Dark Iron King II: Arcadia Falls (Unreal Universe Book 5)

by Lee Bond

  Old Mackie watched on in awe as his left hand became the hand of a young lad long dead, all fresh and new and ready to take on the world. He felt, for the first time in so long that he couldn’t even remember the last time, his heart beat in his chest.

  “Well, fuck this, I says!” Old Mackie shouted, rummaging through his battlepouch, summat he’d kept on carrying, well after his Kingkilling days had been and gone, searching for lengths of rope. You always needed rope. Rope were one of them things that you always needed, especially when you didn’t have any.

  Quickly now, quickly before the last threads of ’sblood that’d kept him alive longer than a man should trickled out through grotesquely pink skin, Old Mackie began lashing himself to the inner struts of the Giant Green Man’s leg. With his right hand, still partially metal, Old Mackie started scratching a warning into the resilient copper-colored bones.

  His heart beat again. The pressure of it filled Old Mackie with dread. He knew the moment it started pumping properly would also be the moment he were done for, all without doing anything much of anything.

  The last of the rope went ‘round and ‘round his soft, weak body, and he tied himself up right nice and proper, right to the leg of the machine that had done him in.

  Hopefully the next crew that came up recognized him, or saw what’d happened. Old Mackie’s last conscious thought before his life was drawn out of him was pleasure in naming the beast as had kilt him.

  ‘Irondrinker’.

  ***

  Dom moved through the squadron of gearheads as they began setting up their next round of attacks; they’d accepted his presence, and since -for the moment- he wasn’t doing any of the things that Gearmen normally did when around their kind, they’d continue to accept his presence.

  The Book Club Regular knew that when –if- he moved against them, the dozen or so crudey-crude enhanced men and women would turn on him like a pack of vicious animals. His plan to beg, borrow or simply take one of their fantastic weapons would almost certainly be construed as an attack, if for no other reason than the gearheads were using those weapons in the defense of the execrable craphole they called home.

  To that end, Dominic the Gearman was more than content –for the time being- to wander through the crowd, half-listening to the chatter, subconsciously absorbing everything the men and women were doing, focusing mainly on the problem of how to deal properly with Garth Nickels and his amazing suit of Geared Armor when, suddenly …

  “I’m sorry, wot the fuck is ‘e doin’ ‘ere?”

  The battle-chatter from the rest of the gearheads dwindled down to nearly nothing, those gearheads tasked specifically with the chore of assembling a rig of six rotating barrels to a heavy base literally whispering to one another.

  Dominic looked up and into the eyes of an irate gearhead who looked as though he’d been snacking on Vicious Elixir all bloody morning, rising from the darkness of a crudey-crude coma to find Ickford under siege by gigantic metal men. The signs were all there, from the blots of Dark Iron flitting to and fro inside bloodshot eyes to the stomach-churning fresh scent of hotel metal.

  The Gearman had quite forgotten how much he loathed that stench. You learned quickly on to filter out what –until now- could be considered the more odiferous side effects of heavy Iron consumption, but the gearhead standing in front of him stank to high heaven.

  “I said,” the cantankerous gearhead, one Oblivious Oscar, reiterated, stepping forward and pushing several ‘lesser’ wardogs out of the way, “wot is ‘e’ doin’ ‘ere?”

  “I think,” Dominic corrected gently, “that you meant to say ‘I asked, what is he doing here?’ did you not?” The HUD began counting all the gearheads in sight, tallying up their Dark Iron exposure and making rough estimates of their skillset based on that and a dozen other factors. Book on his chest was doing it’s level best to work within the miasma field, but the Regular could tell from how the data seemed to trickle across his periphery like molasses that it was still having a rough time.

  He needed Nickels’ Book. Needed it. Partly because no man not a member of the Book Club should have his hands on it, but mostly because he, Dominic Breton, was a Gearman and Nickels was an outsider. If anyone was going to do any saving –not that he’d even made his mind up if anyone in Ickford deserved saving yet- from what appeared to be a King who’d lost his patience –not to mention his wits- it was bloody well damned going to be a Gearman.

