Nothing this cold. The crew had gotten no chance to fight back. They’d been slaughtered.
David set her down at the bottom of the stairs, the steel grating slippery beneath her boots. They climbed to the landing, her heart jumping with every small sound. She wanted to protest when David extinguished the lantern hanging near the door, but knew
he was right to. After a second’s thought, she caught up the lantern’s handle and tied it to her pack.
She pulled her spanner from her belt. His hand gripping hers, he led her out of the hold and along another metal-grated passageway. After twenty yards, he paused.
“We’re at a junction. A large source of heat lies somewhere ahead of us,” he whispered.
“The furnace?”
“Probably. This passage leads there. Another leads left. And there’s a ladder to a round hatch over our heads. It might be a way out.”
Or it might open up to a bridge, or some other cabin filled with men ready to shoot them. “Which way does it swing open?”
“Out.”
A good sign. An outer hatch of a submersible would never open in. “What does the ceiling look like?”
“A slight curve.”
Like the top of a whale’s head? She took a deep breath. “Try it.”
His boots rang softly on metal rungs. She heard a clank, then the distinctive sound of a turning wheel opening a bolt-and-lock mechanism. They both quieted, waiting and listening. No one came to investigate the noise.
“I’ll open it now,” he said softly. “Pray there’s not a lookout.”
She did.
The gods didn’t shit in her eye. A fat snowflake drifted
through the open hatch, instead. Cloud-filtered moonlight shone like a beacon after the darkness, flooding the passageway.
Heart in her throat, Annika watched David climb through the hatch. He paused with his head and shoulders exposed, scanning the submersible’s hull. No one shouted an alert.
David glanced down. “It’s clear.”
She emerged amidships atop the whale’s back. Half an inch of snow had accumulated on the riveted hull, thinning toward the tail, where the lingering warmth from the furnace melted the falling flakes. Bolted against the port side, a ladder led down to a wooden dock. Like David, she sank into a crouch, trying to make her silhouette as small as possible. Their position offered no concealment.
But it offered them a view. The whale had docked in a small cove. At the cove’s head, cliffs rose against the clouded sky, with ice sheeting down their jagged sides. Behind the whale lay the sea, the crashing waves a dull roar. The rail camp had been constructed
alongside the water, a collection of a dozen clapboard buildings built up on three sides of a small clearing, its perimeter lit by lanterns hanging near each door. Not a large camp, but the long buildings could have been bunkhouses, each holding twenty or thirty men. A ferry cruiser hovered over the clearing.
Annika recognized it. “That’s the airship we saw in Smoke Cove yesterday.”
Mouth set in a thin line, David nodded. “Di Fiore’s.”
Best not to return to Smoke Cove, then, even if they were closer to that settlement than they were to Vik. Though they could find safety with Valdís, di Fiore had several hundred laborers at the nearby rail camp. The man had already destroyed their airship, ordered his men to kill the fluyt’s crew. She doubted that he’d hesitate to kill them, too.
They’d try to make it to Vik, then. Everyone from the airship would have headed in that direction, too—and Captain Vashon didn’t know di Fiore had been responsible for
Phatéon
’s fall. They could regroup, figure out what to do.
First, she and David had to get there.
They couldn’t climb the icy cliffs. They didn’t dare try to cross the cove without a boat. They’d have to make their way through that camp.
“There’s a watchman,” David said softly.
Annika saw him, standing between two of the bunkhouses. He faced the clearing, his back to the cove. Her heart sank. The buildings didn’t form a circle around the clearing, but three sides, and the fourth side open. Though shadowed, the moonlight on the snow would reveal their movements. Even if they skirted around the camp, using the buildings for cover, he’d see them as soon as they ventured beyond the last bunkhouse.
Was there anything to hide behind? She studied the open edge of the clearing, and her lips parted as she recognized one of the shadowed shapes. “Is that a two-seater balloon?”
“Yes. With an open cart and a steam engine.”
Blast. The cart would offer no protection and the sound of the engine would expose them long before it built up enough speed to fly away.
David frowned. “What the hell is behind them?”
