The Kraken King, Part 8

by Meljean Brook

  Lady Nergüi’s engines fired. He glanced back. Captain Corsair waited on the quarterdeck, Archimedes Fox at her side.

  “All ready, Prince Ariq?” she called in Mongolian.

  Ariq nodded.

  She gave the order to her quartermaster. The decks rumbled beneath Ariq’s feet, and he rocked with the skyrunner’s motion as the propellers began to spin.

  As the town passed below him and the skyrunner gained speed, Taka joined him at the rail. His brother’s gaze was fixed on the imperial guard’s airship ahead. “You should have asked me to serve you on the machine instead of here. My presence might be seen as an insult.”

  Once, Ariq would have responded with anger and frustration. But his brother wasn’t devaluing himself; he was only stating a fact as he saw it.

  “I am proud to have you by my side,” he said. His brother always fought as hard as he could. He only needed a purpose. For now, that purpose was Ariq’s town. But after this was over, Ariq could give him another until his brother found his own. “Come.”

  They joined the captain and Archimedes Fox on the quarterdeck. Zenobia’s brother grinned at him. “You have a few minutes left to change your mind.”

  Ariq wouldn’t. “I have another job for you, if you will take it.”

  “We probably will,” the captain said. “What did you have in mind?”

  “When this is done, I need you to ferry Ghazan Bator’s soldiers to my uncle’s location.”

  Her brows arched. “All two hundred of them on this ship?”

  “We will hire more airships. But I want Lady Nergüi to lead them, because he will trust you when you bring the men to him.”

  “We can do that.”

  Good. He looked to Taka. “I hope that you will go with them and explain to our uncle all that has happened. And he will be glad to greet family; our mother told me she regretted never being able to introduce you to him.”

  Surprise flitted across his brother’s face before he nodded. “I will.”

  “Two minutes!”

  The call came from the pilot’s station. Two minutes remained until they reached the imperial airship. “Have him hold here,” Ariq said. “We’ll wait.”

  Taka looked to the red and gold airships ahead. “Do we want them to come to us?”

  “No.” Such arrogance wouldn’t be well received. Ariq only wanted Lady Nagamochi and the empress to see exactly what they intended to sacrifice everyone for. “We’re waiting for the Skybreaker.”

  ***

  By the time she reached the ladder’s bottom, Zenobia was certain that she would only have to take another step down and she would emerge on the opposite side of the world. Her hands ached from gripping the metal rungs. Her arms and legs still shook—not from exhaustion, but from the stress of clinging so tightly and not knowing how far she would plunge if she slipped.

  Probably only a few feet, because Cooper would have caught her. But still. Sometimes her imagination did her no favors.

  Beside her, Mara splashed down into the knee-deep water. The soldiers were already wading through the chamber, Tsetseg’s lantern illuminating a few paces ahead.

  A click sounded from above, and a faint glow suddenly flooded the darkness around them—electric lights, Zenobia realized with astonishment. Blinking, she looked at a buzzing light hanging far overhead, its filament glowing white. Likely powered by a generator in the pump room, or by the same engines that drove the machine. When it wasn’t grafted to a human body, mechanical flesh had to be powered by electrical pulses.

  She looked away from the light and her heart stopped.

  Ariq had said the machine was big. But her husband apparently didn’t know the meaning of that word.

  And she was at a loss for all words. She had simply nothing in her experience to compare the machine to. In the Americas, many of the coastal cities were guarded by giant mechanical sentinels. She had thought those were big. While flying over Europe, she’d seen the Horde’s war machines. She had thought those were big. Some had even been enormous. But even those were dwarfed by the thing standing before her now.

  Except it wasn’t even standing. Her head seemed suddenly light as her gaze followed the machine’s lines, trying to make sense of its design. Unlike the sentinels, it wasn’t shaped like a human. There were too many parts, some coiled and some rigid, and all of it too big to wrap her head around, but one thing was clear: It wasn’t standing. The machine had been stored on its side, with its head near the ladder—as if even this chamber couldn’t contain its height, and the Wajarri hadn’t dared to dig any deeper, choosing to lengthen the space, instead.

