Hour of the Wolf

by Andrius B Tapinas

  And he even pretended not to see their stunned faces. On the other hand, he arranged for the best carriage to take Edward and him to Farnborough. The highlight of the short journey was their jolly chat, and him talking about being really happy with his appointment to The Star of St George. He was also exceptionally pleasant during the induction training at Farnborough – pure sweetness and light.

  Edward found this mystery impossible to crack. Generally speaking, he was good at reading people and he realised that Finley was not bluffing or running a foul plot in order to take advantage of him. The lad had really changed, becoming an entirely different person.

  “Maybe what I saw at the Academy was a mask?” thought O’Braitis to himself. “And now, when there is no need to put on a front for his aristocrat chums anymore, I can finally see his genuine face?” To tell the truth, Edward was pleased with the change. Especially now, starting this miserable service. The prospect of spending time with amicable Charles and Captain Mabrey made distant Vilnius look somewhat less disagreeable.

  “They are waiting for us, gentlemen,” reported Finley, shifting from one foot to another and trying to shake the rain drops off his water-repellent coat hood.

  The dirigible The Star of St George, or just The Star as it was called by many, did not stand out as beautiful. It was one of the first airships built in Newcastle, and had been expected to strengthen the military power of the British Empire. Milton Mabrey was the first and only captain of The Star, and could point to every patch or seam and tell you the story of their origin: this damage was caused by the cannons of the defenders at besieged Khartoum, this was left after a night-time storm when escaping from Suakin, while this patch came into being when a gas leak caused an explosion.

  In the past The Star had been powered by different types of fuel: coal, helium and, lately, by the magic promethelium of the Alchemists. Following the discovery of promethelium, airships had changed. New dirigibles were developed to be more graceful, agile and fast, and The Star stood no chance of competing with them in that respect. Besides, aviators spoke of corvettes with total contempt, as their firepower was so inferior to that of air cruisers or frigates. And when it came to speed and manoeuvrability, corvettes were not as good as air raiders, not to mention small reconnaissance airships.

  “There’s just nothing a corvette wouldn’t do – it can easily sweep the enemy away with its machine guns or overtake you in a mad air race,” old corvette captains would say, proudly puffing out chests adorned with medals awarded for their achievements in long-forgotten battles. “And that is the reason why they are so pretty useless,” rebuked their opponents.

  The three British army officers climbed onto a hydraulic platform mounted on top of a substantial metal arm. The platform screeched into motion and started to rise. Inside the ship, the men took off in different directions without a word – Mabrey walking over to the captain’s bridge, Finley to the engine room to exchange a few words with the airship’s mechanic and to discuss the course with the navigator, while Edward stayed on the deck to wait for the other members of the crew.

  The official papers stated that The Star of St George was leaving on a military mission, and Mabrey had born this in mind when choosing his crew members. The airship did not only house the mandatory members of any dirigible team – like navigators, engineers, mechanics, wireless operators, a cook and an alchemist, who had become indispensible since The Star had been put on promethelium, but also a newly formed assault platoon of Sky Soldiers (the pride of the Royal Air force), as well as Royal Artillery Engineers.

  The Star had been supplied with light Hotchkiss and a few heavier Vickers machine guns, and it also had two light siege howitzers on board. When the engineers had finally come up with a way to install light artillery pieces on dirigibles, it seemed that the outcome of the battle could be determined by one accurate shot at the enemy’s dirigible. But the reality was different. Light artillery was only suitable for hitting the target at short range, and making a hole in the envelope of a dirigible filled with gas from a short distance was clearly suicidal. Therefore dirigibles had to continue employing the old tactic of aiming exclusively at the gondolas with the aim of destroying the enemy crew. Precise and fast machine guns were well suited for this purpose, while artillery was more frequently used for warning shots – balls containing an alchemic gas mixture would be fired and crackle in the sky with a bolt of lightning upon explosion.

