Leviathan

THIRTY

Tazza seemed to enjoy riding in the Stormwalker.

The beast scrambled about the floor of the pilot’s cabin, pawing for spent cartridges that had rolled into crevices and corners. Soon bored with that, it sniffed the emergency ration locker, then watched Alek’s feet on the pedals and growled. It was quite annoying.

“This machine has a peculiar stride,” Dr. Barlow said from the commander’s chair. Her gaze stayed fixed on Alek’s hands as he drove, which was unsettling. “Is it based on any particular animal?”

“I’ve no idea,” Alek said, wishing that Klopp could answer her questions. He’d retreated down to the gunners’ station, horrified by the presence of a woman in his Stormwalker. Or maybe he was afraid of Tazza.

“It walks a bit like a bird,” Dr. Barlow said.

“Aye, a great iron rooster!” Dylan added.

Alek sighed, wishing he’d negotiated a more equal exchange of hostages. It seemed unfair that Dr. Barlow should bring an entourage with her—a beast, an assistant, and a trunk full of luggage. Back at the airship Volger didn’t even have a change of socks.

Alek shut out their questions, focusing on the controls. The Stormwalker was negotiating the rocky slope leading up to the castle, and he didn’t want to stumble in front of the Darwinists.

Dr. Barlow leaned forward as the crumbling walls came into view. “How rustic.”

“It is meant to be hidden,” Alek mumbled.

“Disrepair as camouflage? Ingenious.”

Alek slowed the walker as the gate drew nearer, but grazed the iron hinges with its right shoulder. He winced as a metal screech rang through the cabin, Tazza matching the noise with a piercing whine.

“Bit tight, isn’t it?” Dylan remarked. “If you’re going to stroll about in this monstrosity, you should get a bigger door!”

Alek squeezed the saunters tighter as he brought the walker to a halt, but he managed to hold his tongue.

“There must be quite a lot of you,” Dr. Barlow exclaimed.

“Just five,” Alek said, opening the stable doors wider. “But we’re well provisioned.” He didn’t mention that this was only one of many storerooms.

“How convenient.” Dr. Barlow unhooked Tazza’s leash from his collar, and the beast trotted deeper into the gloom, sniffing every box and barrel along the way. “But you couldn’t have brought all this in your machine.”

“We didn’t,” Alek said simply. “It was waiting here, just in case.”

The woman tutted sadly. “Long-standing family squabbles can be most tiresome.”

Alek didn’t answer, gritting his teeth. Every word out of his mouth only betrayed more information.

He wondered if the Darwinists had already guessed who he was. The assassination was still front-page news, and the rift between his father and the emperor was no secret. Luckily, the Austrian papers had never revealed that Alek was missing. The government seemed to want his disappearance kept quiet, at least until it could be made permanent.

Dylan appeared at the stable door and gave a low whistle.

“Is this your pantry?” The boy laughed. “It’s a wonder you’re not fatter.”

“Let us not question good fortune, Mr. Sharp,” Dr. Barlow said, as if she hadn’t been full of questions herself a moment ago. She handed Dylan a notepad and safety pen, then began to move among the crates and sacks, reading the labels and calling out her results to be written down.

After a moment of watching her effortlessly translate the labels, Alek cleared his throat. “Your German is quite good, Dr. Barlow.”

“Why, thank you.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t have a chat with Volger,” he said.

She turned to him and smiled innocently. “German is such an important language in the sciences, so I’ve learned to read it. But conversation is another matter.”

Alek wondered if that were true, or whether she’d understood them perfectly. “Well, I’m glad you think our science is worth reading.”

She shrugged. “We borrow as much from your engineering as you do from ours.”

“Us, borrow from Darwinists?” Alek snorted. “How absurd.”

“Aye, it’s true,” Dylan spoke up from across the room. “Mr. Rigby says you Clankers wouldn’t have invented walking machines without our example to follow.”

“Of course we would have!” Alek said, though the connection had never occurred to him. How else would a war machine get around? On treads, like an old-fashioned farm tractor?

What a preposterous idea.

As the two Darwinists returned to their work, Alek’s fuming turned to annoyance with himself. If he hadn’t let slip his discovery that Dr. Barlow understood German, perhaps Volger could have concocted some way to mislead her.

But then he sighed, depressed at how often his thoughts turned to deception now. After all, Dr. Barlow had only done what Volger was doing with the Darwinists, pretending not to speak their language to spy on them.

It was odd, really, how alike those two were.

Alek shuddered at the thought, then went to help Klopp and the others prepare the Stormwalker. The sooner the Darwinists were gone, the sooner all this skullduggery could end.

