Chapter 19 - The Kraken Gate
Our carriage was empty when I awoke, the view from the window static. There were prairies behind us and an ocean of brooding pines ahead. I yawned and stood up. My throat was still sore, but I felt a little more human, if slightly travel-worn. I slid open a small panel in the window to let in some fresh air and caught the scent of pine needles, efta-blossom and sawn wood.
A town was spread out below the air-train. The scaffold that held the train aloft was not as high here as it had been in Emberly, standing perhaps forty-five hands above ground. The air-train was alongside a platform of sawn, wooden planks, about which dozens of people were moving, possibly embarking or disembarking, I wasn’t sure which. A station official prowled up and down accosting people at random.
This was Kirsten, a sprawling logging town built on the borders of the Forest of Yesper. I left the compartment, walked along the corridor past others, mostly empty, to the end of the carriage and stepped down onto the platform. A few steps took me to the railing where I gazed across the conurbation. The periphery was mostly a morass of muddy lumber yards and utilitarian sawmills strewn with offcuts and mountains of sawdust. Fast-fabricated homes spilled in all directions, while the centre of the town was a sad collection of municipal buildings, a two-story department store and a town-hall. In the area immediately adjacent to the air-train station, the mood of the community changed dramatically. Entrepreneurs and their businesses crowded the ground beneath the girders that supported the station, half of them selling engineering supplies for the air-train itself, while the other half catered to the needs of passengers. There was a sizeable throng down there, many of them just off the air-train or about to board.
There was a lot of activity around the air-train’s engine which was being refuelled. Above it, the girders had sprouted a small factory that housed a boiler where the water was preheated to minimise idle time in the station. A gantry delivered snaking hoses to the top of the engine. The whole installation was wreathed in steam. A panel in the side of the gleaming metallic engine had been opened, and a container like a large coal-scuttle full of coal was being craned into position to replace the empty one.
I turned to see Na-Su approaching from the other end of the platform. She had just climbed the stairs from ground level, She was out-of-breath, but she was carrying a tray set with three steaming, wooden mugs. They made just about everything out of wood in Kirsten. Coffee! I wanted to hug the woman, but didn’t. Na-Su didn’t like shows of emotion. I’d never known her to hug anyone unless she was trying to kill them.
‘Thank you,’ I said as Na-Su held the tray out. ‘Why isn’t the steward doing this?’
‘He say no hot water on train. All gone.’
‘I see. They’re fixing that right now.’ I thumbed over my shoulder at the engine. Even that small movement hurt my neck.
‘You alright, boss?’
‘Thank you, Na-Su. Yes. I’m alive, and that’s what counts.’
‘You been attacked twice now!’
‘Well, I’m not so sure about Poplar Square.’
‘Who you try to fool, boss? What you tell us all the time? “Assume people trying to kill you, always. Then when they not, you get lovely surprise.”'
I smiled. ‘I do say that. All I can say now is, if it was an attempt on my life, it was very amateur.’
Na-Su looked severe. ‘It not amateur just because it fail. I think it clever. Maybe gunshot with blank round to frighten horses. Not high chance of success, but look completely like accident if succeed.’
‘Perhaps you’re right, Na-Su. The horses didn’t need to kill me. A decent trampling would have put me out of action for a while. And that need to make it look like an accident means it’s more likely to have been home-grown…someone, or a group who didn’t want to arouse suspicions.’
I drained my coffee cup, wondering who could have been responsible. Would Chancellor Gordon have sanctioned something like that to get me out of the way? Director Harman certainly seemed to think that the Council were keen to wrest control of the Koulomb Gate from him.
A whistle blew, warning of the air-train’s imminent departure. Suddenly the stairs were crowded with travellers hauling luggage. Three businessmen in grey suits, a mother and father with three children in tow, the youngest of them clutching a large cuddly moose with gangling limbs trailing. Two neatly dressed old ladies were tussling with a suitcase, each refusing to allow the other to bear the burden. It was then that I noticed two groups of three men heading for the last carriage. They looked like workmen in borrowed suits, contrasting with the other well-heeled passengers who looked comfortable in their clothing. The other thing I noticed was the way that the regular passengers stared at the air-train and drank in their surroundings. These men steadfastly stared straight ahead where they were going, not once looking around.
Na-Su could see my attention was focused on something over her shoulder. She handed me the full cup which was for Inigo, then took both of our empties to a nearby bin.
‘Strange passengers,’ she said when she got back.
‘They could be mining contractors. They earn good money and maybe got used to travelling in style.’
‘Sure,’ Na-Su scoffed. ‘And maybe Nallians invade Emberland to spread happiness and share wealth with us.’
‘Right. Where’s Inigo?’ I hadn’t seen him since I’d woken.
‘He went for walk along train.’
Na-Su and I regained our compartment. Inigo was already back and waiting for us. I slid the door shut.
‘What weapons do you both have on you?’ I asked.
‘Not so many, boss,’ answered Na-Su. ‘Two pistol, one stiletto. In my case,’ she nodded up at her black jakarna-skin suitcase in the luggage rack. ‘One masher carbine, one eight-chamber revolver, a pickaxe and four boxes of cartridges.’
‘Inigo?’
