The Arctic Incident

He dragged himself to the next rung, keeping the length of his body pressed close to the carriage. The wind was whipping along the length of the train, tiny motes of ice in every gust. They stung like bees. Nevertheless Artemis pulled his gloves off with chattering teeth. Better frostbite than being crushed beneath the wheels.

Upward. One rung at a time, until his head poked above the carriage. Every shred of shelter was now gone. The air pounded his forehead, forcing itself down his throat. Artemis squinted through the blizzard, along the carriage’s roof. There! In the center. A skylight. Across a desert of steel, blasted smooth as glass by the elements. Not a handhold within fifteen feet. The strength of a rhino would be of no use here, Artemis decided. At last an opportunity to use his brain. Kinetics and momentum. Simple enough, in theory.

Keeping to the front rim of the carriage, Artemis inched onto the roof. The wind wormed beneath his legs rising them nearly an inch from the deck, threatening to float him off the train.

Artemis curled his fingers around the rim. These were not gripping fingers. Artemis hadn’t gripped anything bigger than his cell phone in several months. If you wanted someone to type Paradise Lost in under twenty minutes, then Artemis was your man. But as for hanging onto carriage roofs in a blizzard, dead loss. Which, fortunately, was all part of the plan.

A millisecond before his finger joints parted company, Artemis let go. The slipstream shot him straight into the skylight’s metal housing.

Perfect, he would have grunted had there been a cubic centimeter of air in his lungs. But even if he had said it, the wind would have snatched away any words before his own ears heard them. He had moments now before the wind dug its fingers beneath his torso flipping him onto the icy steppe. Cannon fodder for the goblins.

Artemis fumbled the acid vial from his pocket, snapping the top between his teeth. A fleck of the acid flew past his eye. No time to worry about that now. No time for anything.

The skylight was secured by a thick padlock. Artemis dribbled two drops into the keyhole. All he could spare. It would have to be enough.

The effect was immediate. The acid ate through the metal like lava through ice. Fairy technology. Best under the world.

The padlock pinged open, exposing the hatch to the wind’s power. The hatch flipped upward, and Artemis tumbled through onto a pallet of barrels. Not exactly the picture of a gallant rescuer.

The train’s motion shook him from the barrels. Artemis landed face up, gazing at the triple-triangle symbol for radiation stamped on the side of each container. At least the barrels were sealed, though rust seemed to have taken hold on quite a few.

Artemis rolled across the slatted floor, clambering to his knees alongside the door. Was Captain Short still anchored there, or was he alone now? For the first time in his life. Truly alone.

“Fowl! Open the door, you pasty-faced mud weasel!”

Ah well. Not alone, then.

Covering his face with a forearm, Artemis drenched the carriage’s triple bolt with fairy acid. The steel lock melted instantly, dripping to the floor like a stream of mercury. Artemis dragged the sliding door back.

Holly was hanging on grimly, her face steaming where radiation was eating through the gel. Artemis grabbed her waistband.

“On three?”

Holly nodded. No more energy for speech.

Artemis flexed his digits. Fingers, don’t fail me now. If he ever got out of this, he would buy one of those ridiculous home gymnasiums advertised on the shopping channels.

“One.”

The bend was coming. He could see it out of the corner of his eye. The train would slow down or derail itself.

“Two.”

Captain Short’s strength was almost spent. The wind rippled her frame like a wind sock.

“Three!”

Artemis pulled with all the strength in his thin arms. Holly closed her eyes and let go, unable to believe she was trusting her life to this Mud Boy.

Artemis knew a little something about physics. He timed his count to take advantage of swing, momentum, and the train’s own forward motion. But nature always throws something into the mix that can’t be anticipated.

In this case the something was a slight gap between two sections of the track. Not enough to derail a locomotive, but certainly enough to cause a bump.

This bump sent the carriage door crashing into its frame like a five-ton guillotine. But it looked as if Holly had made it. Artemis couldn’t really tell because she had crashed into him, sending them both careering into the wooden siding. But she seemed to be intact, from what he could see. At least her head was still attached to her neck, which was good. But she did seem to be unconscious. Probably trauma.

Meanwhile, Commander Root had just activated his piton-cord winch when he received a most unexpected poke in the eye.