The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [63]
The enemy was not taken off guard for long. Artillery roared from across the river, firing randomly into the swamps and forest beyond. Airships began moving across, and smaller flyers shaped like giant leaves hummed overhead, dropping fire seeds that sprouted white-hot trees.
Red Shoes was oblivious of most of it. For him there was only the Sun Boy, almost in his grasp. He tore at the rotten fabric of the web, and sent out hornet swarms of shadow-children, each made with a single purpose and ability—to collapse the red globes that kept the airships aloft. He sheared through the Sun Boy's defenses, through Long Black Beings, through shields of underworld stuff. And as he fought, he sang, sang the song of the Nightland.
Adrienne leaned against the rail, breathing heavily, her wound now no more than a stitch in her side. No one spoke until Father Castillion crossed himself. “Sweet Savior,” he murmured. “Preserve our souls.”
The rolling flat plains had given way to dense, ancient forests. Not the bluish evergreen timbers of the Russian taiga and western American forest they had flown over but the trees of the startling verdancy that Adrienne knew from her youth in France, a kind of green she had almost forgotten. It was strange that she must travel so many thousands of miles to feel nostalgia for the place of her birth, but sometimes the world was thus. Linné was delighted—he pointed to the forest as proof of his theory of climates.
“We've reached the latitude of France,” he said, “and thus this forest looks French. Oak and myrtle, I'll wager.”
But the river had no counterpart—not in France, not anywhere in Europe. It could drink the Rhine, Rhône, and Danube and still be thirsty. Her maps labeled it variously River San Luis, Spirito Sancto, and Mississippi. Whatever its name, it was a monster.
And hovering above the river were the glowing pinpricks of airships, twenty of them. Around them, wheeling like great lazy birds, were the new flying machines of Swedenborg's invention. And, visible only to Adrienne's eyes, a thousand malakim.
Beneath all that, ants crossed the river in pea pods in a long string.
From four of the ships, fire blazed. Cannon, discharging bright yellow; the sun-bright burst of Fahrenheit guns; and firedrakes vanishing into the forests beyond the river, reappearing as vast columns of smoke billowing to meet the sky.
“This will be quite a fight,” Hercule said. “Three ships against a score.”
“But someone is fighting them already,”Adrienne observed.
“It's difficult to say with what effectiveness,” Hercule replied.
“Yes, but they fight scientifically—see?”
The globes attached to one of the airships suddenly flared from red to blue, and the entire ship ignited like a torch.
“Holy Mother of God,” Hercule grunted. “I hope they do not mistake us for the enemy. Can you tell who is winning?”
“A moment,” Adrienne replied, looking deeper into the aether.
Uriel was there, waiting, clearly agitated.
Strike now! he said. The Sun Boy is distracted. This is most unexpected. It is your best chance.
What are they fighting? Adrienne asked.
I'm not sure. Something strange. A man, yet not a man. A malakus, yet not a malakus. Something dangerous to both.
Like the keres? Like my son?
Both. Neither. I don't know. I am weary, weary of protecting us. Even with the distraction, it takes everything I can manage to keep our enemies from seeing us. Strike!
What did you intend for me to do at this point?
We need your son. Or perhaps— Again, hesitation. Perhaps the other will do, if he survives. You should try to reach him.
I want my son.
Good. Let us subdue him, then.
Can you tell which ship he is on?
Yes.
Then bring the other ships down. All of them.
Uriel paused for so long this time she thought he had either gone to obey her command or vanished so as to ignore it. But finally, his voice returned. She could see him now, as well, his many-winged form hovering between her and the battle. No, he said. That would go too far. We would be discovered,