Secrets of the Dragon Tomb (21 page)

My back hit the ground. I fought to keep the stretcher up. I skidded down the slope on my unprotected back, while Freddie stumbled and slid on his knees and hip and side.

Above us, the tripod tottered, thrown off balance by the sudden slope and its lunge for me. Gyroscopes whirred inside it. Then its leading foot hit a loose rock and it toppled.

I got my heels under me and kicked forward. The great metal machine hit the ground behind me with a crash that peppered my shoulders and back with stones. One of its flailing arms smacked into a rock to my left, splitting it. Dirt and broken stalks of grass choked the air. The metal body rolled down, kicking its legs to find its feet again.

Olivia reached the edge of the canal.

“Jump in!” Freddie yelled.

The second tripod raced toward us. Claws snapped eagerly. There was nothing I could do to avoid it.

“Over here!” Olivia shouted. She jumped around on the canal bank, her feet thudding into the ground, waving and shouting, trying to attract the machine's attention.

It veered toward her. With quick strides, it closed the distance between them. Livvy kept stamping and shouting.

Where was the third tripod? I couldn't see it. The grass and the dust and our plunging fall hid it from me.

The second machine reached Livvy. Its arms lashed toward her. But before they could catch her, she turned and dived gracefully beneath them, into the canal.

We hit the bottom of the slope. Somehow, Freddie regained his feet and staggered on. I clung to the stretcher and was pulled up. The canal was only ten paces away, but the tripod that had chased Livvy was already turning toward us. Smacking footsteps on the slope behind told me at last where the final hunting machine was.

Freddie put his head down and sprinted. I followed, my hands death-tight around the poles of the stretcher. Whatever happened, I couldn't drop Putty now. Even if one of the machines got me, I could use my momentum and the last of my strength to throw the stretcher toward the canal. We were close enough that it might make it.

The machine ahead of us swung on Freddie, its claws coming down. He danced aside, ducking under the backswing.

A claw cut at me from behind. It snagged the back of my shirt. I was jerked to such a sudden stop that I almost dropped the stretcher. Then the claw closed with a snip. My shirt parted, and the blade sliced through my skin. I cried out in pain. But I was free. I staggered on.

Freddie plunged into the canal, dragging the stretcher behind. I heaved my end in after him, and Putty's limp body splashed with it into the water. I threw myself after her.

Water rushed up my nose and down my throat. I spluttered and surfaced, just in time to feel a vicious splash not a foot away from me. One of the machines had reached from the bank and slashed at me. I dived and kicked away.

I came up next to Putty's half-submerged stretcher. Freddie was holding her head above the water and trying to paddle further out. I grabbed hold and helped him.

Water was in my eyes. I could scarcely see. I blinked and squinted back.

The three hunter tripods stood in a line on the bank, their arms twisting through the air and cutting at the water, but we were out of range.

“They won't come in,” Freddie spluttered. “The water would stop their mechanisms.”

Not taking our eyes from the hunter tripods, we kicked our way out toward where Olivia was treading water. We were safe. We had escaped the monsters.

I was so relieved and so exhausted that I scarcely heard Olivia's shout of warning.

“Freddie!” she screamed. “Edward! Look out!”

I flipped myself around just in time to see a large boat loom up in the water beside me.

It knocked me sideways and thrust me under the surface. I lost my grip on Putty's stretcher. Wood scraped over me, tumbling me about. I breathed in water. My limbs flapped helplessly. All I could see was a wide, flat shape above me. I was under the boat's hull. It rolled across me, spinning me, pummeling me, and knocking the breath from my body. I kicked away, pushing myself further down into the water, away from the hull that could batter me unconscious.

I didn't have enough breath. I couldn't get out from beneath the boat. I rose toward it again. I had to have air, but there wasn't any. Something was roaring in my ears. Everything started to go black.

Then an arm closed around my chest, powerful legs kicked beneath me, and I was pulled toward the daylight.

 

PART THREE

The Dragon Tombs of Mars

 

17

Lunae City

I didn't remember much after that. Someone grabbed me and hauled me out. I felt a wooden deck under my back, and hands on my chest. Then all was darkness.

When I awoke, the only light I could see was a single candle. Its flickering yellow flame showed me a tall, narrow cabin with what looked like carpets on the walls and glass spheres dangling from the ceiling. The ceiling itself was covered with strange, swirling patterns painted in strong, bright colors. I wondered if I was dreaming. Then a figure I hadn't noticed sat up from a low chair.

“Edward! You're awake!”

Olivia bent over me. She seemed to have borrowed a shapeless, long robe, but otherwise she looked as much of a mess as when we'd been hiking through the wilderness.

“Where are we?” I croaked. Even though I'd swallowed half the canal, my throat felt as dry as the desert.

“On a boat. Freddie was right. The native Martians use the canal for travel. They pulled us out of the water.”

I tried to sit up and immediately started coughing. Olivia pushed me down easily.

“You mustn't move. Freddie said you have to rest. You almost drowned.”

“What about Putty?” I'd lost hold of her stretcher in the canal.

“They pulled her out, too, but she's still unconscious. The captain and his men have some experience of this bite. They put a tube between Parthenia's lips and they've been feeding her sugared water. But they say we have to wait.” She took a deep breath. “There's nothing more they can do.”

I rested my hand on Olivia's arm. It was hard to speak. “She'll get better. Freddie said it's just a matter of time, and if they're feeding her…”

“I know,” Olivia said, sounding choked. “But it's too much. First Mama, Papa, and Jane were kidnapped by Sir Titus, now Parthenia won't wake up, and I thought you were drowned.” She shook her head. “I couldn't bear to lose all of you.”

