Yes, the Tekiels had been clever. Problem was, they were thinking about this all wrong.
Waxillium pulled a package from beneath his coat. The dynamite and detonator that Wayne had found. He set the package beside him on the floor, then eyed his pocket watch. Right about now …
The train suddenly started to slow.
* * *
“Yup,” Wayne said, looking through the spyglass as he crouched against the hillside. “He’s right. Wanna see?”
Marasi took the spyglass nervously. The two of them were in position following a hasty gallop out of the city. She felt naked, wearing a pair of Ranette’s trousers. Completely improper. Every man they passed would stare at her legs.
Maybe that will stop the Vanishers from shooting, she thought with a grimace. They’ll be too distracted. She raised the spyglass to her eye. She and Wayne were atop a hill along the railway route, outside of the City. It was nearly midnight when the train had finally come chugging along.
Now it was slowing, and the brakes caused screeches and sparks in the night. Ahead of the train, a ghostly apparition was approaching in the opposite direction, a bright light shining in front of it. She shivered. The phantom railcar.
“Wax’ll be happy,” Wayne said.
“What?” she asked. “About the phantom?”
“No. There’s mist tonight.”
She started, realizing that it was forming in the air. The mist wasn’t like a normal fog; it didn’t come rolling in over the ocean. It grew in the air, sprouting like frost on a cold piece of metal. She shivered as it began to envelop them, giving the headlamps below a ghostly cast.
She focused the spyglass on the approaching train. Because she’d been warned what to look for, and because of her angle, she could easily see the truth. It was a decoy. A hand-propelled rail wagon behind a wooden engine facade.
“How do they make the light work?” she said.
“I dunno. Magic?”
She snorted, trying to get a good look at what was behind the framework. “Must be some kind of chemical battery. I’ve read of the work … but Rust and Ruin, that’s a powerful light. I doubt they can run it for long.”
As the real train pulled to a halt, some men sprang from its sides. House Tekiel had sent guards. That gave Marasi a smile. Maybe the robbery wouldn’t happen after all.
The front portion of the phantom train dropped.
“Aw, hell,” Wayne said.
“What is—”
She was cut off by a loud series of shots, incredibly fast. She jumped back by reflex, ducking down, though nothing was aimed at them. Wayne grabbed the spyglass, raising it.
Marasi couldn’t make out what happened next through the darkness and the mists. And she was glad. The shots continued, and she heard men screaming.
“Rotary gun,” Wayne said softly. “Damn, these people are serious.”
“I have to help,” Marasi said, unslinging the rifle Ranette had given her. It was of an unfamiliar make, but the woman swore it would be more accurate than anything Marasi had ever used. She raised the rifle. If she could hit the Vanishers …
Wayne took the barrel of her rifle in one hand, gently pushing it down. The rotary gun stopped firing, and the night grew silent.
“There’s nothing you can do, mate, and we don’t want to draw the attention of that damn rotary. Besides, you really think you can hit one of them from all the way up here?”
“I’ve hit red at five hundred paces.”
“At night?” Wayne said. “In the mists?”
Marasi fell silent. Then she held out her hand and gestured impatiently for the spyglass. Wayne gave it to her, and she watched six men hop from the phantom train. They walked along the sides of the real train, guns at the ready and watching.
“Distraction?” Wayne asked, watching.
“Lord Waxillium thought so. He said to…” She trailed off.
He said to watch the canal.
She turned, scanning the canal with the spyglass. Something big and dark was floating down it. Shrouded in mists, it looked like some kind of massive beast—a leviathan swimming quietly through the water. It came up to the middle of the train, then halted. A dark, shadowy leg lifted from the black mass. By the Survivor, she thought, shivering. It’s alive.
But no … the leg was too stiff. It moved up, rotated out, then came down. As the thing in the canal stopped, the leg clamped into place on the shore. For stabilization, Marasi realized. That’s what made the depression in the ground we saw earlier.
Once the thing … the machine … was stabilized, some men moved through the darkness to the vault car. They worked for a few moments. Then a large arm rose out of the dark mass on the canal. It swung over toward the tracks, then reached down, grabbed the entire vault car, and lifted it.
Marasi gaped. The car was lifted only a few feet, but that was enough. The machine was a crane.
The Vanishers who had unhooked the couplers helped push the train car over across the narrow strip of land toward the canal. The black mass had to be a barge. Marasi ran some quick numbers in her head. In order to lift the train car like that, the barge must be very heavy and have considerable ballast on the other side.
She lifted her spyglass and was pleased to be able to pick out another crane arm extending in the other direction, holding some kind of heavy weight. The barge sank somewhat into the waters as the vault car was lifted, but not as far as Marasi would have assumed. It probably was designed with some means of bottoming out in the canal, perhaps an extendable section underneath the barge. That, plus the stabilizing arm, might be enough.
