World ripper war mad tin.., p.8
World-Ripper War (Mad Tinker Chronicles Book 3), page 8
The view blurred through arched halls filled with humans as the kuduk tinker scanned for something besides lousy workmanship and stinking creatures. It was certainly a different building than the other seats of government he had stumbled through in his searching of Veydrus. There were offices filled with humans huddled behind desks, and humans waiting in lines to see them. It was similar to a Korrish bank or civic office. Many of the offices held small caches of coin at the ready, doling payments to the waiting humans or taking them in. It was all too small for Draksgollow’s vision of a raid. Upper floors proved even less interesting as there were fewer humans and even less loose coin stored.
The deep. Even humans were known to burrow a shallow layer or two beneath their larger buildings, and Draksgollow was not ready to give up on the structure until he’d seen whether they had a deep beneath it or not. Drifting the view frame down from the third floor like a disembodied lift, he found one.
The lower level of the structure was darker, lit by torches at regular intervals. Something seemed wrong about them. Draksgollow stopped twisting dials, and walked over to the view frame for a closer look.
“No smoke,” he muttered.
The lack of ventilation shafts had tickled some tinkering sense in his brain and pointed out the missing precaution when working with fume-spewing substances. The torches ought to have choked the halls in smoke for how many there were and how little chance for any of it to escape. Someone wanted the look of torches but without the unpleasant consequences. He squinted, but couldn’t make out any runes carved into either the wall or the torches themselves.
“Bloody free-runed aether-spewers,” he grumbled.
With a jitter in his aching hand, Draksgollow set himself back at the controls and followed a pair of humans carrying a strongbox. The sooner he found the vault where they stored their wealth, the sooner they could be gone. He would have been just as happy never discovering who aethered up those torches. It just was not worth the knowing. For a moment, he considered abandoning the search altogether, but then Draksgollow remembered his partner.
Kezudkan was a nuisance, too eager for gain and far too brave with kuduk lives on the line instead of his own. But the daruu was expecting profits, and if Draksgollow could not deliver them, Kezudkan would fine someone else who could. While he knew how to build the world-rippers, the crotchety old fossil was the only one who could tinker them into functioning properly; none of them ever worked when first assembled.
The humans in the viewing frame led Draksgollow down a layer farther—at least what passed for a layer among humans. The corridors were still lit by the same artificial torches, but guards were posted along the way, armed with bladed poles of the sort that had fallen into disuse in Korr along with the invention of black powder. Easy enough, as long as whoever does the torches isn’t around. There was every possibility that the torches were a legacy of a bygone age, kept up by aether-tenders such as he used in his own factory. There was also the chance that torch-making was a specialized skill, unrelated to the fiery mayhem that the human rune-thrower among Erefan’s rebels had wrought.
The humans with the strongbox ended their trek at an iron-bound door and were admitted by another pair of armed guards. Inside, a series of accountants of human persuasion sat piling coins and taking notes in ledgers. Promising, but not the bonanza Draksgollow hoped to find. Another door at the back of the room held more promise. Bypassing a formidable-looking lock, even for someone from Korr, Draksgollow slipped the view through to the room beyond. He grinned.
The room was filled with sturdy iron shelves, stacked with strongboxes identical to the one whose bearers Draksgollow had followed to the vault. “They even packed ‘em up for us.” He chuckled to himself, with no one else around to appreciate the comment.
Draksgollow was ready to round up his assault forces when something caught his eye—another door at the back.
The quick twist of a dial carried him through and into a larger chamber. Draksgollow’s jaw hung slack. He blinked to tell himself he was imagining what he saw, but there it was, still there after each blink. The chamber beyond the tidy little vault was the epitome of excess wealth. Mountains of gold coins formed a landscape fit for excavation. Draksgollow had been to open pit coal mines that were smaller. The chamber dropped away, forming a valley and looking like a proper Korrish deep layer. There was no telling how deep the piles plumbed below the surface. Colored sparkles caught the eye, as gemstones and craftwork trinkets mixed among the coinage. The wealth of that single room was incalculable.
