by Stephen Hunt
'You realize,' barked Lord Rooksby as Molly entered the command deck, 'that treacherous native Kal must have known that his home was defended by a killing shield, and you-' he pointed at Molly '-by your own admission carry around his knowledge inside your dim-witted little skull.'
They were all drifting around the open space, tethered by belts to various girders, handholds and seats – only Keyspierre's daughter looked comfortable. She moved across the air like a ballet dancer, gracefully arching her back and using a wall to kick off before gripping a seat on the other side of the bridge.
'I certainly didn't know about the shield,' said Molly, 'and I don't think Kyorin knew about it, either. Why trick a handful of us up here just to kill us?'
The commodore bunched his hand into a fist. 'You're a mortal nasty piece of work, Rooksby, and I've a mind to teach you a few manners.'
'You, sir, are not even meant to be here,' said Rooksby. 'If parliament's writ had been followed, you and your menagerie of freaks would be sitting back in the kingdom and letting a professional expedition venture forth to Kaliban.'
'Ah, my lord commercial,' spat Commodore Black. 'Parliament's writ runs a long ways distant from the strange shores we've set a course for, and if you keep on with your poisonous jabbering, I'll be minded to float over there and toss you and your rotten House of Guardians-given title out of this ship of ours.'
'Please,' said Coppertracks, his iron hand inside an instrument panel at the front of the craft. 'A little peace for me to work. I'm nearly done. I have stripped two of the three steamman logic drums used to rebuild Lord Starhome, replacing the components in the least damaged of the trio. Paul-Loup softbody, if you would pass me my magnetizer, I shall attempt to close the new circuit I have built inside here.'
Keyspierre took one of the instruments floating in the air and passed it across to Coppertracks, the steamman examining it and tutting. 'No, the circuit magnetizer, please, that one.'
Exchanging instruments, Keyspierre passed Coppertracks the magnetizer and Coppertracks gave a nervous squirt of steam from his stacks before closing the broken circuit. The ship's lanterns dimmed for a second, then returned to full illumination, followed a moment later by the weight of gravity – gradual enough that they all landed lightly on their feet – or in Coppertracks' case, treads – from wherever they had been anchored.
'That's better, now,' said the commodore, winking at Jeanne.
'A fine figure of my girth needs to feel the weight on his boots and know which way is up and which way is down.'
A disembodied sigh sounded around them, hopefully Lord Starhome finding his full cognitive abilities coming back to him.
'Are you recovered from the effects of the weapon?' asked Molly.
'Weapon?' said Lord Starhome, impatiently. 'An ineffective sort of weapon I would say.'
Molly rubbed the back of her bruised head. 'Not from where I'm standing. How far to Kaliban now?'
'I'm having to regrow most of my sensors,' said Lord Starhome. 'But let me see, I can still feel the unpleasant tug of gravity and – yes, we're almost upon the ugly red-looking place. Even more disagreeable than that water-soaked rock of yours where my magnificent form was trapped for millennia.'
'Then we shall land outside the face of Kaliban,' said Molly, 'and hope that we didn't set off any alarms by breaching the Army of Shadows' shield.'
'Land?' said Lord Starhome. 'I don't think I care to.'
'You don't care to…' Keyspierre's daughter drew a knife from her boot and threatened the ship's exposed console. 'You have your duty, compatriot, by alliance with the Commonshare.'
Lord Starhome's laugh echoed around them. 'Please, little ground hugger, please don't scratch me with your eight inches of sharpened steel. You might take some of the burnish off my hull.'
Molly brandished the control ring on her hand – and noticed that it was glowing a sickly yellow. 'By the loyalty you owe to King Steam, I command you.'
'My apologies,' the eerie, disembodied voice took on a dark tone. 'I don't really do landings. I spent far too many aeons interred under the surface of your disgusting dirtball to want to exchange my freedom for a similarly tedious experience beneath the sands of that sucked-out husk whose orbit we're coming into.'
'My people rebuilt you,' pleaded Coppertracks.
'Oh, but I have been rebuilding myself since we launched,' said Lord Starhome. 'Particle by particle, and doing a far superior job of it. There's very little of your people's art left within me now.'
Molly's control ring was giving up the ghost, smoking hot, too little left that was steamman for it to re-establish its hold. 'You shall land where I order you!'
'Oh, I think we can both get what we desire,' said Lord Starhome.
Coppertracks vanished in front of Molly as a hole opened up in the deck beneath his treads; Commodore Black, Keyspierre and the others yelled in alarm as similar apertures swallowed them up.
'Well, mainly me, actually. Out with the old…'
Molly tried to lunge towards the exposed control panel, but she was too slow, an opening taking her feet away from her. She found herself flying along a tunnel, squeezed by the living metal of the craft like a throat about to gob out a fruit pip. Out into the infinite night.
