"Huh. That's interesting. Worrying," I said as I stuffed the diary into Skids' backpack. There wasn't space for it in my handbag. "But not helpful right now. I'll have to look into that later, once all this is over."
"Do you think you will get to have an 'after'?" Timothy asked, his words soft and light. I could only hear him over the sound of the wheels because we had to stand so close together to fit in the cabin.
"I'll cross that switch if I come to it," I said, choosing my words intentionally. "Funny how I can never get away from the railway. This started with Skids messing up the railway, we fled on a train, then ended up on the sprinter in the night, and when I finally left the track to enter the mage hive, what did we travel into the depths on? On rails, that's what. Then we raced all the way back to Forrester's crossing along the tracks. And the next day, once we were finally clear of the rails, in Nearton's Bend where there are no rails, we soon found ourselves hurrying back onto them. And now here we are."
"There's not much other way to get around," said Gabian, who was still in charge of managing the train's speed.
"I took a more direct overland route to Forrester's Crossing from Wonambi, City of Darkness, City of Magic, where the blind fish stares and the water spouts," Skids said. "Anyhow, about those demons..."
"I really don't know," I admitted. "Unless that weapon is fast enough to take them all out."
"Only if they were going slower. Or we were moving along fast enough that they were closing slower. But we can't aim at them when they're moving. Well we can't aim at them at all yet. They're gradually getting closer to the rails, as our paths are converging on Forrester's Crossing."
"See if you can work out exactly when the nearest point is that we could possibly reach them," I ordered. "I'll... I don't know. I can hardly see straight. Well technically..."
"Hmm?" Timothy's question was so small, so mildly uttered, but had a huge answer.
"Have you noticed my eyepatch?" I asked, pulling my goggles up to my forehead. Outwardly I was preparing to reveal the truth of how I had been marred. Inwardly, I was preparing myself for whatever response I received from the man beside me. I did not fully comprehend why, but I felt the need to share this with him. I could not hide it any longer, however it turned out.
"Er, I have. An injury from the whole... fire business? I do hope to the Maker it's not too... Oh." He'd realised what was happening. I heard his voice fall, but it was too dark to see his expression without my goggles' help.
"Oh indeed," I agreed. "It's gone. Entirely. Do... you want to see it? Uh, I mean I have a glass eye now." That came out less confidently than I'd hoped.
"...Yes!" Timothy said after the briefest moment. I hoped it was solely to make sure he was saying the right word. "If you do not mind showing it," he added after further consideration.
I lifted the eyepatch.
He leaned a little closer. "How badly does it hurt?"
"It mostly feels wrong. Uncomfortable. Strange. And sore in parts, but I'm sore pretty much everywhere, so that's... normal." I carefully put the patch and goggles back in their places.
Gabian grunted, reminding us of his presence. "Fine pair you two make."
I saw Timothy's lips twist into a scowl. "Our injuries are hardly comparable. I can manage well enough with my hook, but to lose one's Maker-given sight is a very deep loss indeed."
He was right about that, but I wasn't so sure that I would willingly give up a hand to have my eye restored. I felt I could 'manage alright' with reduced vision, but reduced touch and grasping... And of course the mage gloves. Could mages work magic with only one hand? "Thank you. But... um, we do... Well it is interesting, the two of us out of everyone, being the ones on a mission to fight demons."
"It's the sort of thing no one would have believed if someone had predicted it. Can you imagine?" He put on a sonorous voice like a cleric making a proclamation. "And behold, the woman with one eye and the man with one hand will travel ahead of the demon scourge!"
"And they will take with them a weapon on rails, but will lack any effective plan!" I added in kind.
"It will come to pass after a great festival is ruined when a worker of darkness visits from the depths, causing damage to the railway, and yet that same walker of the night will accompany them as a friend, seeking to protect and not destroy," Skids put in.
We shared a much needed chuckle at that.
"What exactly happened that night?" Timothy asked, sounding curious. "I only heard the barest facts, no real details."
"I can tell the story, if you like. The demons won't be close enough to the tracks for about forty minutes, not that we could actually fire on them with the weapon pointed back the way we came from. They came close to passing us while we were taking the crossbowmen aboard the weapon wagon, but we've pulled ahead again."
