Devon Monk - Dead Iron

The wind shifted and brought Cedar new scents. And he knew that man, that creature, tearing apart the rails was not alive, nor was he dead. He did not know what could power a man to keep moving, keep walking, pounding forward.

Jeb yelled out, a single call of pain, anger, and longing wrapped around one word: “Mae!”

Cedar’s heart beat painfully, his blood too hot, his wounds agony as he ran. To find Mae. To save Mae. To get to Mae before Jeb Lindson.

No, to save his brother. To save the child. Yes, and to save Mae.

Cedar leaped up onto the platform of the middle train car where the door hung open. He needed into the first car, and that door was shut.

The door slammed open.

Mr. Shunt stood in the threshold, oil pouring slick from his empty sleeve. Mr. Shard LeFel and Mae Lindson stood behind him.

Cedar snarled. He leaped.

Mr. Shunt raised his remaining hand from within his coat, and fired the gun again.

The world tipped sideways, filled with explosions and noise. And all Cedar could do was fight to breathe as waves of pain crashed through him.

Shard LeFel tightened his grip on the Holder he held tight to his chest as if it were a babe made of glass. In his other hand was a spiked chain looped around the witch’s neck. The same chain noosed the necks of the wolf and the boy.

“Well done, Mr. Shunt,” Shard LeFel said, watching the other wolf twitch and bleed at his feet.

Mr. Shunt bowed slightly, and then bent toward the wolf who struggled to breathe. He splayed his spiked fingers, itching to dig out the wolf’s heart.

“Leave him,” Shard LeFel said. “He will be dead soon. I’ll not have this interruption stop my return.”

Mr. Shunt hissed, then seemed to compose himself. He straightened. “Yes, Lord LeFel.”

Shard LeFel handed the chain to Mr. Shunt and walked through the open door into the car his collection of matics had once filled. Empty now. But he could hear them out on the battlefield, the magnificent screech and hiss and thump of the devices killing the Madders. Music. Sweet and fitting for his last grand night in this mortal world. Fitting to send him back to his own lands and immortality.

An explosion rang out and then a ragged howl of a voice lifted above it: “Mae!”

Shard LeFel paused between one step and the next. “Could it be?” He glanced over his shoulder at the witch, whose eyes were wide in fear, her voice silenced by the leather gag in her mouth and the barbed-wire chain that left beads of blood around her throat every time she swallowed.

“I believe that is your husband, Mrs. Lindson, come back from the grave. Such a pity he is too late to save you.”

He continued through that car and to the next. The door opened before him and one of the Strangework bowed, and stepped aside to allow his entrance.

Shard LeFel strolled over to the center of the room, where the door lay like a coffin on a pedestal.

“Three hundred years of exile,” he said softly. “And now, finally, I shall cheat this death, cheat this mortal world, and mete my revenge upon my brother in the lands from whence I came.”

He placed the Holder at the very top of the door’s frame, pressing it down into a hollow carved perfectly for the device. The device pulsed, moonlight caught there in echo to a faintly beating heart. But Shard LeFel knew it would take more than moonlight to open this door.

It would take three lives.

The three Strange against the walls shifted, a slight moan escaping their lips as the Holder found its place in the door. Each of the Strange was attached to the door by wires and tubes that ran from its neck, wrists, and feet and fed into the door.

Shard LeFel meant to savor his moment. A decanter of threehundred-year-old wine and a crystal goblet awaited his celebration.

“Mr. Shunt, see that our guests are comfortable,” LeFel said. “Then open the sky for me.”

Mr. Shunt gave the witch’s chain to the first Strange who clung to the wall at his left. The wolf’s chain he gave to the Strange at the far end of the car, and the boy’s chain he gave to the final Strange standing nearest Mr. Shard LeFel.

Then Mr. Shunt walked across the floor to a crank set near the door. He turned the crank, and the ceiling of the train car drew aside like a curtain pushed back by a hand.

Shard LeFel uncorked the wine and poured it into the decanter. “And unto this world, I bid my most final farewell.”

Moonlight streamed thick and blue-white into the room, striking the Holder and the door. Light from the Holder poured flame into the runes and glyphs and symbols the Strange had carved into the doorway.

And from outside the train car, bullets rattled the night.

“Beautiful,” LeFel said. “And now all that is needed is the key.” He glanced at the boy who slept curled and chained at the Strange’s feet. He glanced at the wolf that panted in pain. He glanced at the witch who stood wide-eyed with fury, tears tracking her cheeks to wet the leather gag.

“Mr. Shunt, begin with the boy, then the wolf, then the witch.”

Mr. Shunt bowed, his eyes bright, his teeth carving a sharp smile. He walked to the Strangework who stood above the boy, and inserted one of his bladed fingers, like a key, into the Strange’s chest, where a heart should be. He twisted his hand, and the Strangework shuddered. Mr. Shunt withdrew his finger.

The Strange changed.

It spread its arms wide and the front of its body split open, revealing gears and sinew, pulleys, pistons, and bone that worked in dark concert to expose spikes and edges and blades lining every inch of it. A living, breathing iron maiden, remarkable in its ingenuity of both form and function.

Mr. Shunt picked up the sleeping boy and deposited him deep inside the gears and spikes, pressing him back, but not far enough to prick his skin. Not yet.

Then he moved to the wolf, who was too injured and too drugged to fight. Mr. Shunt shoveled him inside the spiked guts of the Strangework there.

And lastly he walked to the witch.

“I will not miss this wretched land.” LeFel sipped the wine, savoring the heat and flavor of ancient blooms across his tongue.

“Nor will I mourn its destruction.” He sipped again, and pressed one of the jewels on the bent cane in his hand, releasing the pure silver blade cased within it. A blade that would carve out his brother’s heart.

“Mr. Shunt,” LeFel said. “It is time to spill the blood of our coin.”

Rose Small watched as Cedar Hunt ran, limping hard, to the train car where Mae must be trapped. She ducked behind the thin stand of trees, put her back to a fir trunk, and pushed her goggles out of the way as she reloaded.

The Madders were still out there, standing in the open in front of the trees, firing off those blunderbusses and shotguns, shrouded in smoke and fire and moonlight, and laughing like wild jackals.

The matics were coming. Five of the most amazing devices that would each have struck her dumb with awe if they weren’t so hellbent on killing her and the Madders. Rose chambered the bullets, her hands trembling, her heart pounding, then glanced out from behind the tree.

The full moon set the devices into full contrast, even at a distance. She didn’t know how, but the matics were working in conjunction with one another. Through the smoke and blasts from the Madders’ guns she could see one of the doglike beasts was down and twitching, and the other stood stock-still, steam gushing up out of it like a geyser. But the others, the Goliath with steam-hammer arms, the battlewagon, and the huge, spiked wheel, were bearing down faster than the Madders could shoot them dead.

And if that weren’t enough, the railmen from up a ways had come into the fight with more guns than an army. She like as not figured one of the train cars up the line had to be an arsenal of weapons.