The smooth, almost featureless glacier was easy going, and in an hour he drew close enough to hear the Darwinists’ shouts as they worked on their wounded airship. He climbed up the valley’s side, until he reached a ledge overlooking the vast shape.
Alek stood at the edge, astonished by what he saw below.
The wreck looked like a corner of hell bubbling up through the snow. Flocks of winged creatures coiled around hollows in the wilting gasbag. Crewmen moved across the great beast’s skin, accompanied by bizarre double-snouted, six-legged dogs that sniffed and pawed at every bullet hole. The green lights he’d seen from the castle covered the creature. They were crawling, like glowing maggots on dead meat.
And the stench! Rotten eggs and cabbage, and a salty smell disturbingly close to the fish he’d had for dinner. Alek wondered for a moment if the Germans were right after all. These godless beasts were an insult
“A VAST FORM STRETCHES OUT.”
to nature itself. Perhaps a war was worth ridding the world of them.
And yet he couldn’t take his eyes from the creature. Even lying wounded it looked so powerful, more like something from legend than the work of men.
Four searchlights flared to life, illuminating one flank of the creature. Alek could see now why the beast had rolled sideways during the crash: The gondolas hanging from its underside had escaped being flattened against the snow.
Steeling himself, he climbed down to the glacier, heading toward the unlit side of the creature. Only a few men worked there, though the damage looked just as bad. Drawing nearer, Alek stepped lightly, his snowshoes shushing in the darkness.
As he stole down the length of the airship, the green glow seemed to be bleeding out onto the ice. Surely the beast was dying.
He’d been a fool to think he could help. Perhaps he should just leave the medicines somewhere and slip away… .
A soft moan came from the shadows.
Alek stole closer to the sound, the air growing warm around him. His stomach twisted. This was living heat from the creature’s body! Fighting nausea, he went a few steps nearer, trying not to look at the green lights crawling beneath the creature’s skin.
A young airman lay in the darkness, curled against the beast’s flank. His eyes were closed and his nose bloody.
Alek crouched beside him.
The airman was just a boy, with fine features and sandy hair. The collar of his flight suit was caked with blood, and his face looked deathly pale in the soft green light. He had to have been slumped here on the ice for the hours since the crash, the giant creature’s warmth keeping him alive.
Alek opened one of the medical satchels, fishing through the bottles for smelling salts and rubbing alcohol.
He waved the salts under the boy’s nose.
“Barking spiders!” the boy croaked in a high voice, his eyes fluttering open.
Alek frowned, wondering if he’d heard the words right.
“Are you well?” he ventured in English.
“A bit scrambled in the attic,” the boy said, rubbing his head. He sat up slowly, taking in the scene around them, and his glassy eyes widened. “Blisters! We came down hard, didn’t we? The poor beastie looks a bloody wreck.”
“You’re rather bloody yourself,” Alek said, twisting open the bottle of rubbing alcohol. He dampened a bandage and held it against the boy’s face.
“Ow! Stop that!” The boy pushed the bandage away and sat up straight, his gaze becoming clearer. He looked suspiciously at Alek’s snowshoes. “Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m here to help. I live nearby.”
“Up here? In all this barking snow?”
“Yes.” Alek cleared his throat, wondering what to say. He’d always been hopeless at any sort of lying. “In a village, of sorts.”
The boy narrowed his eyes. “Wait a wee minute—you talk like a Clanker!”
“Well … I suppose I do. We speak a dialect of German in this part of Switzerland.”
The boy stared at him another moment, then sighed and rubbed his head. “Right, you’re Swiss. The crash must’ve knocked me silly. For a squick there I thought you were one of those bum-rags who shot us down.”
Alek raised an eyebrow. “And then landed here so I could tend to your bloody nose?”
“I said it was a wee bit daft,” the boy said, yanking the alcohol-soaked bandage from Alek’s hand. He pressed it against his nose and winced. “But thanks for your trouble. It’s lucky you came along, or my bum would’ve been frostbit to blazes!”
