The creature turned to face them and seemed to smile at Lilit.
“Somehow, I almost believe you,” she said softly. “Well, show us how clever you are, boy. Walking is the easy part.”
“I doubt it shall be any trouble,” Alek said, watching the instruments come to life. When the pressure gauges steadied, he pushed down on the foot pedals, slow and steady.
The machine responded, moving forward smoothly, the spiny legs along its belly moving in automatic sequence. He lifted his left foot from the pedal, guiding the walker into a slow turn.
“This is easier than my four-legged runabout,” he exclaimed. “I could pilot that when I was twelve!”
Lilit gave him a strange look. “You had your own walker? When you were twelve?”
“It was the family’s.” Alek reached for the saunters. “And boys have a natural gift for mechaniks, after all.”
“A natural gift for boastfulness, you mean.”
“We’ll see who’s being boastful.” Alek slipped his right hand into the metal glove and made a fist. A great pair of claws snapped shut on the machine’s right side.
“Careful,” Lilit said. “Sahmeran is stronger than any mere boy.”
Alek pushed the saunter about, watching how the walker’s arm followed his movements. The arm was long and sinuous, like a snake’s body, its scales sliding against one another with a sound like a dozen swords drawn from their scabbards.
“The trick is to forget your own body,” Lilit said. “Pretend that the walker’s hands are yours.”
The saunters were amazingly sensitive, the giant arms mimicking every movement of Alek’s, but slowly. He paced himself to match the walker’s scale, and soon he felt twenty meters tall, as if he were wearing a huge costume, instead of piloting.
“Now comes the tricky part.” Lilit pointed. “Pick up that wagon over there.”
In the far corner of the courtyard, an old wagon lay overturned. Its wooden side was scratched and gouged, like an ill-treated child’s toy.
“Looks easy enough,” Alek said, guiding the machine closer among the motionless forms of the other walkers.
He stretched out his right hand, and the machine obeyed him. From the control panel the creature imitated the sounds of hissing air and metal as they echoed from the courtyard walls.
Alek closed his fingers slowly, and the claws shut around the wagon.
“Good so far,” Lilit said. “But stay gentle.”
Alek nodded, remembering Volger’s rule on how to hold a sword—like a pet bird, tight enough to keep it from flying away but gentle enough not to suffocate it.
The wagon shifted in the Sahmeran’s grip, threatening to fall.
“Turn your wrist,” Lilit said quickly. “But don’t squeeze!”
Alek turned the claw upright, trying to settle the wagon in its metal palm. But the wagon had other ideas, tipping from its side onto its wheels. It began to roll.
“Careful!” Lilit said, and the creature repeated the word.
Alek twisted his hand in the saunter again, trying to flip the wagon back onto its side. But it wouldn’t stay still, like a marble rolling back and forth in a bowl. The wagon reached the edge of his palm and teetered there, and Alek squeeze a little harder.…
The giant metal fingers shut with a sharp hiss of air, and he heard the crack of wood splitting. Splinters flew in all directions, and Alek ducked as something large sailed past his head. Tiny wooden needles stung his face.
He opened his eyes in time to see the wagon’s pieces crashing to bits against the paving stones below. He stared at the empty claw, annoyed.
Lilit sat back up beside him—a few tiny splinters were caught in her black hair. The creature stared up at him from the pilot’s cabin floor, making a sound like the creak of shattering wood.
“Having the power of a goddess is quite a responsibility,” Lilit said quietly, flicking at her hair. “Don’t you agree, boy?”
Alek nodded slowly, turning his wrist and watching the giant claw rotate on its gears. He still felt it, the connection between himself and the machine.
“I don’t suppose you have another wagon,” he said. “I think I’ve got it now.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Night was falling at last.
Deryn had spent a long, hot day among the crates on the cargo ship’s deck, hiding from the crew and the merciless sun. It was the vessel she’d spotted from the beach at Kilye Niman, a German steamship carrying fat coils of copper wire, and turbine blades the size of windmill sails.
The ship had waited at the kraken nets till dawn, then had taken most of the day to steam to Istanbul. After spending seven weeks on an airship, Deryn was exasperated by the crawling pace of the surface craft. It didn’t help that since her hasty supper the night before, Deryn had eaten only a stale biscuit she’d found among the crates. For drink she’d had only handfuls of dew scraped from a canvas lifeboat cover.
Of course, she was better off than her men, who were all either dead or held captive by the Ottomans. On the slow journey here, she’d replayed the scene on the beach a thousand times in her mind, wondering what she could have done. But against the scorpion walker and two dozen soldiers, she would only have been captured herself.
The cargo ship was not entirely without conveniences, though. The crew mostly stayed belowdecks, and a line of sailors’ uniforms had been left drying in the sun. She’d found a set of slops that would fit well enough.
Once the sun set, she would swim for shore.
Istanbul was already lighting up before her. Clanker electricals were harsher than the soft bioluminescence of London and Paris, and what had seemed a ghostly glow from the airfield was dazzling this close. The city looked like a fairground coming to life, all glitter and brilliance.
Even the sultan’s palace was alight on its hill, the minarets of the two great mosques lancing into the sky around it. Deryn had decided to head for that section of the city, the peninsula where both the oldest and newest buildings were clustered.
But as she stretched her swimming muscles, Deryn felt one last squick of doubt about her plan and considered the options. There were more than a hundred ships standing off Istanbul, some of them civilian vessels under British flags. If she swam across to one of those, it might carry her back out to the Mediterranean, where the Royal Navy waited. Or north to the Russians in the Black Sea, who were Darwinists, at least.
But a thousand excuses crowded her head—the Ottomans would be searching British ships carefully. And why would any captain believe that she was a decorated officer in the Air Service and not some mad stowaway? What if without her middy’s uniform and a ship full of beasties at her command, anyone could see straightaway that she was a mere girl?
And even if she did make it back to the
But it wasn’t any of those reasons that had set her on this course, Deryn knew. Alek was here in this city, and needed help. Perhaps it was daft to risk everything for some barking prince, a boy who didn’t even know she was a girl. But it was no more daft than Alek walking across a glacier to assist a wounded enemy airship, was it?
When the water had turned into a black expanse, an upside-down sky shimmering with the city’s radiance, Deryn left her hiding place. She stuffed the stolen uniform inside her diving suit and crept to the bow. After slipping over the gunwales, she descended the anchor chain hand over hand, then slid into the water without a splash.