  She looked for the far end of the chamber and suddenly felt dizzy again. It couldn’t be real. She had to be dreaming. Heart pounding, Zenobia grasped for sanity. Mara was no help. Her face utterly blank, the mercenary stood beside her, staring. Cooper appeared just as astonished.

  Ahead, Tsetseg turned and waved them closer. Another ladder waited. The entrance.

  On leaden legs, Zenobia waded forward. The mechanical flesh gleamed under the lights like sleek gray skin. “Where is the front?”

  Mara translated her question and Tsetseg’s quick answer. “There is no front. It is equally equipped on every side.”

  Good news for them. Terrible to anyone who faced it. Zenobia climbed up into the hatch after Tsetseg, into a tunnel of mechanical flesh. Gray surrounded them on all sides, the texture odd—though she knew the material was almost indestructible, the surface gave a little beneath her touch. Slick and oily, it stank of hot metal, but was cool beneath her skin. She trailed her fingers along the tunnel wall, fascinated and nauseated in equal parts. It was almost too easy to imagine this mechanical flesh belonged to a living creature and that they were crawling up into its head.

  Then, abruptly, they were in a steel chamber—normal steel, not mechanical flesh—with a grate beneath her boots and a ceiling overhead. Ariq’s soldiers were already at their stations, some standing and other seated. Dials and levers filled consoles built into the walls. Tsetseg pointed to a seat at the center. “That is Ariq Noyan’s. Today it is yours.”

  “What of Mara and Cooper?”

  “They will have to stand behind you and hold on.”

  Mara nodded as soon as she finished the translation. So the mercenaries didn’t mind. Zenobia didn’t think she would have, either. Just being here was incredible. She didn’t even feel the urge to complain when Mara untied the sash of Zenobia’s extra tunic and used it to strap her to the seat.

  “Start,” Tsetseg said.

  A shudder ran through the machine. A low rumble began—either a very quiet engine or one far from this chamber. The hanging lanterns swung on their chains. More light was shining faintly through the walls—from outside, she realized. They weren’t walls at all, but glass reinforced with mechanical flesh. She was looking into the dimly lit chamber surrounding the machine.

  But that didn’t make any sense. “Why aren’t we tipped over? The machine is on its side.”

  “This room moves.” Tsetseg cupped her hand and rotated her wrist, as if in demonstration. “The flesh turns us so that we are always up. There is no side. This is the swimming position.”

  “Swimming?” Zenobia gripped the arms of the chair. “It swims?”

  “Better than it walks.” The woman glanced away from her and issued another order that Mara quickly translated. “Flood the chamber.”

  Outside, the electric lights darkened. Flood the chamber. And the machine swam.

  So that was how they would be getting out. Zenobia didn’t know what she’d imagined—that the machine would erupt out of the ground and destroy the chamber that contained it, along with the pump house above?

  No. And this chamber must be longer than she’d realized, stretching all the way to the bay, maybe—or even the ocean beyond it.

  Tiny air bubbles
formed on the walls. No, not the walls. The windows. It was too dark to see the water rising around them but the light from inside glinted off the bubbles trapped against the glass. The bubbles reached the tops of the windows.

  Dear God. They were under the water.

  Tsetseg spoke again, and Mara had barely translated her “Go” before the machine shot ahead, with enough speed that Cooper stumbled back before catching himself, and Zenobia’s weight pressed heavily into the seat. Swimming. Through some dark tunnel, and her stomach swooped as the machine dove before rising again.

  “Where are we?”

  “Almost to the ocean gate.” Tsetseg had braced herself against one of the soldier’s chairs. “Ariq Noyan wants us to emerge from the deep instead of the shallows.”

  Abruptly their passage smoothed out. Zenobia’s ears popped. Sand swirled against the windows. Faint light filtered from somewhere above.

  The sun. And the sea surrounded them. The cloud of sand cleared and a shadow darted by. A fish. Many fish.

