Steamborn (28 page)

“That’s it,” Samuel said. “We’re back on the first level.”

“What was that?” Jacob asked once they’d moved away from the gate.

“No clue,” Samuel said. “I’m just glad it didn’t catch up. Charles, you were saying?”

Charles glanced back at Jacob before returning his focus to their path. “There were a handful of us that swore to keep an eye on the city smith, or at least come calling if he followed a darker path. There are only a few of us left now. Some died of old age, but others were killed over the past year.

“Whatever his goal now, I’d guess he’s trying to keep the truth about his war crimes hidden. He may suspect I’ve told Jacob, but I can’t be sure.”

“Light,” Jacob hissed.

Samuel didn’t so much as hesitate, his hand flashed out to the dial that would snuff the lantern, and darkness wrapped its arms around them a moment later. The darkness was a never-ending shadow until it reached a corner not a hundred paces away.

“Alice?” Jacob asked as quietly as he could.

“Could be,” Charles said. “Samuel, keep your sword at the ready.”

“You think?” Samuel snapped in a heated whisper.

They stayed close to the wall, outside the dim light. Jacob brushed against something slimy and it skittered away from him. He shivered and ground his teeth. He didn’t mind bugs, but when he couldn’t see what was touching him, he had no idea if it was something from which he should run screaming.

Samuel raised his hand in a closed fist, only a silhouette against the weak light. They crouched at the edge of the hall in a doorway that led out onto the old train station’s platform.

“Alice,” Jacob said, and he couldn’t stop the smile on his face. She sat at the same wrought iron tables where they’d eaten, not far from the old bookstore.

“Shh,” Samuel said as he picked up an old broken stone. He threw it underhanded, and it cracked against the old dusty floor closer to Alice. She slammed a book closed and looked up, her eyes searching the shadows all around.

“Looks clear,” Charles said. He stood up straighter as he walked out of the tunnel and into the light of Alice’s lantern.

“Charles!” Alice said. She stood up and ran toward the old man. “Is Jacob with you? Did everyone make it out?” Her voice cracked. “They came into the inn and they … they killed the innkeeper when she wouldn’t tell them where I was.”

Jacob stepped around Charles and stared wide-eyed at Alice. Dried blood edged a broad cut across her cheek. A brownish crimson stain marred her dress in the lantern light, smeared where she’d tried to scrub blood off her hands. A book lay on the ground in tatters, pages torn away and bloodied and left crumpled on the floor. He put his arms around Alice and hugged her as tightly as he could.

She was shaking, and a moment later he realized he was shaking too.

“I always wanted a grand adventure, Jacob—like Charles used to tell us about—but this is
not
what I had in mind.” She sniffed and pushed herself away.

Jacob could feel the tears running down his face. “The soldiers said they have my parents.”

“They’ll be okay,” Charles said.

“How can you know that?” Jacob asked, his voice cracking as terror warred with a terrible rage. “They killed an innkeeper? Why would they do that?”

“Our departure is the best thing we can do to keep them safe,” Charles said. He squeezed Jacob’s shoulder. “Parliament isn’t going to hurt them so long as they can be used as leverage.”

Jacob frowned and rubbed at his forehead.

“Where are we going now?” Alice asked. She slung her dark leather backpack over her shoulder. “They’ll find us here eventually.”

“We’re going through there,” Samuel said, pointing to the gate blocking the train tracks to the south.

Jacob looked at the giant dead invader in the tunnel and shivered. What would they do if they ran into one of those things and it was still alive? “I really don’t want to get eaten by one of those.”

Charles laughed, though there wasn’t much humor in the sound. “Neither do I, boy. Neither do I.”

“There’s a spring close to the exit,” Samuel said, looking over at Alice. “So long as it’s not overrun, we’ll get you cleaned up.”

Alice nodded and seemed to be intentionally averting her eyes from her bloodied hands.

Something boomed in the distance.

Charles looked toward both ends of the train station and frowned. “I can’t tell where that’s coming from.”

“I don’t care,” Samuel said as he started across the bridge. “Let’s go.”

