Post by Lorpius Prime on May 8, 2008 5:10:48 GMT -5
The whole room shook, causing the lamps to flicker. Everyone looked around in surprised silence as dust which had shaken loose from the ceiling fell around them. There was only a brief pause before the thunder started up and set the walls to rattling again.
“Are they bombing us?” Jay asked incredulously. He didn’t think to ask who “they” were.
“Yes,” was Theodore’s simple reply. He placed a hand against one wall, as if trying to steady it.
“But why?”
Theodore shrugged, Jay turned to Eleonore but she was huddled close to “Richard” and listening intently as the creature muttered something Jay couldn’t understand. Jay was about to ask Theodore something else when the door to the dressing room opened.
Before Jay could see who was pushing it open, the so-called dragon in its enormous robes had spun around and lunged forward to block the portal, nearly knocking Jay over in the process.
Now Jay only had a good view of the creature’s back, and whatever body the robes concealed, it was certainly not shaped like a man’s.
A started voice came from the other side of it, “Entschuldigungen!”
The beast stepped to one side to reveal one of the ushers from the Theater. But his red cap was missing and he held a revolver in one hand. And he didn’t seem the least bit concerned by the monster which had just answered the door.
“Schwankönigin!” He stepped inside to let the inhuman sentry close the door behind him. “Wir müssen jetzt gehen!”
“Bitte auf Englisch, Oskar,” Eleonore answered, and motioned with her hand for him to lower his voice. “What is happening?”
Oskar glanced around him to Theodore and Jay, but if he was concerned by their presence, he didn’t comment on it. “We must leave quickly, your majesty. The city is under attack, and they’ve already reached the Marienplatz. We should escape to the Hofgarten immediately!”
“Attack?” Jay squeaked.
“By whom?” Eleonore asked.
The usher shook his head, “I do not know. Men of some sort, but—”
The door burst open again, this time with a crash. The staccato bursting of gunpowder explosions rang out and Jay covered his stinging ears as Oskar collapsed in front of him.
Another man stood in the door and was pivoting to swing a smoking gun to bear on Theodore. He wore a brown coat and a thick beard covering yellow skin, and Jay only caught a glimpse of him before Richard struck him in a backhanded blow and he disappeared back through the doorway.
Theodore knelt to administer to the fallen usher, but that was useless. The man was missing the back of his head and Jay was desperately trying not to add his own vomit to the blood spreading across the floor.
Someone grabbed him by the shoulder and tore him away from that awful image. It was Eleonore, and she was dragging him towards the door with a determined expression.
“We are taking the fire escape, go!”
Theodore stood up to follow, shaking his head. Richard was already in the corridor, blocking the view towards the theater’s grand hall with his bulk. The golden-haired actress was pulling him in the other direction, but Jay shrugged her off to look at something else.
Richard’s blow had put their attacker nearly through the wooden panels of the far wall. And he lay crumpled and broken on the floor, his red shirt showing through his open jacket.
“I know this man,” Jay said in astonishment, and stared down at the body.
“What?” Richard hissed. The side of his long head appeared over one shoulder and skewered Jay with a single menacing eye.
The fallen man’s skin was a sicklier shade than it had been, and his face was badly bruised. But it was not a face Jay would soon forget.
“It’s Major Farragut,” Jay said, hardly believing his own words, “he tried to kill me. But he’s dead! Jack beat him up and we took him to the Baron, who said—”
“Thralls!” Theodore shouted it, and Jay turned to see the stout little German turning purple with rage.
Eleonore was looking at the body now herself, and her expression was pure horror, “I never imagined…”
“We must go at once!” Theodore shouted again. And in a total breach of gentlemanly etiquette, he grabbed Eleonore about the waist, spun her around, and shoved her towards the red-painted door at the end of the hall. Then he gestured sharply for Jay to follow, “Now!”
