Leviathan 01 - Leviathan, Page 4

  Then Volger was dragging him back down into the cabin, the engines roaring back to life.

  “Load the cannon!” Master Klopp cried to the men below.

  “THE S.M.S. BEOWULF.”

  Alek found himself deposited into the commander’s chair as the machine began to move. He struggled with the seat straps, but a terrible thought took hold of his mind, freezing his fingers.

  If they’re trying to kill me…it’s all true.

  Count Volger crouched beside him, yelling over the rumble of engines and gunfire. “Take heart at this impoliteness, Alek. It proves that you are still a threat to the throne.”

  The second broadside of cannon shells fell closer, a spray of gravel and wooden splinters rattling against the viewport’s grill, the smaller pieces spilling through.

  Alek spat dirt from his mouth.

  “Vision to half!” Master Klopp cried, then cursed. The two crewmen were below, and Volger was halfway up through the hatch again, his legs dangling from the ceiling.

  Klopp glanced apologetically at Alek. “If you please, Your Highness.”

  “Certainly, Master Klopp,” Alek said. He unbuckled and pulled himself up from the commander’s chair. The cabin rocked and swayed, and he grasped the straps overhead to keep his footing.

  He tried to turn the viewport’s crank, but it wouldn’t budge. Taking it with both hands, Alek strained harder, until the massive armored visor grudgingly closed a few centimeters.

  Another broadside shook the earth beneath them, and the walker staggered forward. Count Volger’s riding boots flailed, kicking Alek in the back of the head.

  “They can still see us!” Volger shouted from above. “We’re too tall!”

  Master Klopp twisted at the saunters, hunkering the Stormwalker lower. The hornbeam trees rose up in the viewport, the walker’s clumsy gait sending Volger’s boots swinging again. For an astonished moment Alek watched Klopp’s hands on the controls—he’d never seen a walker shuffle along in a crouch like this.

  Of course, he’d never imagined a Cyklop Stormwalker having to hide from anything. But against a dreadnought this walker was practically a toy.

  Grunting and heaving, Alek managed to close the right viewport to half. He reached for the other crank.

  “Young master, the antenna!” Klopp cried out.

  “Yes, of course!” The Stormwalker’s wireless antenna stretched up above the trees, the archducal flag snapping in the breeze. But Alek had no idea how to lower it. He looked around the cabin, wishing he’d paid more attention to the crewmen when learning how to pilot.

  Finally he spotted a windlass beside the wireless set. As he darted for it, Volger’s dangling boots delivered another blow to his shoulder. The windlass spun wildly the moment Alek unlocked it, the antenna telescoping closed a few centimeters from his ear.

  He started back for the commander’s seat, then saw that the left viewport was still open. He reached across the lurching cabin and began to crank it tighter.

  Volger dropped back into the cabin, closing the hatch above him against a sudden rain of dirt and pebbles. “We’re out of sight now.”

  Another broadside rumbled in the distance, followed by more explosions flickering among the trees ahead. Debris struck the Stormwalker, but the viewport’s grills were squeezed as tight as a comb’s teeth now; only the fine dust of pulverized forest floor filtered through.

  Alek felt a moment of satisfaction—he’d done something useful. This was his first real battle, when only hours before, he’d been playing with tin soldiers. The rumble of explosions and the shriek of engines somehow filled the hollowness inside him.

  The Stormwalker was thrashing through dense forest now. Of course—any cleared path would be clearly visible from the Beowulf’s lookout towers.

  Alek’s heart was beating fast as he slipped back into the commander’s chair and watched Klopp’s hands on the saunters. His long hours of piloting practice seemed suddenly trifling. All that time in runabouts had been pretend-play, and this was real.

  Volger crouched between the chairs to peer forward, his face blackened with dirt and sweat. Blood flowed from a scratch above one eye, shining bright red in the gloom of the shuttered cabin.

  “I believe I suggested a smaller landship, Master Klopp.”

  Klopp barked a laugh, still struggling to keep the Stormwalker low to the ground. “Don’t appreciate the extra armor, Volger? A runabout would’ve been blown off her feet by that last broadside.”

