Alain sat down on a crate, watching her. “We will travel in this wagon?”
“Yeah,” Mari agreed, looking around for a less uncomfortable spot. “It’ll be fast and no one will see us in here. Unless this car contains freight to be offloaded before the train reaches Severun.”
“I see.” Alain waited for Mari to continue, then finally spoke again. “What will we do if that happens?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“All right.”
She stopped to look at him. “That answer satisfied you?”
“Yes.”
Mari smiled at him, settling down onto the top of another crate. “Thanks.”
It took a while for anything to happen after that, Mari and Alain sitting quietly and listening to the Mechanics outside calling orders to each other. One Mechanic apprentice came walking down the outside of the train rattling doors to ensure they were locked. He couldn’t have seen them inside the car unless he had shined a light through one of the gaps and put his eyes up close, but she didn’t relax until he had moved on. Mari wondered if she would have recognized the apprentice if they had met face to face. The idea depressed her, and she slumped against the nearest crate, eyes downcast.
Alain’s hand touched hers, and when Mari looked up he tried to smile at her. She forced a return smile and he seemed to understand her mood, nodding silently, then leaving her to her thoughts.
The train whistle screamed, then the car jerked forward into motion. The outlying districts of Pandin rolled past as the locomotive began picking up speed and were replaced by the low hills on the northern side of vast Lake Bellad. Mari settled back and tried to rest. The crates weren’t exactly comfortable, but compared to the crowded coach from Umburan this was almost luxurious. She finally fell asleep, lulled by the motion of the train.
She awakened sometime later when she felt Alain’s hand on her arm.
“Something is amiss,” he warned.
Mari stared around. Judging by the angles of the rays of light slanting in through the gaps between the sideboards of the car, the sun was much lower in the sky, but the train was still moving at a good clip. “What?”
“I do not know. I sense a Mage nearby and rapidly getting closer, though how this could be I do not understand since we are traveling so fast.”
“He’s in front of us somewhere,” Mari explained patiently. “The train is moving toward this Mage—”
“The Mage is behind us, Mari.”
Mari just stared for a moment. “The Mage is rapidly catching up with a train? What’s he doing? Flying?”
“Flying? Of course. That explains it.” Alain looked up. He didn’t look worried, but that didn’t mean anything, since even now Alain rarely let his feelings show.
Before Mari could say anything else the freight car shuddered and rocked, its wooden top bending and creaking alarmingly. Mari stared in shock as the wood overhead burst inward at one point, driven by an enormous bird’s beak. The beak withdrew and an equally enormous bird’s eye peered into the opening, twitching back and forth as it searched for something.
“It is a Roc,” Alain explained in that same impassive tone of voice.
“Blazes!” Mari yelled, hauling out her pistol. Before she could fire, the eye jerked away, then the beak reappeared, tearing a bigger opening in the roof of the freight car. “Is it after us?”
“Probably,” Alain agreed, his voice still unnaturally calm. “It is possible that I am still not good enough at hiding my presence from other Mages, but more likely my use of spells in Pandin led another Mage to find me and follow us long enough to determine that I had gotten on the train. The Mage riding this Roc—”
“There’s a Mage riding it? That’s real?”
“Nothing is—”
“Don’t say it!” Mari flinched as broken wood showered downward and the roof of the freight car sagged alarmingly. “There’s a giant bird being ridden by a Mage on top of this car and it’s trying to kill you? That is insane!”
“It may be trying to kill you as well,” Alain corrected.
“Great! Why did I get involved with a Mage? What do we do?”
Alain had been concentrating, and now Mari felt a gust of heat. The broken wood around the opening the Roc had been widening burst into flame and the giant beak jerked away. “That should discourage it.” Alain noted.
“You set fire to the freight car we’re inside and there’s a giant bird outside trying to kill us!” Mari tried to calm herself as the car rocked violently again but fortunately didn’t jump the rails. “Can you kill a Roc?”
Alain hesitated. “I can certainly try to harm the Mage riding and controlling it. I would rather not, though.”
Mari stared again. “Why not?” she finally asked.
“Rocs are not like dragons or trolls. They have more the seeming of natural creatures, and the Mages who create them have ties to the Rocs.”
It took her a moment to process that. “You don’t want to kill the Mage or his giant, murderous pet bird.”
“The Mage is female, I think,” Alain corrected.
“Excuse me. Her giant, murderous pet bird.” Mari looked up. The fire was spreading, but had at least driven away the Roc. “Will it leave now that the car is on fire?”
Alain frowned slightly in thought. “I doubt it. We would need to startle the creature beyond the Mage’s ability to control it and also find a way to hide ourselves.”
The freight car jolted again and part of the flaming roof fell into the car as huge talons punched through the still intact part of the roof. “That does it,” Mari snapped. She raised her pistol and fired through the roof. A deafening squawk sounded and the freight car jerked once more, the talons vanishing and leaving ragged holes in their wake. “We’ve got to get out of here.” How to startle a giant bird? How to drive it away? The answer suddenly seemed obvious. “We’ve got to get to the engine.”
“The what?”
“The locomotive!”
Alain nodded, his Mage composure infuriating to Mari at the moment. “The Mechanic creature at the front of the train.”
“Close enough.” Mari holstered her pistol, making sure the holster was fastened shut, then climbed up some crates to get right under the opening which the Roc had torn in the car. The fire was still blazing but the dry wood wasn’t generating much smoke, the flames pale in the late-afternoon sunlight as they ate at the freight car. Mari studied the wreckage carefully. “The bird knocked a big enough hole in the roof that we can get out, and the fire is on the downwind side. We just need to jump up and onto the still intact part of the roof at the front of the car.” The freight car swayed wildly, the land rushing past on either hand. The train had increased speed to a dangerous velocity, probably trying to outrun the Mage creature.
She jumped up and forward, through the hole and outside onto the top of the freight car, skidding for a heart-stopping moment before she could stop her movement and cling to the oscillating roof. Alain landed beside her, missed his grip and began sliding off the roof. Mari grabbed his arm, going flat to grasp a good hold with her other hand. She felt a whoosh of air and something hard brushed her back, followed by an enormous, disappointed squawk from the Roc.
Mari caught her breath. Alain was still half off the roof, his feet dangling in open air, Mari’s right hand locked onto his arm and her left hand gripping the other side of the roof.
Moving with strong, careful movements, Alain pulled himself up and next to her.
Mari swallowed, nerving herself. The locomotive was apparently running full out, wind was buffeting them, and the roof of the freight car kept swaying and jerking beneath them. Clouds of dirty smoke mixed with bits of flaming coal from the locomotive billowed over them, bringing up frightening memories of the fire in Ringhmon’s city hall and limiting their ability to see the Roc somewhere overhead. Hopefully it would hide them from the Roc as well. “Follow me!” she yelled to Alain over the wind, then forced herself up despite her fears and scuttled forward.