“Can your contraption really pull all that?” Dylan asked.

Alek looked at the sledge, which was piled high with barrels, crates, and sacks—eight thousand kilograms in all. Plus the weight of Tazza, who sat atop the mountain of food, catching the sun’s last rays. There was no chance of starting before dark, but they’d be ready at dawn tomorrow.

“Master Klopp says it should slide easily on the snow. The trick is not breaking the chains.”

“Well, it’s not a bad job,” Dylan said. The boy was sketching the Stormwalker and its load, capturing the walker’s lines with swift, sure strokes. “I’ll have to admit you Clankers are clever-boots with machines.”

“Thank you,” Alek said, though making the sledge had been simple enough. They’d taken one door off the castle gate and laid it flat, adding two iron bars for runners. The tricky part was securing the sledge to the Stormwalker. At the moment Klopp was halfway up a ladder, reinforcing the walker’s anchor ring with the sputtering flame of a welding torch.

“But isn’t it a bother?” Dylan asked. “Making a machine to do something that animals are better at?”

“Better?” Alek said. “I doubt one of your fabricated creatures could pull this load.”

“I reckon an elephantine could drag that, easy.” Dylan pointed up at Klopp. “And you wouldn’t have to oil its gears every few minutes.”

“Master Klopp’s only being careful,” Alek said. “Metal can be brittle in this cold.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. Mammothines love the cold!”

Alek recalled seeing photos of a mammothine—a huge, shaggy sort of Siberian elephant, the first extinct creature that the Darwinists had brought back. “But don’t they fall over and die in the heat?”

“That’s a Clanker lie!” Dylan exclaimed, then shrugged. “They’re fine, unless you take them south of Glasgow.”

Alek laughed, though he was never quite sure when Dylan was joking. The boy had sharp wits, despite his rough manner of talking. He’d been very clever about tying cargo onto the sledge, and had hit it off with Bauer and Hoffman in an easy way that Alek had never managed— without speaking a word of German.

Alek might have trained in combat and tactics his whole life, but Dylan was a real soldier. He swore with an effortless extravagance, and during lunch had thrown a knife three meters and hit an apple square in its heart. He was skinnier than most boys his age, but could work alongside men and be treated as their equal. Even his lingering black eye from the crash had a piratical swagger to it.

In a way Dylan was the sort of boy Alek would have wanted to be, if he hadn’t been born the son of an archduke.

“Well, don’t worry,” Alek said, clapping a hand on Dylan’s shoulder. “The Stormwalker can carry all the food your airbeast needs. Though I can’t see how one creature could eat all this.”

“Don’t be daft. The Leviathan isn’t one creature,” Dylan said. “It’s a whole tangle of beasties—what they call an ecosystem.”

Alek nodded slowly. “Did I hear Dr. Barlow say something about bats?”

“Aye, the fléchette bats. You should see those wee beasties at work.”

“Fléchette? Like ‘dart’ in French?”

“That sounds right,” Dylan said. “The bats gobble up these metal spikes, then release them over the enemy.”

“They eat spikes,” Alek said slowly. “And then … release them?”

Dylan stifled a laugh. “Aye, in the usual way.”

Alek blinked. The boy couldn’t possibly be saying what Alek thought he was. Perhaps it was another of his peculiar jokes.

“Well, I’m glad we’re at peace, so your bats won’t be, um … releasing their fléchettes on us.”

Dylan nodded, a serious look on his face. “I’m glad too, Alek. Everyone says that Clankers only care about their machines. But you’re not like that.”

“Well, of course not.”

“It was dead brave, coming across that ice alone.”

Alek cleared his throat. “Anyone would have done the same.”

“That’s a load of blether. You got in trouble for helping us, didn’t you?”

“I can’t argue with that.”

Dylan held out his hand. “Well, it was barking decent of you.”

“Thank you, sir.” Alek took the boy’s hand and shook. “And it was decent of you to save me from a fiery death.”

“That doesn’t count,” Dylan said. “It would’ve been my fiery death as well!”

Alek laughed. “I appreciate it nonetheless—as long as you promise not to hold me at knifepoint again.”

“I promise,” Dylan said, but his face stayed serious. “It must have been rough, having to run away from home.”

“It was,” Alek said, then looked at the boy suspiciously. “Did Dr. Barlow ask you to find out who I am?”

“The boffin doesn’t need my help.” Dylan snorted. “She already reckons you must be quite important.”

“Because of this castle? Because they came for me in a walker?”

