Gears of Revolution Read online

  © 2016 J. Scott Savage

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Shadow ­Mountain®, at ­[email protected]. The views expressed ­herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Shadow ­Mountain.

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  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Savage, J. Scott (Jeffrey Scott), 1963– author. | Savage, J. Scott (Jeffrey Scott), 1963–. Mysteries of Cove ; bk. 2.

  Title: Gears of revolution / J. Scott Savage.

  Description: Salt Lake City, Utah : Shadow Mountain, [2016] | Series: Mysteries of Cove ; book 2 | Summary: Trenton and Kallista travel to a steampunk version of Seattle hoping to find Kallista’s missing father, but instead find themselves in the middle of a war between the Order of the Beast, who worships dragons, and the Whipjacks, who are building weapons to destroy the animals.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016013360 | ISBN 9781629722238 (hardbound : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | CYAC: War—Fiction. | Seattle (Wash.)—Fiction. | Dragons—Fiction. | Technology—Fiction. | LCGFT: Steampunk fiction. | Fantasy fiction. | Action and adventure fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.S25897 Ge 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016013360

  Printed in the United States of America

  Edwards Brothers Malloy, Ann Arbor, MI

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Book design © 2016 Shadow Mountain

  Cover illustration © Brandon Dorman

  Author photo by Erica Thurman

  Art direction by Richard Erickson

  Cover design by Sheryl Dickert Smith

  Production design by Kayla Hackett

  Other Books by J. Scott Savage

  Mysteries of Cove series

  Fires of Invention

  Farworld series

  Water Keep

  Land Keep

  Air Keep

  Fire Keep

  Case File #13 series

  Zombie Kid

  Making the Team

  Evil Twins

  Curse of the Mummy’s Uncle

  When I was growing up, librarians were my superheroes.

  This is for the wonderful women and men of books

  who change the world every day.

  “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”

  —The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Activities

  Discussion Questions

  About the Author

  Trenton lifted the side flap of his leather flight helmet, and a blast of mountain air instantly made his exposed ear go numb. He bent his head over the side of Ladon, the flying mechanical dragon he and Kallista had built, trying to locate the source of the sound he was almost sure he’d heard a moment earlier.

  Kallista, seated in front of him, scanned the air behind them, her eyes wide and shoulders hunched.

  “It’s not a dragon,” Trenton said, anticipating her worry. During their first week outside the mountain, they’d spotted two or three of the monsters every day. Fortunately, all of the sightings had been from a distance, and they’d been able to dive into the cover of trees before they were spotted.

  Since then, they’d discovered the creatures were most active from noon to evening. By only flying at night and in the mornings, they were able to avoid them for the most part. Still, the sun had been up for several hours, and it was probably time to find a safe place to hide until nightfall.

  Kallista’s shoulders relaxed even as her eyes narrowed in the skeptical expression Trenton had grown all too used to. “Still think you’re hearing music?”

  Trenton gripped the control sticks in front of him tightly with his gloved hands. “I didn’t say it was music.” The truth was, he didn’t know what the sound was or if there had really been any sound at all. He thought he’d heard a kind of tinkling. Like glass, or metal, or—

  “Maybe there’s a group of musicians hiding in the woods playing a waltz.” Kallista lifted the earflap of her helmet and grinned. “Oh, yes, I can hear it too. Isn’t that a flute?”

  “Turn around and look where you’re flying,” Trenton snapped, trying to pretend her words didn’t sting. The two of them got along much better now than when they had first met, but there were still times when they grated on each other like the connecting rods of an unoiled crankshaft.

  Kallista yanked her helmet down, the smile disappearing from her lips. “I was looking where I was going. You were the one who was staring down into the trees looking for imaginary musicians. You should be watching for dragons or looking for signs of my father.”

  She thought she was the boss just because her father had designed the dragon. Maybe she’d forgotten that if it wasn’t for Trenton, they would never have discovered the turbine engines and never have gotten off the ground.

  “Keep an eye on the pressure gauge,” Kallista shouted at him without turning around.

  Keep an eye on your own gauges, Trenton thought but didn’t say.

  Leo Babbage had intentionally designed the dragon so that it took two people to fly it. Trenton controlled elevation, the tail, fireballs, and most things relating to the engine and boiler. Kallista handled steering and the dragon’s legs, head, and neck.

  Just because she steered didn’t mean she was in charge, though. They were supposed to be a team.

  He glared at the back of her head before checking the pressure gauge that monitored the buildup of steam inside Ladon’s boiler.

  It actually was a little high. The needle had moved several lines into the red. Instead of coal, they were burning wood that they’d collected from the forest floor.

  Wood was much easier to find than coal, but the burn rate varied greatly from one chunk to the next. In just a few minutes, the pressure in the boiler could jump from safe to highly dangerous. If it got too high . . . Well, that wasn’t something he wanted to think about.

