Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin, Book One) (50 page)

In a flash, Smelt’s sword was free of its scabbard, the flashing tip poised at Scully’s throat. “Have at it, Sergeant. Take the last breath you shall ever take.”

The mood of the crowd went black. With hissing curses they closed in.

Buckle jumped to his feet. “Enough!”

Everyone stopped. The mess fell silent again.

Smelt lowered his sword and turned to Buckle. “You, sir, are a thief and a blackguard. If you refuse to return to me what is rightfully mine, then I must force your hand as a matter of honor. I invoke the right to challenge you to a Captain’s Duel. To the death.”

A volcano went off in Buckle’s brain. He wanted to lunge at Smelt’s throat. He did not.

“Do you accept, sir?” Smelt asked, almost whispering, watching Buckle with the eyes of a cobra waiting to strike. “Or is there not one scrap of honor in you?”

There was nothing in the world at that moment that Buckle wanted more than to run a sword through Katzenjammer Smelt. “By the Code of the Captains, I accept.”

“Choose your weapon,” Smelt said through gritted teeth.

Swords. That was Buckle’s first thought. The blade was his best talent. But his fighting arm was injured. No, if Buckle was going to annihilate Smelt, it would have to be with a firearm. “Pistols,” Buckle said, “at ten paces.”

“Pistols it is,” Smelt replied, his eyes glittering, especially the one behind the monocle.

“Howard!” Buckle yelled. Howard Hampton jumped to his side, eyeing Smelt suspiciously.

“Aye, Captain,” Howard said, trying to chew down a mouthful of steak.

Buckle placed his hand on Howard’s shoulder. “There is a set of dueling pistols inside the drawer of the Lion’s Table up in my quarters. Go get the box and bring it to me up on the roof as fast as you can.”

“Yes, Captain.” Howard took off at a sprint.

Buckle looked at Smelt and gracefully extended his arm toward the keel corridor. “Shall we, Chancellor?”

Smelt rammed his sword home into its scabbard with a sharp clank and strode out of the mess hall.

Buckle turned to the sea of furious and concerned faces around him. “This will be finished in a matter of minutes. All of you remain here. Remain here!” He spun on his heel and marched after Smelt.

THE ROOF

B
UCKLE STOOD ON THE MASSIVE
roof of the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
, glaring at Katzenjammer Smelt in the chilly dusk, and wondered just how exactly he had gotten there. Hummingbirds buzzed the skin patches, rushing the hemp stitches and stiffening glue. A mild breeze had come up from the west, tugging at the folds of the zeppelin’s skin and driving the long, gray-black sweep of smoke from the funeral fires out over the dark blues of the channel, where the fluttering dots of seabirds wheeled high above.

It had started to snow. The air floated with fat, soft snowflakes that played more than they fell.

Howard Hampton clambered up out of the observer’s nacelle access hatch and arrived at Buckle’s hip. He flipped open a carved wooden chest to reveal a green felt interior that housed two blackbang dueling pistols, along with balls, powder satchels, and ramrods.

Buckle took the chest and offered it to Smelt. “For your inspection, Chancellor,” he said.

Smelt lifted one of the pistols and hefted it in his hand. “Acceptable,” he said.

Buckle took the second pistol, and he and Smelt carefully loaded and primed their weapons in silence. Howard Hampton stared at them with wide eyes.

“Ready?” Buckle asked Smelt.

“Yes,” Smelt answered, cocking the firing hammer on his pistol with a heavy
click
.

“Howard,” Buckle said. “When I give the word you will count to ten.”

“Yes, Captain,” Howard replied weakly.

“Just count out ten paces, boy,” Smelt said to Howard, then turned his gleaming monocle on Buckle. “On ten we turn and fire.”

“Pick any distance, Smelt. You are a ghost already,” Buckle said.

Smelt smiled. Buckle hadn’t expected that. It was a genuine grin, wide and long-toothed across the tight skin of his face, the chin and cheeks smattered with beard stubble. Buckle turned so he faced away from Smelt. He was looking northward: below, he could see the long span of the shoreline; the snowfall gave the landscape a softness, muting the edges between the dark sea, white land, and red-tinged clouds of evening.

Smelt stepped behind him, his boots squeaking on the snow that was collecting on the canvas. They were now back-to-back. Buckle looked at Howard and nodded.

“One!” Howard yelled nervously.

Buckle took one stride forward. The carved wooden handle of the dueling pistol felt warm in his hand as he held it at his chest, barrel upright. It was a good weight.

“Two!”

Buckle had never been in a shooting duel before. He was an excellent marksman, but if he had his druthers he would always fight with swords. Blackbang firearms were unpredictable—even the master-crafted dueling pistols could easily misfire.

“Three…four!”

Buckle’s boots almost floated under him, his tread spongy on the taut canvas. The world felt unstable, and he felt loose
in it. It was not nerves—even his rage had calmed, tempered by the opportunity to exact his revenge. Killing Smelt would throw a big wrench into Balthazar’s diplomatic plans, yes, but the die had been cast. There was no going back now.

“Five…six!” Howard shouted, his voice gradually falling off behind Buckle.

When he turned to fire, Buckle knew to rotate halfway, standing sideways to Smelt, presenting his slender flank, rather than his chest, to present as small a target as possible.

“Seven!”

The wind gusted, cold, driving a handful of snowflakes into Buckle’s face. The next two strides seemed as if they might take a thousand years. Even if Smelt did manage to pot him, he would get his shot off as well. Buckle would not miss. Perhaps today the crew of the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
would fire two more funeral pyres on the snowy Catalina slopes. If Buckle sent Smelt to his grave, he could die happy…and then he remembered Elizabeth.

