The Osiris Curse (20 page)

Octavia giggled, then quickly put a hand over her mouth to stop it becoming hysterical. She was feeling shaky, glad to be alive, overwhelmed, and terrified. All at the same time.

But still, she couldn't resist one. “You could say they were…
dying
to catch us.”

Tweed snorted with laughter. They both turned away to find her mother and Molock staring at them with open mouths.

Octavia clamped her mouth shut. “I'm so sorry,” she mumbled. “I'm not laughing at them. Just…I…I can't help it.”

Her mother shook her head in disappointment. For some reason that sent her into giggles.

The elevator picked up speed, the walls skimming past in a blur. The four of them sat on the floor, utterly exhausted by the events that had brought them here.

Octavia sat back to back with Tweed, their heads resting against each other. She wasn't sure who had taken that position first, but it felt nice. To feel him so close to her.

It was difficult to judge how far they were traveling. There was no frame of reference. Just the blurred rock that flew past and the cold wind that whipped around them. The tunnel itself was huge, so wide even Solomon's airship could fit into it.

After about half an hour the light changed. Their surroundings
brightened, almost imperceptibly at first, then more and more, a bright white light spilling down the tunnel toward them.

They stood up. Octavia suddenly realized that they had no idea what was waiting for them up there. They could very well be rising directly into Sekhem and Nehi's lair. She pulled her Tesla gun out, noting that the others were reluctantly doing the same. No one wanted to fight again, but they might have no choice.

The elevator lurched, then slowed its ascent. They were able to see the actual rocks of the walls now. They slowed even more, and then gradually rose above the lip of the elevator shaft and bumped to a stop.

There was no army waiting.

Instead, there was a cave about twenty meters deep and fifty wide, open to the outside world. A frigid wind brought the tang of snow and ice to Octavia's nose.

They stepped off the elevator and moved toward the exit. As they drew closer, Octavia could see snow-covered mountains in the distance, sharp against a lead-grey sky.

They stopped at the cave opening, looking out onto a freezing landscape. Octavia shivered and pulled her thick jacket tighter. Where were they? The Arctic? Somewhere far to the north, that was for sure. The mountains that surrounded them were craggy and inhospitable. Black, jagged rock was exposed by the biting wind that blew powdered snow from the peaks, sending it swirling into the sky.

“Bit nippy,” said Tweed, but his joke fell flat as they took in the hostile landscape around them.

There were two grey metal boxes against the wall. They paused to search through them, finding blankets, rucksacks, tins of food, flasks of water. Everything they would need to trek through the snow.

While the others packed everything into the rucksacks, Tweed hurried back to the elevator. He picked up the missile launcher, then hit the lever to send the elevator back down to ground level. He
checked both sides of the launcher, hefted it right side up, pointed it down into the tunnel, and fired.

Octavia watched in astonishment as the missile erupted from the launcher and disappeared from sight. Tweed dropped the weapon and hurried back to join them.

“What?”
he said. “You don't think they would follow us up here? Of course they would.”

As he finished they heard a muffled explosion far below their feet. The ground trembled, and after a few moments a thin cloud of dust drifted up the shaft.

“I suppose we had no choice,” said Molock.

“None,” said Tweed, pulling his rucksack onto his back.

Octavia did the same. “What do we do now?” she asked. Where were Sekhem and Nehi? Where was the
Albion
? How were they ever going to find them?

Molock stepped out of the cave and looked up into the sky. “I think we go that way,” he said pointing up to the left.

The others stepped out of the protection of the cave. The cold stung Octavia's cheeks and nose, stripped her throat raw. But she barely noticed it, because off to their left, moored to the top of one of the largest mountains around them, was the airship
Albion
.

It was still here. They weren't too late.

“Looks like we've got a bit of a trek ahead of us,” said Tweed. He glared at Octavia. “And you
know
how I feel about exercise.”

It was early morning. Too early. No one should have to rise at such a ungodly hour. It wasn't natural.

Tweed yawned and stared with a glazed expression at the horizon. The rising sun was just visible in the narrow gap between the grey clouds and the rocky ground. Pink and orange light seeped slowly across the sky, growing brighter with each passing minute. Tweed watched it hungrily, the only hint of color in this freezing wasteland.

He sighed when the clouds finally swallowed the sun, the color fading like a half-remembered dream. Only grey, white, and black remained.

It had been about fifteen hours since they'd left the cave, following a path that wound up around the mountain. They knew it was the way to go because of the deep furrows that had been worn into the ground. It seemed Sekhem and Nehi couldn't do whatever they were doing to the
Albion
down there. They had to move their supplies to where the
Albion
was moored above the peaks, safe from any winds that might smash it against the mountains.

