Metal and Magic

by Chris Paton

  “Emilia Ardelean,” said Luise. “Just what am I going to do with you?”

  Chapter 13

  The Great Southern Plain

  Arkhangelsk Oblast

  July, 1851

  “Stop squirming, Lena,” Stepan said as he tracked the driver of the advancing mammoth walker through the sights of the long rifle. Lena fidgeted in the grass beside him. She lowered the telescope in her hands and fingered the handle of the pistol in front of her. “If you keep moving like that,” Stepan warned, “one of Bryullov's men will see the shifting blades of grass and send someone to investigate.”

  “Good,” said Lena. “Then I will have something to do.”

  “You have something to do. Your job is to protect me.”

  “From what?” Lena thumped her fist on the ground. “The fight is all the way down there. We are miles away from the action.”

  “That's an exaggeration.”

  “It doesn't feel like it.”

  “Don't make me laugh.”

  “I'm not.”

  “No, but I can feel your pouting.”

  “Da? I am not cut out to be a sniper.”

  “On that we agree. Quiet now and watch the driver of the mammoth walker, the one closing on your father's position.”

  Stepan leaned into the stock of the long rifle. He glanced at the whirl of horses in front of the walker. The Cossacks were masters in the saddle, leading their Russian counterparts through a wild dervish of feints and counter attacks. Ivan, Stepan could see, choreographed the dance as he galloped between his men, giving orders, reigning in his horse, and changing speed and direction. Muskets cracked, but, more often than not, it was the flash of a cavalry sabre that made the difference, and cut a swathe through Bryullov's men. The advance party of Russians, scouting ahead, had already returned to seek shelter beneath the legs of the mammoth walkers. The troop-carrying metal beasts served as fighting platforms and they were the only thing preventing Ivan and his Cossacks from defeating the Russians. Stepan recognised the walkers as the greatest threat on the battlefield, and he was determined to stop them.

  “Range,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “How far?”

  “How should I know how far? Honestly,” Lena said with a huff. “You are the sniper. Not me.”

  “Lucky for us,” said Stepan and pulled the trigger.

  The tang of gunpowder bit at Stepan's tongue as he followed the path of his bullet and watched it strike the driver of the front mammoth walker in the chest. The man slapped back into his seat and the walker drifted to the right as his sleeve snagged on the controls.

  “Time to move,” said Stepan as he started to wriggle backwards down the hillock.

  “We're leaving already? You have only shot one man.”

  “That's right, and Bryullov will already know that the shot came from here.” Stepan pointed at the cloud of gunpowder dissipating above their heads. “We need to move.”

  “Where are we going?” Lena said and leaped into the saddle of her mare. Stepan turned Bystro in a quick circle as he slipped the rifle into the saddle holster.

  “There,” he said. Stepan pointed at a thin copse of trees and gave Bystro a gentle kick to the flanks. Lena followed as the first volley of musket shot peppered the ground fifty feet from the mound.

  “They haven't got the range,” she said and laughed.

  “Not yet, anyway. Come on. Keep up, Cossack.”

  Stepan turned Bystro's head towards a shallow ravine and led Lena down into it and out of sight. The beat of the horses' hooves rumbled along the sides of the ravine as they cantered through it. Stepan pulled Bystro to a stop as the ravine started to rise. He held up his hand and Lena slowed to a stop behind him. She drew the pistols from the holsters either side of the saddle pommel, and pulled back the hammers with her thumbs.

  Stepan urged Bystro forwards. As soon as the horse’s head cleared the brush at the lip of the ravine a Russian sabre lunged for the horse's breast. Lena fired the pistol in her right hand and the Russian fell to the ground. Stepan drew the cavalry sword from the scabbard secured to the front of the saddle and calmed the beast with soft words that he whispered in the horse's ear as he scanned the open plain between the brush and the copse of trees. Lena tucked the empty pistol into her bandolier and urged her mare forwards with slow steps.

  “What do you think?” she said as she drew level with Stepan.

