Tin Swift

CHAPTER FIVE

Cedar Hunt eyed the rising dead piled up in the center of the town. He needed to get Rose to the wagon, then ride out of here before the undead could follow. Only problem was the undead were between him and the wagon, and Rose was bleeding badly from that shoulder wound.

He backtracked, working in the shadows of the buildings and trying to get to the wagon around the other way.

The idea of leaving an entire town full of bodies being trotted around by the Strange set a rod of fear down his spine. How long would they stay in this town, and if they got loose, how many people would die?

The stack of bodies was still unstacking. Some of them slow and awkward, with no hands, arms, feet, or eyes to guide them. They crawled about, moaning and mewling. They might have once been human, but it was clear and sure from the way they moved, and from the unholy sounds coming out of them, that they were human no longer.

Others pulled up quick, catching on to the hows of walking. If not exactly graceful, they were at least steady and growing steadier with every step. First they walked. Then they broke into a jog. Fast. Headed his way.

He shifted his hold on Rose Small, who was still unconscious in his arms, and pulled his gun.

Shot down the two in the lead, but there were more, too many more, behind them. He couldn’t fight without putting Rose down. The townfolk paused over the two men he’d shot, they pushed at them, pulled at them. And then the men he’d shot stood back up.

Didn’t look like a bullet could kill a thing that was already dead. Leastwise not a shot to the heart or the head.

Cedar swore and started running. He needed an open door, solid walls, and something that could cause a whole hell of a lot more damage than his revolver.

The crack of a shotgun blew apart the night. Cedar jerked toward the blast.

The Madder brothers were driving the wagon hard his way, coming up from behind the undead and rolling over the ones who got in the way of the big iron-rimmed wheels.

Alun sat the driver’s seat, snapping the reins to push those big draft horses to full speed. The horses were more than willing to give it to him, dinner plate–sized hooves smashing through flesh and bone just as easily as through mud.

Cadoc Madder stood on the buckboard braced next to Alun. His geared-up shotgun was slung low at his shoulder. He took aim for the middle of the unalives again as the wagon rolled through them.

The flash of gunpowder lit up the night and Cedar’s sight went muddy.

When he could blink his focus back, he saw the dead that had just fallen picking themselves up, while others, too broken to walk, still found ways to crawl or drag themselves toward him.

“Don’t know what you did, Mr. Hunt,” Alun yelled, “but you’ve angered up a mess of Strange tonight. Never seen them so intent on taking one man down.”

“Rose is hurt,” Cedar said. “She’s bleeding.”

The Madders pulled the big wagon up beside him. Bryn was on his horse, and Rose’s and Cedar’s horses were tethered to the back of the wagon along with the mule.

Where were Mae and Wil?

Before he could ask, Mae leaned out of the wagon, throwing down the wooden steps.

“Hurry,” she said.

Cedar was up the stairs and into the wagon fast.

The undead were still coming, still running, slogging through the mud and muck. Not just the pile of people they’d gathered. More townfolk poured out from houses up a ways, places Cedar and the Madders hadn’t gotten to yet. Most of them seemed to have good strong legs beneath them, and were closing the distance fast.

“Put her on the bed,” Mae said as she found her satchel and started digging for herbs and bandages. Cedar set Rose down as gently as he could. He braced for the wagon to start rolling, expecting the lurch of the drafts pulling fast, but they were not moving.

“Go!” he yelled, not knowing what the Madders were waiting for. “Where’s Wil?”

Mae was already bent over Rose, pulling her wool coat open and unbuttoning her dress so she could see to her wound.

“I don’t know,” she said, her words coming out fast and slippery as if she was fitting them in between a conversation she was trying to listen to. “Oh. Oh, no.” She had pulled Rose’s dress away to reveal her shoulder, neck, and her chest down to the blood-soaked edge of her shift.

“I need…” Mae started. “No, not that. Not those things.” She brushed at the air as if pushing away hands that were not helping. “I need hot water. I need herbs to stanch.” She looked up at Cedar, her cheeks flushed but her eyes clear, if a bit startled. “I might need tines if there’s a bullet in there to be dug out. Can you help me see if it shot her all the way through?”

