The blades connected in midair with a clang.
They kicked up choking dust as they circled each other, their blades ringing as they slashed at each other, neither one of them hitting anything but the others’ blade.
Tattoo was good. But there was a difference between a soldier trained for battle and an assassin trained to kill. While Tattoo was focused on besting him with the blade, Caleb was taking in the whole environment.
He heard the familiar ticking sound coming from the locomotive and knew what was coming next. He continued to slash at Tattoo with his sword, driving him backward toward the locomotive.
Right when the ticking sound stopped, Caleb swung his sword too wide, leaving an opening that Tattoo took with a knowing grin.
Caleb closed his eyes and dropped low just as the locomotive engulfed them both in steam.
As the steam cleared, everyone watching saw a surprised Tattoo flat on his back with Caleb resting the tip of his sword under his chin.
“The next time you call me a coward, you won’t be able to finish the word.”
A few halted claps morphed into a round of applause and cheers. Caleb wasn’t the only one who hated Tattoo.
He tore his attention away from the soldier he had downed and watched the crowd split like the Red Sea before Moses as Ellis moved forward through the crowd. Ellis puffed on his pipe silently until Caleb retracted his sword and stood up.
Tattoo scrambled to his feet and stood at attention.
Ellis held the pipe to his lips, but did not puff on it as he regarded the soldier.
“How many men have you killed with your dagger in hand-to-hand combat?”
“Twenty-two, sir.”
“Have you ever lost a fight?”
Tattoo flinched before responding. “No sir.”
Ellis poked him in the chest with his pipe. “I hope this settles any debate as to why he was chosen.”
“Yes sir.”
“Good.”
“And tell me, commander, what is the punishment for carrying a concealed blade inside my city walls?”
Tattoo stared straight ahead. “Death by hanging, sir.”
“Is there a compelling reason I should not carry out that sentence immediately?”
Tattoo stood rigid. “The enemy is camped outside our front door. I have ordered the men to carry a weapon at all times. We must be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?”
“The enemy getting in.”
“Exactly. The enemy is outside those walls. He,” Ellis pointed at Caleb, “is not the enemy. If anything, he is our one chance to stop an enemy even greater than those that surround our city. If it requires the destruction of this city, and the death of everyone here, so that this man and his friends can continue their journey, then that is what happens. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal, sir.”
“Good.”
A flash of light filled the sky followed by a massive boom that made everyone duck instinctively.
Ellis stared up at the dark clouds that stretched across the sky. “No, no, no, no, no. Not now.”
Large drops of rain splattered against Caleb’s face. He wiped them away quickly. The last thing he needed was rain to drench his fur. It took forever to dry out. Never mind the wonderful smell of wet fur. He had to get inside, and soon, to wait out the storm.
Ellis grabbed him and pushed him toward the locomotive while barking orders at his men. “Get the rest of his group. They are leaving now!”
Caleb understood why he disliked the rain, but what was Ellis’s problem?
“Why the rush?”
Ellis didn’t slow down as he guided Caleb quickly to the passenger compartment at the rear of the locomotive. “I lied earlier when I said nothing could stop this locomotive. If the rain keeps up, this whole area will be a slogging mud pit in no time. If the locomotive sinks into the mud, you’re not going anywhere until the ground dries and we can dig it out. That could take months.”
Ellis pushed Caleb up into the locomotive. Dorothy, the Tin Man, and Toto were being hurried across the town square by two of Ellis’ tattooed soldiers.
The locomotive engineer snapped his fingers in front of Caleb’s face to redirect his attention and pointed to various dials and readouts.
“That’s the pressure gauge. That’s the temperature gauge. Anytime the temperature drops below here,” he pointed to a chalk mark drawn on the edge of the dial and then grabbed the handle of the firebox. “Lift and pull like this to open the firebox and shovel coal in. Be sure to lock it like this to keep the heat in the system.
“This is your throttle. The engine’s primed and ready. As soon as everyone’s inside, push it up gradually to gain speed. Once you get going, set it to full and forget about it.