Tweed and his companions had slept in a cave signposted by a pile of litter outside the narrow opening. It was obviously used as a resting station because there was even a pile of firewood just inside the entrance.

They had spent a good while arguing about whether to light the fire, but as the night got colder and colder the argument for (we'll die if we don't) won out over the argument against (we might be spotted).

Tweed sighed and glanced up at their destination, still a good fifteen or so miles away. He couldn't see the airship anymore, but they had all marked its position.

Not that they needed to. Just following the path would take them directly to the enemy.

This was something that bothered him. What, when they came right down to it, were the four of them planning on doing when they got there? It was obvious they were going to be vastly outnumbered.

They
could
go in with all guns blazing, but Tweed wanted to avoid that. The truth was, he was still feeling conflicted about the whole thing. Damn it, Sekhem and Nehi
did
have a point, whether Octavia wanted to admit it or not. They—the Hyperborean people—had been treated abominably by his government. Their very source of life was being drained to sustain the rapid growth of the British Empire, and nobody seemed to care.

It made him furious.

But then he would remember what Sekhem and Nehi had done. Killing Tesla, almost killing Octavia, the attack on the rebel camp. These were all terrible, terrible things.

But…the thing was, Tweed sort of understood where they were coming from. He didn't condone their actions, of course not, but he
understood
them.

With the Lazarus affair it was different. Homes and Lucien, they wanted power, they wanted to enrich themselves. It was easy to hate them. But Sekhem and Nehi…they were protecting their people.

Who was he to judge them for that?

“Penny for your thoughts,” said Octavia, appearing at his side. She blew into her hands, her breath puffing into the air.

“They're not worth that much,” said Tweed.

Octavia glanced at him, then pulled on her gloves. “You're being all thoughtful. I'm not sure I like it when you're thoughtful. It makes me worry.”

Tweed was silent for a while. “Do you really think we have any right to judge them? I mean, after seeing what we're doing to their world?”

Octavia let out a disgusted sound. “This again?
We
didn't do it, Tweed.”

Tweed waved his hand in irritation. “We. Us. Them. The Ministry. You know what I mean.”

“Of course I do. And you think that makes it fine for them to turn a death weapon against London?”

“Of course I don't think that!” He pulled his hood up. “It doesn't matter. You don't understand.”

“Don't patronize me! Of course I understand. Sekhem talked to you. He told you about the pain, the suffering. You feel guilty. Conflicted. So what? Real life is never black and white.” Octavia put her hands on his arms and turned him around to face her. “They've been wronged. Yes. But that doesn't give them the right to take other lives. Not even one. As soon as they did that they forfeited any right to my sympathy. I mean, look at Molock. He's in the same position. He's a royal, in charge of his people. But he's looking for a different way to fix this. One that doesn't involve mass murder.”

“Hiding away in the shadows is not what I call looking for a way to fix this.”

Octavia sighed. “Well…no, possibly not. But I'm afraid that's something that doesn't have anything to do with us. It's his decision, not ours.”

“You two ready?”

Elizabeth and Molock stood in the path just outside the cave entrance. Tweed nodded unhappily, and he and Octavia followed after them.

Octavia didn't say anything else, which he was grateful for. It was one of those arguments that would just keep going round and round with no solution, and he
hated
that. It offended him on so many levels. There
always
had to be an answer. He wouldn't accept anything else.

They were ambushed a few hours later.

Molock and Elizabeth were about ten paces ahead of Tweed and Octavia. They had already disappeared around a bend in the path.

A few seconds later came the staccato crack of gunfire.

Tweed peered around the curve of the mountain wall. Bullets peppered the ground in front of him, snow spraying up into his face. He saw Molock shove Octavia's mother out of the way. She slipped, banging her head hard on the ground. A bullet struck the rock where she had just been standing.

Tweed and Octavia darted from cover and grabbed her mother's shoulders, dragging her back to safety. Molock followed after, bursting around the corner at top speed. He tried to slow down, but his feet skidded out from beneath him. He fell heavily and slid straight for the edge of the path.

“Grab my foot!” shouted Octavia.

“Wha—?” Tweed barely took in her words before Octavia launched herself forward in a dive, attempting to intercept Molock before he went flying over the edge of the mountain.

Tweed swore loudly and ran after her, landing on his backside and grabbing her foot. He slid with her. He dug his heels in, watching the edge of the path rapidly approaching.

Octavia collided with Molock and his weight sent them spinning off to the side. They hit a bump in the path and flipped, tumbling over and over until they came to a panting, shaky stop in a snow drift.

“That,” said Tweed slowly, “was not fun.” He gently pushed Octavia's head into the snow. “And don't you ever do that again. What if I didn't have such lighting quick reflexes? You'd be doing a swan dive over the cliff right now.”

Octavia spat snow from her mouth. “I had faith in you.”

