A chorus of encouraging howls came from the opposite roof. Buckle saw Valkyrie and Ivan hurrying along the deck, swinging themselves down the ratlines to extend their hands. The chasm between the two airships was opening up far faster than Buckle had anticipated, which was good for the Pneumatic Zeppelin, but bad for him.
Buckle sprinted down the port-side curve of the Bellerophon’s upper flank, watching the rift between the two envelopes grow ever wider as he ran. The Pneumatic Zeppelin was descending away, her roof now about ten feet lower than that of the drifting Bellerophon, and that gave him a better chance. Buckle tried to calculate the distance he had to fly as he dashed toward the maw of dark air between the two airships and then just gave up on the math—whatever the distance was, he had to make it.
Then the Bellerophon blew up.
The zeppelin heaved upward in a violent paroxysm. Buckle stumbled and kept going, headlong, as stupendous geysers of burning hydrogen erupted through the roof.
Buckle landed his boot on the edge of the envelope and launched, hurling his body out into the chasm that separated him from the Pneumatic Zeppelin. He saw the faces of Valkyrie, Ivan, and his crew staring at him, cringing at the furnace-hot explosions, their gleaming red eyes distraught.
He was witnessing them witness his own death.
Buckle sailed across the sky, thirteen hundred feet above the dark earth—and then he began to drop away, short, out of her reach, and the Pneumatic Zeppelin rushed up and away from his outstretched fingers.
The dying blast of the Bellerophon, a continental concussion of fire, slammed Buckle in the back.
WHAT THE NAVIGATOR SAW
WHEN SABRINA SERAFIM WAS FURIOUS, she did not like to show it. But she knew that Romulus Buckle could read it in her eyes. So to hell with it, she grumbled in her mind. He should know how angry she was with him, her captain who, walking beside her with his top hat cocked on his head and the back of his leather coat burned and black, had once again barely escaped a violent death. It was all in a day’s work for him, apparently forgotten, with his boots now on Spartak ground, the dark night pulsing with the fires of Muscovy in the distance.
After the battle, the Czarina had signaled a desire to parley, so Buckle, the back of his coat still smoldering as he stood on the Pneumatic Zeppelin’s bridge, had followed the Spartak zeppelin to a mooring yard just south of the city. Sabrina had joined the negotiating party along with Valkyrie, Corporal Nyland, and two more red-jacketed marines. Ambassador Washington, having emerged from his cabin in a foul and standoffish mood, had joined them, demanding that he do all the talking with the Russians.
Washington led the group now, his strides forceful, his mist-puffs of breath and white lambskin greatcoat soaked with the yellow illumination of the lanterns swinging in the hands of the marines. They were walking down a path cut through a scattered forest grove, the tall arrowhead shapes of the fir and pine trees black against a cluster of burning buildings on their left. Steaming at three thousand feet under the moonlit clouds, the gondola lights of the Imperial war zeppelin Pneumatic Tirpitz twinkled, having been signaled by Valkyrie to go on patrol as soon as she arrived.
Sabrina’s ears still rang with the tumultuous roar of the dying Bellerophon; the muffled quiet of the countryside, the soft crunch of boots in the snow, made her eardrums buzz harder. She glanced back: behind them the dark mass of the Pneumatic Zeppelin loomed, her gondolas a mere three feet off the ground, her skinners and riggers fast at the repairs, shouting back and forth across the great whale expanse of her envelope, which was scorched black along nearly the entire length of her starboard side. The skin-repair teams worked in small bubbles of yellow buglight mixed with the witchy orange gleam of the night lanterns.
Sabrina turned forward. The Russians were approaching, ten of them, their silhouettes dark against the silver-white moonlit snow, their forms made burly by greatcoats of animal skins and leather, their round, stern faces ruddy in the light of the torches they carried. They were advancing fast; two on the left were riding big, shaggy horses, with two wolfhounds loping at their gaskins. Two hundred yards behind the Russians, the Czarina hovered low, her fires extinguished, but her envelope holes still leaking copious amounts of smoke that lumbered in slow drifts to the northeast.
