Behemoth

“Oh, dear,” Ambassador Mallet said. “Those chaps again.”

Deryn turned to the howdah pilot. “Who are they?”

“A bunch called the Young Turks, sir, I think,” the man said. “This town is full of secret societies and revolutionaries. Can hardly keep track of them all, myself.”

There was a burst of light as Eddie Malone took a photograph.

The ambassador began to clean his eyeglasses. “The Young Turks tried to depose the sultan six years ago, but the Germans put them down. Now they hate all foreigners. I suppose this was to be expected. From what my sources tell me, the newspapers have been riling them up about the Osman.”

“Your sources tell you?” Dr. Barlow asked.

“Well, I don’t speak Turkish, of course, and none of my staff does either. But I have excellent sources, I assure you.”

The lady boffin raised an eyebrow. “Are you telling me, Ambassador, that none of you can read the local newspapers?”

The ambassador cleared his throat, and his assistants stared off into space.

“Not much point,” Eddie Malone said, feeding the firefly in his camera’s flashbulb a sugar cube. “From what I’ve heard, the Germans own half of them anyway.”

Dr. Barlow stared at the ambassador with fresh alarm.

“The Germans only own one of the newspapers,” he protested, still cleaning his glasses. “Though it seems quite influential. Very clever of them, spreading their lies here in Constantinople.”

“It’s called Istanbul,” Dr. Barlow said quietly, her fingers clenched around her riding crop.

Deryn shook her head and turned back toward the crowd.

The men were surging closer, chanting, their fists pumping in unison. They rushed through the bustle of people and carts, their fezzes like crimson water flowing past pebbles in a stream. They soon surrounded the walker, yelling up at the pilots on their saddles, waving newspapers. Deryn squinted—every front page showed a picture of a ship under a huge headline.

The crowd was chanting “Osman! Osman!” But there was another word in all the hubbub—“behemoth”—that Deryn didn’t recognize at all.

“Well,” Dr. Barlow said, “this is a discouraging start.”

The ambassador drew himself up, patting the railing at the howdah’s edge. “There is no reason to worry, madam. We’ve ridden out far worse on the Dauntless.”

Deryn had to admit that they were safe enough up here, fifty feet above the mob. No one was throwing anything, or trying to climb the elephant’s huge legs. The howdah pilot was deftly nudging the protesters aside with the trunk, so the walker’s progress was hardly slowed.

But Dr. Barlow wore an icy expression. “It’s not a question of ‘riding it out,’ Ambassador. My objective is to keep this country friendly.”

“Well, talk to Lord Churchill, then!” the man cried. “It’s hardly the Foreign Office’s fault when he goes and snatches a …”

His words faded as a metal groan filled the air, the world tilting beneath them. Deryn’s dress boots skidded sideways on the silk carpet, and everyone went stumbling toward the howdah’s starboard side. The railing caught Deryn at stomach level, and her body pitched halfway over before she righted herself.

She stared down—the foreleg pilot below had toppled from his perch, and lay sprawled in a circle of protesters. They looked as surprised as the pilot did, and were bending down to offer help.

Why had the man fallen from his saddle?

As the machine stumbled to a halt, something flickered in the corner of Deryn’s vision. A lasso flew up from the crowd and landed around the shoulders of the rear-leg pilot, then he, too, was yanked from his seat. A man in a blue uniform was scrambling up the front leg.

“We’re being boarded!” Deryn cried, running to the port side of the howdah. The Dauntless was under attack there too. The man driving the rear leg had already been yanked from his perch, and the foreleg pilot was pulling against a rope around his waist.

Deryn watched as another man in blue uniform—a British uniform—took the place of the rear-leg pilot and grasped the controls.

Suddenly the machine lurched back into motion, taking a massive stride into the crowd. Someone screamed as a huge foot bore down to shatter cobblestones into dust, and the protesters in red fezzes began to scatter.

TWELVE

“Do something, Mr. Sharp,” cried Dr. Barlow above the din. “We appear to have been captured!”

“Aye, ma’am, I noticed!” Deryn reached for her rigging knife, but of course her full-dress uniform had no pockets to speak of. She’d have to use bare fists.

“How do I get down to the saddles?” she asked the howdah pilot.

“You can’t from here, sir,” he said, his knuckles white on the trunk’s controls. He was pushing people to safety as the machine stumbled through the panicking crowd. “The leg pilots climb on from the ground, while the elephant’s kneeling.”

“Blisters! Do you have any rope aboard?”

“Afraid not, sir,” the man said. “This isn’t a sailing ship.”

Deryn groaned in frustration—how could any ship not have rope? The machine stumbled again, and she grabbed the railing to keep her footing.

Making her way around the edge of the howdah, Deryn saw that three of the pilots had been replaced by impostors in blue uniforms. Only the foreleg pilot on the port side remained in his seat. But the rope was still around him, stretching down into the crowd. He’d be pulled off soon enough.

In the meantime three of the walker’s legs were scraping and stamping, trying to get the contraption moving again. As she watched, the huge right forefoot stamped down on a vendor’s cart, scattering peeled chestnuts like hailstones across the street.

“Barking stupid machines!” Deryn muttered. A real beastie would know who its proper masters were.

Suddenly the trunk swung to the port side. It reached among the protesters and found the man trying to drag the foreleg pilot off his seat. The man shrieked, letting go of the rope as he was flicked aside.

“Good work!” Deryn said to the howdah pilot. “Can you yank the impostors off?”

The man shook his head. “Can’t reach the rear saddles at all. But maybe …”

He twisted at the controls, and the trunk whipped about to the starboard side. It curled back, reaching for the pilot on the foreleg, but stopped a yard short, metal segments grinding.

“It’s no use, sir,” the man said. “She’s not as flexible as a real beastie.”

However inflexible, the machine was barking powerful. It was lurching down the street now, scattering people and vehicles in all directions. One of its huge feet stamped down on a wagon and smashed it into splinters. The remaining British pilot struggled to bring the machine to a halt, but there was only so much that one leg could do against three.

“Can you grab something to use as a weapon?” Deryn asked the howdah pilot. “You only need another few feet of length!”

“This is a Clanker contraption, sir! It’s hardly as nimble as that.”

“Blisters,” Deryn swore. “Then I suppose it’ll have to be me!”

The man took his eyes from the controls for a second. “Pardon me, sir?”

“Bend that trunk up this way. And make it fast, man!” she ordered, pulling off her fancy jacket. She turned to toss it back at Newkirk, then climbed out of the howdah and onto the elephant’s head.