A Darkling Plain me-4

by Philip Reeve

  The first rocket punched through the prow of the envelope and tore the whole length of the ship, exploding in the central gas cell and sending a spume of fire out through her stern. Theo heard Jake and Will scream as the gondola lurched sideways. Struggling with the useless controls; he saw another ship go sliding past behind the sheets of smoke billowing from the Archaeopteryx’s envelope: a small armed freighter in the white livery and green lightning-bolt insignia of the Storm. Machine guns opened up from a nest on her tail fins as she sped by, and bullets came slamming into the Archaeopteryx’s listing gondola, and into Will, smashing him backward through a shattering window. “Will!” screamed Jake, as Theo dragged him to the deck.

  Peering through the smoke, he had a brief, dizzy view of the debris field. Above it, low and menacing, a school of white ships circled. The Green Storm had arrived.

  Chapter 46

  The Shortcut

  The warships circled low over Crouch End, low enough for everyone to see the rockets glinting in their racks and the Divine Wind machine cannon twitching in the swiveling turrets. A few of the braver Londoners ran for crossbows and lightning guns, but Mr. Garamond shouted at them not to be so daft. He hated the Storm, but he knew that trying to fight them would be madness.

  Someone tied a white bedsheet to an old broomhandle, and Len Peabody waved it frantically as the leading ship came down. She was the Fury, the only real warship in the fleet, but none of the Londoners noticed how tatty the other ships looked; they were too busy staring at the soldiers and battle-Stalkers who spilled from the Fury’s hatches as she descended.

  General Naga was the first to jump down, relying on his armor to absorb the shock of landing. Straightening up, sword in hand, he breathed in the rusty, earthy air of the debris field and heard his troops disembarking behind him. He glanced to his right. Two of his ships had landed on top of the big wedge of wreckage there, and others were circling it. A party of his men was herding more Londoners down the track that led from it.

  “The site is secure, Excellency,” announced his second-in-command, Subgeneral Thien, running to his side and dropping on one knee to salute.

  “Resistance?”

  “One of our armed freighters shot down a ship that rose from the western edge of the ruins. And the gunship Avenge the Wind-Flower was struck by some sort of electrical discharge and destroyed with all hands. She reported movements in the western part of the wreck before she was hit. I’ve sent the Hungry Ghost to investigate.”

  Naga strode toward the waiting Londoners. His feet sank into the deep drifts of rust flakes with crunching sounds, each footstep unpleasantly like the noise Oenone’s nose had made when his fist struck it. He tried again to stop thinking of her. She was a traitor, he told himself sternly. Half the men in this fleet would have mutinied if he had not dealt firmly with her. He had to be strong if he was to save the good Earth from these barbarians and their new weapon.

  But the barbarians were something of a disappointment. Ragged, unkempt, unarmed except for a few homemade guns and bows, which they had dropped when they saw Naga’s force landing. They had vegetable gardens, for the gods’ sake, just like real people! Their leader was a frightened little man with a scrap-metal chain of office around his neck. “Chesney Garamond,” he said, in Anglish. “Lord mayor of London. I’m here to negotiate on behalf of my people.”

  “Where is the transmitter?” barked Naga.

  “The what?” Garamond gaped fearfully at him.

  Naga raised his sword, but the man’s bruised face and swollen nose reminded him suddenly of Oenone, and he lowered it again. His armor grated and hummed as it tried to compensate for the quick shivering of his sword arm. “Where are you hiding it?” he demanded. “We know the ground station is in London. Why else have you lurked here all these years? Why else did you destroy one of our ships just now with your electric gun?”

  “That weren’t us,” said another man earnestly. “That was just power discharging from the dead metal. Your skyboys got too close to Electric Lane. I’m sorry.”

  “And the movements the crew reported in the wreckage over there?”

  “There’s nothing there except our youngsters on lookout,” said Garamond. “Please don’t hurt them; they’re just kids—”

  Naga swung to address his waiting troops. “This savage knows nothing! Find me Engineers!”

  “Coming, sir!” A subofficer ran up at the head of a squad of Stalkers, each carrying a struggling, bald-headed prisoner. An old woman was dumped on the ground at Naga’s feet. He waved his men back and watched her scramble up.