  The forest rumbled again, but the explosions came from well behind and off to the right. The dreadnought had lost sight of them for now.

  “The sun was rising behind the Beowulf. So we’re headed west,” Alek said. “We should turn left. The pines and firs down in the south are much taller than these hornbeams.”

  “Well remembered, Your Highness,” Master Klopp said, adjusting his course.

  Alek clapped him on the shoulder. “You were right to choose a Stormwalker, Klopp. We’d be dead now, otherwise.”

  “We’d be halfway to Switzerland, you mean,” Volger said, managing to sound as if this were some fencing lesson that Alek was failing to comprehend. “In a runabout half this size, or on horses, they wouldn’t have spotted us in the first place.”

  Alek glared up at the wildcount, but before he could open his mouth, the intercom popped.

  “Loaded and ready, sir.”

  Alek dropped his gaze toward the cabin floor. “Those two would have been more use up here. There’s not much they can do with that peashooter against a dreadnought.”

  “True, Your Highness,” Klopp said. “But she’ll have escorts—smaller, faster ships moving below tree height. We may get a whiff of them sooner than you think.”

  “Ah, quite right.” Alek closed his mouth and swallowed. The rush of battle was beginning to fade, and his hands were shaking.

  All he’d done was turn a few cranks; the others had handled everything important. The bruises left by Volger’s swinging boots still throbbed, reminders of how Alek had mostly managed to get in the way.

  He leaned back into the commander’s chair. As the simple, overwhelming fear of being shot at faded, the emptiness was rushing back….

  Alek wished that it were him bleeding instead of Volger—anything to distract himself from the truth welling up in his mind.

  “She’s lost our range,” Klopp said. “No big guns for a count of thirty.”

  “They’ve turned to give chase,” Volger said. “But wait till their scouts spot us. She’ll swing around for another broadside soon enough.”

  Alek cast about for something to say, but found himself in the grip of a silent panic, his vision blurring with tears. The attack had swept away his last doubts.

  His father was dead; his mother too. Both gone forever.

  His Serene Highness, Prince Aleksandar of Hohen-berg, was alone now. He might never see his home again. The armed forces of two empires were hunting him, set against one walker and four men.

  Volger and Klopp fell silent, and when Alek turned, he saw his despair reflected in their faces. He clenched the hand rests of the commander’s chair, fighting to breathe.

  His father would’ve known what to say in this situation: a short and forceful speech, praising the men for their efforts, urging them to carry on. But Alek could only stare into the forest, blinking away tears.

  If he didn’t say something, the emptiness would swallow him.

  A burst of gunfire broke out in the trees ahead, cutting through the grind of the engines. The walker twisted to a new heading, and Count Volger jumped to his feet again.

  “Horse scouts, I reckon!” Master Klopp said. “They have stables on the Beowulf.”

  A shower of bullets rattled against the Stormwalker’s visor, louder than any spray of dirt and pebbles. Alek imagined metal projectiles ripping through the armor and cutting into him, and his heart began to race again.

  The awful emptiness lifted a little….

  A huge boom sho
ok the walker in its track, and a billow of smoke rose across the viewport, its choking stench spilling into the cabin. For a moment Alek thought they’d been hit, but then an explosion answered from the distance, followed by the crack of trees and the awful cries of horses.

  “That was us!” he murmured. The men below had fired the Stormwalker’s cannon.

  As the echoes died, Volger called, “Do you know how to load a Spandau machine gun, Alek?”

  Prince Aleksandar knew nothing of the sort, but already his hands were moving to unbuckle his seat straps.

  They were just beginning to reel in Deryn when the storm struck.

  The ground men had noticed the darkening sky. They were scrambling about the field, securing the hangar tent with extra spikes, getting the recruits under cover. Four men strained at the ascender’s winch, pulling Deryn down steady and fast. A dozen ground crew waited to grab the beast’s tentacles when it was low enough.

