The Midnight Express rode the dark rails like a python out of nightmare. Its Qi’shathian steel carapace was made for battle. It had not been used since the days of the Aurelian Civil War, but it was a machine of rare workmanship, one that could endure centuries. Nothing compared to the god-forged Warmaster, of course, but it was the nearest mankind could come to imitating it.

  It took an engineer as adept as Albron to drive the Midnight Express successfully. He and a garrison of forty soldiers now hunted Telos Daggeron and his crew. They had nearly caught up with them around Riches, then they had lost them again. There were reports, arriving via dragonling, that The Warmaster had been stolen. Citizens had sighted the storied Engine tearing across the countryside. Albron had no doubt that Telos, who clearly had powerful allies indeed, had indeed acquired the legendary Engine.

  But Albron was not a man to give up. He had been born a dwarf, and many had called him “deformed” since birth, although he did not see it that way. Did a mere difference in height lump him in with the carnival freaks? He thought not. But to many, that was all he would ever be. His father had been the first to abandon him. He had taken one look at Albron’s bulbous head, the squashed body, and fled.

  But his mother held out faith, recognised his talents. Nurtured him. When she had sold him to the Wagemaster it had not been to palm him off, but a divine act of love and faith. He was worthy to serve, to put his talents to use.

  Gorm had seen his worth immediately. He had enrolled him in the academy of Engine-craft. He had consistently been the top pupil, despised, of course, by the others. But he was strong as well as clever, and no one ever gave him much trouble.

  He had worked his whole life to prove himself, and to pay back Gorm for his infinite kindness. Now, he never could. Gorm was dead. His master was dead. His last connection to his mother was dead.

  And Telos killed him.

  The anger burned hotter, more furious, than the firebox which he stoked with a madman’s intensity. Not many engineers would risk pushing an Engine to such limits, but he knew what the Midnight Express was made of. It could go faster, push harder.

  His second, a swarthy man who in truth knew very little of Engine-craft, worked the levers that changed their tracks. Albron called to him every few seconds, ensuring that he made the correct changes. There were many bifurcations in these more densely populated areas, but Albron knew the railways like the scars on the back of his hand. He was less familiar with the north, but Virgoda and Tezada had always been his hunting ground.

  The weight of the hand-cannon was heavy at his waist. He felt the dreadful potential of the implement. What a delight it would be to aim it at Telos’s smug face and pull the trigger, to blast him into smithereens, just as he had blasted the blockade to pieces…

  The sight of the many dead men had been a harrowing one, but it’d only strengthened Albron’s resolve. It was his resolve that’d led to him being placed in command of these men. Sure, they had a captain, and he technically gave the orders. Albron was theoretically just their means of transportation, a convenient skillset to be deployed. But many hours ago the truth had settled in. Nothing happened without the dwarf’s say-so. It was as though the men and women of the watch could see the hand of the goddess upon his shoulder.

  The black of night seemed to thicken. They were racing across more barren lands now. The trees had fallen away. The soil had grown dry and arid. There were precious few towns. Those they did encounter whipped past. If anyone was foolish enough to be on the tracks, they would die instantly, for there was no chance of stopping the Midnight Express with any rapidity.

  “We’re coming up on the Divide,” the second grunted.

  “Apply the brakes. I shall douse the fires.”

  They worked to slow the Engine by degrees. Still, the wheels shrieked in protest. The tracks here rattled; they had been damaged somehow. Albron was certain it was the passage of The Warmaster.

  As if to confirm his thoughts, the second piped up, “There’s… something on the tracks.”

  Albron pulled a stool to the window and stepped upon it, peering over the edge. His eyes widened as his suspicions were confirmed.

  The Warmaster lay glimmering on the tracks, like a sleeping serpent.

  “More brakes!” Albron barked. “We must slow down!”

  The second busied themselves with stopping the Engine while Albron allowed himself a moment to wonder. The god-steel Engine was still, apparently abandoned. The feral face upon the driver’s cab snarled and howled but there were no flames within. Its huge guns were extended, pointing silently at the golden disc of Nilldoran in the sky, as though in defiance.

