by Stephen Hunt
Then, suddenly, Oliver was by her side, moving effortlessly through the crowd.
'The Army of Shadows is here,' shouted Purity.
'Yes,' said Oliver. 'There's one of their flying citadels behind the red clouds, riding the leylines and coming around Highhorn Mountain. When they get above us they're going to burn the entire camp to the ground and our cannon with it.'
'How did they know we're here?'
Oliver pulled her to one side as a great beam of heat struck out from one of the sail riders' weapons, shredding the camouflage netting above them. 'Perhaps they followed Lord Starhome's trail of destruction across the county. Maybe they've just reached Halfshire anyway.'
'If they're here, then they must have already fought their way through Middlesteel.'
Purity made to run for the barracks again, but Oliver stopped her and pointed to the forest's edge. 'Yes, and that's why we must head into the wilds. No towns. No roads.'
'I haven't even got a pistol.'
'I've got two,' said Oliver.
With the burning netting falling around the clearing the first slats were starting to swoop down, sail rigs passing through the crackle of rifle fire from the soldiers. Purity watched transfixed as Lord Starhome's long silver length slid down into the breech of the cannon and the firing hatch at the centre of the spiral sealed shut behind the craft.
'Molly,' shouted Purity. 'She's inside the cannon.'
'She has to launch before the slats' flying castle reaches us.'
'I need to get on board,' begged Purity. 'They need me on Kaliban, you have to help me get on board that ship.'
Pushing out of the crimson clouds, the outline of the Army of Shadows' ugly citadel emerged above them. It was riding the leylines on a dozen blasts of energy, scouring the land below, swarms of eyeless soldiers arrowing out on sail-rider rigs from cavernous maws cut into its rock-like sides. The fortress had a terrible organic quality to it, like a wasps' nest carved out of granite and metallic ore. There was no refinement to the Army of Shadows' art. Just raw energy and matter stripped out of the land and turned against any living thing dwelling below. Dozens of leathery black globes hovered around the citadel in the air, held aloft on whining circles of blades that rotated so fast they were a blur to the eye and a buzz upon the ears. Evil red light glowed from hundreds of weapon loops dotting the citadel, while in its shadow, the slopes of Mount Highhorn had turned dark from a plague of Kaliban's advancing legions. The slats made a horrendous cricketing noise as they drew nearer, the chattering sonar throats combined with the clicking of a thousand fangs rubbing together at the thought of fresh flesh to feed on.
From behind the cannon a solitary figure ran into Purity's view, the gun's creator, Timlar Preston, waving his hands wildly to attract the attention of the slats circling above. 'I recognize you. I recognize you as creatures of learning. There must be no more bloodshed between us. There must be peace!'
Peace. What was the fool doing?
'You are a sentient race,' yelled Timlar. 'We can work together, there is no need for this.'
His calls towards the sky finally invoked a response: a bolt of heat enveloped him before dissipating in a blast of steam to reveal a blackened carcass collapsing to the ground. In the end, the Quatershiftian genius had achieved peace only for himself.
Purity tried to pull away from Oliver's grip and make towards the cannon. 'They're getting ready to go, I have to travel to Kaliban.'
'Molly's already inside the gun,' said Oliver. 'It'll be a miracle if she launches before the cannon's destroyed. They don't have time to take on board extra passengers.'
'I can sense the commodore inside the cannon, Coppertracks and Duncan too. They didn't even know Kyorin. He came to me, he rescued me.'
'Maybe he did,' said Oliver. 'But the land came to you too, and she came first. You're part of Jackals and the kingdom is going to need you to resist the invaders.'
'It needs me here to run away again? That's what you want us to do, isn't it.'
‹You can fight,› said the voice inside her head. ‹You will lead and others will follow.›
'I'm just a girl.'
