Behemoth

THIRTY-NINE

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.

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 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.

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 Şahmeran.”

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.