by Karen Kincy
When she opened the door, Wendel was gone. And so was the vampire.
Ardis shuddered. She didn’t think he could reanimate a headless corpse, so he must have dragged the body out. How were they going to explain the bloody carpet to the hotel? At this point, Ardis decided she didn’t even care.
TWENTY-THREE
Ardis waited in the lobby, tapping the hilt of Chun Yi. When the line at the desk cleared, she marched over to the concierge.
“Excuse me,” Ardis said, “but I want another room.”
“Any particular reason why?” said the concierge.
“I don’t like it.”
The concierge adjusted his spectacles. “Very well, ma’am. I can move you both to a room on the top floor tonight.”
Both? Ardis didn’t want to share a bed with Wendel tonight.
“Just me,” she said. “I’m moving. He’s staying.”
The concierge coughed. “I will have to bill you double.”
“Of course.”
Ardis paid him for the second room, then walked to the restaurant for dinner.
“Just one?” said the waiter.
Ardis faltered on the threshold of the restaurant. She glanced around to see if Wendel was there, but he wasn’t. Fortunately.
She needed to be alone. She needed to try cooling her burning thoughts.
Ardis sat at a table and unfolded her napkin in her lap. Her eyes felt gritty, and she rubbed them with her hands. The waiter slid a menu onto the table, and she stared blankly at the German. The words swam together.
“Should we even think about starting a family?”
“Are you saying you don’t want the baby?”
“I don’t know. You don’t exactly have a stellar track record with family.”
Her words echoed in her ears. God, she had been an idiot.
“Are you ready to order, ma’am?” said the waiter.
Ardis tried to smile. “I’ll have the Westphalia ham.”
The waiter speedily delivered her dinner, and Ardis ate the ham in silence. It weighed down her stomach like stones.
After dinner, Ardis walked to her room alone.
Rain lashed against the window and rattled on the roof. A storm drowned out the stars. She cracked open the window to breathe in the icy air. Raindrops trickled down her face, and she closed the window again.
When Ardis climbed into bed, she shivered at the cold beneath the sheets. She wished she could sleep with Wendel at her side. She wished she could feel less alone. But she wasn’t sure she was allowed to feel at all.
~
Sand glimmered like gold dust along the beach. Mist drifted over the Pacific.
In her arms, Ardis felt something fidget. She looked down at the most beautiful baby in the world. The shape of the baby’s eyes echoed her own, though the color was a pale green more like sea glass. Wendel’s eyes.
Wind mussed the baby’s wisp of dark hair. Ardis smoothed it back down.
The baby gurgled and gave her a toothless smile. It had quite a lot of drool. Ardis smiled and dabbed at its chin with her sleeve.
Her heart swelled until she wasn’t sure it would fit inside her chest.
Seagulls shrieked and wheeled as a raven played in the sky. The silhouette of a man walked along the beach. Wendel. He bowed his head, his hair in his eyes, and he didn’t see them. Ardis stood and waved at him.
“Wendel!” she said.
~
A knock on the door woke Ardis. She squinted in the sunlight. Another knock, hard enough that it shook the door.
“Just a minute!” Ardis said.
She kicked off the sheets, dragged on her clothes, and answered the door.
It wasn’t Wendel. A telegram boy waited there, breathing hard, his hat askew.
“Urgent telegram, ma’am,” he said.
She ripped open the telegram and read.
Return to pilot Colossus immediately
Ardis tipped the telegram boy, yanked on her boots, and hailed a taxi.
When she walked into the drydock, she dodged a swarm of engineers. The Colossus Eisenkrieger towered over the commotion.
“Ardis!” Konstantin waved her over to the Eisenkrieger.
She hurried to meet him. “What’s the rush?”
The archmage gripped her shoulder. He looked skittish and pale.
“It’s time,” he said.
“Time for what?” she said, her hands already sweaty.
“The Russians are besieging Königsberg. They are marching through the farmland to the east. We can’t let them capture the city. A Prussian division of the German army is advancing to fight, but they are outnumbered two to one.”