The doorway on the other side of the bridge was a long, dark staircase that seemed to vanish into the depths of hell. The archway itself mirrored the path Jacob and Alice had taken into the catacombs, but the stairs here were narrow, and seemed slippery the lower they got. Lantern light glinted on the water dripping down the walls and struggled to light the depths beyond.

“Why is there water on the stairs?”Alice asked.

“Groundwater,” Charles said. “Nothing to worry about. There’s a stream running through the mountain when we get lower. Some folks call it a river, but it’s only a stream.”

Another boom sounded in the distance, and the floor shook beneath their feet.

Samuel glanced back at Charles. “What is that?”

“I don’t know, but I’d bet it’s a bug.”

Jacob felt Alice wrap her hand up in his own. She shivered and he squeezed her fingers tight.

“It’s not one of those huge invaders, is it?” Jacob asked.

“It could be,” Charles said, placing his hand against the wall. “If it is, we’re safe here. There are no caverns large enough for the giants to reach this path. None of the giants have been seen in a decade. We should have another five years or so before the next brood. They hatch like clockwork.”

“There’s a gate up ahead,” Samuel said. He hurried down the stairs. The Spider Knight shouted and jumped backwards when something screeched and slammed itself against the gate. He lunged forward with the short sword and drove it through something with a crunch. He held the lantern up to the dead creature pinned through the gate and cursed. “Widow Maker.”

“This high?” Charles asked. “I didn’t expect them this high.”

The blood coating the sword looked dark in the dim light when Samuel wrenched the blade up and out of the spider’s head. “Stay away from the fangs. They’re still deadly.” He tried the handle and the gate only rattled in its frame.

“Here,” Charles said. He stepped up beside Samuel. The old man pressed on a section of stone that looked like any other part of the wall, causing an unseen mechanism to groan and squeal. The gate rose slowly, and everyone ducked through as soon as it was high enough to pass under. The Widow Maker’s carcass fell to the side.

“Do we need to close it?” Alice asked as she stepped carefully around the spider. Its legs were already curling up beneath it. “If it stays open, they’ll know which way we went.

“The tracks we left in the dust will lead them here whether the gate is closed or not, but it will close on its own.” Charles placed his hand on the wall and stopped. “Samuel, do you hear that?”

Jacob strained to hear what Charles was talking about. It wasn’t a boom, but it was loud. It was constant and almost sounded like the water running through a fountain.

“Is that the underground river?” Samuel asked. “I don’t remember being able to hear it this high up.

“You can’t,” Charles said. He narrowed his eyes and stared into the depths of the staircase. “Pass me the lantern, and let’s get down to the third level. We’ll know soon enough.”

Charles paused and turned his head again.

“What is it?” Samuel asked before he passed Charles the lantern. He filled a small brass lamp with water from a rawhide canteen at his side. Jacob knew what the light was: an old carbide-mining lamp. It was small and the welds look repaired. Samuel waited a beat and then struck a flint across the striker mounted at the lamp’s nozzle. A flame caught and flickered and then burst into life. Samuel clipped it onto his armor and it added a fair amount of illumination to the stairs.

Charles stared back up the corridor.

“What is it?” Samuel asked.

“Voices,” Charles whispered, “where they should not be.”

They all fell silent and listened. Charles snuffed the last of the light, and they waited in absolute darkness. Jacob flinched when he heard the clang of metal on metal and someone shouting in the distance.

“Be calm,” Samuel squeezed Jacob’s shoulder. “We have the advantage. Hands on shoulders, step left, step right.”

Jacob stayed behind Charles. Alice kept her hand on Jacob’s shoulder while Samuel led them into the black. Jacob kept his free hand running along the roughly hewn walls, feeling every crack and bump and jumping at anything sharp enough to feel dangerous. It seemed like half an hour, one careful step after another until Samuel said, “Hold.”

They listened, and only the sounds of their own breathing wandering through the darkness to greet them.

“I’m getting the lantern out,” Charles said. The click on the igniter sounded before a dim glow cut through the darkness. They moved forward again, traveling in the shaky light as the lantern swung back and forth in the old man’s hand.

Samuel kept his sword at the ready, and it made Jacob jump at every shadow that shifted in the dim corridor. Alice wrapped her hand around Jacob’s arm and stayed with him step for step until they reached another flight of stairs.

