The Mark of the Dragonfly (27 page)

“Nope,” Piper said, unable to conceal her excitement. “Hoist me up.”

“Watch yourself.” Gee bent and cupped his hands for Piper to step into them. Without effort, he boosted her up through the trapdoor and out into the open.

Piper lifted her face to the blue sky as she emerged from the top of the car, and a gust of wind hit her, stealing her breath. The sun shone bright and hot on the metal roof; the whole train stretched out in front of her. Exhilarated, Piper brushed her hair back from her face. She felt like she was riding on the back of a huge metal dragon. The land sped past on either side at breathtaking speed, and the roar of the wind drowned out all sound.

Just like my dream
, she repeated to herself. Filled with a daring she never knew she had, Piper put both hands on the hot metal roof and slowly, carefully pulled herself
out. Then, bracing one foot slightly in front of the other and holding her breath, she pushed herself up and stood on the roof of the car. The safety harness pulled at her waist and helped to steady her, but she still felt as if she were one step from falling off the edge of the world.

Yet it was worth it. She lifted her arms and leaned into the wind, letting it push against her body. She was flying.

Piper caught movement out of the corner of her eye; then she saw the flash of leathery green wings glowing against the sun. Gee swooped down and landed on the car in front of her, his thick claws digging small gouges into the metal roof. He nodded to her as if to make sure she was all right, and Piper grinned back.

Gee launched himself back into the sky, wings effortlessly beating the air. Piper watched him go, her heart thumping in her chest.
This is where you belong
, an inner voice whispered to her.
Where you’ve always belonged
.

Gee stood in the engine cab with Trimble and Jeyne. He had transformed, so he couldn’t speak to the engineer or the fireman, but it hardly mattered. Trimble watched the temperature gauges, and Jeyne had her head out the open window, watching the track before them with the intensity of a hawk. Ahead of them, less than ten miles away, loomed Cutting Gap.

“You put the girls in place in the back?” Jeyne asked without turning her attention from the track.

Gee grunted an affirmative. Trimble checked the firebox and nodded to Gee. “Be careful out there, Green-Eye. They’ll be aiming a lot of their firepower at you. Keep your eyes open.”

Lifting a clawed hand in acknowledgment, Gee went to the window and climbed out onto the ledge. He’d had to keep his wings tucked close to his body in the
small cab, but now he could spread them wide. He let the wind pluck him away and flew upward, circling back to get a good view of the 401. With his keen vision, he could see the individual cars clearly, but he intended to be high and out of sight of the raider gliders before the attack. Surprise was the main advantage in making it through the Gap. Gee would strike as soon as the raiders made their move, hopefully scattering them and ruining their plan.

Gee slowed, coasting on the wind and letting the train get ahead of him, until he was hovering over the two back cars. Piper and Anna would be at the defense station by now. They were as ready as they were ever going to be.

In that moment, Gee felt a surge of foreboding. Maybe he shouldn’t have let Piper help with the defenses. Goddess knew those girls were always getting themselves into some kind of trouble. If anything happened to them …

Don’t get distracted
, Gee chided himself. If he didn’t concentrate, he’d end up dead, or worse, he might get someone else killed.

On a burst of wing beats, Gee flew away from the cars and took up his position high above the cliffs. He just had to do what he’d always done: protect the train, its passengers, and its crew.

Protect his family.

“Let’s go over it one more time—tell me what this lever does,” Piper said. Nerves clawed at her stomach as she squinted at the pencil drawings. It was almost time. They were approaching the Gap, and she wanted to make sure they were ready.

Anna looked up from where she sat in front of the crossbow rack. “Mmm … pressurized darts,” she said. “I wonder if Trimble tipped them with any sort of sedative. He’s been telling me about some of his experiments. He’s quite good with alchemy, hardly ever makes anything explode unless he means to.”

“We can stagger the darts’ release,” Piper said excitedly. “Three, no, four sets. This … this is an incredible set of systems.” Despite her nervousness, Piper was thrilled at the idea of figuring out a plan for the defenses. She could be good at this. She knew it. “I mean, I could take these things apart and be a week sorting out what each individual mechanism does—maybe I could find a way to make some improvements here and there—but it would be the best sort of scavenger hunt, I can tell you that.”

“But we won’t need the defenses once we get through Cutting Gap, will we?” Anna asked.

“No, but I mean for the future,” Piper said distractedly. She ran her hands over a set of pipes, mentally removing the walls of the car so she could picture where they went. “There aren’t enough windows in here either,” she added with a scowl. “We don’t have a clear
view of where the raiders will attack. Maybe Gee would consider putting in some more glass. It would make me feel a lot better.”

“Are you—” Anna hesitated.

“Mmm?” Piper turned to look at her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just … you sound like you’re staying—on the train, I mean.” Anna looked away, running her hands over the crossbow bolts.

Piper saw the girl’s expression and felt a pang of remorse. In all her excitement over the possibility of taking a job on the 401, she hadn’t thought about how Anna might react to the news. Piper left the defense station and sat down next to Anna. “Gee said that Jeyne might hire me on once we get you settled in Noveen. I haven’t decided yet, but I’m thinking about it.”

“I see.” Anna nodded her head, but she still wouldn’t look at Piper.

“Don’t worry,” Piper said, “I’m going to make sure you’re safe first. That’s the most important thing.”

