Read Steamscape for Free Online

They’ll stop chasing you.
    “Shut up! Shut up!”
    “What?” Solindra glanced behind them. “I’m here to help you. We need to hide.”
    “Help me?” He blinked in confusion.
    She sprinted ahead, her gaze buried deep into the back of an alley. “There!”
    They charged ahead into the darkness. Their footsteps suddenly surrounded them, echoing off the high walls.
    Another backstreet corkscrewed away in the middle of this alley. Theo grabbed the girl’s shoulder and tugged. She burped a yelp of panic.
    “Don’t! I guess I’m saving you instead.” He stuck his finger in her face. She went cross-eyed, and he felt himself tipping forward into the silver, steam-colored orbs. He had never seen eyes like that before. For just an instant, their grayness brightened and he saw all the colors of the prism, just like the aether bands in the sky.
    He shook himself free and yanked her down the curving, ever narrowing alley. “Just don’t.” After two corners they came to a thick, iron gate. He crouched down. Unlike most things that had been made before the war, this one wasn’t all curving patterns and stained glass. It was a simple gate, meant to bar unsolicited passage.
    She knelt beside him, shivering like a beggar in a blizzard.
    The thundering of boots echoed around the curving corners. The girl flinched. Theo did too, and immediately started brushing off his soot-stained sleeves to hide the action. The footsteps didn’t grow any louder.
    After a moment, he exhaled. He cocked a seamless salesman’s smile at her. “What crime did you commit?”
    She just shook her head and replaced her hands over her ears.
    He held up his hands and widened his smile. “I won’t squeal, I promise.”
    “Home,” the girl muttered. “I was trying to do the right thing, but I want to go home. But Dad’s no there, so it hasn’t been home in awhile.”
    “What? Where are you from?”
    “The mountain.”
    “Which mountain? There are hundreds between here and Codic alone.”
    She shook her head and rolled against the wall.
    Theo sighed and leaned back against the gate. He rubbed his face with his dirty hands, only smearing the sweat and grime.
    “Ah ha! Trying to escape, eh? Well, you should have kept running!”
    Theo and Solindra whirled.
    Five soldiers pointed their rifles at them from behind the gate. The one in front smirked.
    The chubby trooper waved his gun at them. “How the hell did they get over it?”
    Another one fumbled with his keys and then yanked open the gate. Theo jumped to run, but the leader of the soldiers slammed his shoulder with the butt of his rifle.
    He smashed face first into a wall. Two more guards grabbed his arms. Another seized Solindra. “Jing! Drina! Jing! Drina! ”
    She let her feet go limp, but the soldier just dragged her along as the guards hauled them both into the train yard.
    After a few minutes, the engine began to chug and wheels started to roll. The whistle hissed its four-one note pattern as the train started to roll out of town.
    ***
    The glass cane clicked over the cooling remains of masonry strewn about the street. Cooper Smith, Esquire twiddled his mustache. His gaze quickly passed over the bucket chain and hoses attacking the smoldering lump of metal that had once been a boiler tower.
    He stepped over a corpse of a guard, kept warm by the nearby fire.
    The man in black frowned and turned at the sound of an engine’s steam whistle. The glass cane clicked over the brick street as he strolled toward the train yard.
     

Chapter Four
    “Where is that girl?” Jing shaded his eyes against the glaring sunlight, reflecting off all the rails and boxcars in the train yard. The brightness had all but diluted the aether bands to nothing but twirling shadows in the sky.
    Drina, bent low in the shadow of the alley, straightened. “Not here, that’s for certain.”
    “I thought her voice came from this way.” He clenched his jaw and glared at the conspicuously empty train track. “You