  “Where is the transmitter?”

  The Engineer looked curiously at him. Naga had the uneasy feeling that she could sense the swirl of guilt and fear behind the stern face he wore. She said, “There is no transmitter here, sir.”

  “Then how do you talk to your orbital weapon?”

  The way her eyes widened made Naga wonder, just for a moment, if he had been wrong. The Londoners started to murmur together, until his men cuffed and threatened them into silence.

  The Engineer said, “They are surprised, General, because they all believed it was you who controlled this new weapon. Certainly we do not. We have no quarrel with anybody; we are simply building a new city for ourselves.”

  “Ah, yes, your floating city! I did not believe that story when your agent came babbling of it at Batmunkh Gompa, and I do not believe it now. Shut those barbarians up!” he bellowed, rounding on his men. The barbarians stared fearfully at him. A little boy started to cry, and was quickly hushed by his mother. Naga felt ashamed.

  When he turned back to the lady Engineer, she was holding out a thin, lilac-veined hand to him. “Come and see for yourself…”

  The attack ship Hungry Ghost hovered over the smoldering wreck of the Archaeopteryx and made certain there were no survivors, then veered away toward the southwest to investigate the movements that the crew of Avenge the Wind-Flower had reported before that lasso of electricity had jumped out of the debris field to snare them. The Hungry Ghost’s captain took his ship higher, not wanting to meet the same end. Almost at once he saw the mounds of wreckage below him shifting and slithering. He stared down at the movements, not really understanding, until an old track tumbled sideways to reveal the scarred, armored carapace shoving along beneath it.

  The suburb’s lookouts saw the ship above them at the same instant. Silos yawned open in its armor, and a flight of rockets tore through the Hungry Ghost, blasting her engine pods off, smashing the gondola in half, ripping off a tailfin. Smoldering, sagging, she drifted downwind, while Harrowbarrow plowed onward below her.

  “Damn it! That’s all we need!”

  Wolf Kobold’s angry shout made Wren cringe. She was sure that Harrowbarrow must be near the western end of Electric Lane by now, and she had been waiting and waiting for the first sprite to strike. When it did, Wolf would know that she had betrayed him. But for the moment, it seemed, she was still safe. He saw her flinch and came to stand with her, in the corner of the bridge where she had gone to get out of the way of his men.

  “Nothing to worry about, Wren,” he said. “It seems my forward rocket batteries just shot down a Green Storm warship. The savages are in London already.”

  “Oh!”

  “Don’t worry!” He laughed at the look of dismay upon her face. “We have dealt with the Green Storm before. My lookouts say that these ships are old; a ragbag of freighters and transports. Naga clearly doesn’t think your London friends are worth sending a real unit to deal with. We shall crush them easily.”

  He shouted instructions at Hausdorfer, and the navigator shouted in turn down the speaking tubes beside the helm. The suburb increased its speed, and shocks came trembling through the deck and walls of the bridge as it butted massive chunks of rusting metal aside and track plates and sections of old building went tumbling over the hull or were crunched and crushed beneath the heavy tracks. Wren braced herself against the chart table. Wolf Kobold put his
arm around her. “It will be all right,” he promised. “In an hour we’ll be there. Thank you for this shortcut, Wren. I won’t forget it.”

  Maybe there would be no sprites, thought Wren. Or maybe they were striking Harrowbarrow’s hull already, dozens of them, doing no harm at all against its thick armor. Maybe all she had achieved by her ruse was to ensure that New London would be devoured even sooner.

  And would it really be so bad if it was? It would serve the Londoners right for what they’d done to her. And good might come of it. She imagined Harrowbarrow growing strong and glorious on Dr. Childermass’s technology; a hovering city many tiers high. And she could be chatelaine of it all. Perhaps Wolf would make her Frau Kobold, lady mayoress of his new city. After her time in the debris fields the thought of a life surrounded by his tasteful furnishings and books seemed quite attractive. And she would tame him, make him treat his workers and his captives fairly…

  “We’re entering your valley, Wren,” said Wolf warmly, listening to another report from Hausdorfer, who was taking a turn at the periscope. “The way is clear ahead, just as you promised.”

