Read Online Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin, Book One) by Richard Ellis Preston Jr. - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Richard Ellis Preston Jr.
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done its work. But it was plummeting toward them, the great wings blocking out the sky.
The nightmare head flopped back and forth atop its sinew-wrapped neck, the kookaburra beak and sweeping skull crest dominated by big amber eyes that were bottomless and ancient.
Even when a tangler was dead, the yellow eyes still glowed for weeks.
The tangler slammed down with the resounding wet
thump
of a flesh-bound locomotive.
Part of the tangler—probably a wing—walloped Buckle, hurling him across the roof, knocking the air out of him. He heard the tangler bounce off the canvas, and caught a glimpse of its spinning corpse disappearing over the starboard side.
Buckle lay stunned and gasping. It was as if he were staring up at the gray sky from the bottom of a well dancing with white sparkles. The sounds of ripping fabric and snapping tangler bones echoed in his brain. Was Marian Boyd still in his arms? He could not tell.
Buckle heard shouting. Kellie was barking up a storm. He shook his head to rattle his senses back into order, and he suddenly became aware that he was sliding, the torrent of wind pushing him through something slick. He dug his gloved fingers into the slippery skin until he found the line of a superstructure girder and stopped his movement. Another shake of his head failed to knock the blur out of his vision. Panic surged inside him. One tangler was still out there. And that one had surely zeroed in on him.
Somewhere in the foggy distance he heard Max shout the order: “Reload!”
RELOAD!
M AX KNEW THINGS WERE BAD . Very bad. Hunching back down the stepladder in the breach hole, she grunted as she lowered the stunned Boyd, splattered with blue-green tangler guts, into the waiting arms of Tuck. Boyd had been within easy reach after the tangler strike. Buckle and Kellie, however, had been knocked flying, their safety lines twisting and squeaking at the lip of the hole.
Ivan and Ambrose frantically reloaded the musket on the catwalk: it took more than thirty seconds to reload a blackbang musket, and they didn’t have thirty seconds. The surviving tangler would have already looped under the zeppelin, climbed high into the sky, and set its angle to dive again.
They should have prepared two muskets.
Max drew her pistol and planted her boot on the stepladder, launching her lithe body up onto the roof. She hunched low in the whipping wind. The area around the breach was a mess—the tangler collision had pocked the envelope with five or more jagged sinkholes; wobbling gobs of blue-green guts slimed everything.
Max couldn’t see Kellie but she could hear her—the dead tangler’s bounce must have knocked the dog into the air andover the side, and left her dangling by her safety cable along the flank of the airship.
But Kellie, although her situation was probably unpleasant, was not the one in absolute jeopardy. Tanglers had tunnel vision as hunters: once a tangler chose a victim it would continue to attack that one target repeatedly until it made a meal of it or the tangler was dead.
And the target was Captain Buckle.
Buckle was about thirty feet aft of Max’s position at the breach. He was obviously discombobulated, head down, crumpled on his stomach with one hand clutching his safety cable and the fingers of the other sunk into the skin, straining for a grip amidst wind-blasted streams of blue-green tangler guts. He might be badly hurt. She couldn’t tell. But one thing was certain—he was a sitting duck.
Max immediately moved toward her captain in a crouch, the wind causing her to slip and slide along the skin. There was no hesitation in her action: the overwhelming desire to protect Buckle consumed every inch of her being, to the detriment of everything else. She was his protector, the shield on his arm, the body between him and the bullet.
But she still had to be careful.
In her haste, she had not hooked up to a safety line.
She reached Buckle and grabbed the collar of his coat, lifting him up
The nightmare head flopped back and forth atop its sinew-wrapped neck, the kookaburra beak and sweeping skull crest dominated by big amber eyes that were bottomless and ancient.
Even when a tangler was dead, the yellow eyes still glowed for weeks.
The tangler slammed down with the resounding wet
thump
of a flesh-bound locomotive.
Part of the tangler—probably a wing—walloped Buckle, hurling him across the roof, knocking the air out of him. He heard the tangler bounce off the canvas, and caught a glimpse of its spinning corpse disappearing over the starboard side.
Buckle lay stunned and gasping. It was as if he were staring up at the gray sky from the bottom of a well dancing with white sparkles. The sounds of ripping fabric and snapping tangler bones echoed in his brain. Was Marian Boyd still in his arms? He could not tell.
Buckle heard shouting. Kellie was barking up a storm. He shook his head to rattle his senses back into order, and he suddenly became aware that he was sliding, the torrent of wind pushing him through something slick. He dug his gloved fingers into the slippery skin until he found the line of a superstructure girder and stopped his movement. Another shake of his head failed to knock the blur out of his vision. Panic surged inside him. One tangler was still out there. And that one had surely zeroed in on him.
Somewhere in the foggy distance he heard Max shout the order: “Reload!”
RELOAD!
M AX KNEW THINGS WERE BAD . Very bad. Hunching back down the stepladder in the breach hole, she grunted as she lowered the stunned Boyd, splattered with blue-green tangler guts, into the waiting arms of Tuck. Boyd had been within easy reach after the tangler strike. Buckle and Kellie, however, had been knocked flying, their safety lines twisting and squeaking at the lip of the hole.
Ivan and Ambrose frantically reloaded the musket on the catwalk: it took more than thirty seconds to reload a blackbang musket, and they didn’t have thirty seconds. The surviving tangler would have already looped under the zeppelin, climbed high into the sky, and set its angle to dive again.
They should have prepared two muskets.
Max drew her pistol and planted her boot on the stepladder, launching her lithe body up onto the roof. She hunched low in the whipping wind. The area around the breach was a mess—the tangler collision had pocked the envelope with five or more jagged sinkholes; wobbling gobs of blue-green guts slimed everything.
Max couldn’t see Kellie but she could hear her—the dead tangler’s bounce must have knocked the dog into the air andover the side, and left her dangling by her safety cable along the flank of the airship.
But Kellie, although her situation was probably unpleasant, was not the one in absolute jeopardy. Tanglers had tunnel vision as hunters: once a tangler chose a victim it would continue to attack that one target repeatedly until it made a meal of it or the tangler was dead.
And the target was Captain Buckle.
Buckle was about thirty feet aft of Max’s position at the breach. He was obviously discombobulated, head down, crumpled on his stomach with one hand clutching his safety cable and the fingers of the other sunk into the skin, straining for a grip amidst wind-blasted streams of blue-green tangler guts. He might be badly hurt. She couldn’t tell. But one thing was certain—he was a sitting duck.
Max immediately moved toward her captain in a crouch, the wind causing her to slip and slide along the skin. There was no hesitation in her action: the overwhelming desire to protect Buckle consumed every inch of her being, to the detriment of everything else. She was his protector, the shield on his arm, the body between him and the bullet.
But she still had to be careful.
In her haste, she had not hooked up to a safety line.
She reached Buckle and grabbed the collar of his coat, lifting him up