Behemoth

He climbed up and along its top, making his way toward the engine car. Alek followed, crouching low to keep out of sight.

The soldiers hardly looked alert. They were walking about in a dumbfounded state, gazing at the battle wreckage around them and coughing spices from their lungs. A few stared at the Leviathan in the sky.

Alek heard a familiar sound—the rumble of the airship’s engines. He glanced up and saw that the Leviathan was halfway through a turn. The crew had spotted the glittering Tesla cannon and were trying to bring the ship about.

But they were too late. It would take long minutes to get out of range, and the Tesla cannon was buzzing like a beehive, almost ready to fire.

Dylan had reached the coal hopper behind the engine, and Alek jumped in after him. Coal skidded under his feet and turned his hands black as he caught himself from stumbling.

Dylan scrambled to the front and climbed out, reaching down to give Alek a hand.

“Quickly now,” the boy whispered.

Alek pulled himself up between the two huge cargo arms. He could feel the air crackling; sparks from the giant tower were making the shadows quiver. But the engineer’s cabin was just ahead.

“There’s only one man inside,” Dylan whispered, handing Bovril to Alek and pulling a knife from his jacket. “I can handle him.”

Not waiting for an answer, the boy swung himself down and in through a window in a single motion. By the time Alek reached the door, Dylan had the lone engineer cowering in a corner.

Alek stepped inside and looked at the controls—a legion of unfamiliar dials and gauges, brake levers and engine stokers. But the saunters were metal gloves on poles, just like the ones that controlled Sahmeran’s arms.

He placed Bovril on the floor, stuck his hands into the saunters, and made a fist.

A dozen meters to his right, the huge claw responded, snapping shut. A few of the German soldiers looked up at the noise, but most were transfixed by the glittering Tesla cannon and the airship overhead.

“Don’t muck about!” Dylan hissed. “Tear it down!”

Alek extended his arm, reaching out for the tower. But the great claw clamped shut a few meters short of the nearest glowing strut.

“Get us closer!” Dylan said.

Alek stared at the engine levers, then realized that the train’s wheels were useless without a track. But he remembered a legless beggar he’d seen in the town of Lienz, propelling himself along on a wheeled board with his hands.

He set both claws against the ground, one on either side, and scraped them backward. The engine car lifted a bit, sliding forward a meter or so, then settled back into the dirt.

“Closer,” Bovril said approvingly.

“Well, we’ve got the Germans’ attention now,” Dylan muttered, looking out the window.

“I leave that matter to you,” Alek answered, scraping the huge claws against the ground again. The engine car skidded forward with an ungodly screech, metal striking the bedrock of the cliffs.

Shouts came through the windows now, and a soldier leapt up to pound on the door. Dylan punched the engineer in the stomach, crumpling him to the floor, then turned to stand ready with his knife.

Alek outstretched the cargo arms again.

This time one great claw reached the Tesla cannon’s lowest strut. As he snapped the claw shut, a crackle shot through the cabin. The metal gloves sizzled in Alek’s hands, and an invisible force seemed to close around his chest. Every hair on Bovril’s body was standing on end.

“Barking spiders!” Dylan cried. “The lightning’s coming for us!”

Sparks danced along the controls and the walls of the cabin, and the soldier at the door yelped, jumping off the metal running board.

Alek set his teeth against the pain, pulling harder on the saunter. The engine car lifted into the air again, the strut letting out a metal groan as it slowly bent toward them. At the base of the tower, a ball of white fire was spiraling into being.

“It’s about to fire!” Dylan cried.

Alek pulled as hard as he could, and a sudden shudder passed through the car. The saunters went limp in his hand, and the lightning on the cabin walls flickered out.

“You snapped it, and the cannon’s …” Dylan frowned. “It’s tipping. The whole barking thing is tipping over!”

“From one broken strut?” Alek stepped to the window, looking up.

The tower was slowly leaning away, the lightning flowing down from its higher struts into a ball of white fire on its opposite side. A huge snakelike form clung to the struts there, halfway up, wrapped in a glowing cocoon of electricity.

“Is that … ?”

“Aye,” Dylan breathed. “It’s Sahmeran.”

Zaven had somehow piloted his injured walker all the way to the tower. And now it was acting as a conductor, drawing the power of the cannon into itself.

Lightning spun in a whirlwind around the goddess walker, glowing brighter and brighter until Alek had to shut his eyes.

“He’ll be done for in there,” Dylan said, and Alek nodded.

A few seconds later the Tesla cannon began to fall.

FORTY

The tower toppled around Sahmeran in a maelstrom of white fire.

Tendrils of lightning leapt out in all directions, dancing on the frozen djinn and elephant, on the other fallen walkers, and along the wreckage of the Orient-Express. The metal walls of the engine car crackled with sparks and spiderwebs of flame.

As the lightning faded, the roar of the tower’s collapse filled the air. A falling strut struck the engine car—the ceiling dented inward, and the windows shattered all at once. Bending metal howled around them, and smoke and dust billowed through the car.

Long moments later a heavy silence settled over the battlefield.

“Are you all right, Dylan?” Alek’s words sounded muffled in his own ears.

“Aye. How about you, beastie?”

“Zaven,” said Bovril softly.

Dylan took the creature into his arms. “Listen. The Leviathan’s still up there.”

It was true—the soft rumble of the airship’s engines had settled over the silent battlefield. At least all this madness hadn’t been in vain.

“Leviathan,” Bovril repeated slowly, rolling the word around in its mouth.

Alek stepped closer to the window. The Tesla cannon stretched out into the distance, jagged and broken, like the unearthed spine of some huge extinct creature. The djinn lay fallen beside the war elephant, both walkers battered by the cascade of debris.

A cold shiver went through Alek—most of the German soldiers had disappeared beneath the ruined tower.

“We need to see if Lilit’s all right,” he said. “And Klopp and Bauer.”

“Aye.” Dylan put Bovril on his shoulder. “But who first?”