For Steam and Country: Book One of the Adventures of Baron Von Monocle

by Jon Del Arroz

  “Oof,” James said, patting me softly on the back. Then he squeezed me in earnest. “I missed you too, Zair-bear. Now let’s find Captain von Cravat and get out of here before the commotion I caused gets noticed.”

  “It’s just you?” I asked, breaking the embrace. I pulled back, and then I realized that I was dressed in only my smallclothes, as I had been since I’d been moved down here. I wrapped my arms around myself to cover my chest, trying not to blush.

  “I have two other full knights with me. They’re back at the entrance now, guarding in case more soldiers make their way in here.”

  “They let you come?” I asked, pulling back to look at him.

  “I fought for it, Zair-bear. They tried to tell me that as an apprentice, this was too dangerous, but I bested Cid in combat to prove myself.” His eyes twinkled in the flickering torchlight.

  I beamed back at him with pride. Oh, James! “It looks like you took out the guards?” I looked down the hallway, and saw the body of the original guard crumpled against the iron bars of another cell. I felt no sympathy for him after how he’d treated me.

  “Guards? As in more than one?” James blinked.

  “You mean you only saw one?” I recoiled.

  Tyree charged from deeper into the dungeon, his sword already drawn. It shined in the reflection of one of the torches. He gauged who posed the greatest threat in the situation and swung for James.

  I spun out of the way, pressing against the bars behind me as if they were a safety net.

  In a flash, James drew his sword from his scabbard. I recalled the times back in the field when he’d used stick swords. Back then, he playfully attacked me with incredible speed. I could never keep up. Watching him move with a real sword made me tense.

  Steel met steel in the dungeon hall. The loud clang echoed down the corridor. James kept one hand back, using only his main hand to deflect the first blows that the aggressive Tyree delivered. He kept an open stance, pivoting off his back foot.

  Tyree pounded mercilessly. He was stronger than James, with a bigger, more muscular build. James was forced to retreat.

  James hopped backward over the puddle of my urine, beckoning for Tyree to come at him. If he’d have acted that cocky with me, I’d have whacked him upside the head. Tyree, however, held a grin on his face, as if he knew he was the better fighter of the two and it were only a matter of time before he would defeat James.

  There was little I could do. I thought about kicking Tyree from behind or trying to distract him, but I had no weapon of my own. If I did manage to garner his attention, I would have no means to defend myself.

  As luck would have it, Tyree pressed forward, he stepped right into the urine puddle. Surprised by the sudden slippery surface, Tyree lost his footing and had to draw back his sword to stabilize himself. His eyes went wide as James landed a deep cut to his shoulder. When James pulled his sword back, Tyree fell backward. His head landed on the stone floor with a resounding crack.

  James winced in front of me. “Terrible way to die, head splitting to piss on the floor,” he said, sheathing his sword. He looked more disturbed than the way he made light of it.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked, placing a hand on his arm.

  Toby scampered out of the cell, climbing and circling my body until he perched on my shoulder. He squawked in James’s face, making James pull away from the hug.

  “Yeah.” James hopped the puddle once more and started back down the hall toward the exit. “I’ve never killed anyone before today. It’s weird, Zair-bear. I feel a rush, power in some ways, but I also feel sick.”

  I jogged after him to catch up, then kept pace at his side. “I know how you feel. I killed a soldier myself a few days back. Something I thought I’d never do.”

  James glanced to the side to look at me. “You? You’ll have to tell me about it when we get out of here.” He grimaced. “It leaves this sinking pit in your stomach, you know? Ending someone’s life like that. I keep telling myself the Wyranth are evil, and I had no choice, but I see the look in their eyes as life fades from them. It’s like the sun setting only…”

  “Permanent,” I said, finishing for him. I flung my arms around him again for another hug. We both needed it. “Oh my. In the commotion I’d almost forgotten about my father. He’s in here somewhere. And what about the others? We should free them, too.”

