Behemoth

Deryn lifted the rope, and felt Bovril tighten its grip on her shoulder.

“Abandon ship,” the beastie said.

She jumped, sliding down through hot clouds of vapor.

THIRTY-NINE

Before he followed Dylan, Alek looked down at the war elephant that had impaled the djinn.

Crewmen were abandoning the walker through its belly hatch, coughing and stumbling blindly. They wouldn’t be much of a threat for the moment.

But seeing the ground so far below made Alek pull his piloting gloves tighter. Learning how to “belay,” as Dylan called it, had taught him a healthy respect for rope burn. He swallowed, the tastes of paprika and cayenne heavy in his mouth, then jumped …

The rope whipped past him, wild and angry, like a stream of scalding water. He jerked himself to a painful halt every few meters, his boots banging against the hot metal of the djinn’s armor. Steam clouds swirled around him, the engines inside the walker knocking and hissing as they cooled.

As his feet thumped down onto hard earth, Alek pulled off the gloves to stare at his burning palms.

“Took you long enough,” Dylan complained, turning toward the iron golem. “Come on. That Tesla cannon’s getting ready to fire. We need to show Klopp you’re okay!”

Alek unclipped himself and followed the boy, who had broken into a dead run. The iron golem was still headed toward them, making its steady way across the battlefield.

Klopp clearly hadn’t seen the Ottoman reinforcements coming from behind him.

As he ran, Alek squinted at the smoke trail in the distance. It seemed closer already, and he saw now how the column curved backward against the starlit sky.

Fast, the creature had said. But what walker was that fast?

Dylan let out a yelp from just ahead. He’d tripped and fallen face-first into the dirt. As the boy scrambled to his feet, Alek slowed, staring down at what Dylan had stumbled on—train tracks.

“Oh, no.”

“What in blazes?” Dylan stared down at the rails. “Ah, this must be where the Orient-Express …”

“Express,” the beast hissed softly.

Together they turned to stare at the approaching column of smoke. It was much closer now, charging along the cliffs ten times faster than any lumbering walker.

And it was headed straight for the iron golem.

“He can’t see it,” Alek said. “It’s right behind him!”

“Klopp!” Dylan cried out, breaking back into a run, his arms waving in the air. “Get away from the tracks!”

Alek ran a few more steps, his heart thudding in his ears. But yelling was pointless. He searched his pockets for a way to send a signal—a flare, a gun.

The famous dragon-headed engine was visible in the distance now, it single eye glowing white hot, smoke spewing from its stacks. Dylan was still running toward Klopp, pointing back at the massive train.

The iron golem came to a lumbering halt, its head lowering for a better view of the tiny boy before it.

Alek watched as two huge cargo arms unfolded from the engine car of the Express. A dozen meters long, they stretched out in both directions, like a pair of sabers wielded by a charging horseman.

Klopp must have understood Dylan’s cries, or heard the train behind him, because the walker began to slowly turn …

But in that moment the Express shot past, its left cargo arm slicing through the golem’s legs. Metal shrieked and buckled, and a cloud of steam burst from the ruined knees.

The walker tipped backward, its huge arms flailing, and landed on the trailing end of the Express. Two freight cars buckled around the fallen machine, and the cars behind kept piling into it, hurling glass and metal parts into the air.

The shock wave from being pulled in half rippled up the train until it reached the engine, which skidded from the rails, plowing through the dirt. But the pilots had been ready for this—the Express’s arms stretched out like wings to steady the engine car. A handful of coal and freight cars dragged behind the engine, sending clouds of dust into the air.

Alek saw Dylan running back toward him, Bovril a tiny silhouette on his shoulder, both of them about to be swallowed in the rolling mass of dust.

“Run!” he was shouting, pointing sideways from the tracks.

The front half of the train, skidding and derailed but still speeding along, was headed straight at Alek.

He turned and ran the way Dylan was pointing, directly away from the rails. Long seconds later the dust cloud overtook Alek, blinding him and filling his lungs.

Something flew out of the dark mass and knocked him off his feet, strong hands pushing his head down into the dirt.

A huge shadow swept overhead—the Express’s cargo arm, Alek realized. A cascade of dirt and gravel flew over him, and a clamor like a thousand foundries rolled past, full of shrieks and clangs and explosions.

As the noise faded, the dust cleared a little, and Alek looked up.

“Well, that was close,” he said. Not five meters from his head, the skidding claw of the cargo arm had carved a furrow as wide as a carriage lane.

“You’re welcome, your archdukeness.”

“Thank you, Dylan.” Alek stood up, dusting off his clothes and looking dazedly about.

The front half of the Orient-Express had finally slid to a halt, almost skidding into the Tesla cannon itself. The iron golem lay hissing and steaming on the ground, the back half of the train in piles around it. Alek took a step closer, wondering if Master Klopp and Bauer were all right.

But Bovril was growling, echoing a low buzzing noise that drifted across the battlefield. A crackle was building in the air.

Dylan pointed toward the southern sky, where a long silhouette had finally appeared—the Leviathan, black and huge against the stars.

Alek turned back toward the Tesla cannon. As he watched, the awful shimmers began to travel up into its tip.

“We have to stop it,” Dylan said. “There’s no one else.”

Alek nodded dumbly. Klopp and Bauer, Lilit and Zaven—they all needed his help. But the Tesla cannon was readying to fire, and the Leviathan had more than a hundred men aboard.

His fists clenched in frustration. If only he were in a walker now, with huge arms to tear the tower down.

“Express,” Bovril hissed.

“The train,” Alek said softly. “If we can take the engine car, we can use its cargo arms!”

Dylan gazed at him a moment, then nodded. They ran together, stumbling across the wreckage-strewn ground, dodging the piles of scattered cargo that had been thrown from the train.

The front half of the Orient-Express had come to rest only fifteen meters from the Tesla cannon. The cargo arms were motionless, but the smokestacks were still belching. A few soldiers stumbled out of the engine cars, wearing German uniforms, rifles strapped across their shoulders.

Alek dragged Dylan to a halt in the shadows. “They’re armed, and we’re not.”

“Aye. Follow me.”

The boy ran to the last car in the line, a freight carrier lying lopsided in the furrow dug by the train’s passage.