Now Books leaned out, his eyebrows drawn together. “You’re volunteering to do work?”
Akstyr subtly twitched his fingers to sign, Magic here even as he said, “I was going to volunteer you to do it, actually.”
“I see,” Books said.
“There’s no need for that.” Buckingcrest patted the wall. “An internal combustion engine runs the propellers, not a brutish steam monstrosity, and she uses a fuel blend that we invented ourselves. It’s a company secret, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t give you more details, but Harkon will handle refueling, should it be needed.”
“Of course,” Books said, though he signed, If this is a trap, I’m going to kill Maldynado.
“What’re you doing?” the tattooed man asked from behind Akstyr. He must have seen Books’s flying fingers.
“I thought I saw a mosquito.” Books slapped at the wall. “Got it.”
Akstyr stifled a groan. Sicarius’s training might be useful in fights, but someone needed to teach this group how to lie better. “I’ll just go out and get our cargo,” Akstyr said.
Harkon watched him like a parched alcoholic watching someone sip brandy. Akstyr had a feeling this flying adventure wasn’t going to go smoothly at all.
Chapter 10
Akstyr leaned against the wall in the navigation room, watching with some amusement as Books tried to coax flying instructions out of Harkon. Their tattooed pilot was making Sicarius seem talkative. Books had a journal out and scribbled a note every time the man flipped a switch or pushed a lever. Akstyr wondered if Harkon knew they planned to oust him as soon as possible. The dirigible was heading east, over the foothills beneath the mountains that held the dead shaman’s mine, and it probably didn’t matter if the pilot knew of that destination, but they needed to figure out something to do with him before they headed to the Scarlet Pass.
Harkon yawned, and Akstyr thought it might be a good time to go exploring.
“Anyone want something to eat?” he asked.
Both men waved negatives. Akstyr stepped into the corridor, wishing the navigation cabin had a door he could shut. He hoped Harkon was too busy to look over his shoulder. Hands in his pockets, Akstyr strolled to the trapdoor. With a little fiddling, the handle ring popped up, and he pulled the square slab open. Lighter than he expected, it almost flew all the way open to clang against the floor, but he caught it first and eased it down. A narrow ladder led into a dark compartment. The hum of an engine had grown louder. Right spot, he thought.
Akstyr crept down the ladder and crouched in the darkness. The cabin held none of the heat he associated with furnaces and boilers. In the dimness, he could make out vertical pipes running up the walls. Soft clanks emanated from the rear of the compact compartment, and a dark waist-high shape-the engine? — squatted in the center of the floor.
Before risking a light, Akstyr closed his eyes and stretched outward with his senses, trying to detect traps or dangers about the engine. The presence he had felt earlier remained, but nothing about it changed as he probed with his mind. The engine, or whatever powered it, didn’t seem to have intelligence or awareness, not like a soul construct. Maybe it was no more than a simple artifact, crafted to power the dirigible.
“Let’s take a look, shall we?” Akstyr muttered and lifted a hand.
A flame flared to life above his fingers, and the shadows receded. The light illuminated the engine, a squat steel shape punctuated with brass rods and shafts. Pipes ran out the back and disappeared into the wall behind it.
Akstyr took a step toward the engine, but halted when something stirred in the darkness lingering behind it. His flame flickered, and four reflections winked back at him from the shadows. Eyes.
Street rot, he hadn’t thought to check for people.
A metallic clack sounded. A gun being loaded? Akstyr’s concentration broke, and his light disappeared. He spun and raced up the ladder rungs.
Something clicked off the wall beside him. A crossbow quarrel instead of a bullet. Not that big of an improvement.
At the top of the ladder, Akstyr yanked his legs up and rolled into the corridor. “Books!”
He slammed the trapdoor shut and groped about for a lock. There wasn’t one. Clangs rang out from below-someone climbing the ladder.
“Books,” Akstyr hollered again and pulled out his short sword. He wished he had a pistol. “Are you-”
Something shattered in the navigation cabin, and the vessel tilted, dumping Akstyr against a wall.
