Alek slashed his way through the rye until he stood beside the fallen horseman. He lowered the saber’s point to the man’s throat.
“Surrender, sir.”
The man said nothing.
His eyes were half open, his face pale. He wasn’t much older than Alek, his beard wispy, his splayed arms thin. The expression on his face was so still… .
Alek took a step back. “Are you hurt, sir?”
Something large and warm nudged him softly from behind—the horse, suddenly calm. Its nuzzle pushed against the back of Alek’s neck, sending a cold shiver down his spine.
The man didn’t respond.
In the distance, shots rang out. Volger and Klopp needed his help, now. Alek turned from the fallen rider and pulled himself up into the saddle. The reins were tangled and twisted, the horse unsteady beneath him.
Alek leaned down and whispered in its ear. “It’s all right. Everything’s going to be okay.”
He prodded his heels into its flanks, and the horse shuddered into motion, leaving its former rider behind in the grass.
The Stormwalker’s engines were already rumbling.
The horse didn’t hesitate when Alek urged it between the huge steel legs. It must have trained alongside walkers— it was an Austrian horse, after all.
Alek had just killed an Austrian soldier.
He forced the thought away and grabbed the dangling chain ladder, sending the horse clear with a shout and a kick.
Bauer met him at the hatch. “We heard shots and started up, sir.”
“Good man,” Alek said. “We’ll need the cannon loaded too. Volger and Klopp are a kilometer from here, holding off a troop of horses.”
“Right away, sir.” Bauer offered a hand, and pulled him inside.
As Alek scrambled through the belly and up into the pilot’s cabin, more shots sounded in the distance. At least the fight hadn’t ended yet.
“Do you need help, sir?” Hoffman asked. He was halfway up through the hatch, a look of concern on his bearded face.
Alek stared at the controls, realizing that he’d never piloted before without Master Klopp sitting beside him. And here he was, about to stride into battle.
“You’ve never piloted, have you?” Alek asked.
Hoffman shook his head. “I’m just an engineer, sir.”
“Well, then, you’re better off helping Bauer with the cannon. And both of you strap in tight.”
Hoffman smiled, saluting. “You’ll do all right, sir.”
Alek nodded, turning back to the controls as the hatch swung shut. He flexed his hands.
One step at a time, Klopp always said.
Alek pushed the saunters forward… . The walker reared up, valves hissing. One huge foot pushed ahead in the stream, sending spray into the air. Alek took another step, urging the machine faster.
But his power gauges all flickered deep in the green— the engines were still cold.
In a few steps the Stormwalker had climbed the river-bank, up to level ground. Alek gunned the fuel injectors, the engines roaring.
The power gauges began to rise.
He pushed the machine forward, letting its strides grow longer and longer. The furrows began to flash by underneath, the sound of tearing rye audible above the engines. He felt the moment when the walker shifted into a run, the machine rising up into the air between footfalls.
From the top of each stride he could see the troop of horses ahead. They were spread out across the rye, in search formation.
Alek smiled. Klopp and Volger had also slipped away into the tall grass—that was how they’d held out for so long.
Heads turned, the horsemen wheeling toward the new threat.
The intercom crackled. “Ready to fire.”
“Aim over their heads, Bauer. They’re Austrians, and Klopp and Volger are somewhere in that grass.”
“A warning shot then, sir.”
A few of the carbines crackled, and Alek heard a bullet strike metal close by. He realized that the viewport was wide open, with no one to wind it shut.
The young rider he’d killed had missed him on purpose. But these men were aiming to kill.
He changed the walker’s stride, pushing outward with the feet so that the machine weaved from left to right. Running serpentine, Klopp called this, cutting a path like a snake through the grass.
But the machine’s winding path didn’t feel as graceful as that.
The cannon boomed below him—then a column of dirt and smoke shot into the air just behind the horsemen. Widening circles rippled through the grass like pond water from a stone, and two horses fell sideways, throwing their riders.
