8th of Eylestre

Erdan and Hedwyn were the last in, shrugging out of their damp coats as they took their places next to Rugga and Phaestra on the far side of the map table.

Orrelian's eyes sparkled with repressed good humor. "Bit 'o trouble?"

"Need ta fix that South Hoddle Street gutter. Th'entrance were a foot deep in overflow," Hedwyn muttered, mopping at his face and hair with his neckerchief.

"It's been coming down hard for a while. We had to go the long way around to Redtree alley," Erdan supplied. He wiped rainwater from his nose as he surveyed the maps, the sheaf of sylvo prints, and the strategy board Orrelian had been working on. "Busy night?"

Orrelian nodded, his gaze flicking briefly to Arramy and then to me. "Could say that." Then he glanced around at the rest of the team. "Right. So. T'catch y'up, Miss Warring and Cap'n solved Razhan's code in the wee hours, and now we've got ourselves a good list o' viable, verified targets." He pointed at one of the Xs on the map table, located in the winding mess of backstreets that made up the poor district of Southside. He peered up at Erdan. "What make-ee there?"

A smile spread over Erdan's face.

Rugga let out a laugh and swatted at him. "Go on, get your gloat over."

Hedwyn heaved an angry sigh and crossed his arms, biceps and chest muscles bulging. "It's perfect, innit? Shoulda done something about that lot last winter, when we told ya we were seeing activity, but no... had to wait til Sir Almighty put a mark on it for us."

Beside me, Marin shook her head in annoyance. "Hed, you know very well why we couldn't take that nest last year. They were moving them too fast. Now we've got the arrival time, even the shipment size," she said, snatching up the sylvo she had been studying and shoving it across the table at him. "Going in blind is too dangerous. If we miss, they'll just move, and we'll be right back at the beginning, hunting for leads again."

Hedwyn let his jaw jut but didn't say anything more, casting a sullen glare at Arramy's end of the table as Orrelian held up his hand for quiet.

"None of this is competition." Orrelian said, tone sharp, his dark gaze skewering Hedwyn first, then moving to the rest of us, one by one. "There be no tally keeping, just better information. We've got where and when, now, so we have to decide which targets are most valuable. Just so happens... there's human cargo moving through this nest tonight, and saving those people be our first goal." He tapped the X over Southside. "Erdan, Hedwyn, you'll be going on that with me." He paused as Rugga slapped Erdan on the back. "Marin, Rugga, Ynette, you'll come with us. For the rest of ya..."

He grabbed a marking stick and scrawled a circle around the rail line north of Razhan's estate. "The slaves are going south through the city, but they're coming in from this rail, here, and something else is moving on from there into Lodes. Something big, looks like. Cog, think you can take out that line? I'm not talking a little bit. I want it so far gone it'll take months to rebuild. And I want whatever is in those freight bins gone."

Cog rubbed his chin, then nodded slowly. "I got the gear, yeah."

"Good." Orrelian straightened. "Cap'n will be heading this one. Compare notes on what sort engine Razhan's using, what sort ordinance you'll need to get job done. Phaestra, you'll provide support, an' Bren, you'll go as extra hands, eyes an' ears. Right?"

Surprised, I glanced up to find Orrelian giving me a speculative squint. I had been hanging back, watching the team meeting from the fringes, sure I would be relegated to the hangar. "Yes, sir." I nodded, aware of Marin's gaze on my face.

