Chapter 1

The newspapers of Berlin screamed a single word, at the top of their silent lungs.

KRIEG!!!

Underneath the bold text was the best illustration that the newspapers could manage of the terrible enemy that had, in a single month, reduced the single most powerful empire that the human race had ever seen into a cascade of human wreckage and desperate refugees. That wreckage was, even now, clogging the streets, despite the brutal efficiency of the blue clad Imperial Army. Carts, horses, men, women, children, all of them crashed together. But one could recognize the refugees at a glance. They were the ones who looked as if they could still not quite believe what had happened.

But among the stunned, shambling, seemingly already dead masses ... there were some sparks. People who looked as if they had a plan beyond simply walking forward in an uncertain future. An idea about what they were to do with themselves. One such spark had settled inside of a small pawnbroker, and was haltingly using what little German she knew to haggle out the sale of her best friend’s jewelry and her own wedding band.

“A hundred marks?” Wilhelmina Murray said, while to her left, Lucy sat in a chair and looked as if she was about to faint dead away. Lucy was still dressed in her Sunday best, which had been reduced to tattered over the past week’s flight. Mina had managed to grab some of her clothing in the mad scramble as the viewing party had transfigured into a panicked stampede. The memories of that day sometimes still flashed through her, seared across her eyes like the grainy images of a newly rendered photograph.

The British army, arrayed with all of her colors, her guns.

Then, faster than one could imagine, the enemy. They emerged from behind copses of trees and the hamlets and villages. Walking along terrible, stilt like legs, with their saucer shaped bodies surround by a writhing mass of cephalopod tentacles that had been fashioned of the same queer steel-silver metal a the rest of their machines ... the Tripods had not simply been walking engines of destruction. Had they merely had their speed, their armor, and the terrible strength of their legs and their arms, they would have been a horror.

But that hadn’t been all.

Mina forced herself to forget the hideous screams as the first line of infantry burst into flames – and then the worse screams as the people of London began to flee, in a desperate panic. Instead, she watched as the pawnbroker examined the jewelry she had quietly taken from Lucy. He nodded. “A hundred marks, ja,” he turned to her, and on his face, she could see the lines and worries of almost a century carved into his features. His soulful eyes were solemn. “My advice would be to spend them quickly, Fraulein.”

Mina nodded, jerkily.

She came to Lucy, then knelt down. She took Lucy’s hand in her own. Her friend for years, Lucy Westenra, looked like a pale shadow of herself. Her blond tresses were bedraggled and her pale skin was smudged and dirty. She had gotten a cut on her forehead that had healed into a ruddy red scar that would be there for the rest of her life. But it was none of those minor, physical changes that made Mina’s heart clench into a tight, iron hard ball. Rather, it was the expression of empty, desolate lostness that were in Lucy’s eyes. Lucy didn’t seem to see her. Instead, she murmured. “S-Surely ... Quincy would be the best choice...”

“Lucy...” She said, quietly. “Lucy, please. You cannot say such things.”

“I ... I’m sorry, Mina,” she said, shaking her head. “I ... I ... I...”

Mina drew her friend into her arms, giving her a quick, firm hug, trying to center Lucy in the moment. But she couldn’t blame her. Mina had yet some hope in her life. Lucy had been courted by no less than three men over the past few months. Now, each was missing ... or dead. Mina, at least, had been fortunate enough for her fiance, Jonathan, to be far out of country. His latest letter had arrived on the same day as the first cylinder crashing down in Surry, telling her that he had safely arrived at his destination. Mr. Hawkings had sent him off to handle some ... land arrangement.

At the time, Mina had been...

Upset.

But now, the shining star of her life hung over eastern Europe – not merely a way away from the madness and the terror that had consumed her home, but towards her family and her future. She clung to that as she guided Lucy out of the pawnbroker’s house. Stepping out into the streets, the clamor of conversation, the clattering of carts, the shrilling of whistles, and the occasional crack of what might be gunshots rang out. Mina held Lucy close, and Lucy buried her face against her neck, sending a shiver, a crawling awareness of Lucy’s closeness through her. Mina wondered why her mind wandered so – and tried to focus instead.

“C-Come, let us see ... maybe we can ... get into the trains.”