“I thought you were going to stay in Noveen,” Anna said, clenching her hands in her lap. “If you go with the train, who knows when I’ll see you again?”

Piper’s chest got tight. “Hey, look at me.” Piper laid her hand on Anna’s shoulder. “Believe me, I’m not wild about the idea of leaving you either, but you’ve got a family in Noveen—”

“We don’t know that.”

“
I
know that,” Piper said firmly. “I’m going to get you back to them. Point is, you’ve got a home waiting for you, and I’ve got to find one of my own.” Piper cleared her throat, not trusting her voice. “Do you understand? I have to earn my own money and build a life somewhere, and I think I can do that here. I’d like to try, anyway.”

The thought of that opportunity filled Piper with such excitement that she thought she would burst. She hadn’t felt so much hope about the future since she’d first made her plans to leave the scrap town. But mixed with that hope was sorrow too. It would be hard leaving Anna.

Anna sat silently, staring at her hands. Piper bit her lip as she felt tears coming on. She couldn’t cry now. She had to be strong. Gently, she nudged her friend with her elbow. “Listen,” she said. Her voice wavered. “No matter what I decide, I promise we’ll see each other again. I’ll come back to Noveen and visit as often as I can.” She tried to smile. “You can’t get rid of me that easy.”

“You promise?” Anna looked up. Her pleading expression almost undid Piper.

“Absolutely. Now, what are you doing over here?” Piper nodded to the weapons rack. She desperately needed a distraction.

Anna reached over and lifted a crossbow off the rack. “I remembered something,” she said. “I think I’ve used one of these before.”

“Really?” That was definitely a surprise. Piper tried
to picture Anna wielding a crossbow, but she just couldn’t conjure the image. Anna was so small and fragile. “Do you remember why you used it—or who taught you how?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but the parts feel familiar. Look—they fit in my hands, and my hands know what to do.” Anna traced the trigger and the groove where the bolt was supposed to go.

It did look like Anna knew what she was doing, Piper thought. “Have you remembered anything else?” she asked.

“Sometimes I see things in my dreams,” Anna said. “I don’t always tell you, because I’m not sure what parts of them are memories and what aren’t. But sometimes they’re about Doloman and the scar, and other times I see myself doing things, like talking to the man whose voice I told you about—the one I remember reading to me before I went to sleep at night. I can’t see his face—he feels very far away—but I think he might be a scientist.”

“That fits,” Piper said, nodding, excited that her friend was getting more of her memories back. “You have a scientific mind. He could be your father.”

“I’d like that,” Anna said wistfully. “Another time, I saw myself holding a crossbow—I thought that had to be a dream, but when I touched the crossbow just now, I knew I’d held one before.” She closed her eyes. “In my dream, I see myself standing in the snow and firing it at
a round target off in the distance. There are pine trees all around me, cones crunching under my feet. I can see my breath it’s so cold.”

Those were the most vivid memories Anna had recalled so far, Piper thought. It was a promising sign. “That sounds like the far north,” Piper said. “That’s good. You’re remembering the details. About the crossbow—you think you would be able to fire it?”

“Yes, I think so,” Anna said. “I thought the skill might come in handy, but then Gee said he didn’t want us touching the weapons—”

“Never mind that.” Piper stopped Anna before she could put the crossbow back. She hoped they wouldn’t have to use the weapons, but she didn’t want to rule out any possible defense. “Keep that close,” Piper said. She glanced out the small windows to see that rock walls had replaced the open plains. They’d passed into Cutting Gap. “We’re here,” she said nervously. “I’m going to check the view from outside.”

Quickly, Piper crossed the vestibule into Gee’s car and out onto the observation deck. Sheer canyon walls reached up into the sky on either side of the train, casting shadows down on the valley floor. A tremor of fear went through Piper as the caves Gee mentioned came into view.

The caves were wide and deep, like enormous dark mouths gaping open. Wide enough to accommodate
glider wings, Piper realized. All the raiders had to do was slide the gliders out of the cave mouths and let them fall to catch the wind.

Anna stepped out onto the platform and looked over Piper’s shoulder. “I see five caves—no wait, seven … now nine,” she said. “They go all the way up to the top.”

“A lot more than I thought there’d be.” Piper’s initial excitement at the prospect of manning the defenses was quickly turning to anxiety. The Gap was also narrower than she’d expected. She glanced up at a cloudless strip of blue sky. There was no sign of Gee, but she knew he was up there somewhere. The sounds of the train were amplified by the narrow canyon, making it impossible to hear anything coming. They’d be relying on him to signal Trimble and Jeyne in the engine cab, and they in turn would signal the guards in the cargo areas and trigger the defenses in those sections. Piper and Anna’s section at the rear was the least likely to be attacked first—there was very little of value to the raiders back there. They would focus their attacks on the cargo areas.

Her eyes on the sky, Piper caught a flash of light from one of the cave mouths. The sunlight reflected off something metallic that slid out into the sun as Piper watched. A long, sleek metal body and cloth wings. She squinted and could see that two men piloted the craft, one at the front and one facing the rear.

This isn’t right
, Piper thought, the beginnings of real panic stirring in her chest. They’d expected the raiders
to focus their attack near the front and middle of the train, not the rear.

But here they were. The glider emerged from the cave and dropped toward them.

“Get back inside!” Piper yelled. She pushed Anna into Gee’s car. “Signal Jeyne that they’re attacking back here!”