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.
Rose swallowed hard and tasted the oil and burn of spent black powder. She didn’t reckon there was an easy way out of this alive.
She fitted the goggles back over her eyes and fired cover shots at the hulking Goliath that hammered an arm down so near the Madders, one of the brothers fell flat from the impact. The big beast reared back, screeching and clacking. It was recharging, ratcheting up its firing device to slam its arms down again.
Rose shot at the thing, aiming for what she prayed were vulnerabilities: tubes, connecting valves, and gauges.
But the matic did not slow. It rolled this way on strange tracked feet that chewed over the terrain as if it were riding on rails.
The Madders used her fire as a chance to run back behind the screen of trees with her.
“Do you have a plan, Mr. Madder?” she yelled to Alun as he skidded to a stop behind the tree to her right, both his brothers half a tick behind him, grinning and breathing hard
Bullets zipped through the night air. Needles and dirt sprayed down around them.
Rose leaned out again and fired off the last of her shots at the railmen, who were holding ground behind the metal monsters.
“Plan to kill the matics and crack LeFel out of his fortress,” Alun said. “Reload, Miss Small. The boys are going to need cover.”
Rose was already reloading. She glanced up at the Madders. Bryn and Cadoc were gone.
Just then the rapid fire of what sounded like a hundred guns tore flashes of light through the night.
“That’s the battlewagon,” Alun yelled over the peppering recoil of bullets. “Figure it has a twenty-five- or thirty-shot cartridge.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pipe, then sparked a wick with a tiny striker, and puffed until the tobacco caught.
Rose’s heart beat harder than a hammer. She’d heard tales of the rapid-fire guns used in the war, but she had never seen such a device, and didn’t want to become intimately acquainted with one now.
“That one’s done,” Alun yelled into the sudden pause of gunshot.
“Fire, Miss Small.” He clamped his teeth down on the pipe stem and leaned out from behind the cover of the tree. He sent off a volley of bullets. The battlewagon had extinguished its cartridge and must be reloading. But how much time would that take?
Rose Small shouldered her shotgun and aimed back at the field. The battlewagon was indeed reloading, but the hulking Goliath rumbled toward them on its tracks, hammer arms pulled back and ready to tear down the trees they stood behind. Rose took aim at the Goliath, but nothing seemed to stop it.
“Look low,” Alun yelled.
Rose lowered her rifle.
Another matic, the huge spiked wheel, was rolling their way, rattling over dips and tree stumps, one hundred yards and closing fast.
Rose fired everything she had at it. So did Alun. But they didn’t have nearly enough firepower to stop that thing.
Alun was no longer laughing. He was cussing up a lung. He pulled something from his pocket and lit the wick of it with his pipe, then lobbed it at the rolling matic.
A ground-shaking explosion rang out, but the wheel kept coming.
Rose was out of bullets. She pulled her handgun and stood her ground, setting off shot after shot at the spiked wheel. Bullets didn’t stop it. Bullets didn’t even slow it.
Fifty feet out. Thirty. Twenty.
Rose turned to run.
And in front of her rose a monster out of nightmare.
Mr. Jeb Lindson.
Rose froze and stared into the eyes of a dead man.
“Move!” Alun hollered.
Rose threw herself to the side.
Jeb yelled.
Just as the spiked wheel bashed through the trees. Limbs cracked and crashed to the ground with skull- splitting impact.
Rose tucked up tight behind a boulder and covered her head with her arms. She peeked out just in time to see the wheel come to a crashing stop in front of Jeb Lindson, the forward-most spike pulling back like a cannon ready to fire.
With inhuman strength, Jeb Lindson swung the huge round tickers attached to the chain around his wrists. He slammed them into the matic. Metal met metal, crashing and sparking. Steam gushed into the air as the wheel matic faltered under the blow. Jeb didn’t wait for it to fall. He lifted the giant chain and ball and smashed it into the matic again, busting seams, popping rivets. The wheel matic exploded, hot scrap and ash raining down out of the air.
Then the big man went walking. Toward the rail. Toward Mr. Shard LeFel’s train cars, where his wife, Mae Lindson, was held captive.
Rose smelled hair burning and patted at her shoulders. Her hair was on fire! She pulled at the base of her braid, dragging her hair forward over her shoulder. A very bad mistake. The fire licked up the side of her cheek. Rose yelled and slapped at the fire, blistering her palms. She snuffed it out just before it reached her ear, and sat there, for a second or two, trying to get back her breath and her courage.
The night filled with bullets again. The battlewagon was rolling closer, firing another deadly round off into the night.
Blinking back tears of pain, and swallowing down her fear, Rose scrambled for her gun and prayed she had enough bullets in her pockets to end this.
Mae Lindson had no weapon except her magic. It would take her voice to curse or bind, or draw upon magic of any kind. And she had no voice.
Jeb yelled out in agony. He was alive, trying to find her. Trying to save her. But that monster Shard LeFel was right. He was too late. There was no time left.