“Yes ... a train sounds very nice,” Lucy said. She kept her eyes closed ... then forced herself to stand up straighter. She nodded. “I ... forgive me for being such a wretched ball around your ankle, Mina, darling.” She looked fragile as porcelain – but Mina could see her old friend in her blue eyes again, not simply a lost child. “It’s ... been a trying few weeks, hasn’t it?”

Mina’s lips quirked up in a wry smile.

The trains were running at a maddened tilt that made the most frenetic rush hours in the London stations look like a calm Sunday afternoon. Smoke choked the air from the dozens of engines that were running at once – and trains didn’t so much as stop as slow down, men and material unloading at a frenetic pace. Cannon balls were stacked up in triangular caissons, while heavy guns were being rolled off cargo cars that were earmarked for cattle and grain. Prussian blue dominated – pushing the civilians to the edge of the area.

But, Mina saw, that she was not without hope. Trains left carrying not soldiers and guns, but people. The old, children, women, they were being herded into train cars by bellowing conductors, and sent away as quickly as could be. She pursed her lips. It seemed that someone had learned the harsh lessons taught by London.

Mina and Lucy were then caught in the stupefying boredom that came during such moments of chaos. There were a thousand men and women here with desperate urgent tasks before them. Carrying, marching, moving, stacking and preparing – directed by sergeants and corporals and officers of more exalted rank. But for her and Lucy, there was nothing to do but wait. And even terror grew less prickly and sharp as the time dragged on and the sky overhead began to darken – lit only by the gas lamps. In the faint distance, rumbling could be heard ... but if it was thunder or guns, Mina could not say.

Lucy, despite her brave words, had lapsed against Mina again, her eyes closed, her head tilted down. Mina bore her weight with a faint sense of pleasure – the night was not chilly, not with this many bodies, not with the burning furnaces of the trains so close at hand – but it was still a comfort to feel Lucy against her. She felt a faint flutter in her breast, and or a moment, wondered at herself ... she shook her head and took out her journal. She had been quite studious in keeping notes and documents when things had seemed merely academic...

Between the first battles and now, though, she had a few scant jotted notes – in shorthand, of course...

The battle of the HMS Thunder Child – so shockingly vivid in her memory, was reduced to: Saw boat fight 3 Tripods. 2 Tripods slain, boat sunk.

Mina frowned, then retrieved a pencil from her tote bag. She held it in her fingers, looking down at the sparse description – and considered, for a moment, a hideous image. It was of her careful notes and descriptions, laying charred net to her blackened bones, with not a human in a thousand leagues, and only the hideous stomping, clanking tripods looming over all. Mina shuddered from her head to her toes, closing her eyes – and that roused Lucy, who murmured.

“Is our train ready?”

The train station was awash in people – another few train cars had arrived, carrying infantry this time. The German Imperial Army looked decidedly grim and doughty – but Mina had seen what the Martians did to human infantry. She tried to get the image of her own blackened bones out of her mind, saying: “No, it looks like we have a ways to wait. I was thinking of updating my journal. So Jonathan can read about it ... but...” She set her pencil down. “It all seems ... rather dire.”

“You should,” Lucy said, yawning. “Once this is all over, people are going to want to read about what happened.”

Mina let out a little chuckle. “You really think that this will be over? After London? After England?”

Lucy sat up a bit. She frowned. “Well ... God wouldn’t let us all be wiped out by some fellows from Mars. It seems rather like breaking his promise.” She yawned, again, then settled back against Mina. Mina smiled, then tucked some of Lucy’s blond hair behind her ear, and then began to write.

I was upon the deck of a schooner – her name, I cannot say – when I heard the cries of alarm from the other passengers, drawing my eyes: Three of the tripods, marching out onto the surf, standing in the shallow water. There was an entire evacuation fleet, rushing for the European coast, and it seemed that our enemies did not wish to see them flee so easily. We all thought we were surely about to meet our Maker – but then came another sound. Great and terrible and awe inspiring, it was a British ship, an ironclad of some construction. They gave their lives so that we might live...