  James pulled back. “I let a few members of the crew out on my way in here. Do you think there are more further down some of these rows of cells? How many did you bring down here? I don’t think we have much time before we’re noticed.”

  “We can’t leave anyone here!”“The orders were to get you and Captain von Cravat and go. We need to grab her and get out. I figure we send up a flare to signal the airship and wait out in the foothills. Shouldn’t be too hard to hide two of us.” James started down the hall again.

  “James, seriously! This is crew loyal to King Malaky, not to mention it’s my father you’re talking about. We get everyone out” The knights had orders to leave other behind? It didn’t sound very chivalrous. I still hadn’t seen the other two knights that James had come with, which meant they could be helping the others despite James’s words. But I wouldn’t leave anyone trapped here, especially my father.

  James considered, frowning. “Part of our strategy to get in and out is to have as few people as possible. Easier to evade detection that way. This isn’t exactly an easy task breaking into the Wyranth capital. We’re all likely to be killed.”

  “I don’t care. My father’s here James.” An idea struck me. “What if we took the opposite tack: let everyone out of their cells, our people or not, and cause some sort of mass confusion? We could escape in the process.”

  “Except you’re the most prominent prisoners. Everyone would recognize you.”

  “Still worth a shot. Besides, who knows what kind of people are held here. We could be doing the world a service.”

  “You’re the boss,” James said and reached for his keys.

  We moved from cell to cell, heading further into the dungeon and down a couple of branches of yet more cells. Soon enough, we had a few of the commandos opening doors along with us. One of the others thought to grab Tyree’s keys from his body, and so we had two sets to open doors as quickly as we could manage.

  After the fifth cell, we found Talyen. She sat, eyes closed, with her legs crossed. Her arms rested on her thighs, palms up. I’m not sure why she sat like that, but I tapped on the bars with my key.

  Talyen’s eyes fluttered open. It took her a moment to remember her surroundings, but her eyes widened when she saw me. Still, she didn’t flinch, strong even in her moment of surprise. “Zaira? You’re the last person I expected to see.”

  “I’m here. And we’re getting the others out of here as well.”

  “We?”

  “James and the knights are working on releasing all the prisoners,” I said. I turned the key in the lock and held the cell door for her. “And my father’s in here. Somewhere. We have to get him as well.”

  “Theo…” Talyen pushed herself to her feet and followed me out of the cell. “How long has it been? It’s difficult to judge time in here, being dark. I think the guards bring food at random times to throw us off.”

  “A little more than two days,” I said. “Maybe closer to three. They’ve been bringing me out once a day to talk to me.”

  “Talk? You mean interrogate?”

  “Something like that,” I said with a shrug. “I’ll fill you in when we get out of here. We still haven’t found my father yet. I communicated with him, so he’s somewhere in here.”

  Talyen’s eyes lit up like I’d never seen. “We have to find him!”

  I nodded. “Believe me, I want to find him more than anything.”

  James opened another cell down the corridor. “I think we’re really tempting fate if we don’t get out of here soon.”

  Talyen frowned. “From what I’ve seen, this dungeon is like a gi
ant underground catacomb. It has all sorts of passages. We could go deeper in and possibly find a different way out.”

  “One of the guards brought me up through a different route into some fancy building. There’s definitely more than one door,” I said.

  James spun one of the keys around his finger. “If we get stuck though, and there is only one way out, we could be dealing with the whole Wyranth army if we wait too long.”

  Talyen patted me on the shoulder. “If there’s one thing I learned from your father, Zaira. It’s to take chances. The Liliana’s crew doesn’t leave people behind, no matter the odds.”

  That stirred my heart. Much better than the way the knights had been ready to get a couple of people out and leave the rest stranded. I glanced down the hall.

  James had gone from opening cells to winding his arm around like a clock hand, imploring everyone to make for the exit. “Rislandians, let’s move!” He met my eyes, his look saying he was sorry.

  I wouldn’t leave my father, there was no way. If it were that dangerous to get in here, that meant another attempt would be impossible, or never happen. This would be my only chance to free him.