Alek raised an eyebrow, wondering if the boy always talked this way, or if he was still groggy from the crash. Even bloody and bruised, he had an odd sort of swagger, as if he crash-landed in giant airships every day.
“Yes,” Alek said. “A frostbitten bum would’ve been unfortunate.”
The boy smiled. “Give us a lift, would you?”
They grasped hands and pulled each other up, the other boy still unsteady. But when he gained his feet, he bowed triumphantly, pulled off a glove and held out his hand.
“Midshipman Dylan Sharp, at your service.”
TWENTY-THREE
Deryn waited for the strange Swiss boy to shake her hand. After a moment’s hesitation he finally reached out.
“My name’s Alek,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”
Deryn smiled, though her head was aching. The boy was about her age, with reddish-brown hair and sharp, handsome features. His leather coat had once been posh, but it was threadbare now. A twitchiness animated the boy’s dark green eyes, as if he were ready to bound away on his ridiculous shoes.
All very odd, Deryn thought.
“Are you sure you’re quite all right?” Alek asked. His English was dead proper, even with the Clanker accent.
“Right enough,” Deryn said. She stamped feeling back into her feet, wondering when the dizziness was going to go away. Her attic had been scrambled, that was certain. She couldn’t recall the exact moment of the crash, only the descent—the snow rising up, the airship rolling over, threatening to crush her if she didn’t climb fast enough …
Deryn glanced down at her safety line; it was stretched and frayed but still attached to the ratlines. She must have been dragged alongside as the airbeast skidded across the snow. If the ship had rolled over any farther, she’d have wound up a greasy squick beneath the whale.
“A wee bit dizzy, is all,” she added, looking up at the bullet-holed membrane. The bitter-almond smell of leaking hydrogen filled her muzzy head. “Not half as bad as this beastie here.”
“Yes, your ship looks terrible,” Alek said. His eyes were wide, like he’d never seen a fabricated creature before. Maybe that explained his twitchiness. “Do you think you can fix it?”
Deryn stepped back for a better view of the wreck. Hardly anyone was working here on the starboard flank. But up on the spine men were silhouetted against searchlight beams reaching into the sky. The gondolas must have wound up on the other side of the wreck, so the repair work had started over there.
Deryn knew she should be helping them, and finding out what had happened to Newkirk and Mr. Rigby, but her hands felt too weak to climb. The cold had seeped into her bones while she’d lain unconscious.
“Eventually.” Her eyes scanned the bleak terrain. “But I wouldn’t fancy staying here very long! Maybe your people could help us?”
The boy’s eyes widened a bit. “My village is quite far from here. And we don’t know anything about airships.”
“No, of course not. But this looks like a big job. We’ll need lots of rope, maybe machine parts. The engines on this side must be smashed to blazes. You Swiss are good with gears, aren’t you?”
“I’m afraid we can’t help.” Alek pulled a bunch of leather satchels from his shoulder. “But I can give you these. For your wounded men.”
He handed the satchels to Deryn. She opened one and peered inside: bandages, scissors, a thermometer in a leather case, and a dozen tiny bottles. Whoever Alek’s people were, they knew how to
get proper supplies up the mountain.
“Thank you,” she said. “But where did you get these?”
“I’m afraid I have to go.” The boy took a step backward. “I’m expected home soon.”
“Wait, Alek!” she cried, making him jump. Living up here, he probably wasn’t used to strangers. But she couldn’t let him wriggle away like this. “Just tell me where your village is.”
“The other side of the glacier.” He made a gesture toward the horizon, in no particular direction. “Quite far away.”
Deryn wondered if he was hiding something. Of course, to live in a shivery wasteland like this, you’d have to be a bit cracked in the attic. Or were his people outlaws of some kind?
“Seems like an odd place to have a village,” she said carefully.
“Well, it’s not what you’d call a large village. Just me and … my extended family.”
Deryn nodded slowly, still smiling. So Alek was changing his story now. Was there a village or wasn’t there?
He took another step backward. “Listen, I’m not really supposed to be this far from home. I just happened to be out hiking when I saw your ship come down.”
