Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin, Book One) (27 page)

Kepler was a few steps behind, armor clanking, dragging the unfortunate Founders jailer, who looked at the massive Alchemist like a man being dragged off by a hungry bear.

Buckle took off at a run down the main corridor, the boots stabbing him every inch of the way, passing scattered pairs of Ballblasters positioned to cover the labyrinth of smaller passageways that merged into it.

He met Sabrina and Corporal Druxbury at the door to cell twenty-four.

Sabrina smiled like a child, her eyes wet. “We found him, Romulus! We found him!” She almost sang the words.

And there, peering through the heavy iron bars of his door window, was Balthazar Crankshaft.

“Hello, boy,” Balthazar said, smiling. “You’re late.”

Balthazar Crankshaft was a brawny wolverine of a man, barrel-chested, with thick legs and arms; his head, with its gray
eyes and a prominent nose still jutting grandly, despite being broken several times, was made leonine by his flowing, blond-peppered-with-white hair and beard. Balthazar was an ambassador’s mix of aggression and diplomacy, of kindness and cold intelligence; he even poured his tea decisively.

“My apologies, Father,” Buckle said, grinning. The thrill he felt to be with Balthazar again, to be rescuing him and taking him home, lifted his heart immeasurably. “I hadn’t realized you would be timing us.”

“I planned on a rescue before supper.” Balthazar sighed, in the playful way he used when he was ribbing his children. “Now I fear I have missed one of Salisbury’s exquisite dinners.”

Buckle tucked the key ring into Sabrina’s hand while grabbing his boots and sword belt from her with his other hand. “Go ahead, Sabrina,” he said.

Ignoring the sticky blood on the ring staining her hands, Sabrina stepped to the heavy padlock and started applying one skeleton key after another. Buckle limped to a wooden bench set against the wall, sat down, and yanked at the kid jailer’s boots for all he was worth.

“Cookie already started fixing you your mutton stew, Papa,” Sabrina said. She had called Balthazar “Papa” from the very first day she had appeared at the Tehachapi stronghold, even though she had been adopted at the ripe old age of thirteen. But her daughterly connection to Balthazar was intense: the spiritual bond between them was so obvious, so undeniable, so utterly instinctive, that none of the other children, not even his own flesh-and-blood son, Ryder, were jealous. It just had to be what it was.

With the torture boots off, Buckle yanked his own boots, thankfully, back on.

“No need for a change of clothes just to rescue me,” Balthazar commented wryly from his window. “Or are we off to a ball?”

Buckle stood up, stomping his feet as the blood surged back into the flesh in painful tingles. “Let’s go. The dance is about to begin,” he said.

“Aye,” Balthazar said. “When it starts off with a gunshot, it’s likely to be a lively one.”

“It could not be helped,” Buckle replied.

Pluteus arrived on the scene in a ponderous rattle of armor. “Blue blazes! Have you not unlocked that door yet?”

“There are a hundred of them, Pluteus,” Sabrina said, twisting key after key.

“I am just happy looking at all of your grimy faces.” Balthazar laughed.

Sabrina shook her head as the key ring jingled in her hands. “I hope they weren’t too unkind to you.”

Balthazar slipped his hand through the bars and patted Sabrina’s cheek. “I hardly saw a soul other than my keeper. But despite the whack to the head they gave me at the Palisades, which they patched up rather nicely, I must say, I have been treated reasonably well. Their odd cucumber gruel has been bland but palatable, the bed lumpy but warm; they even gave me a book to read, which I have decided to take with me as a souvenir.”

It was curious, Buckle thought for a passing instant, that the Founders would go to the trouble of kidnapping Balthazar and then leave him alone in his cell for three days.

One of the last keys turned in the lock, clicking the tumblers into position.

“Aha!” Sabrina cried. The padlock clicked apart, and she unhooked it and tossed it aside. The door swung open and Balthazar Crankshaft marched out, pulling on his gray greatcoat.