  “I think I would like to be in the trees already,” he said and cocked his head to the right at the sounds of battle. “We need to stop the other walkers.”

  “Then let's get into those trees. Ready?”

  “Ready,” Stepan said and kicked his horse's flanks. Bystro leaped out of the ravine and charged towards the trees. Lena followed, pausing for a second to aim and fire the pistol in her left hand at a Russian soldier crouched behind his couched horse. Stepan kept going without even a glance over his shoulder. He trusted that the hoof beats behind him were those of Lena's mare, and he didn't stop until Bystro reared at the entrance to the trees. Stepan slipped out of the saddle and grabbed Bystro by the reins. He led the horse inside the cover of the trees and tied the reins to a branch. Lena joined him a moment later. Stepan took the reins of her mare as she loaded and primed her pistols.

  “You're grinning,” he said.

  “Da, I am having fun,” Lena said and shot Stepan a wild-eyed look. “Finally.” She peered over Stepan's shoulder at a walker stomping across the plain towards her father. “Your turn,” she said.

  Stepan pulled the long rifle from the holster and tamped a cloth-patched bullet into the barrel with the ramrod. He primed the pan and pulled back the flintlock hammer. Stepan slid the ramrod into the metal tube beneath the barrel and walked to the base of the tree in the middle of the copse. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and reached for the lowest branch.

  “Stop,” said Lena. She tucked the pistols in her bandolier and walked over to Stepan.

  “What?”

  “Your rifle,” she said and gently lowered the hammer into place. “If you climb like that you will blow your head off.”

  “Ah,” Stepan said as a warm glow flushed his cheeks. “I am a little rusty.”

  “A little,” Lena said and nodded at the tree. “Go on. Climb up. I will keep watch down here.”

  Stepan grabbed the branch and pulled himself into the tree, his boots scrabbling on the knotty bark for purchase. He climbed to a V below the crown and slid the rifle between a notch on a thick branch and the trunk of the tree. He pulled back the hammer and aimed at the driver of the mammoth walker trying to flank Ivan's war party from the west. Stepan fired and coughed back the smoke as he slid down the tree.

  “That's two,” he said as he landed with a thump in front of Lena.

  “Three,” she said and pointed at a mammoth walker lying flat stricken on the plane, its legs wrapped in a web of Cossack rope. “My people learned it from the reindeer herders,” Lena said with a laugh.

  “It's lucky those things are tricky to manoeuvre,” Stepan said. “It seems Bryullov only thought to bring one driver for each. Let's go and get the last one.”

  “Da,” Lena said and walked to the horses. She untied the reins and held both of them as Stepan holstered his rifle and climbed into the saddle. Lena winced as she gripped the saddle and pulled herself up using her injured arm. Stepan opened his mouth to say something but Lena shook her head. “It is nothing. Let's go.”

  They ducked their heads beneath the branches and guided the horses out of the trees. The sounds of battle slowed to the occasional crack of a musket and a Cossack war cry. Stepan spied the armoured rump of the fourth and last walker as it stalked south, away from the battle. The remainder of Bryullov's company ran after it as the Cossacks harried at the stragglers, only to gallop to the sides and out of range of the soldiers on top of the walker as they reloaded their muskets and covered the men on the ground with quick volleys.

  “It is over then,” sa
id Lena. “And I was just getting started.”

  Stepan pulled Bystro to a stop and scanned the plain. “Where is Bryullov?” he said. “I can't see him.”

  Lena's mare bumped her flank alongside Bystro and nibbled its neck. Bystro snorted and turned to bump noses with its mate. Lena stood in her stirrups and squinted into the distance.

  “There,” she said. “There he is.” With a swift kick she pulled her mare away from Stepan's horse and encouraged her mount to a quick gallop with a string of Cossack words too fast for Stepan to understand.

