Steamsworn (Steamborn Series Book 3) (14 page)

Shouts sounded above them and Charles cursed.

“I swear I saw something in that grate!” The words that echoed into the chasm sent a tremor of ice down Jacob’s back.

“They’re onto us,” Charles said as he hurried down the ladder. “Take the last of the bombs. You
have
to get them mounted at the last crossbeam. I don’t care what you hear, or what you see. You don’t turn back for anything, you understand?” He handed the air cannon to Jacob. “If you need to, use it. Get yourself out of here.”

“But you—”

“I’m not defenseless, boy. Now go!”

There was a shuffling sound above them, and Charles pushed Jacob away before a beam of light lanced down from above.

“You there! Halt!”

Charles raised his hands and glanced at Jacob. He tilted his head down slightly and whispered, “Go. Now.”

Jacob wedged the air cannon beneath the strap of his backpack. He glanced at Charles, wrapped his hands around the grappling gun, and zipped off across the chasm. The panic and adrenaline broke his concentration. He held on to the trigger too long, and it slammed him into the far wall. Jacob knew he was bleeding. He could taste the blood where his teeth had sliced open his cheek.

He turned back toward the shaft of light surrounding Charles. It seemed so far away now, like a play he was watching in the Square. Jacob couldn’t hear what was being said. The voices were muffled at that distance, empty echoes in a vast darkness. The meaning was clear enough.

Charles reached out, grabbed the ladder, and slowly started to climb. Jacob watched each step the old tinker took. It felt like his hope was disappearing along with Charles, and then the old man vanished through the distant square of light.

Jacob’s breath came fast. It felt like his ribs were crushed and his heart fluttered. The room spun, and Jacob dropped to a knee. This was no place to get dizzy. He had a job to do. Charles was counting on him. Thousands were counting on him, but that was too big to think about. He focused on Charles and Alice and his parents. Jacob took a deep breath and stood up, turning up the light on his lantern before jogging down the supports to the crossbeam.

The walls closed in on him in the dim light as he shuffled closer to his target. His backpack brushed the stone behind him when he turned sideways to squeeze past a small collapse. At the path’s narrowest point, Jacob had to remove the pack altogether. He dragged it behind him, tied to his ankle, as he forced himself through the gap with his elbows. Charles had been right. Samuel would not have fit after all.

You don’t turn back for anything, you understand?

Charles’s words played over and over in Jacob’s head. He knew this was important, maybe the most important thing he’d ever do, and he wasn’t going to let Charles down.

The passage finally widened. Jacob pulled himself to his feet and shined his lantern around. Part of the stone wall had sheared off and now leaned against the crossbeam. That had created the passage he’d had to crawl through. He shivered, looking at that seemingly unstable path.

The lantern light flashed on a series of steel bars. It took a moment for Jacob to realize it was another ladder leading to a poorly lit hatch. There hadn’t been one at every crossbeam like they had expected. A small measure of relief worked at the knot in his stomach.

He unbuttoned his backpack and went to work. There was a lot of extra blasting cord. Jacob was glad to see that. He wanted to elevate the receiver, and even though he didn’t have a heavy nail glove to anchor it, he thought tying it to a high rung on the ladder would work just as well.

Jacob positioned and repositioned the charges. He snapped the clips onto the blasting cord, checked the knots, and then went over it all again. Charles wasn’t there to tell him the angles were right this time. If he had it wrong, it might not go off, or might not cut the beam, but it was as good as he was going to get it.

Jacob dumped his backpack out, snatching up the trigger and tucking it into a pocket. He started up the ladder but froze when he saw the edge of the glider pack resting on ground. He just couldn’t leave it. Jacob hooked the air cannon to his belt and strapped the glider pack on. He grabbed the cold metal rungs and resumed his climb up the ladder, trailing the coil of blasting cord. He could still see light coming through the hatch, but not nearly so much as the one where Charles had vanished.

