A Queen Among Crows: Book One of Empire's End

by M. S. Linsenmayer

The Grand Duke looked at me, I just looked at Lois. "Bingo." She laughed lightly.

  "It bounced" Lois explained for the non-genius in the room. "On the ground, this time, not in the air. Which means it landed close, say within two hundred miles or so, give or take. We should get down there, there may be debris. Or evidence." Lois turned to me "At the same time, we need to contact the locals, send them out, have them look for any signs of recent fire or damage."

  "Right." I smiled "Your highness, please ask someone to bring several barrels of scraps along for the landing party."

  He raised his eyebrow at me. "Madame, you just ate."

  "For bribing the locals" I said.

  "And attracting tigers and bears. They can be fierce in the north." Officer Mustache said.

  "I doubt it" James laughed "The Maphnk probably ate them all."

  #

  By all the bloody gods, demons, angels and leprechauns it was cold. I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets and stamped my feet in my marching boots. Woolen under clothes, army uniform, woolen sweater, and army long coat with gray wool hat and I was still cold. In my coat, as warm as she could get, Lois had her head stuck out the collar and was craning her neck around to watch as the crew prepared the landing platform with avid interest.

  We were in the back of the port dirigible itself, within the main structure, directly under the pressurized and metal strand reinforced Helium lifting bags. To my sides, the great thrum of the engines made speech almost impossible; behind me, the vast fuel tanks served as ballast to keep the ship upright in any storm, no matter how fierce. In front of me, a dozen men jogged back and forth laying out supplies and equipment onto a steel platform connected to the main superstructure by thick metal chains and powered lifts.

  "This will be fun" Julie seemed untouched by either the cold or the fact we were about to be lowered five hundred feet on a wobbly metal elevator lift with no safety railings or walls at all. Myself, I was not so sanguine.

  "Have you done this before?" I stomped again, more to keep my mind off this idiot idea. Why I had ever thought I wanted my own Zeppelin...

  "Several times, in training. Drop platforms are a great way to emplace troops without risking the aircraft; although they have begun experiments using gliders made of silk, of late." Julie seemed thrilled by the idea.

  "How wonderful for the airship" I interrupted "Not so much for the troops. In an emergency, how do we get back up again?"

  "Flap hard?" Julie smiled. “You need bigger birds, perhaps."

  I started to say something sarcastic when a harsh clang blasted once, twice, then a third time over the ship speakers. "Are we under attack again?" I began craning my own neck around.

  "Only by Sir Newton." Julie yelled over the sounds "That was the warning buzzer. They are about to reverse engines to cut speed and begin bringing us down. You might want to get over to the side and grab the railing, ship may tilt a bit as inertia catches up to us."

  Oh, gods not again. Eryma, from now on, keep your damn feet on the ground. I ducked my head into the angle and made as fast as I could slide to the wall and the waiting railings, several officers and crew I could see were already there, including my good friend Mr. Popov. He was dressed as warmly as me, and looked thrilled to be doing it.

  "Mr. Popov" I showed all my teeth "Are you going ashore as well?"

  "I. Have. Been." He ground out. "Volunteered. As I have become familiar with your work, His Highness thought I should lead the Marines coming with you. Twenty men, twenty-two if you include myself and Corpsman Smirnoff. We are to set up the base camp, provide security, and assistance while you conjure your 'scouts' and send them to find the target site. The airship itself shall return to altitude and continue searching from the air."

  "Excellent." Julie stepped up to look him directly in the eyes "will we have problems, Mr. Popov?"

  "If there is combat you mean? I am well aware of your rank and record, Dame, and even if we are different services, if you say take cover, I intend to take cover. If you have problems with the men, however, outside of such emergencies, please bring them to me." Mr. Popov gave back as good as he got. He may not have wanted to be here, but once assigned, he sounded like he intended to see it through.

  I pitied him.

  A second set of bells clanged on the speakers as off key as the first. Did they make them that way on purpose? "Have we gone down?" I asked.

  "Your ears will pop and let you know." Mr. Popov said. "That was the all stop; they will drop the air anchors soon. We should head to the platform and get tied in."

