Leviathan

TWENTY

The Klaxon was ringing in triplets, the signal for an aerial attack.

“I have to run, ma’am,” Deryn said quickly. “Can you make it back to your cabin alone?”

“I’d think not, Mr. Sharp. I shall be with my cargo.”

“But—but … this is an alert,” Deryn sputtered. “You can’t go to the machine room!”

Dr. Barlow took Tazza’s leash from her. “That cargo is more important than your regulations, young man.”

“But passengers are supposed to stay—”

“And midshipmen are supposed to be sixteen years old.” Dr. Barlow waved her hand. “Don’t you have some sort of battle station to get to?”

Deryn let out a pained growl, but gave up in disgust and turned away. She’d done her best—the lady boffin could hang herself out the windows if she wanted.

As Deryn ran back toward the main gondola, the aluminum walkway trembled under her feet. The whole crew was scrambling, filling the passageways of the ship. She dodged past a squad of men in gastric suits and reached the gut hatch, dropping halfway through for a peek outside.

The icy wind between gondola and airbeast rumbled with an unfamiliar sound. Not the hum of motivator engines—the angry snarl of Clanker technology. A winged shape caught a flash of moonlight in the distance, an Iron Cross painted on its tail.

The German aeroplanes could fly this high after all.

Deryn dropped the rest of the way down, landing hard enough to bang her teeth together. The middies’ battle station was topside with the bats, so she’d need a flight suit to keep from freezing. Deryn’s suit was back in her cabin, but the riggers always had spares hanging in their bunk room. She dodged through the press of men and hydrogen sniffers, looking for a suit with a pair of gloves stuffed into the pockets. There wasn’t time to find goggles; Dr. Barlow’s pigheadedness had delayed her long enough.

As she buttoned the coverall up to her neck, Deryn felt dizzy for a moment. The rush of battle had come too soon after the shock of Dr. Barlow’s near discovery. The lady boffin had promised not to tell, but she didn’t know the whole story—not yet. With those sharp eyes of hers, she’d have to guess the truth eventually.

Deryn took a deep breath and shook her head clear. This wasn’t the time to fret about secrets. The war was finally here.

She gave her safety line a yank to test its strength, then headed for the rigging hatches.

There were at least a half dozen flying machines hunting the Leviathan. They were hard to count, staying in the distance to keep clear of the strafing hawks and their aeroplane nets.

Deryn was halfway to topside, climbing fast in the freezing wind. Men and fabricated animals swarmed the ratlines, the ropes pressing hard against the membrane with their weight.

She heard the motivator engines change pitch, and the world began to tilt. As the airship rolled, Deryn found herself on the underside again, hanging from the ratlines by two hands. The crewmen around her swung from their safety harnesses, but Deryn’s clip dangled unused from her belt.

“Blisters!” she swore, looking up at her aching hands— possibly Mr. Rigby had been right about using safety clips in battle.

She swung her feet, hooking one leg into the ropes to free a hand. The ship rolled harder over, and a message lizard overhead lost its grip. It tumbled past her, shouting random words in a dreadful mix of human voices.

Deryn tore her eyes away from the poor beastie—her fingers had found the safety clip. After snapping it onto a rope, she let herself hang from the harness, resting the burning muscles in her hands.

A roar was building in the air.

From half a mile away a Clanker machine rushed toward her. An engine thundered on each wing, billowing twin trails of smoke. The broad, batlike wings stretched and twisted as the aeroplane came alongside… .

Its machine gun erupted, sweeping the flank of the Leviathan.

Men and beasties scrambled to escape the path of the bullets. Deryn saw a hydrogen sniffer hit, dancing in agony against the ratlines, then flailing madly as it fell. Glowworms sputtered bright green sparks as they were torn apart beneath the skin.

The aeroplane kept coming, thundering straight toward her. Deryn unclipped her harness and slid down as fast as she could. Bullets rippled through the membrane just overhead, like stones splashing into water. The ropes jerked in her grasp, trembling with the airship’s pain.

The gun finally sputtered out, the aeroplane peeling away. But a bright spark flared against the darkness. The gunner had ignited a phosphorous canister. He hoisted it high, the device sparking and smoking as the plane circled back toward the Leviathan.