"Right." Orrelian straightened, then turned on his heel to face the strategy board he and Arramy had been working on before the others arrived. "Cog, Phaestra, stay to get your supplies together. The rest of you, preparatory starts in eight hours. We leave at midnight."

~~~

The scent of fallen leaves hung heavy in the autumn air, threaded with hints of loam, night damp, and decaying wood. Mist hung a meter above the ground, trailing chilly moon-silvered fingers over skin and clothing, ground and branches, making everything clammy.

I huddled a little further into my black jacket and let out a slow breath into my gloved fists, as much to warm them as to keep the fog of it from rising like a plume above my head.

Beside me, Arramy shifted forward and moved a few ferns out of his way for a better angle of observation, peering through his long glass at the compound in the clearing below us.

Lights moved here and there, mirrored lanterns carried by the guards patrolling the fence, bobbing through the dark like single, glowing eyes..

The heavy beat of Lodesian street music drifted from the guard shack's half-open window.

"Two by the horseless," Phaestra whispered from her spot behind a log a few meters away.

Off to our left, Cog collapsed his long glass and came bellycrawling back, settling into the ferns next to Arramy. "Got 'nother three by control shed, smokin' cheroot an' playin' cards."

With the six Northside Kings standing guard in the main area of the compound, that made eleven. I swallowed. More than two of them for every one of us.

After a moment, there was a faint rustle as Phaestra rolled over to look at the rest of us. "So. Same plan as discussed?"

Arramy flicked a glance at the gate to the access road, then studied the small cluster of buildings by the loading platform. He nodded, coming to a decision. "Aye." He rose to a crouch, then turned toward me. Even in the thick gloom beneath the trees I could make out the glint of his eyes as his gaze met mine.

I lifted a brow and shuffled into position, hunched low next to Cog.

"Twenty minutes," Arramy whispered.

"An' if we get there first, wait fer signal," Cog shot back beneath his breath, his voice grim. "See you on t'other side, Cap'n."

My heart lurched into my throat. No more waiting, no more talking, no more watching. The time had come. Cog and I moved forward, ducking quick and quiet through the underbrush, heading for the far end of the compound fence – and the control shed.

I caught a glimpse of Phaestra's lanky figure silhouetted for a second against the lights of the guard shack as she picked up her bag and got ready to run. Then she and Arramy were gone too, disappearing between the trees, skirting the fence in the other direction.

~~~

The gently curving line of the rail seemed to eat up the light of the moon, running above the ground like the grease-black spine of an unnatural centipede, with its thick metal-bound wooden support columns and trusses marching along beneath it, carrying it along mile after mile.

Up close, the trusses reeked of pitch, and the ground beneath them was stained black with soot, grease, and tar.

Tar that would only make it that much more difficult to put the fire out when we were done with this place.

My timepiece clicked over to the next minute. I looked at Cog.

He was concentrating, his brows slammed together in a tight crease, his eyes focused intently on the wax-yellow brick of pyrograde he was attaching to one of the columns, the end of a length of priming cord clamped carefully between his teeth.

The other end of the cord was fixed to the armed bundle of explosives we had just finished planting several columns back. There were three more bundles beyond that one, tucked into the angle of the crosspieces and columns, snug up against the bottom of the rail.

Even working as fast as Cog's experienced fingers could, it had taken us nearly eighteen minutes to get this far.

Chewing my lower lip, I glanced at my timepiece again, then went back to watching the rail bed ahead of us as Cog finished embedding the trigger mechanism in the pyrograde. A moment later he had the priming cord crimped onto the trigger pin and gave my shoulder a quick tap.

All done.

Without a word, we went scuttling between the columns, keeping to the shadows before slowing to a low, stealthy creep as we came within full view of the compound fence. Closer, closer, till we were slinking from one column to the next, keeping cautious watch on the guards by the control shed.

They were still playing cards.

Somehow, we managed to make it all the way to the coils of razor-sharp wire that surrounded the rail at the entrance to the compound. The guards apparently didn't think anyone would be insane enough to try coming in through that. When they did look up from their cards, they looked out into the trees, not right under their own noses. We might as well have been invisible.

The twenty-minute mark passed while we were crawling through the wire one painstaking inch at a time, and then we were inside the fence and a little warning voice in my head was screaming that this was going much, much too smoothly, and taking much, much too long.

