He formed a pocket of air and spoke into it, and the weave caught his words, absorbing the sound. After rocketing the air message to the conductor, he shut and latched the freight car. The message zipped into the open side of the engine, where two attendants shoveled manure out the door. Naomi leaned out around them, slinging a message back down the train to Marcus. Her words were for his ears alone, and whatever she said made him grin. I turned away.
The train pulled out of the station while Gus hitched the cerberi to the sled. All six were marked similar enough to Ginger to have been born in the same litter, though the two at the front looked older. Wider than horses—at least from the necks up, where their three heads fanned out from their bulky shoulders—the cerberi had to be staggered along the towline, three to each side. Lined up noses to tail, the pack stretched longer than the freight car, and they looked sturdy enough to pull the sled-load of heavy gargoyles without breaking a sweat.
I started to grab my bag from where I’d tossed it beneath the sled, but when I caught sight of Marcus, I froze. He’d strapped a broadsword to his back, and the black hilt protruded over his right shoulder. The leather harness holding the hilt bisected his chest, and a handful of brass null traps were affixed to the thick straps. A sturdy elemental anchoring rod made of twined copper and quartz hung from a loop at his belt and two slender knife hilts protruded from sheaths in his boots.
He was an FPD fire elemental whose muscular frame topped six feet by several inches. His scowl could cower a kludde. He’d always been intimidating, but I’d gotten used to him. Now he looked like a stranger, and a scary one, at that.
Marcus’s hard blue eyes lifted to mine and I forgot how to breathe. A predator looked back at me, but instead of fear, heat washed through my limbs. When he smiled, all teeth and little mirth, I jerked back toward the sled, hefting my bag to the wooden floorboards and climbing in after it. I pretended to double-check the stability of the frozen gargoyles while trying to remember how to breathe normally.
Marcus hopped up to the driver’s bench seat beside Gus and settled a crossbow across his lap. Celeste circled on lazy updrafts above us, so high she looked no larger than a thunderbird, but Oliver remained with me. He flapped to the front of the air sled and wormed his way through the dormant gargoyles into a small space behind the driver’s bench. I squeezed into the limited space at the back of the cart and sat just as Gus unraveled the earth strands holding us anchored. He loosed a shrill whistle that bumped through five octaves, and the cerberi leaned into their harnesses.
The sled eased forward so smoothly that if my eyes hadn’t been open, I wouldn’t have known we’d moved. The cerberi transitioned from a walk to a trot to a canter in perfect harmony, enormous paws pounding across the hard soil. Wind whipped through the gargoyles on the open sled, slapping my hair against my face and neck and carrying Gus and Marcus’s conversation back to me.
“What’s wrong with these ones? Why are they frozen?” Gus asked.
“It’s just something that happens to them.”
“Must be the rocks for brains.” Gus chuckled at his own joke. I scowled at his back.
Gus guided the cerberi to a dirt path at the edge of the long meadow and they veered to follow it, picking up speed. It’d once been a road, but now weeds and trees choked the edges. Sunlight gave way to dappled shadows as the forest closed in around us. Pine and the musky scent of the forest floor filled the air, and above the thunder of paws, I could hear the raucous calls of crows and the occasional shrill challenge of a hawk. The cerberi took the turns of the old road at a gallop, and the sled slid smoothly through the air behind them. It would have been a pleasant experience if not for our destination or the lives of the gargoyles depending on me.
Or Gus.
“How’d a smart FPD man like you get stuck with this tarred-feather task?” Gus asked.
“Wrong place, wrong time.”
I switched my glower to Marcus.
“Last I heard, the FPD wised up about Reaper’s Ridge.”
“It has, but this one”—Marcus tossed a thumb in my direction—“has a plan. She’s going to use all these gargoyles to tame the wild magic.” His tone said what his words did not: that I was a moron.
I gritted my teeth. Marcus had come up with the cover story. He claimed it was something Gus would believe, was far enough from the truth to keep the baetyl a secret, and would enhance the reputation of gargoyles and gargoyle healers if I “managed to crawl back off this mountain alive.”
I waited for Gus’s shock or outrage that anyone would think to use a half-dozen helpless gargoyles in such a dangerous manner.
“Why not bring more live ones?” Gus asked. “The boost coming off these is useless.”
“Live ones wouldn’t come.”
Oliver growled, the sound more musical than menacing. I caught his gaze and shook my head. He knew the cover story. He knew Marcus didn’t mean what he said. It didn’t make it any easier to listen to, though. I stuck my tongue out at the men, and Oliver gave me a weak smile.
“You think it’ll work?” Gus asked.
Marcus laughed, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. Gus joined him, shaking his head.
“There’s always some crazy city folk who think they can tame the ridge,” Gus said. He spat out the side of the wagon, and I threw a shield of air up to block the splatter from hitting me. “Shame they’re sending a good company man like you, though.”
“I’ll be okay. I get paid either way. I just have to get the fool set up, then stand back and watch the fallout.”