Riveted

by Brook, Meljean

  Annika saw him, standing between two of the bunkhouses. He faced the clearing, his back to the cove. Her heart sank. The buildings didn’t form a circle around the clearing, but three sides, and the fourth side open. Though shadowed, the moonlight on the snow would reveal their movements. Even if they skirted around the camp, using the buildings for cover, he’d see them as soon as they ventured beyond the last bunkhouse.

  Was there anything to hide behind? She studied the open edge of the clearing, and her lips parted as she recognized one of the shadowed shapes. “Is that a two-seater balloon?”

  “Yes. With an open cart and a steam engine.”

  Blast. The cart would offer no protection and the sound of the engine would expose them long before it built up enough speed to fly away.

  David frowned. “What the hell is behind them?”

  In the dark, she couldn’t quite make them out. Three ambulatory machines, of some sort. Their shapes seemed familiar, but…

  Annika’s heart leapt. Astonishment stole her breath. “Trolls.”

  “What?”

  “Trolls. But with no skins, no disguise. That’s what’s underneath.” Her astonishment faded into dread. “Why do they have them?”

  David stared at her. “The trolls are real?”

  “I told you.”

  “I thought it was just a story.”

  “Mostly. But stories are more frightening when there’s some truth to them.” And the terror was hers, now. “David, they must know about Hannasvik. They must have stolen these, killed everyone the same way as the sailors—”

  Annika had to stop herself. Whatever had happened, she couldn’t think of it now. She thought instead of the sailors on the fluyt. She thought of what would happen to David if they were discovered. Fear wouldn’t help her now. She needed anger. Resolve.

  She built up both. “We’ll take a troll. I can drive it.”

  “That’s not leaving quietly.”

  “If I’m in one of those, we won’t need to.” She caught his hand. “Listen.”

  His gaze on hers, he angled his head. She saw the moment he heard it—over the roar of the ocean, a distant barking. Dogs.

  “If we don’t take it, we’re not going to make it far.”

  He nodded. “How long will you need?”

  “After I’m inside, fifteen minutes to stoke the furnace and build up enough pressure.”

  “All right.”

  She hesitated. “If the watchman sees us—”

  “I know.” His face was grim. “I’ll do it.”

  Sick at heart, she nodded. They climbed down to the dock—out in the open but shadowed by the bulk of the whale. The angle of a nearby building concealed them from the watchman as they traversed the small rise between the water and the camp. Staying low, they crept quietly to the rear of a bunkhouse, Annika wincing at every faint crunch of snow. David crouched against the clapboard siding, shrugged out of his pack, and glanced down at the pistol holstered at his thigh.

  He couldn’t use it. The report would wake them all. He closed his eye, then looked to Annika. Wordlessly, he gave over the gun. Her throat tight, Annika took it.

  His chest rose on a deep breath, and for a long moment, he stared at his steel hand as if the contraption were alien to him. His mouth firmed as he stood. He stalked around the side of the building, out of sight.

  Waiting was agony. She clutched the weapon, listening desperately for any sound. Only the ocean, and the faint snoring from inside the bunkhouse, the whisper of the breeze and falling snow.

  Then the soft crunch of footsteps. David appeared, carrying the watchman’s body, the man’s rifle slung over his shoulder. His neck had been twisted at an unnatural angle. A terrible ache built in her throat. They’d had little choice, but she’d never killed anyone before. She couldn’t imagine what David must be feeling. Except for the tight clamp of his jaw, his expression revealed nothing.

  He laid the watchman in the snow, covered his face with his hat. Silently, he holstered the pistol and took her hand. Together they skirted around the edge of the camp to the trolls.

  It was a relief to see that they weren’t any of the machines from home. These were new and identical, whereas each troll from Hannasvik had been constructed with different salvaged pieces. Perhaps these men had come across one that had been hidden and copied it. The mystery of how they’d built these remained, and it could still mean that a driver from Hannasvik had been killed in the same way as the fluyt’s crew, but Annika wasn’t so afraid that her home had been raided.