A second later a wave of dirt and sheer force struck Alek through the open viewport, and his hands slipped from the saunters. The walker lurched to one side, wheeling toward the stream. Alek grabbed at the controls, twisting them hard, and the Stormwalker came to, staggering but still upright.
The horsemen had gathered into tight formation, about to retreat. But Alek saw them hesitating, wondering if the walker was out of control. Lurching around like this, it probably looked as intimidating as a drunken chicken. He doubted Bauer could reload the cannon unless he could steady the machine.
Shots crackled again, and something pinged around
“THE CHARGE”
Alek’s ears, a bullet ricocheting around the metal cabin. No point in coming to a halt—it just made him a better target—so Alek leaned low over the controls, heading straight for the troop of horses.
The riders hesitated for another moment, then wheeled about and galloped back toward the stream, deciding not to pit flesh against metal.
“Sir! It’s Master Klopp!” Bauer’s voice came on the intercom. “Standing up in front of us!”
Alek pulled back on the saunters, just as he had the day before—and again the walker’s right foot planted hard, the machine beginning to tip.
But this time he knew what to do. He twisted the walker sideways, thrusting out one steel leg. Dust exploded across the viewport, and the sound of straining gears and tearing grass filled his ears.
Alek felt the machine regain its balance, the momentum of its charge consumed by the skid.
As the walker settled, Alek heard the belly hatch open below. There were shouts, and the clanking of the chain ladder unrolling. Was that Klopp’s voice? Volger’s?
He wanted to glance down through the cabin hatch, but he stayed at the controls. The dust was clearing before him, and he saw movement in the distance—the flash of helmets and spurs. Perhaps he should fire one of the machine guns into the air, just to keep them in retreat.
“Young master!”
Alek spun around in the pilot’s chair. “Klopp! You’re all right!”
“Well enough.” The man pulled himself up into the cabin. His clothes were torn and bloody.
“Were you hit?”
“Not me. Volger.” Klopp fell into the commander’s chair, panting. “His shoulder—Hoffman’s seeing to it below. But we must go, young master. More will come.”
Alek nodded. “Which way?”
“First back to the stream. The kerosene’s still there.”
“Right. Of course.” The dust was clearing in the viewports, and Alek put his shaking hands on the saunters again. He realized that he’d hoped Klopp would take the controls, but the man was still panting, his face bright red.
“Don’t worry, Alek. You did well.”
Alek swallowed, forcing his hands to push the Stormwalker into a first step. “I almost wrecked it again.”
“Exactly: almost.” Klopp laughed. “Remember how I said everyone falls the first time they try to run?”
Alek scowled as he planted one giant foot on the river-bank. “I could hardly forget.”
“Well, everyone also falls the second time they run, young master!” Klopp’s laughter turned into coughing, then he spat and cleared his throat. “Except for you, it seems. Lucky for us you’re such a Mozart with the saunters.”
But he’d lost his life just the same.
Alek felt himself split into two people, the way he did when he was alone on watch, one part crushing down his despair into its small, hidden place. He blinked away sweat and searched the riverbank for the precious cans of kerosene, hoping that Bauer was watching for horses, and that the cannon was loaded again.
FIFTEEN
Just after morning altitude drills the middies were all at breakfast, chattering about signal scores, the duty roster, and when war would finally come.
Deryn had already finished her eggs and potatoes. She was busy sketching the way the message lizard tubes coiled around the Leviathan’s walls and windows. The beasties always poked their heads out as they waited for messages, like foxes in a burrow.
Then suddenly Midshipman Tyndall, who’d been staring dreamily out the windows, shouted, “Look at that!”
The other middies sprang up, scrambling to the port side of the mess. In the distance, across the patchwork of farmlands and villages, the great city of London was rising into view. They shouted to each other about the ironclads moored on the River Thames, the tangle of converging rail lines, and the elephantine draft animals
“BLASÉ ABOUT OLD SIGHTS.”
that choked the roads leading to the capital.
