Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [90]
A long piece of wire stabbed through the eye slits, dislodging the scarf. Yasmeen crouched beside him, both motionless, waiting to see the direction the horse moved before they sprang.
The machine quieted, instead. A panel opened in its belly. Guns aimed, they waited.
A young man tumbled out and fell to his knees beneath the mechanical beast, hands outspread as if to show he had no weapons. His face downturned, he was almost crying, Archimedes realized—and his mouth was moving. Over the rumble of the engine, he heard the apology in the Horde language: “I didn’t know it was you, gan tsetseg, but thought one of the soulless had come. Forgive me, lady.”
Gan tsetseg. A flower of steel—the same thing Yasmeen had called herself and Nasrin.
Yasmeen stood stiffly, gun still pointed. Archimedes holstered his.
“He says he’s sorry, steel flower,” he told her in French. “He thought we were zombies.”
Yasmeen blinked. “I couldn’t make it all out. His accent is strong.” She lowered her gun and spoke in Mongolian. “Stand up now.”
Her accent was strong, more like Temür’s than the common Horde rebels that Archimedes had met, but the young man immediately complied. About eighteen or twenty, with rounded face and teary brown eyes, he stood in long quilted tunic split up the middle and belted with a sash. Boots of leather and fur protected his feet.
Yasmeen holstered her weapon. “How many are in the fortress?”
“Only me and no one.”
“Where is no one, then?”
A name, Archimedes realized. Nergüi.
“In our chamber. She sleeps heavy with opium.”
“She?”
“My grandmother.”
Yasmeen nodded. “And you are?”
“Terbish.” That one.
She smiled faintly. “Your family had bad luck come calling for you before, yes?”
Though his mouth didn’t curve, Terbish’s eyes crinkled at the corners. Both tears and fear vanished from his face. “Yes.”
She gestured to the horse, quietly rumbling behind him. “Did you build this?”
“Yes.”
“It’s incredible. Will you let us look inside?”
His eyes widened, and he stepped back, arm extended. “Please, lady.”
Terbish and Nergüi had taken one of the chambers near the foundry. To keep the heat from escaping, they’d covered the windows with thick wooden planks from the tables and the entrances with heavily woven curtains. Two pallets lay close to a hearth built from stone and steel, making an efficient oven. A gray-haired woman snored lightly on one.
Terbish bent to wake her. “It will be a few minutes before she rouses. Please, sit.”
Yasmeen glanced at the woven mats beside the pallets and sank down, crossing her legs. Archimedes crouched, and she had to smile. He wouldn’t relax yet. She could move quickly enough it didn’t worry her.
The older woman stirred. Not blissed on opium, Yasmeen saw, but probably drinking a medicine before she slept. The stiffness of her movements suggested arthritis. Nergüi’s eyes widened, then she stilled when she saw Yasmeen’s ears. Quick fear appeared, and then she was up, pushing Terbish off to collect food from their stores. She stoked the fire, and poured fermented milk from a horsehide bag hanging nearby.
Yasmeen accepted the small bowl. After the snow outside, the thick drink was pleasantly warm, slightly sweet and pungent. She passed the bowl to Archimedes.
“I didn’t hear ponies,” she said. Aside from the terrifyingly huge mechanical one. “Do you keep them here?”
“Across the valley.” Nergüi settled onto her mat, crossing her legs as Yasmeen had. “We return to the outpost each week to replenish our supplies.”
“You don’t live there?”
“We do. But what is there to do in the winter? There is nothing to harvest, everyone only sits and waits for something to happen. The soldiers are gone, so all of us that are left have only our own families to feed.”
And so it was with all of the outposts: the workers