Steamborn Read Free Page B

won’t.”
    Alice pushed his shoulder and he swayed backwards. She smiled as she picked up a small wool satchel and left the Hall.
    “Bye, Miss Penny,” Jacob said as he ran after Alice.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    “Did you see the bugs that broke through the wall?” Jacob asked.
    “Yes,” Alice said, her voice trailing off. “One of them was a Walker, but they said it tried to attack everything it got close to. Walkers don’t do that. They’re not hostile.”
    “Watch out,” Jacob said. He pointed to a hole in the sidewalk. One of the cobblestones had gone missing.
    Alice stepped around it, and they continued through the yellow warmth of the streetlights. Jacob always walked Alice home from Cotillion. She didn’t like to be alone on the streets at night. It’s not that they weren’t safe, but sometimes things did come over the walls.
    “Not all Walkers are friendly,” Jacob said, remembering a driver who got a nasty bite from the two-foot scythe-like mandibles of a Walker. He looked up at the broken-down wall as they neared it.
    “It’s gone,” Alice said. “I guess they finished cleaning it up.”
    “Jacob, Alice.” Jacob jumped in surprise and Alice gasped when a slightly deep voice called their names from above.
    A Spider Knight was perched on one of the stone roofs. The streetlights glinted on the obsidian black eyes of the spider and the gleaming, coppery armor of the man riding it.
    “Samuel?” Jacob asked.
    The knight nodded, his armor squeaking briefly with the movement. The knights who patrolled the city wore flawless golden armor that never made a sound, nothing like Samuel’s. Samuel told Jacob the golden armor wouldn’t stop a sword, or even most bugs, so he didn’t have a use for it. His mount was one of the rare giant Jumpers. Most Spider Knights rode on beasts that preferred to stay on the ground. Jumpers were fast, but incredibly dangerous to ride.
    “What are you two doing here?” Samuel asked. He tapped his foot near one of the spider’s legs, and the beast hopped down from the roof, barely making a sound when it landed in front of Alice.
    “He’s walking me home,” Alice said as she reached out and touched the furry bristles of the spider.
    “Careful now,” Samuel said. “Old Bessie’s been a bit grumpy.”
    Alice smiled and fumbled her satchel open. She pulled out a fairly large, and very dead, fly. The spider began to pump its legs up and down as it stared at the treat.
    “Alice,” Samuel said, putting a bit more strength behind his words. “I wouldn’t—”
    The spider lunged forward and snapped the fly out of Alice’s outstretched hands. Jacob frowned and scrunched his face up as the spider’s jaws began moving side to side, grinding up its unexpected treat, while its smaller limbs—what did the old man call them, pedipalps?—kept the fly in chewing distance.
    “That could have been your hand,” Samuel said.
    Alice laughed and patted the beast between its two largest eyes. “No way, Bessie knows who gets her the best Sweet-Flies.”
    Samuel looked as though he was about to offer an argument and then thought better of it. “Okay, get moving you two. There are more of us watching the wall tonight than usual, but those boards won’t be able to keep anything large out.” He nodded at the makeshift structure blocking the hole. The rest of the wall had long, narrow-angled spikes that most invaders couldn’t grasp. Sometimes the bugs would get smart though, or lucky, and that’s when people got hurt.
    Jacob nodded as his gaze moved back to Samuel.
    Samuel unlatched a leather pocket on the front edge of Bessie’s saddle. He pulled something out that glistened in the dim light and tossed it to Jacob. “There’s a lot of activity on the mountainside. You two hear anything inside the wall, blow on that.”
    Jacob looked down at the shining silver whistle and could barely contain his excitement. It was a wall whistle—one of the Spider Knights’ whistles! It was