Beyond the Czarina, about two and half miles distant, the stronghold of Muscovy burned, her buildings and ramparts swamped in spectacular ribbons of fire. In the waves of light cast by the conflagration, Sabrina could just make out a road, a white strip leading northward into the wilderness; all along its length moved shadows, an army of overloaded wagons and straining horses, a population abandoning their fallen city, whose funeral pyre cast light but no warmth on their backs.
Sabrina shivered. The bitter cold did not bother her—it rarely did—but she felt an old discomfiture; with a revulsive sting she recalled the fashion in which Leopold Goethe had identified her in front of all the others. She was a Fawkes, yes, and she did remember Goethe, as a boy—his words must have inflicted immeasurable harm upon her life among the Crankshafts. No one had said anything to her about it, not even Buckle, but she knew it would eat away at them once they had time to think about it. The magnifying glass of suspicion would swing its jaded eye in her direction once again.
And Buckle would defend her from all comers, as he always defended her.
Sabrina was not one to idolize anyone, especially a man. But to her Romulus Buckle had become larger than life, once again cheating the swing of the grim reaper’s scythe as it grazed his heels, a tale breathlessly related by midshipmen Charles Mariner and Alison Lawrence upon returning to the bridge after the destruction of the Bellerophon. Captain Buckle, risking his life to save an enemy wounded by his own hand and disembarking last—as any good captain must—had taken a doomed leap between the zeppelins as the Bellerophon incinerated in a mountainous blast at his heels. And it was the force of this blast, a concussion that near knocked down everyone on the roof of the Pneumatic Zeppelin, that hurled Buckle the extra distance he needed. He landed in the ratlines, the back of his leather jacket completely afire, and held on with one hand until the crew hauled him up and doused the flames.
Sabrina had seen the burning Bellerophon fall away, a giant body of fire folding in upon itself, transforming into a skeleton raft of flames as it plummeted toward the earth. Thirteen hundred feet down, it crashed into the trees of the snowbound gray-white mountains, where what was left looked more like an insignificant forest fire than what had once been a magnificent flying machine.
At that moment, Sabrina had once again been certain that her captain was dead. She had done what the situation had demanded; once the news of the scuttling had boomed down the chattertube, she had ordered the grappling lines cut and the maneuvering propellers traversed to starboard, so she could disengage from the Bellerophon at best possible speed.
When the report came that Buckle was not yet aboard, Sabrina had hesitated, waiting one more moment, risking the entire ship for its captain. Just after she had commanded that the propellers be thrown into maximum rotation, the bombs had gone off, and she immediately ordered the firing of the starboard broadside into the Bellerophon, hoping to further hurl the zeppelins apart through blast and nonstabilized recoil.
A wall of flame rolled up against the piloting gondola in a sizzling roar, roasting the glass dome and sending a tongue of flame in over the starboard gunwale, before rolling away as quickly as it had come. The chadburn and helm wheel had been singed, the helmsman and Nero’s bald head singed, the entire starboard side of the Pneumatic Zeppelin singed, but they had all ducked through it handsomely.
It was close to a minute after the blast before the news came down that the captain had survived. A gush of relief turned Sabrina’s body to rubber. She was thankful for the elated cheers of the bridge crew, for no one noticed how she almost dropped to her knees.
“Here be those Russians,” Buckle whispered into Sabrina’s ear. The Spartak company was no more than thirty yards awa
y now, and from the corner of her eye she could see Buckle grinning with some satisfaction under his top hat, its array of copper and bronze gizmos gleaming in the lantern light. “Burly-looking devils, eh?”
“Aye,” Sabrina said stiffly, not looking in Buckle’s direction, hoping her straight-ahead stare might express her anger toward him in a way he would recognize. Her intense feelings toward Buckle, swallowing her whole despite her vehement but silent protests, dismayed her. Her inability to shield herself from those feelings dismayed her. What had happened? Where was the unwavering commitment to her purpose that had consumed her life? When she had led the joint Crankshaft-Alchemist rescue mission inside the City of the Founders to free Balthazar, she had experienced an urge to slip away, to vanish into the shadows with her dagger in her hand and exact her revenge. But she did not do so. After being orphaned, after losing her dear Marter, after a near lifetime of brutality and being hunted, she had no longer thought herself capable of love. But she did love Balthazar. And now she feared that she was in love with Buckle.
Sabrina did not know how she felt about that.
