by Eric Asher
George shook his head. “Not the same, I am afraid. But there is a fine Midstream dish fashioned from Tail Swords that is a reasonable substitute.”
Gladys leaned closer to Jacob. “So? What did Archibald want?”
He told them of the monument and the hidden notebooks as he slid Charles’s schematics across the bar to show them. “It’s everything he did to build a Titan Mech.”
A chef shouted orders from the window into the kitchen, sending a server scurrying over to grab piping hot bowls for some patrons at a table. George and Gladys didn’t pay them any mind, so Jacob tuned out the organized chaos as well.
“Why don’t we use one of these arms to help rebuild Midstream?” Gladys asked. “If it’s working in Dauschen, won’t it work for us?”
George raised an eyebrow and looked to Jacob.
“We’d need a solid base for it in the sand … and something that could keep the worst of it out. But I don’t think that would be too difficult to accomplish.” Jacob flipped back through Charles’s notebooks to the leg schematics. They were designed for a great variety of terrain, and making something similar to support the arm, rather than a rail car, might work in the sands. “Let me talk to Frederick. We might be able to make something work.”
Gladys reached out and squeezed Jacob’s hand, her sleeve sliding up enough to reveal a bracelet that held the fist of the Steamsworn, and the jagged crest of a Tail Sword that had once been the symbol of her house. A house that had been ground into the dirt by Rana and the warlords.
Midstream would never be caught off guard again. Jacob would make sure of that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“How do you feel about breaking the rules today?” Alice asked as she and Furi walked out under the gray skies of a looming storm.
“I feel like I don’t want to be locked in prison for the rest of my life?” Furi’s voice rose with the question. “Even a nice prison.”
Alice scrunched up her face. “Well, I suppose it’s more a bending of the rules than a breaking of them. A side trip. You can blame me if anything happens.”
Furi slowly raised an eyebrow.
“It’s a simple matter, really. I left my notebook at Mary’s, so obviously we’ll need it to finish our research.”
Furi rubbed at her face. “I thought I was done with this kind of nonsense after Rin left.”
Alice grinned at that. Furi had told her some of the tales of her childhood friend, Rin. He sounded like trouble. A trouble not so unlike Jacob, when it came down to it. Stealing to feed his family. But Rin had gone further, hiring out to other families as a thief for hire. Now that was something Alice thought she’d like to hear more about. What kind of stories would a thief for hire have?
It wasn’t a long walk back to the house. Not really a house, Alice supposed, more like an excessively nice apartment with more rooms than most of the houses had in the Lowlands. Mary had planned to be home today, and if Alice timed it right, she hoped Furi might help get Mary to talk.
What Alice had not expected when she pushed in the front door with a wide smile on her face was to find Lady Katherine and Mary huddled over a map in the family room.
“Uh oh,” Alice whispered.
“Uh oh?” Furi asked.
“That’s Lady Katherine,” Alice hissed.
Furi immediately leaped to the side and pointed at Alice. “It was her idea!”
“What are you two doing here?” Mary asked.
Furi’s hand slowly lowered when no one started yelling, her gaze moving from Alice to the table and back.
Alice glanced between Furi and Lady Katherine. “Lady Katherine, this is Furi. We stopped by to pick up a notebook I forgot.”
Furi wrung her hands together and gave what Alice thought might be the single most awkward smile she’d ever seen.
Lady Katherine tilted her head to the side. “A notebook? It must be of some value to risk escorting a prisoner off their approved schedule.”
Alice gave her a nervous smile to rival Furi’s.
Lady Katherine’s decorum broke down a moment later when she chuckled and looked to Mary. “I suppose your request for a more lenient pass was apt.”
“I told you they’d be trouble.”
“Trouble?” Alice said, straightening. “I’d hardly say I’m trouble.”
“Are you going to tell her?” Lady Katherine asked.
Mary shrugged. “I’m rather enjoying the moment, honestly.”