Sabrina hopped forward, squealing with a pure joy Buckle had never seen her express before. “Papa!” she cheered, throwing her arms around Balthazar’s generous middle and giving him a tight hug.

“Good to see you, dear child,” Balthazar whispered softly before letting her go.

Pluteus, his snot- and blood-crusted chunky face locked in a grin, shook Balthazar’s hand. “Nice to see you in one piece, cousin.”

Buckle wanted to shove, to kick everyone in the arse. “It is time to go,” he barked.

Pluteus tucked a loaded pistol into Balthazar’s hand. “I hope you are up for some action,” he said.

“Wait, Pluteus,” Balthazar said. “There is another clan leader incarcerated here. The Imperial chancellor, Katzenjammer Smelt.”

“He shall make a fine dish for the rats,” Buckle snapped. “It is time to take our leave!”

“Actually, the fogsuckers kidnapped three clan leaders,” Pluteus said, jerking his thumb toward the front of the main corridor, where Scorpius and the Alchemists were huddled around door number fourteen. “Lady Andromeda Pollux of the Alchemists. They found her, too.”

“Then we cannot leave without her, either,” Balthazar said.

“Aye,” Pluteus replied.

“I don’t know how you and the Alchemists joined forces, but that is a story I will want to hear,” Balthazar said, impressed.

“Smelt is right here, Admiral,” Corporal Druxbury said, having stepped down two cells to the south. “Cell twenty-six. I can shoot him if you’d like.”

Balthazar shook his head. “Sabrina, release Smelt from his cell. Quickly. He is coming with us.”

Sabrina turned, but Buckle grabbed her by the shoulder. The mere thought of the Crankshafts freeing Katzenjammer Smelt enraged him. He didn’t know whether to talk or spit. “I say we leave the Imperial here.”

“No,” Balthazar said evenly. “We take him with us.”

Buckle’s veins surged with apprehension. His throat went dry. How could Balthazar even consider helping an Imperial? “Perhaps you have not completely recovered from being hit on the head, Balthazar. Have you forgotten what the Imperials did to us? Four zeppelins burned, dozens of our people dead, all at the order of that filthy spiker in the next cell. He is the one responsible for the murder of Elizabeth! He is the one responsible for the murder of Calypso!”

Balthazar took a half step forward; the move was not menacing, but it squared him up with his son. He took the key ring out of Sabrina’s hands and thrust them into Buckle’s. “You will see to the release of Katzenjammer Smelt,” Balthazar ordered. “And you will do it now.”

Buckle hesitated. There was no one in the world, no one in the universe, who Romulus Buckle hated with more vehemence than Katzenjammer Smelt. But there was not enough salt in him to disobey Balthazar on the spot.

“Romulus,” Balthazar said urgently, “you must trust me. There is more to this than just us and the Imperials. Your anger and mine are worthless to us right now.”

Buckle swallowed hard and nodded. He turned and marched toward cell number twenty-six, clutching the key ring in his hands. He could not believe what he was doing.

Instead of gutting Katzenjammer Smelt, he was going to set him free.

KATZENJAMMER SMELT

I
NFURIATED AT THE FURTHER DELAY—A
delay caused by the rescue of Smelt—Buckle snatched a key on the dead master of the watch’s key ring and jammed it into the padlock of cell number twenty-six. He did not look inside the window. His skin crawled just being this close to Katzenjammer Smelt.

“I have an extra sticky bomb,” Corporal Druxbury muttered in Buckle’s ear. “You wouldn’t mind if I just lit the thing and threw it inside, would you?”

“I would be elated, Corporal,” Buckle said under his breath. The first key—the very first key—opened the padlock, and Buckle wrenched it aside. “Come on out, Imperial,” Buckle grumbled as he swung the heavy cell door open. “Or stay here. I do not care which.”

