I felt my stomach churning. “Our plan is getting more complicated by the second,” I said wearily. “Even if we manage this, how many will we sacrifice? It won’t do any good to defeat the Vangars if everyone gets killed in the process. As it is, we won’t last another decade. Human kind is going extinct.”
“Then we must make sure that doesn’t happen,” Crow said.
“Either way, you must decide soon,” Raehl said, nodding at Wulvine’s corpse lying on the floor. “It won’t be long until he’s missed.”
I glanced at the body and noticed that the skin looked withered like rotten fruit. “What happened to him?” I said.
Crow gave me a dark look. “You don’t want to know.”
I glanced back and forth between the two of them. “What did you do?”
Crow grimaced. “Your body was severely damaged,” he said. “We needed… materials.”
I felt vomit churning up in my gut. I took a deep breath, forcing it down. “I didn’t hear that,” I said. I steadied myself and fixed my gaze on Crow. “All right, how do we get out of here?”
Chapter 8
Raehl guided us through a maze of dark empty hallways and hidden passages, carefully avoiding the Vangars along the way until we reached a narrow hatch that led to the roof. We accessed the hatch by climbing a tall ladder that was mounted in the narrow space between two metal walls. The crawlspace was dark and uncomfortably hot, which Raehl explained was due to the fact that we were adjacent to one of the ship’s massive furnaces. I realized just how close we were when we got close to the ceiling and the iron ladder grew so hot that I could barely hold onto it.
A few seconds later, we emerged from the crawlspace and found ourselves standing on the roof of the tallest building in the city. Large knots of thick fibrous rope were bound to each corner of the roof, reminding me of the balloons that held the city aloft. The ropes were tethered to the edges of the buildings, as well as hundreds of evenly spaced tie-downs along city’s main deck.
Crow joined me near the ledge of the roof, smiling quietly at my awe as I gazed out over the city. “I must credit the Vangars, it’s an impressive accomplishment,” he said.
“Credit the slaves, not the Vangars.”
He nodded. “Perhaps it will belong to them someday.”
“I think I understand them now,” I said absently.
“How so?”
“Tinker once told me about the locusts that invaded the Borderlands when he was young. He said they swarmed across the land consuming everything in their path, eating all of the wheat in the fields, stripping the trees bare, and then even eating the trees, too. He said they even ate shovel handles and the siding on houses and barns. When the cold weather came, there was nothing left. Tinker’s family barely survived the winter.”
I craned my neck around, staring into Crow’s eyes. “That’s what the Vangars are,” I said. “They’re locusts. They won’t stop until there is nothing left.”
“Their old kingdom was like the Wastelands,” Crow said. “They didn’t have any resources to begin with. No wonder they found ours so enticing.”
“You don’t have much time,” Raehl said urgently behind us. “The guards will discover the body any moment, if they haven’t already.”
“What do we do?” I said.
Raehl turned her face skyward and pointed up at the mass of black balloons overhead.
“You want us to go up there?” I said.
“Yes. You cant see them from here, but each balloon has a platform to maintain the fuel tanks. You will be safe there.”
I glanced at Crow, frowning. “Then what?” I said. “We can’t just wait there, hiding from the Vangars until we starve to death.”
“You won’t be waiting,” Raehl said patiently. “You will cut the tethers and fly away.”
My mouth fell open. “You want us to float away on one of those balloons? That’s insane! We’ll float right out of this world.”
“Raehl has already explained this to me,” Crow said reassuringly. “We won’t float out of the world. We can control the altitude.”
Butterflies churned up in my stomach, and I shook my head slowly. “There must be another way…”
“It is safe,” Raehl assured me. “Believe it or not, the Vangars have races with these balloons.”
I frowned, staring at her and then up at the balloons. What she described didn’t seem possible. “But how can you direct them?” I said. “There’s no engine, no propeller.”
“The winds,” Raehl said. “The winds will guide you.”
