"Aye, I'll call one," Deryn said. "But fetch me some semaphore flags."
As Newkirk went for the flags, Deryn took out her command whistle, blowing for a message lizard. A few heads turned in the crowd below, but she ignored them.
Soon a lizard crested the wilting airbag and scuttled toward her along the spine. Deryn snapped her fingers, and it climbed up her flight suit, nestling on her shoulder like a parrot.
"Stay warm, beastie," she said.
The winch had started to turn, a length of slack rope coiling down the airbeast's flank. Newkirk handed her the semaphore flags and stood ready at the tether line.
Deryn gave him a thumbs-up, and he let the knot spill.
The air became clearer as she rose.
Down near the surface, icy particles flurried on the constant wind, swirling across the glacier like a freezing sandstorm. But up here, above the haze of airborne snow, the whole valley spread out below her. Mountains rose on either side, covered under a patchy blanket of white. The strata of the ancient seabed jutted up through the snow in a broken sawtooth pattern.
Deryn pulled the field glasses from their case. Where to start?
First she scanned the perimeter of the wreck, looking for fresh tracks in the snow. Several spindly trails led away from the ship and back, where crewman had snuck off to smoke a pipe or relieve themselves. But one set was wider and shuffly looking - Alek's funny shoes at work.
Deryn followed the tracks away from the wreck. They wandered back and forth, crossing exposed rock whenever possible. Alek had been clever, trying to confuse anyone trying to follow him home. But he hadn't reckoned on someone tracking him from the sky.
By the time the footprints had faded into the distance, she was certain he'd come from the east, where Austria lay.
The sun was fully up now, making the white snow glare. But Deryn was glad for the warmth. Her eyes were watering from the cold, and the message lizard clenched her shoulder like a vise. Fabricated lizards weren't properly cold blooded, but freezing air slowed them down.
"Hang on there, beastie. I'll have a mission for you soon."
Deryn swept her glasses back and forth across the eastern end of the valley, looking for anything out of place. And suddenly she saw them ... tracks of some kind.
But they weren't human. They were huge, as if a giant had shuffled through the snow. What had Newkirk said about abominable snowmen?
The tracks led to an outcrop of rocks, or what looked like rocks. As Deryn stared, the shapes of broken walls came into focus, along with stone buildings huddled around an open courtyard.
"Blisters!" she swore. No wonder Alek talked so posh. He lived in a barking castle.
But she still hadn't found whatever had made those tracks. The courtyard was empty, the stables too small to hold anything so massive. Deryn slowly scanned the structure until she found the gate in the castle walls... . It was open.
Her hands shaking a little, she followed the tracks away from the castle again, and saw what she'd missed the first time. Another set branched off, heading toward the wrecked airship.
And these tracks were fresh.
Deryn remembered her argument with Alek about animals and machines. He'd mentioned walkers, hadn't he? Those crude Clanker imitations of beasties. But what sort of barking mad family had its own walker?
Deryn swept her gaze across the snow faster now, until a glint of metal flashed across her vision. She blinked, backtracking until ...
"Blisters!"
The machine bounded across the snow, shimmering with heat in the cold, like a monstrous, angry teakettle on two legs. The ugly snout of a cannon thrust from its belly, and two machine guns sprouted like ears from its head.
It was running straight for the Leviathan.
She pulled the semaphore flags from her belt, waving them hard. A light flashed in response from the airship's spine - Newkirk was watching.
Deryn whipped the flags through the letters, spelling out ...
E-N-E-M-Y - A-P-P-R-O-A-C-H-I-N-G - D-U-E - E-A-S-T
Chapter 22
She squinted, watching for confirmation from below. The light flashed in answer: W-H-A-T - M-A-N-N-E-R-?
W-A-L-K-E-R - T-W-O - L-E-G-S, she answered.
Another confirmation flashed, but that was all. They'd be scrambling now, trying to mount some defense against an armored attack. But what could the Leviathan's crew do against an armored walker? An airship was defenseless on the ground.
They needed more details. She raised the glasses to her face again, trying to read the markings on the machine.
"Alek, you bum-rag!" she cried. Two steel plates hung down to protect the walker's legs, both painted with the Iron Cross. And a double-headed eagle was painted on its breastplate. Alek was no more Swiss than he was made of blue cheese!
"Beastie, wake up," Deryn snapped. She took a breath to steady herself, then said in a slow, clear voice, "Alert, alert. Regards to the Leviathan from Midshipman Sharp. The approaching walker is Austrian. Two legs, one cannon, type uncertain. It must be Alek's - that boy we caught - family on their way. Maybe he can talk to them... ."
Deryn paused for a moment, wondering what else to say. She could think of only one way to stop the machine, and it was too complicated to cram into a lizard's drafty wee attic.
"End message," she said, and gave the beastie a shove. It scuttled away down the ascender's rope.
As she watched its progress, Deryn let out a soft groan. Away from her body heat the freezing air was slowing it down. The beastie would take long minutes to deliver the message.
She peered across the glacier again, using only her naked eyes. A tiny flash of metal winked at her from the snow, closer to the airship every second. The charging walker was going to arrive before the lizard.
Alek was the key to stopping the machine, but in all the ruckus would anyone think of him?
The only way to make sure was to go down herself.
TWENTY-EIGHT
This was Deryn's first sliding escape.
She'd studied the diagrams in the Manual of Aeronautics, of course, and every middy in the Service wanted an excuse to try one. But you weren't allowed to practice sliding escapes.
Too barking dangerous, weren't they?
Her first problem was the angle of the cable stretching down to the airship. Right now it was much too steep; she'd wind up a splotch in the snow. The Manual said that forty-five degrees was best. To get there the Huxley needed to lose altitude - fast.
"Oi, beastie!" she yelled up. "I think I'll light a match down here!"