Killing the Machine (Aboard the Great Iron Horse Book 2)

by Jamie Sedgwick

  “This sea won’t be forgotten soon enough!” Vann shouted. The others cheered.

  “What then?” said Shayla. River glanced at her. The woman was a wreck. Makeup stained her face, forming dark circles under her eyes. Her dress was wrinkled and her hair was a mess. For someone who hadn’t even left the train, the adventure seemed to have taken an incredible toll on her.

  “Socrates ordered me to see the rest of you to New Boston,” River said. “You should all be safe there.”

  “What of our quest?” said Thane. “Do they have starfall in New Boston?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, they do not. It is however, a large and thriving city full of jobs and opportunity. When we reach our destination, I will disband the crew. I’m sure you will all do just fine.”

  “But Sanctuary will collapse,” said Vann. “Without starfall, the city will be buried in ice in just a few decades.”

  “There are other fuels,” River said.

  “Coal?” Loren said loudly, entering the argument with a fury. “Oil, perhaps? Sanctuary has none of those, and they certainly won’t find them digging in the ice.”

  “Then they will move,” said River. “They will leave the city, and find a new place.”

  “No!” one of the other Tal’mar shouted. “We already lost Silverspire. The onslaught of the Vangar hordes destroyed the homes of our ancestors. Now, our people have finally found a new home, a true home, and you want them to abandon it?”

  “I don’t know,” River said quietly. “I don’t have all the answers.”

  “What about you?” said Micah’s voice. Everyone turned to see him standing just inside the door. “Are you really going to abandon us River? Just like that?”

  The others exchanged glances. River took a deep, drawn out breath.

  “I’m not abandoning you,” she said. “Don’t you understand that? I promised Socrates to keep you all safe. It was an order. I must fulfill his last wish.”

  “An order that will be the end of Sanctuary,” said Loren. “That’s an order I won’t follow. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I will die before I give up this search. I’m not doing this for you, or for Socrates. I’m doing this for my family, my home!”

  The Tal’mar all shouted in agreement, and the rest of the crew joined in. River’s shoulders slumped. She gave them time to let it out. When they finally quieted, she began to speak:

  “What would you have me do? We can’t afford to fuel this train. The starfall we had may have lasted a few more weeks, but it’s gone now, and we can only guess where Burk may have taken it.”

  “Then we find him,” said Loren. “We’ll find Burk and gut him like a fish. Then we’ll take our starfall back, and you can get Socrates running again. It will be like nothing ever happened.”

  “NO!” River shouted. “Burk is gone. Don’t you understand that? He’s gone, and we will never find him. Our starfall is gone. Socrates is dead. You had better get used to that idea, because nothing we do is going to change it.”

  With that, she pushed through the crowd and went storming down the corridors towards her bunkhouse. The others began murmuring silently to themselves. No one paid much attention to Micah as he climbed onto a barstool, reached over the counter, and produced a nearly empty bottle of rum from behind the bar.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” said Vann, stepping behind the bar.

  Micah ignored the question.

  “You’re supposed to have permission, you know.”

  Micah remained silent. He raised the bottle, stood up on the bar, and threw it down as hard as he could. The crash of shattering glass brought the room to immediate silence, and all faces turned to stare at him.

  “Stop it!” Micah shouted at the top of his lungs. “Stop your fighting. I must tell you something important: There is a traitor among us!”

  “What are you talking about?” Vann said. “Are you drunk, little man?”

  “I’m talking about him,” Micah said, pointing at Thane. The bard’s eyebrows went up as the crowd’s focus moved to him. He exchanged a glance with Shayla.

  “He was working with Burk,” Micah said. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Thane said dismissively. “What possible reason could I have?”

  “So you could keep our starfall!” Micah said. “Or perhaps to sell it? Why don’t you tell us the reason, bard?”

  Thane turned to leave, but the others closed in around him. Vann reached over the bar and caught him by the arm. “Hang on a second,” the cook said. “I want to hear what this is all about.” He glanced back at Micah. “Well, go on.”

  “I saw him behind the train before we left this morning,” Micah said. “He had a small box thing. He was talking to someone.”

  “Talking to someone in a box?” Shayla said, feigning laughter. “You’re drunk, you ridiculous little fool.”

  “No I am not!” Micah shouted. He kicked a shot glass so hard it flew over their heads and smashed against the opposite wall. “I heard him talking to someone. He has a device, a machine of some sort. They were talking about attacking Port Haven, and Thane said they had no defenses. He said he would contact them in three days.”

  Vann turned back to Thane. “Three days? Why would you say that?”

  “Because he knew we’d all be dead in three days,” said Loren. “Then his friends would come rescue him, and they would keep our starfall to themselves.”

  “Ludicrous!” Thane spat. He tried to pull away, but Vann held him tight. The cook stepped out from behind the bar and pushed Thane back across the room, forcing him into a booth against the outer wall. Shayla appeared next to them, and Vann suddenly found a stiletto blade against his throat.

  “Let him go,” she said between clenched teeth.

