Monkey Pete stuck his head into the armory. The train was starting to slow and the brakes sounded.
“About two miles to the end of the line, Major,” he said. A few minutes later the train finally stopped. It still made Hollister nervous, the idea the train was driving itself with no one in the engine room. Pete had tried explaining it to Hollister, but the major had had no idea what the engineer was talking about.
Pete pinned a map up on an open space on the wall. “We’re here. The grade was too steep for a rail line to the mine, so they used wagons to haul the ore back and forth from here to the mining camp. There’s a road, so it makes for an easy ride on horseback.”
Hollister studied the map. “Makes for a good spot for an ambush also.”
“Well, there is that,” Monkey Pete said.
“We don’t have much choice,” Hollister said. “Let’s do a final weapons check and then we’ll ride out at first light…”
He was interrupted by Dog, who rose instantly, the hair on the back of his neck standing up and a growl sounding low in his throat.
“Something’s wrong,” Chee said.
“He smells them,” Shaniah said.
“Smells what?” Hollister asked.
“The Archaics. They’re here,” she said.
“How do you know?” Hollister asked, looking out the window but seeing nothing in the darkness.
“Because I can smell them too,” Shaniah said.
“Well, that changes things,” Hollister said.
“How?” Shaniah asked.
“Wasn’t planning on a night assault. I figured you could wear your fancy cloak and we would attack them in the daylight, since they don’t like the sunlight,” he said.
A howl went up from outside the train, and Dog answered with a bark. He clawed at the door, anxious to be outside, ready to attack.
“We’ll back up, then return tomorrow in the daylight. Monkey Pete
…” Hollister turned around looking for the engineer, who had disappeared. Suddenly the outside of the train lit up, the exterior lamps and spotlights coming alive, and through the shooting slots in the armory car, they could see hundreds of Archaics standing in the woods, watching the train.
“Where’d he go?” Hollister asked.
Just then Monkey Pete hustled back into the armory car. “No backing up tonight I’m afraid, Major,” Monkey Pete said.
“Why not?”
“Well, Major, them critters”-he looked at Shaniah and tipped his cap-“no offense, ma’am, didn’t mean to say critter. Those… our enemies have pushed about a dozen trees onto the tracks thirty or forty yards behind us. Big trees.”
“Pete, this train can practically fly,” Hollister said. “Can’t you jump over them or push them off the tracks or burn them or something?”
Pete looked crestfallen, as if Hollister had insulted his train somehow.
“No, sir,” he said. “Like I said, they’re too big to burn and we ain’t gonna move ’em, because I’m pretty sure them Archaics outside got other ideas for us. So you better come up with a plan.”
Hollister paced back and forth, his hand on his chin, thinking.
“You do have a plan, right, sir?” Chee asked.
Hollister looked up, smiling. “Yes I do. Pete, let’s get your fire-shooting contraptions ready to go.”
“But, Major, I done told you, we can’t burn these trees. They’re too big and if-”
“Don’t worry, Pete, I got it all figured out. We aren’t going to be burning the trees.”
“All right,” Shaniah said. “The Fire Shooters, then what?”
Hollister grinned.
“Then we open the doors,” he said.