I winced, a sudden queasy feeling washing over me. “Crow-”
“We don’t have time to discuss it now,” he said impatiently. “I’ll explain everything later.”
He went to the corner of the building, grabbed one of the ropes, and hauled himself into the air. As he did, I noticed that the ropes separated, revealing webbing between them. This, I realized, was how the maintenance workers climbed up and down.
Crow easily moved up the ladder and I stood watching after him as his clothes melted into the darkness overhead. He all but vanished. “Go on,” Raehl urged me. “The sooner you’re gone, the better for all of us.”
I sighed. I latched onto the webbing and began to climb. I moved quickly, my entire being focused on putting one hand in front of the other, moving up a step and then another, and another. The buildings shrank below me and a cold wind began battering at my face. I could see the platform in the darkness above, its shape silhouetted by the fire that fueled the balloon’s hot air supply.
I glanced down and saw the entire city stretching out below, the lights twinkling like a winter solstice tree. A wave of dizziness washed over me and I closed my eyes, pulling tight against the ropes. The wind buffeted against me, chilling me right to the bone. The ropes swayed dizzyingly back and forth with the movement of the balloons.
“Keep moving!” Crow’s voice whispered out of the darkness above. “Hurry!”
I took a deep breath and noticed that my hands were shaking. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hang on to the ropes if I let go. I pulled tighter, locking the webbing under my arms, hardly daring to move. I threw my gaze upward, deliberately trying not to look down. Crow disappeared over the edge of the platform. A moment later, his face appeared over the edge.
“River, are you coming?” he whispered, waving me forward.
I took a deep breath, grappling with the strange sensation that had overcome me. I wasn’t aware of ever having been afraid of heights, but the rooftops of Avenston weren’t like this. If I fell from a rooftop, I could easily survive. I was agile, strong. I could catch myself. I could do a million different things to make sure I wouldn’t get hurt. This was different.
I turned my gaze sideways, staring out at the sharp patterns of the mountains silhouetted against the sky. The lights of the ship burned in my peripheral vision and the wind hammered at my face, rocking me back and forth, forcing tears into my eyes. The entire world stretched out beneath me like an endless black abyss. I trembled, shivering with cold and some sort of primal fear that I’d never known before. I gasped against the icy wind, blinking the tears away, my entire will focused on hanging onto those ropes.
“River, hurry!”
I blinked, trying not to look up at Crow. I felt foolish, angry with myself, yet at the same time terrified. I knew that if I let go of that webbing, something would go wrong. A gust of wind would catch me and blow me right out of the sky. Or a rope would break, or my hand would slip…
Then I saw something: a distant glow at the edge of the Blackrock Mountains, like a halo in the sky. I stared at it, momentarily perplexed, and suddenly realized what it was. I was seeing the light of the slave mines. Suddenly it all came into focus. That was where the Vangars had taken Kale. I was supposed to be there. All of this had happened because I was trying to get there, trying to help him escape before something horrible happened. All of this had happened because I had wanted to do things my way, but
my plan had failed. There was no one to blame for my situation but me.
My mind had been reeling with images of falling, with visions of my body crashing into the city below, or rushing past it to slam into the hard, barren earth of the eastern plains. I could see myself dropping into that yawning darkness. I could even imagine the hard barren ground rushing up to meet me as I fell. Then my focus changed. As I thought of Kale, tortured and malnourished, slowly succumbing to the inevitable death that waited in those cold dark mines, I regained my sense of purpose.
I took a deep breath and released my grip with one hand. Slowly, deliberately, I moved it up to the next link of webbing. I latched on with a white-knuckled grip and forced my second hand to do the same. And then my feet. One step at a time, one inch at a time, I crawled the rest of the way to the platform. The queasy churning in my gut never went away, but the shaking of my hands diminished somewhat as I began to move. I latched onto the next section of webbing, took one cautious step, and then did it again. And again.
