Dreadnought (The Clockwork Century 2)

Jensen heard her. He said, “No. Not only a train. That metal monster they got—it’s talking to the Dreadnought. ”

“The metal monster? The . . . the walker? Is that what they called it?” she asked as they resumed their dodging through the chaos of the back line. “One of your fellows told me they have one, but I don’t know what that is. ”

“Yeah, that’s it. It’s a machine shaped like a real big man, with a pair of men inside it. They armor the things up and make them as flexible as they can, and once you’re inside it, not even a direct artillery hit—at real close range—will bring you down. The Yanks have got only a couple of them, praise Jesus. They’re expensive to make and power. ”

“You sound like a man who’s met one, once or twice. ”

“Ma’am, I’m a man who’s helped build one. ” He turned to her and flashed a beaming smile that, for just this once, wasn’t even half desperate. And as if it’d heard him, from somewhere behind the Confederate lines a different, equally loud and terrible mechanical scream split the night across the road with a promise and a threat like nothing else on earth.

“We got one, too?” she wheezed, for her breath was running out on her and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep up this pace.

“Yes ma’am. That-?there is what we like to call the Hellbender. ”

She saw its head first, looming over the trees like a low gray moon. It swiveled, looking this way and that, the tip of some astounding Goliath made of steel and powered by something that smelled like kerosene and blood, or vinegar. It strode slowly into a small clearing, parting the trees as if they were reeds in a pond, and stood up perfectly straight, before emitting a gurgling howl that answered the mechanized walker on the other side of the road—and sent out a challenge to the terrifying train engine, too.

Mercy froze, spellbound, at the thing’s feet.

It was approximately six or seven times her height—maybe thirty-?five or forty feet tall, and as wide around as the cart that had carried her away from the Zephyr. Only very roughly shaped like a man, its head was something like an upturned bucket big enough to hold a horse, with glowing red eyes that cast a beam stronger than a lighthouse lamp. This beam swept the top of the trees. It was searching, hunting.

“Let’s go. ” Jensen put himself between her and the mechanized walker, flashing it a giant thumbs-?up before leading her toward a set of flapping canvas tents.

But she couldn’t look away.

She couldn’t help but stare at the human-?style joints that creaked and bent and sprung, oozing oil or some other industrial lubricant in black trails from each elbow and knee. She had to watch as the gray-?skinned thing saw what it was looking for, pointed itself at the road, and marched, spilling puffs of black clouds from its seams. The mechanized walker didn’t march quickly, yet it covered quite a lot of space with each step; and each step rang against the ground like a muffled bell with a clapper as large as a house. It crashed against the ground with its beveled oval feet and began a pace that could best be described as a slow run.

A cheer went up behind the Confederate line as the walker went blazing through it. Everyone got out of the way. Hats were thrown up and salutes were fired off.

Back in the woods, somewhere on the southern line, an explosion sent up a fireball so much bigger than the tree line that, even though it must’ve been a mile away, Mercy could see it, and imagine she felt the heat of it.

Jensen said, “You got here on that dirigible, the one that went down?”

“That’s right,” she told him. “And it just went up in flames, didn’t it?”

“Yup. Hydrogen’ll do that. ”

“What about that thing? The Hellbender?”

“What about it?” he asked.

“What does it run on? Not hydrogen?”

He shook his head and then ducked under a tent flap, indicating that she should do likewise. “Hell no. Texas done developed it, so it runs on processed petroleum. Can’t you smell it?”

“I can smell something. ”

“Diesel. That’s what they call it, and that

’s why our Hellbender’s gonna take down their . . . whatever they call theirs. Theirs just run on steam. They move all right, but they run so hot, they can’t keep pace with ours, not for very long. Not without cooking the men who ride inside ’em. ” He paused his exposition to salute a uniformed fellow in the tent’s corner. Then he said, “Chase,” to acknowledge a second man who was sitting on a camp stool beside a cot. “Ma’am, this is George Chase—he’s been looking after the colonel. And there, that’s Colonel Thaddeus Durant. You can see he’s not doing so good. ”

“I can see that,” she said, and went immediately to the colonel’s side. She dragged a second camp stool to the cot’s edge and tugged a lantern out of George Chase’s hand.

He gave clear consideration to mounting a protest, but Jensen shushed him by saying, “She’s a nurse from the Robertson joint, George. Dropped right out of the sky, she did. Give her some breathing room. ”

George scooted his stool back and said, “I don’t know what to do. I fix machines; I don’t know how to fix things like this!”

She swung the lantern over the pulp of the colonel’s face, neck, shoulder, and ribs, and guessed that he’d taken a close proximal blast of grapeshot, or something messier. Peeling back the blanket they’d thrown across him, she followed the damage like it was a trail marked out on a map. The blanket stuck to him where the makeshift bandages had bled clean through. Everything was beginning to dry to a sticky, wet paste of cotton, wool, and shredded flesh.

“Gentlemen, I’m not entirely sure what to tell you—”