by J. S. Morin
“Oh, I know. He showed me the little clips he kept from the papers, him and his old team. Even had one of him in a flashpop, showing off his uni.”
Rascal snickered, and reached up under his hat to scratch his head. “Well, can’t blame the old bull for trying, I guess. Sorry if he bothered you, Pella. He’s not really a bad sort.”
“Oh, I took nothing amiss,” said Pella. “He never had a hand wandering when we spoke, and nary a misplaced look. Might not have minded if he did, neither. Been years since I had crashball sweepers fawning over me.”
“I’ll be sure to mention that to him,” Rascal said, punctuating with a wink.
Pella crossed her arms and made an exaggerated pout, “You wouldn’t dare, Mr. Rascal.”
“Naw, I wouldn’t,” Rascal replied. “If anything, I’d pull him aside and twist his crank a bit, tell him he shouldn’t subject a fine lady to flashpops of his rotten old mug on yellowed papers.” Pella chuckled and uncrossed her arms. “So what’s Hayfield got to say?”
“I’ve got a couple folks bunked at my family’s house. Hayfield says you should meet them.”
“I’m sorry, I might have asked this earlier, but aside from your name, who are you?”
“My family owns the railyard maintenance depot. My dad keeps the books. My mum’s the head mechanic. My two elder brothers are her assistants, and I work for my dad.”
“Nice business,” said Rascal. “I’m still getting used to everything being human-owned out here.”
“Not everything,” Pella said. “Not even most, really. There’s still a dozen or so kuduk families in town, owning most of the land and all the slaves. We don’t see so many collars as you’re probably used to back west and below, but the ones you see are theirs.”
“Does your family own their own land?”
“One of the few. That’s why your friend wanted you to come meet our guests. We’ve got ‘em holed up safe. Safer than them coming out.”
“Who are these ‘guests’ of yours?” Rascal asked.
Pella looked both ways, as if she were considering crossing the road instead of telling him something. She leaned in close, until her bonnet brushed against the brim of Rascal’s hat. “They’re with the rebellion.”
Rascal and Pella strolled through Yellowcorn arm in arm. It was less suspicious than walking as companions or business associates, since Rascal was new in town and the few who knew him believed him to be traveling for leisure. Pella seemed not to mind the simple deception, nor the fact that his arm was basted in a layer of sweat. Much as he found Pella fetching, he would have preferred a bit of space between them for ventilation’s sake.
When they arrived at her family’s home, Rascal found it typical of the city, though perhaps less shabby and weatherworn. The paint on the corrugated steel roof and the brick facade were both a dull white to keep the heat away—and blind gawkers like himself with the glare. A path of brick paving stones led from the dirt road to the porch, some hundred paces long. Out beyond the house was a barren field, and across the way there was a larger building adjoining the thunderail tracks.
“Doesn’t it get noisy around here, right by the tracks?” Rascal asked as they walked the brick path.
Pella loosened her grip on Rascal’s arm so she could turn without her bonnet knocking his hat off. She gave him a curious look. “Only when the cars thunder by,” she replied. “Living down in a deep, you must get used to a din, what with no place for all the sound to escape. I can’t imagine being boxed in with that many people, not to mention trolleys and steam wagons, and thunderails of your own.”
“It’s not quite as bad as you make it out. There’s always some sort of noise, but it’s comforting. The city has a sound, and when it gets quiet, you know something’s gunked up. Here? It took me five nights to get a proper sleep, what with all the quiet. I almost bought myself a pocketclock to put under my pillow, just to stop me waking up ten times a night to see what’s wrong.”
“I always heard kuduks were noisy people,” Pella said. “Ain’t enough of them around here to get the feel of them, but I figured it’d be nice having the quiet, knowing it means they can’t be around.”
Rascal kept a watch on the windows, and saw one of the curtains pull back as they approached. The glare from the glass kept him from seeing whoever was keeping watch for them. “I suppose there’s that. Say, Pella, are we expected?” Visions of an angry father flashed in Rascal’s head. There were some men that liked to keep their families safe even from innocuous strangers, and more than a few of the freeborn humans of Yellowcorn had cast baleful looks at the pale deep-dweller who had slunk in among them with no apparent profession.
