Shadow of the War Machine (The Secret Order) (32 page)

As I pulled myself straight, Will threw his weight back, and the pendulum swung with agonizing slowness in the other direction. I felt as if we were on a Russian swing, working in tandem to move the heavy weight.

“The gears are stiff. Throw all you have into it,” Will said as he pulled himself up. I adjusted my grip, lowering my hands on the rod so I could thrust my hips farther behind me and intensify the shift in my center of gravity.

We found a rhythm, ticking off each swing like a clock counting down the moments until the juggernaut caught us and ripped through the elephant’s side, but there was no possible way to increase the frequency of the pendulum. My shoulder burned with pain and my hands felt slick against the pole holding the swinging weight. My skin still felt the lingering effects of the burn, and fresh blood was seeping through the bandage on my arm again. As I leaned back, my grip gave way. Will caught the chain at my wrist before I fell into the gear-works turning behind me.

As we swung up, he changed his grip so he held me hand to hand. The two of us became a machine ourselves, moving together without a thought, driving the heart of the machine.

The pendulum swung with more freedom and momentum. My stomach rose and dropped with each swoop of the
weight. At the crest of the swing, I found myself nearly parallel to the bottom of the elephant’s belly, and at the opposite point I felt like I would fall backward into the turning gears.

We had suddenly become acrobats in a dire performance.

“Will,” I called. “There’s no way off this thing!” If we jumped, we’d fall into the gears.

“When we crest, grab that ladder,” Will said, pointing behind me.

My heart plunged as we swung up, passing the ladder by inches. We swung down again, and I only had precious seconds before we reached the crest again. With my throat tight and time slowing to a crawl as my mind raced, I let go of Will and the rod, and reached out behind me.

I could hear each slow thump of my heart as I floated in the air and the pendulum dropped away from the soles of my feet.

My fingers reached the ladder, and I clung to it. Time came rushing back. My body dropped, but my hands held fast and I crashed against the ladder, hitting my cheek against one of the rungs. I found a lower rung with my feet and scooted over as the pendulum swung back. Will gracefully reached out and stepped over onto the ladder with the natural agility of a trapeze artist.

He wrapped an arm over my shoulder, and we clung to the ladder. “Are you hurt?”

I shook my head, then clambered up the ladder without much more thought, the chain at my wrist slapping against each rung. I no longer had the luxury to indulge in fear, so I did not.

I emerged into the howdah and into chaos.

Just as I looked up, an enormous phoenix erupted in a ball of fire, screaming in the center of the room. The wings touched the ceiling before the flames burned out, and a golden egg dropped back down to the ground. Crashing
booms
and grinding metal filled the chamber, along with the roar and whine of the battling machines.

Fireworks exploded from the back of the Chinese dragon. The serpent-like creature with the round lion face twisted and snapped as it dodged the light from the death ray.

The floor beneath me shifted, and the elephant flapped its ears. The articulated trunk rose high in the air, and our mechanical steed squealed. It rumbled forward, swinging its large mass as it marched.

Papa manned the controls, and I ran to be next to him, and held on to the edges of the howdah as Will joined us.

We heard a loud
boom
, and Will ducked as a cannonball
hit the roof of the howdah, bending the metal and snapping one of the supports.

“That thing has cannons?” I shouted.

“That’s when I knew it wasn’t meant to clear land,” Papa shouted back, pulling hard on a wheel and turning the elephant. It swung its trunk and almost knocked it into the manticore. Oliver turned the more agile, lionlike creature to the left and spread its wings with a salute back to us.

“Get as close as you can. We can use the trunk to destroy the ray,” I called, then held on while the elephant lurched along.

A rocket shot out from the mouth of the Chinese dragon, smashed into the juggernaut, and exploded in a million bright blue sparks.

“Use the levers to the left,” Papa said. “They control the head and the trunk.”

I grasped the levers and tested them. As I pushed and pulled, the trunk of the beast rose and twisted. I experimented with the motion as much as I could while the elephant marched toward the spinning blades at the front of the juggernaut.

Swallowing my fear, I hoped that the chest of the elephant could withstand the blades. Otherwise, the blades would cut straight into us.

