After taking a moment to reflect on what he heard, the mayor, hands ruffling his pockets, said, “Well, it seems some of those crazy rumors conspiracists like to spread are true.” Regaining his confidence, he strode up to me. His eyes, which reached my nose, looked up to study my face. “So your skin is always this ashen? I suppose you can be singled out pretty quickly out in public. Yes, you will need to get to the wilderness.”
“Do you know how much contact Matias has with turncoats?” asked Eric.
“Talking about turncoats is not necessarily a topic known to facilitate gratifying conversations. Can’t even say whether Matias is one to support the turncoats’ presence in the Ruts or denounce it.”
“We’d like to meet with him and find out.”
“As would I. Hmph… I doubt Matias will like it if I let you barge into his current residence. Tell you what, I’ll send Ivan to bring him over here, or at least get his response, but I figure he’ll be riveted enough to come get a look at you himself. Any arguments to that?”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Good. Come, Ivan. You can use my udu. Raymond, give our guests some tea or something. I’m gonna go dress a little more properly.”
Ivan and his mayor went toward the back of the home. Raymond ushered my group into the adjoining one, where a large table and shelves filled with plates and cutlery waited. The bodyguards kept their senses on us from the other side of the entrance.
When Raymond stepped out to speak with a servant in another adjacent room, Bergman asked in a whisper, “How long are we going to keep up this farce?”
“That should be obvious,” answered Eric. “As long as we need to. I think it’s a believable enough farce for now.”
“It hinges too much on the ghoul.”
“Just the way I like it,” I said.
Bergman’s response was interrupted by Raymond coming back in and inquiring whether we wanted slices of butter cake. We accepted the offer.
The tea and cakes came out on their little porcelain plates a couple of minutes later. Both the crumbling food and hot drink tasted too sour for my liking, but I consumed them readily anyway. So far, nearly everything I ate and drank included this novel, tongue-curling bitterness to them. In the middle of the light meal, the mayor returned donning a dark red vest over a thick white shirt. He partook of a cigarette and offered us one from a flimsy little box. The soldiers took one, but since I had no idea what its effects would be, I declined.
Through Eric, the mayor heard a few false details about where we had been and how we got here. In the interest of remaining anonymous, Eric and Bregman gave themselves fake names, which the mayor was made aware of. Given that I did not need to worry about anyone tracing my identity, I freely told him the name everyone not related to me knew me by.
Not too long after a clock chimed in the sitting room, a door squeaking and throats speaking at the back of the home informed us of new people entering the residence. The mayor excused himself with exaggerated flair to meet with these people first. Next thing I knew, two big guys came into the dining room, rifles strapped to their backs. Right after them, a stocky, muscular man in a sleeveless brown coat entered with the mayor’s right arm draped on his shoulders. The man I presumed to be Matias sucked on a fat brown cigarette as his rosy cheeks and nose regained their naturally sandy brown color.
“Nothing like getting slapped by a witch’s tit to get you sober,” said Matias. Taking a glance at everyone, the outlaw contorted the upper half of his bushy brown beard into a half smile. Pointing at me, he asked, “That the ghoul?”
“Quite so,” replied Noxward’s leader. “Hard to unsee it once you’re made aware of it, though he hasn’t done anything savage at all. His brother is apparently the same way.”
“Right. He’s with the other mercenaries Ivan stupidly involved himself with, right?”
“They’re keeping an ear out not too far from here,” said Eric. “Precautions and all that.”
“Ah, of course. Same way I have more men waiting nearby. Neither of us can be too careful when ghouls and outsiders are involved.” He pulled out the brown and golden gun at his hip’s sheath. “Makes me wonder why you even bother helping these ghoul brothers.”
“My men are just as much targets as the ghouls are now. It’s my fault we stuck our noses too deep, and it’s my call that these ghouls can help us more than hurt us. As much as we don’t like it, turncoats are the only people we can trust not to turn us into the military or law. Can you connect us to some?”
