Marasi couldn’t make out what happened next through the darkness and the mists. And she was glad. The shots continued, and she heard men screaming.

“Rotary gun,” Wayne said softly. “Damn, these people are serious.”

“I have to help,” Marasi said, unslinging the rifle Ranette had given her. It was of an unfamiliar make, but the woman swore it would be more accurate than anything Marasi had ever used. She raised the rifle. If she could hit the Vanishers…

Wayne took the barrel of her rifle in one hand, gently pushing it down. The rotary gun stopped firing, and the night grew silent.

“There’s nothing you can do, mate, and we don’t want to draw the attention of that damn rotary. Besides, you really think you can hit one of them from all the way up here?”

“I’ve hit red at five hundred paces.”

“At night?” Wayne said. “In the mists?”

Marasi fell silent. Then she held out her hand and gestured impatiently for the spyglass. Wayne gave it to her, and she watched six men hop from the phantom train. They walked along the sides of the real train, guns at the ready and watching.

“Distraction?” Wayne asked, watching.

“Lord Waxillium thought so. He said to…” She trailed off.

He said to watch the canal.

She turned, scanning the canal with the spyglass. Something big and dark was floating down it. Shrouded in mists, it looked like some kind of massive beast—a leviathan swimming quietly through the water. It came up to the middle of the train, then halted. A dark, shadowy leg lifted from the black mass. By the Survivor, she thought, shivering. It’s alive.

But no… the leg was too stiff. It moved up, rotated out, then came down. As the thing in the canal stopped, the leg clamped into place on the shore. For stabilization, Marasi realized. That’s what made the depression in the ground we saw earlier.

Once the thing… the machine… was stabilized, some men moved through the darkness to the vault car. They worked for a few moments. Then a large arm rose out of the dark mass on the canal. It swung over toward the tracks, then reached down, grabbed the entire vault car, and lifted it.

Marasi gaped. The car was lifted only a few feet, but that was enough. The machine was a crane.

The Vanishers who had unhooked the couplers helped push the train car over across the narrow strip of land toward the canal. The black mass had to be a barge. Marasi ran some quick numbers in her head. In order to lift the train car like that, the barge must be very heavy and have considerable ballast on the other side.

She lifted her spyglass and was pleased to be able to pick out another crane arm extending in the other direction, holding some kind of heavy weight. The barge sank somewhat into the waters as the vault car was lifted, but not as far as Marasi would have assumed. It probably was designed with some means of bottoming out in the canal, perhaps an extendable section underneath the barge. That, plus the stabilizing arm, might be enough.