The warrior glanced over his shoulder and saw River perched on the rail, hanging off the side of the train. Pirate, River’s new pet, clambered up onto the rail next to her and stared at him curiously. A look of confusion swept over Kale’s features and he promptly tripped on a rock. The warrior went down in a cloud of dust.
“Kale!” River shouted. “Get up, fool!”
As the last car caught up to him, Kale leapt to his feet and threw his arm out, reaching for her. River expertly flicked her wrist, turning the whip into a blur. The thin serpentine leather strap shot out and formed a tight coil around Kale’s wrist. He closed his fist around it, and leapt towards the train.
River jumped backwards, hauling him in with all her strength. Kale flew at her, one open hand reaching for the railing. For a split second, time seemed to freeze. Kale hovered in midair. River leaned back, straining against his weight. The warrior’s fingers grazed the cold wrought iron handrail… and slipped away. Kale’s eyes widened as the train flew out of reach and the ground rushed up to meet him.
Kale landed with a loud oomph! Dust flew up into his face, burning his eyes, choking his lungs. Rocks and gravel dug into his chest and the palms of his hands. For half a second, all he could do was try to catch his breath. Then the whip went tight. Kale felt the leather constrict around his wrist and an involuntary cry erupted from his chest as it snapped him forward. The next thing Kale knew, he was bouncing uncontrollably across hard, rocky ground.
Kale attempted to twist around, trying to get his feet underneath him, but every move met with solid resistance. The rocks and scrub brush along the rails tore into his skin, stabbing and scratching like a thousand blades. The gravel shredded his flesh. He bounced to the side, and the steel railroad track burned through his cloak like a hot iron.
Kale tugged on the whip with his free hand, trying to release its grip on his wrist, but the wrap held firm. He caught a glimpse of River up on the platform, and realized that she had secured the whip around the railing. She waved at him, urging him on. Her tiny furry companion scrambled up the railing, leapt onto her shoulder, and began to mimic her movements. Kale didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he saw the two of them trying to lend their moral support.
“Cut it loose!” he shouted as he tumbled through a patch of scrub brush. The dense branches slapped at him ferociously, creating instant welts and tearing open the skin on his forearms and face. When Kale came out the other side, his cloak was gone and his shirt had been shredded to ribbons.
“Hold on,” River called out. “I’ll pull you in!”
Kale couldn’t even process the idea. The last thing he wanted was for River to try to pull him forward. A few more bounces like the last one, and she’d be pulling on his corpse. Kale caught a glimpse of deep blue water up ahead and realized that at any second, the train would vanish under the waves, dragging him along with it. River would be washed away, lost. She might survive, but Kale almost certainly would not. The train would drag him all the way to the bottom of the sea.
“Cut it!” he screamed again. “Cut the whip!”
River’s shoulders sagged. Kale glimpsed flashing steel in her hand and the line went loose. He tumbled head over heels for a dozen yards before finally crashing to a stop against the base of an old desert juniper. Kale caught a glimpse of River disappearing inside the railcar with the furry beast still resting on her shoulder. The door closed behind her just as the train splashed into the sea with a loud whomp! A fountain of water shot fifty feet into the air.
Kale rolled over onto his chest. He pushed slowly to his knees, moaning as his battered body screamed with every movement. Droplets of water rained down on his head. He sat upright, wincing, watching the waves roll out along the tracks, pounding at the beach. A few feet away, he could hear the low vibrations of the tracks as the Iron Horse rolled away, somewhere beneath the surface.
The splashing waves settled down into a steady natural rhythm. Kale rose agonizingly to his feet and stood next to the nearest set of rails. He bent down, touching the warm steel with a raw bleeding hand, and felt the smooth vibrations.
She made it, he told himself. River made it inside in time. I’m sure I saw her.
A few hundred yards offshore, a carrack went gliding across the waves. It was a ship smaller than a galleon but similar, and it was the largest he’d seen anywhere on the Forgotten Sea since his arrival. That was saying something, because Kale had spent most of his stay sailing with a pretty young woman who owned her own vessel, and made a good living transferring cargo from one village to another.
He absentmindedly uncoiled River’s whip from his arm as he stood at the edge of the beach, staring into the distance. A few minutes passed quietly, and then Kale turned to go. He had decided to go back to Port Haven, to seek passage across the sea. Perhaps on some far shore, he could meet up with the Iron Horse, or at least purchase a steed and follow the tracks until he caught up to his companions.
The moment he turned away, Kale heard a resounding crash accompanied by the sound of grinding metal. He swung back around and was instantly rewarded by the sight of a mass of bubbling waves and churning water nearly a mile out. Kale narrowed his eyebrows as he saw the carrack cruising past the area. He frowned as he realized that the ship’s crew had taken down the sails. A spot of black appeared on the deck and slowly, it began to grow.
Kale watched in disbelief as the speck became a large oval shape and eventually inflated into a massive balloon ten times the size of the ship. The carrack floated up out of the water, rising slowly into the air, dragging along several strands of cable beneath it. A few seconds later, a large rectangular shape broke the surface with a spray of water. It too, rose into the air. Kale’s jaw dropped as he recognized one of the Iron Horse’s boxcars rising into the air.