  Theo and Jake ran through some trackless tangle of debris, pushing past wires and hawsers, girders, fallen tier supports like felled redwoods. Their clothes were singed and charred by the fires they had escaped from as the Archaeopteryx came down. They did not know where they were, or where they were going, and they could not hear each other speak because of the immense din of engines and scraping, grinding, tearing, squealing metal, which seemed to come from all around them, and from the sky above them, and up through the ground beneath their running feet.

  A cleft between two rubble heaps ahead. A sort of path— or more likely just a streambed, where water sluiced down off the heights of the wreckage when it rained. Jake ran toward it, shouting something. Theo started to hurry after him and then glimpsed a sign in the debris, half hidden by the scales of rust that were avalanching down the sides of the heaps as they shook and shifted under the weight of the nearby suburb. A crude skull and crossbones. DANGER.

  Theo remembered something Wren had told him about Electric Lane.

  “Jake!”

  Ahead of him Jake was stumbling out through the cleft into a broad, fire-stained valley. “Watch out!” Theo hollered over the noise that made it impossible to hear even his own thoughts. “Come back! The lightning will get you!”

  “What?”

  Something got Jake, but it wasn’t lightning. An immense steel snout burst out from the steep wall of wreckage that formed the far side of the valley. Jake started to run back toward Theo, and a segment of clawed steel track came down on him like a giant’s foot; a wheel two stories tall rolled over him and on, and then another and another. The suburb’s engines whinnied and growled as it dragged itself free of the wreckage and started to turn, making ready to speed east along the valley. Only a small suburb, but from where Theo stood it seemed world filling: an armored escarpment pocked and pitted with tiny windows, gun slits, air vents, hatch covers, and a stitchwork of rivets; people inside it somewhere all unaware of the boy they had just squashed beneath their tracks.

  Theo scrambled backward as the wreckage he stood on began to slide and toss, churned into restless waves. He tried running, but the broad, flat fragment of deck plate he chose to run across began to tilt steeper and steeper, until he was climbing a hill, crawling up a cliff, struggling to keep a fingerhold upon a sheer wall. He fell, struck some other piece of wreckage, windmilled, tumbled down the valley’s side, and landed hard in mud and water at the bottom.

  He lay there shivering, glad of the brackish water seeping through his clothes because its cold touch told him he was still alive. “Thank God!” he whispered. “Thank God!” And then, opening his eyes, realized that there was not as much to be thankful for as he had thought.

  The stunted trees that grew around the edges of the pool he lay in were charcoal statues. Beyond them was Harrowbarrow. A steel tsunami, rolling straight toward him, tumbled debris foaming and frothing ahead of it. Theo pushed himself up and started to run, but from the wreckage ahead of him an immense brightness burst, crackling overhead, flinging his jittery shadow on the rust flakes at the edge of the pool.

  Electricity, in blinding skeins, tied Harrowbarrow to the valley walls. Lightning tiptoed across its metal hide, licked in through windows and silo mouths, set fire to scraps of vegetation clinging to the tracks and bow shield. The engine roar faltered and failed, and in its place was a crackling, crinkling, cellophane noise, like God crumpling his toffee wrappers.

  In the dancing blue light Theo splashed through the shallows and flung himself at the only thing that was not made of metal—a boulder, dredged from the earth by London’s tracks. He scrambled onto its dry top, praying that his movements and his wet clothes would not draw the surging electricity down on him. Above his head the sky was hidden by a cage of blue fire; Harrowbarrow was scrawled with scribbles of light. Sparks chased through the debris around the boulder’s foot, and the wet mud fizzed. A tree caught fire with a woof and burned like a match.

  Then, abruptly, the storm ceased. A few last sparks, yelping like ricochets, arced across the gaps between Harrowbarrow and the valley walls. Wreckage slithered down around the suburb’s tracks with a sliding clatter. Smoke shifted slowly, smelling of ozone. Theo remembered to breathe.

