“Three hundred years of exile,” he said softly. “And now, finally, I shall cheat this death, cheat this mortal world, and mete my revenge upon my brother in the lands from whence I came.”
He placed the Holder at the very top of the door’s frame, pressing it down into a hollow carved perfectly for the device. The device pulsed, moonlight caught there in echo to a faintly beating heart. But Shard LeFel knew it would take more than moonlight to open this door.
It would take three lives.
The three Strange against the walls shifted, a slight moan escaping their lips as the Holder found its place in the door. Each of the Strange was attached to the door by wires and tubes that ran from its neck, wrists, and feet and fed into the door.
Shard LeFel meant to savor his moment. A decanter of threehundred-year-old wine and a crystal goblet awaited his celebration.
“Mr. Shunt, see that our guests are comfortable,” LeFel said. “Then open the sky for me.”
Mr. Shunt gave the witch’s chain to the first Strange who clung to the wall at his left. The wolf’s chain he gave to the Strange at the far end of the car, and the boy’s chain he gave to the final Strange standing nearest Mr. Shard LeFel.
Then Mr. Shunt walked across the floor to a crank set near the door. He turned the crank, and the ceiling of the train car drew aside like a curtain pushed back by a hand.
Shard LeFel uncorked the wine and poured it into the decanter. “And unto this world, I bid my most final farewell.”
Moonlight streamed thick and blue-white into the room, striking the Holder and the door. Light from the Holder poured flame into the runes and glyphs and symbols the Strange had carved into the doorway.
And from outside the train car, bullets rattled the night.
“Beautiful,” LeFel said. “And now all that is needed is the key.” He glanced at the boy who slept curled and chained at the Strange’s feet. He glanced at the wolf that panted in pain. He glanced at the witch who stood wide-eyed with fury, tears tracking her cheeks to wet the leather gag.
“Mr. Shunt, begin with the boy, then the wolf, then the witch.”
Mr. Shunt bowed, his eyes bright, his teeth carving a sharp smile. He walked to the Strangework who stood above the boy, and inserted one of his bladed fingers, like a key, into the Strange’s chest, where a heart should be. He twisted his hand, and the Strangework shuddered. Mr. Shunt withdrew his finger.
The Strange changed.
It spread its arms wide and the front of its body split open, revealing gears and sinew, pulleys, pistons, and bone that worked in dark concert to expose spikes and edges and blades lining every inch of it. A living, breathing iron maiden, remarkable in its ingenuity of both form and function.
Mr. Shunt picked up the sleeping boy and deposited him deep inside the gears and spikes, pressing him back, but not far enough to prick his skin. Not yet.
Then he moved to the wolf, who was too injured and too drugged to fight. Mr. Shunt shoveled him inside the spiked guts of the Strangework there.
And lastly he walked to the witch.
“I will not miss this wretched land.” LeFel sipped the wine, savoring the heat and flavor of ancient blooms across his tongue.
“Nor will I mourn its destruction.” He sipped again, and pressed one of the jewels on the bent cane in his hand, releasing the pure silver blade cased within it. A blade that would carve out his brother’s heart.
“Mr. Shunt,” LeFel said. “It is time to spill the blood of our coin.”
Rose Small watched as Cedar Hunt ran, limping hard, to the train car where Mae must be trapped. She ducked behind the thin stand of trees, put her back to a fir trunk, and pushed her goggles out of the way as she reloaded.
The Madders were still out there, standing in the open in front of the trees, firing off those blunderbusses and shotguns, shrouded in smoke and fire and moonlight, and laughing like wild jackals.
The matics were coming. Five of the most amazing devices that would each have struck her dumb with awe if they weren’t so hellbent on killing her and the Madders. Rose chambered the bullets, her hands trembling, her heart pounding, then glanced out from behind the tree.
The full moon set the devices into full contrast, even at a distance. She didn’t know how, but the matics were working in conjunction with one another. Through the smoke and blasts from the Madders’ guns she could see one of the doglike beasts was down and twitching, and the other stood stock-still, steam gushing up out of it like a geyser. But the others, the Goliath with steam-hammer arms, the battlewagon, and the huge, spiked wheel, were bearing down faster than the Madders could shoot them dead.
And if that weren’t enough, the railmen from up a ways had come into the fight with more guns than an army. She like as not figured one of the train cars up the line had to be an arsenal of weapons.
Rose swallowed hard and tasted the oil and burn of spent black powder. She didn’t reckon there was an easy way out of this alive.
She fitted the goggles back over her eyes and fired cover shots at the hulking Goliath that hammered an arm down so near the Madders, one of the brothers fell flat from the impact. The big beast reared back, screeching and clacking. It was recharging, ratcheting up its firing device to slam its arms down again.
Rose shot at the thing, aiming for what she prayed were vulnerabilities: tubes, connecting valves, and gauges.
But the matic did not slow. It rolled this way on strange tracked feet that chewed over the terrain as if it were riding on rails.
The Madders used her fire as a chance to run back behind the screen of trees with her.
“Do you have a plan, Mr. Madder?” she yelled to Alun as he skidded to a stop behind the tree to her right, both his brothers half a tick behind him, grinning and breathing hard
Bullets zipped through the night air. Needles and dirt sprayed down around them.
Rose leaned out again and fired off the last of her shots at the railmen, who were holding ground behind the metal monsters.
“Plan to kill the matics and crack LeFel out of his fortress,” Alun said. “Reload, Miss Small. The boys are going to need cover.”
Rose was already reloading. She glanced up at the Madders. Bryn and Cadoc were gone.
Just then the rapid fire of what sounded like a hundred guns tore flashes of light through the night.
“That’s the battlewagon,” Alun yelled over the peppering recoil of bullets. “Figure it has a twenty-five- or thirty-shot cartridge.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pipe, then sparked a wick with a tiny striker, and puffed until the tobacco caught.
Rose’s heart beat harder than a hammer. She’d heard tales of the rapid-fire guns used in the war, but she had never seen such a device, and didn’t want to become intimately acquainted with one now.
“That one’s done,” Alun yelled into the sudden pause of gunshot.
“Fire, Miss Small.” He clamped his teeth down on the pipe stem and leaned out from behind the cover of the tree. He sent off a volley of bullets. The battlewagon had extinguished its cartridge and must be reloading. But how much time would that take?
Rose Small shouldered her shotgun and aimed back at the field. The battlewagon was indeed reloading, but the hulking Goliath rumbled toward them on its tracks, hammer arms pulled back and ready to tear down the trees they stood behind. Rose took aim at the Goliath, but nothing seemed to stop it.
“Look low,” Alun yelled.
Rose lowered her rifle.
Another matic, the huge spiked wheel, was rolling their way, rattling over dips and tree stumps, one hundred yards and closing fast.
Rose fired everything she had at it. So did Alun. But they didn’t have nearly enough firepower to stop that thing.
Alun was no longer laughing. He was cussing up a lung. He pulled something from his pocket and lit the wick of it with his pipe, then lobbed it at the rolling matic.