She reached down and closed the hatch just as something dark hurtled down in her peripheral vision.
Spinning, Taya gaped as three more bombs tumbled out of the hatch in the middle of the ship’s belly. She leaned over the gondola’s side, one hand on the ladder, and watched as the bombs aligned themselves, nose down, and sped toward Glasgar. The dirigibles were flying so high that the ancient city appeared to be laid out below them like a map. She could clearly discern the destruction the bombing had wrought— entire buildings and lengths of wall had been destroyed, and fires were spreading across the surrounding forest, sending long lines of smoke drifting over the rubble.
A missile whistled past and exploded in midair. Taya felt the concussion and a blast of heat against her face, but it barely rocked the ship, its smoke dissipating behind them. She looked up. The envelope looked unscathed.
“Taya!”
She pulled herself back, leaning close to her husband. His eyes were screwed shut, so she touched his gloved hand to indicate she was listening. She didn’t know if his shivering was from his fear of heights or the freezing air.
“I’d rather. Not. Fly into a bomb.”
She patted his hand and looked out again, evaluating their chances of getting away safely.
The Alzanans seemed intent on turning Glasgar into a pile of burning rubble. One of the dirigibles was flying higher than they were, its bombs systematically destroying the walls on which she’d seen the artillery corps lined up. Pretty soon, the fort wouldn’t have any weapons left.
Flying into that fiery devastation didn’t make any sense. Better, she decided, to wait until the bombing stopped.
“Taya?” Cristof opened his eyes, looking at her.
“We’ll wait,” she shouted.
His shoulders slumped with relief.
“But not here.” She pointed behind them, to the engine gondola, and then up. “We need to climb to the gunnery platform on top.”
He looked ill as he gazed at the bulging expanse of fabric that curved over them.
“You can do it.” Her mind raced as she tried to figure out how. “I need you to hold on very tight and keep your eyes shut.” She wrapped her safety line around his gloved wrist several times and closed his fingers over it. They were shaking.
“Ready?” she asked. He nodded. She lifted his other hand, closing it around the line. A strangled gasp rose from his throat as his feet slid from the ladder rungs and he dangled in midair, as light as a leaf blown by the wind.
Taya grabbed the safety line above him, wrapped one end around her glove, and pulled both of them up, hand-over-hand, to the bulging midpoint of the envelope’s swell.
Her husband’s weight was zeroed out by the rescue harness, but hers wasn’t, and by the time she reached the longitudinal swell, she was panting. Taya dragged them both over the curve and up a little higher, until Cristof got his feet braced on the envelope underneath him. He opened his eyes and took in the long silver field that stretched out to either side.
A mortar shell exploded close to the front of the ship. Taya felt the wind shift as the pilot compensated and changed course. She shook one hand loose and gave her husband a thumbs-up. His nod was barely perceptible, but at least he wasn’t paralyzed with fear.
The rest of their ascent was slow and careful. Taya reached back to help whenever the wind buffeted her husband to his knees. While her military-issue flight boots had thick leather soles that had been ridged to help her land on slick surfaces, Cristof’s expensive winter boots had smooth leather soles that made his footing precarious.
When they reached the flat top of the envelope, Taya led him along its hard spine to the gunnery platform. He sat down hard, leaning against the railing.
Taya unclipped the line between them and handed him his glasses. His ears and nose were blue with cold. She pulled off her gray army scarf and wrapped it around his head, covering his ears.
“Thank you.” He slid his glasses on and looked around, fear surrendering to curiosity. Taya coiled the safety line while he reassured himself that he was on a more or less stable surface. Only the roar of the dirigible’s engines and the cliff faces sliding past them indicated that they were in motion.
“I’m going to look,” she said.
“Wait.” He reached out and grabbed her arm. “Don’t leave yet.”
She sat by his right side, as close as her armature would permit.
“What happened?” he asked, moving his gloved hand over to take hers. “I was terrified they’d catch you.”
“You were terrified? I wasn’t the one who got shot!”
“I hoped you hadn’t seen that.”
“I didn’t know what to do. As soon as I was sure you were alive, I ran.”
He squeezed her hand.
“Good.”
“It didn’t work out that well.” She looked around. “I still have to get you off this ship. It sounds like the bombing’s slowing down, so—”
“We can’t leave.” He twisted to look at her, his expression earnest. “You saw what they did to Glasgar. We’re the only ones left who can stop this fleet.”
“Scrap.” Taya leaned her head against the guardrail. “You and Lieutenant Amcathra.”
“Is he all right?”
“He was down there. In Glasgar.”
They both fell silent, listening to the engines and bombs. Taya closed her eyes. The lieutenant would be fine. He’d studied aerial attacks. He’d know exactly what to do to defend himself.
“He gave me some bombs,” she added, thrusting away her doubts. “Just in case.” She unbuckled her belt and pulled it off. Cristof inspected the metal orbs.
“He must have known the Alzanans would raze Glasgar. That’s the only reason he’d arm an icarus. He must have known you’d be Ondinium’s last chance.”