It was not going to be a quick plundering. Not at all. There was no way they would remain undetected and take one one-hundredth of the wealth from the sea of gold. It was time to bring his army and cleanse the city of humans.
“Why is he going to rush into this?” Gederon asked. The young daruu stood at the viewing frame, face nearly pressed against the wire webwork concealed behind the image. “It’s not as if that much gold is going to wander away on him.”
“You see, Geddie? This is why I took you on. You’ve got a thinker in that head of yours, and not just a bunch of hot steam like Draksgollow.”
“Shouldn’t we warn him?”
Kezudkan chuckled. “Now who’s rushing into things? Let him try. As you said, it’s not as if the gold is going to sneak off on us. We’ll still know where it is. If Draksgollow fails, we’ll still have a chance for it.”
“There must be some formidable defense for the gold to have remained all that time.”
“I agree,” said Kezudkan. “I wouldn’t even be surprised if this world still had dragons.”
The view of the awe-inspiring cache was gone, replaced by the corridors of the human city’s deep. Thirty steam tanks and a hundred hired guns on foot stood ready to receive orders. Everything about them was new, shiny ... untested. The signs of military might from the humans were next to nil, but overkill was the best sort of precaution. A small group of field sergeants had been given instruction on how to handle any rune-throwers they might run into: Keep shooting until it stops moving, then put a couple more bullets into their heads. It was the best Draksgollow could think of.
“You lot are going through to clear out and take control of the building you will enter,” said Draksgollow. “If it’s human, shoot it. If you’re not sure, shoot it. I don’t want prisoners, and I don’t want escapees. No survivors. Understood?”
“YES, SIR.” The workshop echoed with the chorus of replies. Draksgollow felt a little shiver of power hearing so many kuduk soldiers obey him. Steam tanks rumbled as the drivers started their engines.
Draksgollow put a hand on the switch that would open the world hole. “On my mark ... FORWARD!” He threw the switch, and the view turned into a hole to Veydrus—and riches beyond measure.
The halls of the Royal Palace of Azzat filled with the sounds of gunfire, steam tank chains gouging into the stone floors and humans screaming. If the primitive human weapons could have even scratched the paint on the steam tanks, the drivers would never find out. Roto-gun fire hewed down guards like practice targets before they had a chance to get anywhere near the vehicles. There were bumps in the smooth stone of the corridor when the steam tanks crunched their bulk over human corpses.
The stairs were the most harrowing portion of the raid thus far, with the incline tilting the center of mass dangerously close to tipping as the steam tanks swarmed through the human structure. Drivers leaned forward in their seats and prayed to the manufacturers that they had kept the balance point low enough. But one by one each steam tank made its way without fail. The humans fought bravely, or at least presented themselves to be bravely turned into shredded meat. They shouted unintelligible battle cries, with fury in their eyes as they charged, pointy sticks against armored roto-gun vehicles, with predictable results.
The work was growing routine by the time the convoy of destruction reached the main floor. Preventing non-combatant escapees was promising to be the most difficult task the steam tanks would face.
The ground shook. Once might have been a coincidence, but it shook again and again in a rhythm too like footsteps to be anything else.
Drivers covered their ears as a roar thundered through the palace. The thing that made that horrid scream showed itself, stepping from a side corridor with a form forged from nightmares. It stood easily twice the height of a kuduk, dark as coal ash and made of wrinkled leather. Its head was a nest of horns; its eyes red with a dull glow to them. A wide mouth parted to show fangs like thunderail spikes, and its clawed hands resembled grappling hooks.
The creature spoke, dust falling from the stonework as its voice shook the building. Its words were meaningless, but their intent was clear and unwholesome. Roto-guns fired from all angles, from steam tank and foot soldier alike. The creature threw an arm up to shield its eyes, and faint blue flashes glimmered around its skin where bullets pelted it to no avail.