Jay had trouble looking away from the British officer whom he had twice now seen beaten senseless after trying to shoot him. But he forced himself to run after Theodore and Eleonore. Richard came after, walking backwards, keeping himself between the others and whatever else was coming for them. It only took them a few seconds to reach the end of the hallway and push through the red-painted fire door.
Outside it was not as dark as it should have been for the time of night. And it was loud. Jay was still looking around for the source of the light and the noise when he was pushed out of the way by Richard squeezing his bulk through the exit. The heavy door closed behind him and sealed them out, there was no handle.
“Can you see anything?” Eleonore asked no one in particular. “It sounds bad.”
And it did. There was a low roar of explosions and human screams, especially screaming. But Jay could not see a thing; they were in a small alley between buildings, or perhaps between sections of the theater itself. It opened onto a street at one end that was not much bigger than the alley itself, and was empty of humanity.
“Oskar said they were at the Marienplatz,” said Richard’s chorus of voices, and he nodded with his long head towards the southwest. “He wanted to get to the Hofgarten.”
“Then he was not worried about the Army,” said Theodore in a dark voice.
“Look!” Jay pointed into the sky. He didn’t really understand what the others were talking about, but what he could see now had to be important. The others followed his arm.
Through the gap between the buildings around them, they could see the great grey cylinder of an airship drifting overhead. Its gas envelope bore the red-and-white roundels of the Royal Air Corps and two brilliant white beams from arc-lamp searchlights stabbed out from either end of the gondola towards the east. Even as Jay lowered his arm, fire sprouted alongside the searchlights as the airship’s machine guns opened fire. Jay shivered.
“Even if the Army is not looking for us, I cannot risk exposure, I must remain here,” Richard said. Jay turned away from the airship to look at the creature. As much as it was possible for that inhuman face to express anything, Jay thought Richard looked frustrated.
“Then I will be staying as well,” Eleonore said.
“Your Majesty,” Theodore began, “we have not finished our preparations, and there is little time left before—”
“I must look after the city,” she stopped him. “You will have to go alone, Theodore. Our men on the island are loyal and my husband can look after himself, Theodore; I trust you to bring him back safely.”
“Are you cer—” Theodore began, then stopped as a high-pitched whine filled the air and drowned out the noise around them. Jay looked up to try to find its source while Theodore threw himself down and huddled against the wall and Richard pulled Eleonore close to him before doing the same.
The top of the theater building exploded and Jay staggered backwards, losing his balance and falling against the fire door again. A twisted piece of green metal clattered off one of the walls and fell beside him. It was a piece of the roof and Jay could feel the heat coming off of it.
“We are going now!” shouted Richard as he helped a flustered-looking Eleonore back to her feet. The sleeves of his robes had pulled back to reveal clawed hands that looked like they could have as easily stripped the flesh from the woman’s bones as lifted her up.
Theodore stood and dusted himself off as well and the three of them had taken a few steps towards the street before Jay, still dazed, recovered enough of his wits to speak again.
“Wait! What about me?”
Richard only glanced back for a moment to sneer at him. Jay was still winding up the nerve to express his offense when Theodore whirled around and grabbed him by the upper part of his right arm.
“Come on!” he shouted, dragging Jay forward. Jay stumbled at first, but quickly fell into a run along with the others. They crossed out of the alley and into the deserted street and headed North. At the end they could see the garden through which Jay and Theodore had crossed on their way to the theater. Now it was filled with soldiers who were taking positions behind a hastily-constructed barricade of loose furniture and looking annoyed at the stream of civilians making their way through their line. When the four had nearly reached the outlet of the street, they stopped.
“We part here,” Richard announced.
“I shall await your return in two weeks,” Eleonore smiled and nodded to Theodore. Then she turned to Jay, “And I wish you well, Mr. Blake.”
“Thanks, um…” Jay blinked, not at all sure of what to say. But he didn’t have the chance, anyway. Richard scooped her up in one arm, then leapt at the side of the building on the eastern side of the street. Jay could hardly move his head fast enough to follow them as Richard scampered up the side, and then he was over the top and they were gone. Jay stared at the deep gouges Richard’s passage had left in the bricks of the building’s wall.
