“Have they fired yet?” He turned to her. “Miss Savage, could you tell Castlewaite to prepare for a vertical drop? And I need a date.”
“A date? What do you mean, a date?”
“Past, future, it doesn’t matter. Just give me a year even. Now please.”
“Um, ah…”
“Now!”
“1895!”
And the deck cannon boomed, hurtling the massive hook toward the Chevalier’s gondola. The Mad Lord clapped his hands and suddenly, an orb appeared between the two ships. The hook sailed directly into it, disappearing entirely save for a length of cable trailing in its wake. Immediately, ice shot back up the cable, growing white slicks along the deck and railing of the dreadnought.
Airshipmen scrambled for cover.
“Arclight and I will stop the cannons, Remy,” Sebastien said and he looked at Ivy once again. “Now please, Miss Savage. Vertical Drop. Go.”
She bolted for the quarterdeck while the Stahl Mädchen’s cannons boomed at her heels.
***
January 30, 1895
North Sea
The S.S. Elbe rises and falls with the waves. The storm is the worst this year and they’ve discharged warning rockets into the black skies to alert all ships to their presence. There is a small steamship, the Crathie, close by on an intercept course. She is not heeding the rockets. They fear there may be an incident until suddenly, out of the skies, something large and hook-like appears, hurtling through the clouds and smashing a hole in the Elbe’s prow. Cannonballs are next and within twenty minutes, the Elbe is under the sea losing all but twenty, one lifeboat surviving for hours until the Wildflower, a fishing ship, pulls them from the water. The steamship Crathie sails on to Amsterdam with no mention of the Elbe, the hook and nor the cannonfire that appeared from the sky.
Later, shipsmen are interviewed and without exception, all attest to the cannonfire being the cause of the incident but no warships were reported in the area. A U-boat, Sous-boat or submersible is being blamed but the action was unprovoked and would be considered an act of war. Three hundred and thirty people lost their lives on January 30, 1895 and the cause is still listed as unknown.
***
“’ang on, Miss Ivy,” shouted Castlewaite as he leaned into the wheel, sending the Chevalier in a steep downward arc away from the Stahl Mädchen. “And close those dampers, if ye’d be so kind…”
She swung around to twelve bronze levers on a panel. They looked very old and she wondered if they’d been used anytime in the last century.
“All of them?”
“All please, aye.”
With a deep breath, she grabbed the first of the twelve, swinging it downward and the airship shuddered with the closing of hydrogen dampers. A second and then a third, the groans almost as loud as the boom of cannon fire outside. The ship was losing altitude as the balloon vented far too quickly, dropping several fathoms in seconds. Ivy was forced to hang on as bowler, teacup and iron pot flew to the ceiling.
“Last one!” she cried and she threw a glance to the coachman at the helm. “Here we go!”
Suddenly the wall behind them both burst inward, sending timber, gears and shrapnel flying and they were thrown across the floor.
Chapter 7
Of Cannon Balls, Metal Skulls and the Snowy Fields of Reichsland
“You missed one!” shouted Christien. “It’s taken out our rudder!”
The air was shattered by another boom and the Chevalier shuddered as a second ball tore through her stern, sending planks of oak raining down to the snowy German landscape far below.
“Bastien! Did you hear me?”
“What does she want? I don’t understand…”
“Bastien, dammit! Pay attention! If they hit the balloon—”
He was thrown off his feet as another cannonball smashed the burner beside him, tearing up timber and sending live coals flying across the deck. He lay a long moment, time stopped, movement slowed, all sound muddied as if underwater. His breath was aching in his chest, arms and legs heavy as iron. It seemed to take forever to push himself to his knees and as he did, he noticed a twisted slice of steel embedded in his clockwork arm. The burner had been shattered and coals had caught canvas as flames raced up the rigging to the sails. The sky was dark with airships above them and bright with orbs flashing between and in the middle of it all, Sebastien.