  He whistled twice, and waved; behind him along the wall the men grabbed their gear and weapons and began to March single file after him. I looked at Julie, she bowed, turned, and then jogged to catch up to Popov, marching behind him. I grabbed my bags and took in behind her, with James and the girls hopping along behind.

  We didn’t need a proper colonial marching chant for as short a distance as this. Although thanks to the girls, we got one. The "We are doomed, doomed, doomed" counterpoint from James may have been a bit much for morale, however.

  #

  "At least" Mr. Popov stood looking at the terrain with his binoculars "There are no signs of these monsters."

  "Cough, cough" James coughed, pointing his wing down.

  "What?" Mr. Popov was not a happy man.

  "That's not part of the splash damage you are standing in, dear, it's a paw print." Lois sounded thrilled. Sometimes she was too scientific for her own good.

  "But, but..." Mr. Popov knelt down and put his hand beside it. "That is terrifying."

  "Yes." I walked over to get a good look myself. Multiple trails, weight on the front, large prominent claws like a raptor, four front toes plus one larger hind toe... The impact had leveled the trees in this area weeks before, but the weight of the steps had driven the husks deep into the permafrost and earth... "Julie, you are the strongest, can you pull some of those trunk pieces out of the ground? I want an estimate of how heavy these creatures are."

  She crouched down by one, put her arms around it, and heaved grunting. It slid slightly, but so did she, and then with a louder grunt almost drove herself into the ground. "Not without tools. But that just may because the ground has frozen since then."

  "Or it may be your mass," Lois said "I estimate they weighed twenty-five or thirty tons, walked on two legs, they were moving about thirty or forty miles per hour, and they were heading north northeast of here."

  "Great. Fifty-foot-tall carnivorous ostriches." I touched the ground, it was dry, so there had been no rain or snow for several days. "James, any idea how long ago?"

  "Not recent, but since the event. I cant's smell anything." James stretched out preparing for flight "Let me catch some air and look."

  "Go ahead, but be careful." I said. "Mr. Popov, rather than setting up here, we may wish to follow this trail, if we can."

  "What? Madame, that is insane, we should avoid these creatures, surely."

  "They are going the way we think the object went" I gestured up the angle of the crater, right up the 'goose' neck "And they were running. After something... Or someone. Your missing troops, these Pskov, were they good men? Capable? Could they have figured out the evidence?"

  "They were among the best. Their commander, Mikhail Skobevled, had once been my protege." Julie pulled her coat straight. "Popov, have your radio man hail the ship and let them know what we found, and that I intend to pursue. Eryma, call in what locals you can. Let us hunt down some damn answers."

  I nodded to her, stopped, spread my arms, and opened myself to the sky. The middle of Siberia was no place for any sane animal, but still, my birds were known to forage for hundreds of miles looking for food. To quote Lois, let us see what happens.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Get Mushy

  Interlude:

  Signal sent: 31st October 1908, 17:20 hours

  Code: Sigma Lamp Baker Code Red 1

  From:Sir John Fisher, First Sea Lord, Admiral of
the Fleet

  To:Admiral Sir Archibald Berkeley Milne, Commander, HMS Indefatigable

  ENGAGE AT WILL. REPEAT: ENGAGE AT WILL.

  Message ends.

  #

  Our prey-if that is even the right word- moved at least twenty miles an hour, while we, even with snowshoes, were lucky to get five or six. The ground was simply that badly broken up, with entire groves of trees ripped and shot into the terrain like charred spears thrown by an angry Zeus. On the positive, side, the Maphnk had plowed a much clearer route for us, smashing anything that wasn't a tree trunk quite flat. If they could be tamed and exported I would make a fortune in Chicago during the winter season.

  "What is that?" Julie pointed up.

  I looked..."James leading the locals? You wanted scouts from the air, I sent out scouts from the air."

  "Not him. I know him, he's bloody huge. And it's not Lois, she is under your jacket, or her daughters, I know them by now, I have fed them enough. But there is another Raven there, not one of the small local birds, about two thirds the size of James." Julie was looking at me with some suspicion.