Deryn stayed in her seat, taking the opportunity to spear one of Middy Fitzroy’s potatoes.
“Haven’t you plook-heads seen London before?” she asked, chewing.
“Not from up here,” Newkirk said. “The Service never lets us big ships fly over cities.”
“Wouldn’t want to scare the Monkey Luddites, would we?” Tyndall said, punching Newkirk’s shoulder.
Newkirk ignored him. “Look! Is that Saint Paul’s?”
“Seen it,” Deryn said, stealing a piece of Tyndall’s bacon. “I flew over these parts in a Huxley once. An interesting story, that.”
“Quit your blethering, Mr. Sharp!” Fitzroy said. “We’ve heard that story enough.”
Deryn flicked a piece of potato at Fitzroy’s dorsal regions. The boy always assumed superior airs, just because his father was an ocean navy captain.
Feeling the projectile hit home, Fitzroy turned from the view and scowled. “We’re the ones who rescued you, remember?”
“What, you sods?” she said. “I don’t remember seeing you at the winch, Mr. Fitzroy.”
“Perhaps not.” He smiled and turned back to the view. “But we watched you float past these very windows, swinging from your Huxley like a pair of trinkets.”
The other middies laughed, and Deryn sprang up from her chair. “I think you might want to rephrase that, Mr. Fitzroy.”
He turned away and gazed serenely out the window. “And I think you might learn to respect your betters, Mr. Sharp.”
“Betters?” Deryn balled her fists. “Who’d respect a bum-rag like you?”
“Gentlemen!” Mr. Rigby’s voice came from the hallway. “Your attention, please.”
Deryn snapped to attention with the others, but her glare stayed fixed on Fitzroy. He was stronger than her, but in the two tiny bunk rooms that the middies shared, there were a hundred ways to take revenge.
Then Captain Hobbes and Dr. Busk entered the mess behind Mr. Rigby, and her anger faded. It wasn’t often that the master of the Leviathan, much less the ship’s head boffin, addressed the lowly middies. She exchanged an anxious glance with Newkirk.
“At ease, gentlemen,” the captain said, then smiled. “I’m not bringing you news of war. Not today, at least.”
Some of the other middies looked disappointed.
A week ago Austria-Hungary had finally declared war on Serbia, vowing to avenge their murdered archduke with an invasion. A few days later Germany had started up with Russia, which meant that France would be next into the fray. War between the Darwinist and Clanker powers was spreading like a vicious rumor, and it didn’t seem that Britain could stay out for long.
“You may have noticed London underneath us,” the captain continued. “An unusual visit, and that’s not the half of it. We’ll be setting down in Regent’s Park, near His Majesty’s London Zoo.”
Deryn’s eyes widened. Flying over London was bad enough, but coming down in a public park was going to stir the pot for sure. And not just for Monkey Luddites. Even old Darwin himself might have got antsy about a thousand-foot airbeast landing on his picnic.
The captain crossed to the windows and looked down. “Regent’s Park is at best a half mile across, a bit more than twice our length. A tricky business, but the risk is a necessary one. We’re taking aboard an important guest, a member of the zoo’s staff, for transport to Constantinople.”
Deryn wondered for a moment if she’d heard right. Constantinople was in the Ottoman Empire, clear on the other side of Europe, and the Ottomans were Clankers. Why in blazes would the Leviathan be headed there now?
The airship had spent the last month preparing for war— combat drills every night, and daily musters of the fléchette bats and strafing hawks. They’d even flown within sight of a German dreadnought in the North Sea, just to show that a living airship wasn’t scared of any pile of gears and engines.
And now they were headed off on a jaunt to Constantinople?
Dr. Busk spoke up. “Our passenger is a scientist of great renown, who’ll be undertaking an important diplomatic mission. We will also be bringing cargo aboard, of a delicate nature. It must be treated with the utmost care.”