I pulled the lever and swung the trunk. I nearly knocked over a mechanical bear running near the elephant’s feet. It turned and looked up, and I saw Michael perched in its chest.

“Careful, Meg!” he shouted, then used the bear’s mechanical arm to scoop up a piece of debris. He threw it toward the juggernaut with his machine-enhanced strength.

The debris disappeared into the blades. They stuttered and shook as they devoured the piece of metal and threw shrapnel back out.

A wave of heat passed over us, and I grabbed Papa and pulled him down moments before the death ray fired through the howdah.

“Here, get behind this,” Will said. He fixed a large plate he had taken from the broken roof of the howdah as a shield for us.

Another cannonball fired, knocking into the manticore, which crumpled in a heap of metal wings. Its scorpion tail smashed into the wall.

Oliver.

I prayed he was unharmed, that he would live to see his child born and Lucinda wouldn’t have to suffer the loss of another love. It would destroy her.

The manticore whined and died, but there was no sign of the duke.

I shouted for Oliver, but Will grabbed my shoulder. “Stay focused. There’s nothing we can do for him now.”

Papa pushed the controls forward, and the elephant let out a pealing trumpet before charging. “Take hold of something!”

I grabbed the levers and lifted the head and trunk of the elephant high into the air as Papa pushed the machine forward. It thundered toward the juggernaut. I ducked behind the shield. We had to charge blind.

The death ray had focused on our shield, and I could feel the heat through the metal plate in front of us. It began to glow, turning a burning red. Cannons fired. One hit the elephant, and it shuddered. The steps faltered, and the elephant stumbled forward in the throes of death.

I clung to the levers as the beast rammed the juggernaut. Each forceful shake of the impact yanked my arms, hurting my shoulders as I clung to the levers. We were thrown forward, and my momentum sent me crashing into the controls. I pushed the levers forward, and the head and trunk came smashing down on top of the juggernaut.

The elephant leaned to the side, and Papa began to slide
from the howdah. Will grabbed me and shoved me up. Finding footing on the controls, we climbed up over the beast’s head. I grasped the large plate of the ear, then ducked behind it as the death ray nearly caught us.

I peeked around the ear to see the juggernaut struggling against the mass of the elephant.

The ray veered toward me. There was no way to escape.

“Meg! Go now!” David called as he rode in the back of an enormous charging rhinoceros with Samuel at his side.

They leapt off the beast in time to see it crash into the wheels of the juggernaut. The horn and head smashed into the spiked wheels and stopped two of them from turning.

The juggernaut twisted, pulling against the elephant as the wheels on one side of the juggernaut spun but the others did not.

The impact knocked the ray askew, and Will and I made a run for it. We charged over the elephant’s cheek, using the tusk to balance as we climbed over the trunk and onto the control platform for the juggernaut.

Boucher was bent at the controls. Honoré clung to the back of the death ray.

A hatch opened up in the side of the machine, and a cannon emerged.

“David, look out!” I shouted.

Just then Michael in the mechanical bear galloped to the fallen rhinoceros. The bear rose up and roared. Beneath the sound, I heard the victorious shout of my friend.

The cannon fired straight into the heart of the bear.

“Michael!” I screamed.

I watched in horror as the bear fell backward, directly on top of David and Samuel.

I couldn’t tell if they were alive or dead. I didn’t want to believe they could have died.

But how could anyone survive what I had witnessed?

“Meg, watch out!” Will screamed as he knocked me away from the rail. The death ray passed dangerously close to where I had been standing.

I said a prayer for my fallen friends, then faced Boucher.

She would pay for this.

I LUNGED AT BOUCHER AND
knocked her from the controls.

She bore a cut across her cheek from where I had struck her with the chain. Her white hair flew around her face, and her dress was scorched and stained with black ash and coal. With her sunken, wrinkled cheeks and eyes, she looked like a standing corpse.

“Honoré, kill her,” she ordered.

I turned around.

Honoré pulled on the levers of the death ray, but not before Will leapt onto the ray’s supports. He climbed like a cat and threw himself onto Honoré’s back. Will grabbed my
bastard uncle around the neck, nearly taking the two of them backward over the rail.

