Steamborn (30 page)

Jacob kept one eye on the river and one eye on the path. It seemed like he’d been walking for over an hour since he’d heard the splash. Anymore he just felt tired and cold. The water had been chilly, but now it felt like there was a breeze, and it was anything but warm. His teeth chattered, and the sound echoed through the cave.

He walked on for a dozen more steps before his frozen mind registered what he’d been feeling. “Wind. If there’s wind, there has to be an exit!” He’d only whispered the words, but they still bounced off the walls and whispered back.

Jacob forgot the cold in a burst of excitement, and a rush of adrenaline renewed his drive to escape the old tunnels.

He glanced backwards and realized the glowworms were sparse here. The change had been gradual, and he could still see fairly well, but only darkness waited ahead of him. He had the new jar of glowworms out of his backpack and in his hand a moment later. They cast enough light that he could see clearly a few feet around him.

Something floated by on the river, and Jacob slammed himself up against the wall. He watched, barely breathing, as the body of a Widow Maker drifted past. It was dead, and he knew it had to be so if it was in the water, but it still sent a surge of fear down his spine. The shiny black carapace disappeared as fast as it had come, traveling past the circle of light around Jacob.

“The wind, remember the wind. Almost out of here.” He turned a corner, following the path the dead Widow Maker had taken, and he almost shouted. It wasn’t much, but a tiny dim light shone in the farthest reaches of the tunnel.

Jacob picked up his pace until a poorly placed step rolled his foot and he stumbled up against the wall. He held the jar up and looked at the water. If he’d stumbled the other way, he would have been back in the river, possibly with another Widow Maker. He took three deep breaths and moved on, chasing the light.

It wasn’t long before he put the jar away. The river took a gentle curve to the right, and as he rounded the corner, Jacob could see a clear path to the mountains in the distance. He felt safe as the daylight grew bright enough to burn his eyes. Jacob welcomed the blinding sunlight with arms outstretched when he finally stepped out of the darkness. His boots crunched on a mixture of dirt and gravel near the exit. The roughly hewn walls took on a more refined texture, growing into a long trail of pictures and symbols carved into the stone.

Jacob ran his hand along the deep engravings. Knights and invaders and castles and steam formed scenes from a history of which he had no knowledge. It wasn’t until he stood only a few steps from the exit that he recognized the skull. It sat near the top of the frame, almost identical to the skull on
The Dead Scourge.
Beneath it stood a sea of soldiers, each meticulously carved into the stone. Some were dulled, likely worn away by the winds and elements of the last several decades.

He leaned into the wall and stared at the Mech. One soldier was carved into the left edge of the panel, facing the tunnel. He wore the emblem of
The Dead Scourge
on his chest, and his helmet looked like the same skull. Jacob couldn’t make out the style of armor, being carved in stone, but one of the soldier’s legs was covered in thin rods and what looked like a series of three gears. They looked more like a symbol than anything else, as nothing was connected to them.

A weapon as tall as the man himself was propped up in his right hand. Made for ranged combat, Jacob had no doubt, but for what? It looked unwieldy and unbalanced. Jacob ran his fingertips over the skull before he turned and continued out of the tunnel.

Jacob had already stepped outside of the cave—wondering why a Mech soldier from the Deadlands was pictured on the stone mural—before he noticed the footprints. Wet footprints led from the tunnel before they disappeared in the gravel of the mountainside path.

He heard a crack and felt a pain in the side of his head before his world went black.

“…the hell’s in that kid’s backpack?”

Jacob slowly came to, awoken by the sound of someone mumbling. Something scratched at his back, and a moment later he realized he was being dragged along the gravel path.

“Kid shouldn’t be so heavy. Could have just killed him out here, but no, it has to be a spectacle.”

Jacob’s first instinct was to kick out of the grip of the soldier who was dragging him by the ankle, but he held himself back. If he’d learned anything about combat from Samuel, it was to understand his situation before making a move.

Jacob turned his head to the side and stared. They were at another pool at the base of a waterfall. It was choked with the bodies of men and Widow Makers. The man dragging him was alone, talking to himself. Carrion Worms were already feasting on the nearby carnage, and it took everything he had not to vomit. Jacob squeezed his eyes shut and turned the other way before a horrific idea took hold.

