Behemoth

FORTY

The tower toppled around Şahmeran 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.

The ironclad’s kraken-fighting arms swung about, their snippers slashing at the sea monster’s flesh. But the tentacles didn’t seem to feel the cuts, coiling like slow pythons around the center of the warship. A huge head lifted up from the water, two eyes gleaming in the red of the spotlight.…

Alek took a step back. Unlike a kraken’s, the behemoth’s tentacles were only a small part of the beast. Its long body was all bony plates and segments, a spiny ridge traveling down its back. It repulsed him, like something dragged up from the deepest ocean, ancient and alien.

A desolate sound rolled across the water, the ironclad’s hull wailing as it bent in the behemoth’s grasp. Her small guns were firing in all directions, the kraken-fighting arms flailing against the massive tentacles. Men and spent ammunition slid across the warship’s decks as she rocked back and forth.

“Barking spiders,” Dylan breathed. “Dr. Barlow said the beastie was huge, but I never thought …”

Something flared inside the Goeben’s broken hull, one of her boilers spilling flame. Hissing steam clouds shot from ruptures in the ship’s armor plates.

The Tesla cannon tried to fire, but its half-charged lightning barely leapt into the sky, then tumbled back to coil around the behemoth’s tentacles and dance on the metal decks. Explosions flickered up and down the warship’s length as fuel tanks and magazines were ignited by white fire.

The searchlight turned a brilliant blue, and in one huge motion the behemoth hauled its body onto the superstructure, forcing the warship down. The Goeben resisted for a moment, but then her foredecks slipped beneath the waves. The aft end rose up, and the Tesla cannon climbed into the dark sky, still shimmering. With a metal shriek the warship split in two, both halves sliding neatly down into the water.

A lone kraken-fighting arm reached up from the churning waves, its claw snapping at the air before it disappeared again. Then a burst of red light flared beneath the surface, sending columns of fresh steam into the air.

The water settled slowly, and then was still again.

“Poor bum-rags,” Dylan said.

Alek stood silent. In the last month he’d somehow forgotten what the revolution would mean for the crew of the Goeben.

“I have to join my comrades,” Lilit said, kneeling beside the long canvas bag. She pulled out a mass of metal poles and rippling silk, and set to work. The contraption expanded, driven by coils of springs inside. In moments it was five meters across, the wings as translucent as those of a mosquito.

“What in blazes?” Dylan cried.

“A body kite,” Alek said. “But you’ll never make it back to Istanbul in that.”

“I don’t need to. My uncle’s fishing boat is waiting beneath the cliffs.” Lilit turned to Dylan. “I’m sorry, but he can be trusted. And I had to tell someone else our plan, in case we needed a way back to the city.”

“Now?” Dylan asked. “But we have to check on Klopp and Bauer!”

“Of course you do; they’re your friends. But the revolution needs its leaders tonight.” Lilit stared across the water, her voice falling. “And Nene will need me too.”

As she stood there, fresh tears streaking the grime on her face, Alek thought of the night his own parents had died. Strangely, all he could recall now was repeating the story to Eddie Malone in payment for the man’s silence. It was as if the telling had erased the real memory.

“I’m sorry about your father,” he said, every word stiff and clumsy in his mouth.

Lilit gave him a curious look. “If the sultan wins tonight, you’ll simply run off somewhere new, won’t you?”

Alek frowned. “That’s probably true.”

“Good luck, then,” she said. “Your gold was very useful.”

“You’re welcome, if that was meant as a thank you.”

“It was.” She turned to Dylan. “No matter what happens, I’ll never forget what you’ve done for us. I think you’re the most brilliant boy I’ve ever met.”

“Aye, well, it was just—”

Lilit didn’t let him finish, but threw her arms around him, kissing him hard on the lips. After a long moment she pulled away and smiled. “I’m sorry. I was just curious.”

“Curious? Barking spiders!” Dylan cried, a hand at his mouth. “You hardly know me!”

Lilit laughed and lifted the body kite into the air. As its wings filled with the cool sea breeze, she stepped to the edge of the cliffs, her hands on the pilot strut.

“I know you better than you think, Mr. Sharp.” She smiled, turning to Alek. “You don’t know what a friend you have in Dylan.”

With that, she stepped off into the darkness … and fell from their sight.

Alek rushed to the edge of the cliff, looking down in horror. The body kite tumbled for a moment, but then steadied itself and angled out to sea. The wind lifted it up higher, almost level with the cliff tops, and for a moment they could hear Lilit’s laughter once more.

The kite turned hard, banking toward the city lights. A moment later it had slipped away into the darkness.

“Mr. Sharp,” Bovril said, and chuckled.

Alek shook his head, wondering at Lilit. Her father was dead and her city in flames—and there she was, soaring through the air, somehow laughing.

“That girl is quite mad.”

“Aye.” Dylan touched his mouth again. “But she’s not a bad kisser.”

Alek looked at the boy, then shook his head again.

“Come on. Let’s go see about Master Klopp.”