  But she was still five hundred feet up when the first sheets of rain arrived. The cold drops fell diagonally, hitting her dangling feet even under the cover of the airbeast. Its tentacles coiled tighter, and she wondered how long the medusa would take this pounding before it spilled its hydrogen, hurling itself toward the ground.

  “Stay calm, beastie,” Deryn said softly. “They’re bringing us in.”

  A wild gust caught the medusa’s airbag, and it billowed like a full sail. Deryn swung out into the full force of the storm, her boy-slops instantly soaked with freezing rain.

  Then the cable snapped taut, whipping the beast earthward like a kite without enough string. It dropped toward houses and backyard gardens, down to just above the high prison walls. Directly beneath Deryn people scurried along the wet streets, shoulders hunched, unaware of the monster overhead.

  Another gust of wind struck, and the Huxley was forced low enough that Deryn could see the ribs of umbrellas below.

  “Oh, beastie. This isn’t good.”

  The medusa swelled again, trying to regain its lift, and leveled off a few dozen feet above the rooftops. The cable strained against the wind for a moment, then loosened. The ground men were giving them slack, Deryn reckoned, letting them climb a bit more, like a fisherman trying to keep a catch on the line.

  But that extra cable was more weight to carry, and she and the Huxley were both heavy with rain. She could spill the water ballast, but once it was gone, there’d be nothing left to slow their fall if the beastie panicked.

  The cable was scraping across the prison’s rooftops now, snapping against shingles and drainpipes. Deryn saw it snag on one of the smoking chimneys, and her eyes widened….

  No wonder the ground men were letting out more cable—they were keeping her away from the prison. If a chimney spark drifted up and reached the Huxley’s airbag, the hydrogen would ignite, the ascender exploding in a massive fireball, rain or no rain.

  The cable snagged again, sending a jolt through the Huxley. The creature spooked, its tentacles coiling tight, and dropped again.

  Deryn clutched the ballast cord, gritting her teeth. She might survive a wind-tossed landing herself, but the shingled rooftops and backyard fences below would shred the creature to pieces. And it would be all Deryn Sharp’s fault for not warning the ground men when she’d had the chance.

  Some air sense.

  “Okay, beastie,” she called up. “I may have got you into this mess, but I’m gonna get you out, too. And I’m telling you: Now’s not the time to panic!”

  The creature made no promises, but Deryn pulled the ballast cords anyway. The bags snapped open, spilling their water into the storm.

  Slowly the airbeast began to climb.

  The ground men gave a cheer and set upon the winch, furiously hauling the airbeast in against the wind. The captain was supervising, shouting orders from the back of the all-terrain carriage. The tigeresques looked miserable in the rain, like a pair of house cats standing under a faucet.

  With a few more turns of the winch the medusa was over the proving grounds, safely away from the prison’s smoking chimneys.

  But then the wind switched direction. The airbeast billowed again, pulled in a half circle toward the other end of the Scrubs.

  The Huxley let out a screech above the wind, like the horrible sound when one of Da’s air bladders would spring a leak.

  “No, beastie! We’re almost safe!” Deryn shouted.

  But the medusa had been tossed about once too often. Its gasbag was contracting, the tentacles coiled as tight as rattlesnakes.

  Deryn Sharp smelled the hydrogen spilling into the air, the scent like bitter almonds. She was falling…

  But the wind still carried them, changing direction without rhyme or reason. It tossed the airbeast about like a crumpled piece of paper, pulling Deryn behind it.

  They had to be heavier than air by now, but in a gale like this, Deryn fancied you could fly a bowler hat on a bit of string.

  At the other end of the cable the ground men were watching helplessly, the flight captain ducking as the gyrating cable sliced overhead. If they tried to crank her any closer, they’d pull the airbeast straight down into the ground.

  Jaspert was running across the field toward her, cupping his hands to his mouth and shouting something….

  She caught the sound of his voice, but the wind whipped the words away.

  Deryn’s feet now dangled a few yards above the ground, which raced by as if she were on horseback. She peeled off her heavy, sodden jacket and tossed it overboard.