“Aw, don’t you worry yourself. My dad and mum are good folk, and your friend’s waiting inside too.”
Rascal offered his hand when they reached the steps, and helped Pella up. The gesture felt silly as soon as he made it, since it was her own home and she probably took the steps a dozen times a day without anyone to help her. To her credit, she didn’t say a word, just gave a shy glance and accepted his aid. The door opened as soon as they reached the porch. Pella’s assurances blew away like dust before the thunderail when he saw the double-barrel of a scattergun aimed at his chest.
“Step aside, Pella,” said the square-jawed man with a salt-and-pepper beard and the weapon trained on Rascal. “You, stranger, what’s your name?” The man wore a gentleman’s shirt with wooden buttons like Rascal’s own, and light grey slacks that brushed the tops of black-polished shoes.
“Pious Henlon,” Rascal answered, giving his civic name and title in the church of Eziel. He let his arm go slack as Pella disentangled herself, and put his hands up slowly. “But I go by Rascal among friends. Am I among friends here?”
“Koop, let him alone,” a familiar voice boomed from inside the house. “If that ain’t the guy I’ve run jobs with for nine years, he’s got a brother he never mentioned.” The scattergun lowered and its owner nodded and jerked his head toward the inside of the house.
Rascal pulled off his hat and returned the nod before stepping past Koop and into the house. Pella followed on his heels and Koop shut the door behind them.
“What’s the matter with you, Dad?” Pella asked.
“Just being cautious, sweetie. Can’t be too cautious with this business,” Koop said. “Pardon the lead-slinger, Mr. Rascal, but I’m not used to this business yet.” There was no family resemblance between Pella and her father, save for the uniform darkness of their tanned skin. His hair was dark where hers was light. His frame was stocky, almost pudgy, where hers was delicate. By their facial features they could have been different species.
“No shot, no pardon,” said Rascal, hoping that the phrase was known out in the skies. His friend Hayfield stepped past Koop and clapped Rascal on the shoulder hard enough to knock him half a step to his right. “What’ve you got us into here, Hayfield?” Rascal backhanded the big lug in the chest, drawing a grin. It struck him that Hayfield fit in better among the sky-dwellers than he had in Eversall Deep, where his skin was darker than most. Among the locals of Yellowcorn, he blended right in—aside from his towering height and shoulders like the booms of a crane.
“Come on, got some new friends for you to meet,” Hayfield replied. “They can do most of the talkin’.” He leaned forward and in a low tone, added, “If you can get ‘em to clamp up for two runnin’ minutes, I got a ten-bill for you.”
Koop hung his scattergun on a pair of hooks on the wall and led them into the sitting room, with windows looking out toward the thunderail tracks. Seated in three of the wicker seats scattered around the room were two women and a man, all human. The one in the sleeveless grey coveralls with her blonde hair pulled back and tied in a plume had to be Pella’s mum. If she looked nothing like her father, Pella was a cast copy of her mother with the years polished away.
The other two sat right beside one another. The first was a dark-haired man in his late twenties with a fire burning in his eyes. Ra
scal had seen the sort before; he was being sized up, weighed, and judged, and by someone too young to know caution. No-Boots had that look often, before he got himself hanged. His companion was dark-skinned and haired, like someone who grew up in the skies of the northern climes, dark enough even to stand out among Yellowcorn’s locals. She seemed more at ease, with the relaxed features of someone who had just been interrupted from a pleasant conversation.
Hayfield made the introductions. “Rascal, this is Gahwin, our hostess.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said the older version of Pella.
“And these are Kinmi and Syr.” Hayfield indicated first the man, then the woman. He’d have never have guessed by the names alone. Foreigners, both.
“We’ve heard a lot about you,” Kinmi said. He stood and offered Rascal his hand. He had the grip of an innkeeper, or a confidence man. It was just firm enough to not be insultingly gentle.
Rascal cast a glance over at Hayfield, who tried and failed to keep a smirk from his face. “This old leather-head tellin’ stories out of hat?”
“Don’t look at me,” Hayfield said, holding up both hands in mock defense. He nodded to Kinmi. “You go ahead and tell him.”