Deryn’s hands tightened on the ropes, but there was nowhere to climb. The bitter-almond scent of hydrogen filled her lungs. The entire airship was primed to explode.

But then a searchlight swept into view. An aerie of strafing hawks followed its arc, carrying an aeroplane net. Its glistening strands trailed from the birds’ harnesses, binding them together in a web of gossamer.

The hawks turned and wheeled in formation, stretching the glowing lace across the aeroplane’s path… .

The machine crashed into the net, which wrapped around it, spilling fabricated spider acid from its strands. The acid burned through wings and struts and flesh in seconds. Pieces spun off wildly, the plane’s wings folding like scissors in the air.

The Clanker crewmen, the deadly phosphorous canister, and a hundred metal parts tumbled toward the snowy peaks below.

A ragged cheer went up along the airship’s flank, fists raised as the machine fell. The riggers were soon at work patching the membrane, but a few men hung unmoving in their harnesses, lifeless or moaning in pain.

Deryn wasn’t a medic, and she was supposed to be topside by now, but it took her a long moment to start climbing again and leave the bleeding crewmen behind.

There were more aeroplanes out there, she reminded herself, and the fléchette bats needed feeding.

Topside was covered with crewmen, guns, and sniffers going barmy with the smell of spilled hydrogen.

Deryn stayed off the crowded dorsal ridge, running along the soft membrane to one side. She reckoned the airbeast wouldn’t notice one wee middy’s footsteps after all those bullets ripping through its side.

The Leviathan’s crew was firing back now, air guns chattering from the dorsal ridge and engine pods, searchlights guiding the strafing hawks out into the darkness. But what the ship really needed was more fléchette bats in the air.

When she reached the bow, Newkirk and Rigby were already there, wildly casting handfuls of feed. A few riggers had joined them to make up for the missing middies.

The bosun glared at her, and Deryn spat the words, “Tending to the boffin, sir!”

“Thought as much.” He tossed her a feed bag. “They caught us napping, didn’t they? Didn’t know these blasted Clankers could fly so high!”

Deryn scooped out grain and fléchettes as fast as she could. Most of the bats were already airborne in all the ruckus.

“Get down, lads!” someone cried. “One’s coming in!”

An aeroplane was roaring straight toward the bow. Deryn dropped, landing hard on a stray fléchette. The main air gun fired, and she felt the whoosh of bolts flying overhead. A host of startled bats streamed up in the bolts’ wake.

Deryn glanced up. The air gun had hit home. The aeroplane shuddered, its engine coughing once. Then it twisted in the air and began to spin out of control, crumpling like paper in a giant hand.

Triumphant cries rose up across the airship’s topside, but Mr. Rigby didn’t pause to cheer. He scrambled to his feet and ran to Newkirk, snapping their safety lines together.

“Come on, Sharp!” he yelled. “Link up! We’re going forward.”

Deryn jumped up and ran after them, clipping her safety line to Newkirk’s. The bosun led them off the dorsal ridge and onto the downward slope of the bow. The last few hundred bats always malingered in the nesting coves, and tonight the Leviathan needed all of her beasties in the air.

The bow skin was tougher than the flank, designed for plowing through storm fronts and squalls. Deryn’s boots skidded on its hard surface, the heavy feed bag pulling her off balance. She swallowed—ropes and ratlines were few and far apart here on the airbeast’s forehead.

The slope grew steeper. Soon Deryn could see all the way down to the blinders stretched across the whale’s eyes, shielding them from distractions and the sting of bullets.

Another aeroplane roared beneath them, its machine gun firing at the port engine pod. The sound of shrieking gears rang in the cold air. In answer, two searchlight beams swept to follow the plane, full of dark and fluttering shapes… .

Deryn watched with horror. The searchlight crews weren’t bothering to turn the beams red, the signal for the bats to release their fléchettes. They were guiding the flock straight into the path of the Clanker aircraft. The bats themselves weren’t very heavy, but the metal spikes in their guts were enough to shred the aeroplane. The sickening shrieks of the poor wee creatures carried over the noise of ruined engines and tearing wings.

As Deryn watched the aircraft fall, her feet slipped. The ground was shifting beneath her.

“We’re diving, lads!” Mr. Rigby shouted. “Get hold of something!”