“It wasn’t a bullet,” he said, propping Rose up so Mae could hold the lantern closer to her back.

She finished pulling Rose’s coat off, then examined the back of her dress. “No blood here, so it didn’t go clean through. What hit her?”

“A key. A tin key. About half the size of my pinky,” he said. “We ran into the Strange. A trap. Triggered the fuse and”—he hesitated to go too clearly into detail about the girl exploding—“the house blew to bits. Could be wood, metal, or bone in there too.”

Mae slipped Rose’s dress the rest of the way off her so that she could look at the bare skin of her back.

Cedar supported Rose through Mae’s inspection. Why wasn’t the wagon moving? What were the Madders waiting for?

“I can’t see anything inside the wound. Nothing,” Mae said. “All right, lay her down again.”

Cedar did so.

“I’ll need water,” Mae said to herself as she turned to the kettle hung up on the ceiling hook.

It wouldn’t be hot. There was no time to stop and make a fire. And still the wagon wasn’t moving.

“I’ll be right back,” Cedar said.

Mae poured the cold water onto a cloth.

He swung out of the wagon, caught hold of the hand bar, and leaned out so he could see up along the side it.

The three Madder brothers were clumped at the front of the wagon, Alun and Cadoc in the driving seat and Bryn on the horse just beside them. They were caught up in what appeared to be a heated argument.

While all around them the undead closed in.

Cedar couldn’t hear what they were going on about. And he didn’t care.

“Get this damn box moving!” Cedar yelled.

The three brothers looked over at him, not so much guilt on their faces as a sort of determined curiosity.

“We were just having a conversation, Mr. Hunt,” Alun said around the stem of his pipe, which was held tight in his teeth. “Involves you, as a matter of fact.”

“Do you see the dead coming our way?” he asked.

Driving the wagon through the pile had done some good to slow and muddle the unalives, but they were recovering quickly and would be close enough to take hold of the wagon and the horses in about a minute.

“Yes, yes. But now, about you,” Alun said. “You said you could feel the Holder here in town. That still so?”

“Move this wagon and get us the hell out of town.”

“As soon as you point us toward the Holder, Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “We’ll take a path that rides us close enough that one or two of us brothers can go looking into the house you point at, or the trail you scent. Shouldn’t take long.”

Cedar bit back a curse. He’d pull his gun, but threatening the Madder brothers never got them to do what he wanted anyway.

“Rose Small needs medical attention. She needs to get to the next town as soon as possible,” he said. “To a doctor. Standing here talking about the Holder’s only going to get her dead.”

“Not if we talk fast enough.” Alun gave him a hard look. “You think the Holder is more southerly or easterly?”

“I think the Holder’s going to wait.”

“That isn’t happening, Mr. Hunt.” Alun pointed his pipe at him. “You talk, or this wagon’s not going anywhere.”

Three against one. Rose hurt, maybe dying. Mae doing all she could to stay clearheaded enough to tend her. Wil missing. The dead so close he could count their buttons. Cedar didn’t have a lot of luck going his way. Faster to get the Madders to the Holder than to argue them down to reason.

Cedar thought a moment on the draw from the Holder. Strangely, he felt pulled in two directions. One toward the wagon with Mae and Rose, and the other southeast of town.

“Southeast,” he said. “Now move this crate.”

He swung back around and into the wagon, just as the undead slapped against it with flat palms, as if they didn’t know how to crack the shell to get to the meat inside.

Alun called out to the horses, and they were off, jostling hard and fast down the rutted, muddy road. The unalives couldn’t move faster than a horse could lope, and soon they had outpaced them.

But they wouldn’t be ahead of them for long.

Cedar leaned on the inside doorway of the wagon, keeping an eye toward the darkness, looking for Wil. He reloaded his gun. His rifle was strapped to Flint. As soon as they got far enough out of town and on their way to the next, Cedar would mount up, take the guns and go looking for Wil. The wagon traveled slow enough he should be able to catch up with them soon afterward.