In the dark, she couldn’t quite make them out. Three ambulatory machines, of some sort. Their shapes seemed familiar, but…
Annika’s heart leapt. Astonishment stole her breath. “Trolls.”
“What?”
“Trolls. But with no skins, no disguise. That’s what’s underneath.” Her astonishment faded into dread. “Why do they have them?”
David stared at her. “The trolls are
real
?”
“I told you.”
“I thought it was just a story.”
“Mostly. But stories are more frightening when there’s some truth to them.” And the terror was hers, now. “David, they must know about Hannasvik. They must have stolen these, killed everyone the same way as the sailors—”
Annika had to stop herself. Whatever had happened, she couldn’t think of it now. She thought instead of the sailors on the fluyt. She thought of what would happen to David if they were discovered. Fear wouldn’t help her now. She needed anger. Resolve.
She built up both. “We’ll take a troll. I can drive it.”
“That’s not leaving quietly.”
“If I’m in one of those, we won’t need to.” She caught his hand. “Listen.”
His gaze on hers, he angled his head. She saw the moment he heard it—over the roar of the ocean, a distant barking. Dogs.
“If we don’t take it, we’re not going to make it far.”
He nodded. “How long will you need?”
“After I’m inside, fifteen minutes to stoke the furnace and build up enough pressure.”
“All right.”
She hesitated. “If the watchman sees us—”
“I know.” His face was grim. “I’ll do it.”
Sick at heart, she nodded. They climbed down to the dock—out in the open but shadowed by the bulk of the whale. The angle of a nearby building concealed them from the watchman as they traversed the small rise between the water and the camp. Staying low, they crept quietly to the rear of a bunkhouse, Annika wincing at every faint crunch of snow. David crouched against the clapboard siding, shrugged out of his pack, and glanced down at the pistol holstered at his thigh.
He couldn’t use it. The report would wake them all. He closed his eye, then looked to Annika. Wordlessly, he gave over the gun. Her throat tight, Annika took it.
His chest rose on a deep breath, and for a long moment, he stared at his steel hand as if the contraption were alien to him. His mouth firmed as he stood. He stalked around the side of the building, out of sight.
Waiting was agony. She clutched the weapon, listening desperately for any sound. Only the ocean, and the faint snoring from inside the bunkhouse, the whisper of the breeze and falling snow.
Then the soft crunch of footsteps. David appeared, carrying the watchman’s body, the man’s rifle slung over his shoulder. His neck had been twisted at an unnatural angle. A terrible ache built in her throat. They’d had little choice, but she’d never killed anyone before. She couldn’t imagine what David must be feeling. Except for the tight clamp of his jaw, his expression revealed nothing.
He laid the watchman in the snow, covered his face with his hat. Silently, he holstered the pistol and took her hand. Together they skirted around the edge of the camp to the trolls.
It was a relief to see that they weren’t any of the machines from home. These were new and identical, whereas each troll from Hannasvik
had been constructed with different salvaged pieces. Perhaps these men had come across one that had been hidden and copied it. The mystery of how they’d built these remained, and it could still mean that a driver from Hannasvik had been killed in the same way as the fluyt’s crew, but Annika wasn’t so afraid that her home had been raided.
She felt the belly of each. Two were already warm. She chose the one farthest away from the camp, quietly opening the hatch in the chest. She’d slept in her troll many times, but not when at home. Hopefully whoever drove these slept in the bunkhouses.
They did. The hearth chamber in the chest was empty. The furnace burned low. She stoked it, glad to see the coal bunker was full. After closing the vents, she lit a lamp and searched the driver’s locker, found the tool she needed. She climbed back through the chest hatch; David waited outside, watching the bunkhouses and the hovering airship.
Gas grip in hand, she crept to the second troll, and clamped the tool over the hinge bolt on the hind leg. She couldn’t budge it, until the hard strength of David’s body pressed against her back, his hands gripping the handle below hers. The bolt squeaked as it turned. They both froze, listening. No movement in the camp. She continued loosening it until the bolt barely held the leg joint together.
