“Fine, then,” Alek said, bringing the djinn into a crouched halt. As the engines idled, the ranging gauge began to climb again.
Through the whiteness came the clatter of machine guns—the Ottomans were firing into the bank of steam clouds, listening to see where their bullets hit metal.
“They’ll find us soon enough,” Alek said. He pulled the release, and Deryn heard a third spice bomb rattle into place.
She wiped condensation from the ranging gauge. “Three hundred meters and climbing.”
“That’s enough—if we charge them!”
“Are you daft? There’s three of them and one of us!”
“Yes, but we haven’t much time. Listen to your beast.”
Deryn stared at the loris. Its wee eyes were closed, as if it had decided to take a nap. But a soft noise came from its lips—a hum and crackle, like the static on Klopp’s wireless. She’d heard the sound before …
“Barking spiders,” she breathed.
“Indeed.” Alek pushed at the pedals. As the djinn thundered forward, the hot clouds parted around them.
The Tesla cannon stood tall on the cliffs, its frame glimmering against the dark sky. Faint sparkles traveled along its lower struts, like fabricated fireflies flitting about on Guy Fawkes Day. Its shimmer spilled across the battlefield.
She leaned forward to squint up at the stars. No dark silhouette moved among them, but if the Ottomans were charging up their cannon, they must have spotted the Leviathan approaching.
The war elephants were still firing at the other walkers, their mortars elevated high. But as Alek charged ahead, one of the turrets began to spin about.…
Moments later its main gun billowed flame and smoke. The shell struck close enough to send the djinn staggering. The needle on the ranging gauge trembled, then fell—pressure was leaking somewhere.
“We’re hit!” Deryn cried.
“The trigger is yours, Mr. Sharp,” Alek said calmly, his hands white-knuckled on the saunters. The djinn was limping now, the whole pilot’s cabin lurching from side to side.
Deryn grasped the release trigger, her eyes flicking back and forth between the ranging gauge and the three steel elephants ahead. The needle had stopped at four hundred meters, trembling uncertainly, and the distance to the elephants was lessening with every step.
The nearest elephant swung its trunk toward the djinn, its machine gun blazing. Bullets struck armor with a sound like coins shaken in a tin. One bullet slipped in through the viewport, a sliver of hot metal striking sparks around their heads.
“Are you hit?” Alek asked.
“Not me!” Deryn said.
“Not me!” Bovril repeated, then filled the cabin with its maniacal laughter.
Another of the elephants’ big guns was taking aim …
The ranging needle sputtered again, then climbed, and finally they were close enough. Deryn pulled the trigger, and the walker’s throwing arm swung overhead as they ran, like a charging fast bowler unleashing a cricket ball at a batsman.
The spice bomb went straight into the closest elephant, exploding into a swirl of fiery red. The machine staggered, but the cloud moved hastily away, spreading through the shimmering lower struts of the Tesla cannon.
“Blisters!” Deryn cried. “The wind’s too strong up here!”
Of course, the wind always blew hard against seaside cliffs. She’d been a Dummkopf not to realize it!
But Alek didn’t falter, barreling straight at the elephant. The direct hit had done some damage, at least. The Ottoman machine was stumbling about like a newborn calf.
But just before they collided, the elephant’s great head rolled on its neck, raising the two barbed tusks.…
Alek twisted at the saunters, but the walker was moving too fast to turn. With an awful metal shriek the djinn impaled itself upon one tusk, a white blast of steam shooting from the boilers in its chest.
The air in the pilot’s cabin turned wet and scalding, every valve hissing like a teakettle. The elephant shook its head, tossing the djinn madly and throwing Deryn from her seat. She screamed as her hands splayed against the burning metal floor and the beastie’s claws went deep into her shoulder.
“We’re done for!” she shouted. “Abandon ship!”
“Not yet.” Alek pulled a saunter back with one hand, hitting the bomb release with another, and with the djinn’s last squick of strength brought its throwing arm down.
