Steamsworn (Steamborn Series Book 3) (2 page)

Jacob looked back at the Burning Forest before it vanished beyond the mountain pass. Those old stones had burned as long as history could remember, and they’d be burning long after he’d been lost to time. It was hard to reconcile that such a thing as war could seem trivial to a future generation. Now, at this moment, there was nothing more important to Jacob than freeing Ancora from the war it didn’t know was coming.

The darkness of the pass closed over them, and the Burning Forest slipped into a shadowed oblivion.

“A
re you done,
Smith?” Mary’s tinny voice crackled through the horn above his workbench.

Smith glared at the blasted thing and seriously considered not answering. Nothing got under Mary’s skin more than a lack of communication.

“Smith!”

He sighed and cranked down on the bolt above his head. Smith’s body wasn’t made to be wedged into tight spaces, and he was practically bent in half to reach the back of the manifold. Mary did not seem to care. She only wanted things done yesterday, so
now
was never good enough.

“Yes, Captain!” he shouted, hoping the sound would carry around the thick mesh of brass and copper pipes.

“What?”

It didn’t.

Smith cursed and squeezed his left hand up toward his right shoulder. His fingertips found the switch for his biomechanics, and he cranked the tension up in his arm. With a higher output, the bolt twisted home and clinked against the washer. He might have to cut it out if he ever needed to drop the manifold again, but that was a problem for another time.

He powered his biomechanics down again and wiggled his way back out of the crawlspace between the pipes and support beams.

“What the hell are you doing down here?”

This time the voice was close, and it made him jump, cracking his head against the iron box that encased the crawlspace. “Dammit, Mary, I told you it would take a while.”

“Archibald wants us down at the Council Hall.”

“For what? We have more work to do.”

Mary shrugged. “Something to do with Gladys, so I’m thinking we should get our asses moving instead of just floating half a mile from the docks!”

Smith sighed and wiped his hands on a towel as he stood up. It was no fault of his the old anchor had snapped off when the thrusters malfunctioned. He had warned Mary about cheap parts. Between the loss of the engine and the anchor, they had been drifting for a good three hours. Smith thought it was good luck it had happened so close to home. Mary was just pissed.

“Well?” she asked.

“Should be done. We can go.”

“Good work. Let’s go see what the hell Archibald wants us to get ourselves into this time.”

Smith nodded, but it was not Archibald’s missions that came to his mind; it was memories of their last bit of trouble—the warlord Rana, when he took Gladys. Smith could still remember the recoil of the chaingun bouncing in his hands as it roared, cutting through the warlord’s men like so much wheat, and the awful sound of Alice killing Rana with a nail glove.

“Why don’t you come topside? Help me dock.”

Smith nodded. It was good to have things to do with his hands. Sometimes it was all he could ask, just to forget the sight of what his own hands had done. The chaingun Jacob had helped him rebuild. Charles had told Smith the boy had a mind for machines, but it almost seemed an understatement. Jacob had the potential to build the greatest wonders humanity would ever see, or its most horrifying weapons. Smith had never been fond of thin lines, but he knew he walked one now.

“What’s with you?” Mary asked. “You’ve been quiet since Gareth Cave.”

He had known Mary for quite a long time now, and her ability to pluck unsaid things from his mind grew no less disturbing with time.

Smith blew a breath out through his nose as he grabbed the ladder that lead to the deck. “I should not have rebuilt that gun, or let Jacob help me with it.”

Mary paused at the hatch and glanced down at him. “Smith, if you hadn’t, we’d all be dead. We’d be deader than dead, and Alice and Gladys would probably be enslaved in Rana’s harem in some godforsaken hole of a city.

“Why don’t you think about that instead of this ridiculous guilt trip you’re running yourself through, hmm? You’ve killed more men than that before.” She hopped up the last rung and swung out onto the deck.

Mary was right, and he knew it. He had never killed anyone who did not need killing. To keep Gladys out of the hands of a warlord, he would do it again. The memory of that devil’s hands on her filled him with a rage like he had never felt. He had
reveled
in it, in the blood and bone and death, and part of him knew that was very wrong. Vengeance could be a powerful thing, and he had dealt it with abandon.

Smith ground his teeth as he reached the top of the ladder, pulled on the handrail, and stepped onto the deck.

Mary vanished into the cabin and Smith followed. If there was one thing he was sure of, he was glad to have Mary with him. If there were two things he was sure of, things were going to get a lot worse before they had a chance to get better.

*     *     *

“Thanks for coming
with me,” Gladys said. She led the way into the stables.

“Happy to,” Alice said. “Plus, training with George? Sounds fun.” She paused just inside the door and dug through the top layer of dead Sweet-Flies. There were a couple juicy ones, almost bigger than her hand. She stacked them up in the crook of her left arm.

“What are you doing?” Gladys asked as she turned around.

“Getting a snack for George.”

“George won’t eat those.”

“Not that George, Drakkar’s Walker George.” Alice headed over to the far stable. It stretched to the ceiling, completely enclosing the Walker in its steel cage. “Hi George!”

The coiled beast’s legs rolled in a hypnotizing cadence, thumping against the floor. His antennae shot straight up.

“Open the gate for me, would you?”

Gladys eyed Alice like she might be out of her mind, but she slid the stable door open anyway.