He stood like a statue, arms held out, hair and greatcoat whipping in the winds. High above him, on the deck of the Stahl Mädchen, ghostly Sophie was his counterpart, arms extended, ringlets flying behind the eerie mask. They were mirror images of each other, the orbs frozen between them like panes of silver glass. He could still see the sisters, Black Swans both, watching from the railing but it was Sophie, only Sophie, with her blank stare and golden curls. The long guns on the dreadnought had fallen silent, overextended as they tracked the Chevalier’s rapid descent. In fact, it was as if the very air was holding its breath.
As if in a dream, he could see Sophie’s clockwork arm move, the slow deadly glint of metal and he realized that she was aiming a pistol across the steep flashing expanse of sky.
“Bastien!” he cried, scrambling to his feet but the shot rang out, sending his brother sailing backward. His body hit the deck hard, sliding across the smooth wood before coming to rest against the rail.
And in that instant, the glass between the ships shattered and the cannons boomed again one after another. The Chevalier pitched starboard as balls of iron tore into her sails and her balloon erupted in flames.
***
“Jerry!”
“Grab the wheel, Miss Ivy!” shouted the coachman and he pushed up onto his knees. “Grab and hold fast! We’re going down and if we capsize, we’re done fer!”
Ivy sprang to the wheel. It was spinning wildly as it followed the shattered rudder and she was yanked off her feet with the force of it. She hauled back with all of her strength but the bridge deck was angled so steeply that it was impossible to get her boots beneath her. Winds whipped from the breached stern and smoke billowed in from the blazing sails. The Chevalier lurched starboard, arcing from the sky like a pheasant shot in the wing
“Shot in the wing,” she breathed. “Like a bird! Jerry!”
With a snarl, she braced her boot and yanked the wheel, arms burning with the effort and feeling the gears strain as they turned backwards against gravity.
“Jerry!” she cried over the groan of the airship. “The trip-masts!”
The coachman had dragged himself to the prop-pedals and was working them like a fireman on a steam engine. He grimaced over his shoulder.
“What about’em?” he shouted back.
“They’re like the wings of a bird! If they catch an updraft, can they help stabilize us as we descend?”
His single eye grew round.
“Tha’ might just do it! Keep your hand on the wheel! Ah’ll crank ‘em loose!”
The bridge was inclined so steeply that he was forced to crawl on hands and knees to the port wall. The cannonball had made a hole in the stern bridge the size of a carriage and the wind made it impossible to move without grips. Finally, however, the coachman reached the wall, pried a brass handle from the panels and began to crank.
Ivy felt her stomach lurch as she battled to keep the wheel level. The Chevalier’s nose was dipping as it plummeted earthward and through the window, she could see white fields and black trees growing larger, more distinct by the second. It suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t seen Christien or Sebastien for some time. Throat tightening, she gripped the spokes and leaned in, desperate not to imagine either one being lost over the rail.
“No!” she snarled. “Not today! Jerry?!”
“Almost there, Miss Ivy! ‘ang on!”
The Chevalier shuddered as the trip-masts began to detach from her ribs but the snow and the trees were growing closer, faster still. The roar was deafening and she fought the stinging of her eyes and the ice in the back of her throa
t, willed her hands to grip the freezing spokes and hold fast until the ship hit or soared on the wind.
“Jerry!!!”
Trees and snow filling the entire pane. The roaring of the winds.
“Almost…there…” he cried.
The screeching of the masts, the howling of the hull, trees and snow and three towers in a field. She turned her face away, closing her eyes and prayed it would be quick.
Suddenly, there came a deafening boom as canvas unfurled like great leathery wings, catching the winds and jerking the nose up with such force that Ivy almost lost her hold. The entire ship leapt upwards and for a brief moment, she was suspended in midair, her grip on the spokes the only thing keeping her from disappearing out the breach and into the clouds. For a very brief moment, the Chevalier hovered, sounding like a ship on the seas - the flapping of the sails and the creak of the trip-masts, the soft whistle of the wind. For a very brief moment, she opened her eyes to see sky and clouds and the horizon level through the large window. For a very brief moment, the loudest, strongest, most frightening thing in the world was the pounding of a young girl’s heart. But it was a very brief moment.