Deryn stood, squinting through her goggles to watch the remaining spice bombs—almost a dozen of them—rattle down the magazine to burst against the elephant’s back.
“Barking spiders,” said the perspicacious loris.
“Open us up,” Deryn said, unstrapping herself. “In another moment we won’t be able to breathe!”
While Alek spun the hand crank furiously, she kicked open the locker in the back of the cabin, pulling a mass of rope from it.
“Aren’t you glad we practiced belaying?” she shouted over the din of steam and gunfire.
“I’d rather not know what’s coming,” Alek said.
“Nonsense. This is easy compared with a sliding escape from a Huxley! I’ll tell you about that some time.”
As the djinn’s head opened, Deryn tied the rope off and flung it over the back of the walker. Stepping up onto the cabin’s edge, she peered down into the nebulous white cloud beneath them. The last steam from the djinn’s boilers was still billowing from the tusk protruding from its back.
“I’ll go first,” she said. “So if you slide too fast, I’ll break your fall.”
“Won’t that hurt a bit?”
“Aye. So don’t slide too fast!”
Deryn clipped herself to the rope, taking one last look at the battle spread out around them. Another of the war elephants had been hit—it was stumbling in a circle, red dust splattered across its glittering steel armor. Lilit’s Minotaur was charging forward while the iron golem stood back, its huge right arm launching spice bombs at the remaining elephant. Even with the sea breeze at her back, the smells of spices and gunfire were choking.
Then she saw it—Şahmeran lying on her belly half a mile from the tower, pouring out black smoke and burning oil.
“Zaven’s been hit!” she cried.
“And that’s not all.” Alek pointed toward the city, where a new column of smoke was rising in the distance.
“Blisters! Enemy reinforcements!”
“Don’t worry. That walker’s ten kilometers away, and the Ottomans don’t have anything fast.”
“Fast,” Bovril said.
Deryn gave it a hard look. “What in blazes are you saying, beastie?”
“Fast,” it said again.
A giant crash rolled across the battlefield—Lilit’s Minotaur had charged straight into the last undamaged war elephant. Both machines went down, tumbling over each other like cats in a fight. A vast red cloud billowed out in all directions, driven by the steam from the two machines’ broken boilers, turning the stars in the sky blood red.
The two walkers’ tumbling came to a halt in the center of a swirling tower of dust and engine smoke, neither of them moving.
“Lilit …,” Deryn said hoarsely.
The Minotaur was down, but its head seemed to be undamaged. Maybe the girl was safe inside her metal shell.
“Look,” Alek said. “She’s opened the way for Klopp!”
Only one elephant remained standing, and it was covered with red dust, barely moving. The iron golem was lumbering steadily forward, with nothing between it and the Tesla cannon.
But Klopp didn’t veer toward the wounded elephant or the cannon—he was headed straight toward them.
“What’s he doing?” Deryn asked. “Why’s he coming here?”
Alek swore. “Klopp and Bauer are following Volger’s orders. They’re coming to rescue me!”
“Blisters, this is what you get for being a barking prince!”
“An archduke, technically.”
“Whatever you are, we h
ave to show him you don’t need rescuing. Come on!”
Deryn lifted the rope, and felt Bovril tighten its grip on her shoulder.
“Abandon ship,” the beastie said.
She jumped, sliding down through hot clouds of vapor.
Before he followed Dylan, Alek looked down at the war elephant that had impaled the djinn.
Crewmen were abandoning the walker through its belly hatch, coughing and stumbling blindly. They wouldn’t be much of a threat for the moment.
But seeing the ground so far below made Alek pull his piloting gloves tighter. Learning how to “belay,” as Dylan called it, had taught him a healthy respect for rope burn. He swallowed, the tastes of paprika and cayenne heavy in his mouth, then jumped …
The rope whipped past him, wild and angry, like a stream of scalding water. He jerked himself to a painful halt every few meters, his boots banging against the hot metal of the djinn’s armor. Steam clouds swirled around him, the engines inside the walker knocking and hissing as they cooled.
