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The youth was staring out of the back of the wagon. "About what?"
"Kansas."
"That a city, something, right?"
Paul sighed.
"It is new," Martine said. "At least, I can feel something in the geological information—I ca
"The very poor suspension of this wagon, perhaps," said Florimel sourly. "By the way, this thing pulling us is not what I think of as a native American animal either, when you come to it. In fact, I am reminded of. . . ."
"Fenfen!" T4b shouted suddenly, pointing back up the slope. "Op it! Look!"
Paul turned to see a huge, glittering shape slide out of the mine shaft. For a moment it was only multiple starbursts of bouncing light, then the great head heaved around toward them, and with the bright reflections gone, Paul could suddenly see it clearly.
"Sweet Jesus," he said. "It's some kind of snake!"
But it was more than that—it was another thing like their horse, familiar yet strange. As the monstrous creature heaved more of its bulk out of the shaft, he saw that its body was studded with great chunks of copper and silver, as though its bones were metal and protruded through the horny, patterned skin. Instead of a smooth tube, it was segmented like a child's toy, but weirdest of all were the wheels at the bottom of each segment, great round buttons of bone.
"It's a. . . ." Absurdly, even in heart-pounding fright he found himself grasping for the proper term. "A mine train—ore cars!"
The thing writhed, squeaking and scraping, out onto the road. For a moment it tried to draw itself into a circle, but there was not enough room for its massive coils in the flat space along the edge of the cliffs. It rose up swaying, just its front two sections looming several meters high, and for a moment its huge, faceted rose-quartz eyes seemed to consider their wagon, halted and helpless as Florimel tried to calm the terrified horse-creature. A tongue like a hardened stream of quicksilver flicked out, then flicked out again, then with terrifying speed the serpent dropped its head and slid down the road toward them.
"Get out," Paul shouted. "It's corning! We'll have to run!"
"Chance not!" T4b slithered out of the wagon and onto the front bench and snatched the reins from Florimel. "Done this one before, me—just like Baja Hades!"
He whipped the horse-creature's flank with the end of the reins until it gave a shrill whistle of pain and surprise, then leaped away down the road so suddenly that the wagon almost tipped over. It was all Paul could do to cling to the side. As soon as he regained his balance, the wagon wheeled around a bend and he spun sideways again to crash into Martine and almost knock her over the low railing. The snake-thing had fallen out of sight behind them.
"Flyin' now!" T4b whooped. "Told you, done this before!"
"This isn't a game!" Paul shouted at him. "This is bloody real!"
Florimel took advantage of a section of straightaway to fling herself into the back of the wagon with the others. She grabbed fiercely at the board railing beside Paul.
"If we survive," she gasped, "I will kill him."
The odds on that outcome rapidly became worse; as the careening wagon picked up speed on an increasing slope, the vast head of the serpentine creature came around the corner behind them, followed by its juddering body. It had wheels, as well as the great muscular power of its ore-knobbed body to push it along. It was gaining on them.
They thundered over rocks in the road and for a moment Paul felt himself rise weightlessly off the wagon bed, then gravity reasserted itself, slamming him down hard on his back on the boards. A body, either Florimel's or Martine's, thumped on top of him and drove out the air, so that for a moment the sky exploded with daytime stars.
A second later the wagon tipped up at an alarming angle as the terrified horse dragged it around another bend on two wheels. From his position, it seemed certain to Paul that they had run off the side of the road and were hanging over pure nothing.
When all four wheels were touching ground again, Paul clambered up onto his hands and knees with the idea of putting Florimel's plan into action now, on the chance that they would not live to kill T4b later on. Instead, as he lifted his head up above the wagon floor, he saw the terrible face of their pursuer only meters behind them. The creature saw him, too. A mouth full of draggled iron fangs opened wide, displaying black depths as impenetrable as the pit out of which it had crawled.
Paul decided not to strangle the teenager just yet.
"It's catching up!" he shouted.
T4b crouched lower on the bench, snapping the reins against the horse-creature's back, but the animal had no greater speed to give them. Another bump and Paul felt himself flung up in the air again, and for a moment was heart-stoppingly certain he would be flung out the back of the wagon and into those waiting jaws. Instead he tangled with Florimel and the two of them slid and crashed into the back railing of the wagon.
"Grab her!" Florimel shouted as he struggled to extricate himself. For a moment Paul had no idea what she meant, but then saw that Martine also had hit the back of the wagon at such an angle that she had nearly flown out. She was clinging with one leg and one arm, her left leg dangling only a few inches above the dirt, too stu
Paul scrambled along the railing, but could not get a firm hold on Martine's flailing limbs as he fought against the wagon's ceaseless jouncing. Florimel grabbed him, helping to anchor him as he worked to better his grip. T4b was staring back in alarm, and as if sensing his inattention the horse-creature had slowed a little. The pursuing serpent gave a creaking hiss and rose up behind them, looming over the wagon like the terrifying figurehead of a Viking ship.
The wagon abruptly swung to the right as the horse followed a tight curve in the hillside. Paul, Florimel, and Martine were all flung to the outside rail of the wagon; for an instant, Martine lifted off the railing and was in open air with nothing below her but the painted strata of the canyon. Paul felt her sleeve begin to rip under his fingers, the material pulling apart at the seams, even as the dragon head darted down at them and the giant stony jaws clacked a hand's breadth from Paul's head.
Paul yanked Martine back down into the wagon, banging her skull against the rail in the process. The serpent reared again, then paused and abruptly rolled sideways, its hiss a shriek of surprise, and fell away behind them.
Paul clambered to his knees, staring. The tail of the serpent had failed to make the last sharp bend, even as the head had driven in for the kill. Much of the creature's bulk had already skidded down the steep slope in a billow of dust. As Paul watched, the great head whipped back and forth as it tried to gain purchase with the part of its body still on the mountain road, but too much of its back end was sliding downward. With a screech like failing brakes, the head thrashed toward them once, sun glinting from the copper nodes, then it was gone over the side like a yanked rope.
Moments later a grinding crash echoed up to them, the sound of a vertical train wreck.
Paul slumped back to the wagon bed. Martine and Florimel lay beside him, breathing in shallow, rapid gasps. The wagon was still jolting swiftly down the winding road, swaying dangerously at every turn.
"It's gone!" he shouted. "Javier, it's gone! Slow down!"
"This thing's locked up! Won't go slow!"
Exhausted, Paul sat up. The boy was pulling back as hard on the reins as he could, but although the horse had modified its pace a little, it was still moving down the hill road at a near gallop.