If he found Wil.

“Not well.” Mae knelt next to Rose and was pressing something that smelled of comfrey over her wound. “I need to boil water. I need fire. She needs fire, Mr. Hunt.”

“She’ll get it,” he said.

The wagon rumbled along at a bone-shaking pace before pulling up sharp and hard just a short while later. They were on the outskirts of town, near opposite to where they’d first ridden in.

“Mr. Hunt!” Alun yelled. “A word with you, please.”

Cedar swung out the side of the wagon again. Only this time his gun was loaded.

“You think maybe the Holder’s closer to us now?” Alun asked, completely nonplussed by the gun pointed at his head.

“Move this cart and get us out of town,” Cedar said. “All the way out of town.”

“So we’re close, you think?”

Cadoc Madder cocked back that big shotgun of his and casually aimed it at Cedar’s chest. Bryn, atop his horse, had on his shooting goggles. His rifle, also aimed at Cedar, rested across the saddle.

Cedar could kill one, but not three before he was taken down.

“That explosion you heard a while back?” Cedar said. “The one that blew a house apart? Rose and I were in that house when it happened. She’s injured, Mr. Madder, and I’m not going to argue away her life.”

“Then tell us where the Holder is,” Alun said. “Don’t know why we can’t impress upon you how important it is that we find it.”

“More important that a young woman’s life?”

Alun sighed and nodded. “Aye, Mr. Hunt,” he said sadly. “I’m afraid so.”

All three brothers looked more like battle-hardened warriors than crazy miners out on a lark. He’d seen them get this look about them before. Where they suddenly seemed much older, much wiser, and much more world-weary.

“It wasn’t the Strange that killed these people,” Alun said. “It was the Holder. Or a piece of it at least. We think tin.”

“One piece of the Holder—”

“Tin piece,” Bryn corrected.

“—killed this entire town?” Cedar finished.

He knew the Holder was a weapon that could do a lot of harm. But this?

“And its poison will spread,” Cadoc said softly. “To the forest, to the streams, poisoning, destroying. Then it will reach the next town. And do the same again.”

It was a terrifying thought. That a single piece of tin could poison a land. He didn’t know if they were telling the truth, but it was clear there was no arguing them out of their hunt.

He put his boot on the edge of the wheel, then dropped down to the ground, landing in the mud. “This way.”

He stalked off down the street, following the call in his bones. The wagon rattled along behind him, and Bryn urged his horse up close so he could pace Cedar.

Wasn’t hard to find the building where the pull was coming from. It was only about five buildings down from where the Madders had stopped.

“That’s it.” He pointed at the square adobe and brick building. It wasn’t a house. It was the jail.

“Isn’t that something?” Bryn asked. “The jail.”

“Might be in a safe,” Cedar said.

Bryn tipped his head so he could look at Cedar through his good left eye. “Probably isn’t locked up tight. Most folk don’t know the value of it when they see it. Could just as much be down the privy hole.”

Cedar hadn’t thought about that. The Madders knew the Holder was a weapon whether in all seven of its parts, or connected to make it whole. But since each of the pieces had flown off on its own, just one bit of it wouldn’t look threatening enough, or likely valuable enough, to note. Well, maybe the bits made of gold, silver, or copper would turn a person’s attention, but not the plainer pieces of tin, iron, or lead.

“This the place?” Alun asked.

“Yes.”

“Good.” He set the brake, then kicked free the coupling on the horses, separating them from the wagon. The gear between the wagon and the horses fell to the ground with a squish and thump, and the horses whickered and jostled forward a bit. They were unhooked from the wagon, but still harnessed to each other.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Cedar said.

“Taking care of our needs, Mr. Hunt.” Alun swung down off the wagon and landed with enough force to shoot mud up to his elbows. “We need the Holder. If it’s here, we get it, and all leave town together.”

“Mr. Hunt?” Mae said. “Are we stopping now?”

Cedar walked up to Alun and grabbed his shirt. “If Rose dies because of this stop, I’ll dig out your guts with my hunting knife. Understand?”