  She felt the belly of each. Two were already warm. She chose the one farthest away from the camp, quietly opening the hatch in the chest. She’d slept in her troll many times, but not when at home. Hopefully whoever drove these slept in the bunkhouses.

  They did. The hearth chamber in the chest was empty. The furnace burned low. She stoked it, glad to see the coal bunker was full. After closing the vents, she lit a lamp and searched the driver’s locker, found the tool she needed. She climbed back through the chest hatch; David waited outside, watching the bunkhouses and the hovering airship.

  Gas grip in hand, she crept to the second troll, and clamped the tool over the hinge bolt on the hind leg. She couldn’t budge it, until the hard strength of David’s body pressed against her back, his hands gripping the handle below hers. The bolt squeaked as it turned. They both froze, listening. No movement in the camp. She continued loosening it until the bolt barely held the leg joint together.

  Her chest hurt when they finished. Oh, this was horrible. Though only a machine, what she’d just done would have destroyed a century’s worth of painstaking work and maintenance in Hannasvik. These weren’t hers, they weren’t old, but a lifetime of caring for a troll made it difficult to see them any other way.

  But she had to. With David’s help, she loosened the bolts on the other three legs, and saw that her troll’s nose had begun to steam. Snow fell steadily as they worked, heavy flakes that stuck to their clothes. By the time they finished with the third machine, the boilers were ready.

  Inside the troll’s hearth chamber, he had to stoop over slightly. Except for the floor, there was nowhere to sit—and unlike Annika’s troll, no bunk, no stove, and not much storage aside from the coal. The men at the camp must not use it to travel long distances, just to work—or perhaps to carry laborers to wherever the drill was.

  Annika slipped out of her coat. The chamber was already warm; soon it would be hot. David tossed his pack into the corner, brushed the snow from his shoulders before unbuckling his overcoat.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “Stoke, after a bit, but we’ll be all right for a while.” Annika threw the engine lever to full steam, and grinned as the troll gave a satisfying huff and shudder. “For now, just hold on to something.”

  She climbed up the short ladder to the troll’s head and eased into the driver’s seat. Her boots fit snugly into the stompers that drove the back legs. A sweet sense of belonging slipped through her. Four years had passed since she’d driven a troll, but each movement remained wonderfully familiar. Reaching up, she opened the eye louvers. The steel flaps lifted, showing her a view of the camp through multiple narrow strips. Cold air slipped in, faint light from the lanterns.

  “Good Christ.” David stood on the ladder, looking over her shoulder at the jungle of levers and pulleys. “You can drive this?”

  “Yes.” She had only a second to familiarize herself with the differences. The controls were the same, the gauges new—and a welcome addition. She wouldn’t have to stop to check the pressure of the steam, the temperature of the furnace.

  “They’re coming,” David said.

  No alarm yet, but the engine had woken someone. A man strode across the clearing.

  Annika hauled back the lift lever. The troll rose smoothly, still on all fours. So beautiful. The right foreleg grip didn’t perfectly fit her fingers, the leather worn down by a century of women, but the pulley wheel didn’t squea
k.

  The troll jolted forward a step. A thunk sounded on the floor behind her. David swore.

  “Sorry.” But she’d told him to hold on. “She’s strong. Stronger than mine. It might take me a few seconds to adjust.”

  Laughing now, he climbed onto the ladder again. His fingers wrapped securely around the top rung. “I’m ready this time.”

  Annika eased her forward with small steps. The man in the clearing stopped, waving his arms and shouting at them—probably thinking that someone had taken a few drinks before crawling inside. That was usually why the trolls at home went on unexpected walks.

  The troll’s nose touched the flank of the second machine. “We need to name her,” Annika said, slowly pushing down on the stomper.

  Silence was David’s only response. She glanced back. He wore a stunned expression, watching through the eye louvers as the giant machine toppled over. Steel shrieked. Even over the huffing of their engine, the crash was deafening.

  “Jesus,” he breathed.

