NaNo 2

It wasn’t any cooler once the train was under way and travelling at speed above the rocky ash clogged dunes of The Barrens. in fact in many ways it was much worse, turning the dry heat of the desert into a turbine gale of a screaming blast furnace. And for the three Rishlander’s secured to the roof of the fourth train car from the back, it was a less than pleasant experience. There wasn’t even a consolation prize in the spectacular view of the Barrens that was being offered to them.

The Barren’s were aptly named. It was an expanse of grey and tan dunes punctuated by the occasional jagged black outcropping of rock. And the dunes themselves were less sand than moulds of wind blown ashes that had, through spite no doubt, refused to decay into nothingness. It was as though the entire scar of tortured ground was fueled by a malevolent hatred that just kept it sustained. Even the sky above, tinged blue and grey with high clouds streaked with black high lights, looked anemic and drained of life. And speaking of life, what little could eek out some sort of existence among the sun baked and ash choked dunes, had become twisted and ‘wrong’.

The Barrens was not only a corruption on the land, but it worked its way into the soul and body of any living thing that ventured too long into its domain. For most it was death, their bodies riddled with the vile corruptions and pustules. But for the most hardy, or perhaps the already inwardly twisted, the Barrens bestowed upon them a boon. For the animals and beasts it was a arms race of scales and claws and poisonous secretions. But the Barrens did not care to differentiate between man and mouse, and in the former it found ways to not only twisted the body but also the mind. How many Inlander slaves had been lost to roving bands of cannibals, and worse, whilst the great railroad was built from one side of the world to the other? How many more still roved the dunes and rocky crags in search of a meal, or a new convert to their way of life?

These were not the sort of thoughts a Rishian Overlander should carry in their mind on the verge of battle, and yet Remas was a man who prided himself both on his physical prowess and cerebral acuity. An ideal warrior should not ask too many questions, for too many answers might still their hand at the crux point. But a leader, of which Remas was fairly certain he was destined to be, was assured victory with every question raised against the foe of his mysteries.

Shamus, on the other hand…

“Can we get moving now?” groused the younger Rish through the mouth clinging breathing mask they all had to wear. The air of the Barrens was breathable, to a point, but still better to avoid it if at all possible. Remas began to open his mouth, but was cut off as Shamus continued on “I mean I get it, rightly I do: distance from Meridian is a sure fire way to ensure we have less of a threat to deal with from reinforcements. But we got to be far enough away by now!”

He was shouting, but with the roar of the trains passage screaming past their hiding spot in the shadow of one of the rattling overhead rail supports, his words got only a few feet before vanishing.

“Another hour!” Remas snapped before the red headed Intelligence officer could open his trap and make a hash of the plan. He glowered at his brother, hoping the look suggested to him that patience was more of a virtue than not. From the look he got back in return perhaps the glower just made him look gasy “We want the troopers on the train to be right tired and full of confidence in a nice quiet train ride back into the heart of the Empire. After all who in their right mind would try to rob a train heading into the Inland Empire, with a whole garrisons forth of their troops riding herd on it?”

“We’d have been able to intercept the target sooner, before it got on the blasted train if you’d not gotten us embroiled in that business in Boston!” snarled the Intelligence officer, obviously feeling the effects of the heat more than the others. All Remas could do at the recalled memory of Boston Citadel, one of the few remaining free port cities on the Shattered East Coast, was smile like a loon. They’d used Boston at their entry into the broken realm of nations that made up the backyard of the Inland Empire. Of course in entering the pot the two Rishian brothers and their red headed tag along had run headlong into a plot involving coffee beans, a disgraced Scillian noble and his...voluptuous and ever thankful daughter. The fact said daughter had come with a free set of poisoned daggers and a penchant for assassination hadn’t stopped the Brothers Rish from enjoying their Boston holiday.

It had been downright relaxing compared to boarding a armoured military train filled with folks with a burning desire not to disappoint their betters. Inlander’s were not known for being the forgiving sort.

“Ahh, but we’d have never have gotten a good cup of coffee out of that business if we hadn’t, now would we?” Remas grinned before giving his brother a nod. Shamus nodded back, before reaching down to his belt and the clockwork climbing rig attached there. From the large and cumbersome buckle stretched out glossy black cables, each one ending not in a hook or spike but simply fattening out into a teardrop. What ever the fattened tip of the line struck it stuck fast to, allowing the climber to ascend spider like. Of course how the device knew which direction the climber intended to follow had not been made clear to Remas and his kin. But considering such devious cleverness was beyond the keen of even his countrymen’s finest artificers, the elder McDonald would have bet a golden sovereign this mission had the tacit approval of the Iron People.

With little wisping noises the climbing rig undid itself from the rail support, and slowly moved Shamus out from cover and began to process of edging him slowly up along the trains back. He did this whilst lying on his back, arms held across his chest to hold tightly to the cloth wrapped bundle in his arms as the gale of blistering win tore with fresh zeal at him.

“Where’d he going?!” Snapped the intelligence officer.

“Sightseeing tour.” Remas replied dryly as his brother feet vanished from view “Need to get him into position before we can do anything else today.”