  The rest of the Liliana’s crew and the others flooded toward James, who pointed toward the main exit. Only one person stayed put. Talyen stood by my side. “Let’s find him.”

  “But the others?” I asked.

  “Your friend is doing a good job getting them to safety. We’re Theo’s only hope.”

  I took a deep breath to muster up the confidence, then I turned and made my way deeper into the dungeon, Talyen at my back.

  My life these days is traveling back and forth to the capital. Our crew trains, and I with them, but Harkerpal hasn’t been able to fix the engines. There’s some gadget or component he needs to fabricate. This might be the end of what’s become our home.

  An excerpt from Captain von Cravat’s log

  Day 40 of the Month of the Fool

  17th Year of Malaky XVI’s Reign

  As we moved in the opposite direction of the sea of people, some of the crew broke off from the pack to follow their captain. Talyen barked orders back at them to follow James instead. It amazed me how many prisoners that dungeon held, and how fast two sets of keys could free people. It felt like I’d actually done some good, modifying James’s plan, even though I’d needed rescuing myself.

  “Where to? You’ve been further through this place than I have,” Talyen said, maneuvering around one of the other prisoners in the tight corridor.

  “Toby was the one who’s seen him, but I think he was further down from where they kept me.” I moved back toward my old cell.

  “What happened anyway? We thought for sure that they would have tortured and killed you once they separated you from us.” Talyen asked.

  I told her about Toby and the pen, and how I’d used scraps of the cloth on my cot to pen letters, and then how I’d learned it was my father writing back to me. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to talk about the creepy conversations with the Iron Emperor and his demands to marry me.

  “That’s incredible,” Talyen said. “The ingenuity on your part—”

  “Reminds you of my father, I know,” I said, making a circular motion with my finger to let her know I’d head that line before. I kept walking down the hall.

  Talyen laughed and followed me. “That’s not a bad thing you know. What I’m more shocked about is that your little rodent actually came in useful. I suppose I was wrong in telling you not to bring him.”

  “I didn’t bring him on purpose,” I admitted. “He snuck into my pack.”

  “Hmm, then, the luck of the von Monocle blood is with us.”

  We turned a corner. The dungeon seemed to darken and the smell of mold and moisture in the air was more profound the further we went. As we delved deeper into the dungeon, more prisoners came to their respective doors, jiggling the bars, howling at us to get our attention. We’d tried to let everyone out, but there were just too many to stop. I felt terrible, but James was right, we didn’t have time to come down here and get to every prisoner. There were just too many. It panged my heart to think of that fact, so I kept my eyes forward as best I could, trying not to make direct contact. Most of the prisoners here looked withered, old, as if they’d been down here for years. Some of the men had beards down to their stomachs. The place had a distinct stench to it, unhygienic. It was as if none of these people were allowed baths the whole time they were in here. Didn’t the guards get sick of it?

  I scanned back and forth, torn apart at the seams that I couldn’t take the time to rescue these others. These prisoners, each were held solitary in a cell as I had been. They had it worse than anyone and probably deserved the most help. But we did what we could. We’d gotten a good number of people out of cells who weren’t from our crew.

  Talyen kept her eyes peeled, stepping closer to a few cells when she thought she saw someone that resembled my father. “You know, it’s been a couple of years. Who knows how different he might look now?” she asked.

  “I bet he’s thinner, with a longer beard,” I said. Hopefully nothing worse had been done to him in that time.

  The hall continued and, again, split into twin corridors that went on forever. We faced a choice. Clanging sounds resounded back from whence we came. That could mean only one thing— The Wyranth had already arrived. We had to pick the right hallway, and now.

  “Which way?” I asked.

  Talyen frowned, glancing back and forth. “Odd or even,” she said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Pick,” she said.

  “Odd,” I said.

  “Left then. I chose odd for left, even for right.” Talyen took the left path without hesitation.