The warrior absently touched the large red scar on his cheek. He had seen similar flying ships before, when they had invaded his homeland. The invaders had slain the royal family and enslaved the entire population. Not only were they responsible for the scar that marked his cheek, but also for the deaths of Kale’s entire family.
“Vangars,” he whispered, his hands closing into bloody fists. He watched helplessly as the ship rose into the sky and disappeared over the snow-capped hills to the north.
Chapter 5
After the crash, a strange silence settled over the train. The impact had knocked River into the wall, and she braced herself there for a few seconds, waiting for the worst. Pirate leapt onto a bench seat and stared at her inquisitively.
River’s thoughts spun with images of Kale, his battered form rolling along the tracks in a cloud of dust, blood and dirt caked onto his face and hands. She winced at the memory. River had done everything in her power to get the warrior back onto the train, but it simply hadn’t been enough. After what had transpired, Kale was lucky to be alive at all.
River would have been shocked to learn Kale hadn’t even broken any bones. In fact, at that very moment, he was walking along the shore, back towards town, trying to figure out how he could catch up to her.
If only the imbecile had come to the train on time like everyone else, she thought. Was that so hard? River couldn’t understand why Kale always had to make everything so complicated. The man’s entire life was like a game. Even matters of life and death were nothing but a challenge for the arrogant fool. If Kale had made it onto the train, River would have been tempted to push him back off just to teach him a lesson.
Unfortunately, for all of his temerity, boastfulness, and unbridled flirtatiousness, Kale also happened to be River’s oldest and dearest friend. Kale had been there on the day River’s father had died at the hands of the Vangar raiders. When her mother was lost in the Wastelands, Kale had helped Tinker to raise and protect her, and ultimately even to escape the Vangars once and for all. Kale had always been there, like a big brother looking out for her.
Sometimes it seemed he was even more than that. There were moments when River thought of him in a d
ifferent way; when she looked at him and something made her insides turn over and her heart skip a few beats. Then, with a wink and an arrogant smile, he’d wave his sword in the air and leap into the fray without a second thought, usually leaving River in the awkward position of having to rescue him from his own stupidity.
That was Kale: brazen, unpredictable, fearless to the end, pursuing danger as if he thought it was something he could trap in a cage and keep on a shelf like a trophy. He often joked that they were meant to be together, but River couldn’t think of a single person she’d be less inclined to marry. She knew him too well, and found it impossible to think of him as anything more than a bumbling big brother.
River gazed out the windows, into the darkened water, and caught glimpses of plant life and sea creatures moving like wraiths through the darkness. A copper pipe on the wall next to her made a hissing sound, and River flinched. Pirate stood upright and hissed at it angrily.
“It’s all right,” River said, patting him on the head. “It’s just air, so we can breathe.”
A few days earlier, Socrates had explained to the entire crew that the Iron Horse was designed with a series of mechanical sensors that monitored the air supply, and gradually released measured bursts of fresh oxygen and other gasses that had been compressed into iron cylinders. In this way, the train’s occupants would be able to travel underwater for several days, even at maximum capacity, without any adverse effects.
Since maximum capacity was a full crew plus three hundred and fifty passengers, the Horse’s supply should be more than adequate to the crew of less than thirty, even for a week or two if necessary. River went to the opposite wall and opened up a panel on one of the communication pipes.
“Socrates,” she said into it. “What happened?”
No response came, and a cold shiver crawled down her spine. River was well familiar with the movement of the train by now, the unpredictable lurches, the loud noises and occasional breakdowns. These things were part and parcel of living on the Horse. But it was not like Socrates to keep his silence at a time like this. He should have updated the crew as soon as the train had safely submerged. At the very least, he should have responded to River.
Something was wrong.
River left the car with Pirate riding along on her shoulder. She found most of the crew in the dining car, exchanging nervous glances over their playing cards as she raced through the room. Some of them called out to her as she passed, but River ignored them and hurried on.
A few cars later, she came upon Micah. His tiny waistcoat was twisted awkwardly on his shoulders and his tall, narrow-brimmed hat had been smashed almost flat. Micah’s naturally light gray skin had a sickly green tinge to it. The halfling was conversing quietly with three other crewmembers: a young Tal’mar warrior with long violet hair, green eyes and pointed ears, and two humans, a pair of dark skinned, wiry young fishermen who had joined the crew before leaving Port Haven. Micah’s eyes lit up when he saw her.
“River, something terrible has happened. I must tell you what I saw!”
“I’m in a hurry, Micah,” she said impatiently. She pushed past him and raced down the corridor. River passed through a few more empty rooms and came at last to the end of the passenger cars. She gazed out the window and frowned as she saw the empty chassis where the tender car had been.
Up ahead, she could see Socrates in the locomotive staring straight ahead. She hammered on the door, trying to get his attention. She shouted and waved her arms. Pirate did his best to help, pawing at the glass and barking like a small dog. At last, Socrates turned. He fixed River with a dark simian stare and shook his head slowly. Then he turned his back to her. Micah and the others came rushing up behind her.