At last I reached the edge of the platform, only to realize that somehow I had to get around the thing. I’d have to let go of the ropes, grab onto the platform, and swing myself up. It was a simple task, really. Something I could have done with my eyes closed if I’d been closer to the ground. Somehow, hanging off that ledge thousands of feet in the air was different. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.
But I had to try, I thought, glancing at that light on the horizon. If I died, at least I would know I had given everything I could in the effort to rescue Kale. Better to die free than to live as a slave, I reminded myself. I bit my lower lip, forcing one hand out to the ledge. I latched onto it, felt my grip close around the thin metal railing, and my heart skipped a beat.
I was going to fall. I knew it. Something was going to go wrong. The metal frame wasn’t strong enough, or perhaps there was a loose bolt somewhere. Or the rope would catch my leg just as I jumped and pull me down, hurtling me to the earth. Something was going to go wrong.
Then I felt Crow’s warm grip on my hand. It was like the warmth of a fire on a cold day, and the sensation instantly spread throughout the rest of my body. Immediately, the shaking stopped. I took a deep breath and felt the warmth move into my lungs. A strange, calm feeling washed over me. Suddenly, I knew everything would be okay.
Almost casually, I threw my other arm up over the ledge and started climbing. Crow caught me by the shoulders and dragged me up. A moment later, I was standing on the platform, staring out at the endless black landscape. I glanced at Crow and saw him staring at me, and for a moment I felt ashamed. I knew what he had done for me. I knew that somehow he had used his powers to calm my fears and help me get over that ledge.
Thankfully, he didn’t mention it, and I didn’t have to humiliate myself by thanking him. At least he understood that much about me. I looked over the edge and saw the city below us, and quickly stepped back.
“What now?” I said, fixing my gaze on the burner at the center of the platform. The structure itself was fairly large, about eight feet tall and four in diameter. Large enough to hold several tanks of fuel, which I noticed the workers had stored inside. I assumed they kept the fuel tanks in a constant rotation, probably lowering the empty containers down to the city using ropes and pulleys.
“Hang on,” Crow said. He reached under his cloak and one of those shiny daggers appeared in his hand. He stepped up to the ledge and methodically began slicing the tethers. The ropes were as thick as a Vangar’s arm, but his blade sliced through them like warm butter.
As he cut the first rope, the platform rose to one side, threatening to dump us over the edge. I moved to the center and latched onto a handrail. Crow deftly leapt to the other side of the platform and cut another rope, balancing the weight. I took a deep breath as the platform righted itself. Crow went to work on another rope. In this manner he cut us loose, one rope at a time, zigzagging back and forth across the platform until at last we broke free.
Crow joined me at the center of the platform as the balloon lifted gently into the air, no longer tethered to the city. We rocked back and forth as we made our ascent, and our aircraft made a gliding sound as it brushed past the other balloons. I had the terrifying thought that we might get caught on one of the other balloons, but then we slid past them and suddenly we were drifting up towards an ocean of clear, bright stars. The city shrank to little more than a bright spot against the darkness below us.
A breeze caught our makeshift aircraft, and we began drifting to the east, towards the edge of the Blackrock Mountains. I pressed up against the structure, trying to ignore the cold wind whipping my hair and stinging my skin. “At least we’re going the right way,” I said.
“The wind currents from the ocean,” Crow explained. “Mother told me all about them. A good pilot can use the air currents to speed his flight.”
I considered that. I had always known that my mother had been a pilot, but I’d never given it much thought. Looking back, I wondered if the story of her death had somehow influenced my fear of heights. I could imagine hearing as a child the story about how my mother had flown over the mountains and crashed her plane. Small wonder that I had such terror built up in my subconscious mind.
I wondered if knowing that would somehow alleviate the problem. I took a step away from the burner, leaning towards the edge of the platform, and saw the vast black world spreading out below. I nervously danced back and latched on to the rail. “So much for that theory,” I murmured.
