Iron and Blood (52 page)

“Rick and Kovach—start getting them into the elevator,” Jacob said. “Hans and I will free the last of them. Father Matija—I’d be obliged if you and your companions would make sure we don’t get surprised by things that go bump in the night.”

Matija nodded, and said something in his native tongue before he and the other priests spread out, two of them lining up watchfully on either side of the elevator, focused on the pit below, and the others moving toward the tunnel to stand sentry against the blackness that seemed to stretch on to infinity.

“Come on folks, time to go,” Kovach said as he and Rick moved toward the ragged miners. The men shuffled slowly towards the elevator as though too weary to comprehend freedom. Rick saw the same anger in Kovach’s eyes that he felt himself: at Thwaites, at Veles, and at the mine bosses who must have known and kept their silence.

“Move all the way to the back,” Rick urged, trying not to retch at the smell of the slaves. “It’ll be tight, but we want to get everyone in one run.” The miners stumbled their way toward the elevator, and Rick cajoled them inside as Kovach kept the line moving.

The elevator cage had three levels. When they had ridden down, they had done so in the top-most tier. When that section was so full that Rick could not fit in another of the emaciated men, Jacob closed and latched the door, then worked the lift controls to bring the second section to the level of the tunnel floor.

Loading the first group had gone without a hitch, though much slower than Rick would have liked. But as the first of the new group shambled toward the elevator, the man in front stumbled, falling across the gap between the tunnel floor and the cage just as the car suddenly lurched up.

Rick dove to catch the miner, and found himself badly off balance. He grabbed the man’s bony wrist, crying out as he started to pitch forward. The miner hung half-in and half-out of the elevator, held only by Rick’s grip on his wrist. Rick had one foot on the tunnel floor, one on the elevator’s steel platform, and a death grip on the wire cage, tight enough to draw blood.

For a moment, Rick stared straight down into the abyss. The rocks that had been jarred loose by the miner’s tumble fell in silence, so far down he would not hear them hit bottom. The terrified miner scrabbled to climb into the elevator, making the whole contraption swing farther away from solid ground. The man’s frantic movements strained Rick’s grasp on his wrist, and made the wire cut deeper into his other hand as he struggled to keep them from falling to their deaths.

If the fall doesn’t kill us, the
gessyan
will eat us,
he thought, fighting down a surge of panic.

“Gotcha!” Kovach said as he grabbed Rick by the coat and pulled him back to safety. The dangling slave lurched into the elevator, and Rick let go of the cage, looking ruefully at his damaged hand.

“Wrap that up,” Kovach said, producing a linen bandage from one of his pockets. “Make sure you clean it when we get out of here. You don’t want to get lockjaw.” Rick wrapped his hand, trying to ignore the pain.

“They smell blood.” Father Matija paused in his chant. “Better hurry. They’re coming.” Rick did not need to ask who the priest meant.

“The rest of you! Get moving!” Kovach ordered the vacant-eyed miners, who resumed their shuffle toward the elevator. Jacob and Hans herded the slaves from the back, weapons at the ready in case any surprises emerged from the tunnels.

As the last of the wretched miners crouched and scuttled their way into the elevator, there was room for just one more passenger. Jacob climbed inside. Hans grabbed a hold of the outside with his metal hands to ride along. “I’ll take them up to the surface and make sure they get clear,” Jacob said. “Then I’ll come back down to get you. Be ready—I don’t think it’s healthy to stick around down here,” he added, nodding down the dark shaft toward where the
gessyan
and the mad doctors’ creations ruled the shadows.

The elevator began to clank its way to the top. Rick could not tear his gaze away from the empty stares of the enslaved miners.
Do they realize we came to set them free?
he wondered.
Or are they too far gone to know what’s going on?

Rick unpacked a metal box and a coiled rope of twisted steel from his pack. He flipped a switch and Adam’s Maxwell box hummed to life. It was bigger than its predecessor, and had been altered by Adam to allow for a remote trigger, linked to a small winding gadget that would crank up the power to the highest level. With luck, that would call the
gessyan
that had escaped back to the mines and imprison them along with the spirits that had not fled the deep places. Rick and the others would be well clear by the time that happened. He secured the box to the steel rope through a metal loop, then drove a stake into the rock near the ledge and eased the Maxwell box down into the abyss. He let out the last of the rope, then straightened, still staring into the pit.

