Steamborn (3 page)

“Not all Walkers are friendly,” Jacob said, remembering a driver who got a nasty bite from the two-foot scythe-like mandibles of a Walker. He looked up at the broken-down wall as they neared it.

“It’s gone,” Alice said. “I guess they finished cleaning it up.”

“Jacob, Alice.” Jacob jumped in surprise and Alice gasped when a slightly deep voice called their names from above.

A Spider Knight was perched on one of the stone roofs. The streetlights glinted on the obsidian black eyes of the spider and the gleaming, coppery armor of the man riding it.

“Samuel?” Jacob asked.

The knight nodded, his armor squeaking briefly with the movement. The knights who patrolled the city wore flawless golden armor that never made a sound, nothing like Samuel’s. Samuel told Jacob the golden armor wouldn’t stop a sword, or even most bugs, so he didn’t have a use for it. His mount was one of the rare giant Jumpers. Most Spider Knights rode on beasts that preferred to stay on the ground. Jumpers were fast, but incredibly dangerous to ride.

“What are you two doing here?” Samuel asked. He tapped his foot near one of the spider’s legs, and the beast hopped down from the roof, barely making a sound when it landed in front of Alice.

“He’s walking me home,” Alice said as she reached out and touched the furry bristles of the spider.

“Careful now,” Samuel said. “Old Bessie’s been a bit grumpy.”

Alice smiled and fumbled her satchel open. She pulled out a fairly large, and very dead, fly. The spider began to pump its legs up and down as it stared at the treat.

“Alice,” Samuel said, putting a bit more strength behind his words. “I wouldn’t—”

The spider lunged forward and snapped the fly out of Alice’s outstretched hands. Jacob frowned and scrunched his face up as the spider’s jaws began moving side to side, grinding up its unexpected treat, while its smaller limbs—what did the old man call them, pedipalps?—kept the fly in chewing distance.

“That could have been your hand,” Samuel said.

Alice laughed and patted the beast between its two largest eyes. “No way, Bessie knows who gets her the best Sweet-Flies.”

Samuel looked as though he was about to offer an argument and then thought better of it. “Okay, get moving you two. There are more of us watching the wall tonight than usual, but those boards won’t be able to keep anything large out.” He nodded at the makeshift structure blocking the hole. The rest of the wall had long, narrow-angled spikes that most invaders couldn’t grasp. Sometimes the bugs would get smart though, or lucky, and that’s when people got hurt.

Jacob nodded as his gaze moved back to Samuel.

Samuel unlatched a leather pocket on the front edge of Bessie’s saddle. He pulled something out that glistened in the dim light and tossed it to Jacob. “There’s a lot of activity on the mountainside. You two hear anything inside the wall, blow on that.”

Jacob looked down at the shining silver whistle and could barely contain his excitement. It was a wall whistle—one of the Spider Knights’ whistles! It was big, a bit oval-like, with twelve holes and covered in rich etchings, a Widow Maker carved into the center. They were terrifying creatures, Jacob knew, but they were also the emblem of the Spider Knights.

“You know the song already, yes?” Samuel asked.

Jacob nodded.

“And if he forgets,” Alice said, “I know it too.”

Samuel nodded at Alice. “Keep him out of trouble, will you?” He tapped one of the spider’s rear legs, and Bessie spun around before leaping back to the rooftops.

“Let’s get home,” Alice said.

Jacob looked up from the whistle and grinned.

“Yes,” Alice said. “It’s cool. Now let’s go home.”

Jacob undid the buckle on the leather pouch at his side and carefully slid the metal whistle in. He had a couple of Charles’s Bangers left over from the last time the old man had let him have some fun, and he didn’t want to set them off accidentally. They were small, but Jacob did
not
want a Banger blowing a hole in his clothes. He shuddered at the thought of his mom’s face the last time that had happened.

“Okay,” Jacob said, “let’s go.”

They’d barely walked past Piers Place, one of the nicer streets in the Lowlands, when Alice reached out and put her hand on Jacob’s arm.

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Jacob asked, but then he heard it for himself. He moved his head to pinpoint the faint sound of someone crying and the vicious laughter of another.

Alice took off at a run, and Jacob struggled to keep up. She’d always been fast, but lately she seemed even more so. She pulled up short in an alley. Jacob walked up behind her and anger stirred inside him.