The train, when they finally boarded it, was as claustrophobic and pressed as the schooner had been. People, packed in close, their suffering ranging from silent glares to stifled sobs to the wailing of children. Lucy had gotten the last remaining seat, but Mina was forced to stand – she was one of the few women in the train forced to keep on her feet. She bore it quietly, and instead of reflecting on the growing ache of her feet, she threw up a mental map of Europe. They were, as of now, heading away from Berlin and to Prague, following along the same routes that her fiancee had taken. His location grew more and more ... uncertain once they got to the eastern edges of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But Mina wasn’t thinking that far ahead, to be quite honest.

She was instead just thinking of Prague. Surely, it wouldn’t be as catastrophic as Berlin – the Martians had to be slowed by the Channel and by the might of France and Germany both arrayed against it.

France and Germany, fighting side by side, she thought. In another time, that very idea would have been frightful beyond belief. Now...

The train began to slow. Murmurs and conversation in German and other, more Slavic languages that Mina could no further follow than she could conversational Latin. The doors opened and people began to get herded off, but it was far before the lights of Prague. Lucy frowned as she looked out of the window she was beside, craning her head past a very old grandmother that someone had set in the seat next to her. “Mina, Mina,” she said. “There are soldiers out there!”

Mina squared her shoulders, squashed her fear, and took hold of Lucy’s hand as the train emptied into the evening chill. They had stopped in a forested area of countryside, with tall forests. The Austrians looked a great deal like the Germans, save that their pants were red, and they had a distinctly less grim edge to them. They started to question people they were taking off, soldiers peeling off into pairs to speak, many of them reading from papers and pamphlets they had been given. Some even began to search men and, to Mina’s shock, women. She heard, again and again, the same question...

“Buboes?” she whispered. “What on Earth are they looking for buboes for?”

“What are those?” Lucy whispered back.

A soldier came up to the pair of them. His partner held the rifle while he read from the paper: “Are you or have either of you been exposed to the Black Plague within the-”

“Plague? What plague are you talking about?” Mina asked, too weary to be anything more than annoyed by this time wasting.

The two soldiers exchanged a glance. The one speaking to her – a youth whose mustache had only started to bristle – coughed and stammered. “L ... Lieutenant Koller, he said that, ah, we’re looking. For the Martian plague.”

Mina wanted to slap her hand over her face in disgust. Instead, she clenched her teeth, then spoke, haltingly, carefully: “It is not a plague that they use – it is a black smoke. A...” She didn’t know how to say asphyxiating agent in German. But while she groped for words, the soldier with the rifle exclaimed.

“English!”

The other soldier blinked, then dropped his paper. He pointed. “Back up! Hands up! Now! Now!” He fumbled for his rifle, terror clear in his eyes – and Mina flung her hands upwards, while Lucy did likewise. Lucy, her cheeks gone completely pale, started to speak, carefully, slowly.

“We ... are not ... going to ... hurt?”

An officer in a high cap hurried over, his sword jouncing against his hip. “Explain yourself, private! What are you doing?”

“Sir, she’s from England,” the private stammered, his rifle rattling. “She’s definitely got the plague!”

“There is no plague!” Mina said, hurriedly, her arms aching from lifting them over her head. “You have been misinformed – there has to be a mistake going here.”

The Lieutenant, Koller, looked to be in his middle ages. Not tough, more doughy. As if he had spent his life in an army that was generally at peace with her neighbors – or if there had been wars (and Mina was honestly not sure if there had been any recent wars in this part of Europe) he had contrived to be on the far side of them if at all possible. Despite this, he still managed to sound reasonably in charge as he spoke: “Rifles down, lads. I shall interrogate these two myself. Come, and please, accept...” He paused. “How much German do you speak?”

Mina held up her finger. “A little,” she said.

“Even less,” Lucy added, which won her a little smile from Koller. He nodded, then gestured them forward, while calling out a name. That name, as it transpired, was a reedy man with thin glasses and a corporal’s uniform, who Koller introduced as Schlosser. Schlosser stood behind his lieutenant and dutifully translated everything that he said, and everything that Mina and Lucy said in return. The conversation began pleasantly enough.

“First, let me say how very sorry I am to hear about the woes that have happened to your homeland,” Koller, through Schlosser, said. “We have received scattered reports – rumors, really – but they are all quite grim. You are fortunate to have escaped...”