Buckle clamped his teeth as Katzenjammer Smelt emerged from the doorway. Smelt was a tall, limber man, long-faced, lantern-jawed, and unfortunately handsome, with gray-brown hair cut close to the skull, and a glass monocle clamped over his left eye. He was dressed in the traditional Imperial uniform: silver and red epaulettes decorated his shoulders, and the high collar of his powder-blue tunic was embroidered on each side with the silver iron cross, the emblem of the Imperial clan; his trousers were dark-blue jodhpurs with thick red stripes tucked
into black jackboots below. In the crook of his arm he carried a polished pickelhaube helmet with an iron-cross plate and a large silver spike affixed to the top.

Smelt scrutinized the situation with a detached, critical eye, oozing typical Imperial arrogance in the way he peered down his long nose at the world and everything in it.

Buckle wanted to bash him.

Smelt narrowed his stare at Buckle. “You!” Smelt, with a baritone voice imperious even for an Imperial, barked. “Where is my zeppelin, you thieving little blackheart?”

“We all pay a price, don’t we, Smelt?” Buckle replied.

“I shall have your head when the time comes,” Smelt said. “I shall have your gremlin head and tack it up on my parlor wall. The
Pneumatic Zeppelin
is mine.”

“Finders keepers,” Buckle retorted. His head was a riot of fury. His hand crept toward his sword.

Perhaps now was the time to bash him.

As if reading Buckle’s mind, Balthazar clamped a beefy hand on his shoulder and stepped between him and Smelt. “Greetings, Katzenjammer,” Balthazar said. Balthazar and Smelt knew each other, if only in a small way, from a time when they had both been much younger men.

“Ah, Balthazar. Come to finish me off, have you?” Smelt said with an odd wryness.

“Fear not, Chancellor,” Balthazar replied. “My son is your rescuer, and your bodyguard.”

“Assassin would be the more accurate term,” Smelt huffed.

Buckle swung his mouth close to Balthazar’s ear. “For this monster, I am no bodyguard,” he whispered.

“It is your responsibility to make sure Smelt gets out of here alive,” Balthazar said.

Buckle gritted his teeth. “It is my responsibility to get you out of here alive.”

“You have your orders,” Balthazar said.

“A rather ragtag rescue, Balthazar, I must say,” Smelt said. “I would have been put at much greater ease to see Imperial dragoons here rather than this motley bunch—although I am most appreciative of your efforts, of course.”

Oh, Buckle so badly wanted to bash Smelt—but he wanted to get moving even more. “Damn it—I shall kiss the devil himself if we could just lace up our boots and go!”

A chorus of warning shouts suddenly echoed from the four Ballblasters guarding the southern approaches of the main corridor. The
boom-boom-ba-boom
of an uneven volley erupted from their muskets, and was answered by enraged yells and scattered muzzle flashes from adjoining corridors to the south. Bullet trails of white phosphorus streaked through the air, ending in shatters of sparks when the musket balls ricocheted off the stone walls.

“Too late! This party is crashed,” Sabrina shouted, aiming her pistol down the corridor and firing a round. “Just peachy!”

“We are not leaving,” Balthazar shouted. “Nobody leaves until we free Andromeda Pollux!”

“Of course, Father,” Buckle said, ducking as a musket ball whizzed past his head in a bolt of phosphorus. “But may I suggest we hurry.”

ANDROMEDA POLLUX AND THE COPPER CORRIDOR

G
ENERAL
S
CORPIUS WRENCHED THE LAST
key out of the door of special cell fourteen with such a yank that Buckle feared he might snap it off in the lock. “None of the keys fit!” Scorpius raged—he snapped his head to Buckle. “The explosives! Do you have the explosives?”

“Yes,” Buckle said, turning to shout. “Corporal Druxbury! Blow the door!”

Druxbury stepped forward and carefully drew the last sticky bomb out of the satchel riding on his armored hip. He pressed the malleable explosive into place with his thumbs, forcing as much as he could into the keyhole.