Behemoth (39 page)

The ironclad’s kraken-fighting arms swung about, their snippers slashing at the sea monster’s flesh. But the tentacles didn’t seem to feel the cuts, coiling like slow pythons around the center of the warship. A huge head lifted up from the water, two eyes gleaming in the red of the spotlight.…

Alek took a step back. Unlike a kraken’s, the behemoth’s tentacles were only a small part of the beast. Its long body was all bony plates and segments, a spiny ridge traveling down its back. It repulsed him, like something dragged up from the deepest ocean, ancient and alien.

A desolate sound rolled across the water, the ironclad’s hull wailing as it bent in the behemoth’s grasp. Her small guns were firing in all directions, the kraken-fighting arms flailing against the massive tentacles. Men and spent ammunition slid across the warship’s decks as she rocked back and forth.

“Barking spiders,” Dylan breathed. “Dr. Barlow said the beastie was huge, but I never thought …”

Something flared inside the
Goeben
’s broken hull, one of her boilers spilling flame. Hissing steam clouds shot from ruptures in the ship’s armor plates.

The Tesla cannon tried to fire, but its half-charged lightning barely leapt into the sky, then tumbled back to coil around the behemoth’s tentacles and dance on the metal decks. Explosions flickered up and down the warship’s length as fuel tanks and magazines were ignited by white fire.

The searchlight turned a brilliant blue, and in one huge motion the behemoth hauled its body onto the superstructure, forcing the warship down. The
Goeben
resisted for a moment, but then her foredecks slipped beneath the waves. The aft end rose up, and the Tesla cannon climbed into the dark sky, still shimmering. With a metal shriek the warship split in two, both halves sliding neatly down into the water.

A lone kraken-fighting arm reached up from the
churning waves, its claw snapping at the air before it disappeared again. Then a burst of red light flared beneath the surface, sending columns of fresh steam into the air.

The water settled slowly, and then was still again.

“Poor bum-rags,” Dylan said.

Alek stood silent. In the last month he’d somehow forgotten what the revolution would mean for the crew of the
Goeben
.

“I have to join my comrades,” Lilit said, kneeling beside the long canvas bag. She pulled out a mass of metal poles and rippling silk, and set to work. The contraption expanded, driven by coils of springs inside. In moments it was five meters across, the wings as translucent as those of a mosquito.

“What in blazes?” Dylan cried.

“A body kite,” Alek said. “But you’ll never make it back to Istanbul in that.”

“I don’t need to. My uncle’s fishing boat is waiting beneath the cliffs.” Lilit turned to Dylan. “I’m sorry, but he can be trusted. And I had to tell someone else our plan, in case we needed a way back to the city.”

“Now?” Dylan asked. “But we have to check on Klopp and Bauer!”

“Of course you do; they’re your friends. But the revolution needs its leaders tonight.” Lilit stared across the water, her voice falling. “And Nene will need me too.”

As she stood there, fresh tears streaking the grime on her face, Alek thought of the night his own parents had died. Strangely, all he could recall now was repeating the story to Eddie Malone in payment for the man’s silence. It was as if the telling had erased the real memory.

“I’m sorry about your father,” he said, every word stiff and clumsy in his mouth.

Lilit gave him a curious look. “If the sultan wins tonight, you’ll simply run off somewhere new, won’t you?”

Alek frowned. “That’s probably true.”

“Good luck, then,” she said. “Your gold was very useful.”

“You’re welcome, if that was meant as a thank you.”

“It was.” She turned to Dylan. “No matter what happens, I’ll never forget what you’ve done for us. I think you’re the most brilliant boy I’ve ever met.”

“Aye, well, it was just—”

Lilit didn’t let him finish, but threw her arms around him, kissing him hard on the lips. After a long moment she pulled away and smiled. “I’m sorry. I was just curious.”

“Curious? Barking spiders!” Dylan cried, a hand at his mouth. “You hardly know me!”

Lilit laughed and lifted the body kite into the air. As its wings filled with the cool sea breeze, she stepped to the edge of the cliffs, her hands on the pilot strut.

“I know you better than you think,
Mr
. Sharp.” She
smiled, turning to Alek. “You don’t know what a friend you have in Dylan.”

With that, she stepped off into the darkness … and fell from their sight.

Alek rushed to the edge of the cliff, looking down in horror. The body kite tumbled for a moment, but then steadied itself and angled out to sea. The wind lifted it up
higher, almost level with the cliff tops, and for a moment they could hear Lilit’s laughter once more.

The kite turned hard, banking toward the city lights. A moment later it had slipped away into the darkness.

“
Mr.
Sharp,” Bovril said, and chuckled.

Alek shook his head, wondering at Lilit. Her father was dead and her city in flames—and there she was, soaring through the air, somehow laughing.

“That girl is quite mad.”

“Aye.” Dylan touched his mouth again. “But she’s not a bad kisser.”

Alek looked at the boy, then shook his head again.

“Come on. Let’s go see about Master Klopp.”