Kovach jostled his arm. “Come on, let’s set those charges.”

From the elevator shaft, they heard the sound of a clanking chain. “That’s awfully fast for Jacob to be on his way back down,” Rick said.

A metal arm clamped onto the rock and red eyes in a brass skull rose into sight, as a
werkman
hauled himself over the lip of the pit.

“We’ve got trouble!” Kovach shouted, leveling his force weapon and blowing a hole in the mechanical man’s head. The automaton staggered before regaining its balance and continuing the attack. Another
werkman
had appeared at the edge of the shaft, eyes glowing.

Father Matija hefted a large rock and hurled it at the nearest
werkman
. The heavy stone put a deep dent into the
werkman
’s chest. A second priest pitched a fist-sized rock like a baseball, hard enough he could have qualified for a spot on one of the teams at Exposition Park. The rock slammed into the
werkman
’s head with enough force to give a living man a concussion. The damaged metal man continued forward, gears protesting and eyes flickering.

“We’ll hold them!” Kovach shouted. “Go plant the charges!”

Rick shouldered the equipment and headed into the large chamber where the slave workers had been mining. The smell was overpowering and Rick kicked angrily at the discarded shackles that lay all across the floor. He sized up the area. Tourmaquartz wasn’t mined on this level, but the raw ore was brought up from where
werkmen
and the clockwork zombies mined it in the depths below, for the slaves to process before sending it for shipment.

On one side of the room was a mine car filled with tourmaquartz ore, brought up from the levels below for processing by the slaves. Picks and pickaxes were strewn across the floor. It did not escape Rick’s notice that the effort required to turn a mine car full of large rocks into a lunch pail of slivers and marble-sized pieces would have been enormous.

Rick dug into his satchel for the bundles of dynamite fortified by Adam Farber with Sprengel explosives. He placed them all around the mine car and whistled under his breath as he set the detonator.

“When this blows, they’re going to hear the explosion for miles,” he muttered. “Probably rattle dishes all the way out in Homestead.”

A noise in the tunnel behind the mine car made Rick freeze. Shuffling footsteps, headed his way. Cursing under his breath, Rick backed away from the tunnel. He had almost made it to the far side of the chamber when three clockwork zombies burst from the darkness, moving fast.

“Oh, shit.” Shooting the clockwork zombies was out, not with the tourmaquartz and the explosives so close. Rick grabbed a pickax with his right hand, and snatched up a pair of manacles from the floor with his injured left hand.

“You looking for me?” he said, though he doubted the mechanized corpses could understand him. Taunting them made him feel a little braver, though his palms were clammy and his body tingled with adrenaline.

One of the zombies came at him from the right, while the other two circled around. Rick swung the pickax at the nearest creature, sinking the point into its back. Ribs tore loose as he jerked the ax free, and foul-smelling ichor oozed from the gaping wound. The zombie struggled forward, slowed but on its feet.

The second clockwork creature attacked from the left. Rick gripped one end of the manacle and swung the chain, lashing out at the zombie. He bit back a cry as the chain bit into his makeshift bandage, straining the cut in his palm. The chain and manacles slashed down through the dead man’s face, smashing its nose and ripping lose a flap of mottled skin.

For a moment, the second zombie was blinded by the ichor gushing into its mechanical eyes. The last creature, in the middle of the three, made its move, rushing Rick with its arms outstretched, hands twisted into claws.

Rick brought the ax down with his full strength, snapping through the zombie’s forearms like tinder. He winged the ichor-stained manacle at the zombie on his right, snaring one of its wrists with the chain. With a jerk, he pulled the creature off its feet and brought the pickax down through the clockwork zombie’s head.

Strong hands grabbed his shoulders from behind. Rick twisted, glad his coat allowed for some wiggle room. He freed his knife with his left hand, and drove it back through his coat, into the belly of the creature, then wheeled, bringing the pickax down through the zombie’s hunched shoulders into its chest.

