In the early morning a rooster crowed and shook the two young men awake. They slipped out of their beds and scratched their eyes. Both John and Aaron got ready to leave the humble inn they had stayed the night for while in a foreign country. Trimming his beard, Aaron saw John brushing his black dyed hair.
“Do you really think they won’t know that it’s you?” Aaron said “I doubt they’d only care for the colour of your hair if the length is still the same. Not to forget that this patched up jacket of yours is a dead giveaway by now,” .
John leaned himself back in a loud “hmm”. “It’ll work out,” he said. “Just stick to calling me Nathan for a while.”
Aaron shook his head in doubt, cleaned what was supposed to resemble a sink, made out of sandstone and oxidized copper pipes where the water would slowly flow out, and put on his black waistcoat. “Are you ready yet, Nathan?” Aaron asked as he put on his shoes.
“Yes, yes,” John said with one leg in the trousers. “Just one second.”
About three minutes later, John managed to get ready, dressed in sandy brown trousers, his usual brown coat and his hair tied back while keeping his front bangs. The back hair was neatly hidden inside a cheap western hat that hung on the back of his neck.
“Are you sure you are ready yet Nathan? Or do you need to put on some makeup first?” Aaron chuckled.
Letting out a fake laugh, John went on without a comment and opened the door. Both carrying their bags of supplies and clothing, they walked down an old wooden stair. Each step made crackling sounds as the sand was squished between sole and wood. Only half a dozen steps later, they arrived at the right side of the inn’s bar where an old man stood, cleaning glasses and cups.
“Hey there, boys. How’re ya’ll doing? The beds were comfy, ‘ight?” the old man said, in a nasal tone.
“Ah-. Yes, yes, the beds were just fine! We are about ready to check out too, so-.” John said.
“Ya really want to check out so soon? What’s the haste?” the old man wondered as he got out his guest book with the prices.
“We wanted to go, uhm, “ Aaron went silent for a second before continuing. “Sightseeing! Yes, that’s it!”
The old man’s eyes opened wide, put on an old thin pair of glasses and looked at the two young men. “Sightseeing? Here? Well good luck with that, folks!”
“Thank you, Sir!” Aaron said in an underlyingly worried tone.
Quickly, they payed up and left the inn through two hinged small doors. The sun glared into their eyes and took a second to adjust so that they could see the small village around them.
“I must say,” Aaron awed “when we arrived late at night, it was nowhere near as impressive,” , barely able to keep his eyes focused at any one building before looking at another.
“Still though,” John said in a saddened tone, looking at the thin wooden buildings and shacks. “It still looks so...poor?”
“I get what you mean,” Aaron took a step back to think. “Back in history class, we were taught that this country had some very hazy war going on because of a corrupt state, so I expected things to be odd, to say the least.”
“True, but it took a few nights to even get to this place. There were no signs of life at all out here. Plus, that old man there appeared to have found our interest to be odd.” John thought out loud.
“Maybe, while we try to fetch some water and snacks for our small trip, let’s see if we can ask some locals about what happened,” Aaron offered.
“Sure, I feel like that shouldn’t take long anyways.”
They left the steamworks car, that they stole from the castle back at home, at the inn. They wandered down a coarse, sandy road, wide enough to allow a dozen people to walk past each other and alongside the road, there were several buildings. Made of thin wood and even thinner rusted metal. They were almost symmetrically placed to the sides of the road, their paint and edges weathered down by the sand.
The two young men had the impression that this was a ghost town yet their fears were calmed by the fact that people, young and old, dressed in fairly common clothes, were walking on this road as lively as could be. Some children playing catch, adults chatting and working, it was an unusual sight for the two of them.
“Say,” John said. “They seem poorer than the folk in our Kingdom, and yet...” He couldn’t quite put down his finger on what seemed odd to him.
“They seem more...human, don’t they?” Aaron finished John’s sentence. “I suppose our technological achievements and industrial comfort made us isolated in comparison. While kids from our Kingdom play with wind-up dolls indoors, here they seem to get along just fine even with very little.”
John’s brows sunk heavily, looking at his shadow on the ground, cast by the sun behind them. “Am I selfish, Aaron? Will my actions cause their lives to be buried in the very sand we are standing on?”
