“No—There they are. I must’ve—no, they’re gone—they’re back—” Sleipnir furiously knuckled her eyes. “What the heck is wrong with my eyes?”
Sun Ming pushed her aside and peered through the eyepiece. “No, I see it too. They’re vanishing,” she announced. “I wonder how they’re doing that?”
Theo scribbled a quick note and handed it to Von Tock, the boy with the clock in his head. “Have the message light send this to the Baron right away. He’s got to know.” The boy nodded and dashed off. “I hope the Baron can get to them in time.”
Sleipnir grinned. “Why wait?”
Theo’s eyebrows perked upwards. “Go rescue them ourselves? Intriguing…” His eyes slid over towards Zulenna. “But the life gliders will be guarded.”
Zulenna tossed her head. “Probably by a man.” With that she gave her torso a supple little twitch that caused Theo to blink and swallow. “And there’s no male guard on this ship that can resist a beautiful and oh-so-lonely princess.”
Theo nodded as he picked up a large spanner and cheerfully smacked it into his palm. “That’s the truth.”
Behind them Sleipnir rolled her eyes. “I cannot believe that works every time.”
Hezekiah shrugged. “It always works on me.”
Leaving the younger children in the care of the governesses, the students slipped out into the main hallway. Moving through the ship proved to be almost disappointingly easy, as things were so confused that their passage went unnoticed. The bay they had chosen for their departure was indeed guarded by a lone soldier. He was young and good looking, and was lounging against the entrance, quietly eating an apple while gazing at the panorama of ships spread out before him.
Zulenna looked him over, gave Theo a silent thumbs up, and then wandered into the bay.
Instantly the apple disappeared and the soldier snapped to attention. “This area is off limits, Miss.”
Zulenna appeared startled. “Oh, I’m sorry, I was just…” She shuddered. “It’s all so horrible. I was just looking for something… someone to take my mind off what’s happening.” She looked up at him with large luminous eyes, which blinked in surprise as she saw the guard’s weapon pointing at her chest.
“It
Zulenna faltered, then gamely rallied with a shy smile. “Really?”
The guard’s weapon didn’t move a millimeter. “Oh yes. For instance, if a snooty little princess who had, just last week, upbraided a hard-working member of the ship’s guard because he’d neglected to do up a collar button even though he was off duty, suddenly came slinking in like a Parisian streetwalker, just waiting for the proper moment to burst into soppy crocodile tears—why that’d be suspicious enough that any experienced soldier’d haul her off to the brig.” He prodded the now scarlet-faced Zulenna in the stomach with the end of his rifle. “Now let’s move along, eh?”
Mechanically Zulenna wheeled about and strode off, causing her captor to hurry after her, which helped explain why he didn’t see Theo step out from behind a duct and smack him smartly across the back of the head. He collapsed forward onto the deck.
Zulenna saw Sleipnir valiantly trying to keep from laughing. “Very well, I will concede that there’s one who
Sleipnir shrugged. “Personally, I’m rather glad the Baron’s troops are so well trained. I feel so much safer, don’t you?” Zulenna deigned to reply, but carefully placed the soldier comfortably against a bulkhead, and then delicately arranged his arms so that one thumb was in his mouth while the forefinger of the other hand was lodged deeply within his nose.
“Now you’re just being petty,” Sleipnir observed.
Zulenna rose and dusted her hands together before smiling beatifically. “Quite.”
Meanwhile the others had found the personal flyers. These were small dirigible shaped balloons attached to harnesses, fitted with large bat-like wings, which the user could control with long rods. For emergency use only, the flyers were capable of slowing a person’s fall enough that they would have an excellent chance of surviving should they have to abandon one of the great airships in mid-flight. The students had long ago discovered that the flyers also be used to glide from ship to ship, providing that the ship you started from was sufficiently higher than your destination. This was, of course, strictly forbidden, and it had been weeks since they’d done it last.
Zulenna and Sleipnir entered just as Theo finished circumventing the tripwire alarm. Nicodeamus was using the gas tanks to inflate a pair of flyers for the girls. “You know, this is really stupid,” he cheerfully informed them.
Sleipnir buckled herself into her rig while Zulenna checked her connections. “Oh. You just noticed?”
Zulenna patted his shoulder, then began to pull her own flyer on. “You can stay here.”
Nicodeamus waved. “Nah. Just making conversation.” He snuck a quick look at Zulenna, who pretended not to notice, but once Sleipnir had patted her shoulder and turned away, she leaned in and placed a quick kiss on his cheek.
They joined the others lined up at the opening. Before them was the crenellated wall that was Castle Wulfenbach, stretching away in all directions. Scale was provided by the support ships that were moving to and fro between them. Theo pointed out the nearest windsock, and then to a landing deck several hundred feet below them on the Castle. “We’ll aim for Docking Bay 451. That’s closest to an armory.” Nicodeamus tossed out a scrap of paper. With an aeronaut’s experienced eye, they all watched it flutter away in the wind and plotted their trajectories accordingly.
Theo moved up to the lip and grinned. “Okay, you brats, let’s go!” Without pause, he launched himself over the edge, and with a whoop, the others followed.
A troop of Jagers sloped down the hallway, looking like a parade sergeant’s personal vision of Hell. Sloping was a combination of loping and slouching developed by the Jagerkin. To the untrained eye, it looked like they were ambling along in a disorganized fashion. A closer look and you saw that they were traveling at a respectable clip, and prolonged observation revealed that they could do it for a very long time over a wide variety of terrain. As with many Jager practices, it had been developed to annoy other people. Particularly Boris.
Despite the haste, great care was taken to keep their uniforms straight, and several were brushing their hats and buffing their braid even as they moved forward. There was a palatable excitement amongst them, and much boasting and declarations regarding the number of wasps that were about to be killed, stomped, and (possibly) eaten.
The other Castle personnel hastily hugged the side of the corridor as they approached, and only dared to breathe again when they had passed. With each yard they covered, they became more and more excited, until they poured around a corner into a large intersection and stopped dead, the ones in the back flowing forward until the entire corridor was a solid sea of Jagerkin.
Before them, in the center of the intersection, stood Von Pinn. Still as a statue. As soon as they stopped moving, she slowly moved with a leathery creak. Wordlessly she approached them and glided from one end of the crowd to the other. As her gaze swept them, each Jagermonster felt themselves snapping to attention, some of them for the first time in years. Without a word she spun away and headed off down the hallway ahead of them. Three meters away, she stopped, twisting about, gave them a toothy come-hither look over her shoulder, and whispered, “Well? What are you waiting for? Let’s go squash some bugs.”
With a roar that was heard throughout half of the Castle, the Jagers leapt forward and headed for battle.
The Baron’s squad moved into position. It moved slowly because of the constant stream of unicycle messengers that darted in and out with reports from other parts of the vast dirigible.
Boris scanned the latest missive. “The main troop of Jagermonsters have engaged the bugs in Docking Bay 422.” He waved the note. “They seem especially enthusiastic.”
Klaus nodded. “It’s been a while since they really fought.”
From the corridor behind, a young voice rang out. “Personal message for the Baron! Clear the way! Stand aside!” Noiselessly, a tall brass unicycle wove through the crowd and the rider slid from the seat in front of the Baron. From a large pouch on the front of her uniform, she pulled out a note, which the bright yellow paper identified as being from the Heliography Corps. Klaus unfolded it, scanned it quickly, and went pale.
Concerned, Boris leaned in. “Are you all right, Herr Baron?”
