Night's engines nl-2 Read online

  “He saved the Dawn,” Kara said.

  “Without you, he could not have saved his own. Do not mistake selfpreservation for charity. He is what he is, a danger to us, and all living things.”

  “And you want to bring him here?”

  “The closer he is, the more control we have, believe me. It is far better that we have him here than in the north. In the north he is a threat to all of us. A Mechanical Winter, my child, you do not want to live through that.”

  Kara Jade sighed. “All right then, I’m convinced.” Mother Graine raised an eyebrow. Kara said, “What do you need me to do?”

  “What needs to be done. Be the bait on our trap. Don’t worry, I have no wish to harm your friend.”

  “He’s not my friend,” Kara Jade said.

  “Good, then this should be much easier for you.”

  CHAPTER 8

  We cut and we cut and we cut and we cut.

  We keep the peace on the edge of the knife.

  We cut and we cut to save your life.

  We keep the peace along the blade.

  We cut to be merry, we cut as we're bade.

  Verger Folk song

  THE CITY OF HARDACRE 970 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL

  David woke, and the scratching followed him. This time there was no hesitation in the sound, the window rattled in its casings. He flung the sheets from him, they didn’t melt into nothing, but they had frozen to his skin; when he hurled them away, they took some of his flesh with them. He dashed the five steps to the window, almost without thought, and though part of him knew that running away from the window might have been wiser, he wasn’t that David any more.

  A bleak face stared in, lit by the twin moons. Cadell’s face, though the eyes had none of Cadell in them, they were as white as the train tracks in David’s dream. There was something almost comical about it, something too dire and dark so that it became almost abstract — some rushed and sinister nocturne. Blood bearded Cadell’s jaw like Witmoths had bearded the old woman’s. He smacked his lips almost comically at David. He stood on the ledge outside the window, fingers sliding along the glass, almost as though he had forgotten the nature of windows and how to open them.

  David felt a growl building in his throat, he moved closer to the glass, saw an answering growl in Cadell’s face. Was this where the curse the Old Man had given him was headed? Surely he had some choice in the matter, though David could scarcely remember a time when he had had choice in anything.

  “Shall we end this now?” David said to the man in the window. “Do you want to come inside or should I go out there?”

  The window was small; the glass thick, and ridged with leadwork, but David knew Cadell could make short work of it. He could feel the corpse Cadell's strength. David's body tensed, his jaw ached, and he wilted a little: considered running. Could he even make the door before Cadell was upon him?

  And then it was as if the true Cadell was with him, the wit and the wisdom, whispering in his ear. David clenched his hands to fists, chilled the flesh so that it became at once harder and denser; his knuckles thickened with ice, and the blood within his fingers slowed — until his hands felt as though they were something brutal and disconnected from his flesh. Margaret had her guns, and her rime blades, but this was true weaponry.

  He tensed, waiting for Cadell to drive his hand through the glass, but the Old Man did not.

  Cadell’s eyes dropped to the ring on David’s finger. David realised that it was glowing, even through the ice. Only the moons were brighter. A cloud passed over them and darkness fell.

  Now, he will do it now.

  A whistle blew shrilly from the streets below and David was once again reminded of the Dolorous Grey. Something smashed on the ground, a roof tile, perhaps, or a stone. More whistles blew and David heard the heavy beat of Cadell’s boots clambering over the rooftops. David flung open the window, a pane cracking with a loud pop when it came into contact with his fingers. He looked down at the street; below him ran dozens of constables, heavy clubs in hand. One of them looked up at him, and David nodded, keeping his ice-slicked fingers hidden.

  The constable regarded him for a moment, and then kept on after his colleagues. David slumped against the windowpane, his vision swimming. How had he ever thought that he could fight Cadell? Disposing of the Roiling as he had, while effective and showy, had exhausted him utterly. He touched his face with a fingertip, skin and ice fused. He yanked his hand free and took some skin with it.

  What am I? What am I now?

  David shed the ice from his fists. It was coloured with his own blood and lymph. His fingers ached. He could hardly move them. He brought them to his chest, but there was no warmth there.

  He could smell blood that wasn’t his own. He peered out the window. There was a puddle of blood on the ledge. Not the sort of thing he wanted daylight to reveal to the world — certainly not to Hardacre’s constabulary.

  He hurried to the bathroom, filled the bucket there. He scrubbed the blood away as best he could, with fingers that still felt like leaden claws, resisting the temptation to see how it might taste — he knew the answer to that already, the blood scent was in the air. Then he washed his hands in water that was warm, but chilled when it touched his flesh.

  Is this my life now? Is this all I am, utterly at odds with my world?

  David took a deep breath, walked to the desk, and found his Carnival.

  He flexed and released his hands, letting the blood come back to sluggish life. At last, when he could hold his gear with enough delicacy to do what needed to be done, he saw to his addiction.

  He half expected Margaret to come bursting through the door. But she did not, and he wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed.