‹So was I, when the invaders came from the sea, but our land is ancient enough to protect both of us.›
Gloom deepened about them in the shadow cast by the crude flying citadel of the invaders. Mount Highhorn was now hidden by billows of crimson clouds boiling out from the ground underneath the unholy war machine. Oliver and Purity began running in earnest now, towards the fringes of the camp where it met a sweep of dense pine. At last it became clear why the sail riders hadn't landed in force on the cannon. With an enormous roar, a pillar of flame left the citadel and ploughed through the forest like an earthquake, drawing down onto the cannon.
Purity stumbled as the blast of heat from the terrible beam hit her. Behind her, fire burst one of the cannon supports and the metal spiral started to collapse to one side as an earsplitting explosion from the ground answered the flying citadel's heat weapon. The first eruption was followed by an incredibly quick sequence of follow-on cracks, and it felt to Purity as if the teeth were shaking in her head as each firing ring added its voice to the immaculately timed crescendo. Then the citadel's heat ray sliced across the huge metal sculpture below igniting the unexpended fuel in the cannon's reservoirs and the entire cannon lifted off the ground. Pieces of the wave-front weapon blew across the clearing, wedges of shrapnel embedding themselves in the tree trunk Purity and Oliver had taken shelter behind. As if enraged by the successful firing of the cannon, the Army of Shadows' flying citadel began to rotate, its killing beam of energy twisting across the rest of the project, the hidden timber buildings that had been their home riding into the air in splinters and a firestorm of burning trees.
Purity couldn't sense the life force of Commodore Black, Molly or the others. Was that because they were dead? Or – she risked a glance from behind the shrapnel-shot tree. There was a thin trail of vapour climbing out from the clearing as if the sky had been scratched up towards the heavens. Had Lord Starhome been intact as he was blown out of the muzzle of the cannon?
'I think they were given the gun before the cannon was hit,' said Oliver. 'But I'm not sure. It was a damn close thing.'
'Molly,' said Purity, tasting the acrid smoke in the air. 'Commodore Black, Coppertracks. Oh, Circle, please let them be alive.'
They had gone, left her behind, just like her mother and brother had slipped away from her to die, leaving her to go on alone.
The storm of beasts circling on their sail-rider chutes was gliding lower, ready to mop up any survivors of their flying citadel's bombardment.
'Let's go.'
'Where?' asked Purity. She followed Oliver deeper into the forest; not running, but fast enough so they might put the camp quickly behind them and keep up a steady pace for hours.
'Right now, anywhere but here.'
‹You know where you must go,› said the voice in Purity's mind, accompanied by images of the trident-carrying queen. ‹The call is strong within you now.›
Oliver nodded. 'Curse your eyes, but I do.'
'You can hear Elizica speaking inside my head?'
'That's funny, I thought she was inside mine,' said Oliver.
The light grew fainter all about them – somewhere above the canopy of pine, the sun was setting unseen. Setting on the destroyed cannon project, setting on the Kingdom of Jackals.
'The slats like to hunt in the dark,' said Purity.
'They may see at night,' said Oliver, drawing his two strange pistols. 'But they've never fought the night.'
Something in his voice struck a chill sliver of fear into Purity's heart. Those two guns of his seemed to glow like death in the gloom, yet this young man who could overhear her madness appeared possessed by one far deeper than her own. He wasn't the master of the brace of evil pistols anymore, they were the masters of him.
'Where does Elizica want you to go?'
'To die,' said Oliver. 'She wants me to
go to die.'
CHAPTER NINE
Purity stumbled through the trees, her legs numb from walking, her discomfort anaesthetized by the complete aching tiredness she was swimming through. Oliver was a constant by her side. It was almost like having her brother back alive with her: the shared madness – the voice inside their heads – a kinship nearly as thick as blood. And they could both sense the presence of the Army of Shadows, the slats' leathery black globe-like craft suspended under buzzing blades whisking through the cloudy starless night, dropping off scouts to hunt down the survivors from the Highhorn camp.