  Oblivious Oscar bulled his way through a small crowd of gearheads watching their betters assemble the machine cannon, accidentally knocking one of ‘em away from the huge and growing huger weapon. A bore fell noisily to the ground, eliciting a round of furious cursing from those hastily assembling the thing; the elected looker and leader, Tobias Trueman, looked up from the blueprints given to him personally by Twisted Mickel, saw what was happening, and went right back to barking orders.

  There were some situations that were better left completely ignored, and Oblivious Oscar was just such a one.

  Still, since they couldn’t afford to have a Gearman –one who didn’t seem interested in causing the kind of mayhem they’d grown accustomed to in the last fifty years or so- bashing about with any of the weapons that turned gearheads into runny soup, Tobias –against better judgment- spoke up nonetheless. “Oi, Oscar, leave it out, will ya, son? ‘e’s just ‘avin’ a look-see, right? Ain’t done no ‘arm, an’ e’s on ‘is best, in’t ya, Gearman?”

  “I am on a case that does not involve gearheads.” Dom answered truthfully enough. Book tried to toss up a small window with information concerning ‘Oscar’ and the whole system literally slowed to a crawl. He willed the update on the gearhead away and everything picked back up to the ‘usual’ syrupy scrawl. “That is correct.”

  Oblivious Oscar eyed the Gearman up and down. He hadn’t seen one of the long-coat and armored bastards in nearly fifteen years, and he still weren’t all that impressed. He knew his brothers and sisters of the Dark Iron feared the helmeted representatives of the King because of the weapons they carried, and he reckoned that were a wise thing indeed, but they were here, in Ickford, a place where –it was being revealed- King’s Will weren’t all that much a big deal.

  He poked the Gearman in the chest with a thick finger, the iron tendons wrapped around the digit flexing and tensing. He’d lost the original some time ago, and the tiny-cranelike replacement was –amongst a host of strange transformations- one of the more amusing. “Why in’t you fuck off then, mate, let those of us who’re up ‘ere tryin’ a do for this ‘ere monster be about our business? Toddle off and do wot it is you is ‘ere to do.”

  The wardogs watching the display suddenly found better things to do, some of them hurrying from the rooftop altogether. Tobias Trueman yelped a curse and backed away to the far corner along with the rest of the assembly team; though he himself had only a smidgeon of Dark Iron in him –just enough to ensure that he could survive one or two deaths- legend had it that, when it came to Gearmen and their weapons, you’d be done for in the twinkling of an eye no matter how little you had coursing through your veins.

  “If you could kindly turn Oblivious Oscar into a soup as quick as you please, Master Gearman, the rest of us would be ever so obliged.” Tobias hollered nervously, looking over his shoulder at the Giant Green Soldier. “Only our regular troops are being decimated real quick-like, you see, climbin’ up an’ then fallin’ back down again. Too quick, you see? We need to assemble the … wot did that ponce call it … the machine gun right snappy as it looks like there’s summat as snuffs the life right outta us. We’ll all stand off to the side, like, ‘ere, an’ you just bosh away.”

  Gearman Dominic Breton stared down at the wrought-iron finger poking Book, then up and into the snickering, sneering smile on ‘Oblivious Oscar’s’ wretched face. As with many abusers of the crudest crude Dark Iron, his homely mug was a roadmap of pits, scars, and gouges all healed over with glistening black seams. Time for gearheads to remember why it was
best to mind your P’s and Q’s –as Tobias Trueman and the others were- when there was a Gearman present. Dom closed his eyes briefly, demanding access to the full array of powers held in the armor hidden beneath the long coat he wore.

  The suit responded promptly and precisely, filling Dom with a tad of pleasure, not to mention a great deal of Dark Iron augmented strength, speed and agility. Whether or not the geared armor would work properly in Ickford had been bouncing about a bit in the back of his mind, but all that was quelled the moment the helmet HUD blazed with the data that Book had been trying to accumulate while working under the glamor of the miasma.

  Everything there was to learn about Oblivious Oscar flashed across the HUD as fast as Dom could read it, though, truthfully, the Gearman was more interested in the fact that the machinery he wore was now operating properly. All manner of scenarios flooded through the gates of Dom’s passionate dislike for Master Nickels, ranging from tracking the man down where he was right that minute and doing for him as giant robot men battled Ickford to the more poignant and elegant snipe from miles away.

