Steamborn (20 page)

Samuel sighed and his gaze traveled up the mountain of dead bugs. “It’s not the money, Jacob. I don’t want to see either one of you get hurt just to go pick up some junk from the observatory.”

“It’s the only way,” Charles said. “I have all the springs I need back in my old lab, and enough fittings carved out to make a dozen gloves. It would cost me fifty gold to get those parts from the city smith. Bat wasn’t exaggerating.”

Samuel cursed and stared at Charles. “Fine. Fine! I’m coming with you. If you get any of us killed, I’m going to haunt you for the rest of your life.”

Charles grinned through his beard. “Well, that won’t much matter if we’re all dead.”

The captain hadn’t been happy when Samuel relayed their intent to move forward with the plan, regardless of the Widow Makers and Carrion Worms. He didn't want any of them to go, but he hadn’t tried to stop them either. He’d wished them luck.

“Why didn’t he try to stop us?” Jacob asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

“He needs the reconnaissance,” Samuel said. He bounced slightly in Bessie’s saddle. The spider was taking her time, staying close to the steambike’s warmth, while Charles bobbed and weaved between fallen buildings and shattered carriages.

Jacob squeezed his arms around Charles when the steambike swerved around a dead beetle. It was one of the huge horned beasts he’d seen in the courtyard around the Hall. He couldn’t tell if it was the same one, but it was dead nonetheless. Not far past it was a white carriage, broken into a dozen sections.

“Oh no.” Jacob squeezed his eyes closed and looked away, but he could still see the skeleton in the brilliant, shredded white dress. The lady who had gifted him the money to play Cork, he was sure of it.

“What is it?” Charles shouted. He slid the throttle to the side and accelerated through the courtyard.

“I just … I think I knew her.”

Charles nodded, but he didn’t say another word. The steambike slowed slightly as they came to the other side of the Hall.

“Don’t stop,” Samuel said from his perch on Bessie’s back. The Spider Knight was off to their left, scampering over a random pile of bricks. Bessie adjusted her weight the instant the rubble shifted, never losing a step or tossing her rider.

Jacob stared past Samuel and Bessie, his eyes following the trail of limbs and carcasses that led up to the front door of the Hall. The mountain of carnage almost reached the peak of the entryway.

“Gonna be a hell of a cleanup,” Charles said as he glanced at the dead bugs before turning his attention back to the road. “I was thinking about checking the lift, but now I’m thinking we should get to the lab and get out.”

“As fast as possible,” Samuel said. “I’m going topside to make sure there isn’t anything waiting between here and there.”

Charles nodded.

Samuel tapped a simple pattern across Bessie’s legs, and the spider leapt to the side of a building. Samuel leaned forward to keep his balance as Bessie scaled the wall and disappeared over the peak of the roof.

The cobblestones grew rougher the farther they travelled into the Lowlands. Neither of the steambike’s riders tried to speak as the tires bounced and dipped over the street. Charles slowed and turned down two alleys. Jacob and Charles didn’t see any more of the dead mountains as they flew down the hill and started up the incline that would take them to the observatory.

Bessie danced along the rooftops, Samuel’s armor gleaming in the sunlight where it wasn’t caked in gore. He pointed to the opposite side of the homes and drew his hand across his throat.

Charles cursed. “Means we’ve got company.” He opened the throttle and didn’t speak again.

The steambike felt like it was trying to rattle the teeth right out of Jacob’s head. “Thank the gods,” Jacob said under his breath when the dome of the observatory grew larger in front of them, and the bike coasted to the door.

Samuel followed up right behind them and slid off Bessie’s saddle. He patted her head and tapped her front leg twice.

Jacob knew it was the command to have her stay put. Samuel didn’t normally give her any commands. She just stayed close by. The fact that Samuel had given her one now unnerved him.

“What’s over there?” Charles asked. He worked at the lock on the front door. The mechanism began moving and sliding, retracting the bolts all around the door while Samuel spoke.

“Red Death, and lots of them. I don’t think they’re dead at all. It doesn’t look like the wall is down completely, which is a pleasant surprise.”

“May have come up through the underground,” Charles said. “Some of the old tunnels are still accessible.”

“Under the second level?” Jacob asked, his voice rising in pitch.

