Mari leaned out as far as she could on the side opposite the engineer, squinting against the smoke, tears running down her face from the irritation. “There’s a small bridge up ahead,” she said, putting her lips close to Alain’s ear so the others wouldn’t hear. “There’s a creek under it. I think.”
“You think?”
“Yes! Get ready!” Mari looked around frantically and found what she knew would be in the locomotive cab: a big mailbag with a water-resistant seal for Mechanics Guild dispatches and packages. The apprentices and the other Mechanic were engrossed in staring out the other side of the locomotive in search of the Roc as Mari tore open the bag, stuffed her pack inside, then resealed it.
Grabbing Alain’s arm, Mari shoved him to the side of the locomotive. “Good luck!” She gave him a quick kiss, then as the low trestle and the ditch that hopefully marked a creek or stream hove into view, Mari launched them both off the side of the train.
The drop seemed terrifying, whatever lay beneath them impossible to make out through the smoke and with their eyes watering so badly.
Mari slogged through the shallows at the edge of the stream, feeling like a rat someone had beaten and then tried to drown. Her foot slipped in the mud and Alain caught her to steady her.
“I never knew water could feel so hard,” Alain observed.
“It’s softer than dirt or rocks,” Mari grumped.
“Or coal.”
“Or coal,” she agreed. “Just be glad there actually was water to land in.”
Alain gave her a look. “You told me there would be water.”
Maybe it was just her imagination, but his voice sounded accusing. “No, I didn’t! I clearly said I thought there was water.” He paused to think, then nodded. Mari’s defensive irritation vanished under a wave of remorse. Alain had, after all, trusted her enough to jump off a train without being certain what they were jumping into. “I’m sorry.”
Her Mage actually smiled back slightly in response, bringing an answering grin to Mari’s lips. Still smiling, Mari sloshed through the last shallows and up onto the bank of the stream. She more fell than sat, bracing herself on her hands to stare upward and in the direction the train had vanished, leaving a huge cloud of dirty smoke in its wake. “I think I can still see the Roc. It looks like it’s following the train.”
Alain nodded, looking tired. “I am concentrating very hard on hiding myself from the senses of other Mages.”
“Can I help?”
“I do not think so.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m a distraction.” Mari sagged back down to lie full length, closing her eyes and breathing deeply from exertion. “I guess it’s safe to say that your Guild knows you’re alive. They really picked you up because of those two spells you did in Pandin?”
Alain nodded again. “To another Mage, it would be as if I were standing in an open area, shouting my name.”
“We need to be more careful about using your spells, then. You think that Roc might have been after me, too?”
“It tried to seize you,” Alain said.
“Yeah, it did.” Mari gave him a startled look. “It went for me first. Why would it go for me before it went for you?”
He gestured slightly, as if the answer was obvious. “My Guild must suspect who you are. That is a bad thing.”
“If it means giant birds are going to try to kill me, I have to agree,” Mari said, trying to shake the sensation that the whole thing had been some bizarre hallucination. “Do they think I’m going to ensnare more Mages?”
“Yes,” Alain said.
Mari felt her face warming. It was absurd, but for a moment the implications of that upset her more than the recent attempt to kill her.
“They expect you to gather more allies,” Alain explained. “As the prophecy said. Mechanics, Mages, and commons, united to change this world.”
“I’m not—” Mari’s eyes locked on the sky past his shoulder. “Stars above, it’s coming back. Quick! Under the bridge!”
They helped each other up, then both hastily waded back into the stream and under the shelter of the stone bridge which seemed far too small at the moment. Mari and Alain huddled up against the buttress on one end of the bridge.
She started to lean out to look up, then glanced at Alain. “Can you tell where it is?”
Alain was frowning in concentration. Then he raised one hand and pointed, the forefinger slowly traveling as he followed the motion of the Roc.
“It’s going back north,” Mari said, waiting until Alain’s finger was pointing well past the bridge. She finally leaned out then, peering upward and seeing a dark shape in the sky swooping low over the track. “That Mage figured out we jumped, but doesn’t know where.”
Alain gazed to the west. “The sun will set in a while. We can travel then.”
“The Roc won’t see us?”
“They do not see well in the dark at all. It is one of their greatest weaknesses.”
She grinned with relief. “It’s nice to know that your Mage stuff follows its own rules, even if those rules are things that my Mechanic training say are impossible. All we have to do is stand in the water under this bridge until the sun sets.” Mari’s smile faded as she looked down at her boots, submerged in the creek. She sighed heavily, then awkwardly pulled off her boots and socks, piling them onto a projecting rock shelf. Hopefully they would dry a little. “It’s going to be a lot of fun walking long-distance across country in wet boots.”
“It will?” Alain asked. “I know little of fun, but walking far in wet boots does not seem a thing to desire.”
“I was being sarcastic again, Alain.” He was looking upward and north, plainly still trying to track the Roc, so she slumped back against the stone and shivered as the water chilled her feet. “Now I know what a mouse feels like when a hawk is cruising overhead.”
What seemed a very long time later, the sun finally set and light faded enough for Alain to believe it was safe. The Roc had stayed searching in their general area until sunset, crossing over the bridge several more times without spotting them, but when full darkness fell the Roc and its Mage headed south at a good clip.
Mari staggered out of the water, her feet numb, and pulled her pack from the dispatch bag. Even though the waterproof bag might be handy in the future, it was too bulky to carry and also had “Mechanics Guild” printed on the side in big letters. There wasn’t any sense in making it too easy for her Guild to find them. Mari went back into the stream far enough to wedge the bag against a rock as if it had come to rest there. “With any luck the apprentices and the Mechanic in the locomotive will think this bag, and you and I, got knocked out of the cab by accident or by the Roc. Or maybe they’ll think we went back to the passenger cars. Thank goodness that train didn’t back up looking for us.”
“Perhaps the presence of the Roc persuaded your train not to do that.”
“It’s nice to think we got one benefit from that monster.” Mari dug out a pair of dry socks, but then had to tug on her still-wet boots, hoping that any blisters she picked up tonight wouldn’t be too bad.
She shrugged, trying to make herself feel accepting of things she couldn’t change. “Sooner or later one of the people in that locomotive may realize the female Mechanic who joined them looked a bit like that Master Mechanic Mari the Guild is looking for. Maybe not. Things were really hectic in that locomotive cab, and the Guild may be so busy trying to get every Mechanic on that train to forget they saw a Roc that the matter of who the female Mechanic was falls through the cracks. My Guild will surely also be sending blunt signals to your Guild that there better not be any more attacks on trains. Hopefully it’ll be several days before everything is sorted out and somebody guesses it was me. Let’s get moving. We need to get into Severun and then out again before my Guild’s Senior Mechanics put two and two together. I don’t want to follow the tracks. Do you have any idea which direction Severun is in?”