She had always been in control of herself, and yet now, suddenly and without warning, her mastery of her emotions had failed her. It happened, for unfathomable chemical, visceral, and metaphysical reasons, whenever she entered a room that contained Romulus Buckle.
Damn you, Romulus, Sabrina thought. Damn you.
THE BOYAR AND THE CLOUD COSSACKS
BUCKLE, WALKING IMMEDIATELY BEHIND AMBASSADOR Washington, eyed the Russians with a grin. He could see their faces clearly now, illuminated as they were in the fluttering orange halos of their torches. Eight wore uniforms and Cossack fur hats—members of the Czarina’s crew—while the two horse riders looked like landsmen in their heavy fur cloaks and ushanki. It was easy to see, the sky a gleam of silver moonlight and the earth lit up by the terrible fires of Muscovy in her death throes, sending tides of red and orange eddying across the countryside as if the world were the inside of a potbellied stove.
A man of average height led from the center of the Spartak group, exuding a physical confidence that was easily read in the swagger of his bearing, bareheaded with black hair and a dense beard, wearing a rust-brown wool greatcoat with overbearing gold-and-red epaulettes gleaming on each shoulder. He was grinning widely, his eyes intense and a shade wild with the spark of recent action.
The dark-bearded man had to be the captain of the Czarina, and if so, a capital commander. He had withstood a bracketing by two Founders war zeppelins and then, dropping away holed and afire, still gamely dove to finish the Industria, which had somehow managed to regain control and was limping southward. The Founders sloop easily escaped him, but the mortar barges, bereft of their cowardly escort, had not been so lucky.
Buckle liked the Russian captain already.
Washington cleared his throat, a low, breathy sound over the crunching of many boots across the shallow, crystalline snow.
“Greetings, Crankshaft!” the Spartak captain shouted first, throwing open his arms. “All hail the sky warriors from the east! Bravo! A fight worthy of a mad badger!”
“It is an honor to make your acquaintance, sir,” Washington said, and when he took the Russian captain’s hand, he nearly lost his own, the powerful fellow shook it so hard. “I am Ambassador Washington, representing the Crankshaft clan.”
“Nicholas Zhukov, boyar of Muscovy. Welcome to Spartak, Ambassador, though I cannot vouch much for her current condition,” the captain said, raising his eyebrows, which resembled small squirrels, at Valkyrie. “I see Imperial blues among you, very lovely blues.”
“Boyar Zhukov, may I present Princess Valkyrie Smelt of the Imperial clan,” Washington said.
“We have come to assist, at your request,” Valkyrie offered politely.
Zhukov gave Valkyrie a small bow. “Ah, yes—and in an Imperial-designed zeppelin bearing the Crankshaft emblem, no less,” he said as his two huge wolfhounds came and sat on each side of him, their wolfish heads resembling the armrests of a throne. Zhukov gave Sabrina and her red ringlets a penetrating glare. “And a scarlet as a member of your contingent as well?” he muttered. “Strange days are upon us, I say!” Zhukov’s eyes locked on to Buckle. “And are you, sir, the captain of the Pneumatic Zeppelin?”
“Aye,” Buckle replied. “Captain Romulus Buckle, at your service, Captain Zhukov. I must compliment you and your crew—you fight like eagles, sir.”
Zhukov flashed a smile with a set of big white-and-gold teeth as he brushed past Washington to shake Buckle’s hand. “Bah! To hell with eagles. I fly like a tangler! And so do you, Captain Buckle!”
Buckle laughed as openly as did Zhukov, the Russian’s breath a slightly rotten breeze of warm tobacco, sausage, and heavily creamed borscht pickled with vodka. Zhukov was near half a foot less than Buckle’s height, but much fuller in girth, his mass accentuated by his unruly hair and beard, which seemed to block everything out behind him. His handshake almost yanked Buckle’s shoulder bone out of its socket. Zhukov’s expressive, ruggedly featured face made his age difficult to measure. Buckle guessed he was in his early thirties, though he looked closer to forty.
“We go to war together, you and I, my friend, eh?” Zhukov said, just to Buckle.
“Yes, we do, sir,” Buckle replied. It was rare that he instinctively trusted other men or women without knowing them at all—Andromeda had been another—but Buckle placed great faith in his gut feelings.