“I wonder how close we can get to the mines?” I said. “We’re at the mercy of the wind. Didn’t Raehl say the Vangars race these things? How is that possible?”
“The air currents move in different speeds and directions. A person might go anywhere with a balloon like this, with the right equipment.”
“I see. So how do we change direction?”
“Well, that’s the trick,” he said, looking upward. “If we cut the fuel, the air in the balloon cools and we drop. If we turn up the fire, we rise. It’s just a matter of reaching the right altitude to find the wind we want.”
I watched the mountains growing closer and noted that our flight path was taking us a good distance north of the mines. “Perhaps we should try a different altitude then,” I said. “We need to fly further south.”
“If only it were that easy,” Crow said.
I looked at him sharply. “I don’t understand… didn’t you just say we could control the direction we fly?”
“I said we could if we had better controls. The balloons that the Vangars race have modified control systems to adjust the fuel supply. We can’t control the fuel on this balloon. We can only turn it on and off.”
I groaned. “I suppose we should cut the fuel now, then,” I said. “If we land too far into the mountains, it could take days to get back.”
“For you, perhaps,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “I however, can fly.” With that, he spread his cloak and leapt off the platform. An involuntary scream escaped my lips as he vanished over the edge. A moment later, he reappeared a dozen yards to the north. I had almost forgotten about his stupid cloak.
“Fear not, big sister,” he called over the hissing noise of his wing jets. “I’m your pilot today!”
Crow vanished into the sky overhead and everything went silent for a moment. Then I noticed a faint tugging sensation coming from up above, and the balloon slowly changed direction. A few seconds later, we were moving south at a rapid pace, on a direct course for the camp. Crow rejoined me on the platform.
“That should get us going,” he said. “I’ll do that again if we change course. We won’t have to walk far at all.”
I stared at him, baffled by his fearlessness. “Does our mother have one of those things?” I said, nodding at his cloak.
“Absolutely not. She’s terrified of them. She believes people were meant to fly with a machine wrapped around them, where it’s safe.”
I laughed at that, and he joined in. “Perhaps y
ou should try flying her way someday,” he added. “It might suit you.”
“If it’s all the same, I think I’ll stay on the ground from now on,” I said. “The sky is for birds.”
An hour from the time we cut loose, we settled our balloon down on the prairie at the edge of the Blackrock Mountains just a few miles northwest of the mines. We had very little control of the thing as it plummeted towards the ground, and though it was going at a smooth angle relative to the earth, it was going quite fast. Rather than risk breaking my neck in the crash, I leapt off and tumbled as I hit the ground. Crow simply flew into the air and then landed next to me as I was brushing off the dust.
I took off running in the direction of the mines. “This way,” I called over my shoulder. Crow leapt into the air and flew up next to me, hovering just off to my right.
“Tell me, why didn’t we just do this in the first place?”
“What?” I said between breaths. I was a little annoyed that he could just fly along next to me like that.
“Why didn’t we just come here first, rather than getting you captured?”
“You’ll see,” I said breathlessly
True to my word, an hour later, he understood. We stood on a bluff overlooking the mines, watching the thousands of workers and Vangar slave drivers. The hole in the earth was an abyss at least two miles wide. We couldn’t even see the bottom. A steady stream of ore cars moved in and out of the mines, some of them hand-drawn by slaves, others carted up the slope to the crusher by steam-powered machines.
After the crusher, a series of conveyor belts carried the raw materials off to the smelting furnaces. Just beyond that, a steam locomotive idled on the rails as the slaves loaded the cars with refined steel and freshly hewn timber. I also noticed a number of heavy machines, such as the earthmovers that I would later learn to call “steamshovels,” and the plows that formed the roads and reinforced the earth as the workers dug ever deeper into the ground.
Blood and Steam (The Tinkerer's Daughter) Page 10