“Thank you,” Mina said, Lucy bowing her head. The seats in the small tent that had been pitched beside the railroad tracks were comfortable – but the tent was neither far enough nor thick enough from the tracks to disguise the faint chug chug chug chug of the train getting going again. Mina looked aside – but before she could complain or ask questions, Koller asked his first question.

“What is are the weapons used by the invaders? Is it true that they have been spreading a plague? Have you heard of the red weed? Is it true that artillery works upon their tripods? Do they have other machines? Seagoing craft? Airships? Do they plan to take people as slaves, or do they simply kill them.” On and on, the questions came – and Mina did her game best to answer them. Lucy interjected as well, adding in what she had observed ... but between the two of them, they barely managed to answer more than a scarce handful of the Lieutenant’s questions. The only query that they managed to put paid to was the idea that there was a deadly pathogen the Martians were spreading.

“There must have been some confusion in the translation,” he said. “The reports coming from Britain were quite...” He paused, then sighed. “Well, needless to say, you will need to be sent to my superior officer. Every piece of intelligence we can get is vital, and I’m sure they will have more questions for you...” As Schlosser belted the translation out, Koller began to stand up, his hand going to his belly, adjusting his belt.

“I ... beg your pardon?” Mina asked.

“Well, of course, we are not going to simply leave you bereft,” Koller said, frowning. “You two will be escorted posthaste to my-”

“We’re going to my husband!” Mina said, springing to her feet, stretching the truth a mite. “He’s in your country – we need to get to him.”

Koller raised his hands. “Tell me, who is this husband of yours? I will send a letter on to him, and he will come to you.” He nodded. “You have my oath as a gentleman.”

Mina sighed, then looked at Lucy, who was looking uncertain – torn between wanting to fight and wanting to surrender. Mina’s shoulders slumped and she realized that she had no choice. They had guns. She was alone, and ... she frowned. “You ... you ... you cannot just order us here or there, we’re British citizens-”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Murray,” Koller said, his lips turning down in a frown. “But you are not. There is no Britain to be a citizen of anymore. Now, will you accept my soldier’s escort or-”

“Fine!” Mina said, then put her hands onto her face and did her level best to not cry.

The army camp was situated within a stone’s throw of Prague itself – a large fortification that was steadily filling with regiments of infantry. Men by the millions, called up and about to be hurled into the fray. Mina, who could see the entire place from the window of the small room she had been given in the barracks. It was an officer’s room, so she had her privacy and a writing desk. But while it was a huge step up over the road, she still chafed under it. Every day she spent here, answering pointless questions for some stuffed shirt that kept asking the same thing again and again, changing the phrasing just enough to make it seem as if he was asking a new thing...

A rap came at her door and she recognized Lucy’s hand. “Come in,” Mina said and Lucy stepped in. She was dressed in a new gown, donated by one of the officer’s wives, and looked considerably more herself than she had in days. Seeing that, Mina could almost forgive Lt. Koller and his brusque commandeering of her life.

Almost.

“Still vexed?” Lucy asked, quietly.

“Yes...” Mina said, then started to pace the room. “I just ... I...” She looked down at her hands. “I don’t know what to do with myself. Finding Jonathan was my goal – and without that ... I just have to stand around and wait and watch these poor boys get lined up...” She bit her lip.

“Well, according to Mrs Brinkerhoff, she’s the wife of the Colonel,” Lucy said, her voice trying to sound bright and cheery. “If dear Jonathan was in Transylvania, it will ... take ... a few weeks for the letter to arrive, let alone come back, so ... the fact it hasn’t come back yet is no reason to worry, right?”

Mina chuckled. “I suppose you have the right of it,” she said, then sat down beside Lucy. “I’ve been a terrible friend, though ... I am merely worried for Jonathan, you-”

“Oh, no, I’m fine,” Lucy said, looking away. Her hands tightened on her lap and Mina reached over, taking them gently. She laced her fingers between Lucy’s fingers, gripping her hands tightly. “It ... it ... it doesn’t even feel real sometimes. I ... wake up, you know, and think that, oh, today, Quincy’s going to come around and ... show me some new absurdity from Texas, like that awful hat of his...” She sniffed. “Oh dear. I shouldn’t speak ill of the...” She put her hand over her face. “Oh no. I’m so sorry, Mina, I...” She started to cry, quietly, and Mina quickly slid one arm around Lucy’s back, drawing her in close, holding her tightly.

