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them
busy. He fired his Winchester, aiming for a slit in the closest
turret.
    Kali considered the wooden hull of the ship,
wondering if she could find a weakness. The engines were protected,
but twin ducted fans on the bottom propelled and steered the craft.
Scenarios for disabling them ran through her mind, but she didn’t
see how she could do anything from the ground.
    Cedar fired another shot, but it only
chipped at the wood on the turret.
    Kali laid a hand on his arm. “That’s not
going to do anything.”
    “ You have a
plan?”
    “ I have some
grenades.”
    “ Even better.” Cedar
shouldered the rifle and held out his hand.
    While Kali dug into her saddlebag, she kept
an eye toward the ship. The gunner had to have them in his sights,
but he did not fire again. A few men appeared at the railing, and
one peered down with a spyglass held to his eye. Cedar promptly
readied the Winchester again and fired.
    The man ducked out of sight, and Kali
imagined she could hear his cursing. A heartbeat later, he popped
up again, this time with a rifle of his own. It cracked, and shards
of rock sheared away from a towering boulder behind Cedar.
    He grabbed Kali around the waist and pulled
her behind the rock. Fortunately, she had what she needed in hand
when he did it.
    “ What are those?” Cedar
asked when she held up the fist-sized bronze balls.
    “ Grenades.”
    “ They don’t look like
military issue.”
    “ No, they’re Kali issue.
You press this, and it creates a spark, like with a flintlock
and—”
    Something clinked to the ground on the other
side of the boulder. Kali leaned out, intending to check it out,
but Cedar pushed her back. He was closer to whatever it was and had
a better view.
    “ Smoke,” he said. “Up the
hill.”
    Though she debated on the wisdom of leaving
cover, Kali figured he had more experience with being attacked, so
she scrambled in the direction he pointed. The steep slope made it
hard to keep her footing, and she had to stuff the grenades into
her pockets. They clinked against tools, and she hoped she had made
the triggers hard enough to pull that they couldn’t bump against
something and go off.
    “ Faster,” Cedar urged, a
hand on her back.
    “ I’d be faster if I knew
where we were going,” Kali shot over her shoulder. The airship
hovered in her periphery, no more than ten meters above them. Its
engines thrummed, reverberating through the earth, and the fans
stirred the ferns and grass on the hillside. “And if we weren’t
leaving my bicycle behind,” she added under her breath.
    “ Just get away from—”
Cedar coughed and pulled his shirt over his nose. He paused to
loose another rifle shot at the airship, though it thudded
harmlessly off a turret.
    A sweet stench like burned honey trailed
them up the hill. Not trusting it, Kali held her breath.
    A copse of evergreens rose at the crest of
the hill, and it seemed like as good a place as any to make a
stand. The airship wouldn’t be able to maneuver through the trees,
and Kali could throw a grenade at anyone who tried to steal the
SAB.
    A giant metal claw on a chain clanked onto
the rocks to the left.
    “ Uh?” Kali said, for lack
of anything more intelligent.
    A second claw landed to her right, then a
third one struck down a few feet ahead. As one, the devices swung
toward her.
    “ Uh!” she blurted and
scrambled backward.
    Kali bumped into Cedar and was surprised he
wasn’t moving more quickly. A glaze dulled his eyes, and confusion
crinkled his brow.
    “ Move!” Kali tried to
shove him out of the path of the claws, but he was heavy and didn’t
help her at all. She didn’t seem to have her usual strength either.
A strange heaviness filled her limbs, and numbness made her fingers
tingle.
    That honey smell. It had to be some kind of
sedative.
    The nearest claw scraped closer. It swung
in, angling for Kali’s torso. She ducked and dove beneath it, but
the lethargy in her limbs stole her agility, and she landed in