To Rescue General Gordon (Clockwork Imperium #1)

III

It took them, by Henry's watch, nineteen and a half hours to reach Khartoum. When they arrived, the city was burning.

The sky was just beginning to darken, and the clouds were glowing with the dusky oranges and grays peculiar to a desert sunset. It had not been an easy journey. The three renegades pushed their little craft hard, running her boiler at maximum for as long as they dared. Atone point, the gears of the starboard propeller had been fouled by sand and dust, requiring a dangerous mid-air repair by James, who'd shimmied out along the propeller strut with a rag and oil can. Raheem had covered his eyes with his hands until James was pulled safely back aboard by Henry.

All three were beginning to feel their hunger acutely. Water from the skins they'd brought had helped to delay the onset of stomach pangs,but it wasn't enough. Henry was beginning to think he'd happily endure a court marshal and the brig for even just a bite of some stale, mealy army hardtack. They were counting on being able to gather provisions upon landing in the besieged city.

The Nile river, which had so far been their faithful guide south into the Sudan, forked now ahead of them. To the left, the Blue Nile, to the right, the White Nile, and on the estuary in between, Khartoum.

The city, save for the palace and some other government and religious buildings, and the now abandoned houses of European expatriates,consisted mainly of mud brick and adobe structures, covered over with thatch or timber. The city walls were stone, and surrounded it on three sides, while the length of the Blue Nile completed the square to the north.

Inside that square the fires raged. The Austrian mission was ablaze, and several other points within the relative safety of the old walls were burning balefully, red-orange light radiating outward among the lengthening shadows of evening. Smoke rose languidly from spots where fires had already burnt out or been quenched by the work of weary defenders. As Henry and the others watched, cannon from outside the city boomed. Most of the shots went wild, splashing into the Blue Nile or falling short to land harmlessly among the barbed wire ringing the city. But some found their marks, flattening homes or bringing down old minarets in a shower of hot metal and splintered stone.

Fires also burned beyond the city walls. The reports said Mohammed Ahmad, "The Mad Mahdi" who believed he was the reincarnated Prophet, had close to fifty thousand men laying siege to Gordon and his little army inside Khartoum. From their bird's eye vantage point the crew of the HMS Pegasus could see the thousands of campfires surrounding the city, winking in the deepening dusk, which proved the reports had been correct.

The Mahdi's soldiers were rough savages, one part religious fanatics and one part primitive tribesmen. But they'd broken the British square at Abu Klea, and almost overrun the clockwork artillery outside Tamai. And, of course, everyone in England remembered what had happened to Hicks. The Mahdists may be primitive, but they did not lack for cunning or barbaric intensity, and a spear to the gut could kill a man every bit as much as a rifle bullet.

James Billingsworth, considering it the duty of any good Englishman, was eager to meet them in battle. "Shall I begin our descent,Captain?" He saluted Henry with a grin, his teeth showing white underneath his pair of scuffed brass goggles.

"Aye aye Sub-Lieutenant Billingsworth, bring us down. And Raheem! Prepare the fore'ard armaments! We're likely to be in a bit of a dust up before this is over, I should think." As he spoke Henry carefully spun the helm and angled the airship toward the sprawling structure of the Hakim-dariya, the palace which dominated Khartoum's waterfront. If his guess was correct, they'd find General Charles Gordon there.

While Raheem moved tortuously across the deck towards the single Gatling gun, gripping the railing hand-over-hand all the way forward, and James manned the steam pump to fill the ballonets and drive the Pegasus lower, Henry looked out across the battle-scarred city. Perhaps spurred on by the arrival of the British air scout, perhaps following a plan set in motion hours ago, the artillery barrage had intensified. Little puffs of white smoke appeared at several locations along the Mahdist lines, and at the outside range of his hearing, over the constant drone of the propellers, Emerson though the could hear the rattle of musketry.