Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

have to stop to check the pressure of the steam, the temperature of the furnace.
    “They’re coming,” David said.
    No alarm yet, but the engine had woken someone. A man strode across the clearing.
    Annika hauled back the lift lever. The troll rose smoothly, still on all fours. So beautiful. The right foreleg grip didn’t perfectly fit her fingers, the leather worn down by a century of women, but the pulley wheel didn’t squeak.
    The troll jolted forward a step. A thunk sounded on the floor behind her. David swore.
    “Sorry.” But she’d told him to hold on. “She’s strong. Stronger than mine. It might take me a few seconds to adjust.”
    Laughing now, he climbed onto the ladder again. His fingers wrapped securely around the top rung. “I’m ready this time.”
    Annika eased her forward with small steps. The man in the clearing stopped, waving his arms and shouting at them—probably thinking that someone had taken a few drinks before crawling inside. That was usually why the trolls at home went on unexpected walks.
    The troll’s nose touched the flank of the second machine. “We need to name her,” Annika said, slowly pushing down on the stomper.
    Silence was David’s only response. She glanced back. He wore a stunned expression, watching through the eye louvers as the giant machine toppled over. Steel shrieked. Even over the huffing of their engine, the crash was deafening.
    “Jesus,” he breathed.
    Annika turned toward the second troll. In the clearing, the man raced forward, probably hoping to reach her before she pushed it over. A toppled troll was almost impossible to lift to its feet again without another to pull it up.
    “I’m so sorry,” she said, setting her nose against the machine’s hip.
    “For what? This is incredible!”
    “I was saying it to the troll.” Perhaps it did seem odd. “I grew up with them. They all have quirks, personalities—or they seem to. Some don’t like to work in the cold. Some are terrible in the heat, or after crossing a river. Some will quit for no reason, then you’ve got to coax them and oil every inch until they start again, or there’s some setting that has to be perfect, and that setting is never the same on another troll. What I’m doing now is awful.”
    Absolutely nothing like killing the watchman must have been,but still difficult. She winced as the leg buckled, then headed for the two-seaters. She didn’t need to tip the balloons. One step crushed the frame.
    More men surrounded them now, all shouting, waving their arms, then racing out of the way as she turned to crush the next two-seater.
    “Go now, Annika,” David said.
    Yes. The tenor of the men’s shouts had abruptly changed. Perhaps they’d thought the driver was drunk, but not now. They must have found the watchman’s body. “The airship?”
    “Leave it. Go before they get their rail cannon up.”
    God. Had they fired their engines? Annika yanked the head pulley, rocked back to look. The vents were still open. They’d need at least ten minutes before the engines were ready, and several more before an electrical generator could power the cannon.
    “That’s di Fiore at the rail,” David said, and she saw the man looking over, silhouetted by the lamps on deck. “Observing it all.”
    They wouldn’t give him any more to see. Annika hauled the troll around, pumped her legs. Men leapt out of her way. The troll moved easily, working up to a smooth gallop by the time she turned her toward the shoreline.
    “Do you know where we’re going?”
    No idea. “To the ocean, and along the beach as far as we can. We can go faster on the sand, and if the snow keeps up, they won’t be able to see us or follow us as well.”
    “Can you see?”
    Through the dark and snow?
    “I’ll need…a bit…of help.” She huffed as hard as the engine, arms and legs pulling and pushing in time with the troll’s. Oh, she felt those four years now. She’d become soft. Stoking an engine was nothing compared to this. “Look…for boulders.”
    “Like watching for icebergs?”
    “Yes.” A stitch formed in her side. The flatbread she’d wolfed down felt like a rock in her stomach. She just had to push past it.
    Down to the beach, to the edge of the waves, where the tide erased the snow as quickly as it fell—and would erase their tracks, too. Chunks of ice littered the black sand. Which way to go? They needed to head toward Vik, but she didn’t know whether the camp lay east or west of that