There was a boom and crack as both trip-masts snapped under the pressure and the Chevalier dropped the final hundred feet to the snowy fields of Reichsland.
***
Penny leaned over the rail of her airship, the HMS Scarlet Pimpernel, her white scarf whipping in the winds.
“I see him, father!” she shouted over the flapping canvas. “He’s in his sporty little steamster on the motorway!”
“By George, Penny, you’re right!” boomed her father, Chief Inspector Charles Dreadful. “Boys! Bring us closer! Penny will shoot out a tire or two! She’s a crackerjack with a pistol!”
The boys in blue scurried to hoist sail, heave to and all things airshipsmen did to increase speed in a vessel. Penny could see Julian, lounging in a deck chair and looking particularly content with his cigarette and broadsheet. Good thing, she reckoned. Alexander Dunn was quickly becoming an all-consuming pursuit.
“On the lamb with the Star of Morocco, are you?” she muttered to herself. “I wonder…?”
She lifted a pair of pince-nez to her eyes to study the racing steamster. There were two blond heads in the dickey, one undoubtedly female and she scowled at the thought that not only might Dunn have an accomplice, but that the accomplice might in fact be a woman.
“Very well, Mr. Dunn,” she growled. “You are weaving a most curious web of intrigue but do not doubt, I know a thing or two about spiders.”
And she grabbed an airship cable, tucked her hair up under her touring hat, and leapt from the deck of the Pimpernel in a perfect swan dive down to the hood of the speedster on the motorway below.
***
There were snowflakes everywhere.
She lay for a long while, blinking them from her lashes, feeling the fairy pinprick as they settled on her nose and lips. She was warm under a soft blanket and the sky stretched white above her. She wondered if she was dreaming. If so, it was a very peaceful dream. She could happily dream this dream forever.
“Ivy?”
A very beautiful face hovered into her dream.
It was Christien. She could recognize the clear, perfect blue of his eyes, the measured timbre of his voice. There was blood on his cheek, soot on his forehead. She frowned. This was not how the dream was supposed to go. This was not how it was supposed to be.
“Ivy, lay still. I want you to wiggle your fingers and toes.”
She reached up to touch his cheek when she smelled smoke and suddenly, she remembered that this wasn’t a dream and that the airship had crashed and her breath rushed out of her body as she flung her arms around Christien’s neck and began to sob.
“Oh Remy!” she gasped. “The trip-masts…And then Jerry… but there were cannonballs! And all the ships…”
She wept into his shoulder and he held her until finally, the accompanying shudders ebbed and it was all she could do just to breathe. She lifted her head, sniffed and sniffed again, tried to smile.
“Well done with the fingers,” he said. “Now the toes.”
She stared at him for a moment before beginning to laugh. Release of tension, she knew. Her father had talked about it with accident victims but the strength of it surprised her. She wiped her cheeks with her palms and looked up at him.
“Jerry?”
“He’s a tough old bird. It would take more than a crashing airship to dent that fellow.”
“And…” Once again her throat tightened and she fought back the tears that welled up. “And Sebastien? Is he…?”
Her words deserted her.
“Come on,” he said and he helped her to stand. “This way.”
They were in the middle of a snowy field, the gondola of the Chevalier in smoldering pieces and she tried to make out the various parts of the ship. Sails flapping with smoking edges, rigging tangled around splintered masts, the balloon caught in the treetops and heaving like a dying whale. Cabin debris was scattered across the field and she saw a fold of red lace, sizzling in the snow. In the distance, three towers stood like giant tombstones.
“Where’s the Stahl Mädchen?” she asked, squinting at the sky. “And, and the rest of the fleet?”
“I don’t know. We’re very far from the Austrian border. They shouldn’t have been here at all.”
He led her to the edge of the trees where a small fire was crackling, throwing sparks into the grey morning sky. She could see two figures and her heart leapt to her throat. She rushed to the fire, dropping to her knees in front of the Mad Lord and this time, she didn’t stop the tears.