He opened his eyes and turned back to the pool. At the edge, within arm’s reach, were upturned Widow Makers. He glanced up at the soldier and then back to the shiny black spiders. If he missed, and got so much as a pinprick from the fang, he’d die, but if he didn’t grab it, he might as well be dead anyway.

The knight grunted and jerked Jacob forward. He felt a sharp stone cut into his back, but he didn’t cry out. He focused on the fang, focused on what might be his only chance for escape. It was close now, and he reached out. His fingers touched the cold, dead chitin, and he wrapped his fist around it.

The Widow Maker’s fang snapped off easily as the knight dragged him past it. It was larger than Jacob realized, almost a foot in length. A gust of wind carried sand and dust up from the gravel path and set the reeds around the waterfall whipping against the bank. Jacob tried to lean forward, but the knight started moving faster again, cursing the mountain winds.

“Stop!” The authority in the voice behind them was absolute. Jacob rolled his eyes back and almost cried in relief when he saw Samuel with his sword held high, standing beside Charles and Alice. He tucked the fang up against his leg, where it would be harder for the soldier to see.

“Simmons?” Samuel asked when Jacob’s captor turned to face his friends. His sword fell a fraction of an inch.

“Stay out of this, you Lowland-sympathizing scum.” Simmons glanced down at Jacob. “Awake, are we?” He dropped Jacob’s foot and grabbed his forearm, wrenching Jacob up off the ground before wrapping his own armored forearm across Jacob’s throat.

“Let him go, Simmons.” Samuel’s voice was lower than Jacob had ever heard it, and the threat was deadly.

“He has to pay for what he’s done!” Simmons shook Jacob by the neck. “Parliament told us it’s the Lowlanders’ fault our trade routes have faltered.” His voice rose to a scream. “It’s
their
fault my little girl died without her damn medicine! And they’ll pay for it, Samuel! They’ll die for it!”

“Simmons,” Samuel said as he took a step forward. “That boy isn’t the cause of Ancora’s problems, or your daughter’s death.”

“Stay back! He’ll be off this cliff before you can even—”

Time slowed. Jacob felt Simmons start to push him toward the cliffside. He saw Charles pull the air cannon off his back. He saw Samuel start to run, and he heard Alice scream.

Jacob’s grip turned to stone around the Widow Maker’s fang, and he snarled as he turned on Simmons. The fang slid up, underneath the seam where the helmet covered the knight’s neck. There was a slight resistance before the fang pierced flesh and Simmons went still.

Jacob screamed incoherently as the soldier collapsed to the ground. Jacob tried to kick the fallen man, but Samuel grabbed Jacob’s arm and pulled him away. The Spider Knight dragged him back to Alice. Jacob watched the soldier twitch, paralyzed by the spider’s venom as it began to dissolve his neck. He only had a minute to live, at most. Charles didn’t let him suffer.

The report of the air cannon echoed across the mountain valley. Charles stared at the dead man for a moment before he rolled the ruined armor off the side of the cliff. He walked back up to Samuel.

“Don’t need to see that. They’ve seen enough.”

Jacob didn’t think he was supposed to hear what Charles had said, but he’d heard it. He didn’t argue. He hugged Alice, and he wasn’t sure who was shaking more. His rage turned to tears as he sobbed into Alice’s shoulder. He’d seen enough to last him a lifetime.

Once they’d put some distance between themselves and the waterfall, Charles slowed and turned around. “Let’s stop here. I need to rest these old bones a bit.” An old stone table sat near the edge of the cliffside. So close, in fact, it made Jacob a bit nervous to sit on the end of the bench.

“I saw the Widow Makers coming off the ceiling,” Jacob said. He winced when he touched his cheek. He knew he must look a mess after having his face dragged over the rocks in the river.  “I wanted to warn you, but I was already in the river by the time I realized what they were.”

Jacob had stopped shaking, but he was ready to sit down, or sleep for a week. Alice told Jacob about their journey through the mountain while they ate what might be the last sandwiches they’d ever see. The blank look on her face as she told the tale made Jacob uncomfortable.

“We made it,” Alice said firmly. “You made it. That’s all that matters.”