“The day that you and I come to cross odds won’t end in both of us breathing,” Alun said without an ounce of fear. “Is that day today, Mr. Hunt?”

“When that day comes,” Cedar said, “you won’t have a chance to ask me, Mr. Madder.” He took a step back. “Re-hitch the horses. Now.” He turned toward the jail and strode to the door.

It opened easily. Seemed the whole of the town had been left unlocked when the Holder had killed them all.

He placed his palm on the wood of the doorframe. The echo of Mr. Shunt lifted beneath his fingers. Shunt had been here. The song was stronger than he’d felt before, which meant Mr. Shunt had spent some time here. Maybe a day, maybe three.

Bryn sauntered in behind him with a lantern and the big open room shot full of light.

In that light was a wide desk. And on top of that desk were fist-sized clumps of flesh, several piles of bones sorted by size, and a wide, bloody stain blooming out dark across the wooden floor.

“Think this is where the Holder’s hid up?” Bryn asked, as if a desk full of body parts wasn’t anything of note.

“That way.” Cedar pointed toward the hall. Bryn started off and the lantern light stretched bars of shadows across the ceiling. The jail cells must be down there.

“Here we are now,” Alun said, coming up behind him. Only it wasn’t just one pair of boots Cedar heard crossing the floor.

He turned. Alun was carrying Rose and Cadoc was helping guide Mae, who looked near exhausted on her feet, into the room.

“What are you doing?” Cedar said.

“Giving the witch what she needs to tend to Rose,” Alun said. “You didn’t tell me she’d been struck by a piece of the Holder, Mr. Hunt. If you had, I would have given a stronger ear to your complaints earlier.”

“The Holder?”

Alun laid Rose down on a cot by the wall.

He shook his head slowly. “She should have died from this wound by now. Even a sliver of the Holder will strip a mortal soul from the body easy as shucking corn. There’s something more to our Miss Rose Small,” he said with something close to pride in his voice. “I think she’s got a bit of the old blood in her.”

“Old blood?” Mae asked. “What old blood, Mr. Madder?” She had allowed Cadoc Madder to help her sit on a chair near the foot of the cot.

All of them were mostly ignoring the gore-covered desk.

“The sort of blood that still flows in the veins of a few people who walk this land. Rare. A gift from the El.”

“El? A people like the Strange?” Mae said.

“As much as light is like shadow, I suppose,” Alun said. “There isn’t much crossing of their kind to this world, but sometimes, sometimes. Makes me a tad more curious as to who, exactly, her parentage is.”

“Will it do anything to help her endure the wound?” Mae asked.

“Oh, I think it will indeed,” Alun said. “But we’ll need to get that key out of her. Even someone with her strength can’t hold up a fight against the Holder for long.”

“Can we cut it out?” Cedar asked.

“No. Once a strangeworked thing hooks into mortal flesh, it begins to consume, to spread and devour. But if we can find the piece of the Holder this key came off of, then it will call to itself. Like a magnet to steel. The pieces weren’t meant to be changed or altered or broken to bits. But someone has found a way to break this much off. This key. That,” Alun said, “is a problem, Mr. Hunt. A grave problem.”

“Cadoc,” Cedar said, “you can put some water on to boil for Mae.”

“Yes,” Mae said, perking up. “Hot water. It will help. And I’ll need my herb satchel.”

Cadoc Madder frowned. “Your satchel, Mrs. Lindson?”

“Canvas thing she keeps at hand,” Alun said. “It’s likely in the wagon. See to fetching it, will you, brother Cadoc? Mr. Hunt and I will see if the Holder might be found in these walls.”

“Her bag of blessings,” Cadoc Madder said as he walked to the door. “I know it.” He opened the door a crack and looked outside. “Not even a soul to scrape together among them,” he noted. “No souls to fly. No wings to rise.” Then, shotgun in hand, he went out into the night.

Mae strode to the stove in the corner of the room. “I’ll need a kettle, or a pot,” she said more to herself than anyone in the room. She pulled the kettle from the back of the stove and checked the flue. There was a pile of kindling in the wood box and Mae stoked the stove, then took the box of matches off the shelf pegged to the wall.