Forty minutes seemed like a lot. I knew it would fly past faster than the dim landscape outside the train, like something immaterial I could not at all engage with before it was vanishing behind me. "Might as well. That will help me stay awake and thinking about the railway," I said.
"So it started when Charity gave me directions to the blacksmith. I walked on into Forrester's Crossing because my spinnerbike needed repairs. I'd bent the front fork trying to do a stunt—"
"Hey, you told me you ran into a rock hidden in the grass!"
"Um... So there was a smallish steam engine pushing some log wagons—"
"A LEML-1212," I put in.
"—and I was watching from up higher, on the street, when someone noticed me, got distracted, and signalled wrong for the switch to be thrown, while a wagon was going over it. So that wagon ended up half on one track and half on the other track, and it was detached—"
"Plus the automatic brakes weren't working," I added.
"—so that left it going sideways right for the bridge support. It would have taken out the bridge — which I was standing on — and no one else had been able to stop it, so I had to do something. There was something oddly familiar about the situation, as though it has happened to me before, but not to me. Like a memory of another life? I somehow knew I had to throw something down onto the wagon, so I realised I could—"
I had only been half listening to that last part. "I've got it!"
Everyone stared at me. Even Gabian turned and stared.
"Sorry to interrupt, but you just gave me an idea."
"That's far more important than my story. Out with it!" I imagined Skids was rolling dro's eyes behind dro's goggles.
"Right, of course. We need to aim sideways, right?"
"Yeah, so how... Ohhhhhh! That's clever!" Skids said, quickly seeing my plan.
"What are you two... Really? Will that work?" Timothy asked, also catching on fast.
Gabian grunted again. "What fool idea have you folks got into your heads this time?"
"It's really quite simple," I said.
"Doubtful."
"We put the back end of the weapon wagon on the other track, so it's pointing towards the demons. Where's the nearest crossover switch to the point where they get in range? No, we need to recalculate for the angle. How far apart are the bogies?"
"You cannot be serious."
We said nothing.
"You are serious!" Gabian considered the idea for several long seconds. "That section of track is straight and level and we will not be going very fast. It could work."
"It has to work!" I said, encouragingly. Or perhaps overzealously. "Skids, can we take them out in a single column?"
"Yes!" Skids said with clear pride. "There was a lot of redundancy in the... To keep it short, I have it rigged up to hit a much wider area now. We can take them all out, no problem. Unless they break formation and run away, but there's no avoiding that whatever our plan."
"Good," I said. "Better to take them out in one pass rather than give half of them time to get much closer to the city."
"A second pass would require us — and the weapon across multiple tracks — to go faster than the demons," Gabian added. "Technically we could do it, but it would be a huge risk. Too much extra force in the wrong direction and we could be blown into the sky to meet the Maker. Or just get badly crushed if we're very very blessed."
"Noted," I said. "So we better not miss any on the first pass. So we must work out the exact details and be ready to deal with any variations."
A couple of minutes later — actually it was over an hour, but it felt like mere minutes — everything was in place. The weapon was behind us, now straddling the two tracks diagonally. The railway had been constructed and maintained to the exacting standards of the Codex, so there was nothing to worry about on that front. We had fired a few test shots to confirm the range, spread, and overlap. Skids had carefully tracked the demons' velocity and I had calculated our exact required speed. Gabian had worked out the required steam pressures and arrangement of various levers, and had explained it all to Timothy in case he had to take over. The crossbowmen from Exaltation were perched atop the weapon, ready to finish off any demons that may survive the weapon's ravages.
Dawn was approaching, but no glimmer from the sun was yet visible on the horizon. This would be over one way or the other before we saw first light.
"That's as ready as we can be," I said to Skids and Timothy. We were standing in a little huddle a short distance from the tracks, beside the waiting train. "It's time we took our positions."
"In case this does not..." Timothy began to say. "No, forget that. It's been an honour to meet you, Miss Charity Wilison, and even in the middle of the night you have been a light. So regardless of what happens, I should like to hug you now."
"Er, yes. We should do exactly that. I mean I'd like it too."
I did like it.
