The Mark of the Dragonfly

by Jaleigh Johnson

  “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!”

  “They must be attacking the front too!” Anna cried as she ran back up the car. “Look—Trimble set off the smoke screens up there.” She pointed to the windows. The view out was obscured by plumes of thick white smoke that drifted from the front of the train.

  “Let’s add more smoke, then,” Piper said. They needed to make it as hard as possible for the raiders to see the train and latch on to it with grappling hooks. She ran through Gee’s car and back to the defense room. She grabbed a red valve and twisted it left to release the smoke screen at the rear; then she pointed to the fire valve. “We have to keep them off the back car. They’ll try to board us on the observation platform. I’m going to lock the door back there. Can you start the fire?”

  Wide-eyed, Anna nodded. Piper sprinted back to the observation deck and saw a glider approaching, its nose pointed directly at the space between the metal railing and the covered deck. One of the raiders leaned over the side of his craft and aimed a crossbow at Piper.

  “Fire!” Piper yelled back at Anna.

  At that moment, vents on either side of the door slid open, and Piper heard the rush of the igniter. Flames burst from the vents, shooting out streams of fire. The raider swerved, but not far enough. The glider’s left wing caught fire. The man with the crossbow dropped his weapon and dove forward to try to put the flames out with his hands, but the fire had already consumed most of the silk covering the wings, leaving behind a blackened metal skeleton. The pilot dropped the controls and crash-landed the glider into the dirt.

  “Great shot, Anna!” Piper charged back inside the car, locked the door, and ran to close off the fire vents.

  Anna’s eyes were huge, her cheeks flushed. “How many of them do you think there are?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” Piper hated not being able to see what was going on. The smoke helped obscure the train from the gliders, but it also made it impossible to see what was coming out the windows. “I’m going to take a look topside.” Maybe she could get above the smoke.

  She dragged the stool over beneath the trapdoor. Anna grabbed her arm as she jumped up on it. “Piper, don’t. If you can see them, they can see you, and they’ve got crossbows.”

  “You’re right,” Piper said. Anna looked relieved until Piper added, “Hand me one of the crossbows.”

  “You don’t know how to fire it!” Anna wailed. Piper pulled open the trapdoor and thick threads of smoke leaked in from outside. “What if another glider comes back here?”

  “All the more reason to have a weapon. And I’ve fired one before—Dad showed me once—it’s just been a few years.” Piper attached the safety harness to her belt. Climbing onto the top of a moving train while raiders were attacking it might be the single craziest thing she’d ever done—and that was saying something, considering what she’d done so far on this trip—yet her hands trembled with as much excitement as fear. “You think you can load one of those bolts and get it ready for me?”

  “Theoretically,” Anna said. “But, Piper—”

  “You can do it.” Piper smiled. “Just don’t shoot yourself in the foot.”

  “I’m more scared of what’ll happen to you!”

  It was a fair point, Piper thought, but she had to take the risk. “Anna,” she said seriously, “it’s all right to be afraid, but you can’t let that stop you from doing what you have to do. I’ve seen you put that incredible brain to work under pressure, and I have faith in you. We can do this.”

  Anna picked up the crossbow. She looked at the weapon and then back up at Piper. Finally, she nodded. “All right. I’ll get it ready.”

  “Fantastic,” Piper said. “Well, here goes.” She hoisted her body through the opening in the ceiling. At first, all she could see was smoke. She coughed on the thick clouds, but then a gust of wind blew the white curtain back, and she gasped.

  The sky was full of gliders.

  Piper counted a dozen before the smoke obscured her view again. Just like the first glider she’d seen, each craft held at least two men, and the one in the rear was armed with a crossbow. Piper sat up on her knees, poking her head above the thick layer of smoke to get another look. Just as she peeked out of the cloud, a glider dove down, flying alongside the train two cars ahead of her. The man in the rear heaved something big and heavy over its side at the car nearest him, and Piper squinted to make it out as it bounced and clung to the roof of the train. A grappling hook!

  Oh no you don’t, Piper thought, her heart pounding. “Anna,” she called down, “give me darts!”

  Almost a
s soon as she’d given the order, dozens of tiny vents slid back along the roof of the car, exposing sharpened metal tips, poised to fire. From his position hovering beside the train, the pilot swerved, almost dislodging the rear man as he was getting out of the craft to climb down the rope attached to the hook. The darts fired, slicing holes in the glider’s silk wings and sending the craft spinning away into the dirt.