“Mrs. Lindson,” Cedar said, “Cadoc Madder will be right back inside and Alun, Bryn, and I won’t be far off. If you need anything, call.”

She nodded and nodded. “I’m coming. As quickly as I can.”

She wasn’t talking to him.

“Mae,” he said a little quieter, but stepping closer, “did you hear me?”

She blinked hard, then looked up at him. For a moment her eyes were filled with a wild panic, and he could tell her heart was beating fast. She was afraid.

“Mr. Hunt,” she said as if just noticing him. She glanced quickly at the room, her eyes pausing on Rose. Her hand flew up to the tatting shuttle she wore on a string, almost like a talisman, around her neck. That touch seemed to calm her, and a bit of color came back to her pale cheeks.

“I’ll be fine. I am fine,” she said, correcting herself. “It wouldn’t matter if I was out of my mind or not. I know the herbs. I can tend to Rose.”

“The undead are not far in the night,” Cedar said. “Keep your gun ready.”

“You’ll be in the building?”

“Yes.”

She placed her hand on his arm and Cedar caught his breath at her touch.

“Don’t look so concerned, Mr. Hunt. I’m well. Well enough. Find the Holder, if it’s here. And hurry.”

The three windows of the jail, two set high on either side of the door, the other set high on the other side of the stove, were shuttered. Suddenly, those shutters buckled inward, slammed by something heavy from the outside.

Hands.

Cadoc Madder’s blunderbuss fired three roaring shots, but that didn’t stop the pounding on the shutters.

The undead were out there, close, and they were impatient to be inside.

“Put your spurs to it, Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “I’ll hold here.”

One of the window shutters near the door burst open, hands and arms reaching into the room. Alun strode over to Mae.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Lindson.” He opened the firebox and pulled out a piece of kindling. Then he pulled a bottle from inside his coat pocket and lit the cloth hanging out of it. He stormed across the room toward the door, but looked over his shoulder at Cedar.

“What are you waiting for? I don’t believe the Holder’s in this room, now, is it?”

“No,” Cedar said.

“Well, then.” Alun made the shoo-shoo motion with both hands, the flaming wick and kindling stick crackling with small sooty sparks. “On with it.”

Cedar jogged across the room toward the hall of cells.

“Fire, brother Cadoc!” Alun yelled.

Cedar was in the mouth of the hallway, and glanced back.

The muddy miner cocked his arm and let the lit bottle fly. It hit hands, arms, and then a huge flare of an explosion seared gold against the night.

Alun laughed and ran to the window. He pushed the scorched shutters together, then put his shoulder to them and pulled another bottle out of his pocket.

Crazy. Plain crazy.

And so was he for traveling with the brothers. Next time, if there was a next time, Cedar would think twice about the promises he made them.

A lantern at the end of the hall washed Bryn Madder in peach light, the stone wall behind him darkened with soot.

“Haven’t seen it in crook nor cranny,” Bryn said, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead. “You still say it’s in here someways?”

“Or was here,” Cedar said. “If it’s gone, it’s left a strong scent behind.”

Three cells. Seemed a bit overkill for a town this size. But since Vicinity wasn’t that far off the trail leading folk to settle, mine, or otherwise stake their claim out west, he supposed there were times when all three cells might be in use.

The cell doors were open. Another explosion roared out just beyond the walls, and Cedar hurried into the first cell, dragging the fingers of his left hand along the metal bars, listening for the song of the Holder.

“You’re a trusting sort of man.” Bryn chuckled as he sauntered toward the open door.

“Nope,” Cedar said. “Just well prepared.” He eased his gun out of his holster and nodded at Bryn.

Bryn grinned, and stopped in his tracks. In the low light of the lantern, his clouded right eye shone gold. “Indeed you are, Mr. Hunt. But you must know that locking you away here would hardly do us any good.”

“I don’t know the minds of any of you Madders, for how often you change them,” Cedar said. “Nor am I certain how you define what is good for any of us.”