The iron golem lay in a heap of train cars and scattered cargo, its legs twisted and torn. Only its upper half remained intact, the huge head leaning back against the wreckage of two freight cars, a sleeping giant with a crumpled metal pillow.

Deryn and Alek made their way closer, through electrical parts and shattered glass. The railroad tracks had been torn from the ground, and lay among the other debris like tangled ribbons of steel.

“Blisters,” Deryn said as they passed an overturned dining car, its red velvet curtains spilling through broken windows. “Lucky there were no passengers aboard.”

“We can get up to the golem’s head that way,” Alek said, pointing at the huge hand lying splayed in the dirt. They climbed onto it and up the walker’s arm, and soon saw two motionless forms strapped into the pilots’ chairs.

“Master Klopp!” Alek cried out. “Hans!”

One of the men stirred.

Deryn saw that it was Bauer, his eyes glazed, his hands reaching feebly for the seat straps. She followed Alek up and helped him get the man out.

“Was uns getroffen?”
he asked.

“Der Orient-Express,”
Alek explained.

Bauer gave him a befuddled look, then saw the wreckage around them, belief dawning slowly in his face.

The three of them unstrapped Klopp and laid him on the golem’s broad shoulder. The master of mechaniks still wasn’t moving. Blood caked his face, and when Deryn put her hand to Klopp’s neck, his pulse was weak.

“We have to get him to a doctor.”

“Yes, but how?” Alek asked.

Deryn’s eyes swept the battlefield. Not a single walker remained standing. But in the sky the
Leviathan
’s silhouette had swung into profile. It was just as she’d expected—now that it had dispatched the
Goeben
, the airship was coming about for a closer look at the wrecked Tesla cannon.

She opened her mouth to explain, but suddenly the beastie on her shoulder was imitating a soft thumping sound.

Alek heard it too. “Walkers.”

Deryn turned toward the city. A dozen columns of smoke rose from the horizon.

“Could they be from the Committee?”

Alek shook his head. “They don’t even know we’re here.”

“Aye, it was
meant
to be that way. But that anarchist lassie told her uncle, didn’t she?”

Bauer rose unsteadily to his feet, lifting a pair of field glasses. One lens was shattered, so he held the other to his eye like a telescope.

“Elefanten,”
he said a moment later.

Alek swore. “At least those things are slow.”

“But we’ll never carry Klopp out of here,” Deryn said. “Not without help.”

“And where do you suppose we’ll get that?”

She pointed up at the dark shape over the water, still turning, its searchlights angling toward the cliffs now. “The
Leviathan
is on its way to take a closer look. We can signal them, and get Klopp to the ship’s surgeon.”

“A, B, C …,” Bovril said happily.

“They’ll take us prisoner again!” Alek said.

“Aye, and what do you think the barking Ottomans will do, after all this?” Deryn swept her arm across the wreckage. “At least with us you’ll be alive!”

“Ich kann bleiben mit Meister Klopp, Herr,”
Bauer said.

Deryn’s eyes narrowed. After a month working with Clankers, her German was much better. “What does he mean, he’ll stay with Klopp?”

Alek turned to Deryn. “Your ship can pick Bauer and Klopp up, while you and I make a run for it.”

Deryn’s jaw dropped. “Have you gone barking mad?”

“The Ottomans will never spot us in all this mess.” Alek clenched his fists. “And just think, if the Committee wins tonight, they’ll throw the Germans out. And they owe both of us a debt, Dylan. We can stay here, among allies.”

“Not me, you daft prince! I have to go home!”

“But I can’t do this alone … not without you.” His eyes softened. “Please come with me.”

Deryn turned from him, for a moment wishing that Alek were asking this same question but in a different way. Not as some
Dummkopf
of a prince who expected everyone to serve his purposes, but as a man.

It wasn’t his fault, of course. She’d never told Alek why she’d really come to Istanbul—not for the mission but for him. She hadn’t told him anything, and it was too late now. They’d been together a whole month, working and fighting side by side, and still she hadn’t convinced herself that a common girl could matter to him.

So what was the point of staying?

“There’s more to do here, Dylan,” he said. “You’re the best soldier the revolution has.”

“Aye, but that’s my home up there. I can’t live with … your machines.”

Alek spread his hands. “It doesn’t matter. Your crew will never see us.”

“They have to.” Deryn stared out across the battlefield,
looking for something to signal with. But Alek was right; even if she had ten-foot semaphore flags, no one would ever see her among the wreckage of the train.

Then she saw them—the golem’s arms stretched out in both directions. The right one was straight out, the left one at an angle, almost making the sign for the letter
S
.

“Can this contraption still move?”

“What, the walker?”

“A, B, C,” Bovril said again.

“Aye. A giant sending signals would be barking hard to miss.”

“The boilers are cold,” Alek said. “But I suppose the pneumatics might still have some pressure in them.”

“Then take a look!”

Alek gritted his teeth, but climbed back up to the head and knelt by the controls. He rapped at two of the gauges, then turned back, an uncertain look on his face.

“Can it work?” she called. “Don’t lie to me!”

“I would never lie to you, Dylan. We can signal perhaps a dozen letters.”