The Lady of Belldorn smacked Mary’s arm.
“Okay, okay.” Mary grinned at Alice. “The pass Furi wears gives her freedom to roam the city so long as she’s with an escort. After talking to Eva, she suggested we give you more space.”
“More space for what?” Alice asked, exchanging a glance with a bewildered-looking Furi.
“More space to do your research,” Mary said. “To see if you can find a weakness in Ballern. Something we could exploit.”
Alice shook her head. “It’s not Ballern you need to worry about. It’s their alliance with Fel.”
Lady Katherine grimaced. “Fel is a threat, to be sure. But how can you be certain of their alliance with Ballern?”
Alice looked at Furi and nodded.
Furi dug out one of her own notebooks and hurried over to the table. “Because it was Fel who assassinated Lady Esther. We found this in a book from Ballern that I’d never heard of. That means it was either rare, or they purged it.”
Lady Katherine studied the passage beneath Furi’s fingers, having no trouble reading the jagged-style Ballern writing. With every line her eyes took in, Lady Katherine’s expression darkened until her hands curled into fists.
At the end, she leaned back in her chair, silent. No one spoke while Mary read the excerpt too.
Mary frowned and glanced at Lady Katherine. “I don’t understand. What do the Children of the Dark Fire have to do with anything? They’re just beggars on the docks around Ballern.”
Lady Katherine’s voice sounded like she was reciting a text, nearly forgotten. “Before the Third War, which preceded the Deadlands War by a quarter century, it was not Ballern who were allied with Fel. It was Belldorn. An arc of protection across the entire northwest border of the continent.”
“What changed?” Alice asked.
“The assassination of Lady Olivia at the start of the Deadlands War,” Lady Katherine said in a hushed tone. “Olivia courted the Lady of Belldorn. She wanted to bring some of our customs across the sea. To widen the education of her people, and to stop the persecution of all who eschewed tradition.”
“You mean Olivia wanted a queen?” Mary asked. “She pursued Esther? That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and while most of Ballern was open to our ways, in both marriage and economics, there were those who were not so welcoming.”
“The Children of the Dark Fire,” Alice said, not having to stretch to fit those pieces together.
“Yes. And do you know why?” Lady Katherine didn’t give them time to answer. “To set in motion the rise of a cult. Worshipers of a machine who would see the world crushed beneath their heel. Fel has long meddled in the politics of foreign cities. You witnessed it in Ancora, but I had not dreamed their corruption had driven Ballern’s descent into an authoritarian madness.”
“You don’t understand the extent of what’s happened,” Furi said. “Ballern is worse than you know.” She told Lady Katherine of the divide in the city, the separation of the Skyborn from the proper citizens. The restriction of their education and the labor camps that were the only real jobs open to the Skyborn. “But at least we have the docks. The docks are a nice place to live.”
Lady Katherine’s eyes reddened, tears threatening to fall, but none did.
Furi turned to Alice and hissed, “What’s wrong?”
Alice rubbed her hands together. “You just told her a pivotal moment in the history she’s always believed is actually a lie. It takes some time to absorb that kind of thing. Believe m
e.”
Lady Katherine slammed her palm onto the table. “The conflict with Ballern has always been a righteous one. Justified because they were the aggressors. They raided Belldorn and brought ruin onto our city. But all this time …” She shook her head and made a wordless growl. “Fel has been manipulating everyone like some mad puppeteer.”
“Then we go to Ballern,” Alice said. “We go to Ballern and explain what has happened. Set history right.”
“I don’t think that will go the way you want,” Furi said quietly. “To speak against the doctrines of the state, our official histories, is punishable by death.”
“Of course it is,” Lady Katherine growled.
“There has to be someone who can help,” Mary said.
“The only allies you might have in Ballern are the Skyborn. They’ve been cast aside by the monarchy for decades. But I was one of them. I am one of them. And until I met Eva and Alice, I didn’t have a reason to believe Belldorn was anything but evil.”