“We’ve heard about you for years, Rascal. We’ve been authorized to let you in on a number of confidential matters. Not the least of which—”
“We’re friends of General Rynn,” said Syr, in a charmingly melodic accent that told him he was right about her heritage; she had to have lived most of her life in Braavland.
“General Rynn?” Rascal asked. He reached up and stroked his scruffy little beard. “You can’t mean our little Chipmunk?”
“No, not anymore,” said Syr. “They finally convinced her to drop her human name, but yes, the same girl. She told us that the two of you used to run the gang she fought with.”
Kinmi spoke up. “Her account varied by story as to which of you was in charge.”
“Neither of us, really,” Rascal said. “I’m a priest, firstmost, so everyone in the lowest layers knew me. Just about everyone knew Hayfield though, top to bottom. Can’t hardly be helped playing fourteen years in the pro leagues, getting your flashpop in the paper monthly and your name in there after every game.”
“Who’da thunk it’d be Chipmunk climbing over bodies to get to the top,” Hayfield said.
“Bodies?” Rascal asked. “This ‘general’ thing isn’t literal, is it?”
Kinmi nodded solemnly. “The war’s started. It’s scratch and scramble for now, but so far, we’re winning.”
Rascal blinked. He must have misheard. “Winning? Winning what?”
“You were there, she said. You saw her new guns work,” Syr replied. “She’s studied the old daruu arts and is using them to arm us, to keep us mobile, to give us the advantage.”
“Eziel give us strength,” Rascal whispered. “It’s coming.”
“What’s that?” Hayfield asked, cupping a hand behind his ear.
Kinmi burst out laughing. He turned to Syr. “I always wondered if the priests even knew. I guess so.”
“Know what?” Hayfield asked, looking from Rascal to Kinmi and back again.
“There were twelve gods that watched over Korr,” Rascal said in the voice he used when acting as Pious Henlon. “When the kuduks ground our kind underfoot, we took one as our patron, to keep humanity united as best we could. Our ancestors chose Eziel, and for good reason: Eziel is the god of war.”
Hayfield looked at Rascal as if he’d caught fire. “The same Eziel that we pray to for bread in our bellies and a good lock on the door? The Eziel that collects coins for the poor and turns them into soup? The same Eziel that—”
“That kept our numbers strong for thousands of years, until his original purpose was forgotten by all but the ordained?” Rascal asked. “The Eziel that forbids us to harm our own kind, but lets me sneak off after evening prayers to put bullets in kuduk heads? The Eziel that our ancestors prayed to before battle? Yeah, that one.”
“Don’t worry, Hayfield,” Kinmi said. “Rascal’s little secret is nothing. I’m going to twist both your heads into candy knots. General Rynn authorized us to tell her old gang everything.”
“Lord Eziel, grant us vengeance upon our enemies. Let us share our strength as comrades and become fearsome to our foes. I am your servant, teach me to kill in your name.” –Invocation to Eziel, original phrasing
Chapter 14
“Every time some sailor waxes poetic about how big the bloody sea is, I want to punch him.” –Avrax Coalic, builder of the first transcontinental thunderail
Life aboard the drifting Darksmith was a series of minor annoyances. With the ship listing to starboard, everything slid. Food had to be kept in hand while eating, playing at dice was impossible, and sleeping was done in the lower corners of rooms, with bedding jammed in the crook of walls like hard, cold hammocks.
The limited number of serious injuries was one of the small blessings the crew had been afforded. Most of their casualties in the firefight with the Fair Trader had died quickly, if not cleanly, and most of the other injuries were minor beyond mentioning. One gunner had lost an eye, and likely his livelihood. A few others had gashes that took stitches to mend. There was little else for Jamile to do aboard after that but mother after her charges and see that infection didn’t set in.
The last thought rankled Madlin, and since rankling was one of the few activities she had available, she did a lot of it. Though she had pencil and paper aboard, drafting on the uneven floors of the Darksmith was a chore. Trying to use a desk would have required welding a chair to the floor first, and she had no welding equipment. And so she watched the sea, watched the rest of the crew, and watched Jamile.