“River, someone stole the tender car!” Micah exclaimed. “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”
“I can see that,” she said. She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. Pirate leapt onto a nearby bench and sat there on his haunches, observing the group quietly.
“What will happen?” Micah said in an anguished tone. “Is everything going to be okay?”
River turned her gaze on him. “No, everything is not going to be okay. Do you see that empty space out there between us and Socrates?”
“Yes, that’s where the coal car was.”
“Exactly. Only it didn’t just contain coal. It also contained our last few gallons of starfall. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“Micah, they took our fuel. Without any coal or starfall, the train can’t run. In fact, because the water is so cold down here, the boiler has probably already stopped working. We may just be coasting along the tracks right now.”
“But… what will happen when the train stops?”
“Nothing, at first. We’ll be okay for a few days, until the air runs out. Then we’ll all slowly suffocate.”
Chapter 6
River, Micah, and the others joined the rest of the crew in the dining car. When they arrived, they found half the crew with their faces pressed up against the windows, staring out into the murky waters. Pirate hopped up onto the bar and stared at the bartender expectantly. Vann, the train’s cook and occasional bartender, was a portly man with big arms, thinning hair, and a bushy goatee. As usual, he was wearing his white chef’s shirt. He smiled and gave the coon a shot glass full of water. Pirate threw it back greedily and then, as he realized it was just water, slammed the glass down on the bar with a snarl.
The crewmembers all stared at River as she entered the room. It took a moment for her to realize they were waiting for some sort of explanation. She took a deep breath.
“You all know by now what happened,” she said. “Someone stole our fuel, and the train is powerless.”
“Burk you mean,” said Vann. “It’s him and Kale that are missing and we all know what happened to Kale.”
“You may be right. The fact is, we don’t know for certain who did it, or why, and we can’t prove anything until we get out of this mess.”
“When will that be?”
River bit her lip. “I can’t say. Look, I know that you all want me to tell you everything is going to be okay, but I won’t lie to you. Our situation is dire. Socrates is still in the locomotive, but I haven’t been able to establish contact with him. Once I figure out how, I’ll know what options we have.”
Thane cleared his throat. The bard was standing in the corner, near the window. River glanced at him, and he gestured for her to come over.
“What’s going on?” River said. “Is something wrong?”
“See for yourself,” Thane said. He squeezed aside to make room for River to take a look. In the gloomy darkness outside the windows, she could barely make out the slope of the ground rolling ever downward, pulling the train deeper into the murky depths. She noted an unusual shape up ahead, and focused in on it.
“What is that?” she said. “It’s like a straight line.”
“Look closer,” Thane said.
His warm breath on the back of her neck sent a chill crawling down her spine. River bit her lip, trying to maintain her composure. The shape seemed to stretch along the floor of the sea, perfectly horizontal, like a spear driving into the darkness ahead.
“It’s a bridge,” she said at last, narrowing her eyebrows. “An underwater bridge…”
“Over a chasm,” Thane added. “No telling how deep it goes, but it must have been too deep to lay tracks. The builders obviously thought so.”
The others crowded around, fighting for a look. The next few minutes passed in complete silence, the entire crew watching nervously as the train rolled away from the sea floor and onto the bridge. A vast expanse of darkness swallowed them up, and the gloom outside the train’s windows turned pitch black. The chassis creaked and groaned, the sound stifled by the pressure of the water outside.
Vann lit two lanterns, and hung one at each end of the bar. The dining car was one of the few cars equipped with crude electric lamps, but Socrates had warned the
crew not to use electricity while submersed. River doubted the lights would have worked anyway, with the steam engine loping as it was. The scent of burning kerosene filled the room.
By this time, a few crewmembers had begun to panic. Shayla, the beautiful woman who had joined the crew at the same time as Thane, was among them. River couldn’t help feeling a twinge of satisfaction, seeing the raven-haired woman hyperventilating and fanning herself nervously. It wasn’t that she necessarily hated Shayla; River just didn’t care for prostitutes.
River wasn’t absolutely certain on that point, but it was an obvious conclusion based on the way Shayla behaved with the crew, especially with Kale. It seemed Shayla couldn’t keep her hands off the brawny warrior, which River found absolutely disgusting… almost as disgusting as Shayla’s hypnotic hazel eyes and sweeping locks that always looked absolutely perfect, no matter what time of day or night she was about.
Until this moment, it had seemed to River that Shayla really had no flaws. The woman was smart, beautiful, and charismatic enough that everyone seemed to have fallen in love with her at first sight. Now, watching the woman sweat, River almost found the sight amusing. It would have been more so if not for the twinge of guilt that followed. Shayla’s fear was not irrational. The entire crew was in a desperate situation, and River knew from her talks with Socrates that the resulting disaster would not be pleasant.
Some crewmembers would simply fall asleep from oxygen deprivation, but many would struggle. They would likely have panic attacks and hallucinations. They might even try to escape the train, which of course, River could not allow. If the seal was breached, the water would come pouring in and drown everyone. River could not let that happen, even if it meant she had to kill one of her companions.
Micah let out a squeal, and everyone jumped nervously. River rushed to his side.
Killing the Machine (Aboard the Great Iron Horse Book 2) Page 3