“Eight!”

The sinews in Buckle’s cold fingers stiffened as he tightened his grip on the pistol. His injured right wrist, freed from its sling, ached. He thought he heard something lightly scamper across the canvas behind him, as if a gazelle had just passed through.

Death arriving to make a collection, perhaps.

“I, uh, nine!” Howard stuttered.

What in blue blazes was wrong with Howard Hampton, messing up the count like that? Buckle thought, as he took another stride. Well, in one second it would not matter.

“Ten!”

Buckle whirled around and flung out his arm.

How he stopped himself from pulling the trigger, Buckle would never know.

THE WHITE ANGEL

W
HEN
B
UCKLE TURNED, HIS FINGER
full on the trigger, the sinew coiled to jerk, he discovered Lady Andromeda standing directly between him and Katzenjammer Smelt. In that instant she seemed an apparition in white, an angel, her long infirmary gown and untethered hair flowing in the wind, her skin as pale as the snow under her bare feet, her eyes startlingly black, her lips bright red, her ivory white hands thrust out, long fingers quivering.

It was as if she had risen up from the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
itself.

“Curses, woman!” Smelt bellowed, attempting to aim his pistol past her. “Get out of the way!”

Buckle peered down the barrel sight. He could see Smelt lurking beyond Andromeda, but she was in the way of a good shot. He did not trust the accuracy of his blackbang pistol to aim past her by a hair’s breadth. And neither did Smelt.

“I shall do no such thing!” Andromeda shouted. “Either shoot me or lower your weapons, for I shall stand for nothing less!”

Frustration dug its claws into Buckle. Smelt should be lying dead on the roof by now. “With all due respect, Lady
Andromeda, this is not your affair,” Buckle said, still trying to keep Smelt as square as he could in his sights.

“You fools! Can you not see?” Andromeda despaired. “Can you not think for yourselves? We are doomed if we continue to fight one another. Fortune has made us allies, and I, for one, shall not see the workings of fortune undone. So now, Romulus and Katzenjammer, lower your pistols.”

The duel was over. Buckle lowered his pistol to his thigh and saw Smelt do the same.

“Thank you, Lady Andromeda!” Howard Hampton interjected, with a sigh of relief.

“Come to me, both of you,” Andromeda ordered.

Buckle marched forward to arrive at Lady Andromeda’s left shoulder, just as Smelt arrived at her right. Up close, Andromeda looked terribly ill: her skin was too pale, the blood beneath coursing too faint and blue, her eyes too dark, her lips too sinisterly crimson.

“Lady Andromeda,” Buckle said, “we need to get you back inside and into bed.”

“I must agree,” Smelt said with a concern that seemed genuine. “I am afraid you look entirely unwell.”

“No!” Andromeda said with a grimace. “Not until you two end the blood feud between you. The Crankshafts, the Imperials, and the Alchemists must join as one, or be destroyed in turn when the Founders crusade begins. The time for your private little war is over. Swear to bury your hostility toward one another before me, here and now.”

Buckle and Smelt locked eyes and stared. The hatred Buckle felt for the man seemed insurmountable. “But, my lady,” Buckle said, “Smelt and the Imperials broke a treaty of truce between us. They attacked our stronghold in the night and bombed our
houses and airships. Dozens of our clan were killed, including my sister and Balthazar’s wife. Such a thing cannot be forgiven.”

“Liar!” Smelt snarled, his face purpling. “My clan made no such attack. It was you who broke the truce, you who invented this lie so you could raid us. Do you think I would allow you to steal my airship, this very airship which you just wrecked, and never come to take it back from you? Your punishment is at hand, Romulus Buckle.”

“I saw the crosses on your airships in the night, Smelt,” Buckle said evenly. “I saw the bombs falling from your gondolas. Upon the souls of those you murdered, how dare you claim that you did not attack us.”

Smelt fell into a smoldering calmness. “The Imperials have never broken a treaty or truce. Never. When we make war, we declare it first.”

“Enough! Yesterday, bloody and contentious as it may be, is done,” Andromeda said. “If you cannot bury the past, then none of us has any future, except as graves or slaves. End your feud now.”

Buckle and Smelt glared at each other: their hatred and distrust stifled them. They could neither speak nor move.

Andromeda’s teeth started chattering uncontrollably. She coughed and pressed her hands against her lips. When she pulled her white fingers away, they were speckled with bright-red blood, the same bright-red blood that now ran in a small rivulet from the corner of her mouth. She uttered a soft sigh and collapsed.

Buckle and Smelt dropped their pistols and lunged to catch Andromeda as she fainted. Buckle wrapped his arms around her slender waist as Smelt caught one arm and cradled her head.

“Lady Andromeda, we are taking you to the infirmary now,” Buckle said.

“No,” Andromeda replied, her voice strident, despite its weakness. The snowflakes landing on her skin did not melt as fast as they should. “Swear. Swear on your honor to end your feud, or leave me here to die.”

Buckle looked at Smelt again. Their faces were much closer together now as they supported Andromeda, and Smelt looked like a man, more a man than a monster, with large pores in his nose and eyes both angry and distraught. Buckle hated him, but Andromeda’s frailness forced Buckle’s hand, if only until circumstances no longer made an alliance necessary. “I swear, Lady Andromeda,” Buckle said. “I swear to honor an alliance with the Imperial clan.”

“I shall also swear,” Smelt grumbled, “that the Imperials shall prove worthy allies to the Crankshafts for the duration of the war to come.”

“Very good,” Andromeda said, placing her trembling hands weakly against the chests of both Buckle and Smelt. “You may now return me to my sickbed.”