  Unseen, Dominic Breton smiled beatifically at his dreams. Doing for Nickels with an Ickfordian weapon hadn’t sat too well. Still, the Book Club Regular wondered why and how everything was suddenly up to snuff when moments before, it’d been a trickle.

  He latched onto the reason a scant heartbeat later, and his mounting joy at personalized and heroic revenge was dashed quite quickly.

  The pure Dark Iron flowing through the unbreakable veins of his armor was the reason, obviously, yet, running at full power as the suit was, he was faced with a choice; operate as a full Gearman for about a half an hour before everything was depleted and he was even less than a Gearman, or do for Oblivious Oscar and then continue on with his old plan.

  Dom stared down at Oblivious Oscar’s pulley-finger, then over his shoulder at Tobias Trueman, then back to the stupid gearhead who’d dared lay a finger on him. “This is a tremendous pain in my nether regions, Oblivious Oscar. I am tasked with dealing with a monstrosity worse than anything you can imagine, and yet here I am, being forced by your foolishness to do things I would rather not.”

  Oblivious Oscar laughed, pulling his head back to butt the Gearman right in the helmet. It wouldn’t hurt too much, not with his old solid noggin nicely laced up with crudey-crude deposits as it was, but it might send the Gearman ‘round the bend, skull clanging like bells.

  Book’s HUD telegraphed Oscar’s plan of attack well in advance, so Dom simply twisted the foolish gearhead’s pulley-finger left, right, then –now it was loosened up- right off. Before Oscar could even properly register that he’d lost his most favorite digit, Dom slammed a heavy, gauntleted fist into the buffoon’s cast-iron stomach, eliciting a wheezing gasp from the target and moans of sorrowful commiseration from the assembled host.

  Oscar felt his insides rupture a bit, felt the white hot Iron coursing through his veins spill out into areas that were normally not awash in Vicious Elixir. Didn’t matter. He’d been through worse, and so, blackened spittle and blood lining his lips, Oscar brought his hands around, intending to crush the Gearman’s helmeted head between them.

  Keeping an eye on the ‘power meter’ that’d popped up in his periphery –and cursing silently when he discovered that the Dark Iron energy source was depleting itself much quicker, no doubt because it was working against the Agnethea’s ever-present haze-, Dom blocked both open-handed attacks with vambraces that grew wicked looking spikes just as Oscar’s hands slapped each side. The curved, sharp teeth bit through the suddenly bewildered gearhead’s large, brutish palms and –again- he screamed and the crowd groaned.

  Tobias Trueman shook his head. Gearmen. They claimed they weren’t as wicked cruel as gearheads, but the truth of it were much different. Gearheads couldn’t control the dark, angry rage that flowed in ‘em when they were deep in the crudey-crude, whereas –as he understood it- Gearmen didn’t have none of that stuff under the skin. They were just normal fellas as wore a special set of armor that gave ‘em the ability to do the things they did, which made them worse, as the vicious cruelty they were being treated to that very moment was proving. They chose to be darkhearted bastards, hey?

  The looker and leader caught the grim eye of a few of ‘his’ gearheads’ –men and women who’d recognized him as being one of the best leaders in the game- and saw instantly that they were gearing up to assist Oblivious Oscar.

  Tobias shook his head firmly. It was plain to see that their visiting Gearman was working through some kind of issues and was more than willing to restrict his emotional outburst to the one gearhead stupid enough to make himself a problem. The leader bit back a surge of hot bile as the Gearman produced a sharp blade from somewhere on his person and, with a fancy flourish, gifted Oblivious Oscar with a second smile, from which, a great gout of blackened blood spread.

  “Oi. Master Gearman.” Tobias cleared his throat. “If you please, Master, sir, we is trying to do summat about these here green monsters, and as I said before, we would ever so much appreciate it if you could turn him into goop so we might be about our business.”

  Dom stepped back from the bruised, bleeding and mostly shattered mess that was Oblivious Oscar, ashamed that he’d gotten so damned carried away. The hulking giant had taken a lot of punishment and was –to his credit- still standing, leaking precious lifeblood from a dozen wounds both deep and shallow. He looked to Tobias Trueman, elder gearhead and notable persona for a number of astonishing Kingkilling ventures, and nodded, briskly.

