Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

place, matching the vision of his left eye to his right. At the steamcoach, Dooley fluttered about until the stevedores carefully set the dogs’ crate on the cargo lift platform.
    Goltzius frowned. “Are they so fragile?”
    “No.” David’s equipment for measuring ground tremors and their surveyors’ tools were more likely to be damaged than those dogs—and a good thing, too. Iceland was green for a good portion of the year but earned its name in winter; those dogs were invaluable in the snow and over the glaciers they planned to survey. When spring came, they only had to roll the sled’s runners into wheels, and the dogs would still be useful. “They wouldn’t be any good to us if they couldn’t survive a fall or two. But listen to Dooley, and he’d have you believe they had brains instead of gears, and that they’d cry over pebbles in their paws or shiver in the snow.”
    “I hear that, Kentewess!” Shaking his head, Dooley rejoinedthem. “And agree with every word. You tell me now, young man: What difficulty would it have been for the blacksmiths to put a fur coat over their bare metal bones?”
    “How could they, when most of the fur left in New Leiden already went into your hat?” As the older man snorted, David looked to Goltzius. “The first snowstorm, he’ll toss us out of the tent to make room for those dogs.”
    “You striplings will be better off outside than those pitiful mongrels would. They don’t have any heat to share, whereas all you’ve got to do is shuck your clothing and snuggle up together.”
    Goltzius’s mild alarm over that statement changed into determined humor. He sized up David with a glance. “I did come looking for adventure.”
    David grinned. With a response like that, there was no doubt the young man would fit right in during these next few months.
    The huff and rattle of another steamcoach drowned out Dooley’s reply. A man of average size emerged, tipping his felt hat forward against the drizzle and buckling a brown shearling topcoat. In the crook of his arm he carried a polished walking stick with a silver wolf’s head. Chips of amber glittered in the eyes.
    Dooley turned away, his lips pursing. In an aside to David, he said, “Now there’s a fancy one.”
    God forbid that a man ever possess money, unless he also supported the Society with it. But David had to suppress the ribbing that Dooley deserved—the gentleman approached them with an easy stride, his stick apparently just for show.
    Dooley’s mouth flattened, his immediate dislike firmly set.
    Until, with an amiable smile, the man said, “I believe it’s three Society men that I’m seeing, yes?”
    His accent immediately marked him. Dooley gave a wide grin, extending his hand. “It is. And a fellow countryman to me, I hear.”
    “Sure I am.” His smile widened, and he eagerly pumped Dooley’shand, his as dark as the other was pale. “Komlan, of Monaghan and the town itself. And you’re a western man?”
    “I am. Patrick Dooley, of Ballyduff. Standing here with me are my colleagues David Kentewess and Regnier Goltzius—though neither one had the same fortune to be birthed on God’s own favorite land.”
    “Upon such a happy meeting, even that sorry failing of character can be forgiven.” As Dooley laughed, Komlan glanced over at the supply crates loaded on the lift. “Are you to Iceland, then, or on to Norway?”
    “Iceland and the town of Vik, to begin.”
    “On the southern rim? I know it. We’ve men working west of there, laying rail from Smoke Cove to Höfn. Eventually, it will run through Vik, as well.”
    “Rail for a locomotive?” Goltzius frowned when Komlan nodded. “To what purpose?”
    David wondered the same. A century before, in the years following an eight-month fissure eruption, the Mist Terrors decimated livestock and crops. Ash fell in thick layers over the land, and toxic volcanic gases poisoned half the island’s inhabitants. The remaining population had been forced to flee or face starvation. Except for a few ports and fishing villages, Iceland had been abandoned for a hundred years. A locomotive around the southern rim of the island wouldn’t serve any purpose that an airship or a boat couldn’t provide more quickly or more cheaply.
    “For the purpose of providing work, lad,” Komlan said.
    A shout from the airship stopped Goltzius’s response. They all glanced up, then over at the cargo lift, where a stevedore waited. “The coach is empty, sirs.