After a too-brief gray-skied night in which I could barely hear the snoring of our fellow soldiers over the dull roar of the train, the upper level of the dining car, with its beautiful overlook of the train and of the summer sun over the vast forest was a sight to inspire great love of the motherland. The rail line cut like a knife through the deep green trees, a glimmering steel vein through a vast and open land.
Although the view was amazing, I would have happily traded it for the lower level of the dining car if it came with the expected change of company – sitting next to Vitold and listening to his gripes. The small weasel-faced man who had accompanied the general on his parade-ground review – and later tried to stop us from boarding the train – was, though approximately Vitold’s size, in all other regards his complete opposite.
Colonel Ivan Ivanovich Romanov had consistently aristocratic manners, while Vitold’s manners fell in a diverse range from common to crude. Vitold enjoyed cracking jokes, but Colonel Romanov wouldn’t know one if it bit him in his nobly-born posterior. And while Vitold’s company warmed my heart, Ivan sent chills down my spine. He was a terrible man.
Perhaps it was what he had to say to the lot of us; I might have had a better opinion of him if he had been telling us things I wanted to hear, rather than a series of things I really didn’t want to hear.
“To serve General Spitignov," he was saying, as he delicately spooned fish eggs on toast, “is to serve the Empire in all her glory. He is harsh and unforgiving, but a very great man who does very great things. I am meeting with you today in order to ensure that this company functions smoothly. Ognyan is at his best dealing with a small number of people; and if he must deal directly with the common troops in your squads, he will be very unhappy..."
Something about that sentence bothered me, but between the early time of the morning and the surprisingly good food in front of me, I was too distracted to ask any questions and tuned him out as I sat there enjoying the beautiful aroma and appearance of the fine meal. I had just started eating my first piece of toast when a particular word diverted my attention and left me choking.
“... will be executed by firing squad, unless Ognyan is feeling in the mood to do it himself."
Wait, what was that? Executed? I swallowed a half-chewed mouthful of toast hastily, and asked a question, quietly but urgently. “Sir? Does he really do that as often as people say?"
“When it comes to deserters?" The colonel paused. “Well, yes. So make sure none of your troops desert. You are accountable for everything – and I do mean everything – that they do. Or fail to do. The general has faith in all of you, which is why he has selected you to lead his troops into battle; so make sure that your steam knights do not disappoint him."
“My steam knights?" I left my mouth open.
He pulled a worn and folded piece of paper out of his pocket. “I know most of your regular squad was out on leave, but we didn’t leave you without a command. We filled in the spots from other squads. You’re in charge of steam knight squad number three." His finger stabbed down to indicate one of the boxes near the lower right-hand corner of the piece of paper.
I closed my mouth, then opened it. No words came out, so I closed it again.
“You are Mikolai Stepanovich, right? That’s what your papers said. You showed them to me yourself."
I nodded mutely. My mind was racing, and my appetite was left behind at the starting line. I pushed food around on my plate until the colonel was done talking about how we could expect to die gloriously for the motherland in some forsaken corner of Wallachia, and then woodenly climbed down the stairs to Vitold. His inquiries about whether or not I’d snagged him some dessert from the officers’ breakfast were met with a blank stare and then a wild look.
“Vitold, I think we need to talk," I said, gesturing toward the door. He patted the chair next to him. I shook my head and pointed at the door. He looked mournfully down at the crust of black bread and smear of egg left on his plate and then followed me out.
The good news, I told him, was that both of us, though especially me, were looking at pay grade increases. The bad news, however, was that we were now steam knights rather than repairmen, and thus could expect that our next of kin would be the ones who would be able to spend that pay.
Vitold took this surprisingly well; which is to say, he did not leap off of the moving train right then and there. The two of us headed forward to the engine to inquire about the train’s schedule, particularly any stops that might be en route. We had to shout to be heard over the racket of the engine as it chuffed away.
“How long until we stop in Khoryvsk?" I asked, leading obliquely toward my desired topic.
“Eh?" The conductor, an elderly chap, seemed hard of hearing, probably from spending too long on trains like this one.
“Khoryvsk! How long?" I made sure to over-enunciate so that he could read my lips.
“We aren’t!”
“But this line goes to Khoryvsk!”
“We’re not stopping in Khoryvsk!”