  "Damn your eyes are good. Even I can't see that much detail at that height. Shall I call them down?" I covered my eyes with my hand to cut back the glare.

  "It is a young mated pair, Dame Julie, probably from China or Mongolia." Lois stuck her head out of my jacket "My species mate for life, and after doing so, the eldest daughter leaves her mother's nest and often 'honeymoons' by migrating for great distances looking for a place to build her own colony. I for one, am quite glad to have them; the local birds are too small and few to be any good except as scouts. Very large males like that often serve as guardians for entire areas; my own James once fought off a pair of Eagles when we were young... Ahh the days of romance."

  "Lois" I said.

  "Yes dear?" she craned her head around backwards to look up at me.

  "When that happened, you came screeching in the window, yelling at me to get my shotgun." I stopped for a minute and took a sip from my canteen.

  "Yes, well, I am romantic, not stupid." Lois laughed.

  "So why, Julie were you watching the sky so intently?" I kicked some more snow out of my way and trudged on. Siberia, thy name is trudge.

  "Because if we have sent out scouts, it is possible the enemy might have as well. I trust I can take care of one or two, but if this group is as large as the previous, we may be in trouble. Unless, of course, some brilliant queen or her royally dubbed genius bird has a plan." Julie said.

  "I have two, actually." I kept trudging. The men with us, I noticed, had their heads aimed down at the ground. "The first is, I think they are night predators; their feathers or scales were very dark, they attacked us at four am, and they could see us much better than we could see them, even with the search lights. The second is do not engage them; avoid the direct confrontation if at all possible, and if not bloody well take cover."

  "Where?" Julie raised her arms, pointing at the miles of devastation around us. I shrugged, and pointed at the men; her eyes widened "Mr. Popov" she yelled "are your men good for another few miles while daylight is still upon us?"

  "They bloody well better be." Mr. Popov panted in reply, without turning back to us.

  "Right, then. Eryma, find us a hill or old stone house or something." Julie said, "If such a thing exists in this frozen hell."

  "Well something exists, the locals, they are circling, about two or three miles north of here, up those hills, off the trail." I started looking for the best way to get through that mess.

  "The monsters?" one of the men behind me asked.

  "No, worse. Food." I said. " All right people, follow me, up that ravine I think, we should be able to make that in another hour."

  #

  I lay on my stomach, as flat as possible, freezing from one end to the other, half covered in snow and slush, right below the crest of the hill. Julie, Lois, and Mr. Popov were arrayed around me like so many dishes on a dinner table, while the rest of the men were down lower on the bank behind us. Below us, was what we were all trying to hide from; a road rising up into a small valley between the mountains, with some sort of stone and metal structure nested in the center. Tall walls, almost prison like, towers beside the sheet metal doors... And a thirty food wide burnt hole blasted right in the middle of one of the concrete walls.

  "Imperial work camp" Mr. Popov said around his binoculars "Probably a bauxite mine, or possibly diamonds. Something attacked them, cleaned the place out, I don't see any movement or life. Could the Maphnk have done this?"

  "Of course, as soon as they can use explosives. That's a five-foot-thick reinforced concrete wall. With a charred hole in it. And I doubt the Maphnk would have left bodies." I put my own binoculars back under my coat. "Julie and I should probably scout things out."

  "What bodies?" Julie asked, " I don't see any."

  "The ones the locals think are delicious." I said. “Which means a day or two old, they like things a bit soft, but with this weather could be longer... Cold keeps the meat fresh, you know. And Mr. Popov, you might want to have your radio man call this in. I have a request for the ship."

  "To come get us?" Mr. Popov was a strangely hopeful man for a Russian.

  "No, night is coming, and the Maphnk may start hunting. I'd rather they hunted elsewhere; have the airship go someplace else, an hour or two away, and make lots of light and noise. That would leave us to deal with whomever made that hole, if they are still alive, but we should be able to handle humans. Well better than we can handle a herd of man eating, super-fast, house sized nocturnal chickens." I said. "Why the hells does an Imperial mine need giant walls and towers, anyway?"