  “Come on then, Bystro,” Stepan said and kicked his heels into his horse's flanks and took off after Lena. He spotted the bent form of a man jogging through the brush ahead of her, one hand clutched to his bloody side and the other wrapped around the grip of a long flintlock pistol. “Bryullov,” Stepan said and tugged Bystro's reins to go wide of their quarry, leaving Lena to run him down, while Stepan covered her from the side.

  Bryullov whirled and lifted his pistol. He fired as Lena bore down upon him. She ducked and the lead ball whistled over her head. Bryullov flicked the pistol into the air and caught it by the barrel and raised it as a club. Lena reined her mare in and circled the Russian as her horse snorted a stream of clear bubbles from its nose. Stepan approached from the side and Bryullov flicked his gaze from the Cossack to the sniper and back again. He tossed his pistol onto the ground and held up one hand.

  “Kapitan Skuratov,” he said. “I am your prisoner.”

  “Alas, Kapitan Bryullov,” Stepan said as Lena slipped off her horse and handed him the reins. “I ride with Ivan Timofeyevich.”

  “And what does that mean?” said Bryullov. He tensed as Lena pulled a pistol from her bandolier and pulled back the hammer.

  “It means, you are mine,” she said and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 14

  The Tanfana

  Imperial Russia

  July, 1851

  Luise rapped her knuckle on Kettlepot's globus tank and waited for Emilia to squirm her upper body out of the boiler. The young girl blinked in the lamplight of the engineering car and stared up at Luise.

  “What?” she said and let the wire brush in her hand fall to her side. “What are you laughing at?”

  “I am laughing at you, Emilia,” said Luise. “You are black with soot from the waist up. You should have worn goggles – your face is blacker than shoe polish.”

  “Oh,” said Emilia and studied her hands. She turned to look at her reflection in the bronze plates of Kettlepot's tank. “Yes,” she said. “I can see that now.”

  “But did you get it finished?”

  “Yep. He is as good as new.”

  “Good,” said Luise. “I want to show you something.”

  “What?” said Emilia as she followed Luise to a small window squeezed between two busy workspaces.

  “Russia.”

  Emilia stood on tiptoe and pressed her nose against the glass and smudged it with a greasy, black print of soot. With the cuff of her sleeve, Emilia tried to clean the spot only to make it bigger and greasier. Emilia gave up and stared around the smudge at the lights of a nearby town and the huts and houses of blackwood dotting the countryside as they steamed past.

  “It's a little too dark to see anything,” said Luise. “But it was about time you crawled out of the emissary's guts. I brought you some supper and I thought we could go upstairs and talk while you eat.”

  “Upstairs?”

  “To the observation nest,” Luise said and pointed to the ceiling above them. “It's where they communicate with the flyers and airships. Come on. The ladder is this way.”

  Emilia followed Luise up the ladder and onto the roof of the engineering car. Two of Wallendorf's soldiers draped rough wool blankets around their shoulders and opened the door to a large glass dome with thick brass fittings. Inside was a circular bench with space to put one’s feet facing inside or outside the dome. Luise shut the door behind Emilia and nodded towards the small stove in the centre. Apple dumplings sizzled in a griddle on the stove beside a coffee pot black with soot, just like Emilia.

  “Drink first,” said Luise and poured warm milk from a thermos into Emilia's coffee. “Sugar?”

  “Yes please,” Emilia said and sat down on the bench. She tugged the corners of the blanket around her shoulders and took the mug of coffee in her hands.

  “The dumplings are nearly ready. I will tend to them while you tell me all about Kettlepot and the Şteamƙin.”

  “All right,” Emilia said and took a sip of coffee. “”What do you want to know?”

  “How about you start at the beginning?”

  “I can do that.” Emilia warmed her hands around the mug and watched as Luise turned the dumplings with a wooden spoon. “When I was younger, I lived in Romania,” she said. “That's where people say the Şteamƙin come from.”

  “And what are they?”

  “They are like mites, tiny creatures that inhabit the pipes of machines that run on steam. They like it hot – really hot. Once they move into a machine they make it their home, forever. That's why Herr Schleiermacher wanted me to run Kettlepot into the sea, he knows that once the Şteamƙin are in a machine you will never get them out.”