He paced out of that cell, then into the second one, running his fingers again along the bars. Listening for the song of the Strange, listening for the song of the Holder.

Nothing in this cell. Cedar walked into the last cell.

“We define good in the common way, I suppose,” Bryn said. “There’s a great good that needs doing in these times. And we’re men to see that it gets done.”

“Reclaiming the Holder?” Cedar asked.

“That. And more.”

“Not sure I’m comfortable putting the Holder in your hands.” Cedar ran his fingertips along the bar. “No offense, Mr. Madder.”

“None taken,” Bryn said much too cheerfully. “It’s one of the reasons we are so enamored with you, Mr. Hunt. You are a man of rare morals who sees these things with different eyes.”

“Not sure I follow your logic.”

“You have made a promise to return a device made of seven pieces—each piece a powerful weapon in its own right, and the pieces together even more devastating. Yet you hesitate in handing it over, not because you want to use the weapon but because you worry that others will.”

Bryn sucked on his teeth, while the clatter of another explosion roared out from beyond the walls. “That says something about you, Mr. Hunt. Honorable things.”

“Don’t know that it’s honorable,” Cedar said. “Just plain sense.”

“The kind of sense that makes for a well-thought man.”

Another gunshot roared out, and Alun’s voice could be heard over the din. “Are you near done, Mr. Hunt? Brother Bryn? Or should I find myself some bigger bombs?”

“Near on,” Bryn shouted out. “It’s a cold trail, isn’t it?”

Cedar nodded and walked out of the cell. He took a few extra steps to the stone wall at the end of the hall, a wall burned by fire. “Wonder why there’s a burn mark here? Not a convenient place to start a flame.”

He pressed his fingers against the dark smudge of soot on the wall.

A shock ran through him like lightning striking near his boots. The Holder had been here, and burned here. And over the shock of that knowledge rolled the distant song of Mr. Shunt.

Cedar glanced up. There was a fist-sized hole in the roof. He didn’t know how it was possible to propel a chunk of metal through the sky to land a state away, but he was sure a piece of the Holder had burned its way through the roof and landed where he was standing.

“It landed here,” he said. “And someone must have picked it up.”

“Time’s up, gentlemen,” Alun called out. “Load your guns.”

“It’s gone?” Bryn said.

There was a rising noise outside, something that sounded like a matic thumping with full throttle steam just on the edge of Cedar’s hearing. He’d heard that kind of noise before, but couldn’t place it. A train? A steam wagon?

“It’s gone.”

“And you’re sure?” Bryn stared at the hole in the roof.

“Yes.”

“Well, then.” Bryn pulled his rifle. “Let’s go find out where it went.”

Bryn jogged down the hall. Cedar followed.

Alun and Cadoc Madder were stationed in front of the broken windows on either side of the door, which was about to be pounded down.

Cadoc Madder shot grapeshot blasts into the faces of the unalives who were trying to clamber through the window to the left of the door.

“So nice of you gents to join us,” Alun yelled as he uncorked a bottle with his teeth and splashed it over the faces and hands of people trying to shove their way in through the window to the right of the door. The shutter was burned and busted into splinters on the floor at Alun’s feet, along with four or five unfortunate, and very dead, bodies.

“You find our Holder, Mr. Hunt?” he asked as he waved the burning kindling at the undead at the window, setting hair and skin on fire and sending them lurching back a step or two.

“Saw where it burned through the roof. It was here, landed here, likely a month ago.” Cedar strode over to Mae, who had Rose semi-awake and sitting and was trying to wrap a long strip of cloth around her chest to hold down a thick, wet-herb-smelling compress.

“See any indication of where it got off to?”

That tickling at the edge of Cedar’s hearing was still rising, growing louder, coming closer. A steam engine pushing hard. But not a train.

“No.” Cedar shot the man trying to wedge himself through the window near the stove.

“No idea at all?” Alun asked, taking aim with his shotgun and unbraining three people for his effort.

“Can it walk on its own?”

“It cannot,” Alun said.