George shot across the wide stable and reared up in front of Alice, his antennae pounding her shoulders and probing the Sweet-Flies. Alice held up one of the bugs and George speared it with one of his barb-like forelegs. She knew they held enough venom to kill a person in one strike, but Alice felt comfortable around George.

The Walker shuffled closer and started digging the flies out of Alice’s grasp while she patted him between his two enormous faceted eyes.

“Oh gods, is he eating you?” Gladys squeaked from outside the stable.

Alice laughed and let out a stuttered, “No,” as George smashed his face into her chest, probably trying to find more Sweet-Flies. When his quest failed, he retreated to the opposite corner of the stable, tossing sand and hay into the air before he coiled up once more. Alice brushed her denim skirt off, stepped outside, and slid the gate closed.

“Is everything okay?” the other George asked as he stepped up behind Gladys, hand on his sword.

“Oh, it’s great,” Gladys said. “I thought I was watching my friend get eaten by a giant venomous Walker. You know, just like any other day.”

“What?”

“She went in the stable and fed it
by hand!
”

“It’s a him,” Alice said, “and his name is George.

“So I’ve been told,” George said with a laugh. “Gladys tells me you’re interested in training a bit, yes?”

Alice nodded.

“Gladys is probably more advanced than you. She can at least use you as target practice. This could work well.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence there, Royal George.”

“What?”

“I don’t want you to think I’m talking to the Walker. Royal George it is.”

“She calls you that when you’re not around,” Gladys said with a grin. “It has a nice ring to it.”

George rubbed his forehead. “It’s going to be a trying day.”

“Please,” Alice said. “I’m one of the best Waltz dancers ever to come out of Ancora. I finished a dance with
Jacob
without my feet getting stepped on
once
.”

“And so modest,” George said as he drew his sword. “But tell me, do you know how to disarm a—”

George almost squealed as Alice lunged at him, hooked her foot behind the larger man’s ankle, and pushed. She watched with a great deal of satisfaction as he tried to catch his balance and then flopped onto one of the dried haystacks.

“Well, that’s one way,” George said. “I still could have done tremendous damage with this sword as I fell.”

“Not likely,” Alice said. “You were too surprised that you were falling. Any strike would’ve been sloppy and easily avoided.”

“You know how to fight?” Gladys said. “I mean, I knew you did after Rana, to some degree anyway, but …”

Alice didn’t like remembering Rana. She’d do it again if she had to, but that sound … that sound of his skull shattering beneath something
she
had done. Alice shivered.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring that up,” Gladys said.

“It’s okay.”

“Well,” George said, “clearly you know some basics. Let’s try teaching you some more advanced self-defense skills. They may become very important in a very short time.”

*     *     *

Alice wasn’t sure
how long they stayed there, sparring and falling and cursing. Gladys could give as good as she got, giving George a run for his money and even landing some painful kicks in the process.

George was the best kind of teacher. Quick to praise a well-executed move, but even quicker to explain how being sloppy could get you killed. He always wore a smile, whether you’d just landed a kick to his ribs, or he’d just slammed you onto a haystack for the tenth time.

“You’re fast, Alice,” George said, releasing his grip from around her neck, “but not so fast I can’t catch you.”

Alice wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. She’d dodge a blow from George’s sheathed sword, there was a pressure on her neck, and then she was upside down before she crashed onto a haystack. She blinked at the upside-down world.

“Gladys, strike.”

Alice twisted around on the loose straws of hay and watched. She could stare for hours at the deadly grace that was Gladys. Where George was quick, efficient, and brutal, Gladys flowed from one move to the next. A high, arcing kick followed a jab and a sweep until the momentum carried her into a stiff mid-kick.

Alice didn’t think Gladys moved faster than her, but Gladys always had another move ready, another defense, another trick.

George reached out and grabbed a slow punch from Gladys, and then he cursed as he realized his mistake. Gladys wrapped her own hand around George’s wrist and launched herself into his arm. Her legs wrapped around the royal guard’s neck as she bent his arm backwards.

A choking gasp filled the stable as Gladys tightened her grip, immobilizing the arm and cutting off George’s air in one vicious attack. He tapped rapidly on her arm and she released him.

He took three deep, rattled breaths as he rubbed at his throat. “One wonders if there’s any position you
can’t
choke me from.”

Gladys grinned as she walked toward Alice and flopped onto the haystack beside her.

“Why didn’t you do that when … you know?” Alice asked.

“Because she is a smart girl,” George said, lowering himself onto the edge of a barrel. “If she had attacked Rana, even killed Rana, her fate could have been a thousand times worse.”

Gladys stared at her hands. “I should have killed him.” She glanced at Alice. “Then you wouldn’t have had to.”

“It’s okay,” Alice said. “I’m just glad you’re safe and we’re all alive.”

“I wish I could have seen it,” George said. “Did you know Rana’s family once kept fiery slaves? People with hair as bright as the sun, that’s what they called them. It could have been your ancestors. It’s a crazy thing to think about, and then you kill him. There is irony in that, Alice. A great and wonderful irony.”

Alice was … well, she wouldn’t say she was happy, but she was glad George derived some kind of pleasure from that awful day.

“We’ll continue tomorrow morning. I would like to focus more on weapons training. It’s best not to get into close quarters if you do not need to.” Something crackled and squawked, and George fumbled at his collar.