Steamsworn (Steamborn Series Book 3) (4 page)

“Where Mary goes, I go. The Skysworn does not fly without me.”

Archibald nodded. “Do as you wish, Smith. Gods know you’ve earned it. Get Alice in front of the priests. They’ll recognize the bloodline soon enough. Rally them behind us. It’s no guarantee that Bollwerk’s destruction would lead to an invasion of Belldorn, but it’s likely. You’ll need leverage. Exaggerate the threat if you must. The Midstream refugees will recognize George and Gladys’s status. Be sure to wear the bracelet.”

George nodded. “I don’t want to put Gladys at risk, Archibald, but I understand why you want to do this.”

“Will you still make the journey?” Archibald asked.

“If the princess wishes it, I will.”

Gladys nodded. “Our people should know that the royal line still lives. Even if it doesn’t thrive, it still lives on in the desert outside the wastes.”

George smiled. “We will make the journey.”

“What bloodline?” Alice asked, dragging everyone back to Archibald’s earlier words.

Archibald didn’t answer immediately, so Mary did.

“People from Belldorn all used to have hair like yours,” she said quietly. “It’s likely your grandparents, or your great grandparents, were from Belldorn. It’s the only other place I’ve seen hair like yours.”

Alice’s fingers threaded through her curls without her really thinking about it. “And that means they’ll listen to me?”

Mary gave a half shrug. “There’s a better chance they’ll listen to us if you’re with us than if you’re not. It’s not but a day’s journey in the Skysworn with the wind at our back.”

“A day?” Smith said. “If you ran the thrusters the entire time, perhaps.”

“What’s the matter, Smith? Don’t think your engines are up to the task?”

“My engines are not the question here,” Smith said.

“That’s okay. If you don’t think your equipment is up to the task, we can take it slow.”

The tinker absently slapped the surface of the table and glared at Mary. “I know your game, but it will not change my intentions.”

“Maybe one day someone can invent a better engine,” Mary said, letting her voice rise into a higher register.

Smith almost growled at her.

“I suspect,” Archibald said as he glanced between the two, “you won’t be able to anger Smith enough to prevent the trip.”

Mary huffed out a deep breath and cursed. “Fine,
fine
, I’m overdue for a family reunion anyway. How soon do we need to be there?”

“Three days’ time.”

“That’s when Jacob is supposed to get to Dauschen,” Alice said.

Archibald turned his attention to her. “It’s actually when Charles plans to detonate the bomb, assuming they’re able to get everything put in place ahead of time.”

“We should try to be back in Bollwerk by then,” Mary said.

“I agree,” Smith said. “If they need us, we should be ready.” He made a frustrated huff and said, “I will prepare the thrusters as best I can. How in the world can I get the warships re-armed
and
get the Skysworn to Belldorn in three days?”

Archibald tapped the end of an engraved copper pen on the bench. “Have the dock tinkers install the cannons while you’re away. Worry about the chainguns once you’re back. I’d rather have the power to take down large targets in Dauschen than pick off infantry with a chaingun.”

Alice watched, caught between horror, relief, and fascination, as those men and women—people she considered friends—plotted the potential death of an entire city.

T
hey’d reached a
flat, straight stretch in the mountain pass, and Drakkar had the crawler speeding between the sheer rock walls. Jacob held his hand outside the crawler, shifting it to catch the wind as it sped by.

“Almost out,” Samuel said. The sun cut through the shadows ahead. “Why is this pass so much longer than the Bull’s Horns?

“It runs through the mountain itself,” Drakkar said. “We are traveling through the Broken Peak, not a pass between two mountains.”

The treads roared as the crawler ramped through a dip in the pass and briefly left the ground. The entire machine slammed into the earth, and Jacob felt like a giant had placed its hand on his back, smashing him into the seat.

“Sorry, my friends,” Drakkar said as he slowed the crawler. “We are nearing the Meadow.”

