“A map case. You will not need a map.”
“No. What else do you have for me?”
He picked up a flat, wide belt with two bulging pockets, saying nothing. Taya looked at it, then up at his face.
“Another weapon?”
“Yes.”
She bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. You’re right. The only thing I should be worrying about is rescuing Cristof. If I have to kill someone to do it….” she suddenly felt weary. “Well, it won’t be the first time.”
He handed her the belt. It, too, was heavy. The military doesn’t counterweight its weapons, she thought, hefting it. Of course, icarii weren’t supposed carry any.
“Two pockets; two bombs. They are small, but I do not think you will need a large bomb to ignite an envelope. Each bomb has a twenty-second fuse. You will need that time to drop it and fly out of the range of the explosion.”
“One should be enough.”
“I believe in redundancy. One of the fuses could fail, or the Alzanans could throw one of the bombs overboard in time to save themselves.”
Taya blew out a breath, finding it difficult to discuss slaughter so casually.
“So, is this what happens in war?” she asked. “All our laws and taboos get set aside? Professor Dautry was right.”
“With luck Glasgar will take down the ships, so that Professor Dautry’s worst fears will not be realized.”
“What do you mean?”
“I would prefer to avoid resurrecting the abhorrent. But it is my duty to protect Ondinium, and I will do whatever is necessary to achieve that goal.” He gestured. “The belt straps around your waist. I know that it is heavy; you may wish to abandon it once you have the exalted. I advise you to attempt the rescue as soon as possible. Once the ships are in range, Glasgar will begin firing with rifles, cannon, and mortars. You will not want to be in the same airspace as the dirigibles.”
“When will they start firing?” she asked, nervously, as she buckled the belt of bombs over her stomach.
“When the ships are approximately a mile away.”
“Anything else I should know?”
“An aerostat’s blind spots are directly beneath, behind, or overhead it, like an icarus’s. If you cannot fly in a blind spot, keep the sun at your back to force the Alzanans to squint when they aim at you.”
Taya nodded grimly.
“However, it would be better to avoid being seen at all.”
“I’ll try to stay hidden.”
“If the exalted is not on a ship but you have the opportunity to distract and delay the Alzanans, please do. Not all of the — of our defenses — are prepared yet.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“I wish I could go with you, Icarus, to spare you these decisions.”
“I wish you could, too.” She wanted to hug him again, but mindful of his pride and the sharp edges of her armature, she restrained herself. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“Fly safely.” He turned and walked back to the stairs, heading back down. “I will see you again as soon as I am able.”
Taya wished she could affect such a cool demeanor. Instead, she touched all her new equipment, reassuring herself that it was secure, strapped on her flight cap, and pulled down her goggles. Feeling unusually bulky, she trudged back to the wall.
“Joining the observation team?” asked one of the signalmen cheerfully. She waved, letting him think what he wanted, and climbed into an embrasure. The lictors shouted a ragged send-off of good wishes as she slipped her arms into her wings and launched herself off the steep fortress wall.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Taya spotted the five Alzanan dirigibles when she flew around a tall, bare peak too sheer to hold snow. They flew in a loose, spread-out line that shifted back and forth as they compensated for the winds through the pass.
She promptly followed Amcathra’s advice and rose as high as she could, keeping her back to the sun. Nobody was standing on the top gunnery platforms, nor were the dirigibles flying any flags. The only visible difference between the ships were the big black numbers painted on their prows.
Guessing that No. 1, in the lead, was most likely to be the command ship, Taya headed for its platform, overshot, and had to do some fierce backbeating. The platform rail caught her under the ankle and she jerked both feet up as the dirigible moved forward beneath her. She managed to kick herself backward and land, jarring one of the mounted guns with her hip. The cold mountain wind tore at her wings, trying to drag her off the ship.
The Alzanans were traveling much faster than they had been the night before.
This wasn’t the same ship she’d landed on the night before, either, she saw, eying the mounted guns with distaste. Sabotaging them was one thing she was sure she could do without risking the Council’s censure.
Too bad she didn’t have time to visit each ship and remove them all.
She knelt by the tripods, dismounting the guns more quickly than she had the first time. She left them loose on the wooden platform, loathe to risk raising an alarm if someone saw them fall. Satisfied that she’d accomplished at least one worthwhile goal, she tucked her husband’s tools away and eyed the expanse of envelope around her.
Was it safe to walk on? She’d stood on it briefly during her take-off the night before, but she hadn’t put all her weight on it. The surface was slippery, covered with condensation, and gave a little when she pushed down with her fingers. Now that it was daylight, Taya noticed several bulging, hooded protuberances running along the top of the ship’s envelope. She couldn’t begin to guess at their purpose. More important, though, were the metal eye bolts fastened along the length of the hull as if specifically designed for a climber.
Well, she thought, that makes sense, if the crew has to repair the envelope in flight. But the other thing she noticed in the daylight was the access panel in the envelope immediately behind the wooden gunnery platform. Did crew members actually climb through the envelope? How did they breathe?
One thing was certain; she wasn’t going to use it. Let the Alzanans risk their life in a gas-filled balloon; she’d rappel safely down the side.
