The blast from the river trestle explosion was still echoing off the granite cliffs three miles behind them when Prince Bastian forced open the bent iron door of the express train's lead cab.
Cold mountain mist mixed with the acrid stench of burning anthracite coal. The heavy locomotive had not plunged into the gorge; Captain Miller had thrown the engine into a violent, track-shearing reverse at the absolute last second, jamming the drive wheels into the ballast stone. The engine lay tilted at a thirty-degree angle against the concrete bridge abutment, its boiler groaning under forty pounds of unvented pressure, but the main frame held.
"Miller! Get the crew into the drainage tunnel!" Bastian called out, his gravelly voice tight as he hauled a heavy steel crowbar from the tool rack.
