Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [87]
Chapter Eleven
Archimedes forced himself out of bed when the soft knock came at the door, hoping it didn’t wake Yasmeen. He loved how irritable she was when her knees hurt, but couldn’t love the reason for it—and at least he could support her through it. In just a few days, their mornings had become ritual: a quick wash, followed by pacing. Today, that ritual had to begin earlier, but they’d start with a meal.
As Archimedes had requested the night before, a galley assistant brought their breakfast to them—two bowls of oat porridge and black coffee. Yasmeen hated the coffee, but Archimedes would drink hers, too. She lifted her head from her pillow when he pulled the trunk from beneath her bunk—God, what she’d done to him on it yesterday—and used it as their table. Eyes still heavy, she began pacing right after eating, hobbling along. She didn’t seem to have slept any better than he had—wondering half the night if they would be under a mutiny, perhaps.
Finally, she dressed in extra layers, strapped on her weapons, and gathered their packs: food in both, a bedroll to share in his, a change of clothes for each of them in hers, in case those they were wearing became wet. Not much, but the packs had to be light, especially with the excuses for gliders that were aboard Ceres. All airships carried them for emergencies, but hers must have been purchased at the start of the war twenty years prior.
Yasmeen would take the lead when they jumped from the airship. With no light from the moon and the deck lanterns extinguished, Archimedes could only make out the shadows of the peaks rising around them, the faint lights from the Horde outpost—he wouldn’t have been able to spot the fortress against the opposite mountainside. The ship sailed silently, the wind biting his cheeks. Bigor met them on the main deck, looking as straight and fresh as if he never needed sleep. He held up two folded batwing gliders, and Archimedes saw Yasmeen’s relief.
“Thank you, Mr. Bigor.”
He nodded. “You’ll probably hit crosswinds. Not strong, but enough to toss those older ones over. These were made to maneuver in inclement weather, and the wing size can be adjusted. You’re both familiar with them?”
“Yes,” Archimedes said. Uneasily familiar with them. These gliders maneuvered so well, even acrobats used them—and the marsouins were trained for aerial infiltration.
Yasmeen joined him at the side of the ship. Her eyes narrowed when she saw his face. “What is it?”
He shook his head and slipped on his goggles. Now wasn’t the time to tell her of his sudden suspicions, but they nagged at him, dimming his usual thrill when they jumped from the airship, caught the wind.
Though he couldn’t see the fortress, Ollivier’s notes had included drawings and floor plans. Designed with the simplicity of a monastery and the strength of a citadel, high stone walls formed three sides of a rectangle, with the mountainside serving as the fourth. At the corners and at the main gate, crenellated towers overlooked the valley. Instead of a keep, a two-level stone barracks supported the interior base of the curtain wall, strengthening the defenses and providing chambers for storage, quarters for the soldiers, engineers, and laborers, a foundry to produce the steel needed for da Vinci’s machines, and a smithy to shape the parts. The walls and barracks surrounded the enormous courtyard, where the machines were constructed before they rolled out of the main gate.
Yasmeen banked as she approached the southwest tower, aligning herself over the curtain wall and extending the glider’s wings, allowing the greater surface area to catch the air and slow her down. Skimming over the crenels, she landed atop the wall and ran along its wide surface, folding the wings back as she came to a stop. Archimedes came in right after her, snow hardened by wind and sun crunching beneath his boots. Yasmeen was a dark silhouette against all the white; over the side of the wall, the courtyard lay in dense shadow.
“There are footprints,” she said quietly.
Zombies, then, somewhere. The fortress wouldn