Philip Reeve - A Darkling Plain

Varley had an arm around Oenone’s throat. “Come on, lads!” he shouted. “Get her! Get her!” Hester remembered the men outside. Squinting with the pain in her head, she tried to stand up. Footsteps shook the gondola as the heavies from the mooring strut came aboard. Hester reached into her pocket and tugged out her pistol, shooting them one at a time as they came barging through the cabin door. The gas pistol made soft coughing sounds, which she hoped would not be heard out on the High Street. The men fell on top of the body of their friend, and one of them kept struggling, so she shot him again. She could feel blood running down her face. She swung the gun toward Varley but fainted before she could pull the trigger.

The next thing she knew, the merchant was wrenching the gun out of her hand. He had a stupid, mad grin, and his nostrils kept flaring. He pulled down Hester’s veil, and his grin grew even wider, as if her ugliness were some sort of victory for him. He spat in her face. “Well,” he said. He put down the gun (a dangerous thing to use on board your own airship) and pulled a knife out of his belt. “Nobody’s going to miss you.”

He looked surprised when his wife picked up the gun and shot him. It seemed to take him a moment to understand that he’d been killed. His grin faded slowly, and he sank down on his knees beside Hester and bowed his head and stayed there, kneeling, dead.

“Oh, God,” murmured Oenone.

Mrs. Varley lowered the gun. She was shaking. The baby howled and howled. Oenone scrambled across the cabin and helped Hester to her feet.

“You’d better go now,” said Mrs. Varley. She pulled a nappy down from one of the lines and started scooping the gold into it.

Hester touched the searing, throbbing place where the shelf had hit her, and her hand came away wet and red. She felt drunk. She held on to Oenone for support and said, “We came to rescue you. Me and Grike.”

“Mr. Grike? He’s here?”

“Theo too. There’s a ship waiting.” With Oenone’s help she started limping toward the exit hatch, which seemed suddenly to be miles away. “Gods, it hurts,” she grumbled. Somehow they reached the top of the gangplank. Out on the docking strut a man was waiting. He was all alone. He had probably heard that last shot. The wind flapped his long blue greatcoat open, and moonlight shone on the hilt of the heavy saber in his belt.

Hester groaned, nauseous and weary. She had no strength left with which to fight him.

“Lady Naga?” said the stranger. “I’m just in time, I see.”

Oenone cringed against Hester as the stranger walked toward her, putting one booted foot on the gangplank. In the dim light from the Humbug’s hatchway his face looked stern, but not unkind. He held out a hand. “I am Kriegsmarschall von Kobold. You must come with me to Murnau. Quickly, please.”

Hester gripped the gangplank rail and glared at him. “You’ll have to get past me first.”

Von Kobold looked respectfully at her. Her scarred face did not shock him, nor did the blood that matted her hair and dripped from her chin. He gave her a little bow. “Forgive me, young woman, but that does not seem too great a challenge. I take it you are an agent of the Storm, come to free your empress? Even if you were not wounded, you could never get her away from here. A dozen cities stand between you and your own territory, and not all of their leaders are as understanding as I. Come with me to Murnau, and I shall find a way to send you and your mistress home to General Naga.”

A blurt of noise from the docking ring made him look around. Someone was shouting; running figures showed against the lighted windows of an all-night Ker-Plunk parlor. “We have to trust him,” whispered Oenone, and helped Hester down the gangplank. But by the time they reached von Kobold, it was too late; the deck plates were thrumming with the stamp of booted feet. Along the strut toward them came six red-coated men with drawn swords, and behind them, urging them on, the podgy, hopping shape of Nimrod Pennyroyal.

“There they are!” Pennyroyal shouted. “They’re escaping! Stop them!”

“Who are you?” barked Kriegsmarschall von Kobold, in such a military voice that the men stopped short. Up on the High Street passersby began to gather at an observation platform to see what was happening down on Strut 13.

“We, sir, are officers of the Manchester Civic Guard,” said the tallest and most sober of the newcomers. “We have been informed that a dangerous Mossie is concealed aboard this airship…”

“Blimey!” said one of his comrades, pointing. “It’s her! Naga’s wife, just like the old man said!”

“What, in that getup?” asked another.

“It’s her. I seen her picture in the Evening News. Blimey!”

“You’re under arrest!” said the leader, striding toward Oenone.

“Stand back, sir,” snapped von Kobold, and drew his saber. “The lady is my prisoner, and I will not deliver her into the hands of your warmongering mayor.”

“Now, steady on!” called Pennyroyal, who didn’t want a squabble between Murnau and Manchester to ruin his chance of some favorable headlines. But before he could say more, the light of a flashbulb blinded him. A small man in formal robes walked out onto the increasingly crowded strut. There was a girl behind him, fumbling a new flashbulb into place on the top of her camera.

“Mr. Pennyroyal!” the newcomer called out pleasantly. “Sampford Spiney of The Speculum. Been looking for you everywhere. Do you have any message for your many disappointed fans?” His voice was affable and faintly snide; it faded into silence as he saw the Mancunians with their drawn swords, von Kobold with his saber, Oenone supporting Hester, who had crumpled to her knees at the foot of the Humbug’s gangplank. “I say!” he murmured excitedly. “What’s all this?”

But the leader of the Mancunians was tired of talking. He raised his sword and tried to barge past von Kobold, but the kriegsmarschall barred his way. Sparks flew as their swords met, directly contravening Airhaven’s strict fire-prevention laws. Up on the High Street people screamed. The Manchester swordsman screamed too, stumbling away with blood running down his arm. Von Kobold turned to face the others. “Defend yourselves!” he shouted, and most of them started to edge back, frightened of this fierce old soldier who seemed ready to take on five of them at once. Only one held his ground. He was a young man, red cheeked and running to fat. In addition to his uniform sword he had a revolver. He pointed it straight at von Kobold, and fired twice.

Theo, waiting aboard the Shadow Aspect, heard the shots. He ran to the hatch. He tried to tell himself that those bangs had not been gunfire, but he knew that they had, and he knew that they had come from the direction of Strut 13.

An alarm bell began to jangle. Theo jumped down onto the mooring strut and started to run toward the docking ring. A squad of men in the sky-blue uniforms of Airhaven was storming down a stairway from the High Street, crossbows held ready. From a docking pan near the town hall a red fire-fighting dirigible was lifting off, ready to train her hoses on any blaze that broke out.

Theo stood helpless, halfway between the Shadow Aspect and the docking ring. What could he do? How could he help?

A horrified scream reached him, blowing on the wind. Another. More shots. He turned and went hammering back to the Shadow.

As Kriegsmarschall von Kobold fell, the man who’d shot him sprang forward, reaching for Lady Naga. Hester heaved herself up to face him and suddenly, although she had done no more than glare at him, he dropped his gun and shouted, “Yaagh!” Looking down, Hester saw the sharp blades that had been driven up through the deck from beneath. There were five of them, and two had gone through the Mancunian’s boot and through the foot inside it. He screamed again, wrenching himself free, and the blades slid back through the deck, leaving ragged holes. “Get this, Miss Kropotkin!” Spiney was ordering his photographer.