“When are we stopping, then?"
“Wallachian border fort, in five days!" The conductor held up his hand to forestall a reply and leaned in close to shout in my ear.
“You were thinking of sneaking off? I don’t blame you, that’s why Ognyan isn’t stopping – doesn’t want to give anyone a chance to back out. We’ll only stop to switch tracks and maybe load coal. You look like bright lads – just keep your heads down, don’t provoke the general, and don’t volunteer for anything."
“There’s been a mistake! He thinks we’re steam knights, we’re just mechanics!" He looked very puzzled (and, I thought, might not have heard me clearly), so I repeated myself, with additional hand gestures and more details, trying to outline the story over the noise of the engine.
“Well, unless you want the general to get angry when he finds out you were fooling him, you have five days to learn to become steam knights. When they pelt you with beets, make borscht.”
This was good advice. I didn’t really want to make the man who’d already earned the epithet ‘Butcher of Belz’ angry enough to earn any new nicknames, and maybe we could pretend to be steam knights well enough to come out with our heads still attached to our necks. The two of us set off back away from the engine, back towards our compartment.
“I can’t believe you didn’t steal me any dessert from the officers’ mess," Vitold said, pulling something flaky and delicious-looking out of his jacket pocket and biting into it. He continued, words muffled by chewing: “I would have, if Yuri had been the squad leader and I was the one up there. I bet whatever they were serving up there was even better than this.”
My stomach growled.
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Unfamiliar muscles were sore when I staggered into my bunk after dinner, thanks to an afternoon clunking around in an empty boxcar with a veteran steam knight by the name of Gregor Petrovich. I didn’t bother to undress – just took off my jacket and boots. I was fingering my good-luck stone around my neck, about to take it off, when I decided I didn’t have the energy to untie the worn leather thong.
I fell asleep with one hand on the stone and the other flung over my head with a pillow to try to block the relentless chuffing of the engine ahead as it dragged the train towards whatever suicide mission the muscle-bound war mage was putting us to. I must have unconsciously been trying to remember the last time my shoulders felt that sore because I had a dream that I was chopping wood endlessly while a little old lady clucked at me disapprovingly telling me how to do the job.
Every summer from when I was twelve to when I was sixteen, my parents would send me away for a couple of weeks to help out a little old lady. She lived by herself, just her and an old workmech. From what I know now, I suspect she didn't live there permanently, but traveled a circuit between several different villages, leading something of a nomadic life. Our village was just her summertime home.
There would be a clattering as of pots and pans outside, and then the little old lady would knock on my parents’ door. She would ask my parents about the latest gossip in town, and my mother would send me off to go fetch fresh bread from the baker in town, the expensive kind that had a fine white crumb and was shiny on top. I’d come back to find my mother had cooked up a storm in my absence, and we would have a big grand dinner with the old lady; then when dinner was through, she would start complaining about how her eyesight isn’t as keen as it once was, and how dark and lonely the road back to her hut was.
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My father would laugh, and volunteer my services as a guide through the woods, and so I would take the old lady by the arm and walk her back to her hut, which was over on the other side of the river. What with the short summer nights and how far out in the forest she lived, it would be nearly dawn by the time we arrived at her hut, and she would exclaim that oh, since I was here, would I mind chopping some wood for her?
And how she would talk! It wasn’t good enough to say “Mikolai, go chop some wood," and leave me to it – the old biddy had to tell me how to do everything. “Breathe in through your nose now, Mikolai, then chop with the wind coming out through your mouth." “Look at the birdie, Mikolai, isn’t it precious? It’s so very strong for how little it is, Mikolai, imagine your arms are wings while you fill those buckets from the stream." It’s like she was living vicariously through me, remembering a time when she was young and spry instead of old, wrinkly, and bent over.
So I would chop wood for her, and carry water from the stream over to her hut, until I was too tired, which never took long the first day, since I had hiked all night; and then it was “Mikolai, would you mind staying another day to help me a little more?" Then there would be more chopping wood, carrying water, fixing the roof on her hut, cleaning out the boiler on her workmech, and whatever other chores needed doing.
Eventually, she would send me back home, which was the scariest part of the whole thing, because I never managed to retrace the way that we got there in the first place correctly. It usually took me two or three days to get back home.