Mina found it hard to not cry as well – Lucy had been blessed by having three gentlemen courting her ... and though privately, she had sometimes bemoaned to Mina that she wished she could marry all three simply to spare two of them the heartache, and that she hated having been asked to choose ... Mina knew that Lucy had also flowered under their attention and affection. She caressed her hair, gently, holding her until Lucy’s tears stilled. Lucy drew back, sniffing, wiping at her eyes with her thumbs.

“I’m sorry-” she started.

“Oh, no, it’s all right,” Mina said. “Come on. Let’s take our constitutional ... it is a lovely day out and maybe the cavalry officers will let us see their horses again?”

Lucy gave a watery smile and nodded.

By the time they had emerged into the rough and tumble of the camp, Lucy had put on her stiff upper lip again. The stables that filled out the eastern half of the fortification were a rank place – but it was a comfortably familiar scent, the scent of horses and their work. The men that tended to the horses were mostly common soldiers, but the officers that would be riding those horses into battle came by the stables as well, sometimes to simply check on their beasts, sometimes to chat and converse. They were, by and large, young and dashing, and while some infantry were conspicuously of a different race than the main, not a single cavalry officer in this army wasn’t Austrian. More than a few had even gone to school in London and could speak English with varying degrees of accent.

“He’s quite a beauty, Lieutenant Prinz,” Lucy said, caressing the white nose of the horse that she had seen. “Do you think you can keep him safe?”

“Oh, definitely,” Prinz said, his accent as thick as his features were handsome. He had hair the same color as Lucy’s, and was clearly trying to impress the girl by standing taller and straighter. The other cavalrymen nearby were watching from a distance with clear amusement, snickering and whispering to one another. Mina, though, was looking at the horses with a desperate longing in her breast. While train would be faster, with these, going in a roughly straight line, they could reach her fiance in a month ... maybe less...

“W-Well, the Martians have terrible weapons, you will need to be careful,” Lucy said. Her fingers drawing along the horse grew more ragged. “They...” She paused. “Mina ... Mina...” She trembled, then leaped at Mina. “Get down, Mina!”

A moment later, Mina heard the sound as well – a hideous shriek, a sound that no earthly creature or machine could have made. Lucy, her hearing more acute, had the jump on Mina, but both of them had survived the exodus of England. They knew that when it did not come from an earthly source, there was but one possible answer as to what could be coming. The soldiery of the Austrian Empire had no such lesson – and they paid for it in fire and in blood.

Mina saw only a flash of it – a triangular wedge, with two shimmering red, out thrust protrusions that looked to all the world like an illustration of a Polynesian craft from the far east. They were too stubby to be wings such as those drawn on flying machines in the speculative magazines, and yet, they managed to keep it aloft and moving faster than a bird or a bolt of lightning. And from its belly came a wave of shimmering, incandescent death.

Just as in Britain, there was no visible ray or beam.

Instead, one moment, the friendly Lt. Prinz was standing before them, looking up with a shocked expression. The next he was a pillar of screaming flame. Tents behind him combusted with the same terrible swiftness. Men, caught mid motion, fell and curled upon themselves, shrinking and shriveling. Those who were merely glanced howled as their limbs burst into flames, flames that spread across their bodies. Ammunition began to explode with hideously cheery pop pop pop sounds and the horses, as one, screamed and panicked.

It had all been in a single flash – and Mina was trembling from her head to her toes as she looked at the devestation. Men who had been unhurt were running to their fellows – or simply running – and tents were burning, filling the air with choking smoke and the smell of burned pork. The walls of the fortification showed where they had been touched by the heat ray – bricks had scorched and wood smoldered. Lucy lifted her head, whispering a very unladylike: “Fuck.”

Mina whispered. “Lucy ... Lucy, the horses! We can go!”

“Go?” she asked.

“The Martians have flying machines!” Mina pushed her friend up, her hair a wild bedraggled mess. She shook her head, trying to clear some of her hair from her eyes. “They’re going to ... they have to be attacking forts like this all across the Continent – we have ... to ... to to go, to go, now!” She said, nodding, trying to keep her panic from her voice. Lucy gulped, then looked back at the burning tents.

