Simon Green - Property of a Lady Faire

“I don’t think they intend to leave any witnesses,” I said to Molly. “I can’t let this go on. These people are dying because of us. Innocent bystanders. Just by being here, we’re endangering these people.”

“Well, what do you suggest?” Molly said roughly, her flushed face dripping with sweat. She was so exhausted she could barely hold herself up,

“I suggest we save as many as we can,” I said. “We can’t win this fight. There are too many attackers, and they won’t stay dead. Which is cheating, in my book. So, if we’re going to protect the other passengers, we need to lead the enemy away from them.”

I turned to the door in the carriage wall at my left, and kicked it open. My armoured boot sent the door flying out of its frame, and it went bouncing down the track behind us. Through the open gap, the featureless snow-covered landscape rushed by. I stuck my head out the gap, took a good look around, and then looked back at Molly.

“I saw we take the fight upstairs. Care to follow me up?”

“Oh hell,” said Molly. “Why not?”

I stepped out into the blasting wind, swung around, and clambered up the side of the heavily rocking carriage. The train’s jolting motions did their best to throw me off, but I grew sharp golden spurs on the palms of my gloves, and sank them deep into the wood of the carriage wall. It took me only a few moments to climb up onto the roof, stand up, and look around me. My armour kept me balanced as I took in the view. Snow and more snow, under an empty blue-grey sky. One of the back carriages was now completely consumed by fire, burning fiercely. Thick black smoke billowed up, snapped back in long dark threads by the racing wind. The flames were already spreading to the carriages on either side. Apparently sprinkler systems hadn’t been thought traditional.

Molly flew up to join me on the roof, soaring elegantly through the air. She landed hard beside me, as the last of her levitation magic ran out. She grabbed one of my arms to steady herself, and then quickly let go. She was shuddering hard in the bitter cold and the blasting wind. She was trying to maintain a layer of warmth around her, but it was already breaking down. Her magics were running out. But she wouldn’t say anything, so I couldn’t. It wasn’t as though there was anything I could do. Except stand between her and the worst of the blasting air, as a windbreak. She nodded briefly, appreciatively, but she was still shivering.

The blood-red men came climbing up both sides of the carriage, hauling themselves up by brute strength, quickly and without grace, punching holes in the outer walls to make climbing aids. Apparently untroubled by the rocking motion of the train, or the freezing wind. More of them burst out through the carriage windows, and out the doors at both ends. I moved quickly back and forth, kicking their hands away as they reached the roof, but there were just too many of them, and I couldn’t be everywhere at once. Molly tried to blast them away with sudden bursts of storm wind, but with her magics failing, her winds were quickly blown away and dispersed by the existing wind. All too soon there were thirty, forty blood-red men assembled on top of the carriage roof, with still more climbing up the sides.

I could have gone to meet them, knocked them down and kicked them off the speeding train, but I couldn’t see the point. Head-to-head confrontation didn’t work. So I turned to Molly.

“Run,” I said.

“What?” said Molly. “Where?”

“Away from them!” I said.

I took her by the hand, and we sprinted down the long metal roof. The blood-red men came running after us. We reached the end of the carriage worryingly quickly, and jumped the gap to the next carriage. I landed hard, still holding on to Molly, and we ran on. My armoured feet left heavy dents in the metal. Molly was breathing loud and strenuously at my side, but she kept up. She shot me a wide grin, and a laugh that was immediately torn away by the rushing wind. We ran on and on, until we ran out of carriages, and all that remained was the great steam engine itself and its massive bunker half full of coal.

The noise from the engine was deafening, and great blasts of blistering-hot steam shot past us, thick with flying cinders. Molly had to move quickly to stand behind me, one hand raised to keep the cinders out of her eyes. There was nowhere left for us to go, and the blood-red men were already charging down the last carriage roof towards us.

And, just like that, suddenly I could feel the presence of the Gateway. Off in the distance, not far ahead. A certain knowledge, like the pointing of a compass needle. Not a very pleasant feeling, knowledge of something that shouldn’t exist, that had no right to exist, in the natural world. Like a vicious itch I couldn’t scratch.

“Can you feel that?” shouted Molly, over the roar of the engine.

“Hell yes!” I said. “The train’s finally brought us within the Gate’s field of influence!”

“So what are we going to do?” said Molly. “We can’t stay on the train much longer, in case it carries us past the Gateway. Come on, Eddie, you must have a plan. You always have a plan, even if it’s usually a really bad one.”

“I thought you liked my plans,” I said.

“I promise I will love the arse off this plan, whatever it is, as long as it means we don’t have to fight the blood-red men any more! They are seriously wearing me out.”

“Okay,” I said. “Jump.”

Molly looked over the side of the jolting railway carriage, at the endless snowy plain rushing past us at speed. And then she looked back at me.

“Are you crazy?”

“We’re a long way from where I’d hoped to be,” I said. “But it feels like we’re in walking distance of the Gateway. You can feel that, can’t you?”

Molly nodded reluctantly. “Like dead cockroaches crawling all over my skin. Unnatural bloody thing. You really want to do this, Eddie?”

“Not as such, no. Do you have a better idea?”

“No, but . . .”

“The snow will break our fall.”

“All I’m hearing is the word break . It’s all right for you-you’ve got your armour.”

“You can fly down.”

“I haven’t got enough magic left to fly!”

“Some days, things wouldn’t go right if you paid them,” I said. “Please accept my apologies in advance.”

I picked her up in my arms, cradled her against my armoured chest, ignored her outraged cries, and jumped off the edge of the speeding carriage. We seemed to hang on the air for a long moment as the train shot past, carrying the blood-red men with it. And then the snow leaped up to meet us. We hit hard, the sheer weight of my armour driving me into the snowy bank like a nail into wood. My legs absorbed most of the impact, though Molly shook and shuddered in my arms. She’d sworn harshly all the way down, but the jolt of our sudden stop shut her up. I ended up sunk in snow almost to my waist, still holding Molly tightly. The moment she got her breath back she demanded I put her down, in a strained and rather dangerous tone. So I lowered her carefully onto the snowy bank.

She sank only a foot or so into the snow, but it was enough to make her cry out in shock at the bitter cold. I hauled myself up out of the hole I’d made, and stood beside her. We watched the Trans-Siberian Express race off into the distance, trailing flame and smoke. None of the blood-red men had jumped off the train to come after us. They were all standing unnaturally still, on top of the carriage, looking back at us.

The train quickly disappeared into the distance. I somehow doubted the blood-red men would still be aboard when what was left of the burning train pulled into its next station stop. It was all very quiet now, with the train gone. The freezing air was still, without even a breath of wind. Not a sound to be heard anywhere, and not a movement to be seen.