“We must continue, Mr. Blake!” Theodore shouted as another explosion went off nearby. Jay shook himself and ran after the German.
They crossed the side street and into the garden. A Hungarian soldier in his white uniform stood up from behind a mess of tables and someone’s sofa and pointed a rifle at the two men. Jay slowed, but the soldier lowered his weapon even before he could stop.
“Prinzregentenstrasse!” he shouted, and waved over his left shoulder. “Prinzregentenstrasse! Über die Brücke!”
“Um, Prince Street?” Jay asked Theodore, taking his best guess at what the soldier, a sergeant, was telling them.
Theodore ignored him, but fired back his own query to the gesticulating soldier. The sergeant grunted something back, then kneeled back behind his little barricade.
Theodore nodded and tugged Jay to the right to navigate around the barrier, “Yes, they’re evacuating over the river to hold at the bridges.”
“And is that good?” Jay picked his way through broken furniture and scurrying soldiers towards a broad avenue ahead of them where there seemed to be a thick line of people, civilians, making their way to the East.
Theodore shrugged, “Hard to say that there is a good in this. I am no friend of the occupation, but what Karl is doing…” he shook his head.
Someone screamed and drove Theodore’s point home for him. The sound of it was louder than anything else around them as it ripped through the air. Jay’s blood froze at the noise and he wasn’t the only one; an infantryman who was hurrying by dropped his weapon and stared over Jay’s shoulder. Jay turned to follow the gaze. The airship which had been hovering over them earlier was on fire and both of its searchlights had gone out. The sight of it jarred Jay as he recalled his own experience in a burning airship. The war machine’s enormous gas envelope quickly dissolved into smoke and it sank out of sight, adding its own little flame to a burning city skyline.
Book One, Chapter:
-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-
-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30-31-32-33-34-35-36-37-38-39-40-41-42-
-43-44-45-46-47-48-49-50-51-52-53-54-55-56-57-58-59-60-61-62-
Appendix: -A-B-C-
“Are they bombing us?” Jay asked incredulously. He didn’t think to ask who “they” were.
“Yes,” was Theodore’s simple reply. He placed a hand against one wall, as if trying to steady it.
“But why?”
Theodore shrugged, Jay turned to Eleonore but she was huddled close to “Richard” and listening intently as the creature muttered something Jay couldn’t understand. Jay was about to ask Theodore something else when the door to the dressing room opened.
Before Jay could see who was pushing it open, the so-called dragon in its enormous robes had spun around and lunged forward to block the portal, nearly knocking Jay over in the process.
Now Jay only had a good view of the creature’s back, and whatever body the robes concealed, it was certainly not shaped like a man’s.
A started voice came from the other side of it, “Entschuldigungen!”
The beast stepped to one side to reveal one of the ushers from the Theater. But his red cap was missing and he held a revolver in one hand. And he didn’t seem the least bit concerned by the monster which had just answered the door.
“Schwankönigin!” He stepped inside to let the inhuman sentry close the door behind him. “Wir müssen jetzt gehen!”
“Bitte auf Englisch, Oskar,” Eleonore answered, and motioned with her hand for him to lower his voice. “What is happening?”
Oskar glanced around him to Theodore and Jay, but if he was concerned by their presence, he didn’t comment on it. “We must leave quickly, your majesty. The city is under attack, and they’ve already reached the Marienplatz. We should escape to the Hofgarten immediately!”
“Attack?” Jay squeaked.
“By whom?” Eleonore asked.
The usher shook his head, “I do not know. Men of some sort, but—”
The door burst open again, this time with a crash. The staccato bursting of gunpowder explosions rang out and Jay covered his stinging ears as Oskar collapsed in front of him.
