Dead Iron

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jeb Lindson had been working his way from shadow to shadow all the day. Some shadows were so far apart, sunlight had plenty of time to pour over his skin and burn down deep, leaving his flesh weeping. But that didn’t stop him from walking. On and on. Into the next shadow. Through the light and into the shadow again. For Mae. For his beautiful wife.

The sun had taken its time to roll across the sky and down behind the hills, but it was nearly gone now. Shadows hooked the edges of night and pulled darkness like a quilt back over the ground again.

Jeb liked the night. He could move faster in the night. That meant he could find Shard LeFel faster in the night. And then he could kill him.

Other things moved along with him in the night. Animals going about their hunting and scratching. Some pausing to watch as he shambled by. They didn’t come too close, so Jeb paid them no never mind.

Pretty soon he heard something more than animals moving. Pretty soon he heard the hiss, the pump, and the clatter of matics. Matics coming closer. Coming toward him. He stopped and listened while the wind hushed itself up high in the trees. Could be the matics were set out in the night to work the land. Maybe for a farmer. Maybe for a logger. Maybe for a rancher.

He’d seen matics, seemed a long stretch of time ago. Matics working something more than fields. Iron. Laying down dead iron for the steam engines. A rail. They’d been building a rail. He could not recall which way that rail had fallen. He thought and thought, but no memory filled that hole.

Jeb looked to the sky, the hangman’s rope around his neck shifting across his back. He squinted to make out the stars through the juniper branches. He could not remember which star set the sky north. Could not remember much about the land he walked across, or the sky he labored under.

He was not much of a man left.

But the dragonfly wings fluttering against the silver box somehow dug deep down into his heart reminded him of one thing. He was set upon finding Shard LeFel. And once he did so, he was going to tear him apart.

The huff and hiss of steam escaping through metal vents filled the night. Might be the matics that worked for Shard LeFel laying down that rail.

Jeb cocked his head toward the sound. To his left. That was where the sound came from. That was the way he’d go.

A flash of brass out in the scrub brought his attention back down from the spangled sky.

A matic tromped out from behind a bush. Big as a horse and black as coal, it had spindle legs, four sets of two that all seemed to work independent of the others to keep it upright. The water tank hung down from the back of the long boiler body of the thing, and the chimney at the front had been worked into a horselike head with no eyes. Steam poured out of its gaping mouth. Brass pipes and valves and a ruby red whirring centrifugal governor stuck up out of the beast’s riveted back like a porcupine’s quills. And all across the side of it were six piston-driven arms, each ending in a thresher blade. Looked like a thing made to stomp a man to death, then mince his bones for bread.

It paused, huffing, six arms clacking, six blades clicking. The wind shifted, pushing at Jeb’s back, and taking his scent right as you please to the matic.

The matic swiveled its misshapen head and stared straight at him—if it’d had eyes. Then it screamed—the sound of metal on metal—and a plume of thick white steam poured on out of its mouth to swirl around its head. It took straight aim and charged him.

Jeb grabbed hold of a thick bough and tore it from the tree. Splinters sprayed over the dry ground. He’d been a strong man in life, and dying, each time he’d done it, had made him stronger. He hefted the branch across his shoulder like a baseball bat. The legs, he thought. First the legs, then the pressure valve there at the neck. Arms next, if he had to, then head.

The matic was almost on him. The heat from it stung Jeb’s nostrils. The huff and clamor clogged up the strangely silent air.

Jeb stood his ground, no fear in his heart. He’d come back from death so many times, fear didn’t have a hold in him no more. But hate . . . Well, hate he’d give all the room it needed.

Jeb swung high to block the blades and arms, then low and hard, taking out the first two legs. The matic’s momentum sent it tumbling to the ground. Three sets of legs scrambled to lift it back up, while three sets of arms sliced at Jeb.

A blade cut his shoulder, drawing blood.

Jeb roared and swung again. The pressure valve just behind the thing’s head popped. Steam screeched in a wild, blasting stream, but the valve didn’t fly off.

Before the thing could fully right itself, Jeb took one more swing, this time at the head.

The branch broke; the head dented. The matic pushed up on its legs and threw Jeb to one side.

Jeb stumbled to catch his balance on his broken ankle, even though the rope around his neck dragged at him and slapped his boots.

The ticker paused, the steam still screaming out of it as it worked to balance without a set of legs to stand on. It didn’t pause for long.

Jeb had to take it down and keep it down this time. He opened and closed his hands, wishing he had some kind of weapon to beat it with.

Maybe he could get to the tree and pull off another branch. He took a step and the rope around his neck struck against his boot again, near enough to trip him.

Jeb stopped. The rope. He had himself a weapon all along.

The matic wasn’t moving quickly yet. In a tick, it’d be within stomping range; it’d be within mincing range, all six arms aimed to take Jeb’s head off.