Lady Katherine listened to Furi’s words, silent for a time when she finished speaking. “Furi, they would listen to you, would they not?”
Furi glanced down at the table. “A lot of my friends died in the desert. You have many more locked away, imprisoned here.” She hesitated and took a deep breath. “Lady Katherine, the stories they used to start the conflict may have been a lie, but everything you’ve done since made them true.”
“Furi,” Alice hissed. “You can’t say that to—”
Lady Katherine held up a hand before sagging into her chair. “No, Alice, it’s okay. Furi’s right. Things were set in motion too long ago. Fel’s strategy has been playing out over decades. We’ve felt their influence without realizing it, and if it has penetrated Ballern’s history so thoroughly as that, it is not something I myself can repair.”
Mary crossed her arms. “Furi can.”
“How?” Lady Katherine asked, incredulous.
“She can start a revolution from within. Free the Skyborn who still live there from a regime that wants no part of them to begin with. Drive another wedge between the factions.”
A wordless exchange passed between Mary and Lady Katherine.
“You cannot,” Lady Katherine said. “The Skysworn is marked by Ballern as a pirate vessel. They’ll clip your wings without warning.”
Mary smiled. “They’re more accepting of pirates than you know. I can get Furi back to Ballern. We won’t be shot down like a ship flying Belldorn’s colors.”
Furi hesitated. “I’ll go if you let me take Beck.”
“No,” Lady Katherine said. “I cannot offer so much trust to a pair who can so easily betray my city and my friends.” She gave Mary a meaningful stare.
“I’ll go with her,” Alice said. “From what she’s told me of the Skyborn, they aren’t so different from those of us who grew up in the Lowlands of Ancora.”
Mary looked like she was about to protest, but she stopped and slowly nodded. “I like it. Alice is smarter than most of your spies, and I haven’t made a good smuggler’s run in years.”
“And what will Smith think of that?” Lady Katherine asked. “You only just freed yourself of your debt to Archibald.”
Mary’s only response was a broad smile.
“I hate that smile. I hate that smile, Mary. I’ve had to endure that look since we were children. And it was consistently a precursor to us doing something incredibly stupid.”
Mary held her smile.
Lady Katherine blew out a breath. “Fine. We’ll try this your way. But understand, if you are held by Ballern, we can’t come for you.”
“I know you better than that,” Mary said. “You always keep your promises.”
“Eva’s going to kill you.”
Mary shrugged. “We have an understanding about me and stupid decisions.” She placed a hand on the lady’s shoulder. “We won’t be caught. I’ll make a trade, deliver some contraband, and leave the kids to meet with the Skyborn.”
“And how will we get back?” Alice asked.
“Supply ships,” Furi said. “It’s easy to catch a ride. We can stowaway on a cargo ship to Fel or one of the trade vessels that go to the people of the Red Woods. It’s … well, it’s the only way most of us have been able to travel outside the military.”
“Supply ships,” Mary said, echoing Furi’s words.
“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” Alice muttered.
“We leave tomorrow,” Mary said. “Get ready. Both of you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Jacob looked at the box of sand, some three feet by three feet, that had been placed in the center of the workshop. “This isn’t a good test.”
“What do you mean?” Frederick asked.
“The grains of sand aren’t in scale. They won’t be nearly this large compared to the traps we’ll be sending to Midstream.”
“It’s close enough. Just plan for more dust in the gears when they’re in the field.”
Dust. Jacob thought sand would be quite a bit more problematic in the desert than dust. He took a deep breath and slid the safety out from the small rectangle of loaded springs beneath the smooth sand.
“It’s armed.” He turned back to his bench, jotting a quick note when an idea came to him to enclose the gearbox completely. A gasket around the arming switch would keep the sand out well enough. Jacob glanced at Frederick, who was now making his way to the sandbox with a bucket.
“What is that?”
“Just a Pill-Bug to test the trap.”