The trapdoor flew open. A man’s head popped out, a black bandana wrapping his hair. He lifted a crossbow. Akstyr kicked the weapon out of the man’s hands with enough force to hurl it to the ceiling. He aimed a second kick at his attacker’s head, but the stowaway saw it coming and had time to duck. By luck more than design, Akstyr managed to snatch the falling crossbow from the air after it bounced off the ceiling.
He aimed it at the opening and eased backward, finding the door to the cargo bay with his heel. He risked taking a hand off the crossbow to try the latch. If he could get inside, he could use the doorjamb and wall for cover. Someone had locked it.
“Cursed ancestors,” Akstyr growled.
A metallic canister spun through the trapdoor opening and clanked down at Akstyr’s feet. It was one of the smoke grenades he had brought on board. The conniving bandits were attacking them with their own weapons.
Green smoke hissed into the air. Akstyr held his breath and squinted his eyes against the haze, but he didn’t let go of the crossbow.
Something stirred the smoke near the trapdoor. Akstyr fired.
The quarrel clanged off metal instead of thudding into flesh, but someone cursed and ducked out of sight. A curse on his own lips, Akstyr plucked the grenade from the floor and darted toward the trapdoor. Acrid smoke stung his eyes and his nostrils puckered, but he held on long enough to drop the canister through the hole.
He leaped over the trapdoor and slammed it shut. For lack of a better way to secure the entrance, he stood on top it. The smoke would irritate the men below, but probably wouldn’t hurt them or make them pass out. Too bad. He wished Amaranthe had given him some of the knockout gas too.
Through bleary eyes, Akstyr checked the crossbow. It was a twin-loader with one quarrel remaining.
A thump sounded in the navigation cabin. From his position in the corridor, Akstyr didn’t have a good view, but he glimpsed Books’s face being smashed against a console.
“Not good,” he muttered, but if he went to help, the two thugs below would escape.
As if to validate his thought, the door rose an inch beneath Akstyr’s feet. He braced himself against the wall and bore down.
“Stay down there, you prick suckers!” he hollered.
“Mountain!” That was Harkon’s voice, not Books.
Furious poundings battered the trapdoor beneath Akstyr’s feet. A few more acrid green fumes escaped through the cracks.
After a moment of indecision, Akstyr decided he ought to be skilled enough by now to handle a couple of smoke-choked gutter rats.
He slid off the trapdoor. More thumps sounded before the men realized their doorstop had moved. The trapdoor flew open, clanging against the metal deck. A cloud of smoke wafted into the air. Akstyr shot at the first person to come into view. This time, the quarrel didn’t miss. It sank into the man’s throat, and he tumbled off the ladder.
The other stowaway hung a couple of rungs lower and was too busy gaping at his falling comrade to notice someone creeping up on him. Akstyr dropped the empty crossbow, reached in, and hauled the man out. That he could do so surprised him-he hadn’t realized how much strength he’d gained in the last nine months.
Akstyr shoved his foe against the wall and pressed his sword into the tender flesh at the base of the throat. Tears and snot streamed down the man’s face.
“Listen,” Akstyr said. “What’re you people-”
The dirigible lurched again, and Akstyr stumbled back a step.
The
man used the distraction to jerk his arm downward, his hand darting toward a dagger. Akstyr tried to whip his sword back into place, but the tilting floor unbalanced his swing, and his blade bit into the man’s jugular.
“Donkey balls,” he muttered. How was he supposed to get answers from a dead man?
Remembering that Books might need help, Akstyr kicked the trapdoor shut again and ran past it. Sword at the ready, he sprinted into the navigation cabin.
Books knelt, a knee in Harkon’s back, while the tattooed man struggled, attempting to escape. The ivory-handled pistol lay on the floor a few feet away. Blood trickled from Books’s nose, but he wore an expression of smug triumph. Until the vessel tilted again.