Head in his hands, he looked up at her, eyes baleful but thankfully brown.
“Miss Savage,” he moaned. “I’m so glad you’re alive. I was rather hoping you would be.”
She nodded quickly, swallowed back the lump in her throat.
“I didn’t kill him,” he said. “The Crown Prince. I didn’t really.”
She reached forward to smooth his hair from his forehead and he grimaced.
“Is that a bullet wound?”
“Sophie shot him in the head,” said Christien, tossing fractured deck planks onto the fire. “The bullet’s embedded under the scalp. If it weren’t for that damned metal skull, he’d be dead.”
She frowned. “It looks bad.”
“She didn’t want to kill me.”
“She shot you in the head,” said Christien.
“Still.”
“And she shot down our airship, Bastien, with four people on board. Would have been quite happy to kill all of us just to get at you.”
“She didn’t want to kill me.” He rubbed his head with both hands. “Valerie was with her, yes? Maybe they wanted to kill you?”
Christien glowered at him, hands on hips. “I’m going to those towers. We need to get back to England and there might be a telegraph or a steamcar or something.”
“Or soldiers,” said Ivy. “With sabres and swords.”
Christien twisted his wrist and the dagger sprang out. “I can manage.”
“So are we in France?” She looked over at Castlewaite and her heart swelled at the sight of him, bruised and bloody but very much alive. “Jerry, you are the best airship pilot ever in the history of airship pilots! Ever!”
“Aw Miss Ivy,” he grinned and she could have sworn he had one less tooth than before. “It were yer idea to spring the trip-masts.”
“Only after you told me about them.”
“Only because ye’re a clever girl and a-wantin’ t’know.”
“Then I’d say we owe our lives to the pair of you,” said Sebastien, and he tried to smile. It didn’t work and he groaned again.
“Are we in France, Castlewaite?” asked Christien.
“Alsace-Lorraine, sir.”
“Or Reichsland,” Ivy added. “Disputed territory.”
“Aye.”
“Well,” Christien shoved his hands into his to
pcoat pockets and looked toward the towers. “If they’re French towers, nous serons bien. But if German…”
“Wir tot sein,” finished Sebastien. “I’ll come with you.”
“No, Bastien, you’re not fit—”
“I’m fine. Miss Savage will stay here with Castlewaite—” He rose to his feet but staggered as he did so. Ivy slipped an arm around his waist to steady him.
“Ivy will come with me,” said Christien. “You will stay with Castlewaite.”
“I don’t need—”
“That’s a good idea, Remy,” said Ivy and she turned her green eyes on the coachman. “Castlewaite, you need Sebastien to stay with you, don’t you?”
“Ah do,” the coachman said slowly, his mechanical eye clicking between Ivy and Sebastien. “T’ discuss replacin’ the Chevalier. If yer Lordship don’t mind, tha’ is.”
“No, I don’t mind,” said the Mad Lord with a sigh. “The ground is upside down right now. I feel like I’m wrong way in a hole.”
“That settles it, then,” said Ivy as she helped lower him to the ground, bent to button his greatcoat, which all too often flapped open to the elements. She cupped his chin, lifted his face. “You will stay here and discuss airships with Castlewaite, yes?”
He blinked slowly and she fell into his eyes once again, now as brown as a cup of sipping chocolate. She cursed the beat of her own heart.
“We’ll be right back.”
Snow was falling, dusting his cheeks and hair and she leaned in to kiss him on the forehead, beside the bullet wound. He closed his eyes at her lips, breathed deeply as she pulled away.
“I don’t want to talk about airships,” he said. “I want to sleep.”
“No sleeping,” said Remy. “Castlewaite, whatever you do, do not let him sleep.”
“Aye, Mister Christien, sir. No sleepin’.”
Sebastien growled but did not protest. Christien stared at him a long moment, face once again like fine porcelain and she realized it was more of a mask than Sophie’s. He shook his head and turned his back, pushing through the snow and debris across the field.
Cold Stone & Ivy Book 2: The Crown Prince (The Empire of Steam) Page 9