  He let the Carnival do its work and it didn’t matter any more.

  CHAPTER 9

  She's a city made for rain. She's a city made of rage. She's a city with a rough and seeking tongue. You find it ugly. I find it beautiful.

  Hardacre, Ken Slessel

  THE CITY OF HARDACRE 965 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL EDGE

  The next morning dark clouds rolled in from the north, an unheard-of thing this time of year, coming down from the mountains. The winds had changed seemingly overnight. There was some debate over whether or not they contained rain or snow. The temperature certainly had dropped, but the clouds merely built, obscuring the sky and darkening everything.

  The whole city transformed with their arrival, hunkered down, as though it were the beginning of the end. The gardens seemed to shrink, several shops didn’t open, a cat gave birth to a three-headed kitten, and weird howls were heard coming from the tent city beyond the town's walls.

  Margaret had spent the morning practicing her swordplay. For all that it was a weapon of last resort, the rime blade rewarded practice. It was heavy, its blade when sheathed in ice heavier still. But she had killed many Quarg Hounds with it. Indeed, she counted herself among the best of her people when it came to the sword. She was certainly the best now, and that made her practice with even more focus than usual. Her arms burning, lungs heaving, she worked through the patterns of the blade, the various rhythms that denoted attack or defence.

  But her heart wasn't in it today. Her thoughts couldn’t escape the news of the morning. The deaths on Rowdy Street — three killed, half eaten — and the constables that had chased something monstrous to the outskirts of the city before losing both it and five men — pieces of whom had been found with the dawn. The papers were already calling it the Night of Blood.

  David was waiting for her in the dining room, having finished off his breakfast. There were several large plates of food, stacked up before him: such a remarkable appetite for such a thin man. Margaret wondered where he fit all that food. It certainly wasn’t fattening him up, though he had broadened across the shoulders.

  Margaret chewed down a few pieces of toast, and some strips of bacon. “Did you have enough?” she asked him, eyeing his plates.

  “Ju
st enough,” David said. “Barely enough.” He licked his lips, and there was something grotesque about the movement, something unconsidered and unDavid like.

  Margaret shuddered, and David must have caught some of the meaning behind it because he looked almost hurt.

  “Where's Buchan and Whig?” she asked.

  “Purchasing more supplies. They say we should be ready to leave in under a week.”

  Margaret hissed. “They’ve been saying that for a week already. What good are supplies without an airship?”

  “I think this time they might mean it. There's word that a ship called the Collard Green is due.”

  Margaret wasn't prepared to even begin to hope.

  David grabbed an orange quarter from the fruit platter in the middle of the table and ate it, skin and all. He stood up.

  “I had a visitor last night.” He almost sounded guilty.

  Margaret leaned in close. “Really, he came to your room?”

  “No further than the window, but I suspect he would have entered if the constables hadn’t seen him.”

  “Before or after he-”

  He said, “You've heard about the killings then?”

  Margaret nodded.

  “It was after. The constables didn't start chasing him until after the third death. He'd killed to build his strength, it radiated from him. He'd have taken me easily last night.”

  “You’d have fought him alone?” she asked.

  “And I’d have died, you too. I was still too weak.”

  “What about now?”

  “I’m fine today,” David said, stretching his arms above his head; his back clicked loudly. “We’ll hunt until we find him. I’m ready.”

  Margaret’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure? We can wait, until you’re strong again.”

  David swallowed another piece of orange. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

  Margaret couldn’t quite explain it herself. But her mood had soured today and her desire to put David at risk had cooled. She didn't so much fear Cadell, but the thing David might have to become to kill Cadell.

  “I'm fine, believe me, I'm fine. This must be done,” David said. “Too many have died because I have done nothing. Besides I really think that Buchan and Whig might really be ready to leave, and we cannot leave him here.” As if their guilt wasn’t reason enough.

  “If he’s running from constables he can’t be too strong.”

  “Perhaps, or he’s just building. Maybe waiting for me to leave.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when we leave the city, there will be almost nothing that can stop him. Yes, we have to do this today.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Cadell was always the dreamer. But his dreams were nightmares for the rest of us. To call them anything else was an act of kindness and generosity that he did not deserve. He was the worst of them, the terror of terrors.

  I dread the steady beat of his footfalls, the dry gasp of his laughter. I met him once; he shook my hand, offered me a drink. I said no. Better sobriety around the man who murdered Sean Milde, and tore the limbs from Vergers as though they were nothing but insects.

  I thought about that, and changed my mind. Cadell smiled as he poured me my drink, as though we shared a secret. That smile is the progenitor of more than a few bad dreams.

  Cadell, Molc

  THE CITY OF HARDACRE 965 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL

  Another storm rolled in as they left the Habitual Fool, thunder rumbling down from the mountains. David smiled and nodded his head. “Rain reminds me of home, and it'll hide our scent a little,” he said, and opened the umbrella, Cadell’s old one with the blade in its handle. He offered it to Margaret, who shook her head and shrugged her coat tight about her. “Suit yourself,” he said.