  Awestruck, Zenobia untied the sash binding her to the chair. On unsteady legs, she walked to the window.

  Though in the water, she didn’t think they were in the swimming position any longer. Instead they were rising through the water. Above, the Nipponese ironships formed long dark shadows on the surface. When she looked down, the machine’s bulk stretched endlessly below. Long arms splayed out in front of them.

  Not just in front of them. There was no front. So those arms were on every side.

  Of course. She gasped in realization, then choked on her laugh, and thunked her forehead on the glass. Eyes watering, she looked to Mara. “It’s a kraken!”

  Apparently that was a word that needed no translation. Tsetseg shook her head and replied. “Only a nightmare could contain a kraken like this.”

  Zenobia looked up at the shadows of the ironships. “Let us be a nightmare, then.”

  ***

  Ariq saw the machine come—but he knew what to look for. The displaced water near the shore. The rolling swell as it neared the surface before the sudden eruption out of the sea. Water cascaded from the Skybreaker’s frame in a deluge, concealing its shape until the last moment. The falling mountain of water pounded the ocean’s surface and the resulting surge slammed into the ironships like waves churned by a powerful cyclone.

  He hoped that Commander Saito had heeded his warning and ordered his men to tether themselves to his ship. If he hadn’t, Saito would be giving that order now. The ironships nearest to the Skybreaker were already firing their engines, putting distance between their vessels and the machine.

  Silence fell on the skyrunner. Coming closer for a better look, Captain Corsair and Zenobia’s brother joined him at the rail, their heads tilting back as their gazes followed it to the top, where the enormous bulk towered over the fleet and the airships’ balloons. The captain lit a cigarillo and drew a shaky breath before passing it to Archimedes.

  “I should have gone with Zenobia,” her brother said faintly.

  The captain shook her head—not in disagreement, but wonder. She glanced at Ariq. “We’ll do this all for free if you let us see inside that thing.”

  Ariq grinned. The Skybreaker wasn’t even all the way out of the water yet—not even close to it. And it hadn’t extended its arms. Too many ironships were within its reach and the display might too easily read as a threat, so it simply stood without moving. Tsetseg would be watching these airships, waiting for another command.

  “Let’s speak with Lady Nagamochi now,” Ariq said.

  ***

  As he’d hoped, on the deck of Lady Nagamochi’s airship, one of the empress’s automatons sat upon a throne. So the empress had probably already seen the machine.

  “Good evening, Governor.” The captain of the guard greeted Ariq as he crossed the gangway stretching between the two airships. Cables tethered the two airships together, side by side; neither would have an advantage of position over the other. She inclined her head again as Taka crossed over behind him. “You have recovered well.”

  She wasn’t only referring to the torture, Ariq understood, but to this display of strength. But the Skybreaker was only that—a display. Any real power he brought onto this airship stood in a line on the eastern edge of his town.

  He greeted her in return and bowed to the empress when the shivering white light filled the automaton’s eyes. “I hope that this time, we can come to an agreement more suitable to us both.”

  Lady Nagamochi smiled. “Perhaps we will. What are your terms?”

  “Her majesty recalls her fleet. I keep the Skybreaker and never use the machine except to defend my home.”

  “Those are not new terms, Governor.”

  “But now you see her size. And you see how many people will die if you pursue this.” He stepped aside, making certain the empress had an unobstructed view of the machine. “My people and yours would all die without reason. I am not your enemy.”

  “Her majesty is not your enemy, either—but there are many who will be. We only seek to help you, Governor. How many will come now that it is known that you have this machine? What warlord would not seek to take it from you by any means?”

  Help him? He shook his head. “No one knows I have it. Aside from the Wajarri, who have known I’ve possessed it from the date I built my town here, only you and your sailors have seen it. To everyone else the Skybreaker is still only a rumor—if they have heard of it at all. I have kept it a secret these many years and it will remain one.”

  “What it will remain is a threat to her majesty’s people.”

