Raising Steam (44 page)

Uncomfortably alert again, with Vetinari’s voice echoing in his head, Moist drew out the clacks flimsy he’d had from Adora Belle about the progress of the golems. He tore it up and threw the pieces out of the nearest window, from where he watched them disappear in the wake of the wonderful train.

From the gloom of the guard’s van behind him someone coughed, pointedly. Vimes emerged with a little smile and said, ‘Plausible deniability, eh, Mister Lipwig? But well done, anyway. Just between ourselves: those golems that’ll never be used … What do you suppose they’re doing right now?’

Moist opened his mouth to deny all knowledge of the golems, then thought better of it. Something in Vimes’s eyes dared him to try. ‘Digging their way back home, I trust,’ he said. ‘Rather more easily since they tunnelled their way up here in the first place.’

And in the distance behind the train, the rickety bridge was falling bit by bit into the valley in a curious kind of mechanical ballet. It would be some time before it could be used again, thought Moist – but now we’ve got Rhys this far we can throw everything into getting this damn bridge built properly.

And a few hours later, as the golems tunnelled under his tavern, the Grosszügig Stein, Herr Muckenfuss noticed the floor dancing and every glass and stein in the building shook rapidly. Plump though he was, he scooped up every falling stein and glass with great determination until there was a sudden settling in the air and the tavern was eerily silent. He looked at Herr Bummel, his solitary customer, who stared at the dregs in his stein of the new cask of Old Blonk they had been sampling before whispering in impressed tones, ‘I think I’ll have the same again.’

As Bonk came ever closer and the horizon was now eaten by the mountains – looming outlines visible against the night sky, steep slopes occasionally catching the moonlight – Commander Vimes called a council of war in the guard’s van, the centre of operations. With the experience of the attacks at the Paps and the destruction of the Flyer to draw upon, careful plans were laid for the defence of the train and the King.

‘Well now, look around, all of you. What you see is canyons and trees. If I was a grag I’d probably see this next stretch as my last available opportunity to derail Iron Girder.’

Vimes’s face was grim as he outlined his proposals and Rhys nodded his approval, interrupting now and then to add a refinement.

‘We must also take care of attacks from above,’ the commander continued. ‘As we’ve seen, Iron Girder is well protected. She has her corsets on now, thanks to Dick’s new alloy, but we might have to fight on top of the carriages. I see you grin, Mister Lipwig. So, smart boy, if that happens I invite you to join me and the others on the roof when the time comes. Are you game, sir? It’s likely to be very dangerous up there.’

The inner Moist patted himself on the back as he thought of his illicit adventure on top of the Flyer. He could dance on the train, jump and spin and twirl, because he had the measure of the moods of every part of the train.

‘I’ve wanted to do something like this ever since I saw my first locomotive, commander,’ he said to Commander Vimes.

‘Yes,’ said Vimes, ‘that’s what I’m afraid of. So I must tell you that we work as a team or we become separate corpses.’ He pointed at the trees towering overhead in the deep cutting they were travelling through. ‘There is very little space in this damn cutting. Trees? Nothing but stiff weeds – remember that!’

‘I’m sure we could do it,’ said Moist. ‘Why not bring Detritus up top as well?’

‘No, he’s good on the ground, but he isn’t limber. Anyway, with Detritus on top of it I’m afraid the roof would pretty soon become the floor.’

The commander looked around and said, ‘The rest of you know your stations. Remember, we’re on this train to get the King back again. Guard him! Don’t bother about us on top.’

When he could speak to Vimes with nobody else listening, Moist said, ‘I know the rhythm of the train, but I’m no fighter, commander. Why choose me?’

‘Because, Mister Lipwig, you’d pay a king’s ransom in order to say that you fought on the roof of a train and I’ve seen you, you’re a bastard in close combat, worse than Nobby and he tends to bite their knees. I saw the corpses of the grags from that incident at the Quirm railhead. You can fight, if only in terror, but it’s true that the coward can often be the best fighter of all.’

As the sky grew pallid in the pre-dawn, the atmosphere on the train changed. The whole crew knew that they were now heading at top speed right into unfriendly territory. On every crag in the mountains of Uberwald you could see the lights of the Igors twinkling and wobbling in the darkness of the canyons, and green lightning flashed from gargoyle to gargoyle like spectres.