“Calm down there. These things need a little time to be hashed out.” He grabbed his fat cigarette and waved it around. “I don’t share information or make deals without weighing the good and the bad. I consider myself a business man equally as much as I consider myself a robber, and it’s almost always bad business to help turncoats and ghouls.”
“But some of your business friends do so,” I said. “Or there wouldn’t be turncoats in the Ruts, right?”
Matias sucked on his smoking stick. “Yeah, there are turncoats up there,” he replied, smoke leaking out with his words. “Some are there because of blood ties. Some are there because they’re backed by some kind of money from somewhere. But before you learn my connections to them, I need to know why I should risk my standing at all. First things first, I hear you can conjure up a black flame.”
“Aye.”
He took a seat opposite my group. “Show me.”
With lit candles immediately available on the table, I used one of the wicks rather than a dragon stone to procure a flame. With my command over regular fire as reliable as a parent’s command over their adult children, I only added a little size and heat to it. Of course, adding my corruption naturally whipped both of those facets by several times. Since dragon flame could handle corruption much better, it required much of my concentration to not allow the diminutive warmth to be trounced by the erratic blackness.
“My, my,” said Matias. “I’d think it was a trick of the shadows if it weren’t for the hot comin’ out of it. Can your brother do this?”
“No. He’s yet to learn any elemental spell.” I moved the flame over the now unlit candle. Its wax rapidly melted and formed a puddle on the little tray it stood on. As the candle shrank to nothing, so did my flame. “Think the turncoats will be as amused?”
“Amused? They might take you as a sign that the end times they want to bring are here. Not something I’m keen to help them out with.”
“It’s not our goal either,” said Eric. “It’s simply the only option we have. We can’t stay in this town for long. Someone will eventually find our presence suspicious, so we either go to the Ruts with help or without it.”
“It’s not a good idea to pressure me into a decision.”
“I have no choice but to apply it. I don’t like that so much of what happens to my men is already left up to you and the mayor.”
“And yet it is. Tell me, what can you offer that will make protecting you a worthwhile exertion?”
“We stole a boat with a sizeable supply of ammo, weapons, and food. My men and I will also be indebted to you for as long as we stay in the Ruts. I’m sure you’ll find us better organized and trained than your average posse. It won’t be the first time a bunch of mercs became a bunch of outlaws.”
“No, which it’s why I know an invasion of mercs into my territory isn’t usually a profitable prospect.”
“It won’t have to feel like an invasion,” I said. “Most of the mercenaries can hide out in the boat for a while longer. In the meantime, you can take a few of us up to the Ruts to prove ourselves. Once you’re satisfied, you can call up the rest of us.”
“Err, yes,” said Eric. “I suppose we don’t all have to go up at once. As long as we secure passage for everyone quickly, I can get most of us to hang back for a couple of days.”
“Heh,” said Matias. “Don’t sound like you discussed that option beforehand.”
“No, but I can see it as a necessary com
promise. The fewer unfamiliar guns there are around you, the better you’ll feel, right? Simple math.”
“And my brother and I don’t know how to use guns,” I added. “So even if you allowed us to carry the weapons, we wouldn’t be too dangerous with them. Not dangerous on purpose, anyway.”
Matias leaned back in his chair. “What do you think about all this, Sal?”
The mayor sighed. “An annoying business, but a unique one. Since I don’t want a shootout in my home at the moment, I say we at least give them a chance to start proving themselves. They have guns and ammo on their boat, so let them bring those ashore.”
“Then what?” asked Eric. “I’m not giving up much of our means to resist until I see that the wheels are in motion.”
“Wheels, eh?” said Matias. “…All right, what about this? At nine thirty the train to Bornhagen departs. Bring as much gifts you can get to the station. My men and I will be waiting there. If there’s enough toys for my liking, then four of you bought yourselves tickets to Bornhagen. Ugh, didn’t want to lug my ass up to the Ruts just yet, but can’t let random mercs roam through my territory unsupervised.”