“Did you? Jolly good. I'm glad one of us did.”

They pushed themselves shakily to their feet and moved back up the path to join Octavia's mother. She was peering around the corner, studying their attackers while rubbing the back of her head.

“Are you okay?” asked Octavia.

“I'm fine. Just a bit of a knock.”

Tweed peered around the curve. Their attackers were…well, they weren't people. Not as such. They looked to be some sort of hybrids. Half-man, half-machine. As if someone had given a mad scientist equipment, an unlimited budget, a few people to experiment on, and said “go for it.”

The closest was a figure who was literally only half-human. From the stomach down he was all construct, his legs rusted metal with pistons that puffed clouds of steam into the air every time he moved.

Another was a woman missing most of her face. A brass mask had been joined to the puckered, scarred skin. Her one eye was an orb of dark glass.

Another had a set of metal arms, while yet another consisted of the upper body of an ancient man attached to a set of wheels, like a half-mechanical wheelchair.

One standing off to the side of the group had a slate-grey body with a long strip of ridged metal that looped through his chest, out his back, and along the ground behind him. Tweed couldn't figure out what it was until the figure caught sight of him and braced himself in the snow, leaning forward at an angle. Bullets shot from his chest, the long strip jerking and stuttering, empty casings erupting from a hole in his shoulder.

Tweed jerked back, hearing the high whine of bullets striking the rock face.

“Do you think this means Sekhem and Nehi know we're coming?” said Elizabeth.

“Not sure,” said Tweed. “There's a cave there.”

“A way station?” said Octavia.

“Possibly. Perhaps they're just lookouts.”

“That means we must be about halfway there,” said Molock excitedly. “We could get there tonight.”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “If we could get past that lot first.”

Tweed took another quick glance around the bend, surveying the area. The gunfire started up straight away. He jerked back, then pulled his gun out and adjusted the setting.

“Prepare to be amazed,” he said. Then he whirled around the bend, held his arms straight out, and fired his gun.

He didn't wait to see if he hit the target, but jerked back into cover again.

The others were watching him expectantly.

“Wait for it,” he said.

They waited. Nothing happened. He smiled uncertainly, gesturing for patience.

Still nothing.

“You missed,” called a voice.

Tweed swore under his breath. Octavia tried to repress a smirk, but she didn't try very hard. He pointed at her. “I saw that.”

“What?” said Octavia innocently.

“You know what.” He sighed. “All right. Second attempt.”

He gripped the gun then crouched down and swung around the curve. He fired again, and at the same time the enemy shot at the spot he had been standing during the last attempt. Rock chips stung his face as he pulled the trigger. Once, twice, three times.

He ducked back into cover, then nodded confidently at the others.

A second later they all heard it. A grinding, cracking noise, followed by a heavy thump and the screams and cries of the hybrids, abruptly cut off.

Tweed smiled. He raised an eyebrow and jerked his head to the side, inviting the others to look. They did, tentatively at first, then straightening up moving out into the open. Tweed followed after, and saw that the overhang he had been aiming at had collapsed, the rock and the huge drift of snow that had been resting on top hiding the bodies of the crew of constructs.

They walked through the snowy mountains for the rest of the day. They didn't encounter any more guards or hybrid constructs, something that bothered Tweed a bit, because the kind of people Sekhem and Nehi were, he'd have thought they would have guards everywhere. The fact that they didn't meant either that they were so confident in their firepower that they didn't care, or that they were about ready to set off with the
Albion
. With each passing minute he felt the urgency of what they were doing building and building.

The sun set as they trekked up the mountain path. It was pale and watery, streamers of gold bursting out from beneath the low clouds, turning the sky pink and violet. Everyone paused to watch, an unspoken decision. Breath clouded before their flushed faces as they watched the violet fade to grey, the pillars of gold slowly moving across the distant landscape before gradually winking away to nothing.

Tweed sighed, sorry to see it go. It was at moments like this, similar to those he spent on the roof of his house back in Whitechapel, that his mind finally stopped moving, the barrage of non-stop thoughts and ideas simply…slowing for a while.

They moved on, the stars winking into razor-sharp existence above their heads.

An hour or so later, they finally arrived. They rounded a bend in the path to find the
Albion
floating in the night sky. Spotlights danced across the massive airship, lighting it up as if it was on display in some fancy exhibition.

The lights shone up from a huge complex built directly into the mountain, windows hidden beneath overhangs and expertly fashioned to follow the contours of the rock. By the spotlights they could see that the
Albion
had been changed from the first class floating hotel they had traveled on. The safety net that had prevented Octavia and Molock falling to their deaths was gone. And sticking out from the bottom of the hull was a huge metallic structure that cradled what looked at first like a giant's telescope. The device was massive, easily the size of a two-story house.