The thought of his parents dead was absurd. “This is a trick to keep me quiet. You’re all lying!”
No one answered. The cabin resonated with the growl of Daimler engines and the scrape of branches against camouflage netting. Volger stood silent, his face thoughtful. The leather hand straps hanging from the ceiling swung in time with the walker’s gait. Strangely, part of Alek’s mind could focus only on Klopp’s hands on the controls, marveling at his mastery of the machine.
“The Serbs wouldn’t dare kill my parents,” Alek said softly.
“I have other suspects in mind,” Volger said flatly. “Those who want war among the great powers. But we have no time to theorize now, Aleksandar. Our first task is to get you to safety.”
Alek stared out the walker’s viewport again. Volger had addressed him as simply Aleksandar, without any title, as if he were a commoner. But somehow the insult had lost its power.
“Assassins struck twice in the morning,” Volger said. “Serb schoolboys hardly older than you, first with bombs and then with pistols. Both times they failed. Then last night a feast was given in your father’s honor, and he was toasted for his bravery. But poison took your parents in the night.”
Alek imagined them lying dead beside each other, and the hollowness inside him grew. But the story didn’t make sense at all. The assassins would have come for Alek himself—the half royal, the lady-in-waiting’s son. Not his father, whose blood was pure.
“If they’re really dead, why does anyone still care about me? I’m nothing now.”
“Some might think differently.” Count Volger crouched next to the command chair. He stared out the window alongside Alek, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Emperor Franz Joseph is eighty-three years old. If he dies soon, some might turn to you in these anxious times.”
“He hated my mother more than any of them.” Alek closed his eyes again. The red-tinged forest outside was too bleak to stare at anymore. A patch of uneven ground set the cabin shuddering, as if the world were unsteady in its path around the sun. “I just want to go home.”
“Not until we can be sure it’s safe, young master,” said Otto Klopp. “We promised your father.”
“What do promises matter if he’s—”
“Silence!” Volger cried.
Aleksandar looked up at him in shock. He opened his mouth to protest, but the wildcount’s hand clenched his shoulder.
“Cut the engines!”
Master Klopp wrenched the Stormwalker to a halt, cycling the Daimlers down to a low rumble. The hiss of pneumatics settled around them.
Alek’s ears rang in the sudden quiet, his body shuddering with echoes of the walker’s motion. Through the viewport the leaves were motionless, the air without a breath of wind. No birds sang, as if the forest had been startled into silence by the walker’s abrupt halt.
Volger’s eyes closed.
Then Alek felt it. The slightest shudder passed through the metal frame of the Stormwalker—the tread of something larger, heavier. Something that shook the earth.
Count Volger stood, opening the hatchway overhead. Dawn light spilled in as he pulled himself halfway out.
The shudder came again. Through the viewport Alek saw the tremor passing through the forest, leaves shivering in its wake. It unsettled the pit of his stomach, like an angry look from his father.
“Your Highness,” Volger called, “if you would join me.”
Alek stood and balanced on the commander’s chair, hoisting himself up through the hatch.
Outside, his eyes squinted against the half-risen sun; dawn had turned the sky a deep orange around them. The Stormwalker stood a little taller than the young hornbeam trees, and the horizon seemed enormous after hours of peering through the viewport.
Volger pointed back the way they had come. “There are your enemies, Prince Aleksandar.”
Alek squinted against the rising sun. The other machine was kilometers away, towering twice as tall as the trees. Her six huge legs moved unhurriedly, but men scurried like ants across the gun deck, raising signal flags and manning the turrets. Along her flank stretched the letters of her name: S.M.S. Beowulf.
Alek watched a massive foot plant itself upon the forest floor. Long seconds later another tremor arrived, rippling across the trees around them and up through the Stormwalker’s metal frame. As the next step fell, a distant treetop flailed and then vanished, torn down by the giant walker’s stride.
The red and black stripes of the Kaiser’s Landforce Jack flew from her spar deck, whipping in the breeze.
“A German land dreadnought,” Alek said softly. “But aren’t we still in Austria-Hungary?”
“Yes,” Volger said, “but all those who want chaos and war are hunting us, Your Highness. Or do you still doubt me?”
But what if it’s a rescue mission? Alek thought. Maybe his kidnappers had been lying after all, and Father and Mother were still alive. A vast search for Alek had been launched, with the German land navy helping! Why else would this monstrosity be allowed on Austrian soil?
Then Alek saw that the machine was changing direction, slowly turning sideways across the sunrise… .
He held up his hand and waved. “Here! Over here!”
“They already see us, Your Highness,” Count Volger said quietly.
Alek was still waving when the first broadside erupted, bright flashes rippling along the dreadnought’s flank, puffs of cannon smoke swelling into a hazy veil around her. The sound followed moments later—a rolling thunder that broke into sharp, tearing bursts from every direction. The treetops churned around them, concussions shaking the Stormwalker and throwing clouds of leaves into the sky.
Then Volger was dragging him back down into the cabin, the engines roaring back to life.
“Load the cannon!” Master Klopp cried to the men below.
“THE S.M.S. BEOWULF.”
Alek found himself deposited into the commander’s chair as the machine began to move. He struggled with the seat straps, but a terrible thought took hold of his mind, freezing his fingers.
If they’re trying to kill me … it’s all true.
Count Volger crouched beside him, yelling over the rumble of engines and gunfire. “Take heart at this impoliteness, Alek. It proves that you are still a threat to the throne.”
SIX
The second broadside of cannon shells fell closer, a spray of gravel and wooden splinters rattling against the viewport’s grill, the smaller pieces spilling through.
Alek spat dirt from his mouth.
“Vision to half!” Master Klopp cried, then cursed. The two crewmen were below, and Volger was halfway up through the hatch again, his legs dangling from the ceiling.
Klopp glanced apologetically at Alek. “If you please, Your Highness.”
“Certainly, Master Klopp,” Alek said. He unbuckled and pulled himself up from the commander’s chair. The cabin rocked and swayed, and he grasped the straps overhead to keep his footing.
He tried to turn the viewport’s crank, but it wouldn’t budge. Taking it with both hands, Alek strained harder, until the massive armored visor grudgingly closed a few centimeters.
Another broadside shook the earth beneath them, and the walker staggered forward. Count Volger’s riding boots flailed, kicking Alek in the back of the head.
“They can still see us!” Volger shouted from above. “We’re too tall!”
Master Klopp twisted at the saunters, hunkering the Stormwalker lower. The hornbeam trees rose up in the viewport, the walker’s clumsy gait sending Volger’s boots swinging again. For an astonished moment Alek watched Klopp’s hands on the controls—he’d never seen a walker shuffle along in a crouch like this.