by S. D. Stuart
He stuck the rifle around the corner and fired off two blind shots. That should keep the soldier held back for the moment.
He searched the hallway for any sign of the secret passageway, but there was no medieval suit of armor holding a spear that he could pull down on to open the passageway behind it.
This hallway was empty.
There were no doors or windows anywhere in the hallway. Just an empty space that terminated at a stone wall on one end. Why would anybody build a hallway that didn’t go anywhere?
Another bullet ricocheted off the corner, reminding him of how bad his situation really was.
He was pinned down with nowhere to go.
Chapter 40
Caleb went over the directions again in his mind. He was sure it had been the first left, and then the next two rights. This had to be the place.
But where was the medieval suit of armor that would trigger the secret panel?
The hallway had been quiet for a little too long. Rather than peek around the corner and risk getting his head shot off, he poked the rifle around and fired off another two shots. The second shot resulted in a quiet click. He’d had only one bullet left, and he’d just used it.
It wouldn’t take long for the soldier at other end of the hallway to figure that out.
He backed into the dead end and noticed an outline of dust in a rectangle shape on the floor. He inspected the floor more closely and saw scratches in the stone where something big and heavy had been recently removed.
This must be where the medieval armor had stood.
If this was the right place, then the secret panel was here.
He was on his hands and knees, studying and pushing down on each stone with his fingers. He pressed down on a tiny stone that was almost perfectly round and it sank with a click into the floor.
In front of him, the wall popped out and swung open like a door. The wall wasn’t made from stone after all. It was a wooden door with thinly carved stone faces glued to it to match the full-sized wall stones on either side.
A volley of bullets chipped away at the corner behind him. Other soldiers had joined the first, and they were letting him know that they were coming.
By the time they realized he wasn’t shooting back and charged the corner, he would be gone without a trace.
Chapter 41
Dorothy slid the wall paneling to the side and peeked out into the massive airplane hangar. As much as she wanted to pace back and forth to burn off some of this nervous energy, her hiding spot gave her little room to move.
Where were Caleb and her father? They should’ve been here by now.
If she had her Tin Man suit, she could go find them.
No. She had to stop thinking like that. Down that road was darkness, and death.
She was finally back in control of herself, and wouldn’t let the suit take her back to a place she should never have gone in the first place.
The rhythmic pounding of someone running through the hanger echoed off the walls and ceiling. She peeked out again and saw Caleb running toward the airplane.
Relief washed over her and she ran out to meet him.
They reached the airplane at the same time.
It was just Caleb.
“Where’s my father?”
Caleb reached inside the cockpit and pulled on the choke.
“I’ll tell you once we’re in the air.”
He ran around to the front and grabbed a propeller blade.
“Where is he?”
Caleb pulled down on the propeller and it spun to life, black smoke chuffing from the noisy engine. This new engine burned a flammable fuel and didn’t require them to wait for it to heat up, or build pressure. As soon as it started, they were ready to go.
She took a step back and crossed her arms.
Caleb pleaded with her. “This plane was built for one person. We’ll be lucky if we stay in the air with both of us in it. Your father knew that.”
“That’s not what he told me?”
“He told you what you needed to hear to get you on this plane.”
She took a step backward, not liking the look in Caleb’s eye. “I’m not leaving without my father.”
A new voice echoed from across the hanger. “Hey! What are you doing?”
One of the Southern Marshal’s soldiers, drawn by the noise of the airplane motor, raised his rifle when he recognized Caleb.
Caleb snatched her around the waist and pushed her ahead of him into the cockpit of the airplane. She went headfirst into the airplane as bullets pinged off the fuselage.
The same lead shielding her father had built into the plane to mask them from the perimeter defense system around OZ, easily deflected the bullets.
Caleb shoved the throttle to full with one hand and grabbed the flight stick with the other.
The plane surged forward and the soldier was forced to duck away from the propeller as they shot out through the open hangar doors.
The elongated wings lifted up at the tips as they gained speed.
Within seconds, the plane lifted off the ground and Dorothy’s stomach somersaulted inside her body.
The ground fell away from them quickly and, after a couple of terror inducing maneuvers, Caleb quickly transitioned his theoretical knowledge of how to fly this plane into practical application.
Behind them, the Southern Marshal’s castle receded until it looked like a dollhouse.
They were the fastest moving object in the sky. No airship could even match a third of the speed they had attained in less than a minute.
They had escaped, and nobody would be catching up with them.
Caleb shifted to one side so they were both sitting comfortably in the seat designed for one.
Caleb turned the plane, and the sun angled around until it was to their right. The closest way out, was to the south.
He pointed the plane in the direction of the small island of New Kansas that was hundreds of miles off the southern coast of the Australis Penal Colony.
Dorothy was finally getting out of OZ, but without her father.