  They headed back to the end of Backel Lane and where the Roiling — it didn’t do to think of her as human — had followed them. Patrols were out in force, constables armed to the teeth. Men and women with blunt-headed rifles, cudgels, and knives that were the match of any Verger’s.

  The spot where the Roiling had lain was stained and black, the rain failing to wash these robust vestiges away. David looked at the stain appraisingly, dropping down to his haunches. He could feel that Cadell had been here, had perhaps stood in almost the exact same spot. He could even feel a little of his anger, that such a creature could have come this way. If David hadn't killed it, Cadell would have. David found that a little reassuring. Cadell hadn't changed completely, like these black marks, there was something that even death had failed to erase.

  “He will be somewhere dark,” David said. “If we were still in Mirrlees, I’d have suggested the Downing Bridge and Mirkton beneath. There he would have had all the food he required, and less fight too.”

  Then David realised that Margaret had no idea what he was talking about. She’d not seen the bridge, nor the vast levees — outside of tattered books, the pictures dim and hazy, and fronted by men and women in top hats (Engineers all), smoking cigars and patting each other's backs. Even on their flight over the city, all she'd have seen was lights glittering in a flooded landscape: suburbs drowning and those ready to drown.

  “Dark,” she said. “And I guess deserted, too.”

  David nodded. “Yes, even now, his capacities so diminished he… it will do its best to hide.”

  “So, he’s an Old Man, but he was before, why does it kill?”

  “Everything, well, nearly everything, that Cadell was before, except the hunger, is gone. And believe me, Cadell had killed before, he was just more… selective.” David didn’t go into any further detail, now was not an appropriate time for such a discussion, and he didn’t want to have to earn Margaret’s trust again. “What we’re hunting is just a shell. The real Cadell died on the Roslyn Dawn. He told me to dispose of the remains, but it’s rather hard to fulfil a dying man's request when you're unconscious.”

  “If you just trusted me,” Margaret said, startling him; they were both so suspicious of each other. He raised his hands in the air.

  “No, no, this has nothing to do with trust,” David said. “There wasn’t any time. When the Roil sent those iron ships, there was nothing but that threat in my mind. And, to be honest, I didn’t expect my actions to be so exhausting. I was naive, but I am not any longer.”

  And yet, he thought, here they were — the two of them alone, looking for a monster.

  They followed the streets, working their way outwards, each street longer, given to a broader curve. David felt they could be missing anything, except the further they walked, the more he could feel… it wasn’t so much a presence but a falling away, a rising absence. Cadell hadn't fed again, he could tell that much. The constables’ pursuit had weakened him, but he wouldn't stay that way for long. David reached into his bag, pulled out a sandwich, liver and kidney, all that lovely iron. He devoured it, and ate another.

  He realised Margaret was watching him. “Need to keep my strength up. Would you like one?”

  Margaret declined.

  They ended up in the warehouse district. Row after row of deserted buildings crowded around them.

  “He’s here,” David said. “I can feel him, I think.” David frowned. “And he’s fed again.”

  But that was the closest they came for hours. They spent the afternoon slowly, slowly walking down wide and empty streets that would have not too long ago rang with industry. The rain fell, and David found himself never quite able to find Cadell, though once they came across a patch of road over which he might have eaten. David frequently made them stop and stand absolutely still.

  “He’s passed us,” he'd say or, “He’s very close.”

  Usually a few minutes later the scent would grow cold.

  The day fell into night, lights came on across the city, and still they searched. David guided them back to eat in the city proper — once he had run out of his own supply — devouring huge plates of food like it was his last meal.

  “Maybe it's time we went back,
” Margaret suggested.

  David nodded. “Perhaps it’s time you did,” he said.

  “What about you?”

  “I’m staying here until this is done,” he said. “You're right, too many people have died already.”

  That seemed to decide it for her. She reached out and squeezed David’s hand, a gesture that was almost tender. “As if I can just leave you to die.” David nodded, but he didn’t try to talk her out of it. It wasn't much later that someone screamed.

  The scream hung in the air between them. David actually jumped. Margaret could see the pain on his face, even as he smiled at her. “We have him now,” he said.

  They found him on an empty street near a butchery closed for the night. The air stank of the slaughterhouse, which was appropriate, Margaret thought.

  “He’s here,” David said.

  “Where?” Margaret couldn’t see anyone.

  There was a crash of glass and the light nearest to them shattered. Margaret heard the next stone as it shot through the air, even saw it just before it hit the next closest street lamp.

  Now, only a moon lit the street.

  Margaret unsheathed her rime blade, though she didn’t activate it, counting on its hard edge.

  “Put it away,” David whispered. “He’s too fast for that.”

  “You don’t know how fast I am,” Margaret said.