Shadowcry by Jenna Burtenshaw Page B

train’s great wheels began to slow down.
    Inside the station, the first cages were already being moved across the platform in preparation for the train’s arrival. But all work stopped and every prisoner fell silent when the ground began to tremble and a cold blue light seeped out of the darkness, tracing along the edge of the track’s boundary wall and focusing into a single blinding beam that cut through the night like a knife. The deep noise sounded again. Closer this time and unmistakable. Silas’s driver stopped the carriage right on the edge of the platform, where he climbed down, unhitched the horses, and led them quickly away.
    Kate could feel the train approaching, but she still could not see anything but the light. The ground shook hard. Silas swung open the carriage door and the horn wailed again, deafeningly close. He pulled her out onto the slippery platform. Light flooded the walls, the rumble of wheels echoed through Kate’s bones, and the Night Train thundered into the station, groaning and grunting like a vast, malodorous beast.
    It was a moving stink of dripping oil, hot grinding metal, and burning fumes; a patchwork of heavy repairs, newly forged metal, and old hammered panels all riveted together into one scarred machine. Its massive wheels growled against the pressure of the brakes and its metal carriages rolled behind, each one windowless and terrifying, accompanied by the creaking sound of hanging chains.
    The train was a monster. Its engine car was taller than a house, with a twisted steam chimney on top and a pointed grille mounted on the front, designed to push anything it encountered out of the way. Kate’s head swam as a wave of putrid steam gushed from the wheels and tumbled onto the platform, carrying with it the hot smell of burning oil and churned-up dirt. The nearest carriage groaned as it settled to a stop, letting the train fall into silence, or as close to it as such a huge machine could.
    The Night Train stretched back endlessly down the track, no longer the grand funerary train of Albion’s last age, created to carry the dead to their place of rest, but a twisted ruin of what it had once been: a symbol of terror instead of hope. Its carriage doors opened one by one, filling the air with the shriek of sliding metal, then the first cages were rolled forward and the throbbing sound of machinery echoed inside, sending many of the prisoners into a panic.
    The station was in an uproar. No one wanted to be put on that train, and their shouts were deafening. People fought at their locks, tried to squeeze through the bars, and two cages crashed onto their sides as their occupants tried desperately to escape. The wardens ignored them and stood in silence along the platform, their daggers glinting in the lantern light. They did not care if people shouted or fought or begged or screamed. To them, Morvane was just another town and they had already won.
    â€œYou will not be traveling with them,” said Silas, turning Kate away from the shouting people and leading her toward the front of the train. “I want you where I can see you.”
    A set of three metal steps folded down from a door close to the front of the train and Silas motioned for her to step aboard. Kate looked back across the station, wondering where Artemis was, among all of those people. Maybe if she did what Silas wanted, for now, he might make a mistake, or at least leave her alone long enough for her to free herself. Something told her Silas was not the kind of man who made mistakes, but that small hope was enough to make her climb those steps with a little less fear. She was going to get out of this, and she was going to help Artemis. She just didn’t have any idea how she was going to do it yet.
    Kate stepped up into the monstrous carriage and was met by the dull flicker of tiny lanterns swinging in groups from metal beams overhead, but other than those beams the roof was completely open to