He let him go with a broken sword and two feet of steel through his hand into his kidney. Espani justice. It was almost enough for me back then. Almost.
“We’re coming up on Carthage,” Taziri called back over her shoulder. “I’ll be landing in just a minute and then we’ll enter the city on one of the branch lines.”
“Branch line?” Salvator looked up. “You mean you’re going to land this contraption on a railroad track?”
“Of course.” Taziri glanced back with a grin.
Qhora was almost reassured by that grin, but all machines were still too strange, too stupid, and too dangerous. They couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, couldn’t do anything unless they were built to do them and told to do them. She missed Atoq. She missed Wayra. Right now, the saber-toothed cat was no doubt sleeping off a belly full of beef in his pen in Madrid, and nearby the towering war-eagle would be standing by a window, gazing out at the snowy Espani plains and dreaming of running free, of hunting down her prey and devouring it alive.
If only we had brought them.
Qhora’s hand tightened on the armrest.
Atoq would have saved Enzo. He would have slaughtered that filthy Aegyptian maggot before he came within reach of us. Or Wayra. She could have run him down in the street and torn the flesh from his back with her talons. It would have been over, either way. As it should be. None of this. This running. This chasing. Other people. Machines.
Qhora shook her head to clear away the soft warm hands trying to drag her soul down into sleep.
No. I’ll sleep later. I’ll sleep when it’s done. I’ll sleep when the Aegyptian is dead.
Glancing out the window, she saw that the ground was much closer now. The houses looked like real houses and she could see people and carts and horses moving along the roads. A soft roaring bled into the cabin as the wings dragged slower and slower through the air, and the entire machine began to shiver and shudder.
“How exactly do you intend on getting this beast lined up properly with the tracks?” Salvator asked.
Qhora heard the anxiety in his voice, and she smiled.
“I have a guide clamp.” Taziri grabbed a small lever and they all heard a new series of hisses and clicks beneath their feet. The pilot said, “I only have to get close. Then I clamp the guide onto the rail and it straightens us out. Don’t worry. I’ve done this three times already. The real trick is making sure there isn’t already a train on the same line up ahead somewhere.”
A moment later there was a sharp clang and the Halcyon jerked to the right. Then the chattering of gears and chains filled the cabin as the earth edged up closer and closer, and then they landed on the railroad line. The iron wheels screamed and the cabin shook violently from side to side, but only for a moment. Then the machine fell nearly silent and still, just as it had been in the air, and Qhora realized they were now rolling smoothly along the ground. Taziri shoved the big lever back down and the long shining wings began folding back up, snapping and clacking up into a rigid box against the sides and roof of the machine. As the panels locked shut, they covered the windows, drenching the cabin in shadows except for the bright glare coming through the forward wind screen. Taziri glanced back, her dark circular goggles shielding her eyes, and she smiled and waved to the passengers.
Qhora exhaled a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding in.
Well, that part’s over at least.
For the next quarter hour, they clacked along the Numidian rail line with the pilot occasionally calling back to describe where they were. Orchards, suburbs, and warehouses. Qhora barely heard her.
Finally she could feel the machine slowing down, and a moment later it juddered to a halt. The brakes hissed and Taziri’s hands raced over her controls, flipping switches and knobs, and then she stood up and said, “Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Carthage.”
Qhora followed the others out the narrow door and stepped out into the bright morning light. They were in a small rail yard of half a dozen lines, two of them full of old freight cars covered in dust and the rest empty. Qhora hurried to the end of the Halcyon, which again looked like an ordinary locomotive now that its wings had collapsed and wrapped around the cabin. “Where is the train from Tingis?”
Taziri glanced at the small watch chained to her pocket. “It should be here in the next half hour. It’ll pull into the station right there.” She pointed across the yard to a covered platform where a few dozen men sat dozing beside their bags on the benches in the shadows.
“Then that’s where I’ll be.” Qhora strode away from the locomotive. She heard footsteps following. “Mirari, stay by the main exit, in case he gets past me.”
“Yes, my lady.” The masked woman jogged ahead toward the tall wooden doors at the end of the platform that stood wide open, revealing the quiet streets of Carthage beyond.
There were still footsteps following her. She glanced back. In the distance she saw Taziri inspecting her machine. But just behind her she found Salvator striding along, tall and confident, his scarred left hand resting on the ornate golden hilt of his rapier. Qhora looked straight ahead again. “I don’t need you.”
“Of course you do,” he said airily. “But I wouldn’t dream of standing between you and your vengeance. Even though this man was able to defeat Don Lorenzo and escape from both you and your strange friend there, I’m sure you’ll have things well in hand.” He chuckled softly. “No, I’m here to hunt my own easterner.”
When they reached the platform and climbed up onto the wooden walkway, the smirking Italian sauntered away and sank down onto a bench between two snoring men in dark robes and blue turbans. Qhora turned the other way and paced out to the end of the platform, to the very edge where the walkway ended and the railroad tracks drew a straight path through the outskirts of the city far into the distance. She slipped a dagger from her sleeve and squeezed it tightly in both hands.
A brief eternity passed in which she could only stare west, waiting, scarcely breathing.
Now it comes. Now is the moment. Now I will find him, and open his flesh, and spill his blood in the dust, and shatter his heart, and destroy everything he is, or was, or ever will be. He took away my Enzo, and now I will take away everything that is his.
Now.
She gripped the knife tighter, and tighter still, imagining the blade in her hand piercing the man’s chest, tearing him apart into red and white ruin.
Now.
Every hidden corner of her own flesh grew warmer, pulsing with the rhythm of her heart, flush with readiness, with desire. She could see it, how it would happen, how it would feel.
Now.
The train appeared, a small dark shape on the horizon. It grew slowly at first, but then much faster, resolving into a large jagged metal beast with round, cycling legs and a fat trunk spewing steam and smoke into the sky over its back. Clacking, huffing, and whistling. It took forever to cross from the wilderness into the city and it only rolled slower as it came closer, and by the time it rolled into the station itself it was barely moving at all, but then it kept rolling and rolling, car after car, until the entire train had entered the station.
Qhora stared up at the dark windows where the dark shapes of bodies were shuffling about in the dark seats and aisles.
Where should I be? Where should I go? Where should I look?
For a moment, she considered joining Mirari at the main gate to watch everyone flood past. But instead, she stepped up onto the end of the last bench so she could look out over the heads of the men and women streaming down off the train.
A young Aegyptian. Small mouth. Large nose. Dark green robe, light green shirt. Close cropped hair with a sharp widow’s peak. Where are you?
She stood and watched and waited. But the man with the burning sword did not step off the train. As the cars began to empty out and the crowd on the platform drained out through the gates, Qhora crossed the platform and entered the rear passenger car. She jogged down the length of each car, ducking into the private compartments to look for stragglers, scanning the benches for a hidden figure, but there were none. The train was empty.
She stepped down onto the empty platform and saw Salvator standing nearby, frowning at the gates. He glanced at her and shook his head. Qhora hurried to the gates and stood beside Mirari, staring at the backs of the weary travelers shuffling out into the bright city streets. “I don’t understand. Did we lose them? Did they get off the train somewhere?”
“No, my lady. This train only stops for water and coal at supply depots,” the Espani girl said firmly. “There was no reasonable place for anyone to leave the train between here and Tingis. And I know what I saw. The
