Khronos (Hanover and Singh Book 3) by Chris Paton

Leaning his head back as far as the halter allowed Hari twisted to the left.
    “You won’t see it,” Luise wiped the rain from her face. “It’s tied to the top of the cradle.”
    “Ingenious,” Hari let his body hang in the halter. He gripped Luise around her waist. “This is one of the lifeboats?”
    “Yes. Jacques and I...”
    “What?” Hari waited.
    Luise took a deep breath. “I am sorry, Hari. I didn’t mean to doubt you, but we just couldn’t see how you were going to rescue that young girl.”
    “So you came up with another plan?”
    “Yes,” Luise paused. “I didn’t want to lose you, Hari.”
    “And I did not want to be lost.” Hari reached up with his right hand, smoothing the rain away from Luise’s face. He looked up. “Are we attached to the Scotsman ? That must be a very long rope.”
    “Not the Scotsman , no,” Luise leaned back, her brow wrinkling beneath the wet strands of her strawberry blonde fringe. “Something a little more fragile, I am afraid.” A smile tickled the corners of her mouth. “There they are. Look up, Hari.”
    Slicing through the swathes of rain gusting in the grip of the wind, four lengths of thick rope caught Hari’s eye as they stretched from one lifeboat balloon to the next, all the way back to The Flying Scotsman labouring through the storm above them.
    “I had to empty this bag to reach you.”
    “You must have jumped before I fell.”
    “I have never done anything like it,” she grinned. “Most exhilarating, let me tell you.”
    “I think I know,” Hari’s eyes lit up in the light escaping from a brief crack in the dense cloud covering the sea.
    “I had to jump before I even knew you had fallen, before the window shattered.”
    Hari leaned back in the halter and stared at the lifeboats. “And what is the next part of your plan?”
    “That’s up to Jacques,” Luise sighed. “He said something about a winch, but he could only use it if the airship was flying level.”
    “Well,” Hari pointed up at the clouds. “There is a break or two up there, and I am not quite as chilled as I was before.”
    “So you are happy to hang around with me?” Luise let go of the steering guys and placed her hands upon Hari’s shoulders.
    “This is the third time I have been dangling in perilous situations,” Hari smiled.
    “Hari Singh,” Luise frowned. “Did you just call me perilous ?”
    “Yes, Miss Luise, I believe I just did.”
    The balloon jerked upward as the rope began to stretch taut in the wind. Light splintered the clouds and the whitecaps rolling along the surface of the sea shrank beneath them.
     
    ҉
     
    The heavy oak door creaked as the tiny Cossack, Lena Timofeyevich, leaned her weight against it, locking it with a loud snick of an iron bolt. Lena pulled the bandoliers over her shoulders and hung them on the rusted nail protruding from the centre of the door. “I know what they are,” she pushed a crate into the middle of the dark cellar with the toe of her boot. “But I don’t know to what purpose they are intended.” Lena pointed at the rough chairs leaning against the walls of the cellar. “Take a chair,” she nodded at Stepan and Vladimir. “Yuri will come when dinner is prepared. After he has cleaned the drakon .”
    “Drakon?” Vladimir set his chair next to the crate in the middle of the dusty stone floor.
    “The Puckle Gun,” Stepan ventured. “It sounded like a dragon spitting fire up close.” Placing his chair next to Vladimir, he waited until Lena was seated on a chair of her own. “You said you know what they are. We were expecting mechanized labour for the mines. That is what the posters promised.”
    Lena reached inside her sheepskin jacket and tugged a metal heart-shaped flask from an inside pocket. “You like it?” she waggled the flask in front of Vladimir. “My father said it is the closest thing I will ever have to a real heart.” Lena uncapped the flask and took a long pull. She passed the flask