Richards tried to sit up.
"Steady, sunshine!" said Bear, and the squeaking slowed. "Don't do anything silly."
Richards looked over the side of the pump wagon, which appeared to be flying through the air.
"We're on the bridge between the plateau and the Magic Wood. You don't want to fall," said Tarquin. There were clouds below them.
"Thought we'd lost you back there, sunshine," said Bear. "It all got a bit hairy. No one escaped. They were cut down to a squirrel."
"I don't believe this," said Richards and lay back down. "Why me?"
"Don't be like that. I got us out of there, didn't I?" said Bear.
Richards sat up properly. His chest hurt like hell.
"Shrapnel wound. A scratch, so don't worry," said Bear. It had been expertly stitched. "Like that? That's my work. As was finding this pump wagon at Last Station. You have to get up pretty early in the morning to catch this bear! I figured we'd head west. Did I do good?"
"You did good," said Richards.
"Damn right I did," said Bear.
Richards reached behind him and found his knapsack. He pulled out his macintosh, unrolled it and, wincing, put it on. Next he withdrew the fedora Spink had summoned up, smacked it against his hand to get it into shape and placed it on his head. It made him feel complete, and the pain subsided a little.
"I should have asked for a new suit too," he said, looking at his tattered Pylon City uniform. "Balls."
They crossed the valley and went into the domain of the Magic Wood, and Richards understood why the animals hated the Pylonites. Swathes of trees had been clear-felled, logs stacked neatly next to charcoal burners, the soft green of the forest scraped right down to raw yellow earth. Pits of tainted water pooled behind dams of mud. Weather-bleached stumps were stacked in heaps, their dead roots contorted in woody agony. More railway tracks ran off into the forest, each an ugly wound.
They saw no men or sentient animals, but the pump wagon's passage startled bizarre creatures in the trees, humanoid things that had tiny bodies but enormous heads of bright scarlet. They had painted-on beards round pink lips and high foreheads covered in subcutaneous lumps. Their hooded eyes unreadable, they stared as the wagon passed.
Richards shared out his meagre army rations and fell into a black sleep. When he woke he was more stiff than sore. It was evening, and the forest had thinned, dotted with dappled glades made by a kinder hand than that of man. The trees retreated into huddles, and then they were rolling leisurely across a heath alive with life where limestone pavements grinned at them like worn teeth through lips of yellow gorse. The sun was warm and soothing.
They came to a place where a road crossed the line, and here Bear was obliged to apply the brakes. There was a man in the way.
The man said nothing as the pump wagon squealed to a stop half a metre from him. He was ragged and unwashed, his beard and hair unkempt. He was wringing his hands. His head juddered, an old-style film caught on the same three frames playing over and over again.
"Ah, poor bastard," said Bear, jumping down. "Stuck. The bit of land maintaining him must have gone. I hate it when this happens. Best to go out in an instant, not like this."
The man's voice stuttered. "Du… du… du… du… du…"
Bear grabbed him and hauled him off his feet. He remained frozen. "Hurgh!" grunted Bear, "death is heavy." He wrinkled his nose. "Goldilocks' knickers, he smells worse than Lucas, must have been here for some time. They still live, in a way. Horrible." He placed the man by the track gently. "Now, let's see what's what." Bear tilted his head to one side. "Network's worse than ever," he grumbled. Presently, he gave a sharp nod. "We were right to get out of that battle when we did. This guy's code was ravelled up in the Broken Lands. If he's like this, the whole place is gone."
The bear clambered onto the pump wagon. "This k52 is a real bastard. Killing us is one thing, killing us like this is abominable," he said.
"Hmmm," said Richards, drumming his fingers on the side of the pump. The wagon pulled away, leaving the man to his slow end.
"'Hmmm'? What does that mean?" said Tarquin. "You don't agree?"
"Oh, I agree alright," said Richards.
"So?" said the bear.
"So nothing," he said, and kept his thoughts to himself.
The cart went on through the afternoon and into the night. Richards sat and thought and listened to the sound of the rocker. Up and down, squeak and squeak. Up and down. The wheels went clack-clack-clack and Richards thought of Lord Penumbra, and of k52. He thought about just how painful and annoying being, for all intents and purposes, human was.
And he thought about Rolston.
A jerk shook him out of his contemplation as they bumped over a join in the land, the rails either side mismatched. The heath ran out, a brown scar dividing it from desert, the join sparking where the coding did not mesh. The desert sloped steeply and at the end it dropped away to nothing over a bluff, the track plunging with it.
"We're going to go over!" shouted Bear. He grabbed the brake lever and leaned all his weight onto it, straining out over the back of the wagon. "Shitshitshitshitshitshit! I can't hold it!" The pump mechanism pounded up and down as they picked up speed. Wind rushed past. Richards was obliged to clutch his fedora to his head.
"Jump!" shouted Richards.
"We're going too fast!" said Tarquin.
They hit the cliff edge and the track plunged down like a rollercoaster.
"Great hairy grizzlies! Hold on!" shouted Bear, as sparks fountained out behind them. "Didn't see cliffs until too late. Can't slow down! Sorry!" Richards dodged past the bouncing pump and added his strength to Bear's own. "Pull hard! It's the only way!"
"There's a curve ahead!" shouted Tarquin.
"Lean!" roared Bear. He and Richards leaned as the wagon hit the curve. The small vehicle went up onto two wheels and slammed down as the way straightened.
"That was too close!" said Bear.
"It must be three hundred metres straight down. We'll be smashed to bits!" said Tarquin.
Richards and Bear pulled on the brake lever. It grew hot to the touch as the brake shoe burned off.
"Curve!" The truck slalomed round another bend. Again they leant into it, the wheels rattling as they bounced off and on the tracks. "We're not going to survive another like that!" shouted Bear over the clatter of the truck. "We may have to jump."
Richards looked down. "We're still too high! Pull harder."
The smell of hot metal strengthened as Bear and Richards strained hard on the lever. A fountain of red-hot iron filings billowed up around them, singeing Bear's fur. The toy pulled with all his might. For a moment, it looked like it was working. The truck slowed. But then there was a dull clunk and they sprawled backwards, Richards narrowly avoided being brained by the pump handles.
"Goldilocks' knickers!" said Bear, holding up the bent remains of the lever. "I broke the brake!"
"Hold on!" bellowed Tarquin.
Richards grasped the pump wagon deck, fingernails pulling on the wood. Bear tucked the man under his bulk. "I'll cushion you both when we crash," he shouted. "Tarquin, don't change to stone. You'll shatter."
The truck rattled on, accelerating ever more as it sped towards the desert. The buttress levelled out, but Richards figured that the height did not matter that much. Were the truck to derail on the flat, the speed they were going could still kill them all. Faster and faster they went. The buttress ended, the cart tipping on the slight curve at the bottom. They thundered on, the desert a blur of sand and sky.