  Piper didn’t have time to celebrate the victory. Ahead of her, two gliders flew side by side, a large net dangling between them, headed toward the front of the train.

  The net’s for Gee, Piper realized. It had to be. Two more gliders fell in behind the first for what looked like a coordinated attack. Piper crawled forward to the limit of her harness, trying to see if she could find Gee, but all the smoke made it impossible.

  She knew she should get back inside the car. Every minute she spent exposed, she risked becoming a pincushion. Still, she lingered, crawling on her knees as close to either side of the car as she dared, looking for the chamelin.

  As far as she could tell, he wasn’t flying next to the cars either. Anxiety flooded Piper as the minutes passed. Where was he? Gee had a world of trouble coming his way, and she couldn’t even warn him.

  Finally, giving up the idea of finding him, Piper turned and crawled carefully back to the trapdoor. The canyon walls raced by in a blur of rock. She dropped into the car, balancing on the stool. “Anna, how are you doing loading that crossbow?” she asked.

  “I’ve got it!” Anna ran over to her and held up the weapon, loaded and ready with a bolt fitted to the groove on the stock.

  “Perfect.” Piper stood, cradling the crossbow in her hands. “I’m going up again.”

  Anna bit her lip, but she didn’t argue. “Be careful.”

  “I promise.” Piper smiled at Anna reassuringly. She checked the roof, but she couldn’t see anything from where she stood. She handed the crossbow back to Anna to hold while she hoisted herself up and out into the wind and the smoke and chaos.

  This time, she caught a glimpse of Gee almost immediately. He was in the distance, perched on a rocky outcropping halfway up the canyon wall, his feet clutching the stone as he swiped at a glider passing by. She watched as his claws caught a wing and tore it to shreds, sending the craft spiraling away. The pilots abandoned the glider at the last minute and rolled onto the rocky ground.

  Piper hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until she exhaled, relief flooding her. She smiled down at Anna and looked back up. Gee had pushed off the wall into empty air and was beating his wings hard to lift his body high above the train. And then Piper saw the gliders with the net. They’d circled and were headed right at him. Two other gliders approached from the opposite direction.

  Quickly, Piper reached down and took the crossbow from Anna. Bracing herself, she hefted the crossbow and, squinting through its sight, aimed for the raiders with the net. Her arms shook under the weight of the bulky weapon, and the sighting tilted crazily. Piper strained to hold the crossbow steady against the wind. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as simple as she’d thought.

  All you have to do is hit the glider, Piper told herself. Just hold it steady long enough …

  Suddenly, one of the gliders dipped, putting its right wing directly in Piper’s sights. The pilot’s attention was focused on Gee. He didn’t see her through the thinning smoke. Piper didn’t hesitate. She fired.

  The bolt flew with a loud twang. The recoil was sharper than she expected. Piper almost dropped the weapon. She rocked back against the safety harness and ended up flat on her back beside the trapdoor. The sky tilted, and her stomach lurched. She grabbed the safety harness to reassure herself that she wasn’t going to fall off the side of the car. Carefully, she sat up, trying to see if her shot had hit anything, but the glider she’d been aiming at was gone. Piper had no idea if she’d hit its wing or not.

  She was about to call down to Anna for another bolt when an engine growled directly behind her. Piper recognized that sound. A compact engine, modified with sarnun stretch coils to give it an extra power boost. She’d been working on one that sounded just like it for Arno Weir before she left Scrap Town Sixteen. Gee had said the raiders used the engines for supplementary power to the gliders.

  Instinctively, Piper dropped flat on her stomach. She looked up to see the glider pass right over her. The pilot shouted to his partner, pointing at where she lay, and the glider turned in a wide arc and flew straight at her.

  “Anna!” Piper screamed. “I need more darts!”

  To her left was another set of vents, open, with the dart tips visible. Either Anna couldn’t hear Piper’s shout above the roar of the train or the mechanism was jammed. Piper reached out and touched one of the dart tips gently, mindful of the wickedly sharp point.

  Fire, she told it silently. The glider’s shadow fell over her. Fire! she commanded, and jerked her hand back.

  The darts exploded from the vents. Piper rolled away hastily. The glider bearing down on her swerved, managing to dodge all but a few of the darts. It was still airborne, but at least it was no longer aimed right at her. She was safe. Or so she thought, until the glider swerved and the man in the rear of it leaned out and reached for her.

