Agatha H. And the Clockwork Princess Read Free Page A

too, thanks to that hole Othar 3 shot in the envelope.”
    “Yeah, I didn’t think that patch would hold long.” The two of them scanned the ground. Dense forest covered a jagged landscape that occasionally revealed rocky spires. Patches of late snow still clung to the higher, more shaded dells. A multitude of streams and small rivers coursed through the numerous valleys. It looked like an absolutely terrible landscape to travel on foot.
    “Can we at least clear that?” Krosp stopped licking one paw long enough to gesture toward an especially craggy mountain that loomed to one side of the gap.
    “I think so.” Agatha said. “I’m going to try. I’ve made some changes to the ship’s engines—they’ll give us more speed for about twenty minutes.”
    “Twenty minutes? Then what?”
    She considered this. “Then, they’ll start to explode. But don’t worry. The envelope doesn’t have that much time left anyway, from the look of it.”
    Krosp gazed at her for a long moment. “I’m reassured. Thanks.”
    Agatha continued, oblivious to the sarcasm in the cat’s voice. “But it should get us over the mountains before we’re scraping the tops of the trees. That’s assuming that the winds here don’t tear us to shreds, of course.”
    Krosp’s ears twitched. “…Of course.”

    The wind certainly tried. Krosp’s voice was drowned out by a sudden, screaming blast that hit the tiny airship from the starboard side—knocking the cat off his feet and sending him tumbling across the deck. He landed hard against a roughly carved trunk and grasped frantically at the netting that held it firmly lashed in place. As she lunged for the ship’s wheel, Agatha spared a glance backward, reassuring herself that Krosp hadn’t been blown over the side. There was nothing she could do for him in any case. She would have to trust in the cat’s own terror and claws to keep him safely on board through the worst of it.
    The airship bounced to and fro. The wind first tossed it dangerously close to the sharp mountain crags—now nearly level with the ship’s engines, then picked it up and flung it even higher into the air. For a couple of sickening seconds, the gondola was blown fully sideways as the ship shot upward, just missing the cliff below.
    Through all of it, the modified engines roared in protest, driving the ship ever faster ahead. Agatha hauled on the wheel, fighting to keep the ship—not steady, that was impossible—but at least pointing in roughly the right direction through the madness. If she could keep the ship above the tearing rocks below and pointed toward the gap in the mountains ahead, there was a chance she could get them through alive.
    The winds whipped her hair into tangles across her face, tearing it from the strip of greasy rag she had used to tie it back while working on the engine. At least the flight goggles someone had left hanging from the dirigible controls fit over her glasses, but vision was still difficult. There was moisture in the morning air, and a cold mist was continually forming on the goggle lenses, then streaking away as the droplets condensed and blew aside.
    The air above the mountains was icy. Agatha’s gloveless hands were growing raw and numb, making it difficult to hang on to the wheel. She grit her teeth, braced her feet, and hung on. Whenever she flew higher, vicious blasts of air—full of tiny particles of ice—stung her cheeks painfully. She winced and hung on, as the winds finally seemed to cooperate, driving the airship hard forward.
    Suddenly, they were on the other side, the ground below dropping away as the rocky peaks turned to scrubby, bracken-blanketed slopes, then wooded, boulder-strewn foothills.
    The wind was less ferocious here, but now the engines had nearly given out. The ship was roaring along—still forward, but now heading toward the ground at an alarming rate.
    A quick glance upwards confirmed that the high winds over the mountains had torn out the patch