Behemoth (38 page)

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.

Dylan 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
Ş
ahmeran’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.

Shouts came through the windows now, and a soldier leapt up to pound on the door. Dylan punched the engineer in the stomach, crumpling him to the floor, then turned to stand ready with his knife.

Alek outstretched the cargo arms again.

This time one great claw reached the Tesla cannon’s lowest strut. As he snapped the claw shut, a crackle shot through the cabin. The metal gloves sizzled in Alek’s hands, and an invisible force seemed to close around his chest. Every hair on Bovril’s body was standing on end.

“Barking spiders!” Dylan cried. “The lightning’s coming for us!”

Sparks danced along the controls and the walls of the cabin, and the soldier at the door yelped, jumping off the metal running board.

Alek set his teeth against the pain, pulling harder on the saunter. The engine car lifted into the air again, the strut letting out a metal groan as it slowly bent toward them. At the base of the tower, a ball of white fire was spiraling into being.

“It’s about to fire!” Dylan cried.

Alek pulled as hard as he could, and a sudden shudder
passed through the car. The saunters went limp in his hand, and the lightning on the cabin walls flickered out.

“You snapped it, and the cannon’s …” Dylan frowned. “It’s tipping. The whole barking thing is tipping over!”

“From one broken strut?” Alek stepped to the window, looking up.

The tower was slowly leaning away, the lightning flowing down from its higher struts into a ball of white fire on its opposite side. A huge snakelike form clung to the struts there, halfway up, wrapped in a glowing cocoon of electricity.

“Is that … ?”

“Aye,” Dylan breathed. “It’s
Ş
ahmeran.”

Zaven had somehow piloted his injured walker all the way to the tower. And now it was acting as a conductor, drawing the power of the cannon into itself.

Lightning spun in a whirlwind around the goddess walker, glowing brighter and brighter until Alek had to shut his eyes.

“He’ll be done for in there,” Dylan said, and Alek nodded.

A few seconds later the Tesla cannon began to fall.

The tower toppled around
Ş
ahmeran in a maelstrom of white fire.

Tendrils of lightning leapt out in all directions, dancing on the frozen djinn and elephant, on the other fallen walkers, and along the wreckage of the Orient-Express. The metal walls of the engine car crackled with sparks and spiderwebs of flame.

As the lightning faded, the roar of the tower’s collapse filled the air. A falling strut struck the engine car—the ceiling dented inward, and the windows shattered all at once. Bending metal howled around them, and smoke and dust billowed through the car.

Long moments later a heavy silence settled over the battlefield.

“Are you all right, Dylan?” Alek’s words sounded muffled in his own ears.

“Aye. How about you, beastie?”

“Zaven,” said Bovril softly.

Dylan took the creature into his arms. “Listen. The
Leviathan
’s still up there.”

It was true—the soft rumble of the airship’s engines had settled over the silent battlefield. At least all this madness hadn’t been in vain.

“
Leviathan
,” Bovril repeated slowly, rolling the word around in its mouth.

Alek stepped closer to the window. The Tesla cannon stretched out into the distance, jagged and broken, like the unearthed spine of some huge extinct creature. The djinn lay fallen beside the war elephant, both walkers battered by the cascade of debris.

A cold shiver went through Alek—most of the German soldiers had disappeared beneath the ruined tower.

“We need to see if Lilit’s all right,” he said. “And Klopp and Bauer.”

“Aye.” Dylan put Bovril on his shoulder. “But who first?”

Alek hesitated, realizing that his men might be dead, as Zaven certainly was. “Lilit first. Her father …”

“Of course.”

They opened the door and stepped out into a hellish landscape. The smoke and spices and engine oil were choking, but the smells of burned flesh and hair were worse.
Alek turned his eyes from what the cannon’s last discharge of electricity had done to the men outside.

“Come on,” Dylan said hoarsely, dragging him away.

As they skirted the wreckage, Bovril raised its head and said, “Lilit.”

Alek followed the creature’s gaze, squinting through the darkness. There at the edge of the cliffs was a lonely figure, looking out over the water.

“Lilit!” Dylan called, and the figure turned to face them.

They ran to her, the cool sea breeze carrying away the smells of battle and destruction. Lilit’s piloting gear was torn, her face pale in the darkness. A long canvas bag lay in the dirt beside her feet.

As they drew close, she stumbled into Dylan’s arms.

“Your father,” the boy said. “I’m so sorry.”

Lilit pulled away. “I saw what he was doing, so I cleared a path for him. I
helped
him do it …” She shook her head, tears tracking the dust on her face, and turned to stare at the fallen tower. “Have we all gone mad, to want this?”

“He saved the
Leviathan
,” Alek said.

Lilit just looked at him, dazed and uncertain, as if every language she knew had been knocked from her head. Her stare made him feel foolish for speaking.

“All gone mad,” Bovril said.

Lilit reached out to stroke the creature’s fur, her eyes still glassy.

“Are you all right?” Dylan asked.

“Just dizzy … and amazed. Look at that.”

She pointed across the water toward the city of Istanbul. Its dark streets sparkled with gunfire, and half a dozen gyrothopters hovered over the palace. As Alek watched, a silent tendril of flame arced through the sky, then disappeared with a rumble among the ancient buildings.

“See? It’s really happening,” Lilit said. “Just as we planned.”

“Aye, that’s the barking strangest thing about battle—that it’s real.” Dylan looked out across the water. “The behemoth won’t be long now.”

Alek took a step closer to the cliff’s edge and gazed down. The
Goeben
was steaming out, her kraken-fighting arms spread like the claws of a crab. Sparks glimmered across the tower on her aft decks.

“Another Tesla cannon,” Lilit whispered. “I’d forgotten.”

“Not to worry,” Dylan said. “It’s not as big, and doesn’t have the range. The lady boffin has this timed to perfection.”

As he spoke, a single spotlight lanced out from the airship’s gondola, so bright that its beam sliced deep into the water. It slid toward the
Goeben
, a column of light rippling through blackness.

The gyrothopters above the palace moved toward the airship, and smaller spotlights from the
Leviathan
sprang to life, picking the gyrothopters out against the dark sky.
From this distance Alek couldn’t see the hawks or bats, but one by one, the gyrothopters tumbled from the air.

“They’ve had a whole month for repairs and refits,” Dylan said. “And to make more beasties.”

Alek nodded, realizing that he’d never seen the
Leviathan
at full strength, only damaged and starved. Tonight it would be a different ship altogether.

“Beasties,” said Bovril, its eyes glowing like a cat’s.

The main spotlight reached the
Goeben
, and for a moment the warship’s steel guns and armor glowed a blinding white. Then the spotlight flicked from one color to the next—purple, green, and finally blood red.

A pair of tentacles stretched from the water, spilling sheets of rain across the
Goeben
’s decks.

It was the behemoth.