by Steve Rzasa
A click alerted him to Cope’s movements. Winch watched Cope check his gun then dig into his rucksack, though Winch suspected he wasn’t looking for a camera. And he was right. “You might need this,” Cope said, all jocularity gone. He offered Winch a sealed holster with a weapon inside.
Winch unsnapped the flap and saw that the holster contained a short-barreled Thundercloud Asp pistol, just like the model Oneyear had pointed at his head earlier that very day. He took the smooth, polished grip and stared down at the black and brass.
“You know you can shoot,” Cope said. “Father taught us a long time ago, but…”
“It was never at a person. I remember enough of his lessons.” Winch slipped the holster onto his belt. He felt ill. “I’ll take it, but I don’t think I can kill a man.”
“Then fire near one, enough to scare him off.” Cope shrugged on his rucksack. He turned to Jesca. “You need an iron?”
“No guns, thank you.” Jesca’s hand emerged pale from under the dark cloak. A stiletto’s slender blade glittered.
“Huh.” Cope looked at Winch. “Are we ready?”
He’d already prayed enough, or so he hoped. “Let’s go now before I give this a second thought. Another one, that is.”
“I hate those,” Cope said with a smirk.
They crept around the perimeter of the buildings until they came to the next block. There was the cooper’s shop…and the ruined brick shed across the road. Jesca stayed in a low crouch. She held her palm up at them, signaling them to stop. Winch peered over her shoulder. He didn’t see any guards, but fog rolled across the rail yard. He was discouraged to have their line of sight hampered by the fog, but Jesca seemed buoyed by the inclement weather. “Now,” she said.
She skittered cat-like across the road and ducked inside the shadows of the brick shed before Winch could utter his concern. Cope shook his head. “I really do like this girl,” he whispered. He elbowed Winch. “Good thing for me you’re a married man!”
Cope sprinted for the opening next. He made a short jump across a shattered wall. Winch heard him grunt, the noise accompanied by a scuffle. Cope’s head reappeared, hair disheveled, as he flashed a thumbs-up. Winch leaned around the corner of the building, legs ready for the dash across the street…
Boot steps.
Winch flattened himself against the brick wall until he thought he’d forced all the air from his lungs. Breaths came shallow and fast. He edged to the corner again.
A guard paced slowly along the fence, right up against the edge. He surveyed the street as his boots trod a purposeful path behind the rail shed. He was only feet from the abandoned building where Jesca and Cope hid. Winch had no idea how open the side of the abandoned shed was that faced the back of the rail shed—the wall could be completely collapsed, as dark as the shadows were.
Conceal them, Hallowed Sepyr. Winch squeezed his eyes shut to stave off the nausea.
The guard walked behind the abandoned shed, his figure lost in the gloom between buildings. Winch made himself watch. Come on…stay hidden…
The guard walked out the other side. He continued along the fence, gait never faltering.
Winch exhaled a ragged breath. He should cross to Cope and Jesca now, but he couldn’t make his feet obey him now. He looked down at his legs incredulously. His insides turned cold, and he thought about making a run for it back to the motorwagon.
The thought shamed him. This was ridiculous. Cope was out there, facing danger, and here he was—too afraid to move. It was crippling. Something would have to give.
A hand waved at him from the darkened ruins. He had to act. The thought of Lysanne and his children pushed at him. Winch waited a hair longer, until the guard was lost in the fog and his bootsteps faded.
Go. Now!
Winch ran.
He did his best to keep his own bootsteps light. Surely they were as loud as an aeroplane’s engine. Before he knew it, he was inches from the broken wall.
Winch dove, arms first. He slammed into dirt and wood, tumbling across an old floor. His back struck something far softer than a brick wall.
“That’s one way to meet a lady,” Cope whispered nearby. Humor filled his voice.
Winch groaned. His glasses had flown off into the dark. He rolled over and found himself looking up into a fuzzy version of Jesca’s face. She smiled. “I believe this is where you apologize and remove yourself from my lap,” she said softly.