  Fighting his frustration, Ariq looked out over the water. “What terms do you propose, then? If I won’t give it over, what will you threaten? My brother’s life? My town?”

  “We don’t wish to do either,” Lady Nagamochi said. “But it is true that our fleet is prepared to act in any way necessary to persuade you.”

  With firebombs. “Do you see what stands at the eastern side of my town?”

  “Her majesty and I have both seen. The Wajarri will not interfere. They will not help you.”

  “Unless you attack them or endanger their territory. Are you so certain that not one of your firebombs will damage a walking machine? Are you so certain that none of the sparks from the burning homes will alight on a bush and burn through their lands?” When she didn’t immediately respond, but studied the line of walking machines again, he pressed, “My town and Nippon are not enemies. The Wajarri and Nippon are not enemies. But that can quickly change, because the Wajarri are friends to the people of my town. They are a friend to me, because my interests serve theirs. And they are here to make certain that the interests I share with them are not threatened.”

  Lady Nagamochi looked to the empress’s automaton. It didn’t speak.

  Ariq filled the silence, instead. “Ask her majesty if that machine is worth a war with every tribe that is friend to the Wajarri.”

  The captain of the guard didn’t ask. The automaton remained quiet—the empress was apparently still weighing her options.

  He would offer a heavier weight. “I am not your enemy,” he said again. “This misunderstanding began with the marauders’ attacks. I have already made Ghazan Bator pay for what he has done. In the hope of friendship between our peoples, I will give his conspirator, Admiral Tatsukawa, over into your custody.”

  Her brow creasing, Lady Nagamochi glanced over the side of the airship, to where the admiral’s ironship floated in the water below. “He is in your custody?”

  Not yet. At his side, Taka signaled to Captain Corsair. Though Ariq didn’t look behind him, he knew that one of her crew would be waving a flag—signaling the Skybreaker.

  It moved quietly. Though powered by enormous engines, the surrounding mechanical flesh and water muffled most of the sound. Even the hum from the empress’s automaton sounded louder than th
e machine.

  Lady Nagamochi sucked in a sharp breath as it came toward them. “Governor? Do you threaten us?”

  “No. I am offering my help,” he said quietly. “Do you see how slowly it moves? That is because I told my soldiers not to use its full speed, because the machine’s wake would overturn every ship in your fleet.”

  As it was, swells were battering the sides of the heavy ships. When it passed by one of the hovering airships, the disturbance in the air sent the vessel into a slow spin. As if realizing what she’d done, Tsetseg lifted one of the tentacles and gently stopped the airship’s rotation before moving closer, until the machine’s broad side filled the sky ahead.

  “I believe that is demonstration enough, Governor.”

  “This isn’t a demonstration,” he said. “As I told you, I am delivering Tatsukawa into your custody.”

  One long arm reached for the ironship, the mechanical flesh glistening under the midday sun. The tentacle curled beneath the heavy ship and lifted it out of the sea as easily as Ariq might lift a peapod from a bowl of soup.

  Metal shrieked. The ironship’s hull popped and groaned. Water rained from its sides as the arm swung up toward the pair of tethered airships, and stopped when the upper deck was level with theirs. Ariq could have fit fifty of Lady Nagamochi’s imperial airships on that ironship’s deck, yet the tentacle was thicker than the ship was wide.

  “I believe Tatsukawa is aboard,” Ariq said. “So I have delivered him to you.”

  The captain of the guard exhaled a shaky breath. “Thank you, Governor.”

  With a flick of her fingers, she sent her guards forward. Without hesitation, they slid a gangway over to the ironship’s deck and rushed across.

  “Captain.” The empress’s metallic voice suddenly projected from the automaton. “It seems that the information we gathered regarding the governor and his town was incomplete.”

  Immediately Lady Nagamochi’s attention fixed on the empress. “Yes, your majesty?”

  “We were led to believe that he was a threat,” the empress continued. “But a friend to the Wajarri is also a friend to my people. We do not have to fear our friends—especially one whose interests so closely align with ours. Neither of us wishes to see any bloodshed.”