The two of them might have already cleared the forest if it wasn't for the necessity of continually doubling back on their tracks. Blind though the slave soldiers of the Army of Shadows were, they were possessed of a keen enough sense of smell to keep their hunting packs hard on Purity and Oliver's trail. Purity doubted if they had any inkling of what she and Oliver really were – but the foe had obviously been stung by the existence of the hidden cannon, a level of engineering far beyond what they had expected from their prey in the kingdom. Survivors might possess knowledge of that engineering, knowledge that the slats didn't want reaching any of the other nations of the continent before they, too, were conquered in turn.
Oliver hadn't said any more about where they were going, the dire fate he had mentioned; but right now, Purity hardly cared – she would settle for half an hour of sleep and the guarantee she wouldn't be ripped to shreds by the talons of one of their pursuers before she awoke.
'Are we going to die?' she asked Oliver.
'If we do, we'll have a lot of company. The entire land's dying. They're making a corpse of Jackals.' Oliver took Purity's arm and pushed the sleeve up, allowing the drizzle to touch her skin. Her arm itched as the rain fell upon the white flesh. 'That flying citadel has infected the rain here. This is just the start. We must go on.'
'I'm tired.' Purity tried to shut out the sight of the red haze of moonlight smudging the rain clouds above the canopy of pine. Corruption in the heavens, corruption in the rain. Just the two of them to stand against it all, two kestrels, flying against the full fury of a storm. What difference could the two of them make?
'Why me?' Purity yelled her rage up at the iron moon. 'Why did this have to happen? What have I ever done to deserve this?'
'It had to be someone,' said Oliver, quietly. The look of resignation on his face shocked Purity to silence. What did she look like to him? She almost felt ashamed.
'I'm sorry.'
'Don't be,' said Oliver. 'I was given these two pistols by a Circlist reverend. He had been the Hood-o'the-marsh before me. He and I were connected, just like the Circlists believe all of us to be connected. Connected by the guns, or the land, or by our humanity. That's why we're going on. Because we have to. Because if we don't, nothing else will.'
She followed him. Purity and Oliver left the forest behind and trekked across the heath.
Hours became days.
It was strange, Purity mused, it was like the end of the world – as if the kingdom had been emptied. They hadn't met any other survivors from the camp since they had thrown off their pursuers.
Highhorn had been an isolated stretch of the country even before the war, and when they came across villages and roads they found them abandoned. Once the two of them had seen a valley filled with a dozen house-sized slugs, slowly devouring the trees of a pear orchard, a trail of hexagonal plating excreted in their wake. The slugs emitted a diffuse crimson steam that rose in vapours, trailing languidly towards the sky. No wonder the days had become an intermittent twilight, a crimson-toned gloom as the enemy's creatures set about their work – converting the land into useful resources. Even the enemy's soldiers seemed to have vacated the countryside. There was the occasional wasp-like humming in the distance to mark the passage of one of their leathery flying globes, but no more sightings of their flying citadels, no more pursuit by the eyeless monstrosities that marched under the enemy's banner.
Oliver and Purity might have been the only ones left alive in this strange, empty landscape.
Purity came to a stop. 'I wish we could find some food, a cottage, anything.'
Oliver pointed to the north. 'The nearest small town is that way, about a day's walk. But it's empty, the Army of Shadows must have reached it.'
'How can you tell?'
'Because if it was otherwise there would be people there,' said Oliver. 'And I would feel their evil. We'll stop and rest a while. I can make a poacher's fire. If I build it right it won't give off much smoke.'
An hour after Purity and Oliver left, a scout for the Army of Shadows was bent over the remains of their fire, its eyeless black head pushed up against the stones, sniffing at the ashes through a cluster of breathing folds. Its fangs clicked together in anticipation. Not old at all. And from the scents heading off, there were a couple of fine meals waiting for its pack.
Not for the first time, Molly wished that the ugly mood inside Lord Starhome would prove as mutable as the hull of their half-steamman craft. Once the crushing ferocity of the launch had been replaced by the strange waterless floating of their voyage, the shell-shaped ship had started to metamorphose, his living metal flowing into a new shape that was half-manta-ray, half bat. Lord Starhome was rapidly growing larger around his passengers. Sucking up the dust and grit of the celestial darks and incorporating it into his fabric. When they reached Kaliban, the expedition might be travelling in a craft a hundred times as large as the shell shape Lord Starhome had assumed to survive his ancient impact with the mountains of Mechancia – if the members of the expedition managed not to kill each other before they arrived.