  The prison loomed close again as the Huxley sped along. Smashing into its walls at this speed would turn her and the airbeast into bloody splotches.

  Her fingers scrambled at the pilot’s rig, searching for a way to escape the harness. Deryn reckoned her chances were better dropping onto muddy grass than crashing into a wall. And with her weight gone the Huxley would rise back into the air.

  Of course, that clart-rag of a coxswain hadn’t bothered showing her how to unbuckle the rig. The leather straps were swollen with rain, cinched as tight as a duck’s bum. Evidently the Service didn’t trust recruits not to wriggle out in a panic and fall to their deaths.

  Then Deryn saw the knot over her head—the cable that bound the airbeast to the ground!

  She looked at the cable stretched out between her and the winch…about three hundred feet of it now. That length of rain-soaked hemp had to weigh more than one skinny wee lassie and her wet clothes.

  If she could set the Huxley free, it might still have enough hydrogen to carry her up to safety.

  But the ground was rising again, shining wet grass and puddles blurring past just beneath her feet—the prison walls ahead. Reaching up with one hand, Deryn felt the half-familiar shape of the knot….

  It was nothing but a backhanded mooring hitch! She remembered Jaspert telling her how Air Service riggers used sailor’s knots, the same ones she’d tied a thousand times on Da’s balloons!

  As Deryn struggled to free the wet cable from its knot, her boots struck the ground with a bone-jarring thud, skidding across the wet grass.

  But the real danger wasn’t below—it was the approaching prison walls. Deryn and the Huxley were seconds away from smashing into that shining expanse of wet stone.

  Finally her fingers pushed the cable’s working end free. The knot spilled, the rope twisting like a live thing, skinning her fingers as it slipped from the steel ring.

  As the weight of three hundred feet of wet hemp dropped away, the airbeast soared, clearing the prison walls with yards to spare.

  Deryn’s breath caught as a belching chimney passed beneath her feet. She imagined raindrops tumbling down its mouth to the coal fires below, spitting steam, the sparks rising up to ignite the angry mass of hydrogen over her head.

  But the wind whipped the sparks away—moments later the Huxley had cleared the southernmost prison buildings.

  As she climbed, Deryn heard a hoarse cheer from below.

  The ground men raised their arms in triumph.
Jaspert was beaming, cupping both hands to his face and shouting something that sounded congratulatory, as if to say she’d done exactly what he’d told her!

  “It was my barking idea, Jaspert Sharp,” she muttered, sucking her rope-burned fingers.

  Of course, she was still in the middle of a storm, strapped to an irritable Huxley, both of them soaring across a stretch of London with precious few spots to land.

  And how was Deryn meant to land this beastie? She had no way to vent hydrogen, no more ballast in case the creature spooked, and no clue if anyone had ever free-ballooned with a Huxley before and lived to tell the tale.

  Still…at least she was flying. If she ever came down alive, the boffins would have to admit as how she’d passed this test.

  Boy or not, Deryn Sharp had shown a squick of air sense after all.

  The storm felt strangely still.

  She remembered the sensation from Da’s hot-air balloons. Cut free from its tether, the medusa had exactly matched the speed of the wind. The air felt motionless, the earth turning below on a giant lathe.

  Dark clouds still boiled around her, giving the Huxley an occasional spin. But worse were the flickers in the distance. One sure way to set a hydrogen breather aflame was to hit it with lightning. Deryn distracted herself by watching London pass beneath, all matchbox houses and winding streets, the factories with their sealed smokestacks.

  She remembered how Da had said London looked in the days before old Darwin had worked his magic. A pall of coal smoke had covered the entire city, along with a fog so thick that streetlamps were lit during the day. During the worst of the steam age so much soot and ash had decorated the nearby countryside that butterflies had evolved black splotches on their wings for camouflage.

  But before Deryn had been born, the great coal-fired engines had been overtaken by fabricated beasties, muscles and sinews replacing boilers and gears. These days the only chimney smoke came from ovens, not huge factories, and the storm had cleared even that murk from the air.