Samuel watched the road behind them, but he spared Jacob a glance and a nod. “That’s why I told you to stay out of there, kid. The tunnels run from the observatory all the way up to the castle.”

Jacob looked back toward the city wall. The castle—what the Lowlanders liked to call Parliament—was obscured by fog and distance. He hadn’t forgotten the sounds he’d heard with Alice in the catacombs. Something had been down there with them, and chances were good it had been some of these bugs.

The final bolt snapped open and Charles swung the heavy door inward. It was dark inside the observatory, the sunlight only reaching a short way past the door. Jacob shivered as he stepped inside.

“Let me get a lantern,” Charles said. He moved quickly through the darkness. Jacob could just make out his shadow at the workbench before the lantern light sent a pair of Jumpers scurrying up the scaffolding. “Samuel, watch the door. We don’t need any surprises, invaders or otherwise. Jacob, you know what we need. Let’s start filling up the saddlebags.”

Jacob scrambled up a ladder fashioned from wood and rope until he was on the third level of scaffolding. “How many heavy springs?” he yelled down at Charles.

“I can hear you just fine, boy. No need to shout.” Charles sorted through drawer after drawer in the workbench, pocketing various tools and placing others in a leather sack at his side. “Grab two bricks.”

Jacob pulled the tightly wound bricks of springs out and dropped them onto the pile of mesh at the base of the scaffolding. Each brick held one hundred heavy springs. Jacob hesitated, and then threw a couple more bricks down just to be safe.

“Why do you even ask?” Charles said. He moved on to a barrelful of braces and brackets. The metal squeaked and sang as he sorted through it.

Jacob knew they needed more of the small brass brackets to make the hands. They were on the fourth shelf.

He put one foot up on the rope tied around a crossbeam and pushed himself up to the edge by an old, somewhat rotted crate. Jacob cursed, his feet dangling precariously off into the air before he finally rolled onto the shelf.

Charles looked at Jacob over the rim of his glasses. “That’s what the ladder’s for. Your mother won’t appreciate me bringing you back in pieces.”

“I’ve done that a million times,” Jacob said. He pried open one of the larger crates. There were only two nails holding the lid down, so it didn’t take much effort. The brackets clinked together in the old potato sacks. He threw two sacks to the floor and then a third for good measure.

“I’m grabbing ten bricks of the light springs,” Jacob said, moving around to the next crate. The shelves here were uneven, and weren’t tall enough to stand on, so Jacob had to slide through a narrow gap in the scaffolding in order to crawl onto the shelf with the springs. Something landed on his arm, and he jerked to the side, banging his elbow on a small wooden box and sending it off to shatter on the stone floor.

Metal and bearings bounced across the floor in a thunderous chorus.

“You okay?” Charles asked, squinting up at the shadowed shelf on which Jacob was perched.

“Yeah, a Jumper got the drop on me.” Jacob held his hand out and the spider hopped off his arm, onto his palm. He let the spider jump up to another crate and vanish into the darkness behind it.

Jacob made quick work of the light springs, emptying all but two of the tightly wound bricks onto the mesh below. He made his way to the other end of the shelves and slid down the ladder. Something caught his eye on the wooden box he’d broken—an old emblem. Jacob bent down to wipe the dust off. A skull, like the one mounted on
The Dead Scourge,
peered back at him from a patch nailed to the wood.

“Charles?” Jacob said as he picked up the lid to the box.

“Come on now, Jacob. We’re almost done packing. What is it?”

“It’s a skull patch.”

Charles cursed. “Did it break? What was inside the box, I mean. Did it break?”

Jacob lifted the rest of the box and stared. Hidden in the destruction was a ring of brass. Jacob picked it up, only to be surprised at its heft. He turned it over in his hand. Two brass bands sandwiched a glass circle and what looked to be spirals of copper. Some kind of light swept around the inside, and it almost looked like a miniature lightning strike.

“What is it?”

“Deadlands technology,” Charles said. He lifted the device out of Jacob’s hands. “It’s something like the turbines that keep the city lights running at night, but on a much smaller scale. We shouldn’t leave this here.”

Charles walked back to the bench and wrapped the mechanism in mesh and a rough cloth before placing it in one of the saddlebags. Jacob loaded the springs and brackets and braces into the saddlebags until they wouldn’t hold anything else.