“Out hiking?” Deryn said. “In all this barking snow? At night?”
“Yes. I often hike on the glacier at night.”
“With medicine?”
Alek blinked. “Well, that was because …” There was a long pause. “Um, I’m afraid I don’t know the word in English.”
“The word for what?”
“I just said: I don’t know it!” He turned from her and began to slide away on his funny oversize shoes. “I have to go now.”
Alek’s story was clearly a load of blether. And wherever he was from, the ship’s officers would want to know about it. She started to follow him, but her foot cracked through the brittle surface, filling her boot with snow.
“Blisters!” she swore, suddenly seeing the point of his big slidey shoes. “Don’t go skiting off, Alek! We need you!”
The boy came to a reluctant halt. “Listen. I’ll bring you what I can, all right? But you can’t tell anyone you saw me. If you come looking for my family, it won’t be good. We don’t like strangers, and we can be quite dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Deryn asked. They had to be outlaws— or worse. She put a hand into her pocket, feeling for her command whistle.
“Very deadly,” Alek said. “So you have to promise not to tell anyone about me! All right?”
He stood there, his green eyes locked with hers. Deryn held her breath, trying to match the intensity of his gaze. Like a stare-off before a fistfight, it made her stomach flutter.
“Do you promise?” he demanded again.
“I can’t let you go, Alek,” she said softly.
“You … what?”
“I have to report you to the ship’s officers. They’ll want to ask you a few questions.”
His eyes widened. “You’re going to interrogate me?”
“I’m sorry, Alek. But if there’s dangerous folks about, it’s my duty to tell the officers.” She held up the satchels. “You’re smugglers or something, aren’t you?”
“Smugglers! Don’t be absurd,” Alek said. “We’re perfectly decent people!”
“If you’re so decent,” Deryn said, “then why’ve you been telling me a load of yackum?”
“I was just trying to help! And I don’t know what yackum is!” the boy sputtered, then said something unpleasant in German. He turned around on his giant shoes and headed off into the darkness.
Deryn pulled the command whistle from her pocket. The freezing metal burned her lips as she piped a quick sequence, the notes of an intruder alert ringing in the cold air.
She stuffed the whistle back into her pocket and trudged after him, ignoring the snow collecting in her boots.
“Hold up, Alek! No one’s going to hurt you!”
He didn’t answer, just kept sliding away. But Deryn heard shouts behind her, and the scrabble of hydrogen sniffers on the ratlines. The beasties jumped like rabbits on fire when you blew an intruder alert.
“Alek, stop! I just want to talk!”
The boy glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes went wide at the sight of the sniffers. He uttered a panicked cry and slowed to a halt, turning to face her again.
Deryn ran harder, hoping to get there before the sniffers did. No point in letting the beasties scare poor Alek to death.
“Just wait there!” she called. “There’s no reason to …”
Her voice trailed off as she saw what was in Alek’s hand—a black pistol, the metal gleaming in the moonlight.
“Are you daft?” she cried, breathing in the bitter smell of hydrogen. One spark from a gunshot could ignite the air, turning the ship into a vast fireball.
“Don’t come any closer!” Alek said. “And call those … things off!”
Deryn came to a halt, glancing at the sniffers bounding toward them across the snow. “Aye, I would. But I don’t think they’ll listen!”
The pistol swerved from her to the sniffers, and she saw Alek’s jaw tense.
“Don’t!” she cried. “You’ll set us all aflame!”
But he was raising his arm, aiming at the nearest beastie—
Deryn threw herself forward, smothering the gun with her body. A bullet was nothing compared to catching fire. She grabbed Alek’s shoulders and dragged him down into the snow.
Her head went through the brittle ice with a crack, sending stars across her vision. Alek landed on top of her, the barrel of the gun jabbing hard into her ribs. She closed her eyes, waiting for an explosion of agony and noise.
He was struggling to free the pistol, so she pulled him harder against her. Ice cut her cheek as their struggle dug them deeper into the snow.
“STRUGGLE ON ICE.”
