The Masked City

She saw Atrox Ferox tense, and she braced herself to duck, but he moved in the opposite direction, bringing his gun round to slam the butt into Athanais’ head in a whirl of black steel and leather. The other man slumped, his eyes rolling up in his head, and the lute fell against his body in a squawk of jangled strings.

Irene took a deep breath before saying, ‘Thank you.’

‘Your argument is sound,’ Atrox Ferox said crisply. He gathered Athanais under his left arm, holding the unconscious man against his body. ‘Why expend energy on a lost cause? Even now, if the prisoner were returned, too much power has been lost. The name of Guantes is no longer what it was.’

‘Oh yes,’ Zayanna agreed. ‘He jumped out of his opera box, was washed halfway across the Piazza and had to run to catch the Train - it’s not what one expects of a patron. They ought to be above such things.’ She paused. ‘Clarice, did you have anything to do with any of that?’

‘A little bit,’ Irene admitted as casually as she could, enjoying the image of Lord Guantes being flushed across the Piazza like a wet rag.

Atrox Ferox didn’t quite crack his impassive facade, but his eyes widened and he seemed visibly impressed. ‘When last seen, the Guantes were in the carriage four down. They had two prisoners: the dragon, and another whose powers aren’t known to me. The carriage is guarded. Also, the Train is pursued.’

‘Pursued?’ Irene said in alarm. She hadn’t thought things could get any worse, but here they were. Just another cherry on the cake.

‘Others among our great ones are involving themselves,’ Atrox Ferox said. ‘Even those who had no interest in the dragon would wish to take the Train for themselves - then bind it anew. And the Rider himself comes in force, to reclaim what is his. Thus it flees.’

‘Can they catch it?’

‘Perhaps within the hour.’ Atrox Ferox shrugged, the light catching the steel plating in his bodysuit. ‘Perhaps less, if luck favours them.’

Irene repressed the urge to run her hands through her hair. ‘So, correct me if I’m wrong. The Guantes are on board. They have two hostages. They are in the carriage four down from here with - how many other guards?’

‘Two armed guards,’ Atrox Ferox said. ‘And Sterrington. I will momentarily place Athanais where he will not be disturbed.’ He opened the compartment door and deposited him on a cream sofa.

‘And how many guards in each carriage between us?’ Irene was trying to gauge her opposition, but however she did this, the words YOU LOSE seemed worryingly inevitable.

Atrox Ferox shrugged. ‘Half a dozen in each carriage, and the same in the carriages beyond them. You must have made quite an impression.’ His speech was significantly less formal now, coming and going, and Irene wondered how much of it had been a deliberate pose.

Zayanna sighed and leaned against Irene’s back, draping her arms round Irene’s neck. ‘Darling, I hate to say it, but this isn’t sounding good. Can you enchant their eyes?’

‘Probably not,’ Irene admitted: there were just too many. Her mind raced through other tactics instead. She had read Sun Tzu, after all, and she knew her enemy. Assuming Atrox Ferox wasn’t preparing a trap - to say nothing of Zayanna, whom she could only trust so far, if at all.

She needed to think outside the box somehow. Having Atrox Ferox and Zayanna escort her through as a ‘captive’ was a possibility, but she could think of far too many ways it could go wrong.

Something was prodding at the back of her mind. Outside the box. The Train was basically a set of boxes. So she needed to get outside the Train. But could she … ? She looked up at the ceiling of the compartment. There were two unobtrusive trapdoors in the ceiling, one at each end of the compartment.

All right.

‘Clarice?’ Zayanna prompted, and Irene realized they were waiting for her to speak.

‘I think I have an idea,’ she said. A really bad one. ‘I need to shorten my skirts, I need a lift and I need a gun. Atrox Ferox, may I borrow yours?’

He considered for a moment, then handed it over. ‘If any ask, I will say you overcame me and took it from my body,’ he warned.

‘That sounds very reasonable,’ Irene said. She took it from him and gauged its weight in her hand. ‘How many shots does it hold?’

‘Fifteen. You will find there is little recoil.’

‘What do you mean, a lift?’ Zayanna asked. ‘And where do we come into it?’ She brought out a knife from somewhere - Irene decided not to wonder how she’d hidden it in her bikini - and offered it to Irene.

Irene tucked the gun under one arm and began to roughly shorten her skirts to knee-level with the knife. ‘I mean that I’m heading for the roof of the Train.’

There was a deadly silence. Finally Zayanna said, ‘Darling, are you completely and utterly insane? I mean, it’s tremendously brave of you, but—’

‘The Train hasn’t tried to stop me so far,’ Irene said. The knife ripped through her sodden skirts, baring her stockings and shoes. ‘I’m counting on that to mean I can move along the roof. I’m grateful for what you two have done, but I don’t want to get you into further trouble.’

That was a lie, but it was more polite than trying to get rid of them. ‘Though if you could manage a bit of a diversion, I would be grateful.’

‘Such is within the bounds of propriety,’ Atrox Ferox pronounced.