“But he only gave me two.”
“Maybe that’s all he could get his hands on. He couldn’t possibly have requisitioned them legally.” Cristof gestured to one of the guns she’d dismantled. It had slid halfway off the platform before getting caught between the rails. “Do those work?”
“I suppose so. They were mounted on the tripods. I assumed they were going to be used against icarii, so I took them down.”
He pulled the weapon closer, examining it.
“How do the gunners get up here?”
“I think they climb through there.” She pointed to the hatch door.
Cristof gave her an incredulous look.
“We could have climbed through the ship?”
“I’m not going in there. It’s full of gas!”
“It can’t be full of gas if the Alzanans use it.” He pulled up the hatch. Taya flinched, holding her breath, but her husband was already peering inside. “It’s an access shaft. It must lead down to the control gondola. I wonder how this thing was built?”
“We don’t need to go back down there.”
“I think the ammunition for these guns was being stored in the same place I was.”
“So?” She didn’t like where this conversation was going.
He turned and looked at her over the rims of his glasses.
“If we blew up two of the ships and captured this one….”
“Do you have any idea how to drive a dirigible?”
“We’ll hold the crew at gunpoint.”
“And then what? There are still two other ships.”
“They wouldn’t shoot the command ship.”
“They might, if we took it over!”
“Then we’ll kill the crew, aim the dirigible at the mountain, and jump.”
Taya stared.
“That’s insane.”
“Taya.” Cristof laid a hand on her shoulder, looking serious. “These Alzanans just slaughtered hundreds of men and women in the most cowardly fashion possible— b
y dropping bombs on them from the safety of the sky. And unless we do something about it, it’ll happen over and over until the ships run out of bombs or land to refuel. We can’t let that happen. I can’t let that happen.”
“But you won’t be the one planting the bombs,” she said, flatly.
He leaned backward, pinching the bridge of his nose under his glasses.
“No. You’re right.”
“If I plant bombs on these ships, how am I any better than them?”
“At least you’re fighting them face-to-face,” he retorted. “You’re risking your own life, not killing from a distance.”
“Cris, I know you hate Alzana, but—”
“How can you not hate it? After what it just did to Glasgar?”
“The king of Alzana might not even know what’s going on here.”
“You don’t believe ships like this could be built and tested without the king’s consent, do you? Do you have any idea how much they must have cost?”
She didn’t, but she guessed it was a lot.
Cristof took a deep breath. “I could borrow your wings.”
“No.” She didn’t even have to think about it. “Not in these winds. You’d get yourself killed.”
He looked out at the passing terrain, sharp lines furrowed down his brow.
Taya’s stomach churned. She hated arguing with her husband. She especially hated arguing with him so soon after getting him back.
“I know you still have nightmares about the Great Engine and Alister,” Cristof said at last. “And I know you don’t want to be responsible for the lives of these soldiers. If there were any way in the world I could place the bombs myself, I would. Could you carry me there?”
“I don’t know.” She rubbed her forehead on her knees, feeling her goggles press against her nose and brow. “It’s not the weight. It’s the drag. And… it wouldn’t make any difference, would it?”
“The next target is Patimbrium,” he said. “I heard them talking about it yesterday. Do you know how many families live in Patrimbrium?”
Taya averted her gaze, hating him for asking that.
Glasgar was, primarily, a military outpost. Patimbrium was a small city. Its primary industry was mining and smelting, and it was home to a mid-sized railway junction. Taya wondered which of the Big Three owned most of the mines there.
Not Allied Metals & Extraction, she was willing to bet.
She’d forgotten to ask Amcathra what he’d done about AME. She wondered if she’d ever have a chance to ask him, or whether he was sprawled somewhere in Glasgar’s rubble, staring up at the sky like his nephew.
Tears burned her eyes.
All right. She would plant the bombs. She would kill dozens of people in order to save hundreds, maybe even thousands.
But how heavily would the act weigh on her soul? Cristof was right— sometimes she still woke up in the middle of the night, sweating from nightmares about killing the lictor beneath Oporphyr Tower, or watching Alister blinded and outcaste. How many more nightmares would she suffer if she sent these Alzanan soldiers back to the Lady?
How many more would she suffer if she didn’t, and helpless cities were bombed to rubble?
She pushed up her goggles and rubbed her eyes with the cold, hard leather of her flight suit cuff.
“All right,” she said, defiantly. She pulled her goggles down. “I’ll do it.”
“I’m sorry,” Cristof said, for the third time. He seemed genuinely anguished. “I wish I could do it, instead. But I can’t fly.”
“I know.” She picked up the belt and stood. “Which ship?”
He climbed to his feet, squinting into the wind.
“One that isn’t very close.” He pointed. “Four and Five are behind the rest.”
“I’ll have to dive,” she said, calculating how far she could fly in twenty seconds. “It’ll be the fastest way to leave the ship.”
He turned toward her, looking troubled. “Am I going to lose you over this?”
She started to reassure him that she’d get away in time, but then she saw the look in his eyes and realized, with an internal jolt, what he really meant.