Ardis whistled softly. “Will the Eisenkriegers even the odds?”
“Yes,” Konstantin said, “but we only have three. And we need you to pilot the Colossus.”
Ardis squared her shoulders and glanced at the metal giant.
“My orders?” she said.
“Find and kill the clockwork dragon. Before it does too much damage.”
“Yes, sir.”
Konstantin caught her hand and shook it briskly. His hesitant smile betrayed his fear.
“Have you seen Wendel?” Ardis said.
“No. Why?”
Ardis bit the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know where he is.”
“I’m sure the necromancer will turn up when we least expect him.”
“I hope so.”
“Good luck.” Konstantin glanced into her eyes. “Stay alive, all right?”
“I’ll try my best.”
Ardis climbed into the cockpit of the Eisenkrieger and marched the Colossus from the drydock. She strode through the streets of Königsberg as soldiers directed traffic away from her earth-shaking footfalls. Townspeople leaned from their windows, and a little girl plucked a flower and held it out to the Colossus.
Ardis smiled and shook her head. The flower would only be crushed in her fist.
Trucks rumbled behind the Colossus, burdened with soldiers on their way to war. Children ran alongside them, laughing and shrieking as the tires sprayed slush from the road. It almost looked like a parade.
Ardis hoped that most of them would live to see a victory parade.
They left the city proper and crossed muddy fields. The trucks flattened autumn’s stubble, and the Colossus cratered the earth with its footprints. The soldiers joined a larger battalion of the Prussian division. Overhead, the USS Jupiter floated in the sky, perhaps on another observation mission for America.
No sign of the clockwork dragon, or the Russian army.
Ardis stood sentinel behind the Prussians. From this height, the men and horses looked like tin soldiers. Across the field, a ridge bristled with pines, their needles glittering with frost. An eagle soared over the trees.
It was a perfect day, one that would soon be made grotesque by battle.
The Germans marched toward the ridge in regimented rows. Ardis saw swords, pikes, crossbows, even a battleaxe or two. A handful of the blades glistened with the telltale iridescence of magic, but most looked like they hadn’t been polished since the middle ages. Hopefully each soldier knew how to wield them.
Pines rustled on the ridge, and the eagle shrieked. Russians marched from the forest.
Konstantin was right—they were outnumbered two to one.
Ardis lumbered behind the Germans and halted when they did. Some soldiers grinned and whooped at the Colossus, like it was their big brother who the Russians wouldn’t dare attack. Ardis wished she shared their optimism.
The Russian infantry stopped. Their cavalry rode to the forefront. Cossacks, or what was left of them after the Eisenkriegers.
Hooves drummed the dirt as the Cossacks galloped down the ridge.
But the Germans held their ground. The horses charged nearer, mouths foam-flecked, riders brandishing sabers. A line of German soldiers advanced and, at the last moment, lowered their pikes. The Cossacks reined in their mounts, but for many, it was too late. They careened
into the pikes and impaled themselves.
The remaining Cossacks wheeled and retreated.
Emboldened, the Prussian division advanced across the field. They halted halfway. The Russians held their ground on the ridge. Ardis flanked the Germans, her muscles taut, and tried to ignore the screams of horses.
A glint of red caught her eye. The clockwork dragon sailed over the ridge.
The dragon’s shadow darkened the battlefield. A Prussian officer shouted an order, and soldiers armed with crossbows fired a volley skyward. Bolts clattered uselessly off the dragon’s armored belly. It soared overhead, out of reach, and looked down at Ardis with what she would have sworn was cunning in its eyes.
The USS Jupiter floated over the battlefield.
Damn, why had they brought the airship? Did they never learn?
Ardis lunged into a run and took off after the dragon. The clockwork dragon pumped its wings and gained altitude. It circled higher in the sky, wheeling over the Jupiter, then flattened its wings and stooped into a dive. It flared its wings to slow its descent, then swung its claws forward like an attacking falcon.
The USS Jupiter hovered with idle engines. Not even trying to outmaneuver the dragon.