  Focused on opening the release valve, he barely noticed a flash of light out of the corner of his eye. Sunlight reflecting off something to the south glinted once, twice, then disappeared. It seemed to have come from a clearing a mile or two away, but despite studying the rocks and trees, he couldn’t find it again. “Did you see that?”

&n
bsp; “See what?”

  Trenton opened his mouth to ask Kallista to circle around for a closer look, then thought better of it. What was the point? It was probably just water or a shiny chunk of rock.

  Besides, she’d probably reply with another snide remark. Maybe it was your band again. A trumpet reflecting the sun. After eight hours in the air, he didn’t need any more of that.

  As he turned away from the clearing, a shadow dropped over his shoulder. He looked up, expecting to see a cloud. Instead, he found himself staring straight into the gold eyes of a deadly red dragon no more than one hundred yards above them. Sunlight glittered off the beast’s crimson scales as it cut through the air toward them.

  “Watch out!” he screamed to Kallista.

  Drawing back its sinewy neck, the dragon roared and dove toward them.

  Ramming the lever on his right as far forward as it would go, Trenton sent Ladon plunging toward the ground, the red dragon following closely behind.

  Kallista’s head snapped left, and her eyes went wide. Surprised as she was, though, her reflexes were as sharp as a blade. At the same time the dragon opened its huge, fang-filled mouth, Kallista yanked the flight controls hard to the right.

  Trenton ducked his head, expecting a ball of flames. Instead a thick yellow cloud spewed from between the dragon’s jaws. Kallista’s maneuver meant they’d avoided almost all of the cloud, but a few droplets beaded on the sleeve of Trenton’s jacket. Everywhere the liquid touched, the leather bubbled and foamed.

  Yelping, Trenton wiped his sleeve on Ladon’s metal skin. The yellow drops fizzed, marking the metal, before disappearing.

  “What is that?” Kallista shouted.

  “Some kind of acid,” Trenton yelled back.

  Correcting its course, the red dragon closed in on them again. Less than twenty feet above the forest, Trenton searched for an opening to fly into, but the treetops were too dense to break through.

  Behind them, the monster roared and shot another stream of yellow acid.

  Almost as if they were a machine themselves, Trenton pulled back on his controls at the same time Kallista turned hard left. Cutting up and around, they circled toward the beast. For just a moment, the red dragon was in their sights. Kallista turned Ladon’s head, and Trenton mashed the fire button with his fist.

  A ball of flame blasted from Ladon’s mouth. It hit the red dragon, and the acid cloud around its head exploded in an inferno, fire shooting everywhere.

  “The yellow stuff burns!” Trenton whooped. He hit the fire button again, but the dragon changed course, avoiding his shot.

  Kallista pushed up her goggles and twisted around to get a better view. “Banking left,” she called, pulling the controls.

  Understanding what she had in mind, Trenton dropped Ladon a little before pulling up sharply.

  The red dragon reacted to their maneuver, but not quickly enough.

  Rising under its exposed belly, Trenton pounded the fire button three times in quick succession. A volley of flames scorched the beast between its front legs. Screaming in anger and—Trenton hoped—pain, the dragon banked away.

  Watching the way it turned, Trenton realized something. “It can’t maneuver as quickly as the green dragon.”

  “It’s not as nimble,” Kallista agreed.

  The green dragon they had killed in the attack on Cove had been more flexible than Ladon. It had responded to their attacks so quickly they’d been unable to gain an advantage until the very end. But the red dragon needed more room to turn and reacted less quickly.

  “It’s faster, though,” Trenton warned as the dragon sped toward them.

  Kallista yanked her goggles back over her eyes and gave a wicked grin. “Let’s use that against it,” she called, pointing upward.

  Trenton pulled back on the flight stick, and they climbed swiftly into the air. As the dragon rose after them, Kallista steered left and right, bobbing about like a loose wheel. Close behind, the dragon screamed, spitting one cloud of acid after another. Puffs of steaming liquid filled the air around them, but Trenton and Kallista easily avoided the clouds.

  Still, the red dragon was closing in. They’d flown so high that Ladon’s wings strained to climb in the thin air. “We have to drop!” Trenton shouted.

  Kallista watched the red dragon point its scaled snout toward them. “Not yet.”

  Trenton clutched the controls, staring backward in terror as the beast opened its huge jaws. Tendrils of yellow smoke trailed from its nostrils.

  “Hold on,” Kallista ordered. “Wait . . . Wait . . .”

  Eyes bright, the dragon howled and shot a stream of acid directly at them.

  “Now!” Kallista shouted.