  The Midnight Express chugged and spat and finally came to rest. Without waiting for permission, Albron leapt down. He scampered over the short distance between the two Engines. He marvelled at The Warmaster as he walked its length. The wheels were hideously tall. The carriages were like fortress walls wrought from dark steel. Mallignancy clung to its every bolt and mechanism. It was war incarnated in the form of an Engine.

  And they just… left it here? He wondered at that, but he did not wonder long. When he reached the head of the Engine, he saw that the great bridge spanning the Tezadan Divide was no more.

  His mouth nearly fell open. Did they sabotage the bridge? Did they use The Warmaster’s cannons? There was no real way of knowing, but it would have to be a weapon of godlike calibre to destroy such a bridge.

  And now Tezada and Virgoda are severed…

  His mind reeled with possibilities. They had abandoned the Engine, did that mean they had fled on foot? Were they still here, this side of the Divide, or had they somehow found a way to cross?

  Footsteps alerted him to the presence of the captain. She was a short, wiry woman with mousy hair and hawklike eyes. She wore the armour well, with the strutting confidence of one who had survived a few scrapes.

  “We should spread out, search for them,” she said.

  Albron closed his eyes.

  Think, Albron. Think! Your brain got you this far. Your brain has always been your best asset. Think!

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  “They’ve crossed,” he found himself saying, almost surprised by his own revelation.

  “I don’t see how,” the captain remarked, dismissively.

  “If they were forced to remain here, they would have taken The Warmaster back down the tracks, found a turning north. They left this here because they could get across, but they had to leave it…”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know!” Albron snapped. There were a number of ways. Gliders came to mind, although usually they were best deployed when one leapt from a higher elevation. There was also magic. He knew little of the limits or possibilities of magic, but now that he had been touched by Nereth, he knew he could not ignore it any longer. Magicians walked among them, and they were capable of many wondrous and awful things. It would make sense Telos had a sorcerer with him. How else could he be so strong?

  “Whatever the case, there is no way we are getting across,” the captain said. “This has been a long day. We shall report back—”

  The cawing of a crow cut across the captain’s words. Albron turned and looked. A huge black crow, larger than his head, sat perched on The Warmaster. It shrieked once more, then began to tap the hard metal with its beak.

  “We should withdraw,” the captain said.

  But Albron watched on, ignoring the captain. Another crow soon joined the first. They both began to tap upon the metal, creating a desolate, ringing sound. A third joined. Then a forth. Tap, tap, ring, ring. The captain looked nervously from Albron to the birds, then shook herself.

  “We should—”

  “Order your men to climb aboard The Warmaster,” Albron said.

  He felt the captain tense. She planted her feet more firmly.

  “You don’t give me orders.”

  Albron turned on her. He hand-cannon at his side was a comfort, a talisman of power. While he held it, he would not fear anyone.

  “I do. Something… something is about to happen. Get them to board. Now.”

  The captain showed her teeth. One of her front teeth was cracked, either from some bar-fight or resisted arrest. She looked tough as nails. But Albron knew he could destroy her. He was the chosen of the Fate-weaver, the hand of god.

  “I don’t take orders from civilians,” she snarled.

  “You do now,” he said, and he rested one hand on the weapon. Her eyes flashed to it. It was obvious she knew, with some instinct, it was dangerous, but she had also never seen any weapon like it. Her eyes returned to his face. He had once been handsome, and his handsomeness had caused people to forget their grudges. Now, his face inspired different emotions: fear, revulsion. But he found the effect was the same. No one wanted to stand against the man with he half-melted face. His was an effigy of the violence of fire, promising the same to those who stood against him.

  “What’s going to happen?” she said.

  “We’re going to get across,” Albron said. “Trust me.”

  The words brought a laugh to her throat, but when she saw he was not backing down, she at last relented.

  “One last time, dwarf. Then we call this off.”

