The Kraken King Read Online Free PDF Page B

hovering battleship. Silvery, deflated balloons floated on the swells around them. Some of the flyers had been shot down, then. How many more were there?
    Her gaze searched the air. At least four or five, their shapes barely visible through the smoke.
    Then not-so-barely visible.
    Zenobia’s grip tightened on Mara’s hips. “Flyers are coming this way!”
    Though not in a straight line toward them. The three flyers at the head were bobbing and weaving—though the two behind held a steadier course.
    As if they were giving chase, and the three ahead were fleeing.
    Gunshots cracked. One of the retreating flyers’s balloon collapsed, the silvery envelope crumpling in on itself. Engine whining, the machine dropped into a spinning dive, the metal frame flashing beneath the bright sun. The marauder’s scream scraped terror down Zenobia’s spine, then he slammed into the water and the silence was even more horrifying.
    But better him than her friends.
    “There’s still four!” she cried out when Mara banked right, her gun in hand. Cooper did the same—intending to face the flyers down rather than risk a bullet in the back, Zenobia realized. “But the two behind shot out another’s balloon!”
    “I saw,” Mara said. “Hold tight.”
    Zenobia did, as tight as she could without restricting the other woman’s movements. Their flyer slowed and turned.
    The others were closer now, not coming directly toward Zenobia’s flyer but on a path that would pass by about a hundred yards to their right. The two in front looked just like the other marauders, prepared for flight in goggles and helmets. She’d assumed their pursuers were aviators who’d managed to commandeer the flyers, just as Mara and Cooper had, but they didn’t wear naval uniforms. They weren’t near enough for her to make out their features, just dark hair and white shirts.
    The two men in pursuit veered apart, as if flanking their prey. One of the flyers in front turned and shot wildly behind him—then his balloon collapsed, the report of a gunshot echoing through his cry of terror.
    The last of the three hunted flyers banked toward them. Arm raised, the pilot leveled his gun in their direction.
    Zenobia stiffened, her heart pounding wildly. “Mara?”
    “He’s too far away for an accurate shot.” The mercenary’s voice was tense. “But so are we.”
    Cooper didn’t seem to care about that. He’d opened fire with both pistols. Maybe hoping for a lucky hit. Behind him, Helene had pressed her face between his shoulders and was desperately waving her handkerchief over her head.
    “Come on, you bastard,” Mara muttered. “Just a little closer . . . Ah .”
    It was like a sigh of pleasure. The hammer of her pistol fell. A puff of smoke accompanied the loud crack . The marauder’s face exploded and his body toppled backward, his arms swinging up.
    Another crack sounded. Not Mara’s or Cooper’s guns. Zenobia had half a second to wonder whether the marauder had managed to get off a shot before Mara’s bullet had killed him or if the squeezing the trigger had been a dying reflex, then the balloon over her head collapsed in a sickening rush of air.
    Oh, God.
    “Zenobia!” Mara screamed. “We need to jump for Cooper’s—”
    Then they were dropping, dropping, but Zenobia had done this before. She and her brother had leapt out of balloons so many times, because he’d needed the excitement, and she’d needed to imagine that it was her father’s airship they were escaping—and that she was free, finally free of his fists and his rules and his locked closets.
    She wrapped her arms around Mara’s waist and jumped.
    The deflated balloon flipped past them, spinning around and around, and Mara’s weight felt as if it would tear her arm out of its socket when she let go with one hand to yank the lever on the side of her pack.
    The glider’s wings snapped open. The frame creaked as the canvas caught air, and Mara was almost ripped out of her grip, but