by E. C. Jarvis
Larissa passed around a corner, tucking her body into a shady alcove. Another row of warehouses appeared on the next street over, but through an alley up ahead, she saw the route to the train station.
Carefully and slowly, she picked her way between the buildings, finding more men covering the rooftops and at least three others pacing between the buildings on the ground. Her heart raced every time she stepped away from a hiding place, and it thumped harder still once she lost sight of Holt.
With deep breaths and shaking hands, she skirted between buildings. Her heart pulsed so hard she felt dizzy with minimal exertion, and yet, each time she inched forwards, she seemed to slip by the watching eyes of small groups of men. By the time she passed the last building leading to the station, her confidence grew. Her movements became smooth and flowing instead of timid and jittery. Her legs glided over the dusty ground, leaving behind no obvious trace of footprints. It was almost as if she had been born to stealth—a far cry from the woman who had left Sallarium City so long ago.
Before she knew it, she found herself racing up a small flight of steps and leaping gracefully over a barrier to enter the station. She paused by the station building to look back over the route she’d taken. A man passed by on the street, carrying pistols in both hands, prowling on his patrol. A sly smile spread across her lips as she turned towards the train, racing directly to the engine where the banging and clanging noises continued on, the occupant utterly unaware of her successful navigation there. As lucky as she had been, she’d told Holt and Kerrigan to come along soon after, and the clock was ticking.
“Cid!” Larissa screeched as she saw a familiar figure hunched over in the train engine.
Lieutenant Saunders appeared nearby, and Cid swore as he bumped his head. “Larissa, thank the Gods you’re all right.”
“We need to go, now!” She flew into the train and almost began pushing levers and tugging on buttons until she realized that she had no idea how to operate the thing.
“We can’t leave now. She’s not ready. I took the engine from the airship and I’ve hooked up through the pistons, bypassing the steam pressure pumps, as they are no longer needed. I’m not sure how long the remaining chunk of Anthonium will hold out, but I don’t have the calculations for the rate of degradation. The Professor had them somewhere, but I’m afraid I just can’t recall them, and even if I could, I would have to rework the calculations, taking into account the weight of the train, the speed and distance and windspeed, and I’m really not sure—”
“Cid, we don’t have time for this. Can you make this train move or not? We’re about to be attacked by a bunch of people who really don’t like us very much, so we need to leave by train or by foot.”
“Attacked?” Saunders said. “Where’s the Colonel?”
“He’s coming.”
“Who did you piss off this time?” Cid asked.
“Just get this thing moving. Where are the others?” Larissa didn’t wait for Cid to answer as she jumped down to the platform and ran along the carriages. A delicious smell wafted toward her from the dining car, which almost covered the acrid stench around the rest of the station.
“They’re in there. Get inside,” Lieutenant Saunders called.
She ignored his issuing of orders when he had no right to do so. There wasn’t time to get technical. She glanced in the windows and saw Narry and Sandy inside. “Stay put. We’re leaving,” she yelled to them before jogging back to the engine.
The mechanical apparatus hummed into life, clanking and whirring. The engine sat in the middle of the cab, leaving barely any space to stand. Larissa wasn’t sure how they’d managed to drag it off the airship, let alone how Cid had managed to hook it up, but there wasn’t time to ask. Cid crouched, his backside resting on his heels, eyes as wide as saucers staring at the engine, a wrench in one hand, a spanner in the other. His head bobbed up and down as he checked the components over and over.
“Will it work?” Larissa said, her voice raised over the noise of the engine as the rest of the train flared to life.
“How the fuck should I know?” Cid barked back at her.
She bit back a cutting response. Of all the people in the world, he was the only one who truly should know the answer to that question, and if he didn’t…
“Go!” a shout came up from the platform. Larissa turned to see Holt and Saunders gripping Kerrigan between them, hobbling at speed. Behind them and down the street, a mob of people ran towards them.
“Cid…we need to go…now.”
“It’s not ready yet. It needs to get up to speed.”
“Cid, we don’t have time to get up to speed.” Larissa turned to the controls as soon as she saw the men climb aboard. She had no idea where to start, but one prominent red handle caught her eye—the brake.
She tugged on it. It didn’t budge. A shot cracked through the air above the noise of the engine, and something clanged off the side of the train.
“It’s ceased after being out of use for so long,” Cid yelled, although he made no move to help her. She could tell he was fiddling with something behind him.
Larissa pressed her foot against a lump of metal housing some pipework and yanked on the handle with all her might. The handle shifted. The brakes released with a screech. Another shot disturbed her curls of hair, the bullet whizzing past her face. She barely flinched. The entire train shifted forwards with a lurch, the carriages bumping against their couplings.
An arm wrapped around her waist, another around her shoulder, and Cid threw her to the floor, the pair of them landing awkwardly together in the crowded floor space. Bullets flew around the inside of the cab, pelting metal and pipes. Larissa’s stomach seemed to jump up into her throat then sink straight down to her toes.
