by Philip Reeve
“What, in that get-up?” asked another.
“It’s her. I seen her picture in the Evening News. Blimey!”
“You’re under arrest!” said the leader, striding towards Oenone.
“Stand back, sir,” snapped von Kobold, and drew his sabre. “The lady is my prisoner, and I will not deliver her into the hands of your warmongering mayor.”
“Now, steady on!” called Pennyroyal, who didn’t want a squabble between Murnau and Manchester to ruin his chance of some favourable headlines. But before he could say more the light of a flashbulb blinded him. A small man in formal robes walked out on to the increasingly crowded strut. There was a girl behind him, fumbling a new flashbulb into place on the top of her camera.
“Mr Pennyroyal!” the newcomer called out pleasantly. “Sampford Spiney of The Speculum. Been looking for you everywhere. Do you have any message for your many disappointed fans?” His voice was affable and faintly snide; it faded into silence as he saw the Mancunians with their drawn swords, von Kobold with his sabre, Oenone supporting Hester, who had crumpled to her knees at the foot of the Humbug’s gangplank. “I say!” he murmured excitedly. “What’s all this?”
But the leader of the Mancunians was tired of talking. He raised his sword and tried to barge past von Kobold, but the Kriegsmarshal barred his way. Sparks flew as their swords met, directly contravening Airhaven’s strict fire-prevention laws. Up on the High Street people screamed. The Manchester swordsman screamed too, stumbling away with blood running down his arm. Von Kobold turned to face the others. “Defend yourselves!” he shouted, and most of them started to edge back, frightened of this fierce old soldier who seemed ready to take on five of them at once. Only one held his ground. He was a young man, red-cheeked and running to fat. In addition to his uniform sword he had a revolver. He pointed it straight at von Kobold, and fired twice.
Theo, waiting aboard the Shadow Aspect, heard the shots. He ran to the hatch. He tried to tell himself that those bangs had not been gunfire, but he knew that they had, and he knew that they had come from the direction of Strut 13.
An alarm bell began to jangle. Theo jumped down on to the mooring strut and started to run towards the docking ring. A squad of men in the sky-blue uniforms of Airhaven were storming down a stairway from the High Street, crossbows held ready. From a docking pan near the Town Hall a red fire-fighting dirigible was lifting off, ready to train her hoses on any blaze that broke out.
Theo stood helpless, halfway between the Shadow Aspect and the docking ring. What could he do? How could he help?
A horrified scream reached him, blowing on the wind. Another. More shots. He turned, and went hammering back to the Shadow.
As Kriegsmarshal von Kobold fell the man who’d shot him sprang forward, reaching for Lady Naga. Hester heaved herself up to face him and suddenly, although she had done no more than glare at him, he dropped his gun and shouted, “Yaagh!” Looking down, Hester saw the sharp blades that had been driven up through the deck from beneath. There were five of them, and two had gone through the Mancunian’s boot, and through the foot inside it. He screamed again, wrenching himself free, and the blades slid back through the deck, leaving ragged holes. “Get this, Miss Kropotkin!” Spiney was ordering his photographer.
The deckplate heaved. An armoured fist punched up through the quay from beneath; clawed fingers widened the hole, and Shrike scrambled out. He flared with light as another flashbulb fired, silvering his armour, his fingertips and his gruesome metal grin.
“Stalker!” screamed the Mancunian gunman, trying to hop away. Shrike picked him up and flung him off the edge of the strut; he flailed at the empty air for a moment and then fell with a terrible shriek, and landed bouncing in the safety net. Shrike hurled one of his friends after him; the rest turned to run, and collided with the first squad of Airhaven militia arriving from the High Street.
Hester fainted again and fell down on the hard quay, waking a few seconds later when the Airhaven fire-boat swung overhead, dowsing everyone with freezing water. There seemed a general belief that whole squads of Stalkers had been landed on Strut 13. Dozens of alarm bells were ringing, making horrid discords. At the end of the strut the Mancunians were fighting with the Airhaven men, who had somehow got the idea that they were Green Storm raiders in disguise. “No, no, no!” Pennyroyal was yelling. Below the strut the Mancunians Shrike had thrown off it were scrambling up the mesh of the safety net to the neighbouring quay, where aviators from a Florentine highliner leaned out to haul them to safety.