We kept going until the hulk of Razhan's bullet-shaped Skaroff & Co engine sat directly above our heads. As soon as we reached it, Cog began looking up through the trusses, searching for something on the belly of the engine. Then, abruptly, he stopped and pressed his back to a column, digging into his pack for another brick of pyrograde.

Breathing hard, heart pounding, I crouched next to him, craning around the shadowed base of the column to get a look at the main yard.

About twenty meters to our right the control shed's metal roof gleamed white as a signal flag in the moonlight. There was a narrow courtyard separating the shed from the squat concrete wall of the guard shack, hemmed in by another, smaller building – a latrine, from the smell – with the loading platforms and the rail as the fourth side.

The guards on patrol were walking calm and steady along the fence. No alarms had gone off. No explosions, no gunfire, no sign that Arramy and Phaestra had reached their objective.

Cog nudged me with his boot. I didn't have to see his face to know his eyebrows were raised in silent question.

At my 'all clear' nod, he turned around, reached up above his head, and grabbed the crossbeam, then hoisted his narrow frame up into the trusses.

With another swift glance around, I grabbed his pack and handed it up to him, then dropped to my belly, scanning the courtyard while he did things with the pyrograde and the undercarriage of the engine.

A heartbeat later, he lowered himself carefully back down to the ground and settled beside me, his pack trailing the priming cord for the last charge.

Another minute went by. The music from the guard shack was louder, now, accompanied by joking and laughter.

A nightbug began chirping softly from somewhere quite close to my left foot.

One of the guards got a good hand and slapped down his cards, grinning triumphantly as the other two began swearing and grumbling.

He had just started raking a small pile of coins off the table when there was a loud, surprised shout of "Fire! There's fire in the bins!" followed immediately by the sound of running footsteps crunching in gravel beyond the guard shack.

A telltale warm, rosy glow was starting to pool around the last cargo bin on the rail, and Cog bumped me with his elbow, a grin flashing white in the soot-grease splotched across his face as the three guards at the table surged to their feet, grabbing at their hats and rifles, upending their game in their haste to see what was going on.

They never looked back.

Too easy! Much too easy... the warning clamored through my head, pounding with the beat of my heart even as I lunged to my feet and raced like mad across the moonswept courtyard, Cog hard on my heels.

Skidding to a halt at the corner of the shed, I whipped around in time to see another of the cargo bins catch fire in a dramatic billow of smoke and embers, the Northside Kings swarming along the loading platform, carrying buckets of water up the ramp, their figures backlit in bright gold.

The next few moments have been etched into my mind, carved deep by the many times I've relived them.

Cog, behind me, attaching the priming cord to the trigger in the last block of pyrograde.

In front of me, the card table littered with coins and cards, a spilled pint glass dripping beer onto still-smoldering cheroots. The rifle one of the guards left behind, propped against the side of his chair.

The guard who won the card game coming back around the side of the guard shack at a run, his gaze homing in first on his forgotten rifle, then beyond it to my face.

He has already seen me.

The metal is cold against my palm as I draw my pistol from its holster at my hip. Cold and heavy. But I don't raise my arm, don't take aim, don't fire. I am frozen, staring at a young man who is very much alive, who doesn't want to die. I can see it in the way his eyes widen, in the clumsy flail of his body as he stumbles to a halt, understanding dawning. His rifle is too far away, and in that moment he knows it.

I am his death, and I don't lift my pistol, and I don't lift my pistol, and I don't lift my pistol, and he opens his mouth to call out as he starts to turn, boots slipping in the gravel, hands paddling the air as he tries to go back the way he came.

A shot rings out, cracking loud from the walls of the buildings. He staggers, a liquid onyx flower blooming across his chest, shining in the light of fire and moon. He doesn't shout. He coughs once and peers down at his own blood, frowning as he falls to his knees. Then he looks at me, watching me while he wilts all the way to the ground, pain and confusion fading as his life drains away.

My pistol hasn't moved from my side.