He looped the blasting cord around two rungs and tied off the receiver. Jacob checked the switch three times to be sure it was turned on before moving his attention to the light above him. Jacob fumbled with the release and breathed a sigh of relief when the hatch swung open in almost complete silence. Fresh air flowed around him, dry and clean and nothing like the musty darkness of the chasm.

The base wall rose into the sky beside him, and a row of homes stood off to his right. The street was empty. No guards, no citizens, it was a perfect escape route. He heard shouts rising around the corner. Jacob crept out of the hatch before lowering it slowly back into the street.

It was only then that he realized he was below the corpses strung from the wall. The stench was mild, and the bodies looked far fresher than he’d expected. They weren’t long dead, which meant the soldiers had been killing more people. Would they hang Lottie and Morgan and Clark up there? Did they mean to hang Charles?

When Jacob got closer to the corner of the wall, the words he heard froze his heart.

“It’s Atlier, I’m telling you! We need to take him to the king.”

Jacob edged his way to the corner of the wall. He shivered when he brushed the foot of a corpse with his shoulder, but he had to see. He
had
to.

Charles’s head slowly turned and the old tinker locked eyes with Jacob. Jacob started, and Charles gave only a small shake of his head.

It was then that the crumpled forms caught Jacob’s eye: two dead soldiers, one with an anchor sticking out of his chest. That’s why they’d tied up Charles; he’d already attacked them. Why? Why would he do that?

One of the soldiers grabbed the old tinker’s hair and sneered in his face. “We’ll be rich. The reward on your head is—”

Charles headbutted the man’s nose. Blood sprayed across his face and the old man laughed. “I’ve had a good, long life. That’s more than I can say for your friends.” He spat on the nearest corpse.

The soldier pulled a handgun out of the holster on his thigh. It gleamed in the sun while the man cursed and dripped blood across the ground. “Those are fine last words you old bastard.”

Charles stared at Jacob.

Jacob’s hand wrapped around the trigger of the air cannon, but Charles held his gaze. He gave a sharp, quick shake of his head. There was an awful look on the old man’s face. Jacob had seen the same look on his father’s face when he learned he’d likely die from miner’s lung.

The gunshot stole whatever hope Jacob had left for the world.

Charles slumped forward, and the cry that left the old man’s lips was a dagger in Jacob’s chest. Charles lifted his heaving chest with his arms tied behind his back, blood streaming from his stomach.

Jacob barely recognized Charles’s voice as it rose and fractured, and his words echoed louder than the cries of the citizens. He almost missed the flash of copper twisting in the old tinker’s hands.

“This is my Steamsworn grave!”

“
Charles!
” Jacob screamed.

A tremendous blast sounded, and then there was only silence. Charles hadn’t planted all of the bombs. He’d kept the last belted inside his vest. There was nothing left of Charles or his murderers. Jacob stared at the streak of gore, staggering at the heavy sense of loss and the cold blade of satisfaction.

Charles was gone. There was only Samuel now, and Drakkar, and …

“Alice.”

“There!” someone shouted. “At the wall!”

Tears rolled down Jacob’s face as he ran from the guards sprinting towards him. He’d barely taken ten steps when a shot fired over his head and the guard shouted, “Stop!”

Jacob froze, staring at the cold copper trigger grasped tightly in his hand. He turned slowly to face the guards. They wore Fel’s colors. He could still see the small patch of earth where Charles had died. Jacob snarled and his fingers crushed the trigger. A massive shockwave sent him and the guards to their knees.

The blast of the underground charges was unlike anything Jacob had felt before, like his guts had been liquefied as he wobbled back to his feet. Jacob pulled the release and the glider snapped out, unfolding from the backpack as smoothly as Charles had designed it.