Oh, dump him off Trafton’s Cliff. Winch scrambled to his knees. He hoped she couldn’t see the heat in his cheeks.
Cope chuckled quietly. “Quite the dive, big brother. Next time, lay off on the flaps and waggle your wings—you’ll get better lift.”
“Thank you.” Winch would have put more effort into being perturbed, but he was too exhilarated by the fact that he hadn’t remained frozen in fear. “Could you please help me find my glasses?”
The two of them scrabbled on the floor.
Cope grunted. “Here you are, then.”
Winch took them from Cope. Thankfully, neither lens was broken, though the frame was bent. He slipped them back onto his face. Well. At least all the shadows were sharp. “I don’t suppose this place has a back door?”
Jesca gestured to the rear wall of the building. It was, indeed, wide open—a pile of rubble rested against the fence. Winch could see the back of the rail shed on the other side.
Jesca set to work with the steel clippers, face taut and arms fraught with tremors as she cut through.
Cope scooted to her side. “Let me handle that, please.”
He put a hand on her arm, but she shook it off. Winch was close enough to see the anger in her eyes, even in the dark. “If my brother gave his life, the least I can do is gain sore arms,” she snapped. “Hands to yourself, please.”
Cope backed off.
Winch cast a wary glance back at the street. Something rattled off in the distance. “Cope? Did you hear that?”
Jesca had clipped enough to allow her to pull back part of the wire fence. “Almost enough room to fit…”
Cope craned his neck for a look out the front of the ruined building. “Nothing… Hold. Motorwagon’s coming! Someone’s got a lamp!”
He shoved Winch into a dark corner. Then he hooked his free arm around Jesca’s waist and yanked her from the fence. Winch tried to maneuver for a better look, but Cope kept his arm against his chest.
The motorwagon rumbled slowly by. Its lamp threw a cone of light across the ruined front of the building, but it didn’t penetrate into the dark corners where Winch, Cope, and Jesca hid. Winch couldn’t see who was in the vehicle, but apparently they had no interest in looking for would-be spies—it drove by without even changing its velocity.
Jesca exhaled. “Now if you would kindly remove your arm, Cope, I can get back to cutting through our fence.”
“Of course. Didn’t mean anything improper by it.” Cope’s tone suggested the opposite.
Jesca continued her attack on the fence, and with Cope helping to pull back the wire—which she did not protest this time, Winch noticed—she broke through.
“Ladies first?” Cope asked as he peered through the hole.
“I think not.” Jesca waved with the clippers.
Cope sighed. “Come on, brother, before she gets tetchy and uses those things on us.” He drew his pistol and clambered through the fence. Winch held his breath as the metal links rattled. But the sound apparently didn’t carry far. Cope stayed crouched behind the rail shed, gun ready, eyes scanning this way and that. Finally he waved with the barrel.
Winch pulled himself through the fence. Jesca came right after him. The band of interlopers squatted behind the rail shed. Winch couldn’t see anyone else. His heart pounded so hard he was sure the militiamen could hear it. But the leaden feeling in his legs—the weight rooting him in place—wasn’t there. He was afraid, yes, but somehow he could act.
Don’t you believe me? Ifan’s words rang in his head like train’s bell.
Ifan put his hands on the man. “You ask ‘if I can’ save him? All things can be done, for those who believe.”
“I do believe!” the father said, with tears in his eyes. “Just help my unbelief! I don’t want it!”
Winch didn’t either. “Where to now?”
Jesca leaned around the corner of the rail shed. “To the main shed. That’s where the engines are stored and where the main loading platforms are located. And Winch?”
“Yes?”
“As we go, I would welcome your prayers.”
Thursday
Having a well-guarded gate for the South Rail Yard must have lulled the militia into a false sense of security. Winch assumed that was why they encountered only one other guard as they slunk across the railyard, steering clear of the few lamp posts while sticking to the gloom of silent rows of boxcars.