  He nodded. The captain pivoted and walked back to the Midnight Express. He heard her speaking with the guardsmen there. They exited en masse, grumbling and exchanging wisecracks about the captain and Albron behind their backs. That soon changed when they saw The Warmaster. In the deep of night, it was majesterially dark. A temple of black iron and grotesque malice. It aimed its cannons at the heavens, and could seemingly succeed in bringing them tumbling down. Add to that, there were now forty or more crows gathered, lining its carriages. Their beaks tapped, tapped, tapped. The ringing of the music was a dissonance Albron would never forget.

  They guards took their places within. Albron climbed into the driver’s cab. He marvelled at the complex machinery. Three fireboxes? Two brakes? Half a hundred spigots. And there were other mechanisms too, mechanisms that hummed with the same power as his hand-cannon, that promised the discharge of lightning.

  They waited. The crows suddenly shrieked and fled into the skies. He watched them, black against deeper black, at last disappearing, as though the moon’s rays could melt them. Silence fell.

  They waited.

  And then he heard it, a throbbing pulse that at first he thought might be coming from within The Warmaster, but he soon realised was coming from above. He smelled Daimonsblood, thick and potent. The only time he had smelled it thicker was when he had burned in the flames.

  The throbbing grew louder. In fact, it was a whirring sound, as though something was spinning.

  Golden light drenched them. It filtered into the cabin, falling more like water than light. And the light had a weight to it; it was like a cloth had been draped about his shoulders.

  Then he felt the light grip, constrict.

  There wasa howling noise—groaning metal. Gravity suddenly felt loose, unstable. With a wrenching noise, the whole of The Warmaster lifted from the tracks. Startled, Albron tumbled to one side. Only swift reflexes saved him from plummeting out of the driver’s cab door to his death.

  He had expected a miracle of some kind, but this was something else.

  He wanted to poke his head out of the window and look upward, but the train was listing slightly, and he had to cling to the metal pipeage for dear life. The Warmaster groaned, as though with aching limbs. He felt the ground falling away as his stomach lurched. Vertigo made him dizzy. His vision swam for a moment.

  The golden light thickened and thickened, soaking him, soaking the machine, holding onto its with some force of science he did not understand.

  Above them, what could only be a sky-ship gurgled and hummed and growled with exerted power.

  He risked extended his arm and clambering to the doorway. If he held onto the pipes, he could use them as a hand-rail. He poked his head from the cab and saw they were six feet from the ground. The whole Engine had been lifted!

  And now, they were advancing toward the Divide. He heard the shouts of disorientated, frightened men. He heard the captain cry, “Stay in your places. We ride it out!”

  The Engine floated, reached the edge, then was sailing across it.

  He turned his gaze upward and was nearly blinded by the incandescence of hold. He squinted.

  The sky was dark, clouds thick and tumultuous above them. The moon had been obscured. Nilldoran was barely visible, a sliver peeking between walls of grey smog.

  But he could see a third shape in the heavens, like a planet newly born. Silver. Yet grey, also. And black, indigo, navy… So many colours warped and shifted. Starlight danced off its hull. It moved as if made of smoke and cloud and fog, though flames erupted from it at points, like dragon’s breath. It was hideous, in some ways, to his engineer’s eyes, a defiance of geometric principles. When he followed its lines, they did not resolve into a shape he knew. They bent and curved away from the true—just as his life was now doing.

  A sky-ship!

  The golden light fell from some aperture in the ship’s belly. It wounded his eyes and he was eventually forced to look away, to look down. The Divide opened beneath them, and the light from above cast rays into its abyssal heart, illuminating the dancing prisms of the crystal walls, making it blasphemously beautiful. Wind caressed his face. He smiled wide. The goddess is with me. No one can stop me now.

  Another moment, and they were across. The Engine descended and kissed the tracks with a deafening groan of pain. The light died, and they were left in a darkness that seemed deeper than ever before.

  Albron heard the roar of the sky-ship as it ascended. His master had helped them bridge the gap, but now it was up to him. Telos was far ahead, but with The Warmaster, he could not run for long.

  Albron knelt by the firebox, and began to kindle the flame.