Below that, dark against the cloud-layer, the plump shape of an airship moved, rising upwards.
“The Jenny Haniver,” said Hester, looking down at it through the holes in the deckplate. Then she realized that it couldn’t be; it wasn’t Tom coming to her rescue this time, but Theo, in the Shadow Aspect.
Shrike had seen it too; or heard the mutter of its engines. He picked Oenone up under one arm, as if she were a parcel. He turned and reached for Hester, but Hester was dragging herself away from him towards von Kobold.
In the scrum at the far end of the strut one of the Mancunians was yelling, “It was Pennyroyal! Pennyroyal lured us here! Into the claws of the Storm’s Stalkers!”
“That’s not true!” Pennyroyal shouted, skipping backwards as an Airhaven soldier made a grab at him. “I’m the victim here! What about my money?”
The Shadow Aspect came up like a surfacing whale at the end of Strut 13. Hester saw Theo inside the gondola as she turned von Kobold over. The fat Mancunian’s gun had made two charred holes in the front of von Kobold’s coat. But he was only winded. Beneath his coat she saw the dull sheen of Old-Tech body-armour. He raised a hand to cup her face. “They breed you brave in the Green Storm’s lands,” he whispered.
“I’m not…” said Hester, but there wasn’t time to explain.
“Tell Naga that not all of us want this war,” she heard von Kobold say. Then she passed out, and Shrike swept her up and loped towards the Shadow with the bolts from Airhaven crossbows rattling against his armoured back.
Pennyroyal scurried away from the scrum of men at the end of the strut and ran into Spiney. The journalist had been directing Miss Kropotkin while she took the pictures which would appear on the front of the next day’s papers beneath the headline Manchester Men Battle Bravely Against Naga’s Raiders! He flung himself at Pennyroyal with a vulpine grin. “What’s your part in all this then, Nimrod? How long have you been working for the Green Storm?”
Pennyroyal shoved him aside. An airship was manoeuvring away from the strut with a deafening howl of engines, and he had a sudden, terrible fear that it was the Humbug, taking off with his gold still aboard. “What about my money?” he shouted at it.
“How much have they paid you, Pennyroyal?” called Spiney stepping into his path again and flapping at Miss Kropotkin to bring her camera.
Pennyroyal gave a feeble roar of rage and pushed Spiney hard with both hands. Spiney fought back, flailing at Pennyroyal’s face, grabbing him by the collar. So much was happening on Strut 13 that no one saw the two writers stumble across the quay and plunge off the edge. Their screams harmonized for a brief moment as they fell.
On the Shadow’s flight-deck Theo pushed all the engines to full power, preparing to shove the airship out into the open sky beyond Airhaven’s shadow, but as he reached for the steering levers a steel hand clamped his wrist.
“THERE ARE TWO ANTI-AIRCRAFT HARPOON BATTERIES ON AIRHAVEN HIGH STREET,” the Stalker Shrike announced. “AS SOON AS WE CLEAR THEIR AIRSPACE THEY WILL FIRE ON US.”
“But we can’t stay here!” shouted Theo, waving at the windows. The glass was already starred by hits from a dozen crossbow bolts, although no one had dared to fire anything more dangerous yet, for fear of igniting a blaze which might engulf the whole of Airhaven.
“GO DOWN,” said Shrike. “DROP INTO THE CLOUDS. THEY WILL HIDE US.”
Theo nodded, angry that he’d not thought of that for himself. A moment late
r the Shadow swung its engine pods upright and forced itself down into the white billows beneath Airhaven.
“Aaaaaaaaah!” wailed Pennyroyal and Spiney, and then, “Oh!” as the safety net beneath Strut 13 caught them and held them safe. They bounced together, as if they had dropped into a giant’s hammock.
“Great Poskitt!” whimpered Pennyroyal, thrusting the journalist away from him and trying to stand upright. He had forgotten the net’s existence until its thick, yielding mesh broke his fall. “I thought we were done for!” he gasped.
“You’re done for all right, Nimrod!” Sampford Spiney cackled. He had been just as scared as Pennyroyal, but he wasn’t about to show it. “Consorting with the Storm; taking part in a brawl; accessory to the attempted murder of a Kriegsmarshal – here, was that bint on the strut really Naga’s wife? That’s what your Manchester friends are saying…” Excited at the thought of all the startling reports that he would soon be filing, the journalist began to bounce happily up and down.