She had not felt this way in a long time. The same emotions she had felt when her emerald heart necklace faded to black, the first time she had lost her father, swept through her again.
And just like that frightened little girl, so many years ago, she couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.
Chapter 42
Caleb held Dorothy in the cramped cockpit and let her cry. He had watched over her since before she knew he existed, and he was glad to be here now. Glad to be the one to comfort her.
As they flew through the air, not a single word passed between them since they had taken off. The drone of the motor made talking difficult at best, so sitting together silently, in each other’s arms, was the best thing for them.
A buzzer sounded, alerting him that they were getting close to the perimeter of OZ.
The lead shielding around the cockpit would mask their presence from the perimeter defense systems, but the engine on the plane was like a white-hot beacon that would get them killed if they didn’t act fast.
He reached around Dorothy and gripped the engine release lever. Pulling this lever would shatter the ceramic bolts that held the engine in place and allow it to drop out of the plane. The elongated wings, and the thin cylindrical fuselage, would enable the plane to glide out of OZ un-powered, like a sea bird gliding on the updrafts along the shoreline.
He pulled back on the lever and the engine dropped away. The plane tilted up briefly before automatically leveling off.
Even without the noise from the engine, Dorothy nestled silently in his arms as they sailed over the southern edge of the continent and out across the crystal blue waters of the ocean.
There was still one thing left to do before they reached New Kansas. The original plan called for them to drop the weapon into one of the active volcanoes to the west of OZ. This gliding airplane would never make it that far, so the plan had to change.
Caleb held up the small pyramid.
Dorothy twisted sideways in the cramped space so she could face him. Without a word, she forced open the cockpit door just wide enough for him to throw out the pyramid.
He stuck his hand outside the plane, the wind buffeting the pyramid around, trying to knock it from his grasp.
One last look into Dorothy’s eyes told him everything he needed to know. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.
He released his grip and let the ancient hybrid weapon fall away.
Despite the destructive power encased in the tiny pyramid, it made a tiny splash on the surface and sank quickly, disappearing into the depths of the sea.
He and Dorothy were finally free. They would land silently in New Kansas and, from there, go anywhere they wanted. As long as flowing cloaks with large cowls stayed in fashion, he could keep his feline features hidden from human eyes.
All he had to do was convince Dorothy that there was never a reason to return to OZ again.
Chapter 43
High up in the sky, in her own airship, the Banshee High Priestess held the telescope against her eye and studied the carnage on the ground below her.
Her arm was in a sling and several bandages clung to the side of her burnt face. If she had been but a single step to the left or to the right, she would have died with the rest of her Banshee warriors when the warehouse exploded. The concussive force had rattled loose the steel grate she was standing on, dropping her through the floor and into the sewer when everything else above her was reduced to rubble and smoke.
It had taken far longer to commandeer an airship, so she could pursue those responsible, than she had liked. It meant she was late to the party. Everything that happened here was already a day old.
The airship that had crashed into the entrance to Chambers had effectively sealed it. But the bodies scattered around did not look like victims of the crash itself.
From her safe vantage point hundreds of meters in the sky she watched the still, and headless, bodies around the airship crash site; looking for an indication of where the hybrid and his robot went after they crashed into the entrance to Chambers. Being late was not much of a concern. She could pick up the coldest trail and follow it back to her prey.
If they survived the crash and subsequent massacre, only to go down into Chambers, they would be outside of her reach; for now. Even if they had escaped into Chambers, she wasn’t worried. She had spies in every territory of OZ. If Caleb, or any of his companions, returned to the surface, she would know about it.
Unfortunately, most of her contacts, actually all of them, had fallen silent within the last twenty-four hours without warning. This was most unusual.
Even more unusual, the radio link she maintained with her spies reported nothing but static. Her hard-wired telegraph communications network still functioned, but it was as if something was interfering with her radio transmissions.
She was at the northernmost tip of the island continent of OZ. Maybe that had something to do with the radio. She was too far away to communicate with Center City. That had to be it. What else could be interfering with her radio?
The spotter, whose job it was to always scan the horizon, lowered her binoculars. “Ma’am? I think you better see this.”
The High Priestess squinted in the direction the spotter pointed. At the edge of the horizon, tiny black dots, too numerous to count, filled the sky for kilometers in either direction.
She looked through her telescope and her heart nearly stopped.
Magnified, the tiny black dots resolved into hundreds of airships, each painted black with rows of cannons protruding from the sides of the gondolas.
Something wicked was coming to OZ.
Also by Steve DeWinter
Inherit The Throne
The Warrior’s Code (COMING SOON)
Written as S.D. Stuart
The Wizard of OZ: A Steampunk Adventure
The Scarecrow of OZ: A Steampunk Adventure
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