“This is the brake. We’re on level ground right now so it’s not engaged. You’re not going to need it this trip, so don’t touch it. Momentum is your friend. Once you stop, it’s really hard to get started back up again, so don’t stop.
“When you run out of coal, and the pressure drops below this mark here,” he pointed to another chalk line, “your ride is almost over. If you’re lucky, she’ll come to a nice, gradual stop.”
He clapped the coal dust off his hands and looked around the engine room. “I guess that’s it.”
He slipped past Caleb and hopped out of the locomotive. Caleb called out after him. “Where are you going? I think we’re just about to leave.”
The engineer barked a laugh. “Oh, I’m not going with you.”
“Who’s going to drive the train?”
“It’s not a train. It’s a locomotive engine.”
“What?”
“Never mind. I showed you everything you need to know. Good luck.”
The engineer ran across the town square, tucking his head into the collar of his coat to protect it from the heavy rain while splashing through the widening puddles.
Ellis ushered the rest of Caleb’s group up into the locomotive.
Caleb yelled down at him, “The engineer ran off!”
“All hell’s going to break loose the second you go through that wall. I need every available man to deal with it.”
Another one of the shaved and tattooed soldiers ran up to Ellis and shouted over the pounding rain. “The ground’s softening too fast. In another minute, the tracks won’t hold the engine’s weight without buckling. If they don’t leave now, they won’t make it to the outer wall, let alone have enough speed to break through it.”
Ellis nodded and gripped the door handle as he looked up at Caleb. “You heard the man. Time to get going.” He slid the door closed, shutting the four of them inside; alone and on their own.
Again.
Someone banged on the outside of the door and a muffled voice said, “Go!”
Caleb gripped the throttle and pushed up. The locomotive vibrated from the grooves on the wheels as they spun in place. It finally surged forward as the wheels gained traction on the wet track.
They were moving!
He leaned out the engine window and could see the railroad tracks terminate at the wall half a kilometer away. Even with the wall reduced to only one stone thick, they would still feel it when they hit. They would need to find something to brace themselves with if they didn’t want to be thrown around inside the engineer’s compartment upon impact.
He pushed the throttle to half speed. At first, the wheels slipped with the increased surge from the pistons, but then they gripped the rails and propelled the locomotive faster down the track.
The locomotive vibrated like a carriage without spring-shocks on a cobblestone road. Caleb tightened his jaw to keep his teeth from clacking together too much.
As soon as he felt the locomotive settle into a steady rhythm, he shoved the throttle all the way past the full speed marking.
The pistons shrieked their displeasure with the sudden demand for more power, but they complied with their orders and pushed the locomotive beyond the advertised top speed.
As they rushed past, the blur of the larger commercial buildings in the inner part of the city gave way to the smaller blurs of the residential houses along the outskirts of town. At this speed, the locomotive never had a chance to settle into the grooves carved into the wheels, and it was a much smoother ride. The inertia of the locomotive building speed had lessened once they hit the fastest it could go, and it was easier to remain in place without using all his strength on the handhold.
The Tin Man had not been phased by any of this, and stood as if he were in the middle of a wide open field on a calm sunny afternoon.
Dorothy crouched in the corner of the engineer’s compartment with one arm wrapped around a handhold and her other arm wrapped around Toto.
Caleb tried to smile reassuringly as he hollered over the rat-a-tat of the wheels on the track. “Are you okay?”
Her voice’s staccato rhythm matched the vibrations of the locomotive. “Is it going to be like this the whole way?”
Caleb hadn’t thought of that before, but she was probably right. This gave all the indications of an ill-thought plan. And they hadn’t hit the worst of it yet.
Speaking of the worst part of this plan, he leaned back out the window. They were a quarter kilometer from the wall; and still gaining speed.
Something closer along the track caught his eye.
Not along the track.
On the track!