Jacob counted the steps until they surpassed a hundred. Slowly, the shadows became only shadows in his mind, and the thunder of the water was almost reassuring as it grew louder. They hadn’t heard voices in a while. He knew the silence might be a product of the water’s volume, but he didn’t want to consider what that might mean.

The corridor stopped suddenly, spreading out onto another platform by way of wide stone stairs. It looked like an unfinished train station with a crumbling stone bridge, and storefronts so fallen into disrepair they were so much rubble.

Jacob yelped when he stepped forward and water ran over his ankles. The room was filled with a deafening roar, and the rapids and whitecaps of the river were frightening in the inconsistent lantern light.

“What the
hell?”
Samuel let out a string of curses unlike anything Jacob had ever heard. “This has
always
been a stream, knee deep at most.”

Water raged through the cavern, lapping at the decaying stone bridge.

“There’s no way this is natural,” Charles said. He crouched at the water’s edge and put his hand into the raging current. “We’ll have to take the bridge.”

“That
bridge?” Alice asked, pointing at the cracked, collapsing stonework.

“Yes, we can’t go backwards. This is the only underground path that leads to the south.”

“I’ll go,” Jacob said, taking a deep breath. “I’m lighter than you and Samuel.”

“I don’t like it,” Samuel said. He adjusted the lamp mounted at his shoulder. “If he gets to the other side and something’s waiting …”

“There’s nothing here,” the old man said, sweeping the lantern light from one side of the bridge to the other.

Jacob didn’t say any more. He waded farther into the water where it was just above his shins. Even there, in the slower current, it threatened to knock him over. A few short steps brought him to the foot of the old bridge.

The top of the bridge was damp but clear. The railings had long since rusted and fallen away, clearly not meant to withstand the moisture in the cave. Jacob squinted and could just make out the far side of the bridge.

“It’s intact,” he said, turning to Charles. “Can you hold the light any higher?”

Charles raised the lantern as high as he could. Jacob took a few steps forward. The bridge felt solid. He continued to the halfway point and closed his eyes. Small vibrations moved through the old stone, probably from the rushing water more than anything else.

Jacob walked back across the bridge, crossing the water to stand with Alice. “I think it’s okay.”

Samuel glanced at Charles and shrugged. “I’ll go first,” he said. He walked into the water and adjusted the old miner’s lamp.

“Here,” Charles said. He held the lantern out to Jacob. “Keep it high.” Charles stepped up onto the base of the bridge, but he waited until Samuel was safely on the other side before following the Spider Knight.

Jacob and Alice followed.

“I don’t like this,” Alice said. “I can’t see anything.”

“Here.” Jacob held out the lantern.

“Thanks,” Alice said. She took the light and held it up. “Are you coming with me?”

“You go first.”

“If this bridge supported Charles, I’m sure it will support both of us.”

“Just go,” Jacob said. “You can put the light on the bridge for me at the other side.

“Come on!” Samuel shouted from the opposite shore.

Alice hurried over the wet stones and turned around when she reached the other side. Jacob followed, pausing in the center to glance over the edge of the bridge. As frightening as the raging river had seemed from the shore, it was even more intimidating from above. Jacob couldn’t imagine anything escaping that churning mass of force.

Alice screamed. Jacob turned just far enough to see the flash of lantern light reflecting off an enormous, oblong eye. It was black and curved on the side of a wide, flat head, and Jacob threw himself to the side on instinct alone. The giant bug brought its head down, impaling a stone with a mouth that looked more like a dark, curved saber. Its tan forelegs surged forward like a scorpion’s claws, narrowly missing Jacob’s arm, before its bulk smashed into the bridge.

Its head rose again and released a deep chirrup before that terrifying saber smashed through another stone, scattering fragments into the river below as Jacob rolled off the other side of the bridge. His hands scrambled to find purchase, but the stones were too damp, too smooth. Samuel rammed his sword home through the creature’s head before turning to help, but Jacob was already falling.

He didn’t have time to scream before the raging waters closed over his head. He wanted to scream as the cold darkness of the river engulfed him, but he knew that would mean drowning. Jacob held his hands out to the side as the current turned him and tumbled him until something caught his palm. He thought it might be Charles or Samuel, but it was only a rock.