“Fall back! Keep firing! Fall back!”
The creature cocked its head. “You speak daruu,” it said.
The revelation was of some small curiosity to the fleeing forces. It was far less important, however, than escaping the monstrosity that shrugged aside bullets. As steam tanks backed away and spun on their chains to make their way back to the world hole, spark lanced from the creatures fingers, crackling through the steel vehicles and fusing control sticks, gears, and parts of their drivers as the heat of the unnatural spark melted the metal.
One driver, untouched by the spark assault, sped on his way, but the shaking floor behind him was his only warning before the creature grabbed the roof of his steam tank and lifted it from the ground. Chains clattered in the air as the machine fought to move with no purchase on the ground to make such motion possible. The gunner fired in a panic, but the roto-guns had no angle to aim at any part of the creature. With a snarl, it tore the guns away and threw them across the room. With its free hand, it plucked the driver free of the vehicle by his neck.
“What are you? You’re no daruu.”
“I’m ... kuduk,” the driver replied, gasping for breath.
“What was that?” the creature asked. It relaxed its grip from lethal to merely inescapable.
“Kuduk. I’m a kuduk.”
The creature put its face close and sniffed the driver. Its lip curled in a sneer. “Mixed blood. My children would never rut willingly with the stone folk. You are a foul creature indeed. Where have you come from? How did you get here?”
“Down ... down by the vaults, a hole between worlds.”
“Oh?” the creature’s voice still held a note of anger, but its curiosity sounded almost human. There was that lingering high pitch at the end that could be heard among the slaves, at least when they talked among themselves. “What world?”
“Korr,” the driver replied. It sounded ridiculous. The week before, he had never considered the possibility of other worlds. Now he was giving directions to an otherworldly creature.
“Let us see about this ‘hole’ of yours.”
The creature set off through the halls of the palace, still clutching the kuduk driver by the neck. When he noticed a few paces later that he had inadvertently snapped the kuduk’s neck, the creature let the body fall and kicked it aside.
Draksgollow sat back in his chair, the metallic fingers of his tinker’s hand massaging the muscles of his fleshy one. The last of his troops were through the world hole, and the first of the runners just coming back against the flow of foot and chain traffic.
The runner pressed himself against the corridor wall as the last steam tank drove past, then stepped through and into Korr. “No meaningful resistance, sir.”
“Good. Send the next runner back when you reach the main body. I want constant updates.”
The runner saluted and put his rifle over his shoulder as he hurried back through the world hole to Veydrus to catch up with his comrades. Draksgollow blew a long sigh as he found himself alone once more. Shouldn’t be long. First things first though. It was sorely tempting to start a crew plundering, but he wanted to be sure to clear the building first. Better to hold it as a defensive structure than worry about anyone coming upon their salvage crew directly. Caution. That was one of Kezudkan’s words, though he meant something different by it than most kuduks Draksgollow knew. The old daruu wanted things thought through, not rushed into half-assembled. His caution still allowed for using a machine in its technological infancy to conduct cross-world raids. Heeding the old daruu’s advice seemed to be paying dividends though. The human structure would be fully within his control before long and the vast treasure vaults free for the taking.
The first of the flood of soldiers quashed Draksgollow’s hopes. The distant sounds of gunfire and the gentle hum of far off steam tanks grumbling were drowned out by an awful bellow. Draksgollow had not been to a zoo since he was a boy, but he could recall no animal that could make such a noise, and he had seen no machine in Veydrus that held such a sound within it. His hired soldiers scrambled through the world hole with wide eyes and heaving chests. Most had their rifles, but not all had bothered bringing their weapons with them in flight.
“What’s going on out there?” Draksgollow demanded.
Heads shook. Shoulders shrugged. “I ain’t heard nothing like that before,” one soldier admitted. “Weren’t stayin’ to find out what it was.”