“How awfully sentimental of you. Selfish? Yes,” Aaron stated. “Reckless? Yes. However, if what you said is true, then even with or without your actions, these people would be facing the same danger ahead of them,” Aaron patted John on his back. “But that is why we are here, isn’t it?”
John nodded and looked up again. “The least I can do is help them overcome this trouble,” John’s stomach began to growl. “However, let’s eat before we save the day, alright?”
They walked up to a small blue shop, door wide open as they went inside. Old shelves stood in orderly isles, storing dried foods and herbs. Further in the back, stood cooling boxes, made of rusty old metal and filled with cold water to keep the food fresh. Unlike what they were used to, the offers were very narrowed down.
“Chicken breast, chicken wings, chicken legs…” John mumbled as he looked through the cooling boxes. “Chicken filet, chicken kebab… do they have anything other than chicken here too?”
“I suppose it’d be difficult to really hold cattle in such a dry area as this one.” Aaron said. “That said, variety would be nice.”
Eventually finding ready made sandwiches, they grabbed a dozen. From what they could tell, the sandwiches were made with chicken fillets and some veggies.. After they picked their travel food, they went to the cashier where an older woman stood, greeting them with a smile.
“Hello there!” She said. “You aren’t from ‘round here, are you?”
“We are travelers,” John cleared up. “We were just stocking up on rations before going sightseeing.”
As the woman calculated the price of their goods, she looked at them in confusion. “Sightseeing? There ain’t much to look at other than sand in these parts.”
“The old man in the inn found it odd too,” Aaron said. “Might I ask why that is exactly?”
“You must’ve slept during history class, boys,” she laughed. “After the last war from a century ago the country’s state of democracy was destroyed and not much is left of it other than ruins, covered deep beneath the sand.”
“It’s been a hundred years though,” John interrupted. “Hasn’t there been any ideas to rebuild?”
“I’d be lying if I said that there weren’t, but currently the main factions of the old democracy are split up in rivalry.”
“Factions?” Aaron asked.
“Yes, you are currently in a village built by the Masons.” she explained. “ Our ancestors took on the less interesting role of building a peaceful lifestyle for the people and making it comfortable.The Sabers are way out in the desert, they were once the military of the country and still act all high an’ mighty. Meanwhile the labour centric Mining Faction is out in the mountains and tries to rebuild the country through money.”
“Three heads all doing their own thing,” John mumbled under his breath unaware that she would hear him.
“That’s basically how it is. Anyhow,” she points at the price on a sheet of paper.
As they pay their sum and pack the sandwiches in a small bag the door squeaks open, a customer coming in. Dressed in red-brown leather, red scarf and a cowboy hat on his head. “Have a nice day,” they said before going outside. They merely got to the middle of the road before they heard the woman inside scream.
Quickly turning around, the customer with the red scarf ran out with a full bag, speeding past them and jumping on a horse where his partner, in similar fashion, seems to have waited for him.
“Stop them! They stole all of my sandwich stock!” the woman screams as she ran out in a huff.
Guards were nearby, but they couldn’t keep up with the horse running off into the desert. Upset, John and Aaron walked over to the Guards. “Aren’t you going to go after them?” John shouted.
“Until we get on our horses, they’d be long gone. Happens every week.” One of the guards explains.
“Every week?” Aaron repeated in a startled voice. “Why wouldn’t you prepare and get the horses ready then?”
“They are Sabers,” a man said, coming out of a small wooden building behind the guards. Wearing a blue shirt, brown jeans and leather boots. A mustache curled up and a Newspaper in his hand.. John immediately noticed the Sheriff's star on his chest. “Or rather, a rogue offspring of them. They are much better armed than we are.”
John grunted as he heard those words. “So even here the police is useless! Fine!” He pulled at Aaron’s shirt. “You drive! I won’t stand here and do nothing.”
Unable to disagree, Aaron followed. They got into the car, only half a minute away and drove off. Following the prints left behind from the horse, they went off road into the desert. Passing by the guards, one of the guards shouted “Wait! The sand’s gonna get you-” he stopped as they were already too far away to hear him. “Stuck..”
“Leave them be,” the Sheriff said, patting on his large belly with the newspaper and twirling his mustache with the other hand. “You two,” he said, turning to two people within the Sheriff hut, hidden by the shadows. Holding out the newspaper in front of them he said. “Look out for them, will ya?”
