The Kraken King by Meljean Brook Page B

they need it. Good help.”
    “I would never find the courage.” She wiped her eyes, but more tears spilled. “I can still hear her screams.”
    So could Zenobia. Throat hurting too much for words, she only held Helene’s hand. In silence they walked, but Zenobia found her voice again when they passed the large home near to their own. The governor’s house.
    The Kraken King could not be so powerful a man if he was trapped in his own town. There had to be another way.
    “We will travel to the Red City within the week.” Whatever it took, whatever danger they had to face. “I swear it to you.”
    Helene’s face crumpled into sobs. “You are such a good friend, Geraldine.”
    Not always. But she would be this time.

Part II
    THE KRAKEN KING AND THE ABOMINABLE WORM
    Krakentown, Western Australia
    May 17

    My dear brother, 

    I’m sorry to send a dashed-off note, but when I have told you all that has happened you will understand my haste. Helene and I have not yet reached the Red City. Our naval escort came under attack by marauders and our airship was destroyed.     Don’t be alarmed; we are both well. We were rescued from the water and taken to a nearby settlement named Krakentown. It’s a well-named town. The first thing we saw was a kraken—fortunately, the creature was dead on the beach rather than attacking our boat. It is a small town, and rough, but we’ve been treated well by the residents. One could never say that our lodgings were fit for a king—but they suit Helene and me perfectly. The good Lieutenant Blanchett suspects—though he has not yet convinced me—that we will have to wait a full month here before word of our predicament reaches Helene’s husband in the Red City. My intention is to find another route that will allow us to leave before the week is out. If I don’t—or if, before that time, the French hear of the attack and come—I’ll let you know that my plans have changed. I must have this letter in the lieutenant’s hands by morning, so please forgive the rushed adieu. Don’t respond to me here—we should shortly be traveling to the Red City. Direct any correspondence there, instead, and give my love and assurances of my safety to everyone at home. 

    With warmest affection, 
    Geraldine

IV

    The French lieutenants didn’t recognize the two dead men Meeng had brought up from the cliffs to the town’s icehouse.
    After the attack on their airship, Commander Saito’s men had dragged the bodies of three marauders from the sea around the burning wreckage. They lay alongside the other two now. The officers didn’t recognize those men, either.
    Ariq sent the lieutenants on. Surrounded by stacks of pale kraken meat, his breath billowing in the chill, he crouched beside the five bodies for another half hour, grimly searching for identifying marks. One had a mechanical foot, crudely built and grafted to his ankle; he’d have limped. Two could have been Nipponese or from the eastern end of the Golden Empire. The remaining three were either westerners or from the Cossack territories within the empire. They each wore rough tunics and trousers, but their helmets were of good quality and a design similar to the aviators who guarded the Great Khagan’s royal palace in Shangdu. The balloon flyers they’d used were Nipponese.
    Nothing here told Ariq where they’d come from. But whoever had recruited them had access to a Nipponese supplier. The Red Wall had only recently been opened and foreign trade with Nippon was still strictly monitored. Whether the flyers were smuggled or purchased, he should be able to trace how they had ended up in the marauders’ hands.
    Not much to pursue. But long years fighting in the rebellion against the Great Khagan had taught him to follow trails, and not finding one didn’t mean an enemy hadn’t been through the region. Sometimes it meant the trail had been erased. Nothing about these men pointed him in any one direction. Maybe that only indicated that