Philip Reeve - A Darkling Plain

“She’s got them. Around her neck. On a string. But I’m not going up there again. Not after what she did! After all I went through for her!”

The boy started to cry. Pennyroyal was unused to children. He patted his shoulder and said, “There, there,” and “That’s women for you!” He thought about keys and air yachts and glanced nervously at the house on the crag. Some sort of antenna thing on the roof was turning, glinting blood-red in the rays of the sinking sun.

Ten miles away, in frozen silt on the bed of a mountain lake, Grike stirred. His eyes switched on, lighting up constellations of drifting matter. He remembered falling. He had fallen past crags and cliffs, and punched through the crust of ice on this lake, leaving an amusing hole the shape of a spread-eagled man. He could not see the hole above him, so he guessed the lake was deep, and that night was falling in the world above.

He pried himself out of the silt and started walking. The water grew shallower as he neared the shore. Thick ice formed a rippled ceiling twenty feet overhead, then ten. Soon he was able to reach up with his fists and punch his way through it. He dragged himself free, an ugly hatchling breaking out of a cold egg.

The moon was rising. Shards of the Jenny Haniver ’s fallen engine pod shone on the scree high above him. He climbed toward it, sniffing for Hester’s scent.

The Londoners had always imagined themselves leaving the debris fields in a leisurely way, perhaps moving at no more than walking speed until they grew used to New London’s controls. Instead, here they were, barreling north through the wreck of old London as fast as the new city could go, slaloming around tumbles of old tier supports and giant, corroded heaps of tracks and wheels. Down in the engine rooms the Engineers heaved desperately on the levers that angled the Magnetic Repellers, while up in the steering chamber at the top of the town hall Mr. Garamond and his navigators peered out through unglazed, unfinished viewing windows and shouted to the helmsmen, “Left a bit! Right a bit! Right a bit! Oh, I mean, left, left, LEFT!”

Harrowbarrow raced after them, only half a mile behind, steam fuming from its blunt snout as it readied its mouth parts for the kill. It did not have to swerve and wriggle as New London did; tall heaps of wreckage that the new city had to avoid Harrowbarrow simply butted its way through. The constant crunch and shudder of these collisions kept threatening to jolt Wren and Theo off the precarious handholds they were clinging to, high on the harvester’s spine. But Wolf Kobold, who was well used to his suburb’s movements, never lost his footing, and barely paused as he came toward them, except to glance sometimes at the view ahead, and grin when he saw the gap narrowing between Harrowbarrow and its prey.

“You see?” he shouted. “It was all for nothing, Wren! Another ten minutes and that precious place of yours will be in the ’Barrow’s gut. And you; you and your black boyfriend—I’m going to string your bowels off the yard roof like paper chains, and nail up your carcasses in the slave hold so your London friends can see what comes to those who try to make a fool of me!”

He was close enough by then to swipe at them with his sword. They scrambled backward, away from him. The swiveling gun emplacement behind them let out another stuttering roar as a white airship soared past astern, but Kobold only laughed. “Don’t think the Mossies can save you! They won’t dare come in range of that gun.”

He lunged forward, and the point of his sword struck sparks from the suburb’s armor inches from Theo’s foot. Theo looked at Wren. Near her, where one of the chunky rivets that held Harrowbarrow’s armor in place stood slightly proud of the plating, a shard of wreckage had snagged. Theo threw himself down and pulled it free. It was an old length of half-inch pipe, rusty and sharp at the ends. It was too long and heavy to use for a sword, but Theo had nothing better, so he turned with a cry, swinging it at Kobold. Kobold jumped back, raising his blade to deflect the blow. He looked surprised; even pleased. “That’s the spirit!” he shouted.

Aboard the Fury, Naga said, “We have to silence that swivel gun. There is no other way we can get within range…”

“Sir!” one of his aviators interrupted. “On the suburb’s back—”

Naga swung his telescope along the wood-louse curve of Harrowbarrow’s spine. Twenty yards behind the gun emplacement two figures seemed to be dancing—no, fighting; he saw the flash of sparks as their swords met. “One of our men?”

“Can’t tell, sir. But if we fire on the gun, we may kill whoever it is…”

“That can’t be helped, Commander. Let their gods look after them; we have work to do.”

A flight of rockets sprang from the airship, and Wren ducked as one sizzled past her, close enough for her to glimpse the snarling dragon face painted on its nose cone and the Chinese characters chalked along its flank. It burst on the armor close to the gun turret, but not close enough to do more than rattle shrapnel against it. The other rockets went wide, exploding harmlessly on spikes of wreckage. Harrowbarrow was speeding through a region where long, jagged shards from London’s upper tiers lay heaped on top of one another, forming a lattice through which the westering sun poked its unhealthy crimson beams. Clinging to the armor with both hands, Wren looked up at the sharp spines flicking past. It was like rushing through an enormous, untidy cutlery drawer. If we run ourselves upon one of those, she thought, it will put an end to all our problems…

The blades did not seem to trouble Wolf Kobold. He waved his sword, shouting something to the gun crew, and the gun turned with a swirl of fairground music and filled the air astern with black puffballs, so that the airship yawed hastily and vanished for a while behind the wreckage. Then he renewed his attack on Theo, more earnest and less playful now, as if Wren and her boyfriend were a distraction he wanted to be rid of before the serious business began.

Theo did his best, grunting and shouting out with effort as he swung the rusty pipe to and fro, trying to parry Wolf’s blows, but he was no swordsman, and he found it harder than Wolf to keep his footing on the lurching, lumbering armor. After little more than a minute, during which Theo was driven steadily back toward the housing of the swivel gun, Wolf made a sudden feint, and Theo, lurching sideways to avoid his blade, lost his footing. He fell awkwardly, his head cracking against the armor underfoot. The pipe flew out of his sweaty hands. Wren caught it as it clattered past her. Wolf was already standing over Theo, sword raised to finish him.

She threw herself forward, not knowing what she meant to do, just determined that Wolf should not have it all his own way. She heard somebody scream, and it was her; a hard, ragged scream of terror and rage and panic that seemed to give her the strength she needed as she swung the pipe to fend off Wolf’s descending sword.

More sparks; a shock that jarred her arms in their sockets. For a comical moment Wolf stood amazed, staring at the sword hilt in his hand, the blade broken off halfway along its length. He looked at Wren. He shrugged and threw the broken sword away. He flipped his coat open and pulled a shiny new revolver from its holster.

Despite all the noise, the relentless speed, it seemed to grow very quiet and still on the back of Harrowbarrow in those last moments. Even the swivel gun had stopped firing. When Wren glanced around in the hope of spotting some miraculous escape, she saw the gunners gawping at her out of their little window.

“Good-bye, Wren,” said Wolf.