  He ordered Book to shut down all but the basic functions of the armor, wishing as he continued looking at Oblivious Oscar that he were as brave as Chevy; what he’d just done was –he hoped- mostly because of the helmet and the presence of King’s Will so close to the brain and not his own anger. Somewhere out there, Chevy was doing as he did, without having to fear that the King’s obvious –and inexplicable- hatred for gearheads would force him into a corner.

  Dom pulled the splashgun from it’s holster and, out of deference to those nearby, shot Oblivious Oscar in the kneecap to minimize the splash damage. Amongst Gearmen it was considered rude beyond all tolerance to do for a gearhead in such a way as to allow even a drop to hit onlookers, even if they were brethren. The wobbling moron didn’t even have time to moan or apologize or even register a moment of pain; the splashgun ripped through the atomic bonds within the Dark Iron skein holding all gearheads together, instantly turning Oscar into a thick gumbo.

  Those bits and bobs turned to solid metal by the strange power of King’s Will clattered to the ground.

  Tobias Trueman gave a single nod and started shouting. “Right lads and lasses, get your narrow asses back to it. This damn machine gun be the most complicated piece of shenaniganery these old eyes ever did see. Let’s not waste no more time. Er, begging your pardon, of course, Master Gearman.”

  Dom moved closer to Tobias. “Tell me truthfully, now, Tobias. What did you mean when you said your men are dying too quickly?”

  Tobias jerked his chin over to where the Giant Green Man was still clumsily trying to clear out a proper playground for itself, shouting as he did so at the men handling the big tubes. “I swear on me old mum’s grave which I hain’t dug yet, Mister Swivven, you and yours drop another one of them fucking things and I will in truth wear your face as my own and then visit your lovely lass down south and do the most ‘orrible things to ‘er!” Then, to the Gearman, “As I said, sir. Them lads and lassies down there lookin’ to climb up and in get mayhap up to the knee afore they fall. Hain’t a one of ‘em gettin’ back up.”

  Dom turned his attention to the Gunboy, trying to decide if he should risk more of his armor’s precious Iron reserve to get a full glimpse of what they were dealing with. Eventually, caution won out; there was no real way of knowing if the weaponry he was about to take from these gearheads would have any true effect on Garth’s armor. If things went poorly, the Regular reckoned that every single ounce of power wo
uld be used in saving his skin.

  So, using the basic binocular function of his helmet, Dom had to wait no more than a minute before another small group of gearheads raced across the broken landscape below, aiming themselves directly at a huge, booted foot. Springing like ticks leaping for a dog, they landed squarely at the top of the boot and began crawling as fast as they could.

  And, just as quickly, they began falling.

  “Wot?” Dom ignored the pure Kingsian accent falling out of his mouth. There really wasn’t any external defenses! Before now he’d just assumed the Gunboy’s method of doing for invaders so efficiently had just been too difficult to spot from where he was stood, but … nowt! “Wot in the bleedin’ ‘ell?”

  “Just so, Master Gearman, just so.” Tobias smacked a gearhead and ordered him to ignore the armor-clad Gearman and to be about his damn business. “Wot d’you reckon?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life.” Nor, though he’d never say so aloud, had Dom ever read about anything like this.

  Of course, as he was a Book Club Regular and one of the smartest men in the ranks, it took only half a minute of watching yet another group of valiant wretches falling to their deaths for him to piece the mystery together.

  Dominic Breton was equally awed and repulsed. Awed that the King had designed such a lethal weapon, and repulsed for the very same reason; it was one thing to build a machine that was more than a match for any hundred gearheads and another thing entirely to ensure that they absolutely no chance, no matter how many bodies you threw at the problem.

  What was their King thinking?

  “Order your men to stand down, Tobias Trueman.” Dom commanded briskly. “There is no way they will achieve their goal.”

  “What say you?” Tobias watched as the last of the huge tubes was mounted into place and snapped his fingers imperiously at those with more nimble fingers; these were slender lady-bombers, them with delicate hands and wicked minds, and six of them scurried forth with boxes full of the complicated-looking gewgaws that would enable the ‘machine gun’ to work.