They reached the massive main rail shed without incident. Despite the cool evening air, Winch wiped sweat off his forehead. Then he felt something drip onto his head. Now it was raining lightly.
Cope frowned at the steel and wood door before them. “Locked.”
Jesca nudged him aside. “Allow me.”
She pounced on the lock with a sliver of metal. Winch marveled at the precision with which her hands manipulated what looked like two long, slender tools inside the dark recesses of the lock. He listened to the rain tapping out a rhythm on the metal roof. Cope didn’t watch—he was busy looking up and down the side of the building, his gun’s muzzle waving back and forth.
Something clicked. Jesca pulled carefully on the door handle. It swung open with barely a squeak from its hinges. She smiled at Cope.
He winked back. Then he slipped through the half-open door, gun at the ready.
Winch followed.
They stood in a dark corner of a hallway, with a stairwell at one end and a row of battered wooden cabinets at the other. There was a second door just beyond the cabinets. The air was damp and thick with the smell of coal. Winch could hear the distant chatter of men mingled with the clank of metal and the thump of crates being moved.
Jesca closed the door behind them. She made sure to lock it from the inside.
“Which way?” Winch whispered.
She gestured to the stairwell.
Cope led the way, pistol raised. They stepped as softly as they could up the stairs. Thankfully, the noise from the shed grew in intensity as they ascended, so much so that when they reached the top of the stairs Winch couldn’t hear his own boots on the floor.
The doorway opened onto a catwalk running down one side of the shed. It was unlit—Winch pressed up against the wall to remain in the shadows. But he could see clearly everything in the middle.
Four locomotives were right below. Behind them stretched fifteen cars each, boxcars painted dark grey. Workmen in overalls loaded crates into several of the cars. Two workmen stopped their work as a man in a light-colored suit hollered instruction over the noise. They used crowbars to pry open the lid of one of the crates.
It was packed with guns and ammunition.
“Great blue skies,” Cope muttered. “Look down at the far end.”
More men loaded motorwagons aboard—but they were unlike any motorwagon Winch had ever seen. They had slanted fronts and rears, were covered all over with plate iron, and had a single round turret in the center. Two Keach guns protruded from the turret. Several slits marked its sides. Winch watched them roll up the ramps on six wheels as their engines chugged laboriously under what he assumed was a great deal of weight.
“I’d heard rumors of armored wagons,” Jesca said from next to Winch. “But I’d never seen one.”
“I don’t think anyone has.” Winch dug his camera from his rucksack. “Cope?”
“Right with you.”
Winch got down on his knees. He shuffled up to the railing. There was enough shadow up here to conceal him. But there was plenty of light in the wide open center of the shed for him to get a decent photograph. He aimed his camera at the motorwagons. Click. Then he handed Cope the used chem-plate without looking. “Another.”
Cope wordlessly accepted the one. Winch waited, hand open, his eyes scanning across the scene below. As soon as his fingers felt the next plate, he yanked it from Cope’s hand and slid it into the camera. Click. “Another.”
They repeated the process five times, until Winch was satisfied he had a good panoramic picture of the entire…force? Army? Winch didn’t know what to call it. He turned to Jesca. “I can’t believe they’ve kept this all hidden—”
She wasn’t there. Winch spotted her farther down the catwalk. She was staring down through the grating.
Cope nudged him. “She’s found something more interesting, obviously. Come on.”
They moved down the catwalk, taking care not to step too heavily. A board creaked under Winch’s boot. He froze. Jesca’s head snapped around. She put a finger to her lips, eyes ablaze. Cope sniggered.
When they sidled up to Jesca, Cope tapped her on the shoulder. He raised an eyebrow questioningly. She pointed off the edge of the catwalk.
Three men were huddled in conversation by crates stacked at the seventh freight car behind one of the locomotives. Winch’s heart ratcheted up its tempo. It was hard not to recognize Crittenden Beam standing like a specter painted in black and white on a muddied canvas. Second Councilor Ehrlichmann fretted and paced in his pale outfit. Sweat beaded on his head under the brilliant lights of the main space of the shed. With them stood the Sergeant Taube, standing as stiffly as statue.