Eric put his elbows on the table and leaned his head on his clasped hands. After a moment contemplating, he said, “Five.”
“Excuse me?”
“Allow me to bring five of us in total. As the boy said, he and his brother won’t be carrying so much as a knife, so I’d like an extra gunslinger by my side.”
“Two ghouls are their own kind of weapons. Still, even if I let you bring all your people with you, I doubt you can come close to outnumbering mine. Fine, five is tolerable, but the only guns you can bring for protection are revolvers, got it?”
“That will be fair.”
“How many are in your group, anyhow?”
“More than fifteen, less than thirty. I’d rather keep the exact number a secret for now.”
Uncaringly waving his gun in front of himself, Matias said, “Sure, sure, keep the secret. That and the rest of it will come to light soon enough.” He stood up. “Should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. Just because you got an interesting freak show with you, it don’t mean I won’t cancel the show the second I got to spend a dime or a drop of blood. A little black fire and sane ghouls ain’t no reason to disrupt the good thing I got going here.”
“We’re aware of the thin ice we’re on, and we are grateful for the hospitality. I hope you’re not too hard on Ivan. Not many men would have acted any differently.”
“Maybe we’ll wait and see how this all turns out before we decide on the proper punishment.” As he moved out of the dining room, Matias continued with, “Sal, I guess I’ll be staying here for the rest of the night. No point going back out in the cold.”
To us, the mayor said, “If that’s all, I think you fine folks should find your accommodations elsewhere. I’d invite some of you to stay here, but I don’t think either of us would be quite comfortable with that. Noxward has two first-rate warming lodges you can use if your boat isn’t adequate. Raymond, please show our guests out.”
Stepping on to the porch put us in a cold that deadened the senses. I almost instinctively used my corruption to get some feeling back. A pair of armed men waited at the bottom of the stairs. With Raymond clearly visible at the top and no sign of violent action, they let us pass without trouble.
On getting some distance between us and the mayor’s house, Bregman asked his commander, “Are we really going to go as far as supplying an acknowledged outlaw with weapons and ammo?”
“We have to offer something to get on their good side.”
“Good side? They’re separating us and taking us away to a place no one will bother keeping order. We’re deliberately falling for their trap.”
“And by falling for their trap, they fall for our own,” I said. “Or did you forget I can summon a dragon?”
“Bullets fly faster than dragons, ghoul-boy. And I’m not certain this isn’t exactly the position you want to be in. The fewer of us there are around you, the easier it will be to make up your own story.”
“If we’re talking about positions, then let me remind you that it’s your superiors who suggested this mission, a mission that seems to be a fool’s errand to almost everyone else. I’m beginning to think I was sent here simply to give your leaders something to react to, no matter what happens to me or their own people.”
“True or not,” began the major, “I’m the one in charge here, and I don’t plan on putting us in too grave a position. As long as Mercer desires to live, we should retain the upper hand in any small engagement as long as his dragon shows up, and we’ll get the guns and ammo back a hundred times over if we can succeed in infiltrating and bringing down Berganza’s gang or a turncoat hideout. So unless guns are pointing at us, let’s endure on this path a while longer.”
Chapter Fifteen
On joining the rest of the groups, we headed back to the Orkan to collect the gifts we needed to buy our way to Bornhagen. In case a woman’s charm proved advantageous, the major chose Isabel to be our fifth member. In the foggy gray dawn, our squad of five worked with others to put several crates of guns and their explosively fast projectiles in a boat. In the event we needed a distraction, the major allowed me to place some surprises in the bottom of two gun crates.
When we reached the town’s shore, the containers were moved to a pair of wheeled platforms. The Vanguard got my brother and me to push and pull the crate carriers all the way into Noxward’s northeastern corner. Detached from the town proper by a hundred yards, a red and white brick building displayed a short clock tower on its roof. Half of it was a roofed platform open to the outside world. This edifice appeared to be our destination.