"Um, Skids, it was an honour to meet you too," Timothy said once we had disentangled ourselves. "Thank you for everything you have done for Charity and for her home. You are one of the best people I have known. Though not the best mage." He extended his hand for Skids to shake.
"Really? Who was better?" Skids asked, intrigued. Dro accepted his hand and gave it a solid pump.
"Not answering tha— Yeowch!" Timothy ripped his hand away from Skids' aetherfied glove. "What was that for?"
"You know why," dro answered, along with a chuckle, in which I shared. "So Charity, am I the best mage you know?"
"Yes, but I'm not shaking your hand!"
"Why no— Ooof!" Despite my smaller size, my surprise hug knocked the wind out of drome.
"Thanks, for everything," I said softly, just for Skids to hear. "This had better work. This had better not be our final parting!"
"You're standing on my feet."
I released the hug. "Sorry. Well, I'll see you later."
Skids nodded. "Yeah." Dro walked over to the weapon and climbed aboard. Dro would be serving as an extra pair of eyes, and would be ready to make repairs in case anything went wrong. I was still surprised with how well dro seemed to understand the weapon, but that was something to ask about when all this was over.
Timothy and I walked together to the engine. He joined Gabian inside, but I climbed on top of the cabin. I sat backwards so I could easily see the demons, and braced myself with my feet so my hands were free. I had commandeered a spare crossbow from the Exaltation squad. "I'm in place," I said to Skids and Timothy through the helmet ventril. "I've got everything and... Wait, what's this?" A metal ball the size of my fist was clipped onto the strap of my handbag. "Skids, did you give me your ABAM?"
"Yeah, it was getting in the way, and someone stuck a diary in my pack."
"Sorry about that. Is everyone ready? I think I can see the demons approaching."
Everyone was ready, and we quickly confirmed that the demons were approaching, and were exactly where we expected. It was time for action.
The plan ran smoothly at first. The train reached the optimal speed, the demons scuttled into range, and the weapon began firing at the right moment. Its projectile impacted the ground in front of the lead elements of the column. The closest demons were torn by shrapnel, pummeled by pressure, struck by holy lightning, and suffocated by mephitic air, all at once. The parts of the creatures that were driven by infernal magics ceased to function. The more fleshy parts rapidly gave up on their unnatural half life. The demon mass squirmed forward. The next projectile was already on its way.
"It's working," I reported, in case it wasn't obvious to everyone. I had to yell to be heard over the crack of the weapon firing, the boom of the impacts, and the sizzling and shrieking of lightning-cooked demon beasts. That was all on top of the chugging of the steam engine and the clattering of the wheels, which was enhanced by the extra rasp of tortured metal on metal as the diagonal wagon continually tried and failed to swing back to being directly behind the engine where the laws of physics would have preferred it to stay. Fortunately, all that was more than enough to drown out the creepy sound of demon steps.
In the continual repetition, time seemed to stand still. The same process occurred over and over again, beating a rhythm into my brain. There were a few small variations as the demons were occasionally slowed by the terrain — or the damage to the terrain — and at other times surge forward faster. Gabian expertly dealt with these changes, and the Exaltation crossbows made an end of the very few demons that made it through the carnage, none of them entirely unscathed. Even those changes were not enough to make me properly feel the passage of time, as everything blurred together in my sleep-deprived mind.
A voice pulled me out of my stupor. Skids, through the ventril, barely audible over the sound of the weapon chewing up the landscape. "...more than halfway!"
That didn't seem right, but I was unsure whether I thought we should have achieved more or less than that amount. "Good! Any problems?"
"No trouble! ...like it was designed for this!"
"Great!" I decided not to say any more. It hurt to yell, was an unnecessary distraction, and I didn't want to rejoice too s...
The weapon missed a beat.
"What was that?"
One fewer projectile landed than expected, leaving a gap in the carnage.
Skids reply was frantic. "Just a moment!"
The weapon missed another beat. Gabian increased our speed to try to pull the gaps closed, but it didn't help for long.
"What's happening back there, Skids?"
"We have a big problem!"
The weapon missed three beats.
"I can see that!"
"It's out of power!"
The weapon missed enough beats that I doubted it would fire again.
"You mean it's out of steam?" I asked, now not needing to yell so much.
"No! It's out of aether!"