As his feet thumped down onto hard earth, Alek pulled off the gloves to stare at his burning palms.
“Took you long enough,” Dylan complained, turning toward the iron golem. “Come on. That Tesla cannon’s getting ready to fire. We need to show Klopp you’re okay!”
Alek unclipped himself and followed the boy, who had broken into a dead run. The iron golem was still headed toward them, making its steady way across the battlefield.
Klopp clearly hadn’t seen the Ottoman reinforcements coming from behind him.
As he ran, Alek squinted at the smoke trail in the distance. It seemed closer already, and he saw now how the column curved backward against the starlit sky.
Fast, the creature had said. But what walker was that fast?
Dylan let out a yelp from just ahead. He’d tripped and fallen face-first into the dirt. As the boy scrambled to his feet, Alek slowed, staring down at what Dylan had stumbled on—train tracks.
“Oh, no.”
“What in blazes?” Dylan stared down at the rails. “Ah, this must be where the Orient-Express …”
“Express,” the beast hissed softly.
Together they turned to stare at the approaching column of smoke. It was much closer now, charging along the cliffs ten times faster than any lumbering walker.
And it was headed straight for the iron golem.
“He can’t see it,” Alek said. “It’s right behind him!”
“Klopp!” Dylan cried out, breaking back into a run, his arms waving in the air. “Get away from the tracks!”
Alek ran a few more steps, his heart thudding in his ears. But yelling was pointless. He searched his pockets for a way to send a signal—a flare, a gun.
The famous dragon-headed engine was visible in the distance now, it single eye glowing white hot, smoke spewing from its stacks. Dylan was still running toward Klopp, pointing back at the massive train.
The iron golem came to a lumbering halt, its head lowering for a better view of the tiny boy before it.
Alek watched as two huge cargo arms unfolded from the engine car of the Express. A dozen meters long, they stretched out in both directions, like a pair of sabers wielded by a charging horseman.
Klopp must have understood Dylan’s cries, or heard the train behind him, because the walker began to slowly turn …
But in that moment the Express shot past, its left cargo arm slicing through the golem’s legs. Metal shrieked and buckled, and a cloud of steam burst from the ruined knees.
The walker tipped backward, its huge arms flailing, and landed on the trailing end of the Express. Two freight cars buckled around the fallen machine, and the cars behind kept piling into it, hurling glass and metal parts into the air.
The shock wave from being pulled in half rippled up the train until it reached the engine, which skidded from the rails, plowing through the dirt. But the pilots had been ready for this—the Express’s arms stretched out like wings to steady the engine car. A handful of coal and freight cars dragged behind the engine, sending clouds of dust into the air.
Alek saw Dylan running back toward him, Bovril a tiny silhouette on his shoulder, both of them about to be swallowed in the rolling mass of dust.
“Run!” he was shouting, pointing sideways from the tracks.
The front half of the train, skidding and derailed but still speeding along, was headed straight at Alek.
He turned and ran the way Dylan was pointing, directly away from the rails. Long seconds later the dust cloud overtook Alek, blinding him and filling his lungs.
Something flew out of the dark mass and knocked him off his feet, strong hands pushing his head down into the dirt.
A huge shadow swept overhead—the Express’s cargo arm, Alek realized. A cascade of dirt and gravel flew over him, and a clamor like a thousand foundries rolled past, full of shrieks and clangs and explosions.
As the noise faded, the dust cleared a little, and Alek looked up.
“Well, that was close,” he said. Not five meters from his head, the skidding claw of the cargo arm had carved a furrow as wide as a carriage lane.
“You’re welcome, your archdukeness.”
“Thank you, Dylan.” Alek stood up, dusting off his clothes and looking dazedly about.
The front half of the Orient-Express had finally slid to a halt, almost skidding into the Tesla cannon itself. The iron golem lay hissing and steaming on the ground, the back half of the train in piles around it. Alek took a step closer, wondering if Master Klopp and Bauer were all right.