“I’ll need both of you present when we make our play for the caulk! Thats the only reason who two are here in the first place!”

“Aye, and ain’t I wondering what it is me and mine are up to here? Secrecy I can get, but the woefully stupid I have little time for.” Remas growled back “We make a grab for the box those black armoured sods were guarding, we’ll have the entire trains worth of Inlander’s lining up to fillet us like a sunday roast. Shamus is going to assure me of the fact we’ll have less to deal with in our future venture.”

“How?”

“Not a clue.” Remas grinned, and reached for his own climbing rig “But I’m sure it’ll be suitable pyrotechnic. Now lets get a move on.”

+++

Shamus had to admit that he’d never have expected to see a desert in his lifetime. Then again what son of a frozen snow bound land would ever think that there was a place in world where there was nothing but sand and heat as far as the eye could see? Boggled the mind it did, but Shamus wasn’t known for his big picture thinking. That was his brothers preferred realm of excellence, where as Shamus’s was more geared towards blowing stuff up.

He also ran with scissors pretty well to.

On his person, either tucked into his belt and harness or secured by other means, was a small arsenal. A trio of throwing knives weighted to his exacting specifications by an artificer who took payment in stories but not coins, a sword that was all but hilt at the moment, and on either hip a pair of tri barrel pistols hot loaded with bouncers: the ideal round for turning a fellow into red jelly if he was daft enough to wear metal armor. And in this heat the armor was worn by the daft and the fanatic, which in this case fit his future targets beautifully. He also had a half dozen fabric baggies in a pouch, each one colour coded with a different variety of calamity inside.

Those baggies were a device of his own design, and right proud he was of them too. He hadn;t come up with a name for them yet, but he was sure a name would come to mind on this day. Today had a sense to it of being quite memorable.

But his crowning achievement, as a man of arms and all that, was the cloth wrapped beauty he held close to his chest as he might one day hold a babe. This item was not something he had made himself, or even something crafted by wily artificers and technologists of clever intent. Sure the armories of the Kingdom of Rish might churn out some of these most advanced contemporary weapons of the age, the tri barrel pistols at his side being a prime example, but sometimes newer wasn’t better.

How ever the climbing rig knew, it spooled out enough of he glossy cable to allow him to kneel up, and lean over the edge of the train car he and his brother had secured himself to. Between this car and the next was a small rattling bridge of slotted metal and chain, and below that was the fifty foot drop to the dusty plain whipping by below. What was also down there, stood on the near side of the chain bridge, was an Inlander trooper.

Dressed pleated leather armour dyed the colour of reddest blood, the man had removed his helmet and placed it between his feet. Sweat glistened off the dome of his bald head, and the gruff looking fellow sucked down greedily on the blazing tip of a cherot leaf clamped between stained lips. He was just a soldier doing his duty by his liege, and Shamus knew that his brother would fret and worry about fighting a honourable man that was doing the same work as he was at cross purposes.

Shamus’s mental landscape was a lot less cluttered by philosophy: enemy sighted, remove enemy, tea and biscuits for afters.

He made another glance around the between cars area, and saw what he needed to see: connecting both the top and bottom of the train cars were a pair of thick hooked chains that pulled the rear car forward behind its fellow. The top chain, the small chain bridge, and the lower connecting chain were all lined up as though purposefully built to provide a easy target.

He now stood up, the climbing rig holding him fast to the trains roof as the wind tore at him. he carefully brought the cloth wrapped parcel around, placing the padded end against his shoulder and pointing the narrower end towards the topmost chain in a line straight down. He could have pulled the trigger then, been done and over and on hi way back to his brother and the emancipated intelligence officer. But something in Shamus, lets call it the McDonald gene, decided to prop a thought into his head.

“Hey!...HEY!!” Shamus had to shout to be heard over the howl of the wind and the rattling of the train’s passage, but eventually the Inlander’s head snapped up. For a second he stood there, dumbstruck as a smacked man in black leaned over the side of the train and pointed a bag at him. Shamus grinned “How are ya?”

He pulled the trigger.

There wasn’t any recoil to speak of, and he’d long ago trained his body to take a long blink the same instance his finger pulled back far enough to break the trigger. Yet every time Curtana screamed at the world, he could see a brilliant glare of green light burning through the skin of his eye lids. When his eyes opened after the blink, the chains, bridge and Inlander were gone. Red hot metal was all that remained of the chains anchor points, and ever so slowly a device was opening between the powered front half of the train and the now coasting rear.

“Well that went-”

Shamus was about to finish speaking to himself, when the door under his feet slide aside, and a Inlander stepped out to see what the flash of light was all about. With the two halfs of the train still close enough to shield against the wind, nothing pushed back on the red armoured trooper. Of course with nothing under his feet when he stepped out, there wasn’t much going for the poor sod than inertia and gravity. The guy screamed like a Wilhelm he had known in his training days, falling down and then snapping back and away as the wind snatched him.

“-not great, but not bad either.”

He slid the blackened cloth draped item back across his chest, the metal of its construction icy cold even after such a fiery exclamation. No doubt once the day was done Curtana would have warmed up to him, she always did eventually.