Dylan shook his head. “Because they traded a barking count for you.”

Alek swore softly. Dr. Barlow had understood perfectly when he’d called Volger by his title. And that wasn’t the only foolish thing he’d let slip.

“Can I trust you, Dylan? To keep a secret.”

The boy looked at him askance. “Not if it’s a danger to the ship.”

“Of course not. It’s just that … Do you mind not telling Dr. Barlow what I said about being an orphan?” Alek paused, wondering if simply asking this would give him away. “If she knows that, she’ll figure out who I am. And then there might be trouble between us again.”

Dylan stared at Alek a moment, then nodded solemnly. “I can keep that secret. Your family’s no business of ours.”

“Thank you.” As they shook hands again, Alek felt a burden lift, knowing that Dylan would keep his word. After a month of being betrayed—by his family, his country’s allies, and his own government—it was a relief to trust someone.

He shivered and stamped his feet. “Shall we get out of this cold?”

“Aye. A hot cup of tea would be brilliant.”

“We can build a fire!” Alek said, realizing that there was no need to hide their smoke anymore. Another good thing about helping the Darwinists—he could have a warm bath and a hot meal for the first time in weeks.

Dinner was an extravagant affair, but bathing was better.

First Bauer packed the tub with snow, then melted it with pots of boiling water. The resulting bath was deliciously hot, and for the first time in a month removed the engine grease from under Alek’s fingernails. With a lady present, Klopp, Bauer, and Hoffman all shaved, and Dylan complained loudly that he hadn’t brought his razor, though the boy hardly seemed to need it.

Dr. Barlow, of course, was disinclined to bathe in a castle full of men. But when Dylan didn’t take advantage of the bathtub either, Alek wondered if hot water flowed freely aboard the Darwinists’ airship.

Hoffman thawed a lamb over the fire, while Master Klopp and Bauer cooked a vast pot of potatoes in chicken broth, onions, and black pepper. The feast went on past dark, despite how exhausted they all were.

It was refreshing to have a lady at the table. As Alek had suspected, Dr. Barlow’s spoken German was quite fluent. And Dylan somehow managed to make the other men laugh with only the words he’d picked up in one day.

As the night drew on, Alek began to wonder when next he would see an unfamiliar face. After hiding for five weeks, he’d already half forgotten what it was like to meet a new person, or to make a new friend.

What if he were stuck in this castle for years?

The next morning Alek’s first steps were slow ones.

The sledge wouldn’t budge at first, like a dog refusing to take a walk. But finally its runners cracked their overnight coat of ice and began to scrape along the courtyard stones.

As the Stormwalker neared the gate, Alek wondered if the sledge behind them was straight.

Master Klopp read his mind. “Perhaps I should watch out the hatch, like Volger.”

“No offense, Klopp,” Alek said, “but you’re a bit too sturdy to stand on my shoulders.”

The master of mechaniks shrugged, looking relieved.

“Perhaps Mr. Sharp can help,” Dr. Barlow suggested in German. She was sitting in the commander’s chair again, Tazza at her feet.

Alek agreed, and soon Dylan was halfway up through the hatch, facing backward, his boots settled on Alek’s shoulders.

“At least we know the sledge fits through the door,” Klopp muttered. “Since it is the door.”

After a few bumps and scrapes they were out on the open ice. But dragging the sledge was still like walking through molasses. Every step set the engines groaning. Annoyingly, Dylan stayed up top, his boots bouncing on Alek’s shoulders.

“Be ready to speed up a bit,” Klopp said as they reached the slope leading down from the castle. “We don’t want our cargo sliding into us from behind.”

Alek nodded, grasping the saunters tighter. Going down the hill, the sledge would build up its own momentum.

With a metal clang Dylan dropped back down into the cabin.

“They’re here!”

They all looked at him, speechless.

“To rescue us!” he shouted. “Two airships, coming over the mountains ahead!”

Alek brought the Stormwalker to a quick halt, looking at Klopp. “Cut us loose. We need to get Volger back!”

“But they’ll think we’re attacking.”

“Wait a moment, both of you,” Dr. Barlow said. “According to the captain the Air Service shouldn’t be here for a week!”

Master Klopp didn’t answer, leaning forward and raising his glasses to his eyes. His gaze swept the sky a moment, then fixed on a single spot, a frown growing on his face.

Alek squinted out the viewport and saw them—two dots just above the horizon. He silenced the walker, listening for the sound of the airship’s engines across the snow.

“Not airbeasts,” Klopp said simply. “They’re the kaiser’s zeppelins, coming for the kill.”