The broken link was bending, the fissure stretching wider with every surge of the walker's engines. Deryn took a wary step back. The chain was going to lash out like a giant metal bullwhip when it finally pulled free.
She scanned the horizon. The two airships had split apart to come at their prey from opposite directions. The sky rippled as the Leviathan's flocks took to the air. But the whale itself lay motionless on the ground, helpless to escape the Clankers' approach.
"Blister this!" Deryn trudged to where the axe had fallen and pulled it from the snow. One good wallop anywhere along the chain would pull that barking link open.
She grabbed a loose cargo strap to brace herself, listening to the surges of the Stormwalker for a moment. When she had its rhythm in her head, Deryn raised the axe in one hand, and brought it down just as the engines hit the peak of their roar... .
The chain split, whipping away too fast to see. As the suddenly freed walker staggered ahead, the links threaded through the metal ring at its waist, rattling like a Maxim gun. The loose end flailed for a few seconds, snapping wildly about the walker's head and driving the startled lady boffin back inside.
But the chain was still attached to the left side of the sledge ... and as the loose end slipped through the steel ring on the Stormwalker, the whole length flung itself back at Deryn.
She dove into the snow, and heard the metal whipping past overhead. It smacked against the cargo on the sledge, slashing through sacks of flour - a spray of white dust filled the air.
"BREAKING THE LINE."
The chain dropped to the snow and slithered away, meekly following the staggering walker, its energy finally expended.
Deryn stood up, coughing out the dry taste of inhaled flour.
Something was nudging at her knee... .
The sledge was pushing her insistently, its speed building. But what was pulling it? Then she realized what had happened. The last jerk of the chain had got it started down the slope.
"Oh, that's brilliant!" Deryn said, scrambling aboard the sledge. The shush of runners on the snow grew louder as she spat more flour from her mouth.
Before her the Stormwalker had come to a halt, facing away. Alek was waiting for her to climb back up the ladder.
The sledge was headed straight for the walker's legs!
Standing up unsteadily on a bag of dried apricots, Deryn cupped her hands and yelled, "Dr. Barlow!"
No answer came, and no one poked their head from the hatchway. What were they doing in there? Playing Parcheesi?
The sledge was still building speed.
"Dr. Barlow!" she screamed again.
Finally a black bowler emerged from the hatch. Deryn waved her arms, trying to indicate the sledge, movement, and the general notion of destruction. The boffin's eyes widened as she saw their recently freed cargo bearing down on them.
She disappeared again.
"About time," Deryn said, crossing her arms.
It was lucky she'd scrambled aboard. The sledge was building momentum every second, already sliding faster than Deryn could have run in this snow. She grabbed the loose strap again, not wanting to fall and wind up a greasy spot in the sledge's tracks.
The Stormwalker was finally moving again, taking a ponderous step forward. The machine wavered a bit, like a dim-witted beastie wondering whether to run from some predator.
Deryn frowned, hoping that they wouldn't scamper off for the battle without her. But Alek didn't seem like the type to leave one of his crew behind.
Dr. Barlow popped up again, and the walker's engines roared to life. She was shouting down into the cabin, guiding Alek in some boffin-inspired strategy.
But the sledge was still catching up, building speed faster than the Stormwalker on the ice-crusted snow. Deryn looked up at the cargo towering over her. If the two giant objects collided, she was going to be right in the middle of it.
"Get going!" she cried, climbing higher on the pile.
The Stormwalker drew closer and closer, and Deryn realized that Dr. Barlow had gone barking mad. She wasn't even trying to get out of the way. The walker was keeping a steady pace, just a squick slower than the sledge.
She pantomimed confusion for Dr. Barlow, and the lady boffin made climbing gestures in reply.
Deryn frowned, then saw the ladder hanging from the Stormwalker's belly hatch. It flailed in the air as the machine ran, trailing behind like some daft child's broken kite string.
"Oh, you're not thinking I should grab on to that," she muttered. The ladder was all chains and metal rungs - heavy enough to knock a tooth out!
Deryn crossed her arms. She could climb up into the walker once the sledge came to a halt, couldn't she? Of course, the quicker she got aboard, the sooner they could go help the Leviathan.
Across the ice, the Clanker airships were making their first pass. Machine guns flickered from their gondolas, a cloud of fléchette bats swirling around them. She could see how small the zeppelins were now - barely two hundred yards long. But the Leviathan was almost helpless beneath them, her flocks hungry and battered from last night's battle.
"No barking choice, I suppose," she muttered.
The Stormwalker drew nearer, so close that its giant feet were kicking snow back into her face. But the ladder flailed just out of reach. Deryn edged to the front end of the sledge, balanced precariously on a barrel of sugar. Still, she couldn't reach it. She was going to have to jump.
Deryn readied herself, flexing her hands and trying to see some pattern in the ladder's thrashing.
Finally she leapt into the air ...
Her fingers closed around a metal rung, and she found herself swinging forward between the walker's legs. The engine noise was deafening. Gears and pistons clanked and gnashed about her, and a pair of exhaust pipes hissed hot black smoke into her face. Her grip was jolted with every giant step, her feet swinging wildly. The ladder twisted in the air, whirling Deryn like a drop spindle.
She thrashed her feet until one boot caught a lower rung, anchoring the ladder - the world stopped gyrating.
Glancing up, she saw Bauer and Hoffman peering down from the darkness of the belly hatch. Bauer's hand was out. All she had to do was climb a few meters.
As if that were easy.
Deryn reached up to grab the next rung. The metal was jaggy, gripping her gloves with little teeth. She pulled herself grimly upward, trying to ignore the spikes arrayed around the hatch.
"CLAMBERING UP INTO THE GEARS."
Finally she was close enough to reach up and take Bauer's hand. Hoffman grabbed hold, and the two of them pulled her inside in a squick.