Her chest hurt when they finished. Oh, this was horrible. Though only a machine, what she’d just done would have destroyed a century’s worth of painstaking work and maintenance in Hannasvik. These weren’t hers, they weren’t old, but a lifetime of caring for a troll made it difficult to see them any other way.
But she had to. With David’s help, she loosened the bolts on the other three legs, and saw that her troll’s nose had begun to steam. Snow fell steadily as they worked, heavy flakes that stuck to their clothes. By the time they finished with the third machine, the boilers were ready.
Inside the troll’s hearth chamber, he had to stoop over slightly. Except for the floor, there was nowhere to sit—and unlike Annika’s troll, no bunk, no stove, and not much storage aside from the coal. The men at the camp must not use it to travel long distances, just to work—or perhaps to carry laborers to wherever the drill was.
Annika slipped out of her coat. The chamber was already warm; soon it would be hot. David tossed his pack into the corner, brushed the snow from his shoulders before unbuckling his overcoat.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Stoke, after a bit, but we’ll be all right for a while.” Annika threw the engine lever to full steam, and grinned as the troll gave a satisfying huff and shudder. “For now, just hold on to something.”
She climbed up the short ladder to the troll’s head and eased into the driver’s seat. Her boots fit snugly into the stompers that drove the back legs. A sweet sense of belonging slipped through her. Four years had passed since she’d driven a troll, but each movement remained wonderfully familiar. Reaching up, she opened the eye louvers. The steel flaps lifted, showing her a view of the camp through multiple narrow strips. Cold air slipped in, faint light from the lanterns.
“Good Christ.” David stood on the ladder, looking over her shoulder at the jungle of levers and pulleys. “You can drive this?”
“Yes.” She had only a second to familiarize herself with the differences. The controls were the same, the gauges new—and a welcome addition. She wouldn’t have to stop to check the pressure of the steam, the temperature of the furnace.
“They’re coming,” David said.
No alarm yet, but the engine had woken someone. A man strode across the clearing.
Annika hauled back the lift lever. The troll rose smoothly, still on all fours. So beautiful. The right foreleg grip didn’t perfectly fit her fingers, the leather worn down by a century of women, but the pulley wheel didn’t squeak.
The troll jolted forward a step. A
thunk
sounded on the floor behind her. David swore.
“Sorry.” But she’d told him to hold on. “She’s strong. Stronger than mine. It might take me a few seconds to adjust.”
Laughing now, he climbed onto the ladder again. His fingers wrapped securely around the top rung. “I’m ready this time.”
Annika eased her forward with small steps. The man in the clearing stopped, waving his arms and shouting at them—probably thinking that someone had taken a few drinks before crawling inside. That was usually why the trolls at home went on unexpected walks.
The troll’s nose touched the flank of the second machine. “We need to name her,” Annika said, slowly pushing down on the stomper.
Silence was David’s only response. She glanced back. He wore a stunned expression, watching through the eye louvers as the giant machine toppled over. Steel shrieked. Even over the huffing of their engine, the crash was deafening.
“Jesus,” he breathed.
Annika turned toward the second troll. In the clearing, the man raced forward, probably hoping to reach her before she pushed it over. A toppled troll was almost impossible to lift to its feet again without another to pull it up.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, setting her nose against the machine’s hip.
“For what? This is incredible!”
“I was saying it to the troll.” Perhaps it did seem odd. “I grew up with them. They all have quirks, personalities—or they seem to. Some don’t like to work in the cold. Some are terrible in the heat, or after crossing a river. Some will quit for no reason, then you’ve got to coax them and oil every inch until they start again, or there’s some setting that has to be perfect, and that setting is never the same on another troll. What I’m doing now is awful.”
Absolutely nothing like killing the watchman must have been,
but still difficult. She winced as the leg buckled, then headed for the two-seaters. She didn’t need to tip the balloons. One step crushed the frame.
More men surrounded them now, all shouting, waving their arms, then racing out of the way as she turned to crush the next two-seater.
“Go now, Annika,” David said.
Yes. The tenor of the men’s shouts had abruptly changed. Perhaps they’d thought the driver was drunk, but not now. They must have found the watchman’s body. “The airship?”