Chapter Thirty-Six - Daggerwren

Long Knife was, once, a real river. It was a trench dug into the landscape where post-storm run-off from the southern end of the Shadow Heights would flow down to the Fast Depths.

The problem was, the land was thirsty. Unless a storm was particularly strong, all that would make it to the Depth was sandy sludge.

So someone clever started digging.

It took decades of effort to build the Long Knife, a trench some three meters wide and two deep. Its sides were made of stacked stones, held in place by mortar made from the limestone quarried near Daggerwren.

It was an impressive feat. I don’t know how long it was, but it did start somewhere near the foothills of the mountains.

Daggerwren itself was right on top of it too, the city split in half by the river.

Of course, it wasn’t all perfect.

Half the time the entire passage was entirely empty, just sand and maybe mud. It cast a near-permanent mirage during the day as the sun cooked whatever water was lingering in the trench.

Right now though? The entire passage was filled nearly to the brim with a wash of water, a current heavy enough it could probably sweep Rusty along if we were to fall into it.

“Impressive,” Clin said.

“Mmhmm,” was my easy reply.

The moon was near-on full. Casting enough light that we could move across the scrublands without tripping too much over bramble and boulder. It wasn’t safe by any means, but it meant making good time back to Daggerwren.

The couple hours we’d lost with the goblins were made up in twice that time. There was no moving quickly at night, after all.

In one way it was safe though. Goblins didn’t attack folk in the dead of night. Too dumb and lazy, and their night vision was no better than most folks. They barely kept up a watch over their own camps.

Daggerwren became visible first as a glow on the horizon, just an orange tint cast into the sky. Then I could make out flickers and distant lights.

I kept our pace steady, even if I was starting to feel bone-weary and tired from the long day. Not my worst day yet, but one I wouldn’t mind setting behind me.

We veered away from the Long Knife to step onto a proper road, the same road that led all the way back to Mortarview, though calling it a road was a stretch. It had been paved in stone once, by some fool who wanted to fight back against time and sand. Now it was a cracked and hole-ridden passage, only used because it made it hard for travellers to lose their way, and because it was still harder than some of the softer, shifting sands.

We crossed a few buildings set up around the town proper. Homes with walls a handspan thick, made of stone and smoothed by the storm winds.

I didn’t head into town. The walls of Daggerwren weren’t nearly as impressive as the fortress-like construction around Mortarview, but they were still manned. I saw a tall figure casting a light our way from atop a tower on which a gun emplacement sat. One of the few guns around the city, but there nonetheless.

There wouldn’t be any inspections here, or any questions at the gate. The folk of Daggerwren didn’t care for any of that.

As long as you were quiet and minded your own business, there was only a coinflip’s chance you’d get shanked in an alley here.

“I think I heard about this place,” Clin said. “It’s supposed to be rough.”

“Rough?” I asked before shaking my head. “You know how some towns have these areas with poorer folk?”

“Slums? Yes, they’re a reality even in Lunastrum.”

“Daggerwren doesn’t have slums. Daggerwren is the slums. This is where all those normal human folk who don’t fit in end up. Lots of misfits and thieves and folk you’d be best shooting before talking to.”

“It’s that bad?”

I shook my head from side to side. “I’m exaggerating it a little. There’s some decent people here too. Families just minding their own and people trying to make a living like you’d find anywhere else. Problem is, no one really gives much of a damn about this place.”

“It’s an independent city?” Clin asked.

“No, it’s a human town, but not one anyone in the capital cares one whit about,” I said.

We continued down along the wall, going the long way around homes and their little gardens and the bits of fenced-off pasture land behind them. The last thing I needed was to get shot at by some pissed off local farmer.

It didn’t take long to arrive at our destination. Part of the city where the wall jutted out a bit. Barbed wire ran along the top and I could only-just make out the tops of a few mechs hanging above the wall. Not much more than that was visible, not with just the ambient light from the town and the moon above.

“This is it,” I said.

“What’s ‘this’ exactly?” Clin asked.

“An old friend. Caroline. Best mechanic I’ve ever dealt with or heard of,” I said.

There was a gate set into the wall. On the down-wind side, of course. It was a good bit taller than Rusty, with a heavy chain hanging next to it.

I reached up with my mech’s hand and grabbed the chain. Every pace I lowered it shifted the gate a half-pace to the side. By the time the chain was pooling on the ground, the gate was open wide enough for Rusty to pass.

Caroline’s yard was a pretty large place, circled all round by walls just like those of the city, but topped with barbed wire and nasty metal spikes. Mech parts were everywhere. Hanging in great racks and sitting on shelving units dusted with sand and grit. A few mecha frames were sitting out in the yard too, bare to the elements, with parts sanded shiny by recent work.

There was only one building, Caroline’s home and garage. The line between the two was blurred.

I moved Rusty over to the front of the garage and noticed that one of the doors was open. Sparks were spraying out from within in great arcs that washed onto the ground and twinkled for a moment before going out.

Caroline was still working then.

I brought Rusty around to the front of the garage and stopped.

It almost felt as if the mech was sighing with relief as I finally stopped pushing it to go farther. A glance at the gauges around me confirmed as much. Low on... just about everything but fuel.

There was room for a few mechs in the garage, and plenty of tools to move those around. Mechanical arms, huge hydraulic lifts, chain blocks dangling from the ceiling. At that moment there was a mech hanging from the ceiling, blocks stacked up on one side where its leg was entirely missing.

It was a little ways into the room, on a metal table where a familiar young woman was leaning over it, a pneumatic grinder shifting back and forth and causing all the sparks I’d seen earlier.

I looked around for something to alert her, then settled on raising a leg and smashing it down.

The woman bounced and stood up, her grinder buzzing away at thin air while she turned our way.

I saw her blink, then she set the tool down in a hurry and ran over, arms spreading wide.

“Right,” I said as I leaned back. I flicked a few things off, and removed the needle embedded into my collar. I took a moment for the dizziness to pass. The long day, the skipped meals, it all took a toll.

“Miss Norwood?”

I squeezed my eyes for a moment. “It’s just Charlie,” I said.

“Right. Are you well?”

“I’ll be fine,” I said before I reached forward and pushed the front of Rusty’s cabin open.

A glance down revealed Caroline, only just untangling herself from where she was hugging Rusty’s leg. She looked up, pulled off her goggles to reveal dark eyes set in a ring and clean pale skin that stood out on her soot-darkened face, then glared. “What have you been doing to poor Rusty?” she demanded.

“Hello Caroline,” I said. “We need repairs.”

“Rusty doesn’t need repairs, he needs a better pilot, one that won’t get him into so much trouble,” she huffed. “Who fixed his leg? I warned you about the wire chafing! And you fell! Wait, that’s nomad work, I’d recognize those welds anywhere.” She gasped. “What happened to poor Rusty’s shoulder?!”

“It’s a long story, and it’s very late. Do you mind if we rest here for a bit?”

“You can do whatever. Once I’m done with Timothy I’ll bring Rusty in. Did you hear that boy?”

“I did?” Clin tried.

Caroline stared up at the elf who walked up to stand next to me. “I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to Rusty. Charlie, why do you have someone else with you in Rusty?”

“It’s a long story,” I repeated.

“Hmph, well, whatever. Come help me with Timothy. The poor boy has an awfully clumsy pilot and he keeps tripping over things.”

I sighed and jumped out of my mech. We had a long night ahead of us.

***