  Annika turned toward the second troll. In the clearing, the man raced forward, probably hoping to reach her before she pushed it over. A toppled troll was almost impossible to lift to its feet again without another to pull it up.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, setting her nose against the machine’s hip.

  “For what? This is incredible!”

  “I was saying it to the troll.” Perhaps it did seem odd. “I grew up with them. They all have quirks, personalities—or they seem to. Some don’t like to work in the cold. Some are terrible in the heat, or after crossing a river. Some will quit for no reason, then you’ve got to coax them and oil every inch until they start again, or there’s some setting that has to be perfect, and that setting is never the same on another troll. What I’m doing now is awful.”

  Absolutely nothing like killing the watchman must have been, but still difficult. She winced as the leg buckled, then headed for the two-seaters. She didn’t need to tip the balloons. One step crushed the frame.

  More men surrounded them now, all shouting, waving their arms, then racing out of the way as she turned to crush the next two-seater.

  “Go now, Annika,” David said.

  Yes. The tenor of the men’s shouts had abruptly changed. Perhaps they’d thought the driver was drunk, but not now. They must have found the watchman’s body. “The airship?”

  “Leave it. Go before they get their rail cannon up.”

  God. Had they fired their engines? Annika yanked the head pulley, rocked back to look. The vents were still open. They’d need at least ten minutes before the engines were ready, and several more before an electrical generator could power the cannon.

  “That’s di Fiore at the rail,” David said, and she saw the man looking over, silhouetted by the lamps on deck. “Observing it all.”

  They wouldn’t give him any more to see. Annika hauled the troll around, pumped her legs. Men leapt out of her way. The troll moved easily, working up to a smooth gallop by the time she turned her toward the shoreline.

  “Do you know where we’re going?”

  No idea. “To the ocean, and along the beach as far as we can. We can go faster on the sand, and if the snow keeps up, they won’t be able to see us or follow us as well.”

  “Can you see?”

  Through the dark and snow?

  “I’ll need…a bit…of help.” She huffed as hard as the engine, arms and legs pulling and pushing in time with the troll’s. Oh, she felt those four years now. She’d become soft. Stoking an engine was nothing compared to this. “Look…for boulders.”

  “Like watching for icebergs?”

  “Yes.” A stitch formed in her side. The flatbread she’d wolfed down felt like a rock in her stomach. She just had to push past it.

  Down to the beach, to the edge of the waves, where the tide erased the snow as quickly as it fell—and would erase their tracks, too. Chunks of ice littered the black sand. Which way to go? They needed to head toward Vik, but she didn’t know whether the camp lay east or west of that town. They were headed east now; every step might be taking them in the opposite direction they wanted to go.

  She slowed to catch her breath, turned the troll to face the water.

  “Can you see Heimaey?”

  David scanned the horizon. “Yes.” He pointed southwest. “There.”

  So they were going the right direction, but how far away were they? Closing her eyes, she forced every other thought out of her mind. Phatéon had flown this way several times, and when she’d been younger, Annika had ridden along this route as a driver’s apprentice. Had she seen the cove?

  She had. During the summer. Ducks had been nesting along the banks of the cove, and had flown up when the troll disturbed them. They’d taken one for supper, but hadn’t eaten it until they’d stopped for the evening, after they’d turned north, heading for the pass between two glaciers.

  She opened her eyes. “We’re thirty miles west of Vik.”

  Even on foot, not an impossible distance. A full day’s journey in the summer, and only three hours of walking by troll—but she had to assume the airship was behind them. Annika turned the troll east again, slowly gaining speed.

  “Can we make it to Vik tonight?”

  “Yes. But we need to stop and hide. We’re too easy to spot.” And they should stay hidden during the day, too. “We can start again tomorrow night, when they likely aren’t looking for us.”

  “You know of a place to hide this?”

  “I know one.” Ten miles away. Given the time it would take for the ferry cruiser to start after them, she could stay ahead of any pursuers if she moved at a quick trot.

  Forty-five minutes at a fast clip. She’d done this before; she could do this again.