Out in the desert, driving over dunes and trying to follow the tracks, John and Aaron were again amazed by the landscape. All the way to the horizon, nothing but sand and wasteland. Every now and then, they’d pass by a dead tree and after an hour of driving, the car slowed down. Vultures circled over their heads as the motor slowly but surely lost its strength. Uphill, on a larger dune, it eventually stalls and the wheels dig themself into the coarse sand.
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“Damn it! No water in the tank,” John shouted. Sweat ran down both of their faces as the blazing sun’s heat made their bodies feel heavier and heavier.
“Well,” Aaron said, getting out of the car. “We certainly won’t be finding water in the middle of the desert.”
“Right,” John agreed, stepping out of the car too. As he touched the metal door, he shrieked and blew on his hand. “Touching metal is a bad idea.”
Aaron merely shook his head, climbing up the dune to the top while John still stood at the car, slogging up. For a moment, Aaron couldn’t believe what he saw on the other side of the dune. His sight was blurry from the heat which causes the air to become wavy, making it seem like an illusion. But after cleaning his eyes with his sleeves and looking far, far ahead, he saw a town. “Get up here, quickly!” he shouted at John.
“Almost-” John mumbled with his last few steps. “-there! So, what am I supposed to look...at..” he stared to his side where Aaron stood and back ahead of him.
Buildings made out of cement, roads of stone along with large metal trussings and pipelines stood there, right on the other side of that dune. Most of it covered by sand, metal rusting and chipped away, and buildings were already broken.
“So there really are more people out here!” John said, rushing down the dune, toward the town. They both slid down, and with each step their hopes seemingly extinguished.
“These are only the remnants of what once was a town, nothing else,” Aaron sighed.
They walked through the streets, buried beneath the sands. Past buildings, cracked and sunken under. When they reached what seemed to be the middle of the town, they found a large metal structure. Held up by frames and balanced by rusty metal cables was a water tower with a large hole in it. “Judging by that, it was probably blown up by a bomb in the war.” John thought out loud.
“Right,” Aaron nodded. “I wonder how all this happened. Why did this country fall apart like this?”
Aaron’s hands touched the cement walls of a building, just gently grazing the architecture of the past. He walked along, trying to imagine what had caused this until he stepped onto something soft. Something that was neither rock nor sand. Looking down at his feet there was a little lump of fabric.
“Found something?” John asked, seeing his friend dig up something from the sand.
Gently shoving aside some stones and sand, he found the end of the fabric lump. A small doll wearing a green dress with a black button eye. The other missing. “It’s nothing,” Aaron mumbled, throwing aside the doll.
As the doll hit the ground, they heard a whicker. “A horse?” John asked himself. “A horse!” he shouted.
They followed the sound, sneaking through the streets, hiding behind pieces of walls as they approached the sound. Then, on the other side of a wall they stood at, they saw a small hut. Mostly broken, only held together by the metal frame within. Outside of it stood a horse, the same horse that they saw the thieves ride at the village. It was tied to a wooden pillar, drinking and eating from a troth.
John’s index stood straight at his lips, as to hush Aaron while John went to approach the building. While John went to slowly and carefully unsheathe his sword, Aaron drew a few draggers from a side pouch and pulled a small napkin out too. It was soaked and it seemed like he cleaned the daggers with it.
Getting closer, John already heard voices inside and noises of eating.
“Man, if the boss caught us with this, we’d be whipped out for sure!” One of them said, munching down on a sandwich.
“Yeh! Screw him and his pretend military. Every man for himself I say!” The other said.
“Oh really,” John exclaimed, creeping up on the first man. With a swift strike of the blunt side of the sword, the man was knocked out. “Now then, why don’t you tell us more?”
Fear and anger were written all over the second man’s face, drawing a gun from his side. “Stand back-”
He made a small stumble forward and dropped his gun before falling to the ground. A few daggers stuck in his back. “Seems it still works!” Aaron smiled, tossing a dagger up to catch it before tossing it again.
“What’d you do?” John yelled, torn between being excited and worried. “You didn’t kill him did you?”
“No, sir! Remember back at the train when we first caught Iron Fist Gregor?” Aaron said.