Jacob was about to ask if they’d broken the crawler. Instead, he stared at the stretch of green grass as it unfolded before him. A few trees towered so high into the sky he could scarcely comprehend it, but most of the vista was tall grass, waving gently in the breeze.

Something roared beside them, and Jacob turned to find a waterfall cascading out of the stony gray mountainside. It met up with a web of smaller streams, eventually crashing into a river and trailing off into the distance. Something large and black and round surfaced briefly, and then vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

“Let us refill our canteens here,” Drakkar said as he slowed the crawler down beside a stream. “I could stand to stretch my legs for a time. The water comes from within the stone, so it is safe to drink.”

“Usually safe to drink,” Charles said. He popped the door open when Drakkar stopped the crawler. “I’ve still had a bad experience or two from groundwater, best to boil it.”

“Do as you will.” Drakkar stepped onto the riverbank. “I prefer my water cold.”

Jacob hopped out beside Samuel and stretched his back until his vision swam with shadows and stars. “Ugh.”

“Shouldn’t stretch that much after you’ve been sitting down for so long,” the Spider Knight said. “You don’t want to black out right before an ambush.”

“What man in his right mind would plan an ambush here?” Charles asked, pulling two extra canteens out of a saddlebag. The leather satchel was near the two massive trunks in the back of the crawler. They were a stark reminder of what was to come, as they carried the bombs. “Maybe an ambush in the pass itself, but the Meadow is wide open. Not to mention it’s a death trap.”

“Why would you say that?” Jacob asked as he took one of the leather-wrapped canteens from Charles. It was square, mostly, except where the corners had been dented in. Some of the leather was cracked and even missing along the strap. Jacob suspected the canteen had seen more years than Charles.

“Those grasses hide a great deal of nasty things.”

“Emerald Needles are all you really need worry about here,” Drakkar said.

Jacob recoiled at the name. “
Here?
But they … they …”

“Paralyze you and lay their eggs inside you?” Samuel said with a terribly casual tone.

“Then eat you from the inside out!”

“That is why I would advise you to keep an eye out,” Drakkar said. “They are not so aggressive as Sky Needles, and this is not the time of day they hunt.”

“Just don’t step on one,” Charles said.

Jacob spent the rest of the hike up to the waterfall staring at his feet. He knew the Emerald Needles would be obvious if he saw them. Miss Penny had told them stories of the beasts. Smaller than a Sky Needle, but infinitely more terrifying in what they could do. At least a Sky Needle would just kill you.

“Relax, Jacob,” Charles said. “Emerald Needles aren’t out much past noon. Most of them will be underground at this time anyway.”

“Underground like where we have to go in Dauschen?” Jacob asked.

Samuel burst into laughter.

“No,” Charles said with a smile and a shake of his head. “It’s too cold for them up there. They stay in the Meadow and the lowest of the foothills.”

The thought made Jacob feel a little better as he thrust his canteen into the smaller stream of water running off the cliff face. The water was ice cold. The ringing of droplets splashing against the exposed metal grew deeper as his fingers grew numb. After what seemed like an hour, water splashed out the top of the last canteen and Jacob screwed the cap back on.

He slid the canteen’s strap over his shoulder and shivered, exhaling into his cupped palms in an effort to warm himself up.

Charles closed the lid on his second canteen after Drakkar and Samuel had finished, and they started back for the crawler. “Let’s get this over with. We’re only an hour or so away from Dauschen. Once we’re through the gates, we can set up with the refugees.”

“We’re not going to the last safe house?” Samuel asked. “I don’t want to sleep in a damn tent.”

“Not at first,” Charles said. “Second or third night, we can convincingly appear to be fast friends with some of the other spies and assess the situation.”

They walked in silence for a while until they climbed back into the crawler. Drakkar threw a lever that released the engine’s flywheel, and steam once more billowed out the back of the contraption.

“Do we start on the bombs tonight?” Jacob asked.