Taya stared at the mountains, gathering her courage. If she was right about how many people were in each ship, it was going to be difficult to rescue Cristof without killing somebody in the process.
Her hand crept to the needle gun.
She’d stabbed a man once, but he’d lived. And she’d kicked another man into an abyss; he’d died. She wasn’t proud of either incident, but each had been self-defense: kill or be killed.
Jumping into the control center of a military gondola and shooting people wasn’t exactly self-defense, although she expected it would quickly turn into a kill-or-be-killed situation.
She pulled out the gun with one gloved hand, studied it, and clicked off the safety.
On the other hand, if that’s what it took to rescue her husband….
She could wrestle with her conscience after he was safe.
She slid the gun back into its holster and checked to make sure the bombs and matches were within easy reach.
Off in the distance, she spotted Glasgar’s defensive walls clinging to the steep mountain face like a climbing vine.
Lieutenant Amcathra had said that the weapons’ firing range was one mile. She was running out of time.
She tied one end of her safety line to the front of the gunnery platform and crept out along the spine of the hull, feeling a hard frame beneath the silver fabric envelope. She stopped at the first eyelet and ran her rope through it, and then the next. The wind dragged on her wings and she locked them close to avoid straining their gear locks.
Taya wrapped the line around one wrist, glad that her military-issue gloves had boiled-leather reinforcing, and coiled the remainder in her other hand. Then she stepped backward, wal
king down the side of the dirigible’s envelope as the line slipped over her glove.
With luck, all the Alzanan soldiers would be watching Glasgar and wouldn’t notice her silhouetted against the side of the command ship.
Her boots strode over the head of the painted Alzanan gryphon. Plenty of rope left. She kept moving until she reached the envelope’s longitudinal midpoint. There, she grabbed the rope with both arms and jumped. Her legs dangled as the underside of the envelope recessed.
This half of the descent was more difficult. Taya fought to keep her grip on the rope as she was blown diagonally by the wind flowing around the dirigible’s streamlined shape. She wasn’t afraid of falling; there was plenty of room between the dirigible and the ground. But if she fell, she’d be seen, and her rescue attempt would be worthless.
A distant boom made her start. A puff of smoke rose up ahead of the dirigible, floating in midair.
Glasgar was firing.
Heart pounding, Taya let herself down hand-over-hand until she saw the top of the control gondola. A wooden ladder rose from a hatch in the gondola’s roof up to a matching hatch in the bottom of the envelope. Access to the gunnery platform, she surmised. She swung, stretching out a hand to catch the ladder. She missed and tried again. This time, her gloved fingers closed on the ladder’s rail. She pulled herself forward and looped the rope around one of the rungs.
Down here, the roar of the engines was deafening. She looked behind her, along the underbelly of the dirigible, to the second gondola. She could be seen if any of the engineers looked forward. She hurried down the ladder and crouched close to the gondola’s hatch, trying to keep herself small.
Two more booming explosions sounded, and the tenor of the engine changed. The dirigible was rising.
All right, she thought, bracing herself. She pulled off her gloves and jammed them into the front of her flight suit, then unholstered the needlegun. It’s now or never.
Lady help me.
She grabbed the hatch’s lifting ring and yanked it open, thrusting the gun straight down.
Nobody was standing on the ladder. She squirmed through the hatch door, using her free hand to pull her wings in and then twisted, pistol out.
She was in a low-ceilinged second floor built over the main gondola. Narrow stairs led down, the same kind of stairs Cristof had investigated during their reconnaissance in the hangar. Racks of ammunition and machine parts surrounded her. And there, barely an arm’s length away, was her husband, sitting on a blanket on the floor, one thin wrist handcuffed to a metal support girder. He was wearing an Alzanan military coat, and his gray eyes were wide behind his silver-rimmed glasses as he stared at her.
Relief and gratitude nearly buckled her knees. She forced herself to look away and search the rest of the small chamber.
Nobody was guarding him. Of course not. Why should they? Where would he go if he slipped his restraints?
Taya grabbed the hatch door and pulled it shut. Between the roar of the engines and the ever-increasing number of explosions outside, she doubted anybody could hear her walking overhead, but even so she stepped across the floor as softly as she could before kneeling next to Cristof and pulling up her goggles.
“I—”
Cristof leaned forward, grabbed her armature’s ondium keel with his free hand, and kissed her with hungry desperation.
Taya dropped the needle pistol. With a surge of joy so strong that it brought tears to her eyes, she cupped his face and kissed him back. The world settled back into its proper pattern again.
Her husband was alive.
Another explosion boomed outside. She reluctantly released him.
“Taya—” he started.
“Take this,” she said, handing him the needle pistol. She grabbed his handcuff, rattling it against the metal pole, and scowled. Amcathra hadn’t given her a hacksaw.
“Taya,” Cristof repeated, leaning forward to put his mouth next to her ear as she pulled his case of tools out of her suit pocket, “I think I’ve been delinquent in telling you how much I love you.”
She grinned, opening the toolkit.
“I love you, too.” She put the kit in his lap. “But I don’t know how to pick locks.”
He raised an eyebrow and returned the gun. Taya gingerly held it aimed at the stairs.