  Vann released Thane. He took a step back. The instant he moved, Loren thrust a hand out and ripped the blade from her grip. Instantly, they all caught her up and forced Shayla into the bench across the table from Thane.

  “Now,” said Vann, glaring down at them. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this. Someone search Thane’s bunkhouse. See if you can find this device that Micah was talking about.”

  “Do you mean this?” said River’s voice. They turned to see her standing in the doorway. She held a box in her hands; the exact box that Micah had described. Pirate rested on her shoulder. He seemed somewhat displeased at having been abandoned in River’s bunk. The pillow feathers and torn curtains matted in his hair spoke volumes about how he had expressed this displeasure.

  “I heard shouting through the communication pipes,” she said. “Thane, I didn’t want to believe what they were saying, but I decided to check your bunk room…” The crowd parted as River walked slowly across the room. She placed the box on the table between the couple, and fixed Thane with an ice-cold glare. “Well?” she said. “Start talking.”

  Chapter 11

  Thane averted his gaze. He stared at the box with his lips drawn tight. Shayla wore a worried look, and refused to meet River’s eyes. Vann made a threatening fist in the bard’s face.

  “You better start talking,” he snarled, “or I’ll put you off this train myself. It’s a long way to the surface, blondie.”

  Thane remained silent.

  “That’s it,” Vann said, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him out of the booth.

  “Wait!” Shayla cried. “Thane, tell them! Please.”

  Thane looked at her and sighed deeply. “All right,” he said, pulling away from the cook. “Let me go. I will talk.”

  Vann shoved the bard roughly back into the booth. Everyone in the room leaned in a little closer.

  “That is a transmitter,” Thane said, nodding at the device on the table. “It’s a type of communication device that sends and receives invisible electrical signals. It allows me to talk to someone else with a similar device, across great distances.”

  “How great?” said River.

  “Hundreds of miles. M
ore, with some help.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It requires a transference device to carry the signal, like copper wire. Or in this case, steel tracks.”

  River’s eyebrows went up. “You’ve been using the Horse’s tracks to communicate? Who have you been talking to?”

  “My contact in Sanctuary. I’m not at liberty to say more than that.”

  River crossed her arms. “How long has this been going on?”

  “Since you found us at Blackstone Castle.”

  “Why? I don’t understand. What’s the point of it?”

  “I’m a spy,” Thane said. “And Shayla is my prisoner. For your own safety, I must be executed.”

  “Be happy to!” Vann said, grabbing Thane by the arm.

  “Hang on a second,” said River. “Something about this doesn’t make sense. Who are you spying for?”

  “I already told you, I can’t say.”

  “Then for what possible purpose? The Iron Horse doesn’t have anything of value. We don’t have any special information or cargo...” her eyes widened. “You’ve been waiting until we find starfall. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Thane fixed his gaze on the table. “I’m a spy. That’s all that matters. You won’t be safe until you kill me.”

  River glanced back and forth at the couple. “Lock them both up,” she said. “There’s a storage car with bars on the windows, just beyond Engineering.”

  “Wait!” Thane shouted. “That wasn’t the agreement!”

  “There was no agreement,” said River.

  “But Shayla is my captive. Why would you imprison her?”

  River slammed her fist down on the table. “Because I don’t trust either one of you as far as I can throw you. You’ve both been lying to us for weeks, and you’re lying to us right now.”

  Vann tugged on Thane, and the bard began to struggle. Shayla rose from the bench and placed a gentle gloved hand on Vann’s arm. “Stop, I beg you,” she said in a pleading voice. “Leave him be. I will tell you everything you want to know”

  “No,” said Thane. “Shayla, you can’t!”

  Shayla fixed him with a hard stare. “What did you say?”

  Thane averted his eyes.

  “That is what I thought,” she said. “Release him, and I will tell you the whole truth.”

  Vann snorted, but River motioned for him to release the bard. Shayla turned to face the crowd.

  “Most of you know me as Shayla, a companion who escaped Astatia during the Vangar years.”

  “You mean a whore,” River said. Shayla raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, that is what a companion does, but that is not who I am. It is a lie. Shayla is my nickname; my real name is Shayalan T’ear de Ryshan. I am the niece of King Ryshan, and I am the last living heir to the throne of Astatia.”

  River’s jaw dropped. The crowd around them grew noisy with whispering. Thane winced. River could see that this information had been a great burden to him.

  “There is no throne of Astatia,” said Vann. “In case you haven’t heard, the king was killed. The country became a republic.”

  “I know this, of course,” said Shayla. “When the Vangars attacked and decimated the capital, I was but a young child. General Harees sacrificed himself to secure my escape. All of my family died that night; not only the king but my mother and father, my brothers… everyone but me.

  “It was decided that the only way to insure my safety was to flee the kingdom. A small group of dedicated soldiers took me north, through the Blackrock Mountains.”

  “Unlikely,” said one of the humans, a man who had once lived in Astatia. “I know those mountains. The snow is deep and the weather is bitter cold.”

  “That is true, but this was summer, and we found -just as you did later- that because of warmer seasonal weather, the Wastelands had been retreating farther to the north. Much of the snow had melted, or we never would have survived that journey.