  Mabrey anxiously watched the Sky Soldiers in their sparkling red uniforms and shiny long boots march into The Star. His heart was beating as fast as the day of his first rendezvous with a young lady.

  “And where is the Prince who can afford to so cover his country with troops for its defence, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds, might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief?” he mumbled.

  “Burns?” asked Edward, having turned up on the captain’s bridge. He had already noticed the captain’s soft spot for Scottish poetry.

  Charles Finley appeared out of nowhere behind O’Braitis’ back.

  “No, it’s Benjamin Franklin this time,” laughed Mabrey and rubbed his hands. “Well, let’s get ready for take-off, gentlemen. Vilnius is waiting for us.”

  Chapter XI

  Kraków, early morning

  23 04 1905

  A golden figure appeared in a tower window of St Mary’s Basilica, and a melancholy tune, played on a trumpet, drifted over the Main Square of Kraków Old Town, announcing the end of the hour. The clear sound of the trumpet wafted up in the sky and then came to an abrupt end – just like six hundred years ago, when the city had been besieged by the Tatars and the throat of the Kraków trumpeter had been pierced by an arrow. A moment later the tune tried to escape through another window, only to be sharply broken off again.

  “It reminds me of my life,” thought Mila, a brunette with a pretty face and ice-cold eyes. “One moment it sounds like a most delightful melody, but then it goes quiet again.”

  She was sitting in a carriage, watching servants stack cases on the roof though the see-through curtains. Mila had inherited beauty from her mother. Her eyes had filled with ice later, following a number of ordeals she had had to face in the course of her life: The Day That Changed Everything, then the confrontation with the Prague Vitamancers, persecution in Constantinople, and the flames of Varna that she couldn’t get out of her head. To her, Kraków had seemed like a peaceful haven, good enough to drop anchor and start a new life. But now the cases were being packed again and, accompanied by the trustworthy Legionnaires sent by the Alliance, she was setting off on yet another journey. Mila took a deep breath and turned her back to the window. She instantly felt the weight of three pairs of eyes.

  “Sh-aaa-llll we-ee go-oo?” one of the fellow travellers asked.

  “Oh how miserable I am,” sighed another one.

  The girl smiled, the ice in her eyes melting away.

  “Let’s go, my darlings,” she stretched out her hand to stroke the three heads.

  She was immediately rewarded with a gentle cat-like purr.

  “It sounds like the voice valves are not tight enough,” a thought flashed through the girl’s head. “I have to make sure that I check the oil level.”

  Someone knocked on the door. Mila opened it a crack.

  “The belongings have been packed, Madam, we can get on the move. We will take you to the airship port where we will hand you over to The Icarus crew. It should take us half an hour to reach the airfield,” reported a stocky man in green uniform, with a metal badge depicting three towers against a red shield – the symbol of the Krakow Legionnaires – on his chest. The man spoke in Polish.

  Mila nodded absent-mindedly. She knew that uncle Nikodemas would take care of everything down to the smallest detail.

  The hired man carefully closed the door, sat on the box next to the coachman and yelled for him to pull off.

  As soon as the carriage started rolling, the coachman shouted at the top of his
voice trying to separate the crowds, which even at this early hour packed the Great Square. Mila had always been fascinated by the energy of Kraków, and even now, in such low spirits, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the window.

  The Great Square was enormous, with eleven streets converging on it. It had served as a market place ever since the 13th century, its main feature being a stunning brick building housing a number of little shops under one roof and decorated with grinning Sukiennice mascarons.