The floor sloped downward, and Akstyr almost tumbled into the control panel. He gripped the doorjamb for support. Enough daylight remained that he had no trouble seeing the rocky hillside straight ahead of the dirigible. They were close enough that he could also see a goat lift its head to stare at them.
“Akstyr.” Books lifted his head to study the control panel. “I need to-”
“Yes, do it.” Akstyr scrambled across the tilted floor, grabbed the pistol, and pressed the muzzle into the back of the pilot’s neck.
Books leaped up and yanked a lever. The floor leveled, but the vessel was too low, and they were veering straight toward a mountainside.
“You did watch him for long enough to learn how to fly this thing, right?” Akstyr asked.
“I watched him, but it’s unlikely the intricacies of aviation can be mastered in such a short time.”
“That’s not your pompous way of saying we’re going to crash, is it?”
“Actually, we’ve reached our destination, so I was hoping to land.” Books’s eyes searched the control panel.
“I hope there’s a difference.”
The goat had faded from view when the ship leveled, but another one scampered into sight. Brilliant, their crash was going to be the evening entertainment for the mountain critters.
Books tapped an altitude gauge, mumbled something, and finally seemed to spot what he wanted. He spun a wheel. At first nothing happened, but then the goat slipped out of view to the side of the glass shield. The dirigible was slowing turning to fly alongside the mountain instead of toward it. Too slowly. A jolt ran through the craft, and a squeal of metal arose from outside.
“That didn’t sound good,” Akstyr said.
“We’re fine,” Books said. “We glanced off a boulder.”
A thump reverberated through the dirigible, and an ominous crack came from below.
“What was that?” Akstyr asked.
“It was a tree.”
An image flashed through Akstyr’s mind-a giant hole being torn in the bottom of the dirigible and the engine falling out. No, he told himself. The hull was metal. It was sturdier than that.
Another thump battered the ship, this one hard enough to send tremors through the hull. Harkon’s muscles bunched, as if he were preparing to try something. Akstyr pressed the pistol into his skin.
“I already killed the two stowaways down below,” he growled, doing his best to sound menacing. “I have no problem shooting you too.”
“Do it then,” Harkon snarled.
Akstyr thought about obeying the man. Sicarius would. Hostages were more likely to be trouble than not, but they might yet need help flying-or landing.
Books’s fingers gripped the wheel so hard the tendons on the backs of his hands were trying to leap out of his flesh. The craft shuddered again, and the quietness of the fancy engine meant Akstyr had no trouble hearing cracks and thunks from outside-rocks sheering away from the mountainside and bouncing into the depths below. Beads of sweat rolled down Books’s temples and dripped onto the control panel. Finally, the dirigible veered far enough from the rocky slope that the scrapes and squeals faded away.
Books wiped his brow. “Two stowaways?”
“They tried to shoot me when I went to look at the engine,” Akstyr said. “How’d we end up so close to the mountains anyway?”
“We heard you fighting, and the pilot decided it’d be a good time to attack me as well.”
“Oh.” So Akstyr’s investigation had started things. Oops. “Any idea who those blokes were?” Akstyr glanced at Harkon, but he didn’t look like the sort to be intimidated into sharing information.
Books hesitated. “No.”
Akstyr wondered if he had an idea, but wasn’t going to share in front of the pilot. Before he could ask further questions, Books pointed at something outside.
“What?” Akstyr didn’t want to step away from the prisoner to peer through the window.
“There’s a road below that leads into a large, fresh landslide. I do believe we’ve reached our first destination.”
“Good. Now what?”
“Now, we figure out how to land. Any chance you can convince the pilot to instruct me on a way to accomplish that maneuver?”
“Lick my right sack,” Harkon said.
“That’s a no,” Akstyr said.
“I’ll admit I’m not as versed in Stumps’ street vernacular as you are, but I did deduce his meaning.” With rocks and trees no longer assaulting the dirigible, Books relaxed enough to turn around and check on Akstyr and their prisoner. “What is that smell?”