  “After crossing the mountains, we found a defensible position along a river. The soldiers built a fort to protect us from raiding trolls and wargs, to wait until we could safely return to our homeland. After we had settled, my protectors took turns returning to Astatia to spy on the Vangars. We always held hope that someday I could safely return, and restore the throne. During those years, other refugees from Astatia discovered us. Our fort grew into a small town, and it began to seem to me that I would never leave that place.

  “Then, suddenly, we received word that the people of Astatia had risen up against the Vangars. There was a civil war going on. My opportunity had finally arrived. We sent more spies south. By the time they returned, Sanctuary had already been discovered, and the Tal’mar had driven the Vangars out of Astatia. Everything happened so quickly… before my protectors could properly announce my lineage, the Tal’mar and the humans had formed an alliance. They declared our old kingdom a newborn republic. Naturally, that left me in a precarious situation.”

  “Why?” said River. “There was no threat to you anymore.”

  “We didn’t realize that at first,” said Shayla. “My protectors assumed that the founders of this new government would have me slain if I was discovered. Even so, I wanted to leave. I wished to see this bold new government and the marvels of Sanctuary with my own eyes, but they wouldn’t allow it. I had become a prisoner in my own fortress.

  “Of all the people around me, only Thane truly understood. He had grown up alongside me, and he longed for the same things I did. We didn’t care about the Kingdom of Astatia, or the old ways. We wanted adventure. We wanted to see the stuff we had heard about only in rumors and stories. Together, we escaped the fortress and began making our way west and north, towards Sanctuary.”

  “But you found Blackstone Castle instead,” Micah said with a wry grin. He was across the room, still sitting up on the bar where he could see over the heads of the others.

  “Exactly. We narrowly escaped the living dead creatures outside that town, only to find out that the townsfolk worshipped the so-called Ancients. Thane and I had broken the law by fighting those monsters. We were jailed, as you know. We were plotting our escape when the rest of you arrived, and rescued us.”

  “And in return, you lied to us,” said River.

  “Even before leaving Fort Ryshan, Thane and I had chosen assumed identities under which we could safely travel. Thane’s choice of a bard was obvious, as he is a natural musician and well studied in the art. I chose to play the role of a companion… a whore,” she said, glancing at River, “because that was the furthest thing I could think from a queen.”

  “What about the box?” said River. “The transmitter?”

  “It is what I said,” said Thane.

  “And where did you get it? This is a sophisticated technology. Certainly the soldiers at your fort didn’t build it?”

  “When Shayla and I came aboard the Iron Horse, we found one of our spies among you. He and a few others had discovered the transmitters among the treasures of Sanctuary. They had been using the devices to communicate back and forth in secret.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “Some still believe that the kingdom can be restored,” Shayla said. “They are waiting for the opportunity to foment a rebellion.”

  “That is absolute foolishness,” Micah said. “The days of that kingdom are gone forever. Astatia will never go back to the way it was.”

  “I know that,” Shayla said. “I think the others are beginning to understand it as well, but they have been living this dream for so long… it is hard for them to let go.”

  “It’s time,” said River. “What have you been telling them?”

  “Simple information. They asked us to report our discoveries, to help them map out the world and keep them apprised of our situation. Thane and I agreed, so long as they promised not to expose us. We have been doing so ever since. It was a tenuous alliance; one that we knew could not last, but we had little choice at the time.”

  “There is anoth
er spy on the train,” said River. “The one who gave you that device. Name him.”

  “He left the train with the refugees from Blackstone. It seems he too, had tired of the charade.”

  “When we get back to dry land, the three of us are going to turn on that radio and have a talk with your spies in Sanctuary. I have half a mind to report them to the council.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Shayla. “When they see that Thane and I have been discovered, and that we are no longer in any danger, they will abandon this foolishness.”

  “What if they don’t?” said Vann.

  “Then I will command it,” Shayla said. “If they still consider me their queen, they must obey my commands, must they not?”

  River took the transmitter and tucked it under her arm. “I’m keeping this,” she said. “Thane, you will show me how to use this, later.”

  “Then you won’t imprison us?” Thane said.

  “I don’t see what it would prove. Your deceit has gained you nothing.” She leaned forward, putting her face close to his. “On the other hand, it has lost you more than you know.”

  “I know that we have betrayed your trust,” said Shayla. “Expel us if you will, but at least know that I am truly sorry for what I have done. I only hope you can one day forgive me.”

  River pulled away. She looked Shayla up and down and glanced at Thane, a whirlwind of conflicting emotions raging inside of her. She felt betrayed. That was reasonable enough on the surface, but River knew it was more than just the fact that Thane and Shayla had been lying to her. Thane had expressed interest in River on numerous occasions; playful advances that River hadn’t taken seriously at the time, but she now realized had still had an effect on her. The man was attractive after all, and not only that: he was charming and clever and entertaining. He had a way of making her feel special. Wanted.

  Now, River realized that Thane’s charm might have simply been part of the act. Somehow, that seemed to her like an even greater betrayal than his spying. Logically, River knew this didn’t make sense, but it was the disappointment she felt in her gut that bothered her most.