Railsea

“Something got these trains,” Dero said. “Look at them all.”

“We have to think,” Sham said. “We have to think this through.”

They did not have time to investigate, to weave & switch between discarded train shells. But as they emerged from that shatterscape, Dero pointed. A way beyond the thickest thickets of wreck-matter, flipped upside down by some strange catastrophe, balanced on its roof on a makeshift flatbed truck with its wheels still to the rails, was a weirdly battered carriage. Its skyward-pointing floor was tarpaulined, its front buckled into an ugly wedge. Dero & Caldera both gasped. Sirocco eyed the carriage appraisingly.

It had been, Sham realized, part of their parents’ train, part of the first Shroake exploration. “What happened to it?” Sham said.

“They purged them, sometimes,” Dero said. “They taught us that. But that looks …”

“I don’t know what that looks like,” Caldera said.

“Look.” Sirocco pointed to where the navy were becoming visible. “They’re going faster’n us.”

“It’s that same one again,” Dero whispered. “Found us better’n anyone else. It’s like they were here before us.”

“Some of them,” Sham said carefully, thinking of Juddamore’s pictures, “might’ve had information. About where you were going.”

Through the best of the Medes’s scopes, Sham could still see only malicious smudges. Sirocco passed him her own salvaged-up mechanism, nu-salvage & arche-salvage combined. He put his eyes to that & jumped with the bright up-closeness of the quarry. That great navy wartrain, skewering the sky with guns.

“Reeth,” he whispered. Who was it, he wondered, which pirate snatched from railsea death had remembered the pictures well enough to give Reeth clues? Juddamore? Elfrish was gone. Robalson was horribly gone.

The rails grew sparser. The Medes & its companions raced towards a line of rock, a crag-curtain broken by slits as if peered-through by some impatient actor. “We have to box really bloody clever,” Sham said. “Really, bloody, clever.”

The last Bajjer windcarts began to pull away. There were not enough lines to either side of the Medes, now, for them to keep up. “Wait,” Sham shouted across to them. In the rudiments of their language, more than he thought he’d picked up, he begged them not to go. “Come aboard! We’re close!”

“To what?” someone shouted back.

There were arguments on some cars. They lurched line to line in disputation. Sham watched agog as a Bajjer warrior shook her fist at her fellows, turned & leapt magnificently from her cart, across yards of railsea, to slam into the Medes’s side & grab & grip its rail & pull herself aboard as her vehicle veered away. A few brave others did the same, those who were in this for the end. They jumped rapidly increasing gaps.

“Quick!” Sham shouted. But a nearby trainsman mistimed his bound. He leapt & his fingers slipped without purchase on the moler’s flank. A gasp, a scream, a thudding & he was dashed horribly into railside rocks.

Everyone stared aghast. Even the captain looked up in shock. The Bajjer carts receded. It was too late now for any more. None of the warriors still readying themselves to join that fight could do anything but look up at Sham, from already distant rails, & raise hands in inadequate farewell.

They became specks. Sham hoped they had seen his own hand raised, in response & thanks.

“CALDERA HAS—” Dero started to say.

“Go there,” Caldera said. She showed Sham a place on her chart. Pointed at it. She looked at him intently. “There.”

“—an idea,” her brother finished.

Sham wasted not a second. Did not demand clarification. Did not question Caldera Shroake. Just yelled at the switchers, who in turn switched as he demanded without quibbling or enquiry, on these last scattered yards of points, veering a mile or more into a little snarl of lines, a route near mounds & mounts.

You could see the wartrain easily now without fancy salvage business. “Get us over there,” hissed Caldera. She gave more directions & the Medes shuddered.

A getterbird overflew them to investigate the navy, but as it approached, with an abrupt gush of fire a missile roared skyward from the guntrain. The angel exploded in a great flaming yelp, scattering debris.

“Oh my bloody Stonefaces!” Vurinam yelled. “They’re insane! They’re firing on Heaven.”

“They’re going to catch us,” Fremlo said. “There’s no way they’re not.”

There were but two trains, now, in the whole landscape, for all the gnarled derelicts in rust. The wartrain was close enough to see its trainsfolks’ sneers. Molers took positions at their harpoons, as if this might make any bloody difference when the Manihiki warriors reached them.

The Medes careered for the end of the detour in the tangle, by caves & hillocks, towards something Caldera had understood & which, in the chaos, Sham had not clocked they were approaching.

With a soundless & utterly important shift, they rushed suddenly past a last set of wrecks, a final knoll & tunnel, out of the railsea & onto the last, solitary, solo rail.

“LOOK,” BREATHED SHAM. He was there. He was tearing through the picture at which he had stared so many times, his crewmates & friends alongside him.

“I’m looking,” Caldera said.

“Look at it!” The navy would have Sham soon, but this moment was his.

“You saw the ruins,” Caldera said. “The wrecks.” He kept his eyes on that one rail. “Sham. What do you think did that? My parents saw this, but they turned back, remember? Why d’you think I took us just where my parents didn’t go?”

Good question. Good enough to work through Sham’s distraction. He turned to face her. He looked back at Reeth’s train, roaring after them, following them onto the last line. “In about fifteen seconds,” Caldera whispered, “you’re going to know the answer.”

Sham narrowed his eyes. “There was something that …” Twelve seconds.

“Something that kept people out,” Sirocco said. Eight. Seven.

“Something that still does,” said Fremlo. “Something …”

“… something big,” Sham said.

Three.

Two.

One.

Sound came out of the pit they’d passed.

“Go fast,” Caldera said. The noise grew loud. “Really, go fast.” It seemed to be everywhere. Everyone on deck was turning to see what made so terrible a sound. Such a bass grinding. Such whining of metal. Officers turned, too, on the deck of the wartrain. A hill shook.

“I think we got close enough,” Dero said. Loose stones jumped. A curtain of vines at the hole-entrance trembled. The sky was filled with blaring. & from out of the pit, riding the rails, something came.

An angel. Like no thing they had ever seen.

Everyone made noises of terror.

From under the ground, a train of spiked & spiny metal. It spat steam, dribbled fire. Grey smoke rose from a dorsal ridge of chimneys. How many parts were there to it? Who could count its ways? It slipped by segment into the light. Like a convoy of thorned towers.

How old was this bad thing? The birds flew shrieking. Daybe huddled in Sham’s arms. The angel pressed down hard & made its appalling noise. Its front was a wedge-shaped blade. With a blast like low thunder, it came.