  Trenton pushed the control forward with his right hand, sending them into a neck-snapping dive. At the same time, he began to retract Ladon’s wings with his left hand. The result was immediate. Ladon plummeted toward the trees below like a stone.

  Screeching in frustration, the dragon tucked in its own broad wings and dove after them.

  Rushing wind pressed Trenton’s goggles against his face as he searched for an opening in the trees. But the forest below them was a sea of solid green, the clearing he thought he’d seen more than a mile away. Trenton pointed toward the opening. It was far away, but it might be their only chance.

  Kallista shook her head, strands of her black hair escaping from her helmet and slapping her face. She pointed toward the rapidly approaching treetops with one gloved finger.

  What was she thinking? Trenton stared down at the forest wondering if he’d missed an opening. Nothing. Diving into the trees would rip them to shreds. He reached for the controls to pull them out of their free fall, but Kallista pointed down at the forest again, then up at the dragon closing in.

  Following her gesture, Trenton’s mouth dropped open. “Are you crazy?”

  Kallista’s lips rose in a maniacal grin that stretched from ear to ear.

  Trenton’s gaze bounced from the dragon to the trees, wondering which danger would tear them to bits first. There was no doubt Kallista was impulsive. She’d made that abundantly clear from the first time they’d met. The question was, would he go along with her madness?

  Clenching his jaws, he made his decision. Trenton pointed Ladon toward the biggest tree he could find. He swore he heard Kallista cackle as she adjusted their course, aiming them directly toward the tree.

  Just as they were about to be crushed between the dragon behind them and the trees below, Trenton spread Ladon’s wings and pulled back on the flight stick. Ladon’s entire frame groaned.

  Slammed into his seat as Ladon fought to break out of the dive, Trenton watched the entire sky disappear behind glittering red scales. Kallista banked hard. Branches snapped all around them. A dark green bough caught Trenton across the side of the head, and for a second he thought he was going to pass out.

  The branches tugged and slapped, threatening to yank them out of the air. Then they were out of the trees, nothing ahead of them but clear blue sky.

  Behind them, the red dragon let out a howl of fury as it crashed into the trees with a terrific cracking of wood and scales.

  “Yes!” Kallista whooped, pumping her fist in the air.

  Trenton gawked at the hole in the trees, not quite sure how they hadn’t been taken down with the dragon. Sweat soaked the inside of his helmet, and the flight controls chattered in his grip.

  Kallista circled toward where the dragon had crashed to get a better look, an elated grin on her face.

  “What are you doing?” Trenton yelled. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I just want to make sure it’s dead.”

  “Are you kidding?” Trenton pounded his fist against the side of the dragon. “The sun’s been up for hours. We’ve got to find cover.”

  Still grinning, Kallista steered them to the o
pening where Trenton thought he’d seen the flash of light earlier. With practiced ease, they glided to the rocky ground and came to a running stop under cover of several large trees. As soon as Ladon’s legs had stopped moving, Kallista yanked off her goggles and threw her helmet into the air.

  “Did you see that? Rust! That old dragon smashed through the trees like a rod through an overheated engine.”

  “We nearly got smashed too,” Trenton said, trying to catch his breath.

  Kallista went on like she hadn’t even heard him. “It was amazing! We should do it again. Let’s go back and see if it’s still alive. We can fly through the trees, open Ladon’s talons, and—”

  “What are you talking about?” Trenton yelled. “We are not going back.”

  Kallista stared at him as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “Don’t you know how close we came to dying back there?” Trenton asked.

  Kallista snorted. She tugged her gloves off and set them beside her on the seat. “Coward,” she muttered.

  Trenton leaned forward. “What did you call me?”

  Before Kallista could answer, Ladon began to shake. Just below Trenton’s left leg, a crack appeared and steam hissed out. He looked down at the pressure gauge and saw the needle had risen all the way to the end of the dial. He reached for the release valve, but it was too late. Below them, bolts popped like buttons on the front of an overstretched shirt.

  The steam tanks screeched as the metal twisted, and Trenton knew what was about to happen. “Jump!” he screamed, grabbing Kallista’s hand.

  Together the two of them leaped from the dragon just as the boiler exploded behind them.

  Balancing on one of Ladon’s front legs, Trenton grabbed for the wrench. “Let me take care of that.”

  Kallista refused to release the tool. “I can do it quicker,” she said without turning around from loosening the pipe she was working on. She spun off the fitting and pulled away a section of metal that looked like it had been twisted by a giant’s hands. With a grunt, she tossed the pipe to the ground.

  Her eyes were narrow slits, and a deep line etched the middle of her forehead. Trenton’s throat tightened as he looked at the growing pile of broken and bent pieces. Back at the factory, they could have had Ladon back in shape in no time. But here in the woods, with only the most basic tools . . . He shook his head.