“Are we there yet?” she asked, yawning through the question.
“Not yet,” Soren said.
He could hear the baggage attendant’s muffled swearing from within the cargo carriage as she clattered about. Someone stuck their head out of a window down the train, and Soren turned his back on them in favor of lifting Raiah into the cargo carriage. He hopped up after her, ignoring the affronted shout from the train attendant.
“You aren’t allowed up here!”
Soren ignored her, lifting Raiah once more into his arms and hurrying to where his velocycle was locked upright in the travel rack, wheels secured in clamps. He set Raiah in the ride-along seat, buckled her in, then dragged her goggles back over her eyes.
“I want a fig,” she demanded.
“Later,” he said, knowing it was a lie. He’d left the paper bag with the remainder of her fruit on the seat bench. “For now, close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“We’re going to play a game, but you need to close your eyes first. And no peeking.”
Raiah pouted at him but then squeezed her eyes shut.
He kicked at the storage lock to undo the latch, listening as the clamps clanked open. He rolled the velocycle forward, already reaching for the ignition, when someone else clambered into the cargo carriage.
Soren changed the motion of his hand without thinking, freeing his pistol with a quickness the mercenary clearly didn’t expect, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The mercenary fell back into open air with a cry, the pistol in his hand going flying, red dotting the air in a wet arc.
Raiah shrieked at the noise and covered her ears while the train attendant screamed. Soren slung his leg over the seat, turned the ignition, and kicked the stand up. He gripped the handlebars and revved the engine, driving toward the open cargo carriage door so fast he left rubber burn marks on the metal floor.
Soren drove the velocycle out of the cargo carriage, front wheel angled up, and landed on grassy dirt, back wheel first. Raiah screamed behind him, high-pitched from fear, and he desperately wanted to comfort her, but now wasn’t the time.
“Keep your eyes shut!” Soren shouted. “Pretend we’re in a race!”
She was too young to understand how and why he was trying to protect her. But he’d promised Vanya he’d see Raiah safely to Karnack, and he’d be damned if he didn’t keep that promise.
Bullets slammed into the dirt around him, aiming for his tires, but Soren drove in a zigzag pattern at a speed that had the wind whistling past his ears. In a moment like this, he hated having Raiah behind him.
“He has the princess! Don’t shoot her!” someone shouted behind them.
Soren didn’t doubt for a moment they’d still come after him and Raiah. Swearing, he sped up, squinting against the wind and wishing he’d had time to put on his own helmet and goggles.
He had half a tank of fuel according to the gauge. He couldn’t be sure it’d be enough to outride the racing carriages coming after them.
The ornithopter was a different problem entirely.
The steadywhup whupsound of the ornithopter’s spinning blades got louder as it drew closer. The pilot flew after them at a low angle, wind making the prairie grass around them flatten out. Soren sped up, teeth clacking together, listening to poor Raiah crying behind him in her ride-along seat.
Outrunning a flying machine wasn’t viable.
Giving up Raiah wasn’t an option.
Soren pressed hard on the foot brake at the same time he pulled back the brake lever on the handlebar. The velocycle’s forward motion abruptly decreased. Soren modified his pressure on the rear brake as the velocycle skidded over dirt at an angle that put him perpendicular to the oncoming racing carriages.
The train had left the station in the distance, the conductor clearly not one to stick around when they had other passengers to think of. Soren couldn’t even blame them, not with the threat barreling toward him and Raiah.
She hiccupped on a sob, voice coming out on a scared little wail. “Papa!”
Dust floated in the air from behind the wheels of the racing carriages. Soren couldn’t hear the pounding of his heart over the ornithopter’s approach. He watched as one of the racing carriages spun out, skidding to a halt, a dark-clad woman tumbling out of it. She rolled with the motion, coming to her feet with a pistol in her grip, the barrel pointed at him.
“Move away from her!” the woman shouted.
“No,” Soren said through gritted teeth, knowing they couldn’t hear him.
