Behemoth

Constantinople by dawn tomorrow, and she’d met Alek only six days ago. Would he really be gone so quickly?

“Not that it’s so bad here,” Alek said. “The war feels farther away than it ever did in Switzerland. But I can’t stay up in the air forever.”

“No, I reckon you can’t,” Deryn said, focusing her gaze on their sword points. The captain might not know who Alek’s father had been, but it was obvious the boy was Austrian. It was only a matter of time before Austria- Hungary was officially at war with Britain, and then the captain would never let the Clankers leave.

It hardly seemed fair, thinking of Alek as an enemy after he’d saved the airship—two times now. Once from an icy death, by giving them food, and the second time from the Germans, by handing over the engines that had allowed them all to escape.

The Germans were still hunting Alek, trying to finish the job they’d started on his parents. Someone had to be on his side.…

And, as Deryn had gradually admitted to herself these last few days, she didn’t mind if that someone wound up being her.

A fluttering in the sky caught her attention, and Deryn let her aching sword arm drop.

“Hah!” Alek said. “Had enough?”

“It’s Newkirk,” she said, trying to work out the boy’s frantic signals.

The semaphore flags whipped through the letters once more, and slowly the message formed in her brain.

“Two sets of smokestacks, forty miles away,” she said, reaching for her command whistle. “It’s the German ironclads!”

She found herself smiling a little as she blew—Constantinople might have to wait a squick.

The alarm howl spread swiftly, passing from one hydrogen sniffer to the next. Soon the whole airship rang with the beasties’ cries.

Crewmen crowded the spine, setting up air guns and taking feed bags to the flechette bats. Sniffers scampered across the ratlines, checking for leaks in the Leviathan’s skin.

Deryn and Alek cranked the Huxley’s winch, drawing Newkirk down closer to the ship.

“We’ll leave him at a thousand feet,” Deryn said, watching the altitude markings on the rope. “The lucky sod. You can see the whole battle from up there!”

“But it won’t be much of a battle, will it?” Alek asked. “What can an airship do to a pair of ironclads?”

“My guess is, we’ll stay absolutely still for an hour. Just so we don’t fall into any bad habits.”

Alek rolled his eyes. “I’m serious, Dylan. The Leviathan has no heavy guns. How do we fight them?”

“A big hydrogen breather can do plenty. We’ve got a few aerial bombs left, and flechette bats …” Deryn’s words faded. “Did you just say ‘we’?”

“Pardon me?”

“You just said, ‘How do we fight them?’ Like you were one of us!”

“I suppose I might have.” Alek looked down at his boots. “My men and I are serving on this ship, after all, even if you are a bunch of godless Darwinists.”

Deryn smiled again as she secured the Huxley’s cable. “I’ll make sure to mention that to the captain, next time he asks if you’re a Clanker spy.”

“How kind of you,” Alek said, then raised his eyes to meet hers. “But that’s a good point—will the officers trust us in battle?”

“Why wouldn’t they? You saved the ship—gave us engines from your Stormwalker!”

“Yes, but if I hadn’t been so generous, we’d still be stuck on that glacier with you. Or in a German prison, more likely. It wasn’t exactly out of friendship.”

Deryn frowned. Maybe things were a squick more complicated now, what with a battle coming up. Alek’s men and the Leviathan’s crew had become allies almost by accident, and only a few days ago.

“You only promised to help us get to the Ottoman Empire, I suppose,” she said softly. “Not to fight other Clankers.”

Alek nodded. “That’s what your officers will be thinking.”

“Aye, but what are you thinking?”

“We’ll follow orders.” He pointed toward the bow. “See that? Klopp and Hoffman are already at work.”

It was true. The engine pods on either side of the great beastie’s head were roaring louder, sending two thick columns of exhaust into the air. But to see the Clanker engines on a Darwinist airship was just another reminder of the strange alliance the Leviathan had entered into. Compared to the tiny British-made engines the ship was designed to carry, they sounded and smoked like freight trains.

“Maybe this is a chance to prove yourself,” Deryn said. “You should go lend your men a hand. We’ll need good speed to catch those ironclads by nightfall.” She clapped him on the shoulder. “But don’t get yourself killed.”

“I’ll try not to.” Alek smiled and gave her a salute. “Good luck, Mr. Sharp.”

He turned and ran forward along the spine.

Watching him go, Deryn wondered what officers down on the bridge were thinking. Here was the Leviathan, entering battle with new and barely tested engines, run by men who should by all rights be fighting on the other side.

But the captain didn’t have much choice, did he? He could either trust the Clankers or drift helplessly in the breeze. And Alek and his men had to join the fight or they’d lose their only allies. Nobody seemed to have much choice, come to think of it.

Deryn sighed, wondering how this war had got so muddled.

TWO

As he ran toward the engines, Alek wondered if he’d told Dylan the whole truth.

It felt wrong, hurrying to join this attack. Alek and his men had fought Germans—even fellow Austrians—a dozen times while fleeing to Switzerland. But this was different—these ironclads weren’t hunting him.

According to wireless broadcasts that Count Volger had overheard, the two ships had been trapped in the Mediterranean at the start of the war. With the British in control of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, there’d been no way for them to get back to Germany. They’d been running for the past week.

Alek knew what it felt like to be hounded, trapped in a fight that someone else had started. But here he was, ready to help the Darwinists send two ships full of living, breathing men to the bottom of the sea.

The vast beast rolled under his feet, the tendrils that covered its flanks undulating like windblown grass, pulling it into a slow turn. Fabricated birds swirled around Alek, some already harnessed and carrying instruments of war.

That was another difference. This time he was fighting side by side with these creatures. Alek had been raised to believe they were godless abominations, but after four days aboard the airship, their squawks and cries had begun to sound natural. Except for the awful flechette bats, fabricated beasts could even seem beautiful.

Was he turning into a Darwinist?

When he reached the spine above the engine pods, Alek headed down the port side ratlines. The airship was tilting into a climb, the sea falling away below him. The ropes were slick with salty air, and as he strained to keep from falling, questions of loyalty fled his mind.

By the time he reached the engine pod, Alek was soaked in sweat and wishing he hadn’t worn fencing armor.

Otto Klopp was at the controls, his Hapsburg Guard uniform looking tattered after six weeks away from home. Beside him stood Mr. Hirst, the Leviathan’s chief engineer, who was studying the