Goliath Read Online Free

below.
    The ground was patched with snow and dotted with pine trees. The
Leviathan
had passed over the Siberian city of Omsk that morning, not pausing to resupply, still veering northward toward some secret destination. But Deryn hadn’t found time to wonder where they were heading; in the thirty hours since the imperial eagle had arrived, she’d been busy training for this cargo snatch-up.
    “Where’s the bear?” Newkirk asked. He leaned out past her, dangling from his safety line over thin air.
    “Ahead of us, saving its strength.” Deryn pulled her gloves tighter, then tested her weight against the heavycable on the cargo winch. It was as thick as her wrist—rated to lift a two-ton pallet of supplies. The riggers had been fiddling with the apparatus all day, but this was its first real test. This particular maneuver wasn’t even in the
Manual of Aeronautics
.
    “Don’t like bears,” Newkirk muttered. “Some beasties are too barking
huge
.”
    Deryn gestured at the grappling hook at the end of the cable, as big as a ballroom chandelier. “Then you’d best make sure not to stick that up the beastie’s nose by accident. It might take exception.”
    Through the lenses of his goggles, Newkirk’s eyes went wide.
    Deryn gave him a punch on the shoulder, envying him for his station at the business end of the cable. It wasn’t fair that Newkirk had been gaining airmanship skills while she and Alek had been plotting rebellion in Istanbul.
    “Thanks for making me even
more
nervous, Mr. Sharp!”
    “I thought you’d done this before.”
    “We did a few snatch-ups in Greece. But those were just mailbags, not heavy cargo. And from horse-drawn carriages instead of off the back of a barking great bear!”
    “That does sound a bit different,” Deryn said.
    “Same principle, lads, and it’ll work the same way,” came Mr. Rigby from behind them. His eyes were on hispocket watch, but his ears never missed a thing, even in the howling Siberian wind. “Your wings, Mr. Sharp.”
    “Aye, sir. Like a good guardian angel.” Deryn hoisted the gliding wings onto her shoulders. She would be carrying Newkirk, using the wings to guide him over the fighting bear.
    Mr. Rigby signaled to the winch men. “Good luck, lads.”
    “Thank you, sir!” the two middies said together.
    The winch began to turn, and the grappling hook slid down toward the open cargo bay door. Newkirk took hold of it and clipped himself onto a smaller cable, which would hold their combined weight as they flew.
    Deryn let her gliding wings spread out. As she stepped toward the cargo door, the wind grew stronger and colder. Even through amber goggles the sunlight made her squint. She grasped the harness straps that connected her to Newkirk.
    “Ready?” she shouted.
    He nodded, and together they stepped off into roaring emptiness. . . .
    The freezing airstream yanked Deryn sternward, and the world spun around once, sky and earth gyrating wildly. But then her gliding wings caught the air, stabilized by the dangling Newkirk, like a kite held steady by its string.
    The
Leviathan
was beginning its descent. Its shadow grew below them, rippling in a furious black surge across the ground. Newkirk still grasped the grappling hook, his arms wrapped around the cable against the onrush of air.
    Deryn flexed her gliding wings. They were the same kind she’d worn a dozen times on Huxley descents, but free-ballooning was nothing compared to being dragged behind an airship at top speed. The wings strained to pull her to starboard, and Newkirk followed, swinging slowly across the blur of terrain below. When Deryn centered her course again, she and Newkirk swung back and forth beneath the airship, like a giant pendulum coming to rest.
    The fragile wings were barely strong enough to steer the weight of two middies. The
Leviathan
’s pilots would have to put them dead on target, leaving only the fine adjustments for Deryn.
    The airship continued its descent, until she and