Raising Steam (Discworld 40)

‘Let me know when the deed is done.’

Down at the Zemphis terminus, Iron Girder looked even more spectacular up close. Dick Simnel was dressed smartly and grinning proudly as he showed off the glittering engine and all the dials and gauges on the footplate. Seeing Dick wearing clothes that had no grease on them was astonishing, like seeing a lion without a mane.

Along with Cheery Littlebottom and other members of the City Watch who had been summoned by Commander Vimes, Moist was surprised to see the cheerful and homely face of Constable Bluejohn, the largest troll on the force. Bluejohn, whom even Detritus described as ‘a big boy’, was by nature as gentle as a breeze and wouldn’t hurt a fly – at least not on purpose, although he could quite possibly tear a lion in half with his bare hands if needed. Nevertheless the sight of him on the scene of any fracas was an invitation to run a marathon in the other direction rather than face the megalith. He lived in a reinforced house somewhere in Sunink, a little town inadvisably nestling in the outskirts of Ankh-Morpork. They said that the sound of Bluejohn walking to work was better than an alarm clock.

Vimes marched off down the platform to greet the new arrivals. Cheery was looking very cheerful, as cheerful as any decoy could be who had been the winner of a battle and had come out more or less unscathed, except for a small scar which you had to have, didn’t you, or no one would believe you.

The tour of the footplate finished, Simnel turned to Moist. ‘According to our schedule, we ought to be going.’ He blew his whistle and shouted down the platform, ‘All aboard!’

There was no way of avoiding considerable attention as the King’s party assembled to board the armoured carriages behind Iron Girder. The engine herself was spectacular and her passengers were unusual even for a city like Zemphis. There were the dwarfs: the Low King and his bodyguards, Aeron his secretary and Bashfull Bashfullsson; there were suspiciously deep shadows that suggested the continued presence of dark clerks; there were several specialist members of the Watch;fn73 there were the goblins, who scrambled into the guard’s van being coupled on at the rear; and just in front of the van was a flatbed carrying Constable Bluejohn along with equipment and baggage too bulky for the guard’s van.

Iron Girder was fully in steam again now and the vapour surrounded everybody. Vimes went with the engineers as they walked right around the train for a final check. Then came the scream of the whistle and the little shunting dance that Iron Girder did before gaining speed. With someone staring from every carriage window, the special express train to Uberwald started to show what it could do.

The story told locally about the Paps of Scilla was that they were formed when one huge mountain fell apart, leaving a treacherous network of broken caverns – some full of water, always overflowing – topped by the eight forbidding peaks, which seemed to hang in the moisture-laden air, surrounded by rainbows. After the boomerang incident in Zemphis, Moist wasn’t very keen on seeing the Paps up close and personal, but Simnel’s surveyors had excelled themselves. The railway track insinuated itself up through the craggy gaps so that the train climbed majestically higher and higher, leaving the city of Zemphis and the heat shimmer of the sierra far below.

Halfway towards the gloom of the pass between the tallest peaks, the train emerged from a large natural tunnel into another kaleidoscope of rainbows, which were distracting even when people weren’t throwing things at your head.

Without warning, a boulder smashed down in front of the train and rolled across the tracks, to shatter in the opposite gully. Then there was another crash from the rear. The train shuddered horribly, and carried on.

Moist looked up and saw dwarfs perched on the craggy cliffs on each side of the canyon, levering boulders down on to the train. Commander Vimes could be heard cursing and shouting orders down the carriages, his words drowned out as yet larger boulders fell, raining down on the locomotive, which was moving slowly forward like an old lady testing the water.

Surely, Moist thought, this is the end. Even if the tracks ahead remain undamaged, no normal engine could withstand this bombardment. But then he realized that Iron Girder, slowly and methodically, was actually steaming on despite the boulders continuing to pound the train.

Moist couldn’t stop himself. He shouted to anyone who would listen, ‘They’re bouncing off! It’s the sorortanium, it takes the punishment and throws it right back!’