Another man stood in the door and was pivoting to swing a smoking gun to bear on Theodore. He wore a brown coat and a thick beard covering yellow skin, and Jay only caught a glimpse of him before Richard struck him in a backhanded blow and he disappeared back through the doorway.
Theodore knelt to administer to the fallen usher, but that was useless. The man was missing the back of his head and Jay was desperately trying not to add his own vomit to the blood spreading across the floor.
Someone grabbed him by the shoulder and tore him away from that awful image. It was Eleonore, and she was dragging him towards the door with a determined expression.
“We are taking the fire escape, go!”
Theodore stood up to follow, shaking his head. Richard was already in the corridor, blocking the view towards the theater’s grand hall with his bulk. The golden-haired actress was pulling him in the other direction, but Jay shrugged her off to look at something else.
Richard’s blow had put their attacker nearly through the wooden panels of the far wall. And he lay crumpled and broken on the floor, his red shirt showing through his open jacket.
“I know this man,” Jay said in astonishment, and stared down at the body.
“What?” Richard hissed. The side of his long head appeared over one shoulder and skewered Jay with a single menacing eye.
The fallen man’s skin was a sicklier shade than it had been, and his face was badly bruised. But it was not a face Jay would soon forget.
“It’s Major Farragut,” Jay said, hardly believing his own words, “he tried to kill me. But he’s dead! Jack beat him up and we took him to the Baron, who said—”
“Thralls!” Theodore shouted it, and Jay turned to see the stout little German turning purple with rage.
Eleonore was looking at the body now herself, and her expression was pure horror, “I never imagined…”
“We must go at once!” Theodore shouted again. And in a total breach of gentlemanly etiquette, he grabbed Eleonore about the waist, spun her around, and shoved her towards the red-painted door at the end of the hall. Then he gestured sharply for Jay to follow, “Now!”
Jay had trouble looking away from the British officer whom he had twice now seen beaten senseless after trying to shoot him. But he forced himself to run after Theodore and Eleonore. Richard came after, walking backwards, keeping himself between the others and whatever else was coming for them. It only took them a few seconds to reach the end of the hallway and push through the red-painted fire door.
Outside it was not as dark as it should have been for the time of night. And it was loud. Jay was still looking around for the source of the light and the noise when he was pushed out of the way by Richard squeezing his bulk through the exit. The heavy door closed behind him and sealed them out, there was no handle.
“Can you see anything?” Eleonore asked no one in particular. “It sounds bad.”
And it did. There was a low roar of explosions and human screams, especially screaming. But Jay could not see a thing; they were in a small alley between buildings, or perhaps between sections of the theater itself. It opened onto a street at one end that was not much bigger than the alley itself, and was empty of humanity.
“Oskar said they were at the Marienplatz,” said Richard’s chorus of voices, and he nodded with his long head towards the southwest. “He wanted to get to the Hofgarten.”
“Then he was not worried about the Army,” said Theodore in a dark voice.
“Look!” Jay pointed into the sky. He didn’t really understand what the others were talking about, but what he could see now had to be important. The others followed his arm.
Through the gap between the buildings around them, they could see the great grey cylinder of an airship drifting overhead. Its gas envelope bore the red-and-white roundels of the Royal Air Corps and two brilliant white beams from arc-lamp searchlights stabbed out from either end of the gondola towards the east. Even as Jay lowered his arm, fire sprouted alongside the searchlights as the airship’s machine guns opened fire. Jay shivered.
“Even if the Army is not looking for us, I cannot risk exposure, I must remain here,” Richard said. Jay turned away from the airship to look at the creature. As much as it was possible for that inhuman face to express anything, Jay thought Richard looked frustrated.
“Then I will be staying as well,” Eleonore said.
“Your Majesty,” Theodore began, “we have not finished our preparations, and there is little time left before—”
“I must look after the city,” she stopped him. “You will have to go alone, Theodore. Our men on the island are loyal and my husband can look after himself, Theodore; I trust you to bring him back safely.”