The shooting stopped abruptly, and as Larissa rolled over out of Cid’s grasp, she saw why. The outside world whipped past as they traveled down the tracks. She scrambled to the doorway to look back. The station already faded from view, a crowd of people standing on the platform and watching them leave. Behind the empty coal car, six carriages were dotted with bullet holes.
“I need to go make sure no one is hurt,” Larissa said to Cid as he appeared at her shoulder.
“Fine.”
“You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No.”
“Cid…”
He looked down at her, his face scrunched up in confusion, gear oil smudged across his cheeks and all up his arms, bags under his eyes from lack of sleep, deep wrinkles in his brow.
Larissa softly wrapped her arms around his chest and held him close. She wanted to say so much, to thank him for all he’d done, for the things he’d sacrificed, and to tell him how much she loved him.
“Thanks,” she said simply.
He kissed the top of her head, then wriggled free from her grip. “I had better get to driving,” he said as he turned to the controls.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
The monotonous clacking of the train riding over the tracks faded into static after a while, though Kerrigan struggled to rest. His shoulder ached like hell, and the rest of his body didn’t feel much better. Though they had escaped the immediate danger of the pursuing mob at Sallarium City, he couldn’t help but wonder if a swift bullet to the head might prove to have been the better option with what lay ahead.
Their journey across country had taken the best part of a day and a night. What little rest he’d been afforded hadn’t helped much.
No smoke rose up from the train’s chimney stack—an issue which would draw attention to them from anyone who looked hard enough—and if word of the attack at Sallarium had reached the Capital, the whole city would be on high alert for anything out of sorts.
Kerrigan shifted position on the seat; the numbness in his left butt cheek threatened to spread to the right with an unpleasant tingling. He grunted as he moved, pain shooting out from all directions, every bump in the track adding a new layer to the dark bruises covering his body.
&nb
sp; The door at the opposite end of the carriage opened, the loud noises from the outside of the train echoing inside until the door closed again.
“Here.” Sandy appeared a moment later and sat in the seat beside him. She had a tin in one hand and a bundle of rags tucked under her arm.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
“I’ve been assigned as your personal nurse, and it is wound-tending time. I would have come sooner, only I’ve been working on building something for the Friar.”
“Who assigned you to tend to me?” He didn’t bother to hide the indignation in his voice. He would not stand for Lieutenant Saunders ordering his cousin to care for a Colonel. That was not how the chain of command worked.
“Larissa,” Sandy said as she popped open the tin.
“Oh.” He felt his shoulders droop. There wasn’t an easy way to argue against Larissa giving orders. Indeed, he’d allowed her to do so on more occasions than he cared to count, and he couldn’t start refusing now—not without sounding like a petulant child.
“She is worried for your health, and since you won’t let her do her magical healing trick, I will have to apply some more mundane methodology. Now take your shirt off.”
“I thought you were the one with the magic,” he said as he worked the buttons on his shirt. Even the act of picking them apart hurt.
“They’re called skills, Colonel, and for all my efforts in the art of illusion, I sadly lack the ability to heal someone simply by touching them.”
“That is a shame,” he said as his shirt fell away from his shoulders. He hadn’t intended it to sound like he wished her to touch him, but as soon as the words came out, she raised her eyebrows at him, and the innuendo hung awkwardly in the air.
She dipped her hand into the tin, coating her fingers in a pale sticky goo, then reached across his chest to scrape the goo onto the wound on his shoulder. He thought of arguing against her doing it—he was perfectly capable of rubbing goo on himself—but she’d begun before he had a chance to tell her not to. Her touch stung against the raw, scabby flesh, and he had to bite down on his teeth to keep from crying out.
“Where did you get the medical kit?” he managed to ask.
“Narry.”
“Along with the food?”
“Mmm,” Sandy murmured as she layered more goo on his chest surrounding the wound. The Friar had slipped out of the train as the others went to retrieve the engine from the airship and gained a donation of food from the priests in the citadel, along with a fresh robe. Though it had been dangerous for him to take such a risk, no one complained when they had all eaten their first fresh and hearty meal in months.
Kerrigan’s head fell back against the windowpane as Sandy worked the healing salve into his wound, the pain abating somewhat.
“Larissa wants to have a meeting soon,” Sandy said.
“Does she have a plan?”
“I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask her. Will you go along with her plan if she does?”
“That depends on what it is. How about you? No one knows your name or your association with us. You can leave at any time,” Kerrigan said.
“The Admiral knows my name. Whatever happens, I think we’re all in this until the end. Together.”
Their eyes met. A different sort of tingling sensation troubled the back of his neck—one he promptly promised himself to ignore.
“Turn around,” Sandy said.
“What?”
“Oh…um, turn around, Colonel, please…sir?” Her eyes twinkled as she wrinkled her nose. Kerrigan was glad women weren’t allowed in the military if that was to be the standard response to a superior.
“I didn’t mean you had to speak with protocol. I mean, what do you want me to turn around for?”
“Oh. To do the wound on your back, of course.” She wriggled the tin at him.
He sighed, more at his own stupidity for not figuring that out, then mentally excused his stupidity due to the lack of sleep as he turned in the seat, allowing her access to his back.