  Piper tried to roll away, but her harness tangled around her. She ripped the hook off her belt and scrambled for the safety of the trapdoor, but the man grabbed her arm and hauled her off her feet.

  A second of terrifying weightlessness followed. Piper couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, until she felt her feet come down on the glider’s metal surface. She saw the train pass beneath her, and then a pair of hands pushed her roughly forward toward the pilot.

  “Sit down!” a voice yelled in her ear, and sour breath hit her in the face.

  Piper was pressed between the front and rear seats, her legs dangling free just behind the wings. The craft pulled sharply to the left, forcing her to fall forward and hug the glider’s body. The pilot cursed as he tried to steady the craft. The left wingtip skin had been shredded by the darts. He could no longer control it properly, and the engine couldn’t compensate for Piper’s added weight.

  Before she had time to think too much about the utter stupidity of what she was about to do, Piper leaned far to the left, letting her leg dangle off the side of the glider. She grabbed the left wing and leaned on it as hard as she could.

  “Are you crazy?” the man behind her shrieked as he grabbed Piper by the shoulder and wrenched her back, but the damage was done. Both men screamed as the glider flipped in the air, launching the rear man out of his seat and toward the earth. Piper felt the weight of her body pulling her down as the pilot righted the glider. She held on to the wing, but her feet dangled in empty air.

  They were flying toward the train again. Piper didn’t think the pilot intended to attack. The way he jerked the craft, he barely had control of the glider at all. The engine stalled, and Piper saw the train below her, tantalizingly close.

  You really are crazy, scrapper, she thought, but if you’re going to do this, it’s now or never.

  Piper let go.

  The train rushed up to meet her. Her feet hit the roof of the car, and Piper was immediately skittering backward, unable to find her balance on the moving surface. She threw her arms behind her, fingers searching for something to hold on to. When she felt a piece of smooth metal under her left hand, she grabbed it without thinking. The handgrip stopped her from toppling off the side of the train.

  Piper turned to look at what had saved her and saw the blood. Then the pain hit her in a wave of agony.

  She’d grabbed hold of one of the blades protruding from the train’s metal skin, barbs that protected it from raiders dropping onto the cars exactly as she’d just done. Looking around, Piper cringed. She sat in a nest of the blades—luck alone had saved her from impaling herself when she fell.

  It felt like her hand was on fire. Warm blood filled her palm and spilled over. Gingerly, Piper let go of the blade and clutched her sleeve to t
ry to staunch some of the bleeding. With her other hand, she braced herself against the roof of the car, acutely aware that there was no safety harness to keep her from falling.

  Piper struggled to get her bearings. She was near the front of the train. The smoke had cleared somewhat, and she saw there were fewer gliders, but Gee had disappeared too. Behind her, toward the middle of the train, two gliders had managed to latch on to the cars with grappling hooks, and the raiders were swinging down the ropes.

  As Piper watched, trapdoors popped open up and down the cars, and guards stuck their heads out with crossbows. Bolts filled the air. The raiders saw them and ran, charging recklessly along the roofs and jumping from car to car. Piper thought they were trying to dodge the crossbow shots, but then she realized they were trying to get to the trapdoors. They were running toward the crossbow bolts.

  A shadow fell over Piper’s shoulder. Instinctively she ducked, but then she saw the outline of wings against the sun right before Gee landed in front of her. He turned, and his green eyes burned with a fierceness she hadn’t seen before. Piper assumed he was angry with her for being on top of the train—and rightfully so, she conceded. This was another of her not-so-smart plans. Then he reached for her bloodied hand with his clawed one. A red stain had soaked the hem of Piper’s shirt, making it look like the wound was much worse.

  “I’m all right,” she said, waving him off, but Gee took her hand and put it across his shoulder. He slid his claws gently under her knees and lifted her. Piper felt that weightless, giddy sensation pull at her stomach again as Gee jumped off the roof and propelled them into the air. Holding on tight, she tucked her head against his shoulder, which in this form was hard as granite, and closed her eyes against the dizzying view of the canyon.

  “The raiders are on the train,” Piper said. She had to yell into his ear to make herself heard above the roar of the engine. She didn’t know if the rear defenses would be enough to keep the raiders away if they decided to attack there again.