“W- ... We should help them-”

Mina’s heart clenched. She knew she was right...

But...

Coward, she thought. You absolute coward. You don’t want to find Jonathan. You just want to get away from all of this.

Mina closed her eyes. Breathed in the smoke. Coughed. Shook her head. “You’re right, my dear Lucy. We must.” She said, then stood. The two of them emerged, and began to help beating at the flames – focusing on small embers that threatened to sweep further than the tents that had already been struck.

A weary day of doing what could be done – and in the face of the hideous burning wounds left behind by Martian heat rays, what could be done was painfully little – Mina and Lucy were once more before the commander of the fort. Or, more accurately, his second in command. Lt. Colonel Klaus-Peter Schultz rubbed his palms along his sooty face and looked as if he had been struck in the side of the head by an ax handle. “I ... my superior ... his orders were to ... quarter you, for ... intelligence...”

“Sir,” Mina said, taking advantage of the fact he spoke English and was quite dazed. “Please. There’s nothing more that we can tell you. Just ... allow us to leave. We can make our own way.”

The Lt. Colonel blinked at her. Then he nodded. “Ja. Ja. This I can do. I think ... being far from the army is the safest place for you to be.”

Another endless train ride. Another jam packed car. Vienna had, when they arrived, been struck twice by Martian flying machines – buildings burned, people stunned. From the newspaper that Mina read from while Lucy scarfed down another handful of their marks, in the form of the cheapest meal they could buy, the areal attacks had been, depending on the writer, indiscriminate barbarism, or cruelly scientific. Half thought that the Martians were striking wrathfully at innocent civilians, the other half called out a collection of dams, train stations, bridges and army depots reduced to ashes.

“No black smoke thus far...” Mina said, closing the paper. “How is it?”

“Honestly?” Lucy asked. “It’s better than most meals I had back home – purely because it sticks to my ribs.” She smiled, wryly. “I suppose it is like what they said. Hunger is the best spice.”

“You’re becoming an honest adventurer,” Mina said. “So ... from Vienna, we go to Budapest, then from Budapest to Bucharest, then ... we shall take the roads there...” She rubbed her thumbs against her eyes, working out the grit. “If the train tickets keep costing thus, we should arrive with barely enough money...” She bit her lip, slightly. “But if we don’t...”

“Then we shall have to find some work – enough to keep us in lodging,” Lucy said, nodding firmly. “My servants worked for a few pence a day, and if they can do it, I can do it.”

Mina pursed her lips. “Well, at least you are game...”

Lucy blushed. “Well, how hard can it be? It can’t be anything next to traveling across Europe during a war...”

“I think most wars are less terrible than this,” Mina said. “Those flying machines ... they can drop death on us at any time. It feels like there’s a great target on my back.” Lucy took her hand and squeezed it.

“Our backs,” she said, seriously. Then she put her hand over her face. “Bugger, that sounded more comfortable before I opened my mouth.”

“You’re getting quite the mouth for a lady,” Mina said. Lucy slid her hand down, her eyes glittering.

“I know, my governess would have me bent over a desk and my...” She blushed and stopped talking. “Sorry, Mina, I ... it is getting rather hard to not just say things I think – I should contrive to do better at controlling my tongue.”

Mina giggled.

That little conversation sustained her through the next train ride – but here, further from the front edge of the terror, the trains were considerably less congested and there was less panic and confusion and more comfort. It became almost possible to think that the world was not coming to a confused end. The signs became more and more subtle as they traveled eastward, until at last, Mina and Lucy found themselves in the back of a carriage behind a very staid looking draft horse, while an old farmer led them along the roads, moving away from the towns and cities and towards increasingly dark forests.

The evening began to fall as they came to the a small village nestled in the middle of these forests – the fields that were cleared were almost invisible in the evening, and the homes that spread outwards around them were faint sketches in the darkness. The man who had brought them here spat over the edge of the wagon, then held out his hand. Once the last of their money was in his grasp, he nodded. “The village you’re looking for is another few miles east, past the hills,” he said, frowning.