“Are you cer—” Theodore began, then stopped as a high-pitched whine filled the air and drowned out the noise around them. Jay looked up to try to find its source while Theodore threw himself down and huddled against the wall and Richard pulled Eleonore close to him before doing the same.
The top of the theater building exploded and Jay staggered backwards, losing his balance and falling against the fire door again. A twisted piece of green metal clattered off one of the walls and fell beside him. It was a piece of the roof and Jay could feel the heat coming off of it.
“We are going now!” shouted Richard as he helped a flustered-looking Eleonore back to her feet. The sleeves of his robes had pulled back to reveal clawed hands that looked like they could have as easily stripped the flesh from the woman’s bones as lifted her up.
Theodore stood and dusted himself off as well and the three of them had taken a few steps towards the street before Jay, still dazed, recovered enough of his wits to speak again.
“Wait! What about me?”
Richard only glanced back for a moment to sneer at him. Jay was still winding up the nerve to express his offense when Theodore whirled around and grabbed him by the upper part of his right arm.
“Come on!” he shouted, dragging Jay forward. Jay stumbled at first, but quickly fell into a run along with the others. They crossed out of the alley and into the deserted street and headed North. At the end they could see the garden through which Jay and Theodore had crossed on their way to the theater. Now it was filled with soldiers who were taking positions behind a hastily-constructed barricade of loose furniture and looking annoyed at the stream of civilians making their way through their line. When the four had nearly reached the outlet of the street, they stopped.
“We part here,” Richard announced.
“I shall await your return in two weeks,” Eleonore smiled and nodded to Theodore. Then she turned to Jay, “And I wish you well, Mr. Blake.”
“Thanks, um…” Jay blinked, not at all sure of what to say. But he didn’t have the chance, anyway. Richard scooped her up in one arm, then leapt at the side of the building on the eastern side of the street. Jay could hardly move his head fast enough to follow them as Richard scampered up the side, and then he was over the top and they were gone. Jay stared at the deep gouges Richard’s passage had left in the bricks of the building’s wall.
“We must continue, Mr. Blake!” Theodore shouted as another explosion went off nearby. Jay shook himself and ran after the German.
They crossed the side street and into the garden. A Hungarian soldier in his white uniform stood up from behind a mess of tables and someone’s sofa and pointed a rifle at the two men. Jay slowed, but the soldier lowered his weapon even before he could stop.
“Prinzregentenstrasse!” he shouted, and waved over his left shoulder. “Prinzregentenstrasse! Über die Brücke!”
“Um, Prince Street?” Jay asked Theodore, taking his best guess at what the soldier, a sergeant, was telling them.
Theodore ignored him, but fired back his own query to the gesticulating soldier. The sergeant grunted something back, then kneeled back behind his little barricade.
Theodore nodded and tugged Jay to the right to navigate around the barrier, “Yes, they’re evacuating over the river to hold at the bridges.”
“And is that good?” Jay picked his way through broken furniture and scurrying soldiers towards a broad avenue ahead of them where there seemed to be a thick line of people, civilians, making their way to the East.
Theodore shrugged, “Hard to say that there is a good in this. I am no friend of the occupation, but what Karl is doing…” he shook his head.
Someone screamed and drove Theodore’s point home for him. The sound of it was louder than anything else around them as it ripped through the air. Jay’s blood froze at the noise and he wasn’t the only one; an infantryman who was hurrying by dropped his weapon and stared over Jay’s shoulder. Jay turned to follow the gaze. The airship which had been hovering over them earlier was on fire and both of its searchlights had gone out. The sight of it jarred Jay as he recalled his own experience in a burning airship. The war machine’s enormous gas envelope quickly dissolved into smoke and it sank out of sight, adding its own little flame to a burning city skyline.
Book One, Chapter:
-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-
-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30-31-32-33-34-35-36-37-38-39-40-41-42-
-43-44-45-46-47-48-49-50-51-52-53-54-55-56-57-58-59-60-61-62-
Appendix: -A-B-C-