Ardis sucked in her breath. The dragon’s outstretched talons gleamed over the airship, ready to shred its silver skin.
A deep humming trembled the air. With a blinding burst of light, electricity arced from the Jupiter and struck the clockwork dragon. The dragon froze and fell from the sky. The beast plummeted earthward, black smoke curling from its mouth, as soldiers scrambled from its shadow. The dragon plowed into the dirt, tumbled across the field, and skidded to a stop, its duralumin wings crumpled and tattered.
Ardis remembered the Wanderfalke, and a vengeful smile twisted her mouth.
The dragon curled in a smoking heap. Stray electricity zapped between its claws. Its gemstone eyes looked dark.
On the ridge, the Russians lingered beneath the pines. The German infantry marched toward them, and a squadron of elite Prussian cavalry charged ahead, their lances lowered. But still the Russians held their ground.
Something was wrong.
Ardis ran to warn them, and the wireless telegraph in the cockpit began beeping. She had no idea what the code meant, but it couldn’t be good. She had been in too many battles to believe that soldiers waited patiently to die.
The cavalry charged across the field. Their horses kicked up clods of earth.
The treetops trembled. Pines shivered as black insects swarmed over their boughs. The immense swarm took flight and buzzed toward the soldiers. They passed over the Russians and descended on the Germans.
One of the insects pinged off the Eisenkrieger’s cockpit. A clockwork wasp.
The devious mechanical insects attacked. They plunged their stingers into the skin of men and horses alike. The German infantry broke ranks, swatting at the wasps, and the elite Prussian cavalry panicked completely.
Ardis had no hope of fighting enemies so small. There had to be hundreds of wasps. They ricocheted off the Eisenkrieger’s steel as they hunted less armored victims. Behind the German ranks, the clockwork dragon crawled to its feet. It flattened its ruined wings and scuttled toward the soldiers with alarming speed.
Ardis watched the chaos from above. Adrenaline flooded her blood.
The Russians charged down the ridge. Invulnerable to the wasps, they slaughtered the Germans where they stood. The dragon gutted, beheaded, and mutilated men. This wasn’t a battle. This was a massacre.
Fear gripped Ardis in its fist. She could retreat. She could run away and could save herself—save her unborn baby.
But if she ran, Königsberg was lost. And they were all dead.
Ardis clenched her jaw and shook her head, hard, to clear her thoughts. The wireless telegram beeped frantically, though she had no clue what it meant. She knew only that she had to try salvaging this defeat into survival.
She had her orders. Kill the dragon.
The clockwork chased down men as they fled. Ardis sprinted to meet her opponent. She crushed a dead man underfoot, his bones crunching like a bug. She had less than a second to realize it, and no time at all to feel.
The dragon whirled to meet the Colossus.
Ardis focused on her goal. She let the dragon lash out and rake its claws down the Eisenkrieger’s chest. She rammed her metal hand under its neck and flipped it onto its back. The dragon writhed on crumpled wings.
She threw herself onto the dragon and drove her elbow against its throat. It struggled and snapped, its teeth inches from her face, but Ardis bore down with all the weight of the Colossus. With her left arm, she punched the dragon in the jaw and knocked it back. She glanced at the steel plates armoring its chest.
Damn it, they looked impenetrable.
If she got out of this godforsaken mess alive, she was going to have a word with Konstantin about his impractical plans.
The dragon surged beneath Ardis and bit the right arm of the Colossus. The dragon shook it savagely, its fangs digging into the steel, wrenching the Eisenkrieger’s wires and pneumatics. Ardis felt her steel exoskeleton start to buckle.
If she didn’t act fast, the dragon would tear off the Eisenkrieger’s arm—and her arm with it.
Gritting her teeth, Ardis found a crack in the dragon’s chest and wedged the Eisenkrieger’s fingers between the armor. Her fingertips slipped, and she scrabbled for a better grip. Sweat poured down her face. Pain screamed through her muscles. Ardis pried open the dragon’s chest and tore off the plate of armor.