“Will, watch out!” I shouted.

Boucher’s footsteps clanged against the platform. I turned back to her, but she was reaching for the controls to the juggernaut.

Will continued to cling to Honoré as they struggled on the small platform of the death ray.

Honoré threw a punch, and Will’s head snapped back.

“Throw him onto the vents,” Madame Boucher called out.

For a moment I froze, not knowing what would save him—reaching him, or stopping Boucher.

I chose him.

Honoré grabbed Will and hoisted him. I slammed up against the rail and threw my arm forward, the chain whipping up toward Will’s chest.

Will clung to Honoré, and twisted. Just then something hit the juggernaut and it lurched.

Will caught the chain and let go of Honoré. I dropped all my weight to the floor and braced against the rail as both men fell off the platform.

A heavy weight pulled on the chain. Pain seared through my wrist, and I feared it had broken, but I didn’t care. I
clung to the chain, knowing I held Will’s life in my hands. I watched the chain swing against the rail. Then the weight suddenly released.

“Honoré!” Boucher screamed as the vents blew an enormous plume of fire. The inferno towered to the ceiling.

My heart splintered into a million pieces as I struggled to my knees and peered over the rail.

A man engulfed in flame fell off the back of the juggernaut, then bolted, waving his arms as he ran blindly into the maze of mirrors. He impaled himself on one of the shattered frames. The mirrors shifted and crushed him.

“Will?” I screeched. It couldn’t have been him. He had to be alive.

My stomach clenched, and I felt my mouth water as if I were about to be ill. I wondered at the quality of my soul, because I was hoping I had witnessed the death of my uncle, and deep down I felt he deserved so gruesome an end.

Boucher grabbed my arm and spun me around. The chain slid back over the rail, the end empty.

“What did you do? You killed him!” she screamed at me.

“No, you did,” I answered, gripping the chain as I pushed
to my feet. “This is your doing. All of it. So reap what you have sown.”

Her face contorted as if some inner demon possessed it. “My doing? Was it my fault that my father was executed?” She stepped toward me, and I backed up until I pressed against the rail. Boucher stalked forward into the shadow of the death ray. I watched out of the corner of my eye as the beam generator for the ray sunk under its own weight, without anyone at the controls to hold the beam steady. The head of the machine still burned brightly, pulling the lethal beam of light closer and closer to us.

I had to keep Boucher distracted.

“Your father was punished for creating this,” I said, motioning to the machine beneath me as she stepped forward onto the embedded Haddock seal on the top of the machine. “And yes, he deserved to be executed for this monstrosity. Now you wish to replicate it and sell it to armies so it can increase its destruction a thousandfold.”

“No one would stand against it!” she insisted.

“I stood against it!” I shouted at her. “My friends stood against it. Stop this madness. Save yourself.”

Her eyes narrowed to slits. “To what end? I have nothing.” She balled her hand into a fist. “Your grandfather abandoned
me.” Her voice cracked, and her eyes shone in the flickering light from lingering fires.

Something moved behind Boucher. I tried not to react as the trunk from the fallen elephant rose like a cobra beckoned from the basket by a snake charmer.

Her pleas didn’t fall on deaf ears, but she was not acknowledging her part in her own downfall. “Did you ever write to him? Did you tell him of his child? Did you even give him the chance to make things right?” I caught a glimpse of Papa, clinging to the controls in the fallen howdah. The rising trunk wavered and shook as the beam of light inched closer behind Boucher.

Boucher looked as if she had feasted upon rotting meat. “He should have come for me, no matter the circumstance. Instead he ruined me and then went on with his life while I suffered.” Boucher’s face grew red, and I hoped her sudden flush would hide the heat from the ray behind her. The edges of the Haddock seal began to glow. “And he will suffer too.” She stalked toward me with a mad look in her eye.

Keep her focused on me. Keep her focused on me.

“So it was a test. You held back knowledge of your child from my grandfather so you could gauge his affections.” The elephant trunk wavered. “You were a fool.”