“Stop,” Jacob said. “We don’t have to kill anything to test the trap.”
Frederick paused, raising an eyebrow. “It’s only a bug. It is not as though we’re testing it on a human.”
“We can test it on a piece of jerky, or a sandbag.” Jacob’s tone darkened. “We don’t have to kill anything.”
Frederick raised a hand, not arguing further.
Jacob grabbed a small sandbag he sometimes used to test a model’s load-bearing capacity. It was only five pounds, but depending on the scale, that could represent a weight many times greater. He frowned at the bucket, still in Frederick’s hand.
“How much do you think that Pill-Bug weighs?”
“A pound, two at most.”
Jacob tossed the sandbag to the side, instead grabbing a folded stack of webbing used to stitch harnesses and backpacks. It was durable and had enough heft it would be easy to weigh out two pounds. He laid the webbing on a scale and removed a few layers until he was happy.
A quick wrap in twine gave it more density, and with little effort, he had a perfect testing medium. It was strange working with experienced tinkers who weren’t Charles. They were slower to come to solutions that Jacob saw almost immediately. But when he’d worked with Charles, he always felt like the slow one.
Jacob glanced up at Frederick. “Ready?”
The old tinker nodded and sat the bug down in a crate.
Jacob took a step back, lined up his aim, and tossed the bundle of webbing onto the sand. There was no warning. It was as fast as the strike of a Tail Sword. A small impact, followed by a click, and the webbing exploded into the air, chased by a narrow geyser of sand.
It spun and twisted with the gleaming polished bolts piercing its side, and Jacob’s stomach soured at the thought of what that device would do to a person. But then he remembered the warlords of the Deadlands, and what they had been willing to do to Gladys, and Alice.
He almost snarled as he said, “We’re ready to scale up.”
* * *
The more they worked on the next model, the more Jacob grew concerned about sand interfering with the gears. The traps might work a handful of times, but eventually they were going to lock up, and Midstream’s defenses would be lessened for it.
But he had other options, he realized as he sketched design after design into Charles’s old notebook. The same notebook with the original concepts for the air cannon. A closed system. A system he could repurpose to be the ac
tuators for the sand traps.
While Frederick tinkered with the latticework to lay over the barrels themselves, Jacob redesigned the actuators from the ground up. The empty space around the barrels left plenty of room to build up the air pressure they needed, and if they divided the chambers, it would still be functional with multiple triggers. Meaning the trap itself would be good to fire up to ten times.
If they sank enough into the sands surrounding Midstream, the traps could chew through multiple companies before needing to be reloaded. Once that happened, Jacob knew the Midstream defenders would be exposed, but the psychological damage done to any aggressor might be enough for a reload to be unnecessary.
Just in case, he repurposed the original gearbox as an intake port and anchor to raise the entire unit through the sand for reloading, leaving the empty base below.
By the time Frederick finished the latticework and looked over Jacob’s shoulder, the old tinker could only curse.
He flopped onto the stool beside Jacob and reviewed the calculations. “If the capacity is right, you’re going to double the force of those projectiles.”
Jacob frowned. They were already severe enough to penetrate steel based on the calculations. If they’d doubled that, or more if Jacob tweaked two of the valve casings … “I think we could take down an airship with these.”
Frederick blinked.
“A low-flying airship,” Jacob corrected. “But considering that, I want to add bellows to the sides of the trap. We can be sure the sand will be kept out of them that way.”
“It will be harder to bury with that design.”
“It’ll be harder to break too. And I think that’s more important. Besides, if we ship an arm to Midstream, mounted on the same kind of protected base, they can use that to bury them.”
Frederick sagged forward onto the workbench. “Jacob, Jacob that’s brilliant. I never would have thought of using air pressure for all of this.”
Jacob smiled. “I wouldn’t have either if it wasn’t for Charles’s air cannon design. But it should work. It’s the same concept on a larger scale.”
Frederick nodded. “We best get started.”