The dragon’s scream sounded almost human.
In the dragon’s ribcage, incredibly intricate clockwork ticked and whirred, oil for blood. A ruby crystal glowed at its heart.
Ardis reached between the dragon’s ribs and closed her hand around the crystal.
A jolt of magic travelled up the Eisenkrieger’s arm and shivered over her skin. She sucked in a breath, then tore out the dragon’s heart.
The crystal darkened. The clockwork dragon collapsed in the mud, its eyes flickering out, its jaws gaping like those of a dead fish washed onto the beach. Trembling, Ardis climbed from the dragon’s body with the crystal in her fist. She raised it to the USS Jupiter, proof that she had killed this destroyer of airships at last.
From the gondola of the airship, Tesla leaned out from a window. He waved at Ardis, and she waved back. But his arm moved more frantically. The wireless telegraph continued beeping inside the cockpit, and—
A shockwave of blue-white light exploded from the USS Jupiter.
The wireless telegraph went dead silent. All the clockwork wasps fell from the air, and the Colossus fell with them.
Ardis strained against the Eisenkrieger, but she had no control over its massive metal limbs. The Colossus dropped to its knees and swayed like a drunk. It balanced for a second, then plummeted facedown onto the field.
The crash deafened Ardis. Her scream sounded muffled in her ears.
Dirt darkened the outside of the cockpit. Ardis twisted and saw a sliver of sky beyond the glass. Sweat stung her eyes. She blinked and contorted in the cockpit, wrenching her arms and legs from the Eisenkrieger’s shell. If she could break through the glass, she had a chance of escaping from the cockpit alive.
A man’s face leaned over the muddy cockpit. He shattered the glass with the hilt of his sword, then held out his hand.
“Oh, thank God,” Ardis said.
Soldiers reached into the cockpit and pried her from the Eisenkrieger. She staggered to her feet, her knees shaking, her ears ringing.
“Thank you,” Ardis said. “I—”
The soldiers around her were Russian. They stared at her with blatant hostility.
Slowly, Ardis raised her hands in surrender.
TWENTY-FOUR
A Russian soldier shouted at Ardis and waved his sword at her throat.
“I don’t understand you,” she said.
A soldier grabbed her arm and flung her onto the ground. S
he spat dirt and crawled to her knees. She wasn’t the type to cower.
The Russians glanced between each other, and she recognized that look.
Who would have the pleasure of killing her?
In that instant, Ardis wished she had seen Wendel one last time. She wished their last conversation could be something—anything—else.
But it was too late for that. She didn’t see a way out of dying.
“Grok!”
The wind carried a raven’s croak.
Another Russian joined them, his uniform blood-soaked. He lifted his sword and stabbed his comrade through the back. The betrayed Russian stared at the blade in his chest, then crumpled in the dirt at Ardis’s knees.
The other Russians backed away from the turncoat. Ardis saw his dead eyes before she saw the necromancer who controlled him.
Wendel.
He arrived with his own army of the dead, an entourage of unbreathing soldiers, and a raven winging over his head.
“Kill the Russians,” Wendel said.
The dead men did as the necromancer commanded. Wendel strode through the bodies and the blood and stopped by Ardis. He grabbed her arms and hauled her to her feet, then embraced her so tightly it left her breathless.
“Wendel,” she said.
“Ardis.” He looked her in the eye. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she said.
She meant to add that she was more than a little bruised, but he kissed her with such sweet ferocity that she could think of nothing but kissing him harder. They shared an instant together where the world disappeared.
“Get me out of here,” Ardis aid.
“Gladly,” Wendel said.
Without asking, he swept Ardis into his arms and carried her from the battlefield.
~
Wendel didn’t put down Ardis until they walked into Königsberg. Then he took her hand and brought her to the cathedral.
“Sanctuary,” he said, by way of explanation.
Ardis didn’t tell him some men had no respect for all that was holy.
They sat together on the pew, their hands clasped between them. Stained glass windows transmuted the sunlight into a faded rainbow.