“Ahem!” Washington cleared his throat. “I do not wish to appear abrupt, Boyar Zhukov, but we need to establish our situation quickly.”
“Our situation, sir,” Zhukov said, “is that we are with you and you are with us, whether we like it or not. Our Rostov stronghold has been overrun—with two pocket zeppelins captured at their moorings, damn me to hell—but we blew up the railway tracks and stopped the armored trains at Krasnaya bridge. And the Founder fools overextended reaching for Muscovy.” He lifted his hand and crushed the air in a fist. “Their attack has shattered upon the rocks of our resolve.”
“But your city is blown to pieces,” Washington said. “This is an unsustainable position.”
“Muscovy is lost, temporarily,” Zhukov said. “Our people are retreating north over the mountains, to Santa Inez. The Czarina is to steam to Archangel, where our fleet now assembles. Our outposts have signaled that the Founders are advancing north as we speak, but their zeppelins are crawling to keep pace with the trains. We have a fat forty-five minutes to make good our escape.”
“We are with you, Boyar Zhukov,” Washington said. “You have asked for assistance from the Imperial clan and she has come, bringing our Grand Alliance with her. Crankshaft blood has been spilled alongside yours. The Founders invasion must be stopped.”
“Not stopped, Ambassador—destroyed,” Zhukov said. “And who are the members of this Grand Alliance?”
“Along with Crankshaft and Imperial, we have the Alchemists, Gallowglasses, Tinskins, and Brineboilers,” Washington replied. “And I am certain we may add Spartak’s signature to the list, in the spirit of mutual defense and friendship.”
Zhukov paused, a torrent of thought in his eyes. The wind sighed through the group, gently rocking the lanterns and calming the horses who had been stamping the snow and jangling their tack, continually turning their big, dark eyes toward the fires of the city. “Our alliance is a foregone conclusion under the circumstances, a pact signed in blood this day. But the Brineboilers are already…”
Zhukov was cut off by the boom of a gigantic explosion inside Muscovy, a blast that rattled the earth and sent a colossal ball of flame roiling a thousand feet above the city, a fireball illuminating the world like a small sun before it vanished. Startled at first, Buckle stared at the catastrophe with the detachment of exhaustion. He knew what it was—the stronghold magazine, hundreds of barrels of blackbang powder going off at once. The sky glittered, a brilliant display of a billion bright-red cinders raining down like burning snow. The as
hes of Muscovy.
“They have had at us, the Founders devils!” Zhukov snarled as he peered upward. He then cast a serious gaze upon Washington. “The Tinskins,” he said, showing his teeth with disgust. “Unconscionable rats.”
Washington nodded. “I believe the threat of mutual destruction will keep them in line—for the time being.”
“Never trust them,” Zhukov said. “Now, we must make way.”
“The Pneumatic Zeppelin must return home immediately,” Washington said. “But I urgently request passage aboard the Czarina to Archangel. I must have an audience with Grand Boyar Ryzhakov.”
“Of course, of course. He shall be in Archangel with the fleet,” Zhukov answered, allowing his eyes to take another approving, lustful measure of Valkyrie.
“We should—” Washington started, but he was cut off by a vicious cheer near at hand to the west.
Buckle cocked his head to the side, peering through the black bars of the trees to focus on the small group of buildings, ruined and afire—most likely the result of a wayward Founders mortar—about thirty yards away. A mob of Russians had gathered around a large gallows, streams of flame licking its posts and crossbeam, encouraging a hangman as he lowered a noose around the neck of another man on the scaffold, a crooked cripple, whose head was covered by a dark canvas bag.
“They are hanging a spy.” One of the Spartak horsemen laughed, his voice thick with drink. “Old as the hills, a fogsucker, addled as a moonchild. And he had some devil robot with him.”
“I approved no executions on the drumhead,” Zhukov said, but he made no move to stop the proceedings.
The old prisoner cried out, his shaking voice carrying across the snowbound earth. “Who saves old Shadrack?” he wailed. “The Oracle be eternal, yea—but who saves old Shadrack?”
“Stop!” Buckle screamed, hearing his howl in his ears before he was aware of having uttered it, realizing he had bolted forward toward the burning gallows before he was aware of giving his body a command to move.
Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War Page 36