John nodded. “What about it?”
“You saw me use a narcotic tranquilizer to put Gregor to sleep, didn’t you? Well, when I looked around at home to find anything we could need or sell, I found it again!”
“Get to the point,” John waved his hands. “You know I stink at your doctor stuff.”
“Long story short, I put some of it onto the daggers, so that when they enter, a couple seconds later, they drop to sleep,” Aaron went on to ramble. “Well not quite sleep, it’s more their muscles being paralyzed but-”
“Alright I get it!” John stopped him from further explaining. “It just happened so fast, is all.”
“It surprised me too, but I guess since I hit him in the back where the main nerve system is, it worked pretty quick.”
John went on to ignore Aaron’s continuing ramble and picked up the gun that the man dropped. He held his hands at the trigger, aimed for the sand and shot. A whistle sounded and a little cog at the back of the barrel turned. Taking a closer look at it, a small bottle was attached to its grip. He shook it. “Liquid?” he wondered and tried to turn the bottle. Attached like a screw, the bottle was pulled off and when he looked inside it was water. On the bottom, a blaze stone.
“I see now,” John showed Aaron. “Didn’t expect steamworks guns to be around these places.”
As he held up the gun, a shot sounded from south of them. Followed by a blast which blew up the sand behind them into a cloud. They split up, getting to cover. A swift finger signal from John pointed to to the direction of the shot. Aaron followed up on that signal, taking a blind spot around a building. John made use of the sand cover before it settled down and ran back to where the water tower was, only half a minute of running straight behind him.
Using the metal trussing and frames as further cover, John kicked up some sand with his sword to try and buy more time for Aaron. Suddenly, from the side of the sand cover, a person jumped out with a blade just barely grazing his nose.
The sand settled and in front of John stood a young, dark skinned, woman. Slender, dressed in black, now covered in sand, with a right arm of metal as well as a metal left leg. Her curly, bright brown hair tied back into a bun.
“Steamworks prosthetics?” John thought out loud before seeing a long double edged blade attached to the metal arm.
Each step she made caused the metal to squeak and steam to whistle. Keeping his distance with steady steps himself, John further analyzed the blade which seems to be incredibly thick, yet light enough for her to move the arm without any sign of stress in the joints. It had small squares engraved, reaching to almost the middle of the blade.
“Sterling,” she said under her breath. “Did you really think you could hide in our country after making us an enemy of the Kingdom?”
At high velocity, bullets came zipping past them, aimed at John, though barely missing him. Each impact created a large geyser of sand. “I see,” John muttered to the woman while taking a defensive position, his sword on angle in front of him. “So Aaron was right, the black hair really didn’t make much of a difference, ey?”
In a grunt, the woman ran right at him. Her last step, with the left leg, caused her to dash in one big leap. Her sword sought purchase in his legs while she ducked for less air resistance, almost like a bullet.
The swift style reminded him of Matt. “No blocking that,” he thought out loud. John used his swords propulsion to aid him in a small sidestep, just barely dodging the long blade as she flew past him.
Two shots quickly followed as his feet grounded again. Both hitting in front of him, the blast pushing him back and obscuring his vision. “Aaron,” he mumbled.
Meanwhile where John and Aaron split up before, Aaron had taken the long way around the buildings to get to a large advertisement board. Attached onto metal trussing and raised about ten meters high, large clouds could be seen coming from on top of the board. Aaron had hoped he could stay in the blind spot of the sniper while he snuck up and slowly took the rusty, partially broken stairs and ladders up.
Up on top. A middle aged man with sandy blonde brown hair which looked like it hadn’t been brushed in years, yet it was just about a few centimeters long. On the middle of his chin a bit of stubble showed while the sides had grown scruffy and about as long as his hair. Wearing flying goggles to keep his eyes free from sand, and a lit cigarette in his mouth, hanging to the middle of his chin, he looked through his scope. “Damn the heat refraction really makes it hard to judge distance.” The man said to himself with the cigarette in mouth before continuing by breathing out. “Damn it Ayra, move aside!”
Pulling a metal lever on the side of the long barrel, attached to a large rounded off water tank, the size of a human leg, the next bullet was drawn into the chamber. With the press of the trigger, the compressed steam entered the chamber and shot the bullet at high velocity, the recoil digging itself into his shoulder as he lied flat on his stomach.
