In the end,
they had two working cars, plenty of fuel to make it to Ancora, and not nearly enough space to carry all of the resistance in one trip. Jacob said as much once Smith finished tinkering with the bombs.
Smith turned to him and crossed his arms. “None of that will matter if this wall does not come down right. Cage is waiting in the cemetery. Gladys and George are ready to drop the lines. It is time to find out how much of a hole we must dig ourselves out of.”
Everyone but Smith made their way back to the rusted gate near the platform’s entrance. The tinker stood silhouetted by the lantern he wore. There was a burst of light, and then Smith ran toward them. The old fuse was supposed to give them thirty seconds. Any less, and Smith risked being killed in the blast.
Jacob counted the seconds off in his head. Smith was almost to them at twenty, and then the world turned to fire and shrapnel with the blast.
Smith stopped running and turned back toward the wall. The mass of metal and wood creaked. Jacob couldn’t make anything out through the cloud of smoke, but apparently Smith could.
Smith pumped his arm and shouted. “We got it!”
The smoke and debris filling the air moved in great whorls, displaced by the wall as it fell forward. The metal struck the ground, setting off the secondary bomb. Jacob winced away from the boom and the sudden slab of airborne wood and iron. It didn’t fly far, but it didn’t need to. Five feet to the side, the tracks were no longer blocked.
Smith started into the thinning cloud of smoke and dust. “So long as we missed the tracks, we are ready to go.”
Something screeched and echoed above them. A great thunder crossed the ceiling of the old station, and Jacob stared up into the darkness.
Samuel looked up. “Smith?” When Smith didn’t respond, Samuel turned to the rest of the group.
Alice hopped down the short flight of steps and made her way toward Smith as Jacob followed close behind.
They hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps when Drakkar said, “Whatever it is, it’s getting louder.” Jacob didn’t stop to listen, but between the crunch of his boots in the gravelly debris, he could still hear the screeches, and the thunder of more footfalls than he cared to count.
“Let’s just get out of here,” Alice said.
“I believe I can help with that,” Smith said as he walked back toward them through the thinning cloud. “We may scrape up the edge of the railcar a bit on the way out, but the tracks are clear enough. We just need to load up the railcars.”
The closer they came to the blast site, the more Jacob’s nostrils burned with the sharp scent of gunpowder and explosives. More light shone on the station now that the wall was gone. It took a minute before Jacob realized it was the last bit of sunlight.
“It’s gone,” Alice said.
“You are actually standing on it,” Smith said as he tapped his foot.
Alice glanced down and then behind her. Jacob did the same. They’d been walking on the fallen wall for several feet. It was covered with enough dirt and rock that he hadn’t realized it was the wall. The largest iron supports had fallen a good five feet away from the track, leaving a few upright braces where the bolts had torn away. It was far enough from the rail to let the engine pass, but Smith was right. They were going to scrape the hell out of the wider cars.
Alice slid her foot along the rail beside the fallen wall. “You don’t think they’ll derail, do you?”
“The cars?” Smith asked. He shook his head. “It will be a bumpy start, but we should get by just fine. These old cars were built to last, and it will take a great deal more than a broken wall to stop them.”
Something thumped, echoing out from the halls that led back to the staircase. Silence ran through the group as they all turned toward the sound. It came again, and then again, like stone smashing into stone.
“I will check on the noise,” Drakkar said. He walked toward the platform and hopped up the stairs.
“Jacob,” Smith said, “we need to start these engines. The old pumps should still work. Now hurry.” He pointed to the wall.
Jacob squinted and then nodded. They were simple hand pumps, but if the gearing on the sides weren’t frozen, it wouldn’t take long to fill the boilers.
“Come on,” Alice said, hopping up onto the nearest engine. She started twisting the brass valve to open the reservoir at the top of the boiler.
Jacob jogged to the nearest pump. He didn’t even try to turn it on. Something had frayed the hose, and they didn’t have anything to patch it with. The second pump, farther away from the blast that brought down the wall, had a hose that looked intact. He grabbed the nozzle and started pulling it toward Alice. The wheel supporting the coil of rope squeaked and rattled and finally froze with the nozzle only a foot away from the car.