  "Prisoners." Julie sounded subdued. "No one sane miner would work here of their free will. In theory, terrorists, murderers, and the like. I try not to ask too much."

  "The wisdom of the immortal." Mr. Popov said. "Are these suggestions or orders?"

  "Suggestions" Julie started to shimmy up "But good ones. We will signal if the area is clear. One long whistle for the all clear, two for enemy action, and if you see Maphnk parts go flying over the wall, assume the worst."

  #

  "You know, this is the second Imperial fortress I have invaded with you." I slowly crouched my way along the wall to the gaping wound in its side. Closer up, the hole looked, well, strange. I Have seen many blasts in walls over the years, both ones I have made and ones others have made trying to kill me, but this was just all wrong. There was no rubble, no damage to the rest of the wall, just fine cracks like spiderwebs, and no way to tell if the blast came from inside the prison or outside of it.

  I motioned behind me for Julie to stop, then waved to signal James and his new friends to come down. Time for a little recognizance in force, colonial style. James hopped up to me a few minutes later, daughters, and relations in tow.

  "Fine white sand." James said. "The area around the hole is covered in piles of fine white sand. ."

  "Oh hells." Lois stuck her head out “That’s not sand, it's Calcium Oxide. It can be extremely caustic and dangerous if inhaled, so do not get anywhere near it....and that means you as well, girls. We should maybe find another way in."

  "Was it a weapon used against the wall?" Julie whispered.

  "No, it was the wall. The weapon was heat, and a lot of it. Calcium oxide is what you get when you boil concrete. See the cracks in the wall? Those are from thermal shearing. Something hit this wall with over three thousand degrees of heat, right there." Lois pointed her wing at the hole "Which caused the wall in that spot to evaporate, almost instantly. Even thermite isn't that hot."

  "Right then, back to the main gate.... see anything else, James?" I began crouching back.

  "Just Maphnk" He smiled.

  "What?!" Lois was furious

  I stared at him for a minute. “Why didn't you say anything or signal earlier?"

  "Because they are in pieces" one of the daughters started giggling, which sent them all off. “Whatever did
it, didn't just kill them, it made lunch."

  "Wonderful." I sighed "All cooked, or does it look like bullets and grenades?"

  "Some cooked, some thin sliced. Do they make fifty-foot-long samurai swords?" James asked.

  "Why ask me? Ask Julie" I tried brushing the slush off my clothes. I would never be dry again, I suspected. Or warm... Well, that whatever it is might make me warm.

  "Why ask me?" Julie looked a lot less miserable than me. She may have even been having fun. Insane woman.

  "Because if one existed, you would have bought it by now. And likely hilled someone with it." I walked- standing this time- towards the front entrance. "You might as well whistle for the boys, whatever happened here is probably over."

  Julie whistled- in tune I noted- then jogged up behind me "You think, whatever came down, it was a weapon of some kind. And someone else found it first."

  "Yes. Or something that can be used as a weapon. The Maphnk were inside when it was fired, and unless the people who had it were so unlucky as to be under the Maphnk when they came down, they probably got well away. Considering the estimated size, they would have needed trucks or equipment; they will leave evidence we can follow. This is literally a nightmare."

  "How so?" Julie aimed an eyebrow at me.

  "That damn thing up there" I saluted the sky with the wrong finger "Has dropped gifts on us for millennium. The prior impacts all changed the world, and they were peaceful presents. Now it drops a weapon. This is the match I warned Catherine about. This will cause a war."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Spiders of Mars

  Interlude:

  18:40 hours, October 31, 1908.

  To: Count Ivan Stolyanov, Commander, Olenya Imperial Russian Naval Base

  From: Grand Duke Aleksandr Mikhailovich Romanov, Fleet Grand Admiral

  CONDITION FULL COMBAT ALERT. REPEAT CONDITION FULL COMBAT ALERT

  Have lost contact with Coastal Patrol Force sixteen. Last report had them in blockade of British Naval group near Ostrov Nansena Ridge passage, at 16:00 local time, yesterday. There has been no response since then. A whaling station at Ostrov Pritchetta reported 'they had heard thunder' at about 17:00 local time.