“May not have made it if those city guards weren’t after us,” Samuel said. “A lot of the spiders got distracted by their conveniently canned meals.”

Charles snorted a laugh. “That’s a nice way of stating it.”

“You’d think there would be a railing here or something,” Alice said as she peeked her head over the side.

“There used to be one,” Charles said. “Back when we didn’t have so many invaders, people used to walk the mountain paths quite often.”

“Where are we going?” Jacob asked. He looked up the mountainside. It was almost a sheer cliff all the way up. He thought he could just make out the peak of the observatory, but it was hard to tell at such a distance. If he was right, they were below the far southern tip of the Lowlands. “We can’t go back into the city.”

Charles shook his head. “They found us in the catacombs faster than I thought possible.”

“We weren’t really in the catacombs,” Alice said. “That’s only where the dead are buried.”

“Plenty of dead to call them catacombs now.” Charles frowned and crumpled up the butcher paper from his sandwich.

Jacob started to throw his over the mountainside.

“Don’t toss that,” Charles said. “It’s good for kindling. We’ll need fire, especially as we don’t have a tent.”

“Why don’t we just use Burners?”

“Sure,” Charles said. “How many did you bring? Think we might need them for something other than lighting a campfire?”

“Already burned one today getting away from the Widow Makers,” Samuel said. He folded his butcher paper and then did the same with the crumpled up papers.

“Where
are
we going, Charles?” Alice asked. “You never answered Jacob.”

Charles hooked his thumbs under the edge of his vest and glanced over his shoulder as he started down the path. “The Deadlands.”

“What?” Jacob said, exhaustion drawing the word out. “You’re serious?”

“The Deadlands,” Alice said. Even without inflection, her voice echoed back through the mountain pass. “And how do you expect to get us there alive? And how do you expect us to
stay
alive?”

“Only the dead cities are left out there,” Alice said.

“There are more than the dead cities,” Samuel said. “I’ve heard stories that Bollwerk was built on the iron corpse of Oase.”

“Oase,” Alice said. “I know that’s the name of a lost city, but what’s Bollwerk?”

“The last great city of the Deadlands,” Charles said. “Perhaps not as grand as Ancora, but great nonetheless.”

“The Mechs came from Oase in the war,” Jacob said. He looked at Charles.

“That they did. Many of the Deadlands cities may have been destroyed in the war, but the Forgotten rebuilt at least one and named it Bollwerk.”

“Hold up!” Samuel hissed. The steady crunch of their boots on the mountain path stopped, but it still sounded like heavy footsteps around them.

Jacob wondered why until he glanced up and saw a Walker coming down the cliff. It was at least twenty feet long, its legs churning and thumping across the rock face until it curled up on the path in front of them. Two antennae reached out and patted Samuel’s shoulders before the Walker uncurled and scuttled down the far side of the mountain.

“The untamed Walkers can be dangerous,” Charles said, “but they’ll usually leave you in peace.”

“It’s the blue and orange ones you have to watch out for,” Jacob said, as the awful memory of the Fall came flashing back to life, filled with stampeding legs and gore-soaked serrated mandibles. He’d seen more than one Ancoran left in pieces by one of
those
invaders. Jacob shook his head to rid himself of the image, but it was quickly replaced by the face of Simmons.

The look of surprise frozen on the soldier’s face while the poison took hold after Jacob had stabbed him … It wasn’t an image he’d be forgetting anytime soon. Jacob didn’t like the fact he’d had to kill someone. The memory was visceral, even as it seemed distant. Charles may have shot the soldier, but Jacob had no illusions that the man would have died anyway. You do what it takes to survive. He’d learned that in his years as a Lowlander. This he had done to survive.

Charles and Samuel were talking among themselves, but Jacob didn’t really hear what they were saying. He thought of his parents and whether or not they’d really be safe, and if his dad would get the medicine without Jacob’s help. If Bat held true to his word, his parents would have enough gold to last quite some time. Jacob glanced at Alice, who looked into the distance at the shrouded mountain peaks, and worried for her family too.

And now they were going to the Deadlands? Jacob didn’t like Alice being pulled into something so dangerous, but truth be told, he was glad she was with them. If they’d left her in the city, though? He almost growled as he rubbed at his face.