John and the woman were still playing a game of catch. Each time she went for a dash, a sizzle in the piping of her leg gave it away, allowing John to dodge it in time. However, moving about in the heat with his coat on and carrying the heavy sword and flexible pipe, it tired him out. Added to that, the water tank on his back felt lighter each time he had to use the propulsion to evade her attack. “I can’t keep relying on this,” he thought.
Before long, she stood still. Breathing in and out, exhausted from running after him. “Coward!” she shouted. “Face your bloody death already!”
With her left hand she turned a small cog on her mechanical leg. A rush of steam could be heard as it rushed through pipes. Then, despite what John thought possible, she floated. Her right leg angled, out of the way of the left leg. The mechanical leg, or rather, the foot made her float. Small outlet thrusters on the leg allowed her to dash about more freely than she could before.
John couldn’t believe his eyes. She hovered in mid air and was able to almost fly around. He was overwhelmed by the speed at which she circled around him. Due to the placement of the thrusters, she had full control of her directional movement, making him a sitting duck.
Eventually, when she made her way behind him, she swung the sword, although she was too far away for it to connect. A sizzle of steam coming from her arm warned him, making him turn around, expecting to parry the sword. To his surprise, instead he found three flying daggers dig themself into his upper right thigh. A short grunt followed his shout of pain right before he looked up at her blade. The engraved squares were pockets for the daggers which he believed were shot out when the blade was swung at him.
Drawing three more daggers from her side pocket, she inserted them into the square pockets of the sword, each of them making a clicking noise as they were plugged in. “I’ve lost too much from the past war already, I won’t allow you to take any more from me!” she shouted and shot the second salvo of daggers, digging into John’s left upper thighs. At this point, he stood x legged, barely standing, his knees shivering from the pain and the loss of blood. Or rather, he should have felt pain. He took a quick glance at them when she loaded the third salvo, each of them seemed to be coated with a liquid film of some kind. Then, he remembered Aaron’s daggers from earlier. “I see now, so you too use some kind tranquilizer,” he said under his breath, yet loud enough for her to hear.
“Yes, that way you won’t be able to move for much longer!”
“We’ll see,” he said, provoking her with a hand gesture. “Come at me!”
Biting her lower lip, she swung her sword yet again, the third salvo flying at him while he took a small step back as to not move too much. The daggers landed before his feet, having traveled with next to no velocity.
“Water is such a pain in the butt, isn’t it, hun?” John smirked. “When you run out, your weapons become obsolete and with it, your limbs.”
“I’ll wipe that smirk right off your face, you arse!” She shouted and stepped forward with her right, trying to follow with her left but, it was stuck. Only moving very slowly, she hadn’t noticed her having lost her hovering. Even her arm began to sink down, the pistons slowly sagging. “No damn it! Not like this!”
John removed the daggers from his legs, with seemingly no pain. To her surprise. “How is this possible,” she astonished. “Doesn’t it hurt to move?”
“Thanks to you, it doesn’t. Tranquilizer and pain don’t go well together,” he said. “That said, my legs do feel a little light.”
His sight began to blur from the blood loss, walking up to her, around her right. She tried to strike at him with her left arm, though her attempt was hopeless. He pulled the pipes from a small back pocket, big enough to store a steam pressure tank and as he heard the whistle, almost like a balloon, he nudged her forehead. Unable to stand against it, she fell onto her back, struggling to stand up since her metal limbs were simply too heavy.
“Honestly, I really hate fighting women. It takes so long to find a way to beat you without injuring you,” John said, as he sheathed his sword, and tore off some of his shirt to tie it around the wounds.
The shooting had stopped, the sniper tied up on the board, tranquilized by Aaron’s daggers in an ambush. Limping toward the board, John dragged the woman along the coarse sand, and proceeded to carry her up. All while she wanted nothing more than to somehow get control back over her arm and crush his hands, though she knew she was powerless.
When finally, John had reached the top, he dropped her off next to the sniper and sat down himself in exhaustion, eyes sharp. “Now then, let’s have a talk.”
Who are these two? Are John and Aaron now enemies of this country too? Find out in the next Chapter of Steam’s Shadow!