Steven Harper - The Dragon Men
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- Название:The Dragon Men
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- Рейтинг книги:4 / 5. Голосов: 1
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There was a long pause. Then Su Shun laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed some more. He pulled the Jade Hand-empty-from the box and knocked the container sideways so everyone could see inside.
The Ebony Chamber was empty.
A sigh went through the assembled people. All the fear came rushing back. Alice’s stomach churned, and she nearly vomited on the stones.
“Before these witnesses, I proclaim the emperor declared no heir.” Su Shun raised the growling sword to the sky, and his voice was rich with reclaimed luster. “Since I bear the Jade Hand-”
“No!” Lady Orchid rushed at Su Shun, her fingers formed into claws. She swiped at the fleshy side of his face and scored furrows. But he caught her wrist with the Jade Hand and twisted. She dropped to one knee.
“Your filthy hand struck the emperor!” he howled. “Let it pay the price before you die!”
He swung the wire sword around. The snarling blade sliced through Lady Orchid’s right wrist as if it were paper. Lady Orchid screamed. Her hand dropped to the staircase with a horrible plop . Su Shun released her, and she held the stump before her eyes, too shocked to believe what she was seeing. The blade had cauterized the wound as it cut, leaving no blood. Threads of smoke drifted up from the half-cooked meat. This time Alice did throw up. Vomit spattered across the cracked cobblestones and left burning acid in her mouth and nose. Phipps looked green. Cricket was crying openly now, not caring who saw.
Alice thought she heard a faint, familiar clicking sound from overhead, and a bit of whirling brass caught the tail of her eye. She didn’t dare look directly at it.
“Enjoy your perfect beauty now, Imperial Concubine,” Su Shun said. “Captain! Throw this pig filth down the well like her dogs and send her illegitimate brat after her.”
The captain bodily lifted Lady Orchid and carried her toward the well Alice had noticed earlier. The soldier with Cricket followed. Both Orchid and Cricket fought and yelled. Alice cast about for something to do, but she couldn’t think of a thing. A dozen weapons were pointed at her, and if she got up or even protested, she would die in an instant. In cold horror she watched as the captain lifted the screaming Lady Orchid over his head and dropped her into the dark pit. The earth swallowed her screams. Seconds later, the soldier dropped Cricket in after, and his cries likewise vanished. Alice wept. She couldn’t even hear the splash.
“Monster!” she cried at Su Shun, tears streaming down her face. “May you rot in hell!”
“I won’t translate,” Phipps said hoarsely. “Though I think he understood the general idea.”
That seemed to be the case. Su Shun made a sharp gesture, and one of the soldiers grabbed Alice’s arms with a steel grip that left bruises. He dragged her up to the stairs to the new emperor’s feet. The eyes on her spider gauntlet glowed green-no one near her carried the clockwork plague. She looked up at Su Shun and his yellow armor and his half-brass face and his metal neck all ringed in rivets. There was a fury in his eyes, but fear, too. In that moment, she saw that he was little more than a boy surrounding himself with a wall of metal and creating toys that would fight for him. Under other circumstances she might have found him pathetic or even pitiable, but right now a woman and a child were, at his order, drowning in fear and darkness. The snippet of whirling brass tugged at the tail of her eye again, but she kept her eyes on him.
“Do not look the emperor in the eye, pig spawn,” Su Shun snapped.
“You’re nothing but a tin bully,” Alice snapped back, and spat at his feet.
At those particular words, Phipps, Li, and all of Li’s men put their hands over their ears. So did Alice. The imperial soldiers had time to look puzzled. In a rage, Su Shun drew back the vibrating sword, and at that moment, an explosion rocked the Forbidden City. Heat blasted through the courtyard, and a shock wave knocked flat everyone who wasn’t kneeling, including Su Shun. A second blast followed the first. Several of the Dragon Men’s mechanical animals were knocked over. The gunpowder and ammunition stores-the source of the explosion-roiled up to the sky in a choking cloud of black smoke. Alice, who was braced for the event, recovered first. She leaped past Su Shun and snatched up the Ebony Chamber. With shaking fingers, she spun the phoenix latch to 000 and opened the lid. Out of the impossibly small space, Alice drew one of Gavin’s new pistols, trailing its battery pack by a cable, and threw it to Phipps. Alice tossed a second pistol to Li and kept the third for herself. She started to shrug herself into the battery pack, but the well caught her eye. How long had Lady Orchid and Cricket been down there?
Chaos erupted in all directions. Phipps turned and fired at the Dragon Men’s automatons without bothering to put the battery pack on first. Her pistol spat crackling orange bolts that hissed and sparked over the mechanical animals, blowing holes in them or melting them. Li joined her. The black-clad Dragon Men scattered like shadows before the light, howling as they went. Li’s men shot to their feet and leaped for their imperial counterparts, wrestling the stunned guards to get their weapons back. Su Shun was staggering to his feet, shaking his head. Alice tried fumbling with the battery pack, but her fingers were numb. And the well-always the well.
Su Shun raised the Jade Hand and shouted something. The Hand glowed, and all about the courtyard, tiny points of light showed a gleaming salamander where a Dragon Man heard his voice and halted dead in his tracks.
“Alice!” Phipps yelled, still firing at automatons. “He’s telling the Dragon Men to defend him! Shoot him! Shut him up!”
The Dragon Men were running toward their inventions now, the fifteen or twenty that still worked. The Dragon Men whose automatons had been destroyed ran toward Su Shun, apparently ready to fight with their bare hands. It might have been funny but for the heightened strength and reflexes granted them by the plague. Two of the Dragon Men, in fact, leaped forward like baboons, covering half the distance to Su Shun in a single jump. Li caught one in the chest with a pistol shot, and he vanished in a fiery scream.
Alice glanced at the well in which Cricket and Lady Orchid were drowning, then raised the heavy pistol and aimed it at Su Shun. The cable dragged her arm toward the battery pack, which lay at her feet. Her hands were shaking. She had never shot anyone before. Su Shun turned to look at her. The fear had left his eyes. Flames from the fires behind Alice reflected in them, giving him a dragon’s gaze. He had just murdered two people and planned to kill thousands more. Why was she hesitating? Her finger tightened on the trigger.
The wire sword in Su Shun’s other hand lashed out. With a vvvvvip it sliced through the power cable. It dropped to the stairs at Alice’s feet, spitting orange sparks.
“Oh bugger,” Alice said, and wondered if those would be her last words ever.
Su Shun drew back the sword. Alice tensed to dodge away, but knew she wouldn’t make it. Dragon Men were beginning to swarm the steps. She had come so far, only to die.
Another blast rocked the stairs. This time Alice did lose her balance. She fell backward and landed on her posterior. Su Shun was flung down, and even the Dragon Men lost their balance. The sound of the blast had a strangely musical quality to it, and the realization made Alice’s heart sing. She looked up. Gavin, blue wings spread wide, rushed down from the sky with the Impossible Cube in his hands and the silver nightingale on his shoulder. Alice couldn’t have been happier. He landed beside her as she scrambled to her feet. Two of Alice’s whirligig automatons joined him, one of them still trailing the bit of fuse it had used to light the powder stores.
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