“Dammit,” Jacob muttered. He jogged back to the pump and tried to shift the rusted wheel. When straining with every fiber of his being didn’t budge the coil, he picked up a length of bent iron rod and cracked it over the mount.
“Is it stuck?” Smith asked from the pump closest to the front car.
“No, I just wanted to hit something.” Jacob raised the rod again and swung it into the side of the mount.
“I would expect that kind of sophisticated repair from a Spider Knight,” Smith said.
“What was that?’ Samuel asked, shouting back from the station’s exit. Jacob wondered what the Spider Knight was doing there until a section of track shifted and creaked. He’d found the switch for the rails.
Jacob slid the pipe into the spokes of the wheel and levered it against his biomech leg. The entire coil assembly shook and broke free when he leaned into it.
Alice had the nozzle clamped onto the reservoir by the time Jacob turned to tell her it was loose. “Start her up!”
Jacob nodded and grabbed the pump handle. It shifted far easier than the coil of hose had, and he was relieved at the wheeze that ran through the system. It was pulling air, and if it could pull air …
The wheeze choked off, replaced by the fattening of the hose as water shot up through the pump. Water leaked from the connector, but not enough to stop them from filling the reservoirs.
“Working?” Smith asked.
“Yes. Bad gasket, I think, but it’s filling.”
“Here too. Go ahead and light the fuel. Once we have a little pressure, we can make sure these old engines are still rail worthy.”
Jacob walked around the front of the railcar and crouched down. He shone a lantern up underneath the deck and along the tracks.
“Is it leaking?” Alice asked.
He shook his head and hopped up on the railcar beside her. “Not yet.”
“I went ahead and set some of the fuel bars in the rack. Do you have a Burner?”
Jacob nodded and fished around one of his larger vest pockets near his waist. He handed Alice one of the small Burners. She pulled the iron rack out from beneath the boiler, clicked the Burner, and dropped it between two of the fuel bars.
“Whoa,” she said, jumping away from the burst of heat and flame. “That went up a little faster than I expected.” She reached the edge of the rack with her toe and forced it beneath the boiler.
Another rumble and crack echoed from the corridor behind them. Jacob turned around in time to see Drakkar come running back into the station, his cloak rising in the breeze behind him.
“Scythe Beetles!”
Jacob swung the air cannon off his back and racked the slide.
“Jacob, Alice!” Samuel’s voice rang with authority. “Fall back with Smith. If you need to use the cannon, use it at the last second. You don’t want to injure a Scythe Beetle. You want to kill it.”
Drakkar’s arm snapped out to the side, and his sword unfolded with a rapid series of clicks.
There was a calamity behind the Cave Guardian, and it grew louder with every second. Jacob and Alice scrambled off the railcar. Jacob paused and then ran to the pump to turn it off. The last thing they needed was wet fuel bars.
Alice made it to Smith ten steps before Jacob did. Samuel and Drakkar set up a loose line between the railcar and a steeper section of the shattered wall.
Smith spoke into his transmitter. “Mary! Get the chaingun down here
now!
”
Her static-laced reply came back in an incoherent burst.
“Chaingun! Now!”
Mary cursed and began shouting orders before she stopped transmitting.
Drakkar had the best view of the corridor, and everyone tensed when he said, “Here they come.”
The iron gate in the stone hall collapsed at the first impact. The metal rattled and screeched as it was twisted and trampled. The creatures were not very fast, but once they were moving, nothing seemed to stop them.
They ran on three-toed claws, the spikes on their legs tearing through stone and rending metal as they crashed onto the platform. Jacob watched in awe and horror as the front most beetle paused, and its back split open. A pair of leathery wings extended from beneath the carapace and gleamed in the rising moonlight.
“Gods, they are flyers,” Drakkar said. “Stay close to the cars or the wall. Do not let them catch you in the open.” Even as he spoke, Drakkar shifted his position nearer the railcars.
More of the beetles surged around the first, chittering and roaring and climbing the far wall as they went. They were outnumbered three to one by the time the beetles stopped pouring from the corridor.