A tall figure dressed in black stands in the space between the guard shack and the loading platform, a military long-rifle at his shoulder.

For a split-second, we simply stare at each other, icy eyes holding mine before Arramy lifts the rifle and melts into the shadows beneath the rail.

The damage is already done.

Instead of a guard raising the alarm that Cog and I are behind the control shed, that rifle shot has revealed Arramy by the guard shack. There is shouting, and then more shots ring out, pock, pock, pock, and Arramy is running, gliding like a wraith between the columns, drawing the Northside Kings away.

Cog takes hold of my shoulder then, pulling at me, jerking me around to make a run for the fence. He has set the fuse. It is time to go –

That was where reality caught up with me, hot and sharp, cutting through me to the rhythm of my own feet pounding the earth.

Arramy and Phaestra were taking fire. They weren't supposed to be taking fire. They were supposed to be halfway to the rendezvous.

What had I done? Why hadn't I moved faster? Ducked behind the shed quicker?

The crosshatch wire of the fence loomed ahead of us, and Cog swatted at me, yanking me around so he could get at the knapsack between my shoulders. "Snips! C'mon, c'mon!"

"Left big pocket," I managed, then ground my teeth to keep my voice from shaking. Everything was shaking. All I could hear was the spate of gunfire behind us. Back and forth. I wanted to be sick. There was no time to be sick. We had to get out of the compound and blow the rail. Arramy had been dead clear on that. No matter what happened, our one job was to blow the rail.

Not everyone's cover.

There was a quick jerk as Cog found the snips and freed them, and then he began cutting through the fencing wire.

I turned to face the compound again, pistol drawn as if I would actually use it this time, my own hypocrisy digging its claws deep.

A matter of seconds later, Cog was through the wire and hauling me along with him, and then we were pelting across a hundred meter's worth of mown weeds to the drainage ditch we had scoped out earlier, the reel of priming cord inside Cog's pack singing out its line.

We reached the ditch and dove into it, scrambling to cut the priming cord and light the end with the flint striker from my knapsack.

The cord caught, and a ball of hissing, spitting sulphur-yellow sparks went scurrying into the weeds like a tiny rabid animal.

Panting, I rolled onto my belly and inched up to peer over the top of the ditch, my heart in my throat. The cargo bins were still burning, but they had been disconnected and towed to a safer distance. The bucket brigade was moving again, their actions almost frantic, the guards hurrying to save what they could, unaware that time was closing in on them. Rounds were still flying somewhere, but the gunfire was more sporadic. It was impossible to tell if they were firing at something, or just shooting into the trees.

Please be gone, please be gone, please be gone... I didn't realize I was whispering the words out loud until Cog reached up and put his hand on my back. I choked, then shook my head, shrugging his hand off. "How much time do they have?"

He didn't answer.

"How much time?" I growled, only to have Cog point, his lips pressed into a thin, hard line.

A pale-yellow bundle of light zipped through the fence, speeding toward the control shed. Three seconds. Two. One. It reached the block of prograde and disappeared, winking out where the cord met the trigger.

Then the control shed was gone, replaced by a brilliant, expanding ball of hellfire. The first percussion hit, then, rolling through the air, and I buried my head in my arms, flattening myself to the stones beneath me. Another followed a heartbeat later, accompanied by the screech of bending metal as the engine lifted off the tracks, tearing itself into mangled pieces that flew in glowing arcs before ripping into the earth, shredding the front of the guard shack and taking the loading platform, several cargo bins, and half a dozen support columns with it.

Men were screaming, but it wasn't over. One by one, all five of the charges we had set on the rail went off, a deadly, endless thunder of destruction that echoed from the hillside, sucked the very breath from my lungs and rattled the marrow of my bones.

Even in the worst of it, at the back of my mind a nagging, freezing little thought stabbed at me: Arramy and Phaestra might still have been stuck in there; and if they were, it would have been my fault.