I guess it sounds a little strange that she would have a workmech and still need help with heavy chores, but it was a pretty bad workmech – it didn’t have any arms, just big chicken-like legs. I guess it was more of a walking cart than a real workmech. Good for carrying things from place to place, but not so good for chopping wood or taking buckets of water from the stream, and mechs usually burn a lot of fuel. Though come to think of it, I don't remember seeing a lot of smoke from it, so maybe she'd been lucky enough to salvage an arcane engine somewhere. If so, she ought to have sold it – even an old firebox-style arcane engine fetches a good price.
She gave me my good-luck stone the second day of the second summer, when I was thirteen. It was a piece of smooth green stone with a hole bored through it and a streaky red inclusion that looked like a letter or rune. She got a lot more talkative after that. She started to tell me stories in the evening, ask me to imagine strange creatures and designs, ask if there would be rain the next day, and ask what pictures I saw in the tea leaves at the bottom of my cup. She talked about fortune-telling, astrology, and all kinds of faraway places.
I guess she was lonely, living out in the woods by herself. For my part, I treasured the relative solitude; one old lady, however talkative and bossy, didn’t hold a candle to a gaggle of siblings, livestock, neighbors, and day laborers as far as nuisance went. That, and it was a change of pace. After that last summer, I saw the old lady once more, just before I enlisted in the army.
In my hometown, there was a warrant out for my arrest, since I had taken my father’s prize mare and ridden off out of town in anticipation of getting a letter informing me I was hereby conscripted into the army. Three days out in the forest, I ran into the old lady, and she asked me what was wrong.
I told her I didn’t want to get myself shot; she pointed out that failing to join the army seemed likely to get me shot in any case, and suggested that if I hastened to volunteer, maybe I could choose where in the army I would go. She rode with me to the next town, to the army post. Under her watchful gaze and a few choice words about my practice with mechanical maintenance, the recruiting officer signed off on my acceptance into the mechanics’ corps based on aptitude.
The next day, I met Vitold, a sensible fellow who had never cleaned a boiler before, but knew enough about the ways of the world to bribe the recruiting officer into claiming he exhibited “great potential as a mechanic," in order to get him into something with a lower casualty rate than the infantry. The two of us became fast friends, and the rest is history.
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When I woke up, I realized the difference between intensive training with a veteran steam knight, and chopping wood for a little old lady: Both leave your muscles all worn out, but taking and delivering hits over and over again leaves your entire body one giant bruise. My summers with the little old lady in mind, I sat up in the bunk for a couple of minutes, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, rubbing the stone and trying to will my muscles to not be so sore and my bruises to not be horribly purple.
Breakfast in the downstairs of the car consisted of boiled groats, and was rather less enticing than breakfast in the upstairs had been the previous day. I was hungry, though, so I scarfed my way through three bowls of the stuff. It was also crowded; myself, Vitold, and three other members of “my" squad were shoulder-to-shoulder around the table.
Directly across from me was Gregor, balding with what little hair he had left starting to go to grey. He was a big man, going slightly to fat, with a sallow complexion; he was amiable, and a willing teacher, if not especially articulate with words. I thought he would resent my being placed in charge of the squad when he was such an experienced steam knight, but the idea that he should be squad leader never occurred to him. His breakfast came with several slugs of vodka from a flask, to fight off the morning shakes he was prone to otherwise.
Misha, sitting on my left, was not especially talkative. He was lean and of medium height. I never learned much about Misha, not even where he got the scars on his face and hands, but I did learn eventually that he was sullen and resentful towards everyone, not just his new squad leader; and that several years had passed between his mandatory term and re-enlistment.
Rumors had it alternately that he had murdered a woman in Khoryvsk; that he had been working for organized crime before getting sacked for having sticky fingers, and had joined the army for safety; or that his sexual attentions were reserved for livestock of the hoofed variety, and the local magistrate had given him the choice between going back into the army or being turned into feed for said livestock.
The final member of our squad was Ilya. Ilya was a handsome fellow with a quick tongue and a charming smile. He seemed to consider my polite request to come drill with us in the back car to be nothing resembling a binding order; he was far too busy flirting with the red-headed woman at the next table, dismissing me with a wave and a grin.
