Behemoth (22 page)

Count Volger stared at her for a long moment, and Deryn realized that she’d let her voice go all squeaky. That was what came of thinking too hard about Alek—it turned her pure dead girly sometimes.

“This Alek fellow just gets more and more interesting,” Malone said, pen scratching against his pad. “Can you give me a bit more background on him?”

“No!” Deryn and Volger said together.

The cast off alert sounded, and Deryn heard footsteps scrambling in the corridor outside. She swore—the captain had ordered a fast ascent. They had to make it down the peninsula before sunset, or her landing party would be keelhaul dropping in the dark.

“We have to go now,” she said, dragging Malone toward the door. “They’ll be coming for his countship soon, to help with the engines.”

“What about my interview?”

“If they catch us in here, you’ll be interviewing a barking hangman!” Deryn eased open the door, peeking out and waiting for the corridor to clear.

“Mr. Sharp,” Count Volger said from behind her. “I hope you understand that this complicates things.”

She looked over her shoulder. “What are you blethering about?”

“I need to rejoin Alek and talk him out of this madness. And that means escaping from this ship. Hoffman and I shall need your help with that.”

“Have you gone barking mad as well?” she cried. “I’m not a traitor … not
that
much of one, anyway.”

“Perhaps, but if you don’t help us, I shall be forced to reveal your little secret.”

Deryn froze.

“I had begun to suspect during our fencing lessons,”
the count said coolly. “There’s something about the way you stand. And your outbursts on Alek’s behalf have also been revealing. But really it was the look on your face just now that removed all doubt.”

“I don’t know … what you’re talking about,” she said. The words came out ridiculously low, like a wee boy trying to sound like a man.

“Neither do I,” Eddie Malone said, his pen flying across the page. “But this is sure getting interesting.”

“So if you want to continue serving on this ship,
Mr.
Sharp, I think you will be helping us to escape.” A cruel smile spread across Count Volger’s face. “Or shall I give our reporter friend here the news?”

Deryn’s head was spinning like mad. She’d lived this moment in a hundred nightmares, but now the moment had arrived like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. And from barking
Count Volger
, of all people.

Suddenly Deryn hated all sneaky, clever people.

She bit her lip, forcing her thoughts into focus. She was Midshipman Dylan Sharp, a decorated officer in His Majesty’s Air Service, not some ninny about to lose her head. Whatever she said now, she could scheme her way out of this later.

“All right, then,” she spat. “I’ll help you escape.”

Volger drummed his fingers. “It’ll have to be tomorrow night, before the
Leviathan
leaves Istanbul for good.”

“Don’t you worry. I’ll be glad to see the back side of you!”

With that, she dragged Eddie Malone out the door.

Three hours later Deryn found herself staring out the
Leviathan
’s open cargo door, a heavy pack on her back and a rocky expanse rolling past below.

She sighed.
Might as well jump now, without a barking rope.

No matter how she thought the matter through, everything was hopeless and ruined. The count had guessed her secret, and he’d done so right smack in front of a reporter. Her first command was about to begin, but her career was practically over.

“Don’t worry, lad,” the bosun said from beside her. “It’s never as far as it looks.”

She nodded, wishing that it was something piffling like a keelhaul drop that had her jittery. Gravity was something you could beat; all it took was hydrogen, hot air, or even a bit of rope. But being a girl was a miserable, never-ending struggle.

“I’m fine, Mr. Rigby. Just can’t wait to get started.” She turned toward her men. “How about you lot?”

The three men in her landing party put on brave faces, but their eyes stayed glued to the passing landscape. As the Sphinx drew closer, the airship slowed, turning into the
stiff breeze coming off the ocean. But the officers couldn’t come to a full halt without giving the sultan and his men too clear a view of the ground beneath them.

A bit cheeky, committing espionage right in front of a nation’s sovereign.

The bosun consulted his watch. “Twenty seconds, I’d say.”

“Clip your lines!” Deryn ordered. Her heart was starting to race now, driving out her gloomy thoughts. Volger and his threats could get stuffed. She could always toss him out his stateroom window.

The terrain was rising beneath the ship now, turning from trees to scrub grass and rock, then finally sand. To her right was the Sphinx, a natural formation thrusting up like an ancient statue of some pagan god.

“Get ready, lads.” She shouted, “Three, two, one …” … and jumped.

The rope hissed through her safety clip, angry and piping hot in the sea breeze. She heard her comrades descending around her, a chorus of whirring cables slicing through the air.

The ground came up fast, and Deryn snapped on a second clip. The friction doubled, jerking her into a slower fall. But solid rock and scrub grass still blurred beneath her, too fast for comfort.

Then she felt it, a sway in her line. The airship was
slowing just a squick. Her rope swung forward with her momentum, then began a slow swing backward, so that her position was almost static with the ground below.

“Now!” Deryn cried, and pulled her second clip from the line.

She dropped fast, hitting hard sand and loose, flat rocks that crunched and powdered under her boots. The impact shook her spine, but she stumbled along, managing to keep her feet. The rest of the cable whipped through her safety clip, smacked her hand spitefully, then skipped across the beach toward the sunset.

As the
Leviathan
slid away into the distance, its engine noise faded into the crash of the waves. Deryn felt her gloom descend again, along with a lonely feeling of being left behind.

She turned around, counting three other figures on the ridge. At least none of her command had been dragged into the sea.

