Deryn swept her glasses back and forth across the eastern end of the valley, looking for anything out of place. And suddenly she saw them … tracks of some kind.
But they weren’t human. They were huge, as if a giant had shuffled through the snow. What had Newkirk said about abominable snowmen?
The tracks led to an outcrop of rocks, or what looked like rocks. As Deryn stared, the shapes of broken walls came into focus, along with stone buildings huddled around an open courtyard.
“Blisters!” she swore. No wonder Alek talked so posh. He lived in a barking castle.
But she still hadn’t found whatever had made those tracks. The courtyard was empty, the stables too small to hold anything so massive. Deryn slowly scanned the structure until she found the gate in the castle walls… . It was open.
Her hands shaking a little, she followed the tracks away from the castle again, and saw what she’d missed the first time. Another set branched off, heading toward the wrecked airship.
And these tracks were fresh.
Deryn remembered her argument with Alek about animals and machines. He’d mentioned walkers, hadn’t he? Those crude Clanker imitations of beasties. But what sort of barking mad family had its own walker?
Deryn swept her gaze across the snow faster now, until a glint of metal flashed across her vision. She blinked, backtracking until …
“Blisters!”
The machine bounded across the snow, shimmering with heat in the cold, like a monstrous, angry teakettle on two legs. The ugly snout of a cannon thrust from its belly, and two machine guns sprouted like ears from its head.
It was running straight for the Leviathan.
She pulled the semaphore flags from her belt, waving them hard. A light flashed in response from the airship’s spine—Newkirk was watching.
Deryn whipped the flags through the letters, spelling out …
E-N-E-M-Y—A-P-P-R-O-A-C-H-I-N-G—D-U-E— E-A-S-T
She squinted, watching for confirmation from below. The light flashed in answer: W-H-A-T—M-A-N-N-E-R-?
W-A-L-K-E-R—T-W-O—L-E-G-S, she answered.
Another confirmation flashed, but that was all. They’d be scrambling now, trying to mount some defense against an armored attack. But what could the Leviathan’s crew do against an armored walker? An airship was defenseless on the ground.
They needed more details. She raised the glasses to her face again, trying to read the markings on the machine.
“Alek, you bum-rag!” she cried. Two steel plates hung down to protect the walker’s legs, both painted with the Iron Cross. And a double-headed eagle was painted on its breastplate. Alek was no more Swiss than he was made of blue cheese!
“Beastie, wake up,” Deryn snapped. She took a breath to steady herself, then said in a slow, clear voice, “Alert, alert. Regards to the Leviathan from Midshipman Sharp. The approaching walker is Austrian. Two legs, one cannon, type uncertain. It must be Alek’s—that boy we caught—family on their way. Maybe he can talk to them… .”
Deryn paused for a moment, wondering what else to say. She could think of only one way to stop the machine, and it was too complicated to cram into a lizard’s drafty wee attic.
“End message,” she said, and gave the beastie a shove. It scuttled away down the ascender’s rope.
As she watched its progress, Deryn let out a soft groan. Away from her body heat the freezing air was slowing it down. The beastie would take long minutes to deliver the message.
She peered across the glacier again, using only her naked eyes. A tiny flash of metal winked at her from the snow, closer to the airship every second. The charging walker was going to arrive before the lizard.
Alek was the key to stopping the machine, but in all the ruckus would anyone think of him?
The only way to make sure was to go down herself.
TWENTY-EIGHT
This was Deryn’s first sliding escape.
She’d studied the diagrams in the Manual of Aeronautics, of course, and every middy in the Service wanted an excuse to try one. But you weren’t allowed to practice sliding escapes.
Too barking dangerous, weren’t they?
Her first problem was the angle of the cable stretching down to the airship. Right now it was much too steep; she’d wind up a splotch in the snow. The Manual said that forty-five degrees was best. To get there the Huxley needed to lose altitude—fast.
“Oi, beastie!” she yelled up. “I think I’ll light a match down here!”
One tentacle coiled serenely in the breeze, but otherwise the airbeast didn’t react. Deryn growled with frustration. Had she found the one Huxley in the Service that couldn’t be spooked?
“Bum-rag!” she called, bouncing in the saddle. “I’ve gone insane, and I’m keen to set myself on fire!”
More tentacles coiled, and Deryn saw the venting gills softly ruffle. The Huxley was spilling hydrogen, but not fast enough.
She kicked her legs to swing herself back and forth, yanking on the straps that connected her harness to the airbeast. “Get down, you daft creature!”
Finally the smell of hydrogen filled her nose, and Deryn felt the Huxley descending. The tether line looked less steep every second, like the string of a falling kite.
Now came the tricky part—reconfiguring the pilot’s harness into an escape rig.
Still yelling at the beast, Deryn began to take apart the harness. She loosened the straps around her shoulders, wriggling one arm free, then the other. As the belt around her waist unbuckled, the first wave of dizziness hit. Nothing was keeping her in the saddle now except her own sense of balance.
Deryn realized she’d been awake almost twenty-four hours—if you didn’t count lying unconscious in the snow, which was hardly quality sleep. Probably not the best time for risky maneuvers …
She stared at the undone straps and buckles, trying to remember how they went back together. How was she meant to reassemble them while clinging to her perch?
Sighing, Deryn decided to use both hands—even if that meant she was one Huxley twitch away from a long fall.
“Forget what I was saying earlier, beastie,” she murmured. “Let’s just float calmly, shall we?”
The tentacles stayed coiled around her, but at least the creature was still descending. The tether line had almost reached forty-five degrees.
After a long minute’s fiddling, the escape rig looked right—the buckles forming a sort of carabiner in the center. Deryn gave the contraption a jerk between her hands, and it held firm.
Now came the scary part.
She clenched the rig between her teeth and pulled herself up with both hands. As her bum left the saddle, a fresh wave of dizziness hit. But a moment later Deryn was standing in a half crouch, her rubber-soled boots gripping the curved leather seat.
She reached up and clipped the buckles onto the tether line, then took one end of the strap in each hand, winding the leather several times around her wrists.
Deryn glanced down at the glacier. “Blisters!”
While she’d been getting ready, the walker had closed almost half the distance to the airship. Worse, the tether line had gotten steeper. The wind was tugging the Huxley higher. At this angle she’d slide down the rope much too fast. The Manual was full of gruesome tales about pilots who’d made that mistake.
Deryn stood to her full height, her head inches from the Huxley’s membrane.
“Boo!” she cried.
The airbeast shivered all over, venting a bitter-smelling wash of hydrogen right into her face. The saddle jerked beneath Deryn, and her boots slipped from the worn leather …
A fraction of a second later the straps around her wrists snapped, yanking her shoulders hard. And she found herself sliding down toward the massive bulk of the airship below.