Moist had generally always kept away from the place. You got the occasional werewolf or zombie in Ankh-Morpork, of course, but in Uberwald they were commonplace. This was their place, with their rules – and that included the black ribboners, the slightly weird types who had sworn to shun the temptation to drink people’s blood and similar … But they were still weird, possibly even more so, drinking only cocoa and marching with banners and drums on every possible occasion. Arguably that was better than being taken to the crossroads and staked … again. The hand of Lady Margolotta was visible everywhere, and Moist knew that where you found her hand you would also find the hand of Vetinari.

But now there was menace in the air. Although Moist was, in fact, okay with menace, it was the thought of dying that was uppermost in his mind, and his little internal demon was shouting, ‘Hahaha! Remember that a life without danger is a life not worth living!’ And valiantly he stood by that assertion … though quite frankly he would rather have been standing on a beach in Quirm, if possible eating one of those really nice ice creams they made with a wafer-thin cone that crunched so beautifully as you bit into it. With strawberry sauce. And sprinkles.

Moist stood in the middle of the guard’s van letting his body understand the motions of the train. He rocked when it rolled and concentrated on staying upright. After all, he reasoned, if there was going to be a fight then your legs had to know what was waiting for them. Vimes was puzzled about what he was doing, but when Moist tried to explain, the commander snorted in derision.

‘In general, Mister Lipwig, I try to disable those who’re trying to do the same to me as quickly as I can. It’s a simple little approach. Not very complicated, but it helps me stay alive … that and the understanding that almost everything has a groin and every foot has a boot.’

The sound of metal and stone bouncing off the carriages came as a relief. Like an expected shoe dropping.

The train was travelling through a cutting that had once been used by wagons, and Iron Girder almost touched the rocky sides as she passed through at less than half speed. The guard’s van was in a state of siege and only later did Moist learn that grags had swung down from the sides of the cutting.

An unfortunate few dwarfs had landed on Bluejohn’s flatbed and while the biggest officer of the City Watch was at heart a pussycat, two grags trying to hack lumps out of him was clearly causing him to become somewhat acerbic and so the pussycat was now fighting like a lion. He hurled curses in trollish which actually shone red in the air as they were cast.

Quelling his nerves, Moist grabbed a jim crow and opened the
trap door on to the roof of the guard’s van, to the initial amazement of the grag who had been trying to force his way in. But any sense of achievement the dwarf might have felt was knocked away by the vicious metal bar hitting his jaw with a satisfactory clang.

Moist wasn’t surprised to hear Commander Vimes scrambling up after him. And now, surrounded by grags in a state of disarray, Vimes tore off his shirt and as other dwarfs approached him Moist saw them suddenly realize that their futures were in the hands of the legendary Blackboard Monitor. Once freed, the brilliant scar on the commander’s wrist was almost throbbing in the half-light. The grags stared at it and that was the first of their many mistakes, because the commander went, as they say in Ankh-Morpork, totally librarian on them.

As Vimes charged towards the far end of the van he smacked away one distraught grag so that he landed on top of another, making it look almost balletic as they twisted and fell on to the rails below. And now the goblins joined in to make the grags’ day just a little bit more interesting: goblins in your armour was definitely
not
an aid to fighting.

The trap door and an adjoining panel had been torn away from the top of the guard’s van and, while battling a particularly ferocious dwarf,
^fn78
Moist saw Detritus levelling his enormous crossbow through the hole and heard the troll shout, ‘Piece Maker!’, a signal to anyone of sense to take extreme cover immediately. The darts that the piecemaker fired were hardwood and therefore horribly dangerous. And if Detritus was really feeling fit, the weapon spat the wood so fast that the darts ignited as they flew. Not metal, only wood, but wood going so incredibly fast that it splintered into a thousand more darts all travelling at terrible speed.

When the thunder had died away, Detritus yelled up to him,
‘Hey, Mister Lipwig! Dis van is goin’ backwards! Der gritsuckers knew jus’ where to take der engine off!’

Moist turned and saw, to his horror, Iron Girder pulling away at speed from the now stranded guard’s van. He looked down at Bluejohn who was holding a grag in each hand and there was screaming as he banged their heads together and tossed them into the darkness between the tracks.