  “Not even when they go cold?”

  “Nope, they just go to sleep, and wake up again whenever the fire is lit and the boiler produces steam.”

  “You talk about them as if there is more than one in every machine.”

  “That's right. There is. The Şteamƙin are a community, they live together, and the more of them, the better. You see,” Emilia said and leaned forwards on the bench, “the more Şteamƙin there are in the pipes of a single machine, the cleverer it is.”

  “Clever?”

  “Yep, like it can do things. Take Kettlepot, for instance. All we had to do was catapult him onto the airship. He did the rest. He knows how to fight. Of course, the engineers don't get that. They think that once the Şteamƙin are in a machine it is ruined, like gremlins got into it or something. But they haven't seen what I have seen.”

  Luise scooped three apple dumplings from the griddle, sprinkled them with sugar and handed them on a plate to Emilia.

  “What have you seen?” she said and poured more batter from a jug into the empty cups of the griddle.

  “I've seen looms that weave night and day, the most amazing patterns, as fast as you can thread them. Tractors that pull a plough around a field while the farmer walks in the furrows behind it and sows his crops. He only has to whistle and the tractor stops and waits while he refills his bucket or takes a new sack from the driving seat.”

  “So any manner of machine can act independently?”

  “Almost any. It depends on how many Şteamƙin are inside it. If the machine is old or broken, then it's probably not interesting enough for lots of Şteamƙin, so it only has a few and that can be right dangerous. Then it really is best to let them go cold. You can't even split it up for parts, as the next machine will have those same Şteamƙin inside, and,” Emilia paused. “It gets complicated,” she said and frowned. “But I think the Şteamƙin have some kind of social order. Not all of them get on or mix well. I've seen some pretty scary digging machines go nuts and tear holes in barns until they ran out of steam. That kind of thing gives the Şteamƙin a bad name, and I can understand why engineers don't like them.” Emilia stopped to take a bite of dumpling. “These are good.”

  “I'm glad,” said Luise and poured herself a mug of coffee. “What about Kettlepot?”

  “Ah, he's prime real estate for the Şteamƙin. Emissaries are advanced machines and they have a huge range of movement. Herr Wallendorf really created something special when he designed them, that's for sure. Anyway, I think that some Şteamƙin colonies look for something like an emissary, and they build a social order of some such inside it. But Wallendorf can't risk having a bad crowd settling inside his emissaries' pipes, so that's why they spend so much time and effort to make sure they don't get infec
ted in the first place.”

  “That would explain why they don't like Kettlepot.”

  “And why they didn't mind losing that one in the sea,” said Emilia. “That was a shame. He showed promise, he did.”

  “And how long has Kettlepot had Şteamƙin?”

  “Five months, three weeks and two days,” Emilia said and pulled a leather-bound notebook from her pocket. “I've got it all in here. From the moment he started to anticipate what I was asking him to do, and his favourite songs.”

  “That's right. You sing to him.”

  “We kind of use the control box like a telegraph machine. You know, to talk to each other.”

  “Yes,” Luise said and smiled. “I understand. And, I must say, I am also impressed with your note-keeping. You will make a first class scientist one day.”

  “Oh, I don't want to be a scientist,” said Emilia and stuffed another piece of dumpling into her mouth. She licked her lips clean of sugar and soot.

  “No? What then?”

  “I want to be an engineer. But not like them below,” she said and nodded at the floor of the dome. “I want to be a maker.”

  “Yes,” said Luise. “I imagine you do.”

  Emilia looked up as The Tanfana slowed and the excited calls and shouts of the soldiers between the car roofs drifted through the cracks in the door. Luise and Emilia put down their mugs and pulled their blankets tight around their shoulders before opening the door and stepping out into the night air. The lights of the town flickered in the distance behind them, and the whistle of the wind dropped as the train slowed, only to be replaced by a new sound: the whirring of propellers.

  “Look,” said Emilia. “There's a flyer.”