“Let me go!” he cried.
Deryn opened her eyes, glaring straight into his. He froze for a moment—and she spoke in a slow, clear voice.
“Don’t. Shoot. The air’s full of hydrogen!”
“I’m not trying to shoot anyone. I’m trying to get away!”
He started struggling again, the pistol jamming harder into her ribs. Deryn let out an oof. She wrapped a hand around the gun, trying to push the barrel aside.
A low growl rolled across the snow, and a sniffer thrust its long snout right into Alek’s face. He froze again, a look of horror draining the color from his skin. Suddenly the animals were all around them, their hot breath steaming.
“It’s okay, beasties,” Deryn said in a calm voice. “Just back off a wee bit, please? You’re scaring our friend here, and we don’t want him pulling the barking trigger.”
The nearest sniffer cocked its head, letting out a low whine. Deryn heard shouts, crewmen calling off the beasties. Green shadows from wormlamps swung around them.
Alek let out a sigh, his muscles going limp.
“Let go of the gun,” she said. “Please?”
“I can’t,” he said. “You’re squeezing my fingers.”
“Oh.” Deryn realized that her hand was still wrapped around his. “Well, if I let go, you won’t shoot me, will you?”
“Don’t be an idiot,” he said. “I would have shot you by now if I’d wanted to.”
“You’re calling me an idiot? You barking ninny! You almost blew us all up! Don’t you know what hydrogen smells like?”
“Of course not,” he said, giving her a look of disgust. “What an absurd question.”
She glared back at him, but loosened her grip. The boy let the pistol fall aside and stood up, warily facing the men around him. Deryn scrambled to her feet, dusting snow from her flight suit.
“What’s going on here?” came a voice from the darkness. It was Mr. Roland, the master rigger.
Deryn saluted. “Midshipman Sharp reporting, sir. I was knocked out in the crash, and when I came to, this boy was here. He gave me these satchels—full of medicines, I think. He lives somewhere hereabouts but won’t say where. I was tryi
ng to stop him for questioning, and he pulled a gun, sir!”
She knelt and picked up the pistol, proudly handing it to Mr. Roland.
“I managed to disarm him, though.”
“You did no such thing,” Alek muttered, then turned to Mr. Roland. Suddenly his twitchiness was gone. “I demand you let me go!”
“Do you, now?” Mr. Roland gave Alek a good hard look, then dropped his eyes to the pistol. “Austrian, isn’t this?”
Alek nodded. “I suppose so.”
Deryn stared at him. Was he a Clanker after all?
“And where did you get it?” Mr. Roland asked.
Alek sighed and crossed his arms. “In Austria. You’re all being ridiculous. I only came here to bring you medicines, and you treat me like an enemy.”
He shouted the last word, and one of the sniffers let out a bark. Alek flinched, looking down at it in horror.
Mr. Roland chuckled. “Well, if you’re only here to help, I suppose you’ve got nothing to worry about. Come with me, young man. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“What about me, sir?” Deryn asked. “I was the one who captured him!”
Mr. Roland gave her a look that all the warrant officers reserved for mere middies, like glancing at something on the bottom of his shoe. “Well, why don’t you take those satchels to the boffins. See what they make of them.”
Deryn opened her mouth to protest, but the word “boffins” reminded her of Dr. Barlow. Right before the crash she’d been headed for the machine room. Full of widgets and loose parts, it was no place to get bounced around in!
“Aye, sir,” Deryn said, and headed back toward the ship at a run.
With a quick apology to the half-deflated airbeast, she grabbed the ratlines and hoisted herself up. Her hands felt shaky and weak, but trudging all the way around the vast creature would take ages—so up and over it was.
She pulled herself higher, forcing questions about the strange boy from her mind.
TWENTY-FOUR
Once over the spine Deryn could see the wreck much better.
Men and beasts were everywhere on this flank, four searchlights stretching their shadows to monstrous proportions. The main gondola lay at an angle, half hanging from the harness, half resting in the snow. She scrambled down the ratlines and hit the ground running.
Leviathan Page 15
