Gail Carriger - Timeless

The snail was fast in a way that, given its form, Alexia found rather insulting. Riding atop its head and neck and hanging down the sides of its back were a number of men. They were dressed in white robes and turbans.

Alexia, Conall, and Genevieve stood for a moment, transfixed by the snail sliding across the desert.

“High-pressure, air-compressed sand buggy operating on methane fumes, unless I miss my guess.”

“What was that, Genevieve?”

“A gastropod transport. We’ve hypothesized about them, of course. I didn’t think anyone had actually built one.”

“Well, it looks like someone did.” Alexia shielded her eyes against the glare.

As the contraption neared, spitting up a wake of sand to either side, it slurred between the tentacles of the octopus so as not to disturb the bodies laid out there.

“That’s not good,” said Alexia.

“They know what’s going on here,” said Genevieve.

“Run!” said Conall.

Alexia took off, as ordered, throwing her modesty to the wind. She snapped closed her parasol and clipped it to the chatelaine. Then she picked up her skirts high, showing ankle but not caring for once, and took off up the hill.

“Alexia, wait! Here, take Prudence,” Conall called after her.

Alexia paused and held out her free arm.

“No!” yelled Prudence, but she clung like a limpet to her mother after the transfer, wrapping her chubby arms and legs tight about Alexia’s corseted frame.

Alexia looked into her husband’s face; it was set and determined. “Now, Conall, don’t do anything rash. You’re mortal, remember.”

Lord Maccon looked hard at this wife. “Get our daughter to safety and protect yourself, Alexia. I don’t think…” He paused, clearly searching for the right words. “I’m still mad, but I do love you and I couldna stand it if…” He let the sentence trail off, gave her a blistering kiss as hot and as fierce as the Egyptian sun, and turned, charging toward the oncoming snail.

The snail spat a blast of fire at him. He dodged it easily.

“Conall, you idiot!” Alexia yelled after him.

She ignored his instructions, of course, reaching for her parasol.

Madame Lefoux came up to her, pressing a firm hand to the small of her back, almost pushing her up the hill.

“No, here, take Prudence.” Alexia passed the little girl off once more.

“No, Mama!” remonstrated Prudence.

“I have my pins and my wrist emitters,” said Madame Lefoux, looking like she, too, might disobey orders.

“No, you get her to safety and get Zayed to inflate the balloon. Someone has to see to that dunce of a husband of mine.” Alexia was white with fear. “I think he’s forgotten he could actually die.”

“If you’re certain?”

“Go!”

Madame Lefoux went, Prudence shrieking and struggling under her arm. “No, Mama. No, Foo!” There was no way the toddler could break free. Madame Lefoux might be bony and tall, but she was wiry and strong from years of hoisting machinery.

Lady Maccon unhooked and flipped her parasol about and turned to face the gastropod.

Whoever they were, they were less interested in guns and hurling fire than in scrapping hand to hand with the big man who stood alone before them. They’d stopped their snail in front of Lord Maccon and were leaping off it to attack him. Alexia’s husband stood, waiting for them, arms akimbo.

I married an idiot , thought his loving wife, and she rushed down the hillside.

The idiot glowered at the gastropod enemy. His hair was a shaggy mess, his face covered in a full beard, his expression ferocious. He looked like a mountain man come to raise hell among the desert folk.

The first of the white-clad men charged him.

Conall lashed out. He might be mortal but he still knew how to fight. What Alexia worried about was his remembering he wasn’t nearly so strong nor so durable in his nonsupernatural state.

She came dashing up just as he engaged two more robed men in combat. She drew back her parasol, took aim, and fired a numbing dart at one of the opponents.

At this action, the attackers paused and fell back to regroup behind the snail, nattering at each other excitedly in Arabic.

“Guess they weren’t expecting projectiles,” said Lady Maccon smugly.

“I told you to leave!” The earl was not pleased to see his lady wife.

“Be fair, my love. When have I ever done as ordered?”

He snorted. “Where’s Prudence?”

“With Madame Lefoux, getting the balloon up, I hope.” Alexia braced herself next to him, reaching into one of the secret pockets of her parasol. She pulled out Ethel and handed the small gun to him.

“Just in case.” Even as she said it, they heard the sound of a gunshot, and sand near Conall’s foot spat up sharp pellets at them.

Alexia and her husband both dove forward. They had the advantage of higher ground, but they also had no shelter.

Alexia opened her parasol defensively in front of them, trying to remember if this new one had armor.

Lord Maccon took careful aim and fired the gun.

A loud ping indicated the bullet had hit the metal of the gastropod’s shell harmlessly.

“This is very decidedly not good,” said Alexia.

Conall looked at her, his expression ferocious. “We are stuck on a hill, outmanned and outgunned.”

Another barrage of shots came at them, this time narrowly missing Conall’s head. Alexia and her husband began to squirm backward, up the hill. Alexia’s bustle wiggled back and forth suggestively as she squirmed. Her skirts began to ride up scandalously high, but she had other things to worry about.

Lady Maccon was not happy about the situation. Not happy at all. She was also drying out, the sun beating relentlessly down, and all her water carriers had run off at the first sign of the gastropod. The pressure of the mummies around her was beginning to leak in and distract. Her entire being felt as though it were being pushed. All she could think was that she wasn’t meant to be there. The dead didn’t want her there. And neither did the living, if the white-clad snail men were anything to go by.

Another barrage of bullets came at them. Conall let out a sharp cry as one lucky shot hit the meat of his upper arm.

“See, what did I warn you of?” Alexia was concerned. In Alexia, concern, nine times out of ten, came out of her mouth as annoyance.

“Not now, wife!” Lord Maccon yanked off his cravat, and Alexia wrapped it quickly about his arm while he transferred Ethel to his other, working, hand.

“Should I?” she asked, offering to take the gun back.

“Even with the wrong hand I can still shoot better than you.”

“Oh, thank you very much.” Alexia glanced back up the hill and saw the purple rise of Zayed’s balloon peek up behind it.

“He won’t come get us,” she said. “Not with bullets flying. The balloon would be at risk.”

“Then I suppose we had better get to it.”

Alexia was peeved enough to reply, “Well, yes. Couldn’t you have done that in the first place?”

“I was trying to buy you ladies some time to escape. Precious little good it’s done you.”

“Oh, very gallant. As if I would let you take on a gastropod alone without any kind of weaponry.”

“Must we argue right now?” Another round of gunfire spit the sand up around them.

They continued squirming up the hill and exchanging fire with the snail. Or Conall did; Alexia was out of the numbing darts.

Alexia closed the parasol so she could see where she was aiming. She reached for the first nodule on the handle and twisted it, activating the magnetic disruption emitter. Some of the gastropod must have been comprised of iron components, for the engine seized up, much to the bewilderment of the shouting driver.