“Am’ranthe’s smoke grenades work real good,” Akstyr said. “What’re we going to do with this thug?”
Books rubbed his lips. “Did you find any closets during your explorations?”
The first two days on the train passed without incident. Basilard and Maldynado played dice while Amaranthe nibbled her fingernails down to nubs and wondered if she was flexible enough to start in on her toenails. She hadn’t spoken to Sicarius. That first morning, he had slipped out to find his own berth and had not returned. In truth, she’d been relieved. When he’d killed the men on the farm, it had arguably been in self-defense, or at least in her defense. With these assassinations… he’d gone out and, in a premeditated manner, killed more than twenty men and women. Even if they’d all been Forge loyalists involved in plots against the city and the emperor, they still would have deserved a chance to face the magistrate and explain themselves. For Sicarius to execute them based only on the fact that their names appeared in Books’s journal…
Amaranthe could forgive Sicarius for his past crimes; when he’d worked for the throne, he’d been raised- indoctrinated — to obey Hollowcrest and Raumesys. But he’d chosen to assassinate the Forge people of his own volition. It was murder, through and through. Even if it’d been born of frustration and a need to protect his son, it upset her. That she could care for someone capable of cold-blooded murder made her question her own integrity.
They were in the middle of a mission, though, and there wasn’t much she could do about the choices Sicarius had made. She still needed his help. At sunset on that second day, she talked herself into seeking him out to make sure he intended to give it.
Amaranthe slid the freight door open and eased outside. As she climbed the ladder toward the top of the car, cold wind whipped at her clothing. They were passing through the same mountains where they had run their exercises the week before. Snow now blanketed the craggy hills. The train was approaching the Scarlet Pass, which meant they were five thousand feet above sea level, and up there it already felt like winter. When she reached the top of the rail car, a dusting of snow coated it as well. She glanced skyward, wondering if she might glimpse Books and Akstyr, but, if they had gone east to check on the shaman’s mine, they would be behind the train. Nothing more interesting than an eagle glided through the air.
Prepared to have to search each car to find Sicarius, Amaranthe was surprised to find him sitting cross-legged in the snow near the head of the train. His back was to her as he faced the mountains, a small black figure surrounded by a white world. Something about his posture made the word “forlorn” come to mind. She shook her head. Someone who had slashed two-dozen throats wasn’t somebody to pity.
Wondering if the others were right and she was crazy, Amaranthe picked her way toward Sicarius. Every time she leaped from snow-slick roof to snow-slick roof she risked a fall. Sicarius had to hear her coming, but he didn’t look back. The train started up a slope and slowed down, so the wind wasn’t battering her so fiercely by the time she sat down beside him, though the cold snow chilled her backside.
“Fair evening,” she said, the first thing that entered her head. Maybe she should have rehearsed.
Sicarius acknowledged her with an impassive look, nothing more. He wasn’t wearing anything thicker than his usual trousers and long-sleeved shirt, and she recalled that he hadn’t been carrying any gear beyond his weapons when he leaped into the train. Killing up to the last minute, she supposed.
“Aren’t you cold?” Amaranthe asked.
“No.”
She touched the back of his bare hand, concerned he might be neglecting his health and risking frostbite, but his skin was warm beneath her own already-chilled fingers. “How is that possible?”
“In their natural habitat, mammals become cold-adapted in the winter, burning summer’s fat stores to efficiently heat the body. When humans clothe themselves in parkas and sleep in artificially warm environments, they fail to achieve this adaptation and do not thrive in the cold.”
“So… what you’re saying is that you have no physiological need to cuddle.”
That comment earned her another impassive look. Maybe someday she’d learn to stop joking with him. He didn’t seem to appreciate it, and trying to make him smile seemed destined to remain a fruitless endeavor anyway. Besides, his cool look reminded her that, murdered men not withstanding, he had a reason to be irked with her too.
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