The young man didn’t look like a natural born fighter, but I knew different. He had fallen in with the wrong crowd at the University of the First Light in Cobensbad while studying Mathematics and Warfare Strategy. He had attended some lectures, but mostly he was figuring out how to cook up Krang, a smoked hallucinogenic made from dried naga dung. While his peers had been heading towards first and second class degrees, and prospects for solid careers in the military, Inigo dropped out. Instead, he saw an opportunity to get rich quickly, without all the unnecessary parading and kowtowing to superiors. He and a couple of bravos set up in business on the streets of Cobensbad. Inigo’s process halved the cost of making the drug so they were able to undercut rival dealers. Soon they had a large network of street-sweets, luring in the young and the vulnerable. His illegal business was turning a tidy profit when one of his inner circle was caught by the constabulary and blew the whole ring apart.
‘Two daggers.’ Inigo patted the sleeve of his left arm and pointed at his right leg. Whilst his natural talent was with ideas, he’d had to be tough to setup on the street. He avoided action when he could, but when he couldn’t, he was fast and chaotic. He wasn’t the natural brawler that James was, but he had a savage streak that I’d seen him unleash when we were on the Candleman job. One of his biggest advantages was that people always underestimated him because he looked scrawny.
‘Are we in trouble?’ he added.
‘Just watched six thugs get on to carriage five. Not the kind of people who normally have the money to travel in style.’ I got my own suitcase down, took out my cutlass and strapped it on. Two revolvers followed. I checked the chambers for rounds, holstered one and slung the other from a cord around my neck. I still had the throwing knives in my satchel, so I tucked two of them into the top of my boots.
‘Big men.’ Inigo nodded. ‘I saw them not long after we pulled in, questioning the staff.’
‘Big men easier to to hit,’ Na-Su said with a scowl.
‘Maybe they’re following us, aiming make the hit when we reach our destination?’ Inigo suggested.
I shook my head. ‘These aren’t the kind of people you put on a tailing operation. Besides, they can’t know how many people are meeting us at the other end. No, it’s a hit squad. Damn it! Who are these people and how do they know where we are?’ I’d felt tired and beaten-up a few moments ago but the adrenalin was starting to thrum in my veins again. My mind was heading to overdrive trying to see the safe way out…and failing.
‘We could get off just before the air-train pulls out,’ proposed Inigo. ‘They may not see us until it’s too late.’
I checked out of the window and saw what looked like a couple of spotters loitering on the platform, one staring at his fingernails from under the rim of his bowler hat and the other making a show of examining a timetable. They would doubtless give a signal to the men on the train if we disembarked.
‘They’ve thought of that. Besides, we’d have to deal with them here, in Kirsten, and then try to make it to Lannerville overland. Director Harman didn’t given me sufficient funds for a second set of air-train tickets.’
‘Fine.’ Inigo shrugged. ‘Their numbers aren’t a huge advantage to them in here. They have to come at us one at a time along the corridor.’
I nodded. It was a strange tactic. One of us with a decent firearm and a supply of ammunition should be able to keep them pinned down, unless they thought they could use the outside of the air-train. I opened the door from our carriage into the corridor, slid the window open. There was only a short, maintenance platform alongside the locomotive on this side which meant I had an unobstructed view of the ground fifty hands below. I wondered whether the track would drop closer to the ground between Kirsten and Lannerville. If it did, there was a chance more heavies would find a way to join the party. One thing in our favour though…the exterior of the train was sleek, brushed aluminium panels held together with low-profile rivets to make the whole thing streamlined. It didn’t look promising as a means to get about.
Back inside, I pretended to be a nosy tourist and glanced into the other two compartments in our carriage, giving the occupants a friendly wave and a smile. None of the compartments had access hatches to the roof, so that was a good thing, but when I glanced through the door to the adjoining carriage, I could see a hatch in the companionway. I cursed. It might be a dangerously smooth surface, but the roof of the air-train offered another means to get about. The hatch in our carriage was at the front, close to the locked doorway that led to the engine itself. It didn’t look as though it was designed to be opened from the outside, but that wasn’t a safe assumption. Next to the hatch, was a folding ladder secured against the ceiling with leather straps. We would need to cover that approach.
Back in our compartment, I delivered the bad news. Inigo was checking the pistol and a revolver that Na-Su had given him. She was loading the masher carbine, a short, ugly looking thing that fired a split bullet designed to fragment into multiple pieces on leaving the muzzle. Useless at any more than twenty paces but an evil weapon at short range.
‘So unless they plan to take pot luck and shoot through the roof, they’ve got to come along the passageway, or drop down through the hatch. It’s good odds that we can hold them off,’ said Inigo.
I wasn’t so sure. I wouldn’t have put six people into a situation like this without a plan that had some chance of success, but then maybe that was my problem, too soft. These goons would be expendable in a way my team were not.
Three short blasts on the whistle heralded the last call to board. Then the noise outside changed. The turbine and propeller began winding up to its shrill roar. The ticket inspector opened the door to our compartment and advised us to take our seats. Moments later, the rail brakes were released and platform pistons pushed us out of Kirsten station. Ten ticks of savage acceleration and the air-train was out of the town and into the forest.
‘Na-Su, please keep watch on the carriage behind us. Shoot anyone you don’t like the look of heading for our carriage.’
‘I not like most anyone,’ replied the Omolit woman, making a sour face.
‘You’re right,’ I conceded. ‘So just shoot anyone in an ill-fitting suit. I think that’ll just about cover it.’
‘Yes, boss.’
I smiled. ‘Inigo, come with me. I’ll show you the hatch. We’ll take our turns up top, coming back down the ladder to reload.’
Inigo said, ‘The job’s warming up nicely now!’
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