“I’m used to that, too.”
Hatch looked back over his shoulder and raised one eyebrow. Seeing Teron’s bland expression, he pursed his lips and returned to piloting.
They flew closer to the lightning rail line. Miles off to their left, the harness coach flew over the conductor stones, gaining speed. As the caravan accelerated, the number of energy bolts writhing over the coaches’ surfaces increased, as did the intensity of the individual strands. Then Teron heard the sounds of the rail, crackling like a distant fire.
Hatch looked to the left, hissed, and urged his great raptor faster, guiding it into a slight dive to increase its speed without losing much altitude. “You’d better untie and hold on tight!” he yelled. “Probably best if you got straight off the end of the tail. Sit yourself behind the parcel backboard, right on the bird’s arse, then when I pull her up, you let go and slip right off. Got that?”
“Got it,” said Teron. He climbed over the back of the wooden parcel holder and stepped onto the dragonhawk’s huge, feathered rump. He turned around to face forward, and kneeled down. “All right, Flotsam,” he said as he hitched his satchel around to the front. He tightened the straps until it sat securely against his chest. “You’re not going to like this.”
He heard a small yowl of dread emanate from the canvas bag.
Long moments passed as the great bird moved to intercept the coaches. Teron took a firm grip on the wooden partition. Teron calmed his mind, purifying it of all distractions, then he felt the sickening lurch of weightlessness as the bird swooped. Adrenaline surged into his blood, making his mind ring like a newly drawn blade.
“Hang on … get ready … Damn it! The rail line turns up ahead! Jump!” Teron felt the dragonhawk spread its wings, and it changed its dive to a climb, Teron pushed off the rear of the luggage carrier and slid off the bird’s tail. Its stiff, soft tail feathers brushed against his face as he fell, and suddenly he found himself in midair, abut thirty or forty feet over the lightning rail.
He had a scarce heartbeat or two to appraise his situation before he landed, and the moment seemed both preposterously long and dangerously short. He saw the top of the lightning rail coaches, and was relieved to note that they had a flat surface down the center suitable for walking … or tumbling from a height. Lightning flashed across the surface, and just as quickly disappeared. He had to rely on luck to get past the arcs without injury.
He realized that the lightning rail was moving faster than he was; Hatch had lost too much speed pulling the dragon-hawk out of its dive. This meant that Teron was positioned all wrong—he’d planned to tumble forward on a slower-moving coach, now with a faster target he had to tumble backward when he landed. With no time left to turn his head and look, he’d be operating blind. All he knew was that he was near the midsection of the coach.
Fear and exhilaration fueled his reflexes. To control his backward acceleration, he kicked out with his feet as he landed. He rolled himself into a rear tumble, whacking the back of his head nastily as he rolled head over heels. Stunned for the briefest instant, he did nothing to decelerate. Instead, he protected Flotsam, secured to his chest, and kept rolling. He felt his hair stand on end and wondered whether a blast of energy was about to rip through him. It didn’t, but the distraction caused him to lose more control of his tumble. He rolled to one side, kicked himself away from the side of the car toward the center again, then flipped off the back of what turned out to be the last coach.
There was a short, sharp cry as Teron disappeared over the end of the string of coaches, and the lightning rail sped into the dawn.
10
The Lightning Rail
The Shadow Fox and Oargesha sat in their seats oblivious to the passing scenery as the lightning rail cruised through the bright morning. They rode in the third-class coach. It was not as crowded or dismal as the steerage cars, but beyond the fact that the two women had seats, there was little to recommend it. Their seats faced each other. The Fox sat with her arms tightly crossed and her head sunk to her chest. Oargesha sat with her head back and her mouth open. Occasionally small snores escaped her throat.
The black globe sat in its bag on the floor between them, pressed up against the coach wall. Each of the Cyran women had one foot on top of the bag, and another touching it on the side. No one could move the bag without shifting at least two of their feet.
From beneath the Shadow Fox’s seat, a small, thin hand reached out. It gently lifted the Fox’s heel a scant eighth inch from the top of the bag, and then a broad dagger slid out from the shadows and inserted itself between the Fox’s boot and the bag she guarded. Then a second thin hand appeared and started quietly undoing the clasps on the bag, first one, then two, then three.
The hand paused in its endeavors as Oargesha smacked her mouth noisily a few times. “Pull back your hand while you still have it, halfling,” she said without opening her eyes.
The hand remained frozen in place.
“I think I’ll have to put my sword through this seat,” said the Fox. “That’d be about where a halfling’s kidneys would be, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely,” said Oargesha. She let her mouth sag open again.
The hand closed the hasps, and then gently pushed the Fox’s foot off the dagger.
The Fox stepped down firmly, trapping the blade between her boot and the bag. “Leave it,” she growled.
The hand withdrew from sight. The blade remained.
With the exception of one limb, Teron was curled into a fetal ball. Only his right arm extended out, the hand tightly gripping the railing of the last carriage in the caravan. His left arm tightly cradled his yowling cat to his chest—the cat had taken the first opportunity to force his way out of Teron’s bag—and his legs pulled in as tight as they could to avoid getting clipped by the landscape that passed rapidly beneath the levitating coach.
“Easy, Flotsam,” he murmured as calmly as his adrenaline allowed. He forced the cat away from his body, a direction the disheveled tom was loath to take. He clawed at Teron’s peasant shirt, trying to remain in the secure sling of Teron’s body. The monk gritted his teeth and forced the cat to the small platform that extended from the rear of the carriage. Once on the comparatively stable balcony, the cat oozed pitifully to the rear door and hunkered down.
Grimacing with effort and unable to use his tightly curled legs, Teron strong-armed himself up. His left arm grasped the rail and he pulled his body up. His skin trembled with the electric energies that coursed all about, but the railing was designed to keep harmful energies away from passengers who came out here to view the scenery.
Teron climbed over the railing, stood upright, and brushed himself off, despite the fact that his tumble hadn’t made him any dirtier. He drew a tension-purging breath, then took just a moment to look for Hatch and his dragonhawk and wave in thanks.
Teron took another deep breath, then placed his hand on the latch of the door that led inside the carriage. He glanced down at his cat.
“I just hope they’ve already checked everyone’s passage,” he said.
“What’s on your mind, master?” asked Jeffers. “You’ve hardly touched your breakfast.”
Praxle glanced up at the half-orc with a grim set to his smile. “I face several problems, Jeffers,” he said. “They vex me. And I’m wondering which of them will ultimately stand between success and me, that I may be the best prepared.
“First, we have had the Orb of Xoriat stolen out from under our very noses. Second, we do not know who stole it—other than, I surmise, that they are the selfsame Cyrans who assassinated Caeheras back in Wroat. Third, the Aundairian authorities believe I collaborated with the Cyrans, and therefore they are searching for me. Fourth, I don’t even know if my new papers will see me successfully across the border. Fifth, the Thranes still possess the investigative notes on the function of the Orb. The Cyrans may potentially know this as well and could well be closing upon the Thranes ahead of us. Sixth, the Thranes have no idea that people are coming. Granted, that last point could work for me or against me.