But Bovril was growling, echoing a low buzzing noise that drifted across the battlefield. A crackle was building in the air.
Dylan pointed toward the southern sky, where a long silhouette had finally appeared—the Leviathan, black and huge against the stars.
Alek turned back toward the Tesla cannon. As he watched, the awful shimmers began to travel up into its tip.
“We have to stop it,” Dylan said. “There’s no one else.”
Alek nodded dumbly. Klopp and Bauer, Lilit and Zaven—they all needed his help. But the Tesla cannon was readying to fire, and the Leviathan had more than a hundred men aboard.
His fists clenched in frustration. If only he were in a walker now, with huge arms to tear the tower down.
“Express,” Bovril hissed.
“The train,” Alek said softly. “If we can take the engine car, we can use its cargo arms!”
Dylan gazed at him a moment, then nodded. They ran together, stumbling across the wreckage-strewn ground, dodging the piles of scattered cargo that had been thrown from the train.
The front half of the Orient-Express had come to rest only fifteen meters from the Tesla cannon. The cargo arms were motionless, but the smokestacks were still belching. A few soldiers stumbled out of the engine cars, wearing German uniforms, rifles strapped across their shoulders.
Alek dragged Dylan to a halt in the shadows. “They’re armed, and we’re not.”
“Aye. Follow me.”
The boy ran to the last car in the line, a freight carrier lying lopsided in the furrow dug by the train’s passage. He climbed up and along its top, making his way toward the engine car. Alek followed, crouching low to keep out of sight.
The soldiers hardly looked alert. They were walking about in a dumbfounded state, gazing at the battle wreckage around them and coughing spices from their lungs. A few stared at the Leviathan in the sky.
Alek heard a familiar sound—the rumble of the airship’s engines. He glanced up and saw that the Leviathan was halfway through a turn. The crew had spotted the glittering Tesla cannon and were trying to bring the ship about.
But they were too late. It would take long minutes to get out of range, and the Tesla cannon was buzzing like a beehive, almost ready to fire.
Dylan had reached the coal hopper behind the engine, and Alek jumped in after him. Coal skidded under his feet and turned his hands black as he caught himself from stumbling.
Dyl
an scrambled to the front and climbed out, reaching down to give Alek a hand.
“Quickly now,” the boy whispered.
Alek pulled himself up between the two huge cargo arms. He could feel the air crackling; sparks from the giant tower were making the shadows quiver. But the engineer’s cabin was just ahead.
“There’s only one man inside,” Dylan whispered, handing Bovril to Alek and pulling a knife from his jacket. “I can handle him.”
Not waiting for an answer, the boy swung himself down and in through a window in a single motion. By the time Alek reached the door, Dylan had the lone engineer cowering in a corner.
Alek stepped inside and looked at the controls—a legion of unfamiliar dials and gauges, brake levers and engine stokers. But the saunters were metal gloves on poles, just like the ones that controlled Şahmeran’s arms.
He placed Bovril on the floor, stuck his hands into the saunters, and made a fist.
A dozen meters to his right, the huge claw responded, snapping shut. A few of the German soldiers looked up at the noise, but most were transfixed by the glittering Tesla cannon and the airship overhead.
“Don’t muck about!” Dylan hissed. “Tear it down!”
Alek extended his arm, reaching out for the tower. But the great claw clamped shut a few meters short of the nearest glowing strut.
“Get us closer!” Dylan said.
Alek stared at the engine levers, then realized that the train’s wheels were useless without a track. But he remembered a legless beggar he’d seen in the town of Lienz, propelling himself along on a wheeled board with his hands.
He set both claws against the ground, one on either side, and scraped them backward. The engine car lifted a bit, sliding forward a meter or so, then settled back into the dirt.
“Closer,” Bovril said approvingly.
“Well, we’ve got the Germans’ attention now,” Dylan muttered, looking out the window.
“I leave that matter to you,” Alek answered, scraping the huge claws against the ground again. The engine car skidded forward with an ungodly screech, metal striking the bedrock of the cliffs.