Jeb tugged at the rope at his neck. His fingers were thick and slow to work the knot, forcing it to loosen as he stumbled toward the tree.

The matic found speed in its footing and lunged.

Jeb tugged the knot free. He ducked the first slice and pulled the rope off over his head. The matic reared up, threshers slicing down, one after the other, tight and close in mechanical precision. Jeb scrabbled back and threw the rope up round the matic’s arms, pinning them tightly together.

The matic jerked back, tightening the knot set in the rope. Jeb slung the rope over the meat of his shoulder and heaved to.

The metal beast dug back against the pull. Without its front legs it was heavy, unbalanced. The matic’s back legs slipped in the loose soil. Jeb heaved again. It toppled, boiler gouging ruts into the hard ground as Jeb yelled out his rage, dragging the monstrous device a dozen paces, before dropping the rope and turning.

Jeb threw himself on the beast and grabbed at a valve with his left hand. He didn’t care that it was so hot metal burned the flesh off his palm. He squeezed and tore it apart.

Steam released in a gout of wet heat. Jeb jerked away, out of the way of the steam, out of the way of the matic that thrashed like a fish tossed ashore, trying to right itself. He scooped up the rope, and took hold of the lowest arm at the joint. Then he leaned back with all his weight. Metal twisted and screamed as the ball popped free of the socket.

Just like ripping legs off a crawdad. Jeb plucked off the next arm, rods and gears twisting, snapping. Then he ripped off another.

The matic clacked and shook, running out of steam, running out of fire, legs driving like pistons, digging deeper into the soil.

Jeb dropped the rope and the thresher arms and reached for what was left of the head. There was glim in there, he could smell it, could taste it. More of it in that head than in the whole little owl ticker he’d ate.

Insatiable hunger washed over him. He didn’t care if he had to walk into a storm of bullets or an army of knives to get at that glim. He would do anything to drink it down.

He got both hands around the head and twisted. Metal buckled under the strain, but the welds held. He squeezed harder, set his good foot against the boiler, and heaved backward, wrenching the head clean off.

He stumbled and fell flat on his back. If he’d been alive, it would have taken him a minute to get his lungs working again. But he didn’t need for air, as such, anymore. Shard LeFel had seen to that. He sat and ran his fingers over the rivets and along the seams that held the head together. Then he pulled the head apart, his fingers strong, stronger than any living man’s.

Suspended by wires and balanced among cogs was a glass vial filled with the same sort of green light he’d found inside the owl.

That glim would fuel him. Make him stronger.

Jeb pulled the vial out of the metal shell surrounding it, and shoved it into his mouth. He bit down hard, molars breaking glass.

The vial shattered. Not quite liquid, not quite gas, the glim filled his mouth with a hot, sweet juice. The burn warmed him all the way down his gullet, and set the dragonfly in his chest fluttering faster. He felt stronger. Much stronger. And the glim did some good to power the dragonfly too.

The devil’s devices might be tough to crack, but the sweet inside was worth the trouble. Without the vial, the matic rattled like an unbalanced flywheel, the clatter inside it slowing, the steam cooling, until it lay still, a lump of useless metal, cold unto dying.

Jeb brushed the bits of glass off his tongue and smacked his lips. He stared at the matic a while or two. He had to get moving, had to get walking again. Where there was one matic, there would likely be more. Enough to slake his hunger. A dead man didn’t need food to fill his belly. He needed glim to fuel his brain.

He pushed back up on his feet. His hand wasn’t working as well and his shoulder seemed out of joint. Fighting the matic did him harm, but that would not stop him from finding LeFel. Would not stop him from returning to Mae. He took a few steps more—then a thought came to him. He should take himself a weapon.

The rope was a good weapon, so he took the rope. The matic’s arms were strong and long and sharp like a scythe, so he took two of those too, hooking them over his shoulders.

Satisfied, he started walking. Toward the rail. Toward the end of Shard LeFel’s life. Toward his Mae.

He made it quite a ways. Up off the scrabble of stone. Up onto a path through scrub that reached as high as his chest. Far enough his shoulder found its way back into the socket. Far enough the thin forest gave way to rolling hills with very few trees. He took the easiest path—along a tumble of boulders to one side that became a sheer rock wall on the other. The rail was out there. And he aimed to find it.

By and by, as he worked his way slowly through the dark, he heard them.

Matics. Clattering over the ground, thumping, skittering over the stones. They were coming. Coming for him. More than one. More than two.

He looked out far as he could see. There, through the scrub, cresting over the hill and pouring down toward him. Matics. He counted up to four, but more kept coming. So he stopped counting. Jeb found himself a stone to put at his back with plenty of room in front of him for swinging. He tugged the thresher arms off from over his shoulders and stood his ground.

Two of the matics spotted him. He licked his lips, already hungry for the sweetness in their heads.

The matics rushed.

Jeb Lindson smiled.

Then he started killing.