Of much greater interest to me than the building was the hulking length of black and cider metal five times as long as the structure it rested behind. Three rectangular segments on big metal wheels presented a row of glass windows connected to a smaller, squatter, squarish segment, which itself linked with the longest, tallest, blackest, and most swept-shaped part of the machine. Whitish smoke or steam emitted from numerous spouts alongside the foremost metallic mass.
Since there existed something in Orda to equate them to, my mind painlessly accepted the existence of metallic ships, boilers, and even guns to a certain extent, but I could not yet accept the fact that this ponderous conveyance me was supposed to be capable of rolling on land in earnest without the aid of animal or magic power. I even asked Isabel, “That cumbersome thing is the ‘train’ that moves people around?”
Looking back to watch me pulling the crate carrier forward, she smiled and answered, “Don’t believe it? That old thing isn’t even close to being our best or longest models. You should see the ones rich people go on. Like mobile mansions they are.”
“And they can go anywhere they want?”
“Err, no. See those metal strips on the ground? Those tracks are for trains to roll on. Still, most towns worth going to have them, so only super rural places are out of their reach.”
“And they almost never crash anymore,” said Bregman, his snide tone meaning to disquiet me.
Pulling on his crate carrier, Alex replied, “I guarantee a crash will bother you more than it does me or him.”
Cutting short any chance of escalation, the major simply said, “Let’s hope none of us find out how anyone handles a train crash on this ride.”
No doubt intrigued by the crates, two policemen exited the building when we got too close to ignore. Well, we thought they’d ask about the crates, but they evidently knew what filled them already, for one of them asked, “For Matias, right?”
“Right,” answered Eric. “Four are guns and two are cartridges from twelves to forties.”
“All right, bring them over here.”
The policeman escorted us on to the open-air section of the station. Four casually dressed men came out of the station when they were informed by one of the officers that their donations had arriv
ed. As the crates were being opened and inspected, Matias came out with another handful of men.
“How does it look?” Matias asked the people inspecting the goods.
“A fine haul,” responded one of those people. “Most of these are Queller Repeaters in good condition.”
To Eric, Matias said, “An uncommon rifle up here. I’ll be hard pressed to decide how many to sell and keep. What’s your rifle of choice?”
“I’m partial to a Banes.”
“Like a heavy hitter, eh? I prefer the firing speed of a Vindicator myself.” Noticing Isabel, he asked, “That the girl who fooled Ivan?”
Overhearing, Isabel answered, “Close. I’m her sister.”
“Ah, right. He mentioned twins.” He grinned, the kind of grin many women were used to getting from men without care of whether the recipient wanted his crude attention or not. “I can see why he blabbed. You will fit well with our own temptresses if it comes to that.”
“My dream job.”
“This enough for our tickets?” Eric asked the outlaw.
“It’s exactly enough. We’ll board the second car once we get the crates in.”
The crates were carried into the last segment of the train. Four men stayed in the rear compartment with the items. Next, my group was led into the second to last car by the outlaws, which became eight strong once Matias himself joined in moments later. The train’s tight interior did not evoke the awe of its exterior. Old wooden benches lined up against the wall to my right, which faced a row of front-facing, cloth-covered, frayed seats. A thin red carpet covered the floor. Brown planks that might have been wood attempted to conceal the metal frame, but rot and cracks bore out the truth.
After they patted us down, my group was compelled to sit on the left side. Each seat could only sit a pair, so I sat next to the major, who sat by the window. Taking another window in front of me was Isabel, who placed herself by Alex. Bregman had to sit alone behind me. Taking the more strategic positions, Matias’ people settled themselves on the benches, with Matias’ spot putting him right behind me. Any non-outlaws who wanted to take the train were told to sit in the leading passenger section.
The Dragon Knight and the Steam World Page 17