The Clockwork Century - 01 - Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Author:Cherie Priest
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780765318411
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2009-10-13T23:37:07+00:00

Sixteen

Swakhammer shined his lantern at a pile of broken and buried crates that had been stacked haphazardly and left to wobble and sink. It seemed to be the only way forward.

“Me first” he said. “We ought to be far enough away from Maynard’s that maybe we’ll miss the worst of the swarm. Those things are relentless. They’ll try to dig through the floor until their hands wear off, and the louder they get, the more of their number they’ll draw.”

“Away from us,” Briar mumbled.

“Here’s hoping. Let me take a look around up there and make sure.”

He lifted one big leg to stomp on the bottom crate and it sank a couple of inches, squishing down into the muck. Once the crate had stopped drooping, he brought the other leg around and climbed slowly up the rickety pile. A set of reinforcing metal bands peeled back with a splintering scrape that was louder than gunfire in the muffled underground.

Everyone cringed and held silent and still. Lucy asked, “Do you hear anything?” Swakhammer said, “No, but let me look.”

Briar shuffled and lifted her boot up out of the muck, but she was forced to put it right back where it had been sinking. There was no place sturdy enough to stand without feeling the slow, sticky draw of the wet earth. “What are you looking for? More rotters?”

“Uh-huh.” He pressed the back of his shoulder against the trap-door and locked his knees. “East way was plugged up with them. We’ve gone east underneath ’em, but I don’t know if we’ve gone east enough to miss the back end of the swarm. Everybody quiet now,” he said. The crates groaned beneath him and the mud slurped terribly at the cheap pine corners, threatening to bring the whole stack down. But the structure held, and Swakhammer strained to move himself quietly—and to lift the door without making a noise. “Well?” Hank asked, a little too loudly.

Lucy shushed him, but she looked up at the armored man and her eyes asked the same question.

“I think it’s clear,” he said. He did not sound convinced, but the huddled crowd below heard no hint of shuffling, scratching, or moaning, either, so the silence was taken as a good sign.

Swakhammer lowered the door again and addressed the group as softly as his altered voice would permit. “We’re at the apothecary’s on Second Avenue, right underneath old Pete’s storage cellars. As far as I know, there’s no connecting space between this basement and Maynard’s. Lucy, you know how to get to the Vaults from here, right?”

“From here it ought to be one block down, and one block right.”

“Good. Now listen—Miss Wilkes—there aren’t any down-drops between here and there, so stick close and run like hell if it comes down to it.”

“Down-drops?”

“Entrances to the underground. Secured places. You know. Once we get outside, we’re stuck outside until we reach the Vaults. That’s the closest and safest place around here, outside of Maynard’s. And there’s no going back to Maynard’s for another day or two at soonest.

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