Snow-covered mountains tilted into view ahead, and Deryn’s stomach twisted. The airship had never dived this fast! Deryn dropped flat, fingers scrabbling for purchase. The feed bag skidded away, spilling figs and fléchettes into the night sky.

She was still sliding … falling.

Then the safety line jerked, bringing Deryn to a halt. She looked up to see Newkirk and Rigby settled in a nesting cove, bats swirling around their heads.

She pulled herself up into the warmth of the cove. It was full of bat dung and old fléchettes, but there were plenty of handholds, at least.

“Glad you could join us, Mr. Sharp,” Newkirk said, grinning like a loon. “This is brilliant, isn’t it?”

Deryn frowned. “When did you get so brave?”

Before he could answer, the world rolled beneath them again.

“We’ve lost an engine,” Mr. Rigby said.

Deryn closed her eyes, listening to the pulse of the airship. The ship sounded weak. It flew at an odd angle, the airflow turbulent around them.

Clanker aeroplanes still rumbled out there in the darkness—two of them, by the sound—and the Leviathan’s searchlight beams looked almost empty of bats. The beasties were uselessly scattered across the night sky, too scared by gunfire and collisions to reform.

“We need more bats in the air!” Mr. Rigby shouted, and swiftly unwound a rope from his belt, replacing the line connecting Deryn and Newkirk with a fifty-foot length. “There’s a big cove below us, Sharp. Swing down and see if you can scare up a few more of the little blighters.” He shoved his own feed bag into her hands. “Make sure the beasties are stuffed before you boot them out.”

“What about me?” Newkirk complained. Battle seemed to agree with him, but Deryn just felt airsick from it all.

“When I’ve got a longer line on you,” Rigby said, still working his ropes. “Don’t fancy losing my last two middies.”

Deryn climbed over the edge of the cove, trying to ignore the mountain peaks rising steadily toward them. Had the airship lost too much hydrogen to stay aloft?

She forced the thoughts from her head, carefully making her way down toward a dark rift in the airbeast’s skin. The growl of a Clanker engine was building in her ears, but Deryn didn’t dare look away from her feet and hands.

Only a few more yards …

A machine gun erupted behind her, and she pressed flat against the Leviathan, closing her eyes and whispering, “Don’t worry, beastie. I’ll get these bum-rags sorted for you.”

Searchlights flashed across her closed eyelids, and the machine roared away, leaving the foul smell of its engine fumes mixed with leaking hydrogen.

Deryn let herself drop the last few feet, her boots barely catching the lip of the cove. She clung to the rope and swung inside, skidding onto her knees.

The cove was empty. Not a single bat remained to take the air.

“Barking spiders,” Deryn swore softly.

The floor shifted beneath her, and she turned and looked back out. The horizon tilted. Then the mountains disappeared, replaced by the cold and starry sky… . The Leviathan was climbing again!

She pulled herself out of the cove. The slope she’d descended was almost level now that the ship was climbing again. Rigby and Newkirk were out in the open, their harnesses joined by a long rope.

“No luck, sir,” she cried up. “I think they’re all gone!”

“Come on, then, lads.” Mr. Rigby turned and started back up toward the spine. “Let’s get off the bow before she dives again.”

The three of them spread out to the full length of their safety lines, rousting the last few bats on the way up. Deryn climbed as fast as she could. With the airship twisting and turning like this, being topside didn’t seem quite so brilliant anymore.

The last two aeroplanes still skulked in the distance, and Deryn wondered what they were waiting for. A few strafing hawks were in the air, but their nets looked tattered. Only one searchlight was lit—the crew trying to gather the fléchette bats into a single flock.

Up on the spine things had got worse. The forward air gun was being pulled apart by a repair team. Wounded men were everywhere, and the sniffers were in a frenzy from so much spilled hydrogen. The whale’s huge harness was frayed with bullet holes.

Deryn knelt beside an injured man, whose hand clutched the leash of a hydrogen sniffer. The beastie whined at her, looking up from its master’s pale face. She looked closer. The man was dead.

“CARNAGE ON THE SPINE.”

Deryn felt herself start to shake, unsure whether it was the cold or the shock of battle. She’d been aboard only a month, but this was like watching her family dying, her home burning down in front of her.

