by P. K. Lentz
He had lived on borrowed time since the abortion of his execution, anyway. He scarcely had a right to complain.
While he was thinking thus, Qilliara grabbed his arm and pulled. Figuring it better to resign himself to her grip than that of death itself, Blaik did not resist when she drew him close to her body. She did not need to tell him this time to hold on.
As the deck twisted under them, Qilliara raised her right arm, the one which was not wrapped around Blaik and also the one on which the black baton was back in place after a brief displacement to allow for blaster use. With it she took aim above their heads, and when Blaik lifted his gaze he saw that her target was the beast which had just ripped them from the sky.
The line shot from the end of the tube, heading for the underbelly of the circling flyer. For a moment, Blaik thought it must have missed, and then—
The metal deck flew out from under his feet as once more he soared upward, clinging to Qilliara. The brazier struck his shoulder then grazed his leg as he flew past it—or rather as it fell past him on its way down and he hurtled up, through the torn balloon and out the fresh tear made by the flyer's claws. Looking down past his feet, Blaik saw the craft tumble like a toy toward a plain which was still too far away for comfort.
He was still falling, too, he realized once the balloon was fully away and his mind and guts had had a moment to sort out what was what. The creature above them shrieked and flapped its bat-wings angrily, struggling to hold the extra weight of two new, full-sized passengers dangling from a line anchored by a projectile embedded in its flesh. Blaik guessed (since Qilliara's goal, as much as his own, must be to put feet on the ground) that her line was presently reeling out to let them descend, just as earlier it would have reeled in to raise them up to the gondola.
Although they fell, their descent was a controlled one, more or less—unlike that of their hijacked craft, which slammed into the plain under them, tumbled end over end, and then rolled, the gondola becoming wrapped in its own deflated balloon. With his own impact growing more imminent, Blaik resisted a strong but unhelpful urge to shut his eyes.
An instant before the ground met them, he was jerked sharply upward, along with Qilliara. Moments later, they landed with not nearly as much force as Blaik had anticipated—enough to make him crumple into a heap and roll onto hands that agreed to release their grip on Qilliara only that they might be called upon to protect his face.
As he clutched clumps of dry grass growing from a hard ground that insisted on spinning, Blaik vaguely understood: in the final moments, Qilliara had abruptly reeled in her line to brake their descent.
Though the world whirled around him, he managed to look up at the crack of Qilliara's razer. He saw her standing a few feet away, firing up at the last of the winged flyers as it swooped down with talons open.
Instead of attacking, it flew over her head and collided with a crooked, leafless tree, bleeding from new holes ripped in its underside. Turning, Qilliara leveled one weapon at the crash site and fired a shot which finished the writhing rider.
Blaik let his head slump to the ground. The dry, pebble-filled dirt was cold against his cheek, and so, so very solid. He rubbed his face on it, considered trying to take a bite and ingest some, or at least give it a kiss, but he was not alone, and so he settled for the present embrace. While he was there, he enjoyed some deep breaths, for he had now gone quite some time taking very few, if any.
As much as he wished to more time in this position, he knew he could not, even though no one urged him to get up by means spoken or otherwise. In fact, it was exactly the absence of urging which gave Blaik a sense of urgency. He hoisted his head to find the feeling justified by the sight of Qilliara's back as she walked away.
It hardly surprised that she would leave him behind, even if he couldn't help letting it hurt just a bit. He was only human.
Scrambling to his feet once, and then once again, and gradually recovering the ability to put one foot in front of the other in something like a straight line, Blaik loped erratically after.
* * *
Five
Blaik did not ask where Qilliara was headed. He knew that answer. The rails. He further assumed she must know where they were, even though he had lost track while worrying about such things as falling from a great height.
It took Blaik an embarrassingly long distance to catch up, for Qilliara walked as one on a mission to save everyone and everything, which she was. By the time he came alongside her, surely only to fall behind again, the rails were in sight. They stretched in a long, straight line across the flat, dry plain of withered grass to vanish into a leafless forest near the horizon.