Very faint voices sounded, hardly discernible over the engines and the explosions. Something exploded so close that the gondola rocked.
The Ondinium military was finding its range.
Then voices rose below, cheering and whooping about a hit. Taya’s hand tightened on the pistol. She hadn’t heard any gunfire. And if the dirigible was flying high enough to avoid Glasgar’s artillery, that meant that the only way it could hit anything was by dropping bombs.
They had just shattered one of Ondinium’s most sacred moral prohibitions.
She forced herself to take a deep breath and ease her finger off the pistol’s trigger.
The handcuff fell open. Cristof replaced his picks, wincing as he slid the toolkit into his coat pocket.
“How badly are you hurt?” Taya eased the front of his coat open.
The Alzanans had given Cristof a new shirt. It hung half-open, revealing bandages swathed around his side. She felt a moment’s burst of anger. The gondola was freezing, this high in the winter sky. They could have at least buttoned up his shirt. She glanced at his left wrist and saw more bandages peeking out from beneath his sleeve.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, setting the gun down. She buttoned his shirt and coat all the way up to his neck.
“Would you still respect me if I said yes?” The gray hue under his normally copper skin belied his light tone. Taya touched his cheek as another explosion rocked the gondola.
“Let’s get you out of here.” She unstrapped the rescue harness case and tore it open. The ondium harness, a long vest made of heavy ondium plates covered with straps and latches, bobbed up.
“Put this on.”
Cristof’s adam’s apple bobbed as he recognized it.
“I’ll need help.”
Taya did her best to work the ondium vest over her husband’s arms without jarring him, but by the time she’d strapped it around the front of his coat, he was breathing hard and sweat had broken out on his brow. She dug into her suit, pulling out the bottle of morphine.
“No.” He shook his head. “I need a clear head.”
“You need to not faint when I move you.” She measured a half-dose into the hypodermic needle. He didn’t object a second time, which told her all she needed to know about how much his wounds were hurting him. She pushed up his left sleeve and administered the drug between his bandages just as the Alzanans began to cheer again.
Cristof abruptly grabbed the needlegun with his right hand. Taya yanked out the hypodermic needle, startled, as he raised the gun next to her head and pulled the trigger.
She spun.
Exalted Neuillan stood poised at the top of the stairs, one gloved hand falling to the long metal needles that pierced his chest.
Taya lunged to her feet and grabbed the exile’s coat before he could collapse down the stairs and warn the enthusiastic Alzanans of their presence. Neuillan staggered and fell to one knee, groaning. Taya tore off his mask and clamped her hand over his mouth. The scarred holes where his eyes had been were crinkled with pain. She wondered if he had any idea what had just happened to him.
“I’m sorry,” Cristof whispered in her ear. He reached over her shoulder and pulled the trigger a second time.
Steel needles drove through Neuillan’s blind eyes and into his brain.
Taya gave a low, horrified gasp and jerked her hand away. Neuillan collapsed, blood streaking his face.
Cristof dropped back into a seated position, using the back of his gun hand to wipe sweat from his forehead. His pale gray eyes were cold behind
their glass lenses.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
Taya swallowed as explosions thundered around them.
Sometimes she forgot that her husband wasn’t just the self-deprecating clockwright-turned-ambassador that he sometimes wore like another mask.
Lieutenant Amcathra had remembered, though.
“Taya?”
She looked down at Neuillan and hardened her heart. Trying not to think too hard about what she was doing, she stripped off the dead man’s gloves and scarf, then turned to her husband. She would deal with this later, when shells and bombs weren’t exploding around them.
Cristof let her help him up. She wrapped the scarf around his neck and held the gun while he pulled on Neuillan’s gloves.
“We’d better go,” she said, handing it back. He nodded.
Pulling down her goggles and pulling on her gloves, Taya climbed up the ladder and opened the hatch. The wind threw it back with a bang she barely heard over the roar of the engines and the fighting. She squirmed up to the top of the gondola. Her line was still tied around the rung.
“Come on,” she said, holding out a hand. Cristof hesitated, gesturing down the stairs with his gun. She shook her head. With an air of regret, he thrust the pistol into his overcoat pocket and began to climb one-handed.
When he reached the gondola he froze, staring at the emptiness around them. The wind whipped his long black hair around his face.
“Don’t look,” Taya shouted. Then, remembering his solution on their flight to Engels, she slid his glasses off his nose. He reached for them, then gulped as the ladder shifted beneath him. Taya tucked his glasses in a pocket high on her left arm, buttoned it, and pointed to her own eyes.
He swallowed hard and fixed his nearsighted gaze on her face.
Wrapping one leg around a rung, she untied her safety line and fastened its steel ring to one of the twist-lock carabineers on her husband’s rescue harness. If he panicked and started to fall, she wanted to make sure he didn’t go far.
“Up,” she urged, tugging on his coat. Keeping his eyes on her, he crept the rest of the way out of the hatch, hugging the ladder. He was still favoring his left arm, she noted. She hoped the morphine kicked in soon.
Clockwork Lies: Iron Wind (Clockwork Heart trilogy) Page 32