A horse drawn cart had become trapped in the mud, half of it still blocking the track and overladen with straw. The cart’s owner was furiously working to unhitch his horse from the cart. He already knew what Caleb had just discovered. The cart was bogged down in the mud and wasn’t going anywhere until the locomotive hit it. The owner didn’t want to lose his horse at the same time.
Caleb’s hand was on the brake when the engineer’s words came back to him. Momentum was his friend. They needed to maintain speed to blast through the wall and beyond. If this locomotive was to act like a bullet shot from a gun, he couldn’t stop it midway. Even if he pulled the brake immediately, he would still hit the cart at three-quarters of the engine’s top speed.
He let go of the brake and, numb from the constant vibration of the wheels, never felt the impact. He only saw the cloud of straw and wood fragments shoot past the window.
He looked back and a wave of relief washed over him. The owner struggled to hold the reins of his terrified, but still alive, horse while he considered the splintered remains of his livelihood.
Up ahead, the track was empty.
It was clear sailing all the way to the solid granite castle wall.
Outside the city, in the siege camp, two bandits huddled under an already soaked canvas in the pouring rain.
“This buggers all,” the first one said.
“You’re telling me. We’ve been out here for months and nothin’,” replied the second.
“Yeah, we were promised money and women.”
The second bandit mocked looking around him. “I don’t see any money.”
The first bandit laughed. “Or women.”
The second bandit shivered and tugged his waterlogged coat tighter. “I’m sick of this waiting around. I wish something, anything, would happen.”
It was at that moment the castle wall exploded.
Inside the locomotive, everyone was thrown forward from the impact, but they still managed to cling to their handholds. The prep work by Ellis’ tattooed soldiers had proven to be well-thought-out indeed. The castle wall offered little resistance to the speeding locomotive. In fact, for the passengers inside, it was a minor bump in an already rough ride.
The locomotive barreled through the siege camp, tossing bandits left and right, and tore through the shoddy structures as if they weren’t even there. The grooves of the oversized wheels dug into the mud, the locomotive propelling itself out the other side of the siege camp.
Within minutes, the locomotive crested the low hill and picked up speed as it headed down the other side. Once out of sight, the castle and the surrounding siege camp were but a distant memory.
There were more immediate needs that took Caleb’s full attention away from worrying about what they left behind. The needle on the temperature gauge slowly crawled to the chalk line. If it passed the line, they would begin to slow down; and momentum could be their enemy just as well as their friend.
“We need to add more coal to the fire,” he yelled out to the engine room in general. Dorothy’s face was buried in Toto’s fur. Toto slit his eyes and bared his teeth with a curl of a lip. Neither of them were going to help.
The Tin Man held up the three-fingered claw that served as his hand. “I’m not built for holding a shovel.”
The needle swept past the chalk mark and Caleb wasn’t sure if he could really sense it, or if he only imagined that the locomotive was slowing down. It didn’t matter if he imagined it or not. If the temperature kept dropping in the firebox, the steam pressure would drop, and they would eventually stop. If they were going to continue on their journey, it was up to him to do something about it.
He unhooked the shovel from its tether, the only thing keeping it from flying out the window on their wild ride. He would have to remember to reconnect it or else they would lose the shovel entirely.
He shoveled coal into the firebox and slammed the lid closed.
The scenery rushed by the window. They had been bumping along through it for so long, he became used to the floor of the engineer’s compartment trying to knock him to the ground, and it no longer felt like a wild ride through the countryside.
Everyone, not just him, had quickly adapted to their new environment.
The Tin Man seemed at ease, standing in the corner. It would probably take a lot more than careening through OZ in an out-of-control locomotive to make him come unhinged.
Toto was providing comfort for Dorothy, but he probably hadn’t been programmed to experience fear, so the situation they currently found themselves in was of little consequence.
Dorothy, also, was becoming more comfortable with their bouncing ride and no longer huddled with her face buried in Toto’s fur. She even caught Caleb looking at her a few times, but he always felt embarrassed for staring so long, smiled, and looked back out the window.
Despite looking away each time, he still watched her out of the corner of his eye.