Meanwhile, at the rear of the train, Constable Bluejohn, standing on his flatbed gently rocking with the motion, thundered a troll threat, reached out and plucked a miscreant from his foothold unwisely close to the track. When he was joined by Detritus, the assailants soon discovered that aiming boulders at the trolls was a fool’s errand. The lads, who were quite literally in their element, just grabbed them and tossed them back with interest.

Looking out of a broken window, Moist saw a small swarm of goblins leave the train and at first he thought, ha! Trust the buggers to run away, and then he mentally corrected himself: that was storybook thinking and with clearer eyesight and a bit of understanding he realized that the goblins were scrambling up to the delvers on the rocks and beating the shit out of them by diving into the multiple layers of dwarf clothing. The delvers discovered all too rapidly that trying to fight while a busy goblin was in your underwear was very bad for the concentration.

Of the Twilight the Darkness suddenly appeared at Moist’s elbow. He was wearing a helmet that was far too big for him and spun around on his head. He pushed one arm into the greasy nest he called a jacket and struck a pose.

‘Marvellous, ain’t they? Always going for the gonads.’

There were screams, sometimes high-pitched, as the delvers lost their hold and fell down either under the train or into the water, still fighting the speedy goblins.

As Iron Girder steadfastly steamed on round the next bend, she and her coal tender came into Moist’s fie

ld of vision and he was horrified to see that a couple of delvers had gained a foothold on the tender. They were being held at bay by a soot-blackened stoker who was valiantly protecting access to the footplate by wielding his shovel to deadly effect. Moist caught a glimpse between the chaos of fighting bodies of the stoker dispatching one of the delvers, kicking him over the side. A massive blow with the shovel dealt with the other dwarf, and the stoker dropped out of sight. His sheer efficiency had been vaguely disturbing. Perhaps that’s the legendary Stoker Blake, Moist thought, and then ducked back inside as another boulder crashed past.

Finally the bombardment ceased and Moist made his way down the train. He found the Low King in one of the armoured carriages with Bashfullsson and the rest of his party. There was blood on the King’s beard.

‘The foe is either fleeing or dead,’ the King said. ‘The wounded will be taken aboard under lock and key and undoubtedly the good commander will have them talking to him as if they were the best of friends. He has a knack for that sort of thing.’

A while later Moist went into the guard’s van, where Commander Vimes was having little chats to grags and their fellow travellers. He was speaking in his very low, understanding voice.

‘I do understand your position. It’s such a shame, especially since the ones that started it all are likely to get away into the darkness.’

And yet again Moist was impressed. The grizzled commander was all honey as he continued, ‘Of course, as a friend, you might give me certain names. I like collecting names, they sing to me.’

And Moist thought, they have the honey, here comes the sting.

Cheerfully, Vimes took names like a guardian uncle, while in various corners of the van people were being bandaged, cleaned and fed.

And so, battered but triumphant, Iron Girder blew her whistle and gently got up to speed on the track out of the Paps towards Uberwald with goblins everywhere: panel-beating, tidying up, greasing, bending and cleaning and almost rebuilding her on the run, as it were, and Moist noticed that at no point did Iron Girder turn them into a pink haze with live steam. The queen of locomotion valued her courtiers.

Moist had lost all track of time after the excitement of the ambush, but what he thought must be teatime refreshment was interrupted by the squealing of brakes followed by a jerk that caused crockery to scatter all over the floor as the driver leaned on his emergency brake lever, which did little more than pit screaming metal against metal. And then the train came to an abrupt stop, overturning anything that was left upright, followed by the voice of Bluejohn from the rear of the train saying, ‘I reckon it needed pullin’. Sorry if I was wrong.’

Moist hurried towards the troll’s flatbed. ‘You appear to have stopped the train all by yourself,’ he said, and waited. You waited a lot when you were talking to Bluejohn.