“It’s mine now,” a skinny black-haired boy said as he held up a small stuffed Pill-Bug.

The boy on the ground wiped his eyes and stared up at his attacker. “It’s my sister’s. Please, she’s sick.”

The taller boy gave him a swift kick in the ribs and started laughing again. Alice ran at the black-haired boy.

“You leave them alone!” In one quick motion, she placed her foot behind the taller boy’s ankle and shoved with all her weight.

He looked surprised as he started falling, and the crack of his shoulder on the cobblestones was nothing less than he deserved. Jacob ran up beside Alice and grabbed the stuffed toy.

“Bradley,” Jacob said with disgust. “Always picking on people.” Jacob pulled his arm back, intent on punching Bradley as hard as he could, before Alice grabbed his arm.

“No, you don’t want his family coming after yours. They’ll use their influence to make things even worse for your dad.”

Jacob glanced at her. Alice’s lips were pulled into a tight frown. She didn’t approve of Bradley or his family, and on some level he knew she was right for stopping him. He jerked his arm away from her and turned his attention to the other boy on the ground.

“You leave now, Bradley Piers,” Alice said. “I don’t care if this street
is
named after your family, Miss Penny will still give you a lashing for it.”

Jacob heard Bradley grumble a curse before the boy stood up and ran. Jacob watched him go before holding his hand out to the boy on the ground and helping pull him to his feet.

“Thank you,” the boy said, but something didn’t sound right in his voice.

Jacob jerked in surprise as the realization hit him. “You’re a girl!”

“Of course she is,” Alice said as she leaned closer to the girl. “You’ll have to forgive him, Betty. He can be kind of dense.”

Jacob didn’t feel like he was being dense; he felt like someone had lit a fire in his chest. That kid deserved to have his face cracked against the cobblestones. Jacob wanted to hurt Bradley Piers, and he wanted to hurt him badly.

They arrived at Alice’s house first, and Jacob undid the latch on the little fence. A small cluster of miniature Pill-Bugs were milling around the yard. They’d become popular pets over the last two years in the city. Whenever they grew too big, they were usually sent off to live in the Lowlands or down the mountain to live on the plains of the Deadlands, especially when the food stores were abundant. Jacob figured the plains were a death sentence anyway. He reached over the fence and let one of the more curious bugs check him with its antennae. It rolled up into a ball a moment later.

Alice laughed and rolled the bug out of the way. In a ball, it was up to her knee. The front door of the two-story home cracked open. A plump woman was only a silhouette in the evening light, the lanterns behind her leaving the rest of her body in shadow.

“Hi, Mom,” Alice said.

“Come in, Alice,” her mom said. “I was getting worried.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” Jacob said. “We had a little trouble and had to take Betty home first.”

“Was it that Bradley boy again?” Alice’s mom asked.

“Yes,” Alice said as she rolled another Pill-Bug away from the stairs.

“Someone needs to teach that boy a lesson.”

Jacob planned to do just that the next time he saw Bradley.

“Get yourself home safely, Jacob.”

“Goodnight,” Alice said.

“Night,” Jacob said. He waved goodbye.

His own home wasn’t far from Alice’s at all. He cut through an alley and made his way down the cobblestones to Dragon’s Ridge. He was quite sure his street had the best name in the Lowlands.

The homes here were all two stories, built from old gray mason stones. Most of the bricks were leftovers from the construction of the massive city wall. Jacob’s grandfather had always told him it was the most generous gift he’d ever seen from the government. That was well before Jacob had been born. Jacob was pretty sure it was even before his dad had been born.

He watched a large owl perched on top of his neighbor’s green tile roof. Most of Dragon’s Ridge had the same tile, and Jacob’s home was no different. He liked to see the owls around. They tended to eat some of the more irritating bugs. The tiles beneath the owl’s claws were roughly shaped like scales, and Jacob figured that’s how the street had gotten its name in the first place.

Orange light and shadows flickered in the front windows. Smoke rose from the old stone chimney, and Jacob took both as a sign his parents had guests. He reached the edge of the walkway that led to the front door, and stopped.

Jacob could hear the coughing from the street. His heart sank a little as he made his way up the short, winding stone path that led to the porch. Another series of tight, coarse coughs echoed from behind the door. He took a deep breath and walked into his home.

