Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [113]
“Temür Agha,” Yasmeen repeated. “The same man who literally squashed a city of brave souls?”
Hassan frowned at her. “You break a man’s neck with no regret before he carried out his intended rape, and yet you let the man who slaughtered your crew choose his own method of death. I love a man like a brother, yet I also know that the best thing for the city I love is to remove that man from power. We are none of us so easy to peg.”
“I am,” Archimedes said.
“You are the worst of us,” Yasmeen said. “Everything you seek, every fear, every thrill, is something that is also gone like”—she lifted her fingers, snap!snap!snap!—“Done so quickly, and you run off to find the next. But you seek love, intend to run to heartbreak, and then you stick with love. You do not regret losing war machines that would lead to too many deaths, and then kill two marines following orders on their ship with barely a blink.”
Mortally wounded, he flattened his hand over his chest. “I had to rescue my beautiful wife.”
“So you did.” She gave him a laughing look from beneath her lashes. “Perhaps next time I’ll wait and let you break a neck.”
He looked to Hassan. “Do you see? She makes offers like that. It would be impossible to fall out of love.”
Chapter Fifteen
Two Horde outposts guarded each side of the mouth of the Mediterranean, overlooking the narrow entrance to the sea. Unlike a sailing ship, Yasmeen could detour around the outposts, taking a southern route directly over land to Rabat. A jewel of a city with a river running through its heart and nestled between the wall and the ocean, there was only one port that all airships and sailing vessels used—and it was under siege.
A fleet of French ships patrolled the waters, supported by two airships overhead. No airships were tethered at the port. They must have let all of the merchants leave, but no one through the blockade.
But unlike most of the airships, Yasmeen wasn’t coming in from the west. She could approach the city from the eastern walled side before they could intercept her . . . though that offered its own dangers, and not only from the French fleet.
At the port, four of Temür’s war machines stood at the edge of the sea, great hulking colossusi guarding the city. Two vaguely resembled elephants, with enormous bodies supported by sturdy legs, and at the front, a bank of long cannons that could be manipulated, elongated to defend at a distance or contracted to fire a barrage up close. The other two were equally bulky and enormous, like an octopus brought out of the water—each tentacle working like a giant grapnel, pulling down airships within range. All four machines had firebomb launching stations, a battery of self-reloading cannons, rapid-fire guns that could be manned from inside or from one of the stations connected by ladders and lifts surrounding the outside. Though at rest, with steam drifting lazily from the vents, they would be ready to stoke at a moment’s notice, pushing them into lumbering mobility and engaging the electrical rail guns—and even with boilers cold, could still use all of its weapons.
Manned by a crew of thirty men, protected by the thick steel hide, a single one of the machines could devastate a city—or a fleet of ships that came into range of its firebombs.
But Temür had not posted them only on the seaside. Two more machines stood at the wall, overlooking the desert. Slightly shorter than the machines at the port, but no less dangerous,