She dropped in leaps and bounds, and it was like she was back on the wireway. Ice shards fell with her, and she knew that she would have to get well away from the wall when she reached the bottom, or David was likely to kill her with the ice he'd bring down.
When she reached the bottom, she yanked on the rope three times; then ran from the wall, finding cover a few yards distant. She took her weapons carefully from her bag, checked their charges, and waited for David to descend.
And ice fell, such a rain that anything within the city surely knew that they were coming and would be waiting. She looked at her guns and her blades. She was ready, too.
When he made it down, he grinned a great grin: part delight, part terror. “Made it.” He looked past her shoulder, at the city beyond. “Finally,” he said. “Finally.”
Tearwin Meet drowned in the shadow of its walls. The sounds of ice sheets cracking echoed all around them. Tearwin Meet itself was no more than a mile in diameter, as wide as it was high. The tower that was their destination sat squarely in the heart of the city. And down here on the ground, Margaret couldn’t see the tower, but for the occasional glimpse, between this tower and the next.
She had to rely on David, that he knew what he was doing. But with every step into the city, it was as though a wall was rising between them, and like the Engine’s tower, she was only catching glimpses of David.
The buildings that lined the streets were tall, some ran to thirty stories, many were linked by narrow walkways, further reducing the light. Awnings stretched out from each building — they seemed at odds with the great structures from which they sprang, but Margaret could imagine tables laid out beneath them, people eating and laughing. People had lived here once, before the Engine had driven them away.
It looked to be a simple thing to walk to the heart of the city, but within that half-mile was a network of ring roads and dead ends, of roads sinking beneath the earth and rising again back at the wall, having curled without them even noticing. It was a maze as complicated as the Engine of the World itself.
But it was a maze that David said he understood.
“We follow the path laid out for us. We always do,” David said. “When we reach the tower, there will be a door at its base. We need to find that door.”
“And what do we do then?” Margaret said.
David’s eyes widened, and then he gave her a condescending smile, and patted her arm. “We step through it, of course, Miss Penn. Because that is what doors are for.”
Something snuffled in the distance. Margaret pulled her rifle from beneath her coat, but whatever it was, it did not reveal itself.
David looked towards the sound. “Let it be,” he said. “It will not attack unless it perceives us as a threat. That gun looks rather threatening, wouldn't you say?”
“It’s meant to look threatening,” Margaret said.
Again that blasted smile.
“We need to hurry,” David said.
And the road dipped, and led them into darkness, though David's Orbis glowed in the dark with a feverish light. The shadows around them grew long and danced, and it was suddenly very easy to believe in ghosts. Twice Margaret fired at what she took to be movement, but was only the flickering reflection of the ring.
“Calm down,” David said, after she had wasted another round. “We are not threatened. Not yet. I will let you know when we are.”
They came back out into the light again, and found themselves at the base of a low hill, though the road did not directly lead to the tower, they could see it up ahead.
They heard the iron ship’s approach as a thunderous drone, a ceaseless noise that they recognised almost at once. Ice showered from the walls behind them.
David's eyes widened. “No, they couldn't.”
But they had. She had. Margaret knew who had sent this ship. It crashed down at them, through the protective webwork, metal snapped and screamed, iron tore with the sounds of a million metal teeth grinding and scraping. And the ship itself did not stay together, but detonated overhead. David stood there, watching it all.
“Cover now,” Margaret said, throwing David towards the nearest of the awnings. Shrapnel fell.
A second craft shot through the opening, though it made it further before detonating. Then a final iron ship crashed down. This one passed overhead, and was gone from sight. The earth shook with what Margaret assumed was its landing.
“The bloody things cleared a path for it,” David said. “They’ll be on us in a few minutes.”
Margaret looked at the tower: at all she had fought for. “Then we’d best run,” she said. She pushed David in front of her. “Go, find us the way. I’ll be right behind you.”
And David ran. Margaret primed her weapons. Whatever was coming, whatever her mother had sent, she would be ready for it.
CHAPTER 44
So Stade lived to see his life's work realised. That was a gift, you could say, and a punishment. I would feel sorry for him, but really, the man cut off my fingers. He deserved everything that he got.
Maybe we all did.
THE MIRRLEES AIR FLEET DISTANCE FROM ROIL VARIABLE
Stade stood in the radio room, hunched next to the nervous radio operator. The poor man had had only bad news to report until now. They had received at last a signal from the Underground. In Stade's darkest hours, he had grown to believe that they had travelled all this way and at such dire cost for nothing. And now, as they travelled within a few miles of the mountain that contained the Project, he’d been vindicated.
“We can see you,” a voice murmured over the radio.
Stade frowned. “As can we. Sam, is that you?” he said. “The bulk of the refugees will be at your gates within the hour. I'm afraid that we have the enemy behind us.”
“You are not to approach,” the voice said. “This is Grappel of the Underground, subsidiary of the free state of Hardacre. Our weapons are trained on you. You are not to approach.”
“But I made this,” Stade said. “All of it. I made this.”
“Yes, you did,” Grappel said.
The ships floated above the horizon. Thousands stood beneath them. And they had not moved for hours. Medicine and Grappel stood in the observation tower above the Underground.
“You have to let them enter,” Medicine said.
“These people killed my family,” Grappel said bitterly. “I owe them nothing but death.”
“Those are my people, not soldiers, not your enemy. You can’t leave them to die,” Medicine pleaded. “They don't even understand what's happening. Please don't repeat the crime of my city. Not everyone supported Stade's stance, for many it was a dark time in history, a terrible time.”
“And your people did nothing. The gates stayed closed to us, they trained their guns on us, and we marched. We marched into the north and so many of us died.”
“But the Roil is approaching. You can't leave them there.”
Grappel shook his head. “I can and I will.”
“Think of them as what they are,” Medicine said. “Workers. Enough people to make the Underground what it must be, the last stronghold of the world. You leave them out there, and all you are doing is giving the enemy more troops. They are not your enemy now, but they will be.”
Grappel frowned, lifted a pair of field glasses and looked south. Behind them the horizon was darkening. He walked from the observation platform, and Medicine thought he had lost this argument, that his people were doomed.
A couple of hours later Grappel returned.
“Look,” Medicine said. “If you won't let my people in, then let me out there. Let me die with them.”
Grappel smiled. “You'd like that, wouldn't you? You are right. It doesn't sit well with me, but you are right. These people do not deserve to die, and we certainly do not deserve more enemies. There's a reason why I've elevated you, Medicine. Sometimes you talk sense.