Mortal Engines (Predator Cities, #1)

by Philip Reeve

Soon the city was lumbering in pursuit, a moving mountain of metal which rose in seven tiers like the layers of a wedding cake, the lower levels wreathed in engine-smoke, the villas of the rich gleaming white on the higher decks, and above it all the cross on top of St Paul’s Cathedral glinting gold, two thousand feet above the ruined earth.

A hundred miles ahead the sunrise shone on Circle Park, the elegant loop of lawns and flower-beds that encircled Tier One. It gleamed in ornamental lakes and on pathways glistening with dew, and it glittered on the white metal spires of Clio House, Valentine’s villa, which stood among dark cedars at the park’s edge like some gigantic conch shell abandoned by a freak high tide.

Then there was only the night and the cold wind, and rags of moonlight prowling the broken hills.

A few hours later, as the evening mists came curling from the Rustwater Marshes, Tunbridge Wheels rolled down to the edge of the sea. It paused there a while, gazing out towards a cluster of islands that rose dark and rugged from the silver water.

The night split apart and went rushing away to hide in the corners of the sky.

Mastering their panicked horses, the men of the Black Island came on along the margins of the bog amid a drum-roll of galloping hooves and the torn-silk sound of windblown torches.

“You aren’t a hero, and I’m not beautiful, and we probably won’t live happily ever after,” she said. “But we’re alive, and together, and we’re going to be all right.”