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!”
“No,” said Wolf again, but Wren saw his face change as he struggled to keep on believing she was innocent, and failed.
She ran. A man standing near the top of the ladder reached out to grab her, but she kicked him hard between the legs and twisted past him and down through the floor of the bridge. The steel rungs still tingled with electricity under her hands, sending little numbing shocks kicking up her arms. She heard Wolf shouting, “Catch her!” and his men scrambling to obey, but they were too sluggish for her, and she was already climbing down into the smoke and shadows of the dismantling yards.
She jumped the last few feet, landed on something soft, peered through the smoke at it, and realized that it was a dead man, burned by the currents that had surged through the suburb’s deck plates. She felt sick for a moment, knowing that she was responsible. Was this how Mum felt, she wondered, when she killed the Huntsmen?