Free Dead Iron by Devon Monk Page A

sound, toward the other side of the rail track. The crew boss, a one-eyed Norwegian who was as wide as he was tall and as merciless as LeFel himself, rode the tinder cart, keeping a high watch over the workers and matics. He turned and swung his shotgun toward the thick undergrowth beyond the rail.
    The three Madder brothers stumbled out of the brush, rifles in their hands. All three men were so drunk they couldn’t walk a straight line if their feet were tied to it.
    A hare was flushed out of the brush in front of them. It dashed to cover while the brothers hollered. One of them took another wild shot at the animal and hit the side of a pony-sized matic hauling a cart of water, the bullet ricocheting like a snapped piano string.
    Rose’s horse spooked and reared, tangling bridle and reins in the tree. “I’m sorry, Mr. LeFel,” she said as she hurried away to her horse. “I do think I’d best be heading home. Perhaps I can stay for tea another time?”
    She didn’t wait for his answer. Just swung up into the saddle and turned her horse east, away from him, the rail, and the Madder brothers as quickly as she could.
    LeFel snarled in irritation. He had barely had a taste of her. Rose Small was a question he wanted answers to. Especially since the Madders seemed to have gone out of their way to show up just as he was sitting down with her. Perhaps, he thought, she was connected to the brothers. Wouldn’t that be interesting?
    The brothers had been a thorn in his side for years. He didn’t know what their drunken game was today, but he knew they would not come out here, to the rail, to his place of power, on a whim.
    They wanted the Holder and they suspected he had it. But they did not know where he kept it hidden, nor that he had devised a door for it to fit upon. It was particularly satisfying that it was here, right beneath their noses, and yet they could not see it nor do him harm without fear of letting the device loose in the world. For if it was freed, the Strange-worked metals would bring about destruction to the land, and the people who stumbled upon it. Worked within each metal was a curse. Depending upon where the metal lodged, plague would spread, the undead would rise, and insanity would claim the minds of reasonable men. Left alone in the world, the Holder was sure poison, and would bring about bloodshed, blight, and war.
    He had his finger on the trigger of a gun that could do more than kill a man—it could demolish this new land. Such a sweet dilemma the Madders found themselves in: unable to call his bluff for fear of destroying the very land and people they protected.
    The crew boss yelled at the men to get back to their shovels and irons, then strode over to the Madders and yelled at them to take their guns and leave before he dragged them back to town behind a wagon.
    The Madders laughed, patted one another on the back, and seemed to finally get it through their thick, drunken skulls that they were outnumbered.
    Mr. Shunt arrived at LeFel’s elbow, a shadow sliding upon shadow, the silver tray and tea balanced on his fingertips.
    “Tea, Lord LeFel?” Mr. Shunt asked.
    “Yes, Mr. Shunt. Tea.” LeFel settled onto one of the chairs and watched the brothers stumble back into the dirt and brush, singing a tawdry song.
    Mr. Shunt poured tea from a kettle made of gold, the aroma of flowers and honey filling the air.
    “They can hunt their hare. They can play the fools,” LeFel murmured. He brought the tea to his lips, and glanced back the way Rose Small had gone. “They can snoop, they can pry, but they’ll never find the treasure I have beneath lock and key. This game is still mine. And before two days are out, I will drown them in their own blood.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    R ose eased her horse down out of a trot as soon as she was over the hill and well out of Mr. LeFel’s sight.
    The voices whispered to her as they always did. Trees saying they were trees, growing upward and digging deep, settling