‘We’re going backwards, Bluejohn!’ yelled Moist. ‘Take us forward, could you!’

There was a jerk as Bluejohn stopped the guard’s van dead, quite possibly with his feet, and Moist jumped down on to the shuddering flatbed.

‘Nice work, Mister Bluejohn. Now get out that thing Mister Simnel’s lads made for you, please.’

In his curiously childish voice, Bluejohn said, ‘Oh yes, Mister Lipwig, I can do dat and I can tow der guard’s van as well.’

Vimes dropped down from the roof where he had been making life difficult for the grags on top – who were now essentially on the bottom – shouting ‘What the hell’s going on! Why’ve we stopped and where’s the rest of the train?!’

‘Those buggers have uncoupled us!’ yelled Moist. ‘But it’s no problem … there’s a handcar on Bluejohn’s flatbed … for emergencies!’ And, indeed, when the pedals of the handcar started to turn, the guard’s van accelerated and shot like an arrow towards the disappearing Iron Girder.

Bluejohn’s big face was aglow as he pedalled like, well, Bluejohn, because nobody else could have made that flatbed fly along the rails. It rattled and screeched and complained, but the troll’s huge feet oscillated up and down in a blur and the inner demon of Moist von Lipwig whispered to himself, ‘A little treadle machine to help somebody travel fast? Might be an idea to remember that.’

The whistle of Iron Girder echoed around the canyons, and Vimes shouted, ‘Get me up close to that train, officer!’

Trolls don’t sweat as such. A kind of blooming takes place instead. Bluejohn grunted, ‘Gettin’ a bit outta puff now, commander … but I’ll do my best.’

Bluejohn’s handcar, still dragging the guard’s van, including the recumbent grags, slammed into the last carriage, and before it bounced away again he reached forward and grabbed a buffer in each hand. Immediately Vimes flew like a demon, running across Bluejohn’s ample back and into the besieged carriage. Moist followed as best he could. Grags and delvers were everywhere, still trying to get into the armoured carriage ahead, and then it was just a matter of who was friend and who was foe, and there were far fewer friends, making it very easy to spot the foes.

‘Come on, lads! No speeches, you sons of mothers!’ Vimes shouted back to the others in the guard’s van. ‘You know who the enemy is and you know what to do … Get them before they get you and don’t let them get anywhere near the King! I’m heading up on the roof!’

Up on the swaying roof of the armoured carriage, Vimes quickly started to take his toll on the enemy, who were swinging down from the canyon walls on to the moving train. Unhappily for the attacking dwarfs, the problem with swinging down was that the defender on the train could easily judge where you were going to land, which was precisely the place you then got hit mightily with a jim crow. While Moist and Vimes, well accustomed to the motion of the train, could keep their feet, the dwarfs, even with their low centre of gravity, simply couldn’t fight on the rocking and rolling carriages, and the two men were able to knock them down like skittles. Moist couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. Idiots with a cause and it had been such a stupid cause to begin with.

And as he was watching Vimes fend off an attack from two of the buggers, there came a blow out of the darkness that knocked Moist on to his back, taking the wind out of him. He looked up into the face of madness. That special kind of madness warped by idealism. The madness that gloats – which, in these circumstances, was a bad
idea. The grag swung his axe, but with reactions born out of terror Moist managed to roll as the mighty blade struck the roof beside him, splintering the wood where his head had just been. The grag lifted the axe once again and Moist thought, well, this is it, then … a life without danger is a life not worth living … Maybe the next one’ll be even better …

And then he saw it and grinned: the entrance to the tunnel. And so he winked, as only Moist von Lipwig could wink, and said, ‘Goodbye.’

Sparks rained down and it took him a moment to realize what had happened. Or, indeed, what unfortunately had not happened. The tunnel was just too capacious – the grag had not been shortened as expected and his axe was scraping along the roof, making a rather impressive fountain of sparks in its wake, illuminating the scene just enough for Moist to kick up and find his target, hoping against hope that
this
dwarf wasn’t a female. And fortunately luck was with him and therefore regrettably not with the grag, who dropped his axe, clutched at his groin and unceremoniously fell from the carriage on to the tracks below.