“You saved my life back there,” Blaik panted as they arrived at the track, which they proceeded to follow, walking between its two rails. “On purpose.”
“I sometimes act without calculation.”
“If that means thinking, we have it in common. Makes us a good team.”
Qilliara withheld comment.
“Since you've learned that you enjoy answering my questions—” He yelled on account of the gap which again was growing between them. Then he remembered it wasn't necessary.
“Tolerate,” she corrected.
“These things you're at war with, the Gra, what do they look like?”
“Spheres the size of planets.”
Blaik was grateful for the answer, even if the final word was unfamiliar. He was used to that by now. “So... big, then?”
“Bigger than anything you've seen. Or ever will.”
Blaik did not miss the reminder that she planned to leave him behind. “Sounds scary,” he said. “You'd think you'd take any help you could get.”
“Any of significance.”
Putting on a fresh burst of speed that did not come easily to his bruised body, Blaik laughed. “I see what you're doing. Insulting me at every chance so I'll—”
“Shut up.”
“Exactly. Very clev—”
“I mean it. Shut up.”
Qilliara had stopped walking and set her foot on one of the metal rails. “Train coming.”
She seemed certain. Looking down the tracks to the limits of vision, Blaik saw nothing.
“How do you...? Never mind.”
“Tell me what to expect,” Qilliara said.
“The engine will be armed with fireguns,” Blaik reported from his last memory of having seen a train. “The carriages usually transport Priests. They're Warpies, big ones mostly. Wear armor and carry pole-axes or hammers. Maybe I ought to sit this one out...”
“You'll capture the engine. We need it undamaged. I'll handle the rest.”
“Capture the—?” Blaik protested. “I'm unarmed. And... fireguns! I burn easily.”
“You quit?”
“No! No, but give me—I mean, may I please use one—”
“No.” Qilliara's hand vanished into the 'neg-pouch' on her back. After a few beats, it emerged holding a black, rectangular object with an open space in the center. She held it by one of the long sides of the rectangle, which was evidently a handle. The side opposite was wider and flatter.
She pointed the device at one of several gray, barkless, leafless trees that stood not far off. There was a low-pitched hum, and the tree splintered near its roots, the top half flying backward to the ground as if struck by a train, not unlike the one coming, except... invisible.
“Yeah, all right, that'll do,” Blaik said swiftly. “I'll take the... tree-shover?”
“Infractor.”
“Fracker, got it.”
Taking it, Blaik found that it fit comfortably in his hand, covering the knuckles, while his top two fingers rested on a trigger similar to that of Qilliara's razers or a small crossbow. Raising the device, he sighted down outstretched arm at a second tree, which he proceeded to knock over as Qilliara had the other, albeit with two pulses to her one.
“Save it for the train, drifter,” Qilliara warned. “Remember: engine undamaged.”
“Blaik undamaged is first priority. But I'll try.”
Foregoing sympathetic acknowledgment, Qilliara went to stand on the tracks facing the center of the world, one hand resting on each razer.
Tired and sore, and unable as yet to see or hear any train, Blaik took the opportunity to sit down and rest on one of the track's metal rails, keeping his back to Qilliara that he might claim to be keeping watch in the other direction. Possibly she could see behind her, but in his time spent clinging to her back, Blaik had seen no extra eyes there, violet or otherwise.
About when he was feeling the need to pester Qilliara with more questions about the universe, he felt a rumble in his backside and turned to see white wisps of steam rising over the dead wood into which the tracks vanished.
Rising, he took a spot beside Qilliara, where a faint chugging reached his ears. Flexing fingers on the grip of the fracker, Blaik aimed it swiftly at some imagined opponents without squeezing the trigger, getting a feel for its weight, which was slight. By the time the engine became visible in the distance as a silvery shape spewing steam where the tracks converged, he felt he was ready. He had no choice but to be. The alternative was a return to the aimless life he had known, made all the worse by possession of certain knowledge that a better world did exist beyond the confines of the Wall.