“Do stop doing that, old man,” pleaded Pennyroyal. “You’re making me feel all queasy…”
“Not half as queasy as you’ll be when you see the next edition of The Speculum.” Spiney chuckled, bouncing harder. Odd noises started to come from the net; faint creaks; small twanging sounds.
“Spiney, I really think you should stop! This net looks old, and it’s already taken the weight of a brace of fat Mancunians tonight…”
With a sound like plucked harpstrings the bolts which attached one edge of the net to the underside of Strut 14 started to come free. Spiney stopped bouncing, and let out a strangled yelp.
“Help!” shouted Pennyroyal, as loudly as he could, but although Strut 13 was crammed with people the only one who heard him was Spiney’s photographer, Miss Kropotkin. Her face appeared over the edge of the strut. She stretched down towards the stranded men with one hand, but she could not reach them. Pennyroyal started trying to claw his way up the steep net towards her, but only succeeded in pulling some of the bolts on that side free as well. “Oh, Poskitt!”
“Miss Kropotkin!” Spiney shrieked. “Fetch help! Fetch help at once, or I’ll make sure you end up photographing pet shows and garden parties for the rest of your worthless—”
And with a presence of mind that ensured she would never have to photograph another pet show as long as she lived, Miss Kroptkin raised her camera as the net gave way, and took the picture which would appear on page one of the next edition of The Speculum beneath the headline Writers Perish In Airhaven Death Plunge Horror.
28
STORM BIRDS
As the Shadow Aspect sank into the clouds Shrike strode aft. In the curtained-off cabin at the stern of the gondola Oenone was crouching over Hester, using her fingers to try and stop the blood which was pouring from the gash on Hester’s scalp. She looked up at Shrike. “Is there a medicine chest? Just a first-aid kit even?”
Shrike stared at Hester’s grey, shocked face. Let her die, he wanted to tell Oenone, then use your skill to Resurrect her. In place of that scarred and ruined face give her a steel mask, more perfect than the Stalker Fang’s. In place of her breakable body build her a body as strong as this one. She would forget her life, but Shrike felt certain that her spirit would survive. Over the millennia that they would have together he would help her to recover it. His immortal child.
“Medical chest!” shouted Oenone. “Quickly, Mr Shrike!”
Shrike turned and found the Shadow’s first-aid kit in the locker above the bunk. As he handed it to Oenone a blow shook the airship. He went forward on to the flight-deck again. Theo was clinging to the controls, staring out of wet windows.
“WE ARE UNDER ATTACK,” Shrike said.
“What?” the boy looked round at him, wide eyes white in his dark face.
“WE WERE HIT. A PROJECTILE…”
Theo turned to the window again. “I can’t see another ship. I can’t see anything. This cloud…”
And then the Shadow Aspect dropped out of the belly of the clouds, and they both saw the flanks of cities rising all around them, the sky between filled with the running-lights of dozens of airships. It was raining, and the drops flecked the windows and blurred everything into a kaleidoscope of glowing specks, but Shrike could tell by their trajectories that the other ships were not searching for the Shadow Aspect. They were not military ships at all, but freighters and liners, heading west.
“MURNAU IS EVACUATING ITS WOMEN AND CHILDREN,” he said.
“Preparing for war…” whispered Theo, and then, remembering his plight, “What about us?”
“WORD OF OUR DEPARTURE MAY NOT HAVE REACHED THE OTHER CITIES YET.”
“Well, it can’t be long,” said Theo. It seemed pointless to turn the Shadow eastward, for he did not believe they could escape from the Murnau cluster now, but he turned her anyway, peering out through the rain as she flew through a steep-sided canyon whose walls were the towering sides of Manchester and Traktionbad Braunschweig. He took the Shadow low so that the cities’ tall wheels slid past on either side of the gondola. Other ships poured through the canyon high above, most of them flying west. Ahead, across a few miles of mud crawling with small, fierce-looking suburbs, stood Murnau. The great fighting city had shut its armour. Theo started to steer the Shadow Aspect around its northern flank, still at track-level. The rudder controls were sluggish. “I think the steering vanes are damaged,” he said, tugging irritably at the levers.