Drilling wasn’t quite as bad as I feared. If you’re a mechanic and working in the repair pool, you’ve had some practice walking around in steam knight suits while you test them; and if you have ambitions to become a mechanic officer in the field, you want to be good with them, so you log as much extra time as you can. Officers make more money and tend to live longer, which was enough of a motivation for Vitold and me to develop a sense of limited ambition for advancement to higher ranks.
The powered suit, however, isn’t everything there is to being a steam knight. You also have to handle – capably – the weapons of the trade, from poleaxes to shields to small cannons. I thought that using a shield amounted to carrying it around, but there is a lot more to it than that: How you hold it, how you take a hit on it, how you coordinate with the person next to you so that your shields line up. Just carrying it around is awkward enough given the size and weight of a shield designed to screen shot; add in the rest and it becomes downright difficult.
And the shield was the easy part. The poleaxe might be a distant cousin of a woodsman’s axe, but it’s longer than a man is tall, and handling an eight-foot pole is an awkward proposition at best the first few dozen times you try it. Loading a gun with powder, wadding, and shot might seem simple under ordinary circumstances, but now imagine you're trying to do so using gripper hands mounted on arm-length sticks operated by squeezing down on a handle that pulls a cable, and that lock shut in place if you twist the handle without meaning to. They bag the charges, which makes it a bit easier, but it takes practice.
At the end of five days of training, Vitold and I could manage to stay facing the same direction, taking hits on our shields, while not dropping the practice poles meant to stand in for our weapons; well, for a handful of minutes at a time, at least. Long enough for Gregor to want to stop for a drink without having knocked us down once, the last afternoon. Ilya and Misha continued on their own projects; Misha cleaned his kit, sharpened knives, whittled, and read laboriously from a little black book, while Ilya seemed to be determined to seek out more pleasant company than the lot of us squadmates.
The train did stop in Khoryvsk, briefly, in the dead of the night after two days of travel; I learned from the conductor that they switched engine cars and brought on new coal. When it happened, I woke up in my bunk, hearing only a faint repetitive banging noise. For a panicked moment, I thought I had gone nearly completely deaf, as this was far quieter than the engine had been at any point before; but then the banging stopped, too, replaced by quick whispering, and I saw in the dim shadows a slim figure slipping out of Ilya’s bunk on the other end of the car.
If I could hear whispers, my hearing was still good, I reasoned. This meant that the engine was stopped. The next logical conclusion was that the banging noise was the indirect product of Ilya’s good looks, the shadowy figure, and the metal bed-board of his bunk. I became briefly and intensely jealous of Ilya’s good looks. Then the new engine car began to chuff away, and the train jolted forward.
I peered out of the curtains, and that’s when I learned we had indeed halted – however briefly – in Khoryvsk. I watched, entranced, as the train climbed up a bridge to cross the Slavutich River, bringing what seemed like the whole of the city into view. The great city was bathed in moonlight. I promised myself that someday, I would see it in daylight. If I survived for long enough.
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That promise seemed full of hubris when we disembarked at a fort near the old Wallachian border; we were greeted by a large number of injured soldiers, including more amputees than I’d ever seen gathered in one place before, who were gathered at the depot for the train back to Khoryvsk.
I saw the general staring thoughtfully at the injured soldiers as they boarded their train and we unloaded ours.
Was he counting up the missing limbs to know how many enemy limbs to chop off? Was he mourning the tragic loss to the Empire? Was he thinking how lucky they were to have been shipped out alive? Maybe he was wondering what it would feel like to be short an arm or a leg. Unfortunately, all my guesses were wrong, and even less fortunately, I learned the answer two weeks later, but I shouldn’t get ahead of myself.
Marching into the fort was the first time I felt like a real squad leader. Colonel Romanov felt the need to impress somebody, so he had us organize by squads, and march in like we were on parade. Before that impromptu parade, I was simply Mikolai Stepanovich, the misfiled mechanic who had the misfortune to wear a borrowed uniform at the wrong time; afterward, I was Squad Leader Mikolai Stepanovich, the badly-dressed buffoon whose squad marched straight through a bed of flowers.
A freshly manured bed of flowers, at that. Afterward, Colonel Romanov gave me a look that reminded me of biting into an unripe apple; and Ilya was positively furious about the state of his boots.