“Hi, Dad!” he said. He always tried to stay upbeat around his father.

“Jacob,” his dad said as a smile raised his pale lips. He started to struggle up off his rocking chair, but Jacob held out his hand to stop him.

“You don’t have to get up. I’m just going to bed anyway.”

“How was Cotillion?” his dad asked as he adjusted the brightly colored afghan around his shoulders. “Miss Penny give you much trouble about Festival?”

Jacob shook his head. “No, not at all. She thinks we’re ready, Alice and me. Oh, and you know what else? She had actual musicians at the Hall tonight. Have you ever heard a cello played? I love how it sounds.”

Jacob’s dad sank back into the rocking chair and smiled. Jacob didn’t know why his dad was always so interested in everything he did, but he had fun telling him about his day almost every evening.

His dad silenced another coughing fit before taking a drink out of a small amber bottle of medicine on the little end table. There was a small black bag beside the hearth.

“Is the doctor here?” Jacob asked.

His dad nodded. “He’s in with your mother, in the kitchen.”

Jacob started to go, and then hesitated.

“Go on, go on.”

Jacob took a couple steps and gave his dad a hug. He cringed as the mass of whiskers scratched at his face before he started to disentangle himself. His dad’s beard was the same salt-and-pepper color as his hair. Jacob almost ran into the kitchen.

“—so you see, it’s not nearly as bad as we feared.” The man speaking was short and looked through half-moon spectacles as he adjusted his shirt.

“Jacob,” his mom said, gesturing for him to come closer. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders, and he had to fight off the mass of curly hair that caught him in the face. He’d never admit it, but it was always nice to come home to his mother. “Dr. Edwards has good news.”

The doctor nodded. “It
is
pneumonia, son, but so long as he keeps up his medicine, I think he’ll pull through.”

Jacob felt his mom tense up at the mention of medicine. He knew why. They weren’t as poor as some of the other Lowland families, really, but medicine was terribly expensive.

“That bottle should last a week or more,” the doctor said. “I’ll have the apothecary bring more by afterwards.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Jacob’s mom said.

The doctor shook both their hands before taking his leave. Jacob heard him say something to his father before the front door closed and the house was left in silence once more.

“It’s not the black lung.” Jacob’s mom teared up as she hugged him closer. She released him and ushered him away. “Get some rest. Your big show is tomorrow. We want you to be ready for it.”

Jacob knew she was getting him out of the room to talk to his dad about money. His mom thought Jacob’s thievery got worse the more he knew about the struggle to pay for his dad’s medicine. She was right. He wanted to help. Jacob blew the candle out when he got to his room before sliding a blanket up against the bottom of the door. Jacob didn’t want to waste the candles or the lanterns—not when he had perfectly good glowworms.

He slid a jar out from under his bed. A dim greenish-yellow glow rose up from the two fat white worms inside. They still had plenty of leaves to eat, so Jacob just gave the jar a little shake. The dim glow turned into a bright light to rival the lanterns.

The new book from Charles was small. Jacob liked reading small books. He could get through them fairly quickly, and that felt like he’d accomplished something. He knew adults who didn’t even read a book in a month. Jacob tried to read one every week.

This one was about the war.
The
war, Jacob thought as he picked up where he’d left off. There were amazing stories there, about giant mechanical suits that fought in the Deadlands, to a time when people didn’t have to live in the mountains.

Eventually his mind drifted back to his parents as the glowworms dimmed in their jar.

Jacob’s parents may not have approved of his pickpocketing, but there were three things he knew for fact: His dad needed medicine. Medicine cost money. He knew how to get money.

The next morning saw Jacob off with a stomach full of flatcakes, and he cherished every bite. He kept an eye on his dad throughout breakfast. Jacob’s dad didn’t seem to be getting any worse, but he didn’t seem much better, either.

After breakfast, Jacob left, heading toward the observatory. He wanted to see Charles before Festival started, and he figured he had plenty of time to do just that. It was a beautiful day for Festival. The mountain winds were mild, helping to keep the Lowlands at a wonderful, cool temperature. Jacob enjoyed the breeze as he walked up the street to the observatory, smiling as it tousled his hair. In the distance he could hear the winds howling through the mountain passes, but here the wind didn't have the strength to make him stumble.