As more of his troops returned, including steam tanks that had backed their way down the corridors, Draksgollow plied his men for information, but nothing concrete was forthcoming. “I heard the order to retreat, so I did.” It was the best answer he got.
The sounds coming down the hallways were horrible. Kuduks screamed, the human screams having long since ended. Spark crackled. Metal smashed against stone. A tinker’s imagination held a variety of sounds and could piece them together into scenes of what might cause them. Draksgollow’s could put nothing together that allowed him to diagnose the situation.
One last soldier rounded the corner, blood slicked feet sliding out from under him. The soldier scrambled on hands and knees until he was able to regain his feet. Though the world-ripper insulated Draksgollow’s side from the vibrations in the floor, he could see the corridor floor shaking and heard the ram-piston footsteps approaching.
Draksgollow reached back for the switch to close the world-hole. The kuduk soldier still had several paces to make the world hole, and Draksgollow wanted to give the man a chance. When the creature came around the corner, Draksgollow’s guts clenched. It was a nightmare wrapped in flesh, the sort of creature meant to chase poor sleepers through a shadowed dreamscape, only to wake them screaming when its claws tore into their flesh. This creature was nothing imaginary. Its horns threatened to scrape the ceiling; its claws were drenched in blood; it was faster than the kuduk soldier but did not appear fast enough.
Draksgollow gritted his teeth, rooting silently for the soldier to make it through in time. The creature paused in its tracks when it saw the gathering on the Korrish side of the world hole.
“You will pay for my children’s lives,” it roared. Its hands came up, claws pointed through right for Draksgollow, or so it felt to the kuduk tinker.
The soldier was two paces from the aperture when Draksgollow opened the switch. The hole turned back into merely a view of a distant world. Flames poured silently from the creatures outstretched hands—if those clawed appendages could even be called such—and tore down the corridor. Draksgollow and the few kuduk troops who had made it back to Korr looked on in horror as the stranded soldier was burnt to cinders before their eyes.
There were sighs of relief, and a few kuduks collapsed in fear-soaked exhaustion. Draksgollow let out a shuddering breath that he had not realized he was holding. His hands shook as he wiped a sleeve across his sweating brow.
Through the viewing frame, the creature looked all around. Kuduks backed away from the world-ripper frame as it stepped right up to the view and stood staring. Its reddened pits that passed for eyes did not betray where its gaze fell, so everyone imagined it was looking straight at them, individually. Draksgollow gave one of the control knobs a quick twist, and the view pulled back a few paces down the corridor.
The creature stepped forward.
In the air before it, letters appeared, clear as a spectacle lens and in impeccable Korrish script. Each glowed an angry red as if scorched into the very air itself.
I am Xizix, and you have killed my children. I lust for your deaths, daruu mongrels.
Draksgollow pulled another switch, and the image disappeared. Veydrus was hidden from them once more.
“What was that?” Gederon asked, pointing through to the scene of Draksgollow’s workshop in the wake of the creature’s message.
Kezudkan chuckled. “It was a life lesson in caution, patience, and looking a bit harder for the guardian of a pile of gold that size. Draksgollow’s lucky to come out of that alive.”
“But we still know where the treasure is, right?”
“Sit,” Kezudkan ordered. Gederon complied, fixing his grandfather with an eager look. “Have you any idea how to deal with a creature like that? Didn’t think so. Well, I don’t either, and unless that changes, we look to yellower veins. Hmm ... maybe not yellower—doubt we’ll ever find a vein that rich again—but certainly something less likely to get us all killed. No, I took something much more important from that little message.”
“What’s that?”
“We’ve got kin in that world somewhere. That creature knew of our kind. Might be worth our while finding out where they are.”
Chapter 9
“You can tell a real tinker when he doesn’t wash his hands before a meal. He’s got grease in his blood, what’s a little more in his stomach?” -Cadmus Errol