  Harrowbarrow lay silent, motionless, its armor scarred by smoldering wounds where the sprites had touched.

  “Wren?” said Theo into the silence. “Wren?”

  Chapter 47

  The Battle of Crouch End

  General Naga stood on the sloping floor of the Womb and looked up at New London. He could see himself reflected in the long curve of the tiny city’s underside, and again in one of those strange, dull mirrors that hung beneath it. Why would anyone build such a thing? Could Natsworthy have been telling the truth? Did the Londoners believe that this contraption would actually fly?

  He tried to force his doubts aside. He was a soldier—he was used to doing that; but today, for some reason, the doubts stayed, nagging. If this mad city was really all that London’s Engineers had been building, then where was the transmitter that controlled the new weapon? Had Oenone been telling him the truth too? Had he shamed and struck her for no reason?

  The soldiers he had sent aboard New London were returning, climbing down one of the steep boarding ladders. The young signals officer he had put in charge of the search ran across the oily floor and saluted. “Excellency, we have found no sign of a transmitter. Certainly nothing powerful enough to reach the orbital weapon.”

  Naga turned away. He shut his eyes and saw Oenone smile her small, shy smile and say, “I told you so.” What now? he thought. What now?

  “Should we destroy the barbarian suburb?” asked the signals officer.

  Naga looked at it. All mobile cities were an abomination; the world must be made green again. But today, for some reason, he could not bring himself to give the order. He was glad of the distraction when another man came racing into the Womb, shouting, “General Naga! The Hungry Ghost has been shot down! There is something approaching from the west!”

  Naga unsheathed his sword and strode outside into the glum, gray daylight, soldiers and frightened Londoners crowding out behind him. Faintly, over the rust hills and the rubble heaps, he heard the screel of C50 Super-Stirling land engines. Thank Gods, he thought. A harvester suburb! At last; something he could destroy without a qualm. He turned to the waiting officer to order an air attack, but before he could speak, the engine sounds cut off abruptly, and in their place there rose a crackling, a lashing… He turned and shaded his eyes and saw the western skyline fizz with lightning.

  “Sprites!” one of the Londoners shouted. “They must have come straight through Electric Lane, the poor devils! They’ve been struck!”

  * * *

  On Harrowbarrow’s bridge the smoke stirred slowly, tying itself into gentle knots. Wren lay on her back on the floor and watched it. The
dull red emergency lights flickered. Someone groaned. She began to hear other voices: cries and angry shouts coming from other parts of the suburb. No engine noise now to drown them out.

  She tried to work out if she had been injured. She didn’t think she had. Someone had crashed into her, and she had fallen to the floor; perhaps she had been unconscious for a few seconds. She was shaking, and her head was full of memories of the things she had just seen—the sparks spewing from failing instruments and exploding control panels; the helmsman screaming as the metal wheel he was gripping became a mandala of blue light.

  She supposed her plan had worked. She supposed she should feel pleased with herself.

  Wolf Kobold stumbled to his feet. There was blood on his face, black in the red light. “Up!” he shouted hoarsely. “Everybody up! Get up! I want the emergency engines online at once! Hausdorfer, get down to the engine districts and bring me a damage report! Lorcas, pull us out of this damned lightning swamp… Zbigniew, organize scouting teams; get them out now, now!”

  “But the lightning—”

  “Whatever it was, it’s gone; spent for the moment. We mustn’t let this delay give the Londoners time to escape.”

  Zbigniew started shouting orders into the speaking tubes, while Lorcas dragged the dead helmsman’s body from the wheel and flung it to the floor. Wren started to edge toward the companion ladder amid the sounds of Kobold’s dazed men stirring, groans and frightened questions, curses. Someone asked in Anglish, “What in the name of the Thatcher has happened?”

  “Her,” said Hausdorfer. He was on his feet, gripping the back of Kobold’s chair for support. He was pointing at Wren, his hands shaking almost as much as hers. “She led us here!”

  Kobold looked at her. “No.”

  “It was her, Wolf!” growled Hausdorfer, unbuttoning the holster on his belt. “Think with your head, not your heart. She knew this would happen! She hoped to fry us and protect her friends!”