“Everyone all right?” she called.

“Aye, sir!” two calls from the growing darkness, followed by a soft groan.

It was Matthews, ten yards away and still not on his feet. Deryn scrambled across the loose rocks, and found him curled into a tight ball.

“It’s my ankle, sir,” he said, teeth clenched. “I’ve turned it.”

“All right. Let’s see if you can stand.” Deryn waved for the other men, then shrugged out of her heavy pack. She knelt and checked the glass case that held the vitriolic barnacles; it hadn’t broken.

When Airmen Spencer and Robins had made their way over, she had them lift Matthews to his feet. But the moment his weight settled on the twisted right ankle, he cried out in pain.

“Set him down,” she ordered, then let out a slow breath.

The man’s ankle was stuffed. There was no way he could walk two miles across the rocky peninsula and back.

“You’ll have to wait here, Matthews.”

“Aye, sir. But when are they picking us up?”

Deryn hesitated. Of the four of them, only she knew exactly when the
Leviathan
would return to the Sphinx. That way, if the men were captured, the Ottomans couldn’t set a trap for the airship.

As for Deryn herself, well, she was a decorated hero, wasn’t she? The Ottomans would never drag the truth from her.

“I can’t tell you, Matthews. Just wait here, and don’t let anyone see you.” The man winced in pain again, and she added, “Trust me, the captain won’t leave us behind.”

They knelt and divided the four packs among the three of them, giving Matthews most of the water and
a little bully beef. Then Deryn, Robins, and Spencer headed down the ridge toward the strait, leaving him all alone.

A few minutes into her first command, and she was already one man down.

Two miles hadn’t looked very far on the map, but the real Gallipoli was a different matter.

The peninsula was crisscrossed by high steep-sided ridges, as if mountains of limestone had been raked to pieces by giant claws. The valleys between were choked with dry, brittle undergrowth. And whenever Deryn and her party rested, ants made their way out of the sandy ground to torment their ankles.

To make things worse, the Royal Navy’s maps of Gallipoli were useless, showing only a fraction of the ridgelines and overgrown ravines. Deryn kept an eye on her compass and on the stars overhead, but the tangled geography still forced her into tortured zigzags.

By the time they reached the other side of the peninsula, it was after midnight.

“I reckon this has to be Kilye Niman, sir,” Spencer
said, dropping his heavy pack to the ground.

Deryn nodded, peering down at the beach through her field glasses. Two lines of buoys stretched across the narrow strait, bobbing gently on the waves. The giant metal barrels were covered with cruel-looking barbs and phosphorous bombs. Hanging unseen beneath them would be the kraken nets, a thick lattice of metal cables threaded with more spikes and explosives.

Rising from the water at either end of the nets were tall towers, their searchlights sweeping slowly across the water. Deryn made a quick sketch of the fortifications she could see—at least a score of twelve-inch guns aiming down from the cliffs, all sheltered in bunkers cut deep into the limestone.

Impossible for ships to get past, but the behemoth could slip by beneath the water’s surface.

“I reckon the navy will owe us a few favors after this, sir,” said Robins.

“Aye, but it’s the Russians who’ll really thank us,” Deryn said, spotting a cargo ship waiting for daylight to arrive so it could sail past the nets. “This is their lifeline.”

When she’d told Volger about the
Goeben
and the
Breslau
, he’d agreed that the Germans’ ultimate plan was to close The Straits. Starving the Russian army’s fighting bears was worth giving the sultan a pair of ironclads.

She pulled the diving gear from their packs, and knelt
in the brush to put the suit together. It was a Spottiswoode Rebreather, the first underwater apparatus created from fabricated creatures. The suit had been woven from salamander skin and tortoise shell. The rebreather itself was practically a living creature, a set of fabricated gills that had to be kept wet even in storage.

In short, the suit was a Monkey Luddite’s nightmare. Deryn felt a squick of jitters herself as she crawled inside, the wrinkled skin of reptiles slithering over her own. At least it made Spencer and Robins nervous too; they were happy to turn away as she put it on. Even as dark as it was, it would have been tricky stripping down to her skivvies in front of two airmen.

When Deryn was ready, she and Spencer crept down to the beach, leaving Robins to guard the packs. At the water’s edge the tides had carved a yard-high bank of sand to hide behind.
They waited there for the searchlights to sweep past, then slapped across the luminous wet sand of the beach, wading into the cool salt water of the strait.

“Here you go, sir,” Spencer said, handing her the rebreather. “I’ll stay right here by the water.”

“Just stay hidden.” Deryn dipped her goggles and strapped them on. “If I’m away longer than three hours, go back and see to Matthews before it’s light. I can get back on my own.”

“Aye, sir.” Spencer saluted and crept back to the shadows. When he was out of sight, Deryn finally unwrapped the glass cases of vitriolic barnacles. As per the captain’s orders, she hadn’t let the men catch even a glimpse of them.

The searchlight was sweeping around again, and she sank down to her neck, pressing the rebreather to her mouth.

Just as in Dr. Busk’s office a few hours before, the feeling was uncanny and a bit horrid. The tendrils of the beastie crept into her mouth, seeking a source of carbon dioxide. A fishy taste covered her tongue, and the air she breathed turned warm and salty, like in the
Leviathan
’s galley when the cooks were frying up anchovies.

Deryn bent her knees, dropping beneath the surface.