Two down, one to go, and some volatile explosives ready to go boom. Rick grabbed another set of shackles from the floor, swung them round and round overhead and let them fly like a bolas. The chains wheeled through the air, slamming into the last zombie’s head and wrapping around with such force that one of the metal cuffs sank through the rotting flesh and lodged in the creature’s forehead.

Rick heard more footsteps headed up the passageway behind the mine car, but had no desire to wait around. He grabbed another set of shackles, ignoring the pain in his left hand, and took the pickax with him as he headed for the elevator tunnel.

Sounds of battle echoed down the corridor. Jacob’s shotgun sounded and Rick winced, wondering whether a stray spark or shot would blow them sky high.

He rejoined the others to find Hans and Jacob fighting three more of the clockwork zombies that had emerged from one of the side tunnels, while Kovach fought off a battered
werkman
. Hans’s extra strength from his own mechanical enhancements made him an even match for the zombie he battled, though as a living man, Hans could still be injured, while the zombie wouldn’t slow down until he was destroyed. Jacob fired the force gun and took the second zombie through the knees, then brought the butt of his gun down hard on the creature’s skull, smashing it open like a rotten pumpkin.

Rick took the third zombie, wheeling the manacles overhead and sending them in a tangle around the legs of the monster, which fell with a dull thud. The pickax finished him off. Kovach leveled his next shot at the
werkman
’s ankles, blowing him off his feet and onto his back where the metal man struggled like an overturned turtle. Kovach leveled the force gun at each of the machine’s hinged joints, until all that remained were smoking bits of severed metal and a metallic torso that finally lay still.

Two more zombies clawed their way up over the lip of the abyss. Out of the corner of his eye, Rick saw shadows flowing along the tunnel’s walls as dark shapes skittered across the rock. Eban Hodekin and two more creatures like him dropped from the ceiling, planting themselves between Rick and the zombies.

Hodekin was fast. He and the other kobolds launched themselves at the clockwork zombies. Rick had thought the mechanical monstrosities were strong, but they were no match for the kobolds. Hodekin ripped one zombie’s head from its shoulders with his bare hands, and made it look easy. In seconds, the kobolds had torn the zombies limb from limb with their bony fingers and razor-sharp teeth. Then without a word, Hodekin and the others dragged the mangled zombies into a narrow crack in the rock wall. The sound of smacking lips and crunching bones gave Rick no doubt as to what had befallen the clockwork cadavers. With effort, he kept his gorge from rising.

Only then did Rick realize why Matija and the
Logonje
priests had not come to their rescue. What looked like thick black smoke roiled up from the depths of the shaft. It was the same inky, unnatural darkness that had followed their carriage, stinking like an old tomb, and Rick knew that these were the
gessyan
, come to feast on their souls.

Matija and his priests raised their relics as they chanted, casting an iridescent curtain of light between them and the
gessyan
.

“We’ve got to get back up that shaft!” Jacob said. He looked at Rick. “Can’t you use your box? Isn’t it supposed to call the
gessyan
down to where it is?”

Rick met his gaze levelly. “Not until we’re out. Not unless you want to meet the Night Hag on your way up.”

“Get into the elevator,” Matija yelled over his shoulder as the priests continued to chant.

“No offense, Father, but I’m not sure my faith is that strong,” Jacob replied, eying the billowing darkness.

“Then you’ll have to make do,” Matija replied. “There’s only one way out of here.”

“And we’d better hurry,” Rick replied. “The detonators have been set.”

According to the plan, Matija and the
Logonje
were not supposed to unleash the full power of their magic against the
gessyan
until right before the explosions, when they and the others were out of the mine. Rick had no desire to see whether or not the consuming white light that the priests could summon would set off the tourmaquartz early.

Matija’s voice rose to a sharp command, and the iridescent light flared. The glare was painful after the near-darkness of the mine, and Rick was blinded for a few seconds. When his vision returned, he saw that the curtain of light had become a floor, forcing the angry shadows down below the elevator, temporarily capping the deep shaft.

“Go!” Matija commanded.

Jacob had brought the elevator down so that the top tier was level with the ground. Rick dove in head first, sliding across the metal floor. Hans followed, then Matija and the priests, still chanting, relics limned with a golden glow. Kovach squeezed in next, and Jacob came last, slamming the door behind him.