Devon Monk - Dead Iron

The railmen returned fire on the big ticker, but bullets pinged off the huge metal scraper. The rail matic powered forward relentlessly, smashing flat roots and stumps and anything else that got in its way, big screw wheels covering the ground with ease.

The rail workers were outgunned. Those that could turned tail and ran from the nightmare scene. The rest were crushed where they stood.

Alun was at the foot of the Goliath. Far too nimble for a man his size, Alun Madder ducked low and jammed both axes into the bottom links of the matic’s wheel track, then followed that up with another lit bomb that he lobbed up into the beast’s chassis.

“Run, Rose,” Alun Madder yelled. “Run!”

The matic hammered down with a mighty whump and the earth itself bent beneath its blow.

She couldn’t see Alun, didn’t know if he had been injured or killed by the hammer. The other two Madder brothers were driving the rail matic up behind the battlewagon, on a clear collision course that would crush the mobile gun.

They were crazy, all of them. Plainly suicidally brained. But she didn’t take the time to ponder further. She ran. Toward LeFel’s train cars, toward Cedar Hunt and Mae Lindson. To save them if she could. Before it was too late.

Mae Lindson threw her hands up to ward off Mr. Shunt, but he slapped the watch out of her hands and then, for good measure, struck her hard across the face. Stars filled Mae’s vision as the barbed-wire chain around her throat tightened and bit.

She couldn’t breathe.

The hot, wet heat of the Strange surrounded her as Mr. Shunt shoved her into the clockwork monster behind her. Spikes scratched, slashed, clamped. The heat and oil inside the Strange caused every open wound on her body to sting as if salt had been rubbed in it. She tried to scream, but had no air.

“Now, Mr. Shunt,” Shard LeFel said. “The blood. Turn the key and open our door so that I may see to my brother’s end.”

Mr. Shunt spun so quickly, his coat billowed around him like dark wings. Then he was at the Strange door where Shard LeFel stood waiting, hunger twisting his hauntingly beautiful features.

Mr. Shunt triggered a switch. And the Strange that held the boy, Wil, and Mae began to close. Mae pushed at the creature swallowing her whole, but it was like pushing against a bear trap. Spikes pressed into her back, her legs, her shoulders, her arms. Sharp agony drew a ragged scream out of her throat as her blood was sucked up and pumped down into the tubes that ran to the door, mixing with the blood of the howling wolf and the screaming child.

The door began to open, hot white light pouring through the cracks and shattering the shadows of the room. And in that light, Mae saw her death.

Cedar Hunt lurched through the empty train car, blinking blood and sweat out of his eyes. His lungs felt heavy and full of blood. He cocked the trigger back on the gun and stumbled into the next car, parceling his breath so as not to pass out.

He lifted the gun and shot the first person he saw—Mr. Shard LeFel, who stood bathing in an unholy light coming up from the floor of the car. The shot caught Shard LeFel in the shoulder and knocked him flat on his back.

Cedar cocked the gun, fired again, this time aiming for the tall, skeletal figure of Mr. Shunt. He missed.

And then, just as sure as a watch running down, Cedar was no longer a man. He was a wolf again. He lunged for Mr. Shunt, jaws, claws, and rage. Mr. Shunt was made of blades and hooks, razors and pain—too fast to catch his throat, too slick to snap his bones. Cedar tore at flesh that tasted of rotted blood, but could do no true damage to the Strange.

“Mr. Shunt,” Shard LeFel yelled as he regained his feet and strode back up to the doorway. “Kill them. Spill their blood now!” Shard LeFel used the bladed cane to help him stand on the edge of the opening doorway beneath him, one boot at the threshold.

Mr. Shunt skittered away from Cedar’s hold and flicked a lever on the device at the top of the doorway. The device lit up.

Screams of agony filled the room.

Cedar could not kill the three Strange creatures in time to save Mae, Elbert, and Wil, and he had no time to choose between them. Little of a man’s reasoning filtered through the pain now. His mind was all wolf, and the wolf would kill the one Strange in front of him.

Cedar jumped over the door, past Shard LeFel, crashing down on Mr. Shunt before he could trigger another lever in the device.

Cedar snapped at Shunt’s face, caught scarf and a hank of hair. Mr. Shunt unhinged and slipped free, then pulled up the gun that had fallen from Cedar’s hand. Mr. Shunt aimed that gun at Cedar’s head.

Then the train car exploded—walls bashed apart as if a boulder had torn through them.

“LeFel!” A great, hoarse bellow shook through the night.

Jeb Lindson had come calling.

Another wall shuddered from the impact of the huge matics Jeb swung like a child swings a stick.

Mr. Shunt turned the gun on Jeb Lindson. And squeezed the trigger.

The shot took Jeb straight through the middle of his head, leaving a trail of smoke spiraling up out of the hole.

Jeb smiled, bloody, charred, torn apart, and shredded so that he barely resembled the man he once was. He picked up one of the huge ball tickers and pounded it into Mr. Shunt, knocking him flat before turning toward his true goal, Mr. Shard LeFel.

Shard LeFel raised his cane. “You will not stand in the way of my revenge! You will not stop me!” He lunged. The silver blade pierced Jeb’s ribs, clean out his back.

And the big man let out a huge wet chortle.

Shard LeFel’s eyes went wide with horror.

“Can’t kill a man more’n three times, devil,” Jeb Lindson said. “Said it yourself. You plain can’t kill me no more.”

Mr. Shunt seemed just as shocked as Shard LeFel and stood, weighing his options. Cedar barreled into Mr. Shunt and tore into his neck, shaking and breaking it. Then Cedar ripped Mr. Shunt apart, limb from limb, stringing bone and guts and metal out of him like pulling the meat out of a crab, until Mr. Shunt stopped moving, stopped twitching, stopped ticking.

It took no more than a minute before Mr. Shunt was reduced to a mess of cracked bits. It took a few seconds more before Cedar could reclaim enough of his mind to realize Wil, Mae, and Elbert were still trapped. Trapped by the Strangeworks.

Cedar attacked the first Strange, sinking teeth into its head and throwing himself backward, twisting off the head with the strength of his jaw.

The Strange wriggled and shrieked and sprang open like a popped seed. From that bloody mess, the little child Elbert tumbled out onto the floor.

Cedar paused just long enough to be sure the child was breathing, then ran to the next Strangework.

“No!” Shard LeFel screamed. “Release me. Fall to the ground and worship me.”

Cedar glanced at him. The door was closing, and Shard LeFel was not walking through it. Jeb Lindson was there instead, big hand wrapped around Shard LeFel’s throat, holding him one-handed in midair above the door. With a vicious smile, Jeb Lindson lowered Shard LeFel just enough, the tips of his boots slipped into the door, before he yanked him up again.

“Only gonna do one thing, devil,” Jeb said. “Gonna kill you, me and this dead iron. And it’s only gonna take me the one time.”

Jeb used one hand to smash the ball matic into the Holder at the head of the doorway.

The Holder exploded in a roll of thunder and a blast of lightning. Seven distinct bits of the device flew straight up into the night and then whisked across the starry sky faster than anything on this earth.

Cedar was on the next Strangework, biting, killing, twisting, destroying, until it disgorged his brother, Wil, who was broken, bloody. But he still breathed.