Then the inevitable roar of Clanker engines built again, and all eyes turned toward the dark sky. The last two aeroplanes were coming in together, hurling themselves against the airship one more time.

Deryn wondered what the crews in those machines were thinking. They’d seen their fellow airmen fall from the sky. Surely they knew they were about to die. What madness made killing the Leviathan so important to them?

The lone searchlight swept across their path, and one of the aeroplanes shuddered in the air. The small black shapes of bats tore through its wings and the plane banked hard. An impassive part of Deryn’s brain saw how the airflow around the wings had changed, how the plane would soon crumple and fall …

She turned away as it burst into flame.

But the noise of the other growling engine still drew closer.

“Blast! She means to ram us!” Mr. Rigby cried, running ahead for a clearer view.

Someone at the front air gun swore. Its compressors had failed again, but other guns fired from farther aft. Suddenly all the searchlights flared back to life and lanced into the darkness, until the approaching plane glowed like a fireball in the sky.

Tiny black wings fluttered along the searchlight beams, and the aeroplane shuddered and shook as it plowed through the bats. But somehow it kept coming.

A hundred feet away the machine finally twisted in the air. The wings folded, and pieces fluttered in all directions. The gunner’s cockpit broke off, his weapon still blazing. The propeller somehow wrenched itself from the engine, spiraling away like a mad insect.

Deryn felt a trembling under her feet, and she pulled off a glove, kneeling to place her palm on the freezing dorsal scales. A low moan shook the airbeast. Bits of the disintegrating plane were tearing into the Leviathan, rupturing the membrane. Deryn closed her eyes.

One stray spark would turn them all into a ball of fire.

She heard a cry. Mr. Rigby was staggering away down the slope of the airship’s flank, clutching his stomach.

“He’s hit!” Newkirk shouted.

Rigby stumbled a few steps, then fell to his knees, bouncing a little on the membrane. Newkirk was running after him, but some squick of instinct held Deryn in place.

The whole ship was tilting forward now, heading back into a steep dive. The smell of hydrogen washed over her.

Mr. Rigby was sliding down the flank—gravity had caught him. His skid turned into a roll.

Deryn took a step forward, then looked down at the rope connecting her to the others. “Barking spiders!”

If the bosun went over the side, he’d drag Newkirk with him. Then Deryn would be snatched away like a fly on the end of a frog’s tongue. She looked around for something to clip herself to, but the ratlines at her feet were frayed and stretched.

“Newkirk, get back here!”

The boy paused a moment, watching Mr. Rigby slide away. Then he turned back, comprehension dawning on his face. But it was too late—the rope connecting him to Rigby was straightening fast.

Newkirk looked up at her hopelessly, his hand moving to the rigging knife at his belt.

“No!” Deryn cried.

Then she realized what she had to do.

She turned and ran the other way, hurtling down the opposite flank of the airship. Dodging crewmen and sniffers as the membrane fell away, Deryn jumped as hard as she could into the night sky… .

The snap of the rope hit her like a punch in the stomach, the safety harness cutting into her shoulders. She rolled into a ball as her body hit the flank membrane, knocking her breath away.

Deryn bounced to a halt, then found herself skidding back up the flank of the airbeast. Rigby had to have yanked Newkirk off behind him—their combined weight was dragging her back up to the spine!

She grabbed at passing ropes, finally snaring one and bringing herself to a halt. But her safety line pulled harder, the harness squeezing the breath from her lungs.

Then the rope went slack, and Deryn looked up in horror. Had it broken? Had Newkirk cut himself loose?

On the spine a squad of riggers held her line, in a tug of war with something on the other side of the ship. They were pulling Newkirk and the injured bosun back up.

Deryn breathed a sigh of relief, her eyes closing. She held tight to the ratlines, trusting nothing but her own two hands to keep her from tumbling into the dark sky. But as the ship tipped beneath her again, she looked down and realized that two hands wouldn’t be enough.

They were all falling.

The Alps rose toward the ship, the tallest peaks only a few hundred feet below. A blanket of snow covered all but a few dark outcrops of stone, like jagged black teeth waiting patiently for prey.

The wounded Leviathan was crashing slowly back to earth.