Molly was coming to regret having opened her cockpit to the others she had inadvertently kidnapped for the voyage.
'I, sir, am invested with the authority of the House of Guardians,' insisted Lord Rooksby. 'I have full command of this expedition by order of parliament.'
'You carry no authority over any compatriot of the sovereign people of the Commonshare of Quatershift,' retorted Keyspierre.
His daughter Jeanne nodded vehemently by his side. 'The launch of this vessel was made possible only by the sweat and genius of the Institute des Luminaires and the ruling committees of our people.'
Commodore Black pointed towards the back of the craft where Coppertracks had vanished into the storage hold with Duncan Connor. 'You might as well decide on Coppertracks as the skipper of our expedition, for this craft belongs to King Steam and we're on steammen soil by the nautical laws, while your parliament of shopkeepers and congress of the mortal committees of Quatershift falls further away with each hour we travel.'
'A ridiculous suggestion,' said Rooksby.
Lord Starhome's disembodied voice sounded around them. 'Am I merely a chattel, then?' He showed his displeasure by allowing the field of artificial gravity he had recently created for them to fluctuate, the expedition members briefly subjected to a twinge of nauseous flotation.
'That's enough,' said Molly to Lord Starhome, who was showing worrying tendencies towards independence. As the craft grew larger, the percentage that was steamman – that owed any loyalty to the Free State – was being diluted. Molly fingered the control ring Hardarms had given her. How much longer until they were left riding a wild, masterless stallion through the endless night?
'We do not need to be lectured by you, Jackelian,' said Keyspierre's daughter, pointing an accusing finger at Molly. 'If it was not for your reckless interference we would be on a properly equipped and outfitted vessel of exploration, with trained soldiers to protect us instead of your gang of misfits and sightseers.'
'This is my expedition,' snapped Molly. 'I received foreknowledge of the invasion by the Army of Shadows. My gang of misfits got Timlar Preston back alive and saw my cannon completed, and without us amateurs, you-' she waved at the two shifties '-would be meat for those monsters' larder in your corrupt little compatriots' paradise, while you-' she pointed at Lord Rooksby '-would be on a clipper on
the other side of the world blundering about looking for the Army of Shadows' non-existent homeland.'
'Aye, Molly has the size of it,' said the commodore. 'And more to the point, if it wasn't for her small blessed act of piracy back in the kingdom, the Highhorn cannon would have had a test shell loaded when the Army of Shadows came calling to destroy it, and we would all be sitting around its ashes toasting our bread in its fires, if we had the mortal life left to do so.'
'You, sir, are a fool,' shouted Rooksby at the commodore, stalking away to one of the other cabins. 'You are all fools. Lesser minds that don't possess the wit to realize the consequences of what you have done.'
'Your rebellious act of petulance may well have cost both our nations their future,' said Keyspierre, withdrawing with his daughter down one of the corridors that Lord Starhome had formed in his starboard wing. The shiftie's voice echoed back as he walked away. 'I fear the imagination of a novelist will serve very little purpose against the strength of the foe's might when we reach their home.'
Molly slumped back in one of the craft's acceleration chairs. 'Have I done the right thing?'
'You were true to yourself,' said the commodore. 'And it's the knowledge inside your head from that poor unlucky fellow Kyorin that we must look to, to guide us to the blue lad's friends.'
Molly bit her lip. If they still lived. If they could find them. If Kyorin's people had a way of beating the Army of Shadows. If they could even understand the weapon and discover some way of using it against the enemy. Molly tried not to despair. It sounded so desperate when she thought about it, but the dead slave's words had proven true so far. He had given Timlar Preston the knowledge the great inventor needed to finish the design of his wave-front cannon. Kyorin's pessimistic predictions about the Army of Shadows had proven true at every vicious turn of the kingdom's futile attempts at defending itself.