  All cities of the Alliance were different: if Vilnius was the city of Alchemists and engineers, everything in Prague was controlled by the Vitamancers; if Constantinople was in the hands of Mystics and Hypnomants, Reval was famous for fantastic marine constructs sliding off the slipways. But according to one joke doing the rounds of the inns, all of those things were paid for by Kraków – the wallet of the free cities of the Alliance, which had been revelling in its free city status when the Alliance was nothing more than a charming idea floating in the salons of Europe’s bankers. The aristocratic Potockis family had come up with a set of very clear rules: no customs duties, low tax and a blind eye turned to smuggling. Its big neighbours, such as Austria, Prussia and Russia had severely disapproved of such policies, and free Kraków had found itself under the direct threat of being occupied. The Rothschilds found this obvious. But it was appreciated even more acutely by the aristocrats Potockis, who hadn’t put up much of a fight before their three towers were placed on the coat of arms of the Alliance, next to the Rothschild’s fist and five arrows. It had to be said that the Alliance had challenged the smugglers in Kraków in a serious way, but the taxes were reduced even more and so thousands of craftsmen, merchants and manufacturers had flooded the city, turning Kraków into a flourishing place and the financial centre of all the free cities.

  When the carriage was rolling past the row of wool sellers, the crowd had grown so thick that many people started bumping against the carriage. The cases on the roof began precariously swaying from side to side. The Legionnaire riding in the carriage with Mila swiftly jumped off the box, made his way to the front of the carriage and started to clear a path, separating the crowd with his elbows and sounding an occasional whistle. Many of those who had been pushed away turned round thinking to strike back, but changed their minds at the sight of the green uniform.

  When the carriage had freed itself from the grip of the Great Square at last, it rolled down St Florian’s Street in the direction of St Florian’s Gate, through which Old Kraków would finally release the travellers. The coachman pulled the reins to slow his horses, letting a modern electric street trolley rattle through, and then, with St Florian’s Gate behind it, the carriage raced along the wide alley leading to Rakovice and its docking port for dirigibles.

  The expansion of Kraków was so rapid that it could be compared to a monster, swallowing entire settlements and villages whole. Architects did not bother to design new areas – without changing the layout, with a few brisk pencil strokes they marked places where everything had to be demolished and replaced with newly built roads. Consequently, the new Kraków could not boast of being beautiful, while the quarter of Nowa Huta – the industrial heart of the city – was actually rather ugly, with its hurriedly-built tiny workers’ houses, giant smoke-spewing factories, and never ending torrents of trains, street trolleys, carriages and other means of transport.

  Mila scrunched up her nose and sprayed some scented water around, hoping that it would kill the stench of leather, metal and soot-blackened steam.

  The scenery outside Nowa Huta was no different – free Kraków grew without any restrictions, it lured people with mirages of a better life, and had to sacrifice something in return. The locals compared Kraków to an onion with layers. The heart of the city – the Old Town – was enveloped by the green layer of Planty parks, then followed a layer of better-off citizens’ houses and beyond that, another one of the Nowa Huta factories. Last came a labyrinth of slums, shacks, derelict houses or simply boxes – home to creatures who still kept their hopes alive, despite failing to find their luck in Kraków. A new construction wave would soon clear them out of the way, and these destitute humans with their meagre belongings would retreat and start building another, even more remote layer of Kraków. As in all cities of the Alliance, Legionnaires hardly ever found their way to the slums, and locals observed their own laws, which made robberies possible at any time of the day. But one rule was very strictly adhered to in Kraków: the roads were to be kept clear. They had to be clean, wide, free of obstacles and safe. Kraków painstakingly looked after the big arteries that transported its lifeblood; robberies on the road, even in the middle of the night, were extremely rare, and before gathering the courage to cross the big road, residents of the slums would take time to diligently inspect the view to both sides.

  After the Nowa Huta Junction, the road stretched ahead side-by-side with a pair of rail tracks connecting the factory quarter with Rakovice airship port and the salt mines, extending beyond it. Trains filled with enormous quantities of salt clattered along these tracks day and night, their dreary shrieks piercing the air.

  “We will be there in no time,” said Mila, recognising the towers of Rakovice airship port out of the window.

  The carriage passengers started bustling around. One of Mila’s fellow travellers jumped up and waved his metal sword.