  Forty-five minutes of endless pushing, pulling. Beyond a burn in her thighs, her arms. Tortured breaths squeezed her lungs, but after ten minutes, it was all the same pain.

  Relief took the edge off when she finally saw a small river that fed into the ocean. She turned north. The troll followed the winding bank, forced to go slower now, Annika carefully picking her way across the moonlit snow. Her arms and legs trembled. Finally, cliffs rose ahead, with a wide bowl carved out of their face. A tall waterfall cascaded down, thundering as they drew closer. Mist drifted through the eye louvers, welcome on her heated, sweaty face.

  Annika drove the troll into the shadows on the inward curve of the bowl. During the day, the depth of the cliffs and the mist would prevent anyone spotting them from above. She backed as far as she could against the rocks and settled the troll down, wincing as she unclenched her hands from the pulley grips. Blisters had already formed and broke.

  So soft and weak. She was ashamed of it. She’d never let herself become like this at home.

  David sucked in a breath. “Annika.”

  He reached for her hand. She shook her head, pulled it away. Her arms didn’t feel like her own. “Will you stop the engine?”

  When the huffing slowed, she realized he’d done it. Legs shaking, she pushed out of the seat, and David was there again, holding her waist as she trembled her way down the ladder. Humiliating. She should have been able to just jump down.

  Her face was hot, throat parched. The engine puffed its last, surrounding them with sudden quiet—only the hissing of the boiler, the muffled roar of water. David’s hands steadied her. In the soft glow of the lamp, the angles of his face seemed sharper, the shadows deeper.

  She wet her lips. “Is there a cup in the pack?”

  “Yes. Stay put.” He dug through the canvas, moved to the hatch.

  “Take the furnace poker,” she said, and added when he glanced back at her, “for the dogs.”

  He smiled slightly, lifted his steel hand. “They’re welcome to take a bite of this.”

  She had to smile, too. He returned a few seconds later, mist clinging to his clothes like diamond chips. Her fingers trembled violently, sloshing the water. He folded his hand over hers, watched as she drank.
“Sit. Rest.”

  “I can’t.” She stretched her arms over her head. “I need to get out and walk.”

  She wouldn’t go anywhere fast, but she couldn’t sit yet. She’d ache worse afterward if she did.

  He reached for their coats. She groaned, pushing her arms into the sleeves.

  Face dark, he slung the rifle over his shoulder. “You’ll show me how to drive this tomorrow.”

  “No.” She appreciated the offer, but it was impossible. “If she tips over on a wrong step, we won’t get her back up—and everyone tips theirs the first few times.”

  She followed him through the chest hatch, waited as he closed her up. The mist on her face was freezing, not quite as pleasant now. She tugged her hat down over sweaty curls.

  Snow crunched under their feet. No dog tracks marked the fresh fall, but a few hare trails told her they wouldn’t be far away. The bottom of the bowl carved by the waterfall spread south into a rolling plain. The troll’s tracks along the riverbanks had almost filled. She glanced up into the cloudy sky.

  Annika couldn’t see anything through the dark and the heavy flakes. “Do you see the airship?”

  He pointed to the southeast. If they’d still been on the beach, they’d have been overtaken at any minute. “You were right to stop.”

  “It’s just habit—it’s what you do when driving a troll. They’re useful, but as soon as you’re seen by an outsider, you run away and hide as quickly as possible.”

  “Like a rabbit.”

  “A big, powerful one.” She smiled with him. “We should name her after one.”

  He nodded. “Rabbits are supposed to bring good fortune.”

  “Truly?” She liked that.

  “Yes. According to my father’s people, at least.”

  Perhaps they were right. This one had been lucky so far. “Austra Longears.”

  His brows rose. “Longears?”

  “Do you think ‘Tastylegs’ is better? She’s a rabbit.”

  He grinned. “Longears, it is. What did you call the troll you drove before?”

  “Rutger Fatbottom.” She laughed at his expression. “I didn’t name him! He was passed down to me. But he does have a hefty engine back there.”