time will pass. Our allies grow with these battles. When I ask you to be suspicious of Archibald, I do not mean he is not an ally, Princess. I mean, you should be suspicious of all allies.” He hesitated before a broad smile lit up his eyes with mischief. “Except for me, of course.”

  “Of course,” Gladys said, dripping soup from her spoon as she laughed. Quieter, so not even the bartender could hear, she continued. “I trust Alice, and Jacob. Smith and Mary. They’re our friends.”

  “Charles and Archibald were once friends,” George said. “Do not forget that. Even friends can grow distant.”

  Gladys chewed on something crunchy. She was fairly certain the cook hadn’t gotten all the chitin off whatever protein was in the soup, but it wasn’t wholly unpleasant. “But in the end, Archibald helped Charles.”

  George took a deep breath and nodded. Gladys could tell he still disagreed to an extent. And it was a conversation they’d had more than once. George thought the only reason Archibald helped Charles was to again protect Bollwerk from the maneuvers of the Butcher.

  Gladys thought it went much deeper than that. She felt a bond with the friends she’d fought beside against Fel. A bond she believed she’d carry to her grave. She lifted the bowl to her lips and sucked down the remaining broth.

  “Let’s join the patrols, George.”

  George opened his mouth, looking very much like he was about to protest, and then shrugged. “Very well. But only if you agree to wear your armor, regardless of the heat. At least you will be prepared for the flight to Dauschen.”

  Gladys sighed like it was the most difficult thing in the world to be armored and in the desert heat. But secretly she was happy George had given in so easily. It took some effort to hide the smile threatening her lips.

  * * *

  Gladys had fled Midstream years before, and she hadn’t remembered much about the city other than the food and the manor house they called home. It had been the largest building in Midstream, and one of the few with a more modern, inclined roof.

  Though the home had been referred to as a manor house, Gladys scoffed at the name after seeing the manor homes near the outskirts of Bollwerk, each a giant compared to the home of Midstream’s royal family. The idea a previous royal had built a manor house to emulate some wood and iron monstrosity from Bollwerk annoyed her.

  “The new house is coming along,” George said, calling her attention to the roof being hammered into place. “I appreciate the choices you made with the new manor.”

  “I think it fits Midstream better. It won’t look like it’s trying to fit in at Bollwerk.” The oversized brick and exposed timber of the new adobe construction made her smile. It wouldn’t stand out so much when it was done, other than the roof itself. A blend of tradition and things to come. Gladys liked that idea very much.

  Along the ground, the sand was still mixed with ash from the great fire that had gutted the old manor house. It was a stark reminder of what the warlords had done, and how many of their people had not survived.

  If she hadn’t been looking so closely at the new construction, she might have missed the shadows sprinting down the alleyway. A glimpse made her think it was a small group of kids dashing through the pipes and wood and around frames of drying adobe.

  But the glint of a blade’s edge told her different.

  “George!”

  There was no hesitation in the guard’s movements. George was on edge anytime there wasn’t a locked door between Gladys and the rest of the world. Gladys might have had her eyes on the blades charging them from the left, but it was George who unfurled his armored cloak, catching a series of bolts before they could slam into Gladys’s chest.

  She didn’t have time to let the shock wear off. She moved, dashing at the nearest squat building to cut off their assassins’ line of sight. The steel of a throwing knife felt cold between her fingers as she slid it from one of the multiple sheaths across her breastplate. A quick snap of her wrist sent the first man grabbing at his throat as a fountain of blood sprayed the shadow beside him.

  Luck, that was. The second sword stopped to wipe his eyes, and Gladys sank a knife into his leg. When his sword fell, and he moved to pull the knife out, a second hit him in the eye. No delay. No flailing. He simply fell into a heap as the narrow hilt slammed deep into his brain.

  George had a spear in his hand when Gladys turned. He hadn’t been carrying it a moment before, which meant it was a collapsible one from the tinkers. It soared through the air as George grunted, piercing the chest of the man armed with a crossbow that shot four bolts at once.

  She didn’t see the hand that took her from behind, catching her throat and squeezing tight. But memories of Rana flared in her chest, and what should have been a scream of terror became a scream of fury. Her left hand impaled the man’s wrist on a blade, and as his grip weakened, Gladys clamped down, twisted, and leveraged his body weight over her back.

  “Wait!” he cried, but the blade of George’s sword found his throat a moment later.

  One shadow stood frozen at the edge of the alleyway, turning to run as George pulled a small canister out of a pouch at his side. The guard squeezed the middle as he arched his arm back, a second spear expanding in his grip. He snapped it through the air.

  George’s aim had been uncanny, punctuated by a gristly crunch on impact. The man tried to crawl forward after he hit the ground, falling still soon after.

  George looked to Gladys. He didn’t ask if she was okay, and she knew he trusted her enough to say if she wasn’t.
r />   Gladys almost snarled. “I’d like to talk to Jacob now.”

  * * *

  They were silent most of the flight to Dauschen. But the attack in Midstream had eliminated Gladys’s hesitation at asking Jacob for help. They needed better defenses, and Jacob was one of the best tinkers outside of Belldorn.

  The airship was small, but far too opulent in Gladys’s eyes. Practicality had been stripped and replaced with gilded furniture and long sofas to stretch out on. She did like the wide windows in the sides of the cabin. They gave a beautiful view of the Burning Forest and the North Woods’ southernmost tip as they drifted into the mountain pass.

  A crystalline lake shimmered in the distance, and Gladys watched as it slowly grew in her vision until they passed it, angling for the mountains where Dauschen waited.

  George sat, his back rigid as he stared out the window. “What is that …”

  Gladys frowned, trying to see what he was looking at, and then she saw the arm. A monstrous thing, mounted to the framework of an airship dock. It bent and swiveled, hooked wheels climbing at will to deliver an impossible load of steel and two barrels to the topmost scaffolding where a crew of workers waited.

  The closer the airship came, the more impossible the sight was. The arm was the size of a house, and not a small house. It could grab their ship from the air and crush it without effort. Steam belched from the sides of the monstrosity, mixed with fires and flame like some mad living forge.

  Their pilot shouted back into the cabin, apparently unfazed by the vision before them. He said they’d be landing near a graveyard beyond the construction site.

  Gladys looked down as they reached the city, her heart aching for the ruin in the collapsed cliff and the burned-out shells of so many homes. Dauschen had met with a tragedy not so unlike Midstream and Ancora. So many lives had been stolen away by the Butcher and Fel. It would be generations before this war would be forgotten. Part of her wondered what it would be called. A larger part of her just wanted it to be over.