  “How are you sure that’s correct?” I asked, following her. I couldn’t have made a decision like that so randomly.

  “I’m relying on your von Monocle luck.”

  “Wait!” I stopped, an idea popping into my head. “If Toby led the way to my father before, he would be the best one to decide which way to go.”

  Talyen turned to face me. “If you think that would be better. I seem to remember a propensity for him getting lost more than a keen sense of direction.”

  I ignored the insult, and hoped Toby did, too. “But he has gone back and forth between our cells a few times. He knows my scent, as well as my father’s. It’s the best chance we’ve got,” I said. I grabbed Toby from my shoulder, though he’d dug his claws into my shirt, and set him down on the ground. “Come on, Toby. This is do or die. We need you. Find him for me.”

  Toby sniffed around my feet, not appearing to want to move anywhere. He went in circles, and then became distracted by his tail.

  “Zaira, it was a cute idea but we have to get going!”

  “Just a minute more! Please, Toby.” I crossed my fingers.

  Toby suddenly looked up and sniffed the air. Then he bolted back the direction we came from.

  “Let’s go!” I said, and ran after Toby.

  I could tell Talyen wanted to protest my choice of direction, or rather Toby’s, but there was no time. She had to either follow or separate from us. She chose to follow.

  We all ran back down the hall to the original split point when Toby took a hard turn through a little hole in the wall that we’d missed on the way through here. We looped around and found him again. This dungeon was like Talyen said — catacombs. Secret passages, holes in the walls, they could be everywhere. One could get lost in this maze easily. We would have never known without Toby, never been able to find my father.

  Toby kept us going at a breakneck pace, running down that new corridor. This hallway had no other prisoners, no longing faces begging for us to rescue them. The Wyranth had enough cells to hold the entire Rislandia Kingdom in here. My lungs burned from the frantic pace.

  Toby came to a halt. I had to leap over him not to step on him. Talyen had fallen behind us, moderating her pace. She jogged to us a moment later. I doubled over,
out of breath. Talyen didn’t have an issue.

  She looked around and frowned. “So now what? This looks like everywhere else we’ve been in these cells.”

  I raised a finger to Talyen. I needed another moment to catch my breath but didn’t see anything but more corridors of cells, and nothing that pointed toward my father. Had Toby led us on a goose chase? He could have seen the running and chasing as a game. It was something we’d done in the tomato fields back home on a regular basis.

  Toby squawked and ran into one of the cells.

  A silhouette appeared from the back of the cell, standing. It was a man, tall and skinny, malnourished as most of the other prisoners with a long beard, spotted salt and pepper. His face was wrinkled, and his eyes looked like they’d seen the ends of the world itself.

  It was also the face of my father, distinct and recognizable with the same chin and nose that I had. I gasped, already short on breath. “Father!” I said and rushed over to the bars. Tears came again, but this time I didn’t care. I had the right to cry for my father. This was the best moment of my life.

  He came to the iron bars, smiling at me with pride. I was so overcome with joy that I gripped his shirt through the bars to give him a hug, forgetting in that moment that I had the keys to open the cell.

  “Might be easier without the bars in the way,” Talyen said softly. She had a small smile on her face as well.

  “Oh, Zaira. How I’ve missed you!” father said. “How, by Malaky, did you get here? Oh…” He froze when he saw Talyen. Adoration crossed his eyes, there was no doubt about it. The very way he used to look at mother. “I see,” he said.

  “That’s all?” Talyen quipped. She maintained her smile.

  I broke the semi-embrace with my father, reaching for the cell keys. My hands shook. I could hardly control myself. With a quick twist of the key, I managed to get the cell door open.

  Father rushed out of the cell and hugged me again. I’d thought he’d go for Talyen, but he made his priorities clear. He kissed my hair, my forehead, my cheeks. Then he lifted me off the ground as if I were a small child again. When I was above him, looking down on his face, I saw that he cried as well. “I never thought I’d see you again. I never thought I’d get out of here.”