“Fill your backpack with as much as you can,” Charles said. “We’ll have to make do with what we have.”

The heavy steel door slammed against the wall and Samuel stood like a shadow, lit by the sunlight behind him. “We need to go
now!”

“What is it?” Charles asked. He cinched the saddlebags closed and threw Samuel the last two bricks of springs.

“Death is on the move.”

Samuel jammed the springs into the large pockets on Bessie’s saddle. He flipped open a smaller pouch up near the back of her head as he settled onto her back. Jacob watched the Spider Knight raise the whistle to his mouth. He sounded a run of five high notes in a quick staccato. He waited a beat and then repeated it in a lower octave.

Jacob knew enough to know what it was, and as soon as Charles finished tying the saddlebags down and stashing the steambike’s stand, he threw his arms around the old man’s waist. He briefly released his grip on Charles with his left hand so he could lower his goggles.

Samuel had sounded a warning, only it was a warning that there were too many enemies to fight, and everyone else should retreat.

“Hold on tight,” Charles said. “This is going to get bumpy.”

Samuel swore and pointed toward a shadow that pulsed and swelled and seemed to be oozing toward them from the poorest part of the Lowlands. “I’ll try to draw them off, but Bessie can’t outrun them for long.”

Charles pulled a black leather satchel off the steambike and tossed it to Samuel. It hit the knight’s hand with a smack. “There are only three in there. You hit that igniter, drop it, and get that spider running like Hell’s at her heels.”

Samuel nodded and slung the leather satchel over his shoulder. A cloud of steam rose from the brass exhaust when Charles adjusted the throttle. He slid a wide pair of goggles over his glasses and looked at the Spider Knight.

“See you in Hell, kid.” Charles released the brake, and the steambike rocketed down the hill.

Jacob’s teeth rattled, even though he didn’t think he could clench his jaw any tighter. The metal in the saddlebags made a tremendous racket, and he knew it would draw in the Red Deaths. It wasn’t long before his mind registered the awful, screeching whine of the beetles over the calamity in the saddlebags. Samuel and Bessie leapt and bounded across the nearby rooftops.

The sea of red skulls and black bodies came into terrible focus when they reached the bottom of the hill. Jacob looked to the left, down the street where he’d seen that dead Walker not so long ago, and the Red Deaths poured up the hill in a never-ending, churning wave of darkness. One of the creatures was no match for a squad of Spider Knights, but hundreds of them? They were virtually unstoppable.

Charles pitched the bike to the right. The tires squealed on the stones, protesting the sudden change in direction. Jacob wondered why until he saw the tip of another horde scrambling over the homes and falling into the street, littering the path in front of them.

“East road,” Samuel screamed as Bessie turned and ran across the roofs. He turned his gaze to the north, and his head snapped back toward Jacob and Charles. “Fast as you can!”

Jacob had his head against Charles’s back with his eyes watching Samuel, so he knew what was coming when the Spider Knight pulled the first metal orb out of the black satchel around his neck. He knew what the igniter felt like when it clicked into place, even though he couldn’t see it move at that distance.

Samuel dropped the bomb before he leaned forward, and Bessie shot ahead of the beetles, scarcely touching the rooftops as she bounced along.

The earth shook as the bomb sent up a fireball twice the width of the street, filled with legs and heads and obsidian chitin. The roar of the explosion drowned out every other sound, and at once the world became nothing but noise—and in that noise, an unnerving silence.

Jacob did his best not to scream as a house behind them collapsed in the shockwave of the explosion. Charles took the curving east road at speeds only a madman would attempt. There was a time when Jacob would have found the wind tearing through his hair exhilarating, but now it only added to the terror.

The steambike swerved to the right and the Hall came into view. That mountain of bugs still sat on its doorstep, but it wasn’t so silent now. It heaved and shifted, and the maggoty flesh of the Carrion Worms pulsed at its surface.

A glance to the southwest showed him that sea of darkness, stained with red skulls. As many as Samuel had killed, there were four times that number pouring into the courtyard. Charles took a sharp turn, the steambike’s tires squealing and bouncing and protesting across the cobblestones before he slammed the throttle open.