“You can’t expect me to believe that no one has sighted them in hours!” Ehrlichmann’s voice carried clearly up to the catwalk. Winch got his notepad out and began jotting down his speech. “You’ve had your men all up and down the blocks around the Primrose.”
“There’s no word on the two men, sir.” Taube did not look at either the irate Second Councilor or Beam. Instead he fixed his gaze on the nearest stack of crates. “There’s some speculation that one of the women in the Primrose may have helped them slip out—but the boys can’t seem to get anything further out of Madame Stohl. You know how she is.”
Ehrlichmann rounded on Beam. “You should have dragged her down to the station and employed your—special methods.” He waggled a finger in Beam’s face.
The taller man’s moustache didn’t even waver. “There’s nothing I would’ve liked better,” he said in that steady, unflappable tone. Winch could still see his eye twitch, and the dirigibles explode, with Beam standing there with that granite face. “Fact is, Second Councilor, she has many friends in the right places who would not appreciate that approach. Like some of your fellow councilors.”
“Hang it all, I don’t care!” Ehrlichmann thumped a fist on the side of a crate so hard that Winch nearly dropped his pencil.
“Do you have any idea the detail that has gone into the planning of this operation? The resources I’ve expended? The clout I’ve used up to put Perch under our thumb?” Ehrlichmann’s spittle flew like buckshot. Beam just stared at him. “We have a full battalion awaiting our command to move—twelve hundred men with their armored wagons, their Keach guns, and their howitzers. We have to get them all on these trains. We have to move them out in the early morning hours Sunday. And above all, we have to succeed.”
Beam crossed his arms in a slow, deliberate manner. Winch thought immediately of a gate slamming shut. Winch waved his fingers frantically at Cope. Another chem-plate! Winch fumbled for his camera.
“Don’t presume to lecture me, Second Councilor.” Beam’s voice took on an imperious tone. Ehrlichmann actually shrank back from him. Taube relaxed his frozen stance a bit and sidled over to Beam. “We have a great deal at stake in this operation too. There is no greater threat to the strength of Trestleway than the Exalters and their so-called Redeemer.”
It was a good thing Winch snap
ped the photo when he did, or else he might have dropped his camera too.
“I’m not interested in your witch hunt, Beam. I have the best interests of Trestleway Locomotion Consolidated in mind,” Ehrlichmann said. “The company wants Perch’s avo-gas specifications, and they want control of those methane fields. Thus we remove Perch’s competitive edge and add it to our own portfolio in one fell swoop. Don’t think I like depending on one of those hill-boys as our agent, either. This ‘Condor’ had better be worth what we’re paying him in coin.”
Condor? Winch glanced at Jesca and was surprised to see Jesca taking notes.
Teamwork, she mouthed. She seemed to be writing as fast as she could.
“Consider our occupation a bonus, then,” Beam continued.” We add a rich plum to your basket and cut infested fruit from the tree at the same time.”
“Whatever you call it.” Ehrlichmann rolled his eyes. “The fact remains that this operation must succeed. For both our sakes. Unless you fancy spending your last days bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds as you rot under the afternoon sun, tied to a wooden spike.”
“It will succeed. And we needn’t worry about two pesky vermin from Perch poking around.”
Winch snapped another photograph, thankful that the shutter noise was drowned under the waves of noise in the rail shed. He found himself shivering despite the warmth in the building and the people crowded with him.
“How can you be so sure you’ll catch them?” Ehrlichmann did not sound reassured.
“Because there are no limitations on the power of the cythraul. Because I am a cythramancer, Second Councilor, and cythrauls grant to us whatever power we desire, so long as we prove our loyalty and usefulness.”
A chill crawled down Winch’s back. There it was—confession and confirmation. So much for cythramancers being mythical. Yet hadn’t Vaughn Markwater warned that the enemies of Ifan were very real?