Or if it wasn't better, at least it was bigger and different.
No, he had no choice. He would see the universe with this unfriendly lady, or else die by her side.
Currently, said lady stood on the tracks with no apparent intention of moving. In the hope of not dying by her side at this particular moment, Blaik elected to stay clear of the track himself, fracker at the ready.
The train rumbled onward. Faintly, over its hiss and chug, Blaik heard yelling which he took to indicate that its operators had seen the humans (or similar) in their path. Whether they counted them as an obstacle or intended to brake remained to be determined within the next few beats of Blaik's suddenly thumping heart.
As the train sped closer, its shape became more defined: a dull, gray metal cylinder to which were affixed various pipes and tanks of silver and brass. On the engine's front a huge inhuman skull was painted, the teeth of which were the slats of an iron grille against which Qilliara looked shortly to be flattened. From the top of the skull, massive, curved horns protruded up and forward, ending in iron-tipped points which by their placement were meant more to terrify than to serve as a weapon.
Exhaling white steam, it was a metal beast of nightmares, and the long body which it pulled along was comprised of four—no, five segments containing the true essence of its deadly power, the armed forces of Her Majestrix.
A harsh, metallic squeal joined the engine's chugging, hissing cacophony. It was braking. The sound gave Blaik a short-lived sense of relief which fled on recognition that relief had no place in the heart of one about to confront such a beast as this, armed with a tree-shover he had used exactly one time. Against trees.
But confront it he would, and whatever else came behind, if it meant one more opportunity to pester Qilliara into rewarding him with a glimpse of this universe she meant to save.
Though its metal wheels had ceased turning, the engine continued to skid nearer, its shriek growing louder, horned skull expanding, iron wedge teeth promising to chew up anyone or anything in its path. Blaik soon realized: it would not stop before running Qilliara down.
Of course it would not. There was only one reason the train would brake at all: its operators knew who these two were in their path, and probably had orders to stop them. Anyone else fool enough to stand on the tracks would have been run down at full speed.
Blaik leveled his new weapon as a ruddy face appeared at the top of the engine. A human in a tan skullcap had popped up from a hatch positioned behind what Blaik now realized was a firegun. Taking little time to aim, Blaik squeezed the handle of his fracker three times in rapid succession.
It whined thrice. The ruddy head flew back, the skullcap flew off, and the gun's charred, tube-like barrel shot upright, spraying a plume of orange fire into the sky.
It was then that the braking, squealing train, still moving at a deadly rate of speed, struck Qilliara. Or at least Blaik thought it had hit her, until he saw her form appear between the engine's tall, curving horns, silhouetted against the dissipating sheet of flame. At the final instant, she had leaped or run up the grille, over the painted skull, and onto the engine's roof, where she hauled the inert firegunner from his hatch and began shooting down into it with both razers.
The train groaned to its final stop. Another skullcapped head appeared from a hatch on the side of the engine facing Blaik, and another charred barrel pivoted into sight. Blaik raced around the front of the train and took cover against the chalky white iron slats of the wedge just as a curtain of flame passed by him, blasting his uncovered face with a wave of intense heat.
Hugging the grille and smelling singed hair, he waited for the fire to relent. When it did, its roar was replaced by guttural shouts and the rapid cracking of Qilliara's razers. Blaik poked his head and fracker-hand out from cover only to recoil into hiding again from a new sheet of searing flame. He looked behind him for sign of attack from the engine's other side, saw none, and briefly considered the plausibility of climbing up between the horns behind Qilliara before ruling it out. When next the flame ceased, Blaik wasted no time.
He sent his fracker arm out around the grille and began squeezing its trigger even before the target was visible. An instant later, his head emerged from cover to see the firegun twisted back on its mount and the gunner slumped in his hatch.