The captain cleared his throat. “Mr. Rigby and I may have to make a difficult decision about weight.”
Deryn took a slow breath. Weight … so that’s what this was about.
The Leviathan was “aerostatic,” Service-speak for being the same density as the air around it. Maintaining this balance was a fussy business. When rain collected topside, water had to be dumped from the ballast holds. If the ship expanded in the hot sun, hydrogen had to be vented off. And when passengers or extra cargo came aboard, something else had to be taken off—usually something useless.
And there was nothing more useless than a new midshipman.
“I shall be reviewing your signals and navigation scores,” the captain was saying. “Mr. Rigby will weigh in on which of you are paying the most attention in lectures. And, of course, any missteps during this landing will be frowned upon. Good day, gentlemen.”
He turned and strode from the room, the head boffin leaving with him. There was a moment of silence as the middies absorbed the news. In a few hours some of them might be gone from the Leviathan for good.
“All right, lads,” Mr. Rigby snapped. “You heard the captain. We’re about to land on an improvised airfield, so look smart! They’ve got a ground crew in from the Scrubs, but no landing master with them. And our passenger is going to need help down there. Mr. Fitzroy and Mr. Sharp, you two are the best with the Huxleys, so you’ll head down first… .”
As the bosun gave his orders, Deryn looked at the other middies’ faces. Fitzroy returned her gaze coolly, and she didn’t have to guess what that bum-rag was thinking. She’d been aboard the Leviathan barely a month, and it was only by freak chance that she was here at all. Not much better than a stowaway, as far as Fitzroy was concerned.
Deryn glared right back at him. The captain hadn’t said anything about who’d been aboard longest. He was looking at airmanship, so he wanted to keep his best men.
And that’s exactly what she was, man or not.
Maybe all the competition on the Leviathan would serve her well now. Thanks to Da’s training, Deryn had always beat the other middies with knots and sextants. And even Mr. Rigby would admit that her behavior hadn’t been as rowdy lately, and he’d just complimented her work with the Huxleys.
As lo
ng as the landing went brilliantly, there was nothing to worry about at all.
Regent’s Park spread out beneath Deryn, its grass thick from the August rains.
Squads of ground men ran across it, shepherding the last few civilians out of the landing area. A thin line of policemen clung to the edges, holding back hundreds of gawkers. The Leviathan’s shadow lay across the trees, and the air trembled with the engines’ hum.
Deryn was descending fast, aiming for the intersection of two footpaths, where a local chief constable was awaiting orders. A message lizard rode on her shoulder, its sucker-feet tugging at her uniform like the claws of a nervous cat.
“We’re almost there, beastie,” she said soothingly. She didn’t fancy arriving on the ground with a panicked lizard, the captain’s landing orders garbled beyond understanding.
Deryn was a bit nervous herself. She’d ridden ascenders a half dozen times since joining the Leviathan’s crew—she weighed the least of all the middies, and could always coax her beasts the highest. But that had been on U-boat spotting duty, with the Huxley cabled to the airship. This was the first time she’d free-ballooned since her wild ride as a recruit.
So far, at least, it had been a textbook descent. The airbeast’s extra ballast was bringing it down fast, guided by a pair of gliding wings attached to her rig.
Deryn wondered who was so important, to warrant all this trouble. They were ruining a hundred picnics and risking disaster by landing here in the park, and probably scaring the clart out of every Monkey Luddite in London. And all just to get some scientist to Constantinople a bit quicker?
This fellow must be some kind of clever-boots, even for a boffin.
The ground was rushing closer, and Deryn let out a slosh of ballast. Her descent slowed a squick, the spilled water sparkling in the sun as it cascaded down. The message lizard squeezed a little tighter.
“Don’t you worry, beastie,” Deryn murmured. “It’s all under control.”
Mr. Rigby had told her to get down fast, with no nonsense. She imagined him watching from above, timing the descent with his stopwatch, pondering who should be cut from the crew.
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