“So someone took it,” Cedar said. “We get the women the hell away from Vicinity, then I’ll hunt it down.”

Mae finished buttoning Rose’s dress and pulled her coat closed. “The women can stand on their own feet.” She helped Rose up, and pulled her gun.

Rose looked ghastly pale, but she licked her lips and nodded. Mae’s attention had done her some good, but she certainly wasn’t up to fighting the undead mob outside.

“I don’t suppose you have a spell that might help us out, Mrs. Lindson?” Alun asked.

“No, Mr. Madder. Magic doesn’t work to harm people. Not even the undead.”

He laughed and madness rode the rise of it. “Oh, magic can do terrible harm, Widow Lindson. To dead and the living alike. But only in certain hands.”

“Bryn,” Cedar said, “did you see a back door?”

“Nothing by the cells.”

“Then we fight, make a path to the wagon,” Cedar said. “Mae, take Rose there near the desk. When I yell for you to run to the wagon with her, you do that.”

“Wagon’s unhitched,” Cadoc Madder said as he reloaded his gun, unconcerned about the undead hands scraping the air just inches in front of his face.

Cedar swore. He’d forgotten. If the women made it to the wagon, they couldn’t drive it safely out of here. And Rose couldn’t sit a saddle to ride out on her horse, even if the horses were unharmed.

“The Holder?” Alun asked again. “Are you sure you have no idea which general direction it got off to?”

Cedar knew, had known from the moment he touched the burned patch where the Holder had smoldered.

“East. It’s not near. Not within a day or two. But east. Now,” he said, “can we put our attention to getting through that mob?”

“With pleasure.” Alun unhooked the hammer from his belt and swung it with bone-breaking force.

The growl and steam of a matic, something big and coming closer, was so loud, Cedar almost couldn’t hear the screams and moans of the unalives.

He’d heard that sound before. Not lately. Not in the last few years. But he’d heard it. He just couldn’t place what sort of matic it came from.

The window over the stove broke and a woman crawled through. She stumbled across the room toward Rose and Mae.

Mae shot her clean in the head and the woman fell to the ground, twitching.

Cedar stepped up and fired another bullet into her brain.

The Strange that had been inhabiting her pulled up out of the body, a ghost with teeth where its eyes should have been. Insubstantial as fog, it clawed at Rose, but had no more effect on her than a cool breeze.

That was why the Strange wanted bodies. Crossing into this world, they were spirits with no form. They couldn’t hurt, couldn’t rightly touch the world around them, except for small nuisances—a bite or a pinch. But certainly nothing near to the damage a physical form could provide them.

“Let’s blast our way out of here, brothers,” Alun yelled. “Put these people to their rightful rest. Mr. Hunt, I suggest you get the women out and away from here. Far and fast as you can. We have ways to find you. You still have that chain we gave you?”

Cedar reached up and touched the necklace hanging around his neck. The Madders had told him it would keep the thoughts of a man in his head when the moon turned him to wolf. And it had done just that.

“I have it,” Cedar said. “I won’t leave you to these monsters.”

“Our paths divide here, Mr. Hunt. I am trusting you to do anything you must to see Rose gets medical attention, understand? We’ll find you no matter how far you roam. Believe in that.”

“But—,” Cedar started.

It was too late. Alun kicked the hinges off the door, which was already buckling with the press of bodies. Six people tumbled into the room and fell down flat.

Bryn and Cadoc shot them till they weren’t moving anymore.

Alun rushed out the door with a roar, swinging that big hammer of his, sending body parts flying like a man mowing down wheat.

The thrum of a steamer working hard poured in through the door.

“Nice working with you, Mr. Hunt,” Bryn yelled as he pushed his goggles over his eyes and pulled an ax out from under his coat. He followed his brother out into the night. “We’ll see you again real soon.”

“The Holder wants what Rose has,” Cadoc Madder said. “Remember that. The key.” He unhooked a wrench the size of a small child from off his back and strolled out after Bryn.