The world tilted, and soldiers and citizens began shouting. Jacob ignored them all as they tried to scramble out of the base. He pulled the trigger again, and another blast rocked the earth. This time the ground beneath them fell away. Time slowed, and Jacob stared at the expression of disbelief and terror on the guards’ faces. They screamed and reached out to him for aid as his wings caught in the sudden, violent updraft. The guards vanished into the darkness. Jacob cursed as the dust and debris shot him higher into the air.

The wings caught the sky, jarring and jerking him through the air until the levelers clicked and shifted, carrying him away from that nightmare.

The rumble grew louder and more frantic. Jacob looked back and watched a waterfall of carnage—filled with men and buildings and the base walls—slide off the side of the cliff. The massive supports fell out of the mountain like teeth, collapsing stone and rerouting the river as it failed.

Somewhere in the dwindling cloud of smoke and dust was Charles. Jacob let the vision burn into his mind, the death of a battalion. The old tinker’s murderers and most of the invading force stationed at the base might be dead, but the men who caused the war were still alive. Jacob’s fists tightened around the straps of his harness as the reality of it all throttled him. There was no stopping the tears, or the unholy rage in his chest.

This was war.

A
n officer’s receiver
crackled to life beside Gladys and George.

“Water Beetle, compromised.”

The wide-eyed officer fumbled for his transmitter before speaking into his collar. “Received, initiating offensive.” The man ran for one of the cabins before Gladys could so much as ask a question.

Noise erupted all around them, and the ship burst into panicked life. Men and women ran to their posts and began detaching the landing lines, securing barrels and hatches, while the droning alarm bleated a steady, horrible rhythm.

George reached out and grabbed another officer as he ran by. “What is happening?”

The officer glanced at George’s hand on his arm but offered no harsh words for the breach in protocol. “They’re sending us to Dauschen.”

“For what purpose?”

“We’re taking the city.”

George thanked the officer as the man sprinted away.

“Jacob and Charles?”

“I can only guess, Princess.”

“I don’t want to leave them alone.”

As if summoned by George’s words, the announcements began, made cold and lifeless by the tinny loudspeakers above them.

“Citizens, please disembark Warship One. We are deploying to Dauschen. Citizens, please disembark for your own safety. Warship One is set to engage Dauschen. Citizens …” The announcements began to repeat, but no one left the ship.

Gladys shivered. The warships had never been sent away from Bollwerk outside of a training exercise. Everyone knew that.

“What can they do?” Gladys whispered as she looked up to George. “What can we do?”

“We can stay and help the tinkers assemble more belts for the chainguns,” George said.

Gladys nodded.

“Good,” George said. “Get to the third deck. This old ship isn’t fast, but she’s carrying enough firepower to level a city. Should be enough cartridges to fill a dozen more belts, and enough gunpowder to build a thousand more rounds.”

“We don’t have the time for that,” Gladys said.

“Well, we better get to work then. Now move!”

George took off at a run, and Gladys followed. She’d worn a long gray skirt today, and she scowled at it as she tried to keep up with George. Gladys cursed and ran a hand down either side of her dress, guiding a knife from her thigh to the hem. Free to move again, she caught George in a matter of moments. Gladys already felt better, moving with a purpose. They wouldn’t leave her people behind, and they wouldn’t abandon their new friends to whatever fate had befallen them in Dauschen.

*     *     *

“
Charles! No!
”

Drakkar held Samuel back yet again when the Spider Knight tried to rush out the door. They’d watched their ally, one of Samuel’s mentors, cut down a block away. Drakkar had seen enough of war to know if Samuel went after those men now, he would not come back alive.

Samuel cried out and tried to push the guardian away again.

The crackling agony in the Spider Knight’s voice cut Drakkar worse than he had expected. Drakkar himself felt a hollowness at the loss of Charles von Atlier, and a grave concern for Jacob.

Drakkar levered an iron grip on Samuel’s shoulders and shouted. “Listen! We have to go, brother, now! The city is shaking itself apart. We can leave now and no one will be the wiser. We leave. We find Jacob.”