Sir Titus!
He still had Jane and my parents. We were supposed to be rescuing them.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Six hours. It's night.”

My brain felt like it was being drowned in thick oil. I could hardly think. I forced myself to count back. Sir Titus had kidnapped them five days ago.

“We've only got seven days left!” I blurted. “How are we going to get to Lunae City in just seven days?”

I tried to sit up again, but I couldn't. My eyelids were too heavy, and my body was exhausted. My head fell back.

“Hush,” Olivia said. “Go back to sleep.”

So I did.

*   *   *

The next thing I knew, sunlight was streaming through a thin cloth that had been carefully fixed over a delicate wooden screen. I lay there for a while, feeling bruised and battered, following the carved patterns on the wooden screen. They seemed to flow and twist away from my eyes, but I thought I could make out a river and a great dragon and fish. Or maybe they were people working in a field. My eyes couldn't settle on them for long enough to be sure what I was seeing.

I dragged myself off the bed. I was weak, but at least I could stand. I found my shoes and slipped them on. They were still wet from the canal. I pulled a face. They were disgusting. On the deck up above, I heard the creak of sails, the gentle padding of feet, and strange, high singing. Water splashed against the hull.

Putty!
Olivia had said she was still unconscious. I shouldn't have slept. Anything could have happened. I should have been with her.

I slid open the door. There was a darkened corridor ahead of me, then a set of rough steps and a hatchway above. I climbed out onto the deck. Boxes and bales were stacked everywhere and covered in tarpaulins. A tall native Martian was coiling a rope a few feet away. When he saw me, he called something in his language, grinned at me, and returned to his work. It took me a moment to realize that he'd looked me in the eyes. I didn't have time to think about it, though, because Freddie appeared around the mounds of cargo.

“There you are,” he said. “I thought you'd sleep all day. You must be starving.”

“Where's Putty?” I demanded. “What's happened to her?”

Freddie nodded. “This way.”

He led me to a shack-like cabin standing on the raised aft deck. I bit my lip. What if she was still unconscious? What if she hadn't made it?

The shack doors were folded back, and there on a low chair sat Putty. She sprang to her feet, with a slight wobble.

“Putty?”

“I can't believe you let me sleep through all the excitement!” she said. “Freddie says we were chased by hunter tripods, and I missed them. What were they like? Freddie's useless at describing them. Were they clockwork? Of course, they must have been, or they wouldn't have been so fast. But how were they stabilized? How did they triangulate the sounds they followed? Really, I don't know how you managed to survive without me.”

I took two steps and engulfed her in a hug that lifted her off the deck.

“I was so worried,” I said. “I thought you'd … you…”

“Get off!” Putty wriggled free and looked around, flustered. “You must have hit your head too hard. I'm hardly about to die over something so stupid. I'm not that missish. Oh!” She collapsed back into her chair.

I glanced across at Olivia, who was standing nearby, and she gave me a little nod.

“Well, good,” I said, and cleared my throat.

“You haven't completely recovered your strength, Cousin Parthenia,” Freddie said. “You must rest. There'll be plenty of time for details. We'll be on this boat for several days.”

Putty let out a grunt of dissatisfaction, but she didn't argue.

“How many days?” I demanded. “We have to get to Lunae City.”

“I don't know,” Freddie said. “It depends on the winds. There's nothing any of us can do to hurry it up. We all need to rest and recover.”

Grinding my teeth, I lowered myself into a chair next to Putty. Just walking from the cabin to the deck had left me shaky. I toed off my damp shoes and rested my feet on the warm wood. At least my clothes were dry. Someone must have undressed me, dried my clothes, and then redressed me. I'd slept through it all. But if they'd removed my jacket … My hand shot to the pocket.

“The map!” I said. “It's gone.”

Freddie grimaced. “I know. It didn't survive the water. The paper was sodden and the ink had run. There was nothing I could do.”

“It's ruined?” I said.

Freddie nodded.

I buried my face in my hands. After everything we'd been through—our house demolished, my family kidnapped, the airship crash, and the hell of that wilderness—Sir Titus Dane had gotten what he wanted after all. The map was destroyed. Now he was the only one who could find the tomb.

“There was this, too,” Putty said.

She passed me a sagging mass of wet pulp. It was disgusting. It felt like snail-bird slime.

“What is it?”

Putty looked pained. “Your
Thrilling Martian Tales
.”

I stared down at it. The magazine was a mess. I tried to pull it open, but it tore. I let it fall to the deck.

Freddie cleared his throat. “Your sisters have helped me reproduce what we can.”

“Excuse me?” I blinked up from the seeping remains of my magazine.

“The map.”

“Right,” I said. “Right.”

“I've stared at the ideograms so many times that I think I've got them,” Freddie said, “but the map feels wrong. If you could take a look and see what you remember?”

He pulled a piece of paper from his sleeve and unfolded it. In the line of symbols at the top, there was a bird standing on one leg and a cloud, and something that might have been a coiled snake, but those were the only ideograms that seemed familiar. I couldn't have sworn that even those were accurate. The map, though … It showed a valley and the lines were roughly the right shape, but there was something wrong that I couldn't put my finger on.

“It's not quite right,” I said, “but…” I shrugged.

“I agree,” Freddie said. “We'll just have to hope that the ideograms themselves give enough clues when they're decoded. Either that or we'll have to get Sir Titus's original map.”

“After we've rescued my family,” I said.

“We will rescue them,” Freddie said. “This canal will take us all the way to the Martian Nile. From there, the captain plans to sail to Lunae City to deliver his goods. We will come up on Sir Titus, unexpected and beneath his notice.”