If Sosha had been half as attentive to Rynn as Jamile was being to the injured crewmen, she’d still have two good feet—well, Madlin had them, but so would Rynn. Rynn never would have been tackled by a lumbering oaf if she had two working feet to dodge her aside.
Rynn. Rynn. She kept pounding the name into her own head, using it every time she thought of her twin, making an effort of it. Her father had been right, but it had taken Sosha’s reasoning to show her why.
There was something to be said for image. When her father entered a room, people stopped what they were doing and paid attention. He wasn’t a physically imposing man, but he looked the part of a Mad Tinker, always covered in grease, wearing coveralls to meet princes, peering through multi-lensed spectacles.
Madlin reached down and felt below the knee of her left leg, just to remind herself that it was there. She’d always been close with Rynn, as much as any of the twinborn she’d spoken with. Some felt the connection more keenly, others viewed the twin as more a partner than a second self. Madlin and Rynn had always been among the former. While it made sharing memories and skills more fluid, it came with drawbacks. Rynn had woken on two separate occasions since the loss of her foot only to fall heavily to the floor when she tried to put weight on a foot that she had trod upon only minutes earlier in Madlin’s body. For her part, Madlin was wary of standing with nothing to hold onto, constantly worried about losing her balance—though the nagging feeling faded as each day wore on, only to be renewed the next morning.
The injury reminded her troops of the sacrifice she’d made, which was stupid, because it was her own carelessness that had gashed up her foot, not anything the kuduks did to her. Her persistent imprisonment in the murderous collar should have been a far better symbol of her treatment under kuduk ownership. Unfortunately, it was too subtle, too familiar to most of the troops. Most of the Korrish aboard had worn a collar in one form or another. Her inability to escape hers was more a subject of pity than inspiration. The Errol Company troops that were aboard the Jennai couldn’t grasp the scope of the horror.
Madlin blamed Rynn for her own injury and the repeated tearing of stitches that led to her septic rot, but she blamed Sosha for not noticing soon enough to stop it. Rynn had her own plan in the works to be rid of her crut
ches, and Madlin—paper or no—was determined to help.
As she stared out to sea, her eyes lost their focus. Within her head, images of steel and leather evolved. Free of the confines of the workshop or even the drafting table, she snipped and stretched, bent and cut, bolted and welded pieces in her mind. She envisioned the workings, saw how they would interact, and made adjustments for defects. While she slept, Madlin would let Rynn put the refined ideas to paper. While she lazed along the railing of the drifting Darksmith, she daydreamed of metal feet.
“Land!”
The shout chased away the lethargy that had spread like measles among the crew. Those on deck perked up and took to the port railing, twisting about from the high vantage to better view the horizon. Those who had been sulking below decks boiled up and into the sunlight.
“About bleedin’ time,” Tanner muttered, edging his way down the deck with a hand to the nearest wall as he took a spot at the starboard railing beside Madlin. “I don’t care if it’s got jungle cats and snakes and wild boars, so long as it’s got flat ground to stand on. Gut me, what am I saying? I hope there’s some crazed hungry animals out there waitin’ to eat us. It’ll make ‘em easier to put on a spit if they ain’t runnin’ away.”
“You’re not worried about Dan at all?” Madlin asked. She studied his face as he looked along with everyone else to where the lookout with the spyglass had pointed. “Or is that it, you got your fortune, now you’re glad to be rid of him?”
“If I were you, I’d be more worried if he was alive,” Tanner said. “I saw you push him over. If blowing up a ship didn’t set his mood right, he might still be pretty sore with you.”
“You don’t sound worried.”
“Dan’s the emperor of mixed blessings,” said Tanner. He slouched against the railing and slid down until he was sitting next to Madlin. “He gets us more dark eyes turned our way than I’d like, but he takes heads when it comes time to settle up. He’s not really a friend, or a partner, or a boss. Gut me if he thinks he works for me. It’s more like we’re in on the same scams, and it’d piss him off if anyone botched things up on him. I think he’d kill to protect me, same as he would the empress of Kadrin, or a horse he’d taken the time to name. If it’s in his garden, he’ll be sliced belly to throat before he lets anyone so much as lean on it without his leave.”