She opened her mouth to deny it, and then hesitated.
“We’ll figure it out afterward,” she said, instead.
He closed his eyes and nodded.
“I do love you, Taya. More than anything.”
She forced a smile as she cinched the belt around her waist again. Her husband hunched his shoulders, watching as she climbed over the railing, slid her arms into her wings, and gauged the wind.
Lady, she prayed, give me strength.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The wind wasn’t as strong as it had been in Dayadaur Pass, and it blew in the right direction. Taya didn’t have to work to stabilize and circle over her target.
The fleet had moved past Glasgar, dropping altitude but staying clear of the mountains around it. The valleys below looked desolate— no smoke indicated the presence of villages or camps. Taya was grateful for that. It would be bad enough to send an dirigible hurtling down in flames; dropping it on a village would be horrifying.
Her landing on the unoccupied gunner’s platform on top of Number Four was flawless. She knelt and opened the hatch, still wary of escaping gas. When she was certain she was safe, she cradled the bomb between her knees and pulled out the matches. With another suspicious look at the open hatch, she struck a flame.
It promptly blew out.
Oh, Lady, is that an omen?
She crouched closer to the bomb, curling herself around it and hoping Lieutenant Amcathra had been right about the fuse giving her twenty seconds to escape. If it blew up while she was leaning over it…
Then she wouldn’t have to worry anymore, would she?
She struck a second match and immediately touched the flame to the fuse.
It sparked, then ignited.
Taya dropped match and bomb down the access hatch and leaped to her feet, thrusting her arms into her wings. One thousand, two thousand— expecting to be engulfed in flame at any moment, she ran across the top of the dirigible and hurled herself up and out into the sky, keeping her wings open only long enough to clear the ship before folding them against her sides.
She hurtled past the sky-blue gryphons, past the wooden gondolas, the air screaming in her ears.
—six thousand, seven thousand, eight thousand, nine thousand—
She stretched out her wings and kicked down her tailset, thrusting herself down against the natural buoyancy of her ondium.
—fourteen thousand, fifteen thousand, sixteen thousand, seventeen thousand—
The explosion was deafening, and the heat from the blast sent her spinning. Taya tumbled a long moment before fighting to stabilize herself on the suddenly tumultuous currents.
By the time she regained her bearings, Number Four was nothing but a fiery missile plummeting to earth.
She drew in a sharp breath, appalled by the scale of the destruction. The whole ship was on fire, its strange, spiky framework standing out like a dark skeleton against the flames before it also ignited. Another sharp series of blasts echoed between the mountains as new fireballs arose from the envelope’s depths. Taya swept herself up with a surge of sheer, primal terror, riding the explosion-heated thermals up past the remaining four dirigibles.
Cristof.
Shaken and panting for breath, she wheeled around to look for him.
The surviving ships were struggling to maintain an even keel as they were battered by the rising heat waves. Number Four left a thick column of black smoke and crimson sparks behind as it fell. It hit a cliff face and tumbled, collapsing on itself, flames leaping up afresh as its twisted, blackened framework bounced down the cliff, scattering sparks and debris.
Cristof stood on top of Number One, g
ripping the gunnery platform’s railing and staring at the destruction.
Taya flew to him, stumbling as she hit the spine of the balloon several feet from the platform. To her surprise, he scrambled over the railing and ran to her.
“What happened?” He grabbed her armature. “Are you all right?”
She nodded and turned. From the broad back of the envelope, all she could see was the column of black smoke rising behind them.
“It burned so fast….” she gasped, hardly able to hear herself. Her heart was pounding against her chest and her muscles were twitching with nervous energy.
“Did anyone see you?” Cristof demanded. She shook her head.
“Good.” He wrapped an arm around her metal-protected shoulders, walking her back to the platform. “Lock your wings.”
She automatically complied, slipping her arms free. He tugged her down to sit next to him again. Then he rested his forehead against hers, wool against leather. The rims of his glasses and her goggles touched.
She tried to explain. “I don’t— I can’t—”
“Never mind. It’s all right. We’ll think of something else.”
Relieved, she closed her eyes, seeing flames shooting into the air behind her eyelids. A minute passed.
“I’ll capture the ship,” he said, matter-of-factly.
“How?” She straightened.
“I have the needler. It’s not much, but it’s close quarters down there, and I’m a good shot. Once I’ve secured it… we’ll see how the other dirigibles do in a firefight with one of their own.”
“What good are guns against something this big?”
“All we have to do is tear open the envelopes. Even if the ships don’t explode, they’ll be forced to land.”
“Wait.” Taya felt a stirring of hope. “If that’s all it takes— I don’t mind tearing holes in the envelopes. The ships wouldn’t crash at once, would they?”
“No, not from a leak. But Taya, cutting through this fabric won’t be easy.” He ran a hand over the taut, silver-painted envelope. “It covers a wooden frame. The gas balloons are inside the frame. Bullets may get through to them, but not knives.”
Clockwork Lies: Iron Wind (Clockwork Heart trilogy) Page 33