“My, my, my…” Wayne whispered. “Ain’t that somethin’.”
The machine dropped the entire vault car onto its barge, and then lifted something else off. Something large and rectangular. She had already guessed what to expect. A replica.
Marasi watched as the duplicate railcar was lowered onto the tracks. The couplings made it very tricky. This could ruin their entire plan; lower the car in the wrong way, ruin a coupler, and when the train pulled away it would leave its back half on the tracks. That would make it more obvious what had happened. The Vanishers on the ground guided the process.
Several of the other Vanishers were firing shots through the windows of a passenger car a few places ahead, probably to keep anyone from peeking out. However, the way the tracks bent around a tree-topped hill here, it would be very difficult for anyone inside to get a good view of what was happening. The phantom railcar’s light had vanished a few moments ago, and she knew it would be speeding backward along the tracks. Where did they keep it hidden? Perhaps it was loaded onto another barge after getting far enough ahead to be out of sight?
The Vanishers who had been working with the barge were running over to climb back onto their vehicle, which was slipping out into the center of the wide canal, where it was practically invisible in the misty night. It moved as a shadow.
“Wayne!” she said, scrambling up. “We’ve got to go.”
He sighed, standing. “Sure, sure.”
“Waxillium is in that train car!”
“Yeah. You ever notice how often he gets to be the one who rides in comfort, while I have to do things like gallop or walk all the time? Not very fair.”
She slung the rifle on her shoulder, hurrying down the hill. “You know, when I was reading the reports, I never imagined that you’d complain this much.”
“Now, that’s not fair. I’ll have you know that I pride myself on my cheery, optimistic attitude.”
She stopped, looking back at him, raising an eyebrow. “You pride yourself on it?”
He raised a hand to his chest, adopting a tone that sounded almost priestly. “Yes, but pride is bad, you know. I’ve been trying to be more humble lately. Hurry up, hurry up. We’re gonna lose them. You want Wax to be cornered and alone? Gosh, woman.”
She shook her head, turning and continuing down the hillside to where their horses were tied.
* * *
Miles stood with hands clasped behind his back, riding on the front of the Machine as it slid quietly down the canal. The part crane, part barge wasn’t exactly what he’d envisioned when he’d explained his plot to Mister Suit, but it was close.
He was proud of what he’d done: not just become a thief, but become one that captured people’s imaginations. Suit could say what he wanted about the theatrics, but they worked. The constables had no idea how he was performing the thefts.
“They checked on all six of the Tekiel guards, boss,” Tarson said, stepping up to him. His arm was out of its sling. Pewter savants could heal quickly. Not as quickly as someone like Miles, but it was still remarkable. Of course, pewter savants were also likely to run themselves to death, never noticing that their body was exhausted. It was a dangerous art that burned men up as quickly as Allomancers burned metal.
“Engineers too,” Tarson continued. “They caught a few more guards in the last passenger car, trying to sneak out to see how we were getting the cargo. We shot them. I think that means we’re clean.”
“Not yet,” Miles said softly, staring forward into the darkness as they sailed through the mists, moving by way of a pair of slow-turning propellers underneath the barge. “Waxillium knows how we’re doing this.”
Tarson hesitated. “Uh … you sure?”
“Yes,” Miles said absently. “He’s inside the train car.”
“What!” Tarson spun, looking at the large car riding in the middle of the barge. Miles could hear members of his team covering it with a tarp, to obscure it as they approached the City. They’d look like an ordinary barge, the arms and ballast hidden under other tarps and the whole thing disguised to look like a shipment of stone from one of the outer quarries. Miles even had a shipping manifest and docking authorization, along with a few tarps that actually hid piles of neatly cut stone.
“I don’t know the method he used,” Miles said. “But he’ll be in there. Wax thinks like a lawkeeper. This is the best way to find our hideout—stay with the cargo you know will be stolen, even if you’re not sure precisely how.” He paused. “No. He’ll have guessed how we’re doing it. That’s the risk of being as good as he is. As good as I was. You start to think like a criminal.”
Better than a criminal, really.
In a way, it was surprising that more lawkeepers didn’t end up turning to crime. If you saw something done wrong frequently enough, you’d—by nature—want to see it finally done right. Miles had started planning these robberies in the back of his mind ten years ago, when he’d realized that railway security was focused on the railcars. At first it had been just a thought experiment. That was another thing to be proud of. He had robbed, and he’d done it well. Very well. And the people … he’d gone through the city, listening. They spoke with awe of the Vanishers.
They’d never treated him like that back in the Roughs. They’d hated him while he’d protected him. Now they loved him while he stole from him. People were baffling, but it felt good not to be hated. Feared, yes. But not hated.