I won't call you a tree-shover again, he silently promised the weapon, which he kept cautiously raised while he sidled past waist-high, spoked metal wheels to approach the firegun. Further back, Priests were pouring from the carriages, but the attention of the muscular, armored Warpies was on Qilliara, who stood upon the flat roof of a middle carriage, firing down on them. Most were armed with long pole-axes which had nearly the reach to cut her, but none appeared to be getting close enough to try. Many fell, but their numbers were great; even in the few moments he could spare to witness that battle, Blaik saw some Priests near the rear of the train begin to climb atop the cars themselves.
However tempting it was to pepper the nearest enemies with fracker fire from behind, Blaik had his own mission, the capture of the engine, which was not served by calling further attention to himself.
Reaching the inactive firegun, he stepped up onto a spoked wheel and pointed the fracker into the dark opening of the hatchway.
A serrated saber thrust into sight and nearly took him through the eye. Dodging, Blaik fired down the blade's length, and the weapon clattered to the interior floor while its Warpy owner flew explosively back and out of sight.
Qilliara wanted the engine intact. There was no telling how much damage the fracker could do in the close quarters inside, and so, yanking out the broken gunner to crawl in through his hatch, Blaik begrudgingly made a decision not to fire it again.
Before he was halfway in, the decision was tested when another skullcapped Warpy crewman appeared in the dark, cramped, machinery-filled space, swiping at Blaik's head with a spiked club.
Barely avoiding, Blaik fell the rest of the way inside and wound up on the floor. To his luck, he rolled past the dropped serrated saber, which he gripped with his left hand just before rolling to escape another swing of the club. His body struck the sharp corner of some equipment, and his sword-arm was momentarily pinned, but Blaik lashed out with his right, hitting the engineer hard in the shin with a sharp corner of the fracker. When the Warpy stumbled back, the spikes of his upraised club caught on some machinery or other on the engine's low ceiling.
It gave Blaik the heartbeat he needed. His saber plunged into the engineer's torso. Groaning, the Warpy slumped down, the grip of his two-fingered hands on the club keeping him upright for an extra few moments before he fell, leaving the snagged club dangling. Whirling, Blai
k searched the cabin for any more crew, but he saw none, nor any place in the cramped quarters for any to hide.
One train engine captured intact. Easy.
From outside came the muffled sounds of angry yelling and Qilliara's razers. Dropping the saber while idly wishing for some sort of fracker-holster, Blaik climbed a small ladder up through the open hatch of the top-mounted firegun. The view it afforded was one of a desperate effort by dozens of the Witch-Queen's deadly Priests to dislodge a lone attacker from the roof of a train carriage.
Dozens already had fallen, and the living were falling fast. Qilliara did not appear to need help, easily dropping any attacker who got within several feet of her with a well-placed flash of blue fire.
Still, there was no point in letting a fully functional firegun go to waste. Swinging its barrel around to point at the nearest of corner of the swarm of Priests, Blaik took a moment to find the lever which acted as the gun's trigger. With some joy, he pulled it.
Flames erupted just feet from Blaik's face, momentarily obscuring his view of the targets. But he kept the lever pulled, swiveling the barrel back and forth, and when he released it and it snapped back into the off position, several of the nearest Priests were ablaze and screaming. Others were onto him, however, and turned to charge with hammers and poleaxes raised. Blaik unleashed another blaze at them, and they veered aside, burning. When more came from the other side of the train, Blaik raised the fracker and sent them all sprawling to the ground with a few blasts before spraying more flame on the other side.
After a short while, no more Priests remained standing. From her perch, Qilliara shot some of the wounded, then returned her razers to her hips and strode on the roof toward Blaik in his firegunner's hatch.
She was half a carriage away from the engine when right behind her, a hatch burst open and a Priest sprang up. His pole-axe was already in mid-arc by the time Qilliara spun, drawing one razer. She half-dodged, half fell, blade grazing her hair. Blue fire flashed, and the Priest grunted and spasmed, but it was no killing shot, for he hefted his ax once more and brought it straight down on a course to bisect Qilliara at the waist.