“What did you think I wanted you to turn around for?” she asked. Her soft touch with goo-covered fingers met his flesh, mixing the pain with another pleasurable tingling on his neck.
“No idea,” he said.
“To admire the view?” she said with a hint of laughter in her voice. “I’ll admit it’s a very nice view.”
“Even with all the scars?”
“Absolutely. They make you look distinguished.”
He laughed and shook his head. Of all the words seemingly appropriate to describe how he looked after months of travel and fighting, distinguished was not among them.
“Listen, Colonel…”
“Call me Kerrigan.”
“All right… Not by your first name?”
“No.”
“Will you tell me what it is, at least?”
“It’s Gabriel… Call me Kerrigan.” He hissed through his teeth as her fingertip prodded a particularly painful spot.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” He frowned, feeling foolish for showing weakness. “What did you want to say?”
“It’s…embarrassing.”
“Oh? More embarrassing than someone who should be regarded as a pillar of strength and authority having to sit at the back of a train with his shirt off while a civilian woman rubs goo over his sensitive spots?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you have my attention, Miss Saunders. I can promise that whatever you need to speak of will not be passed to anyone else.”
“Especially not Tobin.”
Kerrigan felt a frown tug on his face. Thankfully, with his back to her, she couldn’t see it. He didn’t like to make a promise to not discuss things with the one person he trusted above all others in this group, especially if whatever information Sandy wanted to share was pertinent to their mission.
“If the discussion is mission-critical…”
“It is not. Trust me.” Her hand moved across the top of his back, the delicate touch causing a shiver all the way down his spine. She drew circles with her fingertip on a point he was sure didn’t have any injury—perhaps a bruise or two, but nothing that required tending to.
“Very well. I shall keep silent. You have my word.”
“We’ve survived through a lot, and…I think we’d be lucky to survive through much more of what is to come…” Sandy cleared her throat and paused, her hand disappearing from his back.
He would have liked her to keep touching, but it would be entirely inappropriate to say so. He pushed the selfish thoughts aside and focused on what she was saying, though he couldn’t guess at what she was working towards. Did she want him to make some promise to pass her ashes to a boyfriend if she died in the events to come? If that was the case, perhaps such a discussion would be better had face to face. He began to turn.
“No, don’t look at me. It’s easier if you’re facing that way.”
Kerrigan paused and turned his gaze back to the window. If he hadn’t felt awkward before, it certainly felt that way now.
“I was just thinking,” she said, speaking slowly, “that it might be nice to have enjoyed certain…activities…before being hanged for treason.”
“Activities…”
“Of a sexual nature.”
The conversation stilted, their voices replaced by the endless thudding of wheels over tracks. He focussed his attention out the window; a copse of evergreens clung to a hillside in the distance, a few farm houses dotted across the landscape, people going about their lives as though nothing were amiss in the world. Who would ever guess that the odd group of people aboard a steam train which required no steam traveled to overthrow the government? Who would ever guess an army Colonel—a technically dead Colonel—had just been propositioned by a woman on that same train?
“Should I take your silence as a no?” Sandy asked, her voice quiet and unsure.
He took a deep breath, trying to listen to the numerous versions of his own voice which w
ere having an argument inside his head. It was not a suitable course of action for a Colonel to engage in sexual activity whilst on a mission—he was technically no longer a Colonel, and this was certainly not a mission sanctioned by the military. He was a decent man at least, and it would be against his nature to take advantage of a woman in such a situation. Technically, though, it wasn’t taking advantage if the woman was the one who made the proposition…
His eyes finally met hers after her turned to face her. He suddenly felt self-conscious, sans shirt, and as he noticed her gaze flick ever so briefly down the front of his chest, a stirring occurred over which he had no control.
“I…”
His answer cut off before he could even settle on a response, as the door to the carriage opened once more, and Larissa, Holt, Narry, and Saunders entered. Sandy looked mortified as she scooted away and dropped down into the seat opposite. Kerrigan pulled his shirt on, subtly folding one leg over the other as he dressed.
“Cid says we’ll be in the Capital by nightfall,” Larissa began as she reached them. She sat beside Sandy, utterly oblivious to what she’d just interrupted. “So we need a plan.”
“I take it you have one, Miss Markus.”
“That depends entirely on what we find when we get there.”
A screeching sound peeled through the air. They all jostled in their seats as the train lurched.
“Are we stopping?” Kerrigan asked. No one else seemed concerned.
“Temporarily. We need a disguise, and Sandy is about to show us all her wonderful talents.”
Larissa looked at Sandy, her face alight with hopeful innocence. Kerrigan couldn’t quite manage to get his mind out of the gutter at the thought of seeing Sandy’s talents.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Cid, Larissa, Holt, Narry, Saunders, and Kerrigan stood side by side, blades of long grass reaching up to their knees. The train stopped in the middle of the tracks, long fields stretching in either direction to the horizon, far enough away so they would see if another train came their way, though no one had seen a single train on their journey which had passed through several empty stations. The eeriness of that fact had gone unspoken between them. Solicitude was a benefit for now.