Cedar rushed to the door. The brothers smashed the undead with hammer, ax, and wrench, holding them off the building just enough for Cedar and the women to escape.

The wagon was turned on its side. No way out there. The horses were gone.

A racket of fans grew louder and a flash of light swept across the Madder brothers as they laughed and bashed their way through flesh and bone.

The light wasn’t coming from a low angle. It was coming from somewhere up high. The roof? Cedar leaned out a bit and looked up.

The entire night sky seemed to be filled with the bullet shape of an airship. Her fans were working to keep her steady, her nose up into the wind that gusted down from the hills surrounding the town. Lanterns held to what appeared to be mirrors were the source of the light.

And then a rope ladder dropped down, just a few paces from the door.

“Ho there, strangers!” a man’s voice called out. “This is the airship Swift. If you want a way out of that tussle, grab hold.”

Cedar glanced at the Madders.

“Go on!” Alun yelled. “Get Rose medical attention. We’ll find you!”

Running was not an option, not with Rose so wounded. No horses, no wagon. They might be jumping out of the griddle into the fire pit, but it was the only way out.

Cedar ducked back into the building. Mae was already helping Rose walk to the door.

“I’ll take her,” Cedar said, putting his arm around Rose. She leaned against him, weak and heavy, but still standing on her own. “Climb the ladder, Mae. We’ll be out of this soon.”

Mae glanced outside, and her mouth set in a determined line. She jogged for the ladder, which was now being held by a lean redheaded man standing on the ground. He had a pile of scarves around his neck and breathing gear hanging by one strap at his shoulder.

He steadied the ladder as best he could and Mae started climbing.

“I’m sorry for this, Miss Small,” Cedar said. “But I’m going to have to carry you.”

“My hero,” she whispered with a weak smile.

Cedar picked her up and made fast for the ladder. When the man holding the ladder caught sight of the two of them, he hollered up to the ship. By the time Cedar had reached the ladder a slinglike net had been lowered and the redheaded man held it ready.

“Put her here,” the man said. “We’ll pull her up.”

Cedar set Rose as gently as he could into the sling. She was already groggy from the run he’d taken, and breathing hard.

The man stuck his fingers to his teeth and whistled. Then he gave the rope a tug and the sling cranked upward.

“Up!” The man nodded at the ladder.

Cedar grabbed hold of the ropes and climbed. He glanced above him. Mae was nowhere to be seen, already having stepped into the ship.

“The others?” the man called up.

“Go!” Alun yelled. “Get on out of here!”

Cedar was a half dozen rungs up the ladder, and the man below started up, giving out another whistle.

The ship rose and the rope ladder shifted and swung, nearly clipping the edge of the building. It was dizzying, confusing. The night filled with a roar of fans above him, the yell and cry of the undead below, mixed with the hot stink of gunpowder and the Madders’ wild laughter. He thought one of the brothers, maybe Bryn, was singing.

In a night too black, in a town too alive for itself, beneath a ship that was built to ride the skies, not cherry-pick the earth, Cedar climbed.

Halfway up the ladder he suddenly remembered. Wil. He had left Wil behind.

His heart fisted like a lead weight and panic froze him in place.

“Problem?” the man below yelled.

“My brother’s down there,” Cedar said.

“Which one?” He looked over his shoulder to peer down through the darkness at the Madders.

“Not them,” Cedar said.

“Up.” The man pointed at the ship. “Up.”

He couldn’t go down unless he kicked the man in the face, and even then he wouldn’t be able to dismount the ladder without killing himself from this height, since all the while he’d been climbing, the ship had been climbing too. Cedar hauled himself up the ladder.

He’d make them land. He’d make them turn around. He wouldn’t lose Wil after just barely finding him again.

Cedar topped the ladder and strong hands grabbed hold of each arm, pulling him the rest of the way into the ship, leaving him kneeling on solid wood.

“Welcome to the Swift,” a man said. Yellow-haired, windburned, he looked to be in his twenties and built like he wouldn’t break a sweat wrestling a wild bull to the ground. “I’m Captain Hink. Whom do I have the pleasure of rescuing today?”