Charles took a deep breath. The crawler lurched forward and splashed through a ford in the river. “Some preliminary assembly would go unnoticed. I think we can start with that. I don’t want to assemble any of the detonators until the day we go underground. It’s not safe, for one,” Charles said, answering the question Jacob hadn’t asked, “and it’s more likely to be recognized by someone who knows a little about explosives.”

There it was, Jacob thought as the crawler zipped through the Meadow, leaving a trail of crushed grass behind it. The time for doubt and fear was past; now it was time to put their plan in motion. He took a deep breath and hoped Alice was having a better time of it in Bollwerk.

*     *     *

The next morning
on the docks, Alice rolled her shoulders and winced at the soreness training had left behind. She stared up at the massive warship. Alice could scarcely comprehend the size from the ground, and now that she was close enough to touch it, it seemed even more impossible.

One of the dockhands walked up beside Smith and said, “She’s all locked in, sir. You should be able to mount the cannons in the gun pods.”

Smith nodded. “Thank you. Can you tell the other towers to begin?”

“Sir,” the man said before marching off to the glass cabin at the end of the dock.

“Why all at once?” Mary asked as she flopped onto the bench beside Alice.

“We are anchored,” Smith said. He ran his hand across the massive barrel propped up along a series of sawhorses. “I want to keep the weight even. The Midstream tinkers do not think it will be an issue, but I would rather not take chances with the frame.”

“You think adding
more
weight at the same time will help the frame?”

“It should, yes.” He smeared a semi-translucent glob of gel along the end of the barrel.

“I guess that’s why I pay you and I just steer.”

Smith flashed Mary a smile and threw a series of levers on his biomechanics. They clicked and hummed, and then his arms began to shake with their newfound power. Alice stared as the tinker lifted the twelve-foot length of steel by himself.

“Smith, what the hell are you doing?” Mary asked. “You need a hoist!”

“It is threaded. Watch.”

Mary and Alice both leaned forward, staring at Smith as he fed the barrel in through the gun pod and bumped it up against the mount. It almost looked effortless when he began twisting it, causing the threaded post to slowly disappear into the barrel. After a minute of turning the massive barrel, it clanged home.

Smith powered down his biomechanics and took a deep breath. “I need to do a little welding, but that should do it.”

“Are you kidding?” Mary asked. “You just installed the goddamned cannon in five minutes?”

“No,” Smith said as he frowned and shook his head. “I spent most of the night with the Midstream tinkers. We got the firing mechanism, breach, and the catch for spent ammo mounted last night.”

Mary folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. “There is no way—
no way
—you built those mounts last night.”

“You are right,” Smith said. “Those mounts have been built for months. Archibald asked for them quite some time ago. I did not realize what his intentions were at the time. I honestly suspected a weaponized crawler, but it was not long before he asked for the barrels.”

“What do those shoot?” Alice asked. She stood up and walked over to the barrel. Alice could easily stick her arm down the dark metal tube. Rough ridges spiraled up the inside of the barrel.

“Very large things,” Smith said. “George and Gladys are teaching some of the soldiers how to build them. The Midstream folks are the best there are with gunpowder.

“Alice, I need to see how easily this can be targeted. Will you climb into the gun pod for me?”

She nodded, trying to hide her excitement. Smith reached through a gap in the pod and slid a bolt to the side. It released a section of the glass, and Alice climbed in behind the massive cannon. The roar of the wind around the docks died off when she stuck her head into the heavy glass-and-steel pod. Smith closed the hatch and cut off the outside world. The tap of Alice’s shoe echoed above Smith’s voice until he leaned in and spoke louder.

“Turn the vertical crank to adjust the altitude, and sweep with the flat wheel.”

Alice jerked in surprise when she moved the flat wheel, and the entire gun pod swiveled. She caught the grin on Smith’s face as he dodged the end of the barrel. She glanced at her feet and almost felt like the floor was dropping out beneath her. She could see people far below, moving around like so many ants.