Remembering the blow that he had felt as the ship dropped away from Airhaven, Shrike went aft again. Hester was conscious, groaning as Oenone cleaned her wound. “Tom! Oh, Tom!” Shrike caught the sharp whiff of medical alcohol. He climbed the companion-ladder, stooping as he stepped out on to the axial catwalk that led along the centre of the envelope. At the sternward end was a small hatch, built for once-born and almost too small for him to squeeze his Stalker’s bulk through. Outside, the Shadow’s rain-wet tail-fins shone silvery in the light from the passing windows of Murnau’s skirt-forts. Holding tight to the ratlines, Shrike made his way out on to the lateral fin. At the rear of the fin something had wedged among the control-cables. Beneath the howl of the engines and the drumming of rain on the steep curve of the envelope above him, Shrike picked up another sound, a rhythmic clatter. Was this some new weapon? He let go of the ratlines with one hand, and unsheathed his claws.
The shape in the control-cables shifted suddenly, reacting to the flick of wet light from the blades. A white, frightened face gaped up at Shrike. “Great Poskitt!” it wailed.
Shrike realized what had happened. This once-born must have fallen from Airhaven as the Shadow Aspect departed. He sheathed his claws and reached out to drag him to safety, but the once-born misunderstood; terrified, he let go his tight grip on the cables and began to fall again, shrieking as he tumbled into the sky. Shrike lunged forward and grabbed him by the collar of his coat, swinging him round and safely up on to the fin again. The Shadow Aspect tilted, engines caterwauling, as Shrike heaved the man over the aileron flaps and started to drag him along the fin towards the open hatch.
The airship’s sudden, uncertain movement drew the attention of lookouts in Murnau’s skirt-forts. As Shrike and his dripping, barely conscious burden regained the flight-deck the forts’ gun-slits started to prickle with light. It looked quite pretty, until the first bullets began tearing into the gondola. Windows shattered; pressure-gauges wavered as holes were torn in the gas-cells. The engines howled, still driving the ship eastward, past towering jaws, out across rainswept, shell-torn mud. The gunfire stopped. Theo checked the periscope. Astern, three points of light were pulling clear of the immense bulk of the armoured city; three bat-black shapes growing against the grey underbelly of the clouds.
High above, Orla Twombley wiped rain from her goggles and pushed her flying machine Combat Wombat into a dive that would bring it up on the Shadow’s tail. Behind her, the ornithopter Zip Gun Boogie and a rocket-propelled triplane called No More Curried Eggs For Me followed suit, win
gs slicing the wet air like blades.
Theo shouted out in fear and frustration. He knew that his sluggish, wounded Shadow could not outrun the Flying Ferrets. He saw Shrike turn towards him, and thought the Stalker was about to warn him of the pursuing machines. “I know!” he yelled.
But Shrike said, “THERE ARE STALKER-BIRDS AHEAD.”
“What?” Theo tried to peer out through the rain-spattered forward window, but he could see only darkness and his own terrified reflection. Then a rocket from the pursuing machines tore past the gondola and exploded ahead, and he realized that the darkness was largely made of wings. Across the empty skies of no-man’s-land, from the direction of the Green Storm’s lines, an immense flock of Resurrected birds was flapping towards him.
“Christ!” cried Theo, and slammed the steering levers over, trying vainly to turn the ship about, for he would rather face rockets than the claws and beaks of the Storm’s raptors. But the Shadow’s rudder-controls had been hit; she responded slowly, and long before she could come about the sky outside the gondola windows was filled with beating wings and the green pinpoints of the dead birds’ eyes.
Astern, wind-lashed and drenched in the open cockpit of the Combat Wombat, Orla Twombley saw the cloud of wings. Cursing inventively, she swung her machine about and signalled to her companions to do the same. She had lost enough people to the Stalker-birds at Cloud 9; nothing would make her engage them in such numbers. She checked her men were with her, then soared back towards the fastnesses of Manchester, while skeins of birds, like the fingers of some gloomy god, closed around the Shadow Aspect.
On the flight-deck, Theo waited for beaks and claws to start tearing through the thin walls. Over the rumble of the Shadow’s engines he could hear whooshing wingbeats, the flutter of feathers as the birds turned, matching the little airship’s course and speed.
“They’re not here to attack us,” said Oenone softly, coming to stand behind Theo, her hand touching his shoulder. “I think they’re an escort…”