In another time, another place, Jacob would have thought them beautiful with their iridescent shells and delicate legs, but now he could only stare at the long, menacing horn that arced forward to a deadly point, measuring some two thirds of its body length.
The first beetle lunged. It looked as though Drakkar planned to meet it with his sword, but he dove to the side at the last moment. The scythe came down in a quick overhead strike that shaved off a three-foot section of the fallen wall. The beetle released a thunderous chitter and swept its head at Drakkar.
This time Drakkar did raise his sword, not to block the sideways blow, but to deflect enough that he could slide beneath it. He struck out with his sword, and the blade bounced off the Scythe Beetle’s thick carapace, where its horn met its head. “Watch the ceiling!”
Samuel looked up in time to see another beetle release its grip on the stone above. It was silent as it fell, but Drakkar had provided all the warning the Spider Knight needed. The bolt gun on his wrist spun as he released the safety and fired when he bent his wrist. Four bolts cracked through the underbelly of the creature before Samuel dove to the side, grunting as he tripped and fell onto the wall.
The beetle smashed into the ground, blocking Jacob’s view of Samuel. He thought the Spider Knight had gotten out of the way, but he couldn’t be sure. The beetle didn’t move. The underbelly had to be their weakest point, but how in the world could they get to that if the bugs didn’t expose it?
The first beetle slammed its Scythe into the floor, narrowly missing Drakkar, who now took refuge beneath the edge of the fallen wall. The Cave Guardian couldn’t see the other beetle stomping up the wall toward his position. If it reached him, it would flatten him.
“Drakkar!” Alice shouted. “Get out of there!”
Jacob ran forward and raised the air cannon. The beetle was only a few steps away from the edge of the wall, and Drakkar wasn’t moving fast enough. He pulled the trigger, and the air cannon boomed in the cavernous station, echoing across the walls and ceiling.
The beetle screeched and opened its wings before lunging forward. The air cannon had shattered half the thing’s armored head. It stumbled and collapsed. Something hit Jacob from the side. He didn’t understand what had happened, only that the station floor was below him, and then above him, and then he slammed into something cold and hard and it stole the breath from his lungs.
Jacob tried to scream Alice’s name as he slowly dragged himself back to his feet, but it was all he could do to gasp for air. He’d lost his grip on the air cannon, and it lay in the gravel some five feet away.
The Scythe Beetle raised its horn to strike Alice down. Smith joined Jacob’s scream as he ran at the creature, but Alice was faster. She slid to the left, avoiding a blow that could have shattered a boulder, and then she punched the Scythe Beetle where its horn met its head.
The heavy nail glove fired an anchor through the beast, and the horn shattered. Alice started to turn when the creature flailed backwards and got itself stuck on one of the destroyed railcars.
Jacob was almost back to his feet when she leapt up onto the beetle’s soft underbelly and began punching its eyes. Every strike fired another anchoring bolt into the thing’s head until the glove clicked empty. Alice rolled off as two more beetles closed in on her, and she ran flat out toward Smith, joining Drakkar’s retreat. Jacob dove for the air cannon and started pumping it again.
Alice raised her arm and pointed to the station’s exit. “Get down!”
Jacob chanced a peek over his shoulder. The gun pod drifted into sight as Mary steered the Skysworn ever lower. Jacob turned back to Alice and immediately wished he hadn’t. The Scythe Beetles were closing in on them, gleaming and roaring, raising their horns in anticipation of the kill.
He turned to run. There was nothing else they could do. He saw George behind the chaingun as the barrels spun up. There was no way George had the clearance he needed to sweep the station without killing half the people inside. Before Jacob was sure what had happened, Alice tackled him, throwing them both against the dirt before she rolled up underneath a fallen slab of wood.
George painted the station in lead and flame. Gunfire tore through the line of beetles behind Jacob and Alice. White and yellow pus-like fluids exploded from shattered carapaces and the beetles screamed along with the people.
J
acob rolled out
of their shelter first. Smith panted, leaning against the wall by the broken shell of a Scythe Beetle. Drakkar shook on his hands and knees and took a deep breath before trying to stand up. Alice crawled out and stood up beside Jacob.
Gore dripped from her right arm. It was a foul, sticky mess, but Jacob held on to her anyway.