  “I am ready, Miss.”

  “Alll-reaaa-dyyy?” asked another traveller, and Mila reminded herself again to check the oil level.

  “Oh how miserable I am,” sadly uttered the third passenger.

  “Heee is miii-see-rab-lee agaiii-n. Noo-t agaaain!” someone complained.

  The air rang with Mila’s laughter.

  “It’s just that Pierrot hasn’t been warmed up today. You very well know it, Columbina,” she said. “It is Scaramuccia’s turn today.”

  The one who had just been called Scaramuccia waved his sword.

  “This is exactly true, I am ready for exploring and adventure, Miss,” he assured her. At that moment the carriage jumped up and Scaramuccia flew down to the floor. “Oh dear, Miss, it looks like we are being assaulted,” he mumbled.

  Mila bent down, picked up Scaramuccia and put him back on the seat. It wasn’t hard, as all three of Mila’s friends were no taller than dogs, and weighed a few pounds each.

  They were Mila’s toy automatons, developed and constructed by her for her own pleasure. Following the incident in Prague when they had been spotted by a Vitamancer at the New Year’s Ball, however, they had also become a source of trouble. The impression the automatons had left on the man was so strong that his people were now seeking to get hold of these toys at any cost, and even more so, to capture their creator. In her mind’s eye Mila saw the streamers of fire again, the memory causing her eyes to freeze over.

  Through a small gap in the curtains she stared at the airship port as they slowly approached.

  The sight of any airship port was so mind blowing that it left no one cold. Even weathered travellers and explorers, adventurers and travelling scientists, who had flown dozens of times before, felt overwhelmed every time they set their eyes on something so outstanding. No one would have dared dispute this. And Rakovice was no exception to the rule. The port was set up next to abandoned salt mines, bound on two sides by gigantic grey and black rocks rearing up into the sky. The port’s designers had thought they would do an excellent job of holding back the wind – a considerable problem for airships during takeoff and landing.

  A large part of the port was dedicated to cargo dirigibles, making the site look even more impressive. Powerful cargo giants were not moored on the ground, but in the air. Cables tied them to four metal mooring masts, the largest supporting a metal platform.

  Packages were unloaded onto the platform, from where they would go into small wagons running straight down to the central package distribution point along metal railway tracks. Supported at a height of a few dozen metres the tracks twisted, crossed one another
and changed direction, which made every passerby wonder at the excellence of engineering and mechanical work and feel bewildered at the thought of how this whole structure did not collapse to the ground and crush someone beneath its weight considering the hundreds of poods[20] worth of cargo it carried.

  But Rakovice was also a place where passenger dirigibles felt like unloved children. Their captains spent a lot of time badmouthing Kraków and Rakovice due to the complexity of the tasks they faced at these airports. They not only had to manoeuvre their machines around the menacingly soaring rocks in the dark and pouring rain, doing all they could to avoid hitting the floating cargo monsters or the wagons rolling along the tracks, but also safely reach the ground, where they were moored in the traditional way – with special guide ropes on a stub mast. Wisely, only the crème de la crème of navigators were appointed to work in Kraków Navigators’ Tower by the Department of Transport, and so far disasters had been avoided.

  The carriage came to a halt in a large open area. Workers ran up to it immediately and started taking the cases off the roof and stacking them on the ground under the strict supervision of the coachman. There was another knock on the door. With a wave of Mila’s hand all three toys obediently froze.

  “We have arrived, Miss,” said the accompanying Legionnaire, peeking inside the carriage. “They have already started boarding The Icarus. The cases will be taken care of, while I will walk you to the dirigible along the blue corridor and hand you over to the guards, who are already expecting you at the dirigible.” Although the Legionnaire spoke in an impeccably polite tone, a tiny note of incredulity had slipped through. Not knowing who the girl was, he was extremely baffled by the privileges and the escort that had been granted to her. Was she the daughter of some local man of wealth? She did not really look like one.