It was cold on the heath. Oliver watched Purity shiver as she was exposed to the chill autumn winds, the grass and bracken crunching underfoot as the evening formed a frost. He was used to the cold, though. There was always a chill at night. Where there were trees around them, they were losing their leaves, tinged as red as the baleful moon squatting unnaturally in their sky. Purity had fallen silent. Was she thinking about where he was leading her? And then Oliver saw it – the heath dipping in front of them before rising into a slope. A slope crested by a stone circle.
There were similar artefacts scattered all across the Kingdom of Jackals: burial circles, circles of astronomy, circles of power where the leylines crossed and intersected. Many were treated with reverence by the order of worldsingers, those that called themselves sorcerers, but surely not this one – so far away from the industry and homes of the race of man. This isolated, wind-blighted heathland that had grown out of the forest's borders and never seemed to end.
'There's nothing here, just a circle of standing stones,' said Purity.
'Nothing but the land,' Oliver told her.
Purity flashed him a look of concern – something in his voice seemed to be worrying her. Dejection? Acceptance? Relief? A dissonant blend of all of these? But then, she didn't know what he was going to have to do here. Even if he succeeded, things were unlikely to turn out well. Not for him, at any rate. And he probably wouldn't be doing Purity many favours either. Oliver led her across the grass, his riding cloak billowing in the breeze that whipped across the bleak open space. There was a mist rising out of the grass around his boots. A marsh mist. They slipped into the centre of the circle of stones, granite menhirs at least three times their height. There was a sense of stepping into another world up here, of isolation. Separation. One of the stone sentinels stood twice as tall as all the others, its shadow like the hand of a clock across the grass, descending over a menhir fallen in front of it – there to serve as an altar?
Oliver moved in front of the circle's tallest stone, letting the wind blow across his face. The night carried a scent that was not altogether pleasant: rich and boggy.
'What's that smell?' asked Purity.
Oliver pointed to the horizon. 'There's a marsh a mile ahead.'
'You sound pleased about that.'
'The marsh and a darkness over it. What more can a man ask for?' Oliver lifted the brace of pistols out from his belt and gave them a theatrical twirl. Showing off. Anything to distract him from the twinge of fear freezing his heart, the shadow of a dark foreboding.
'You look after yourself, Purity Drake,' said Oliver.
Purity took a step towards him, but the wind picked up suddenly and pushed her back. Oliver slammed the barrels of his pistols into the al
tar stone, a finger's width apart, planting them like saplings that might grow into oaks. He was kneeling down, head bowed before the rough-hewn rock.
'What-?'
‹He is the key,› whispered the ancient voice.
Beneath Oliver's boots the ground was trembling, the two pistols glowing brighter and brighter, cruel stars set upon the land. Oliver yelled and shut his eyes. This was it, then. Circle, he hadn't expected it to hurt quite as much as this. Changing and burning and changing and…
There was a rumbling under Purity's feet, then the pain of the intense light started to dwindle and she blinked tears out of her eyes, trying to focus on the spot where Oliver had been standing. He had vanished, completely disappeared, but the two pistols had been transformed into a sword: tall, silver and sheathed in marsh mist. A sword. Bleeding steam into the evening air, its blade sunk halfway into the fallen menhir.
'Oliver,' shouted Purity. 'Where are you?'
‹He is the key,› repeated the ancient voice.
'Please don't leave me, Oliver. Don't leave me here all alone, not like everyone else.'
‹He has been freed. The part of him that is fey has passed to the land of the fast folk, far beyond the feymist curtain.›
'Oliver…'
‹The part of him that was of this land stands before you still. He abides within the blade.›
'He's not a sword,' said Purity. 'He's a man. And he's more than those two cursed pistols he carries. What kind of queen are you, what kind of creature, to do this to him?'
‹The kind that has passed into the land. My blood has become the streams that run down from the mountains. My flesh is the soil that lifts up each summer's harvest to your people. Pick up the sword, Purity Drake, see if my blade speaks to you.›
Purity stood before the blade, the true edge of the sword captured by the rock, its hilt protected by a basket – a guard shaped as the face of a lion. The blade sang through her, wind blowing over its edge and splitting along the basket, whistling out of the lion's sculpted metal teeth along the buckler. 'The sword's caught inside the rock.'
‹A queen with my blood was destined to carry this weapon.›
'I am all that's left of my line. The last of my house.'
‹Then you must believe in yourself. This is an old test, as ancient as the bones of my land. Take the grip of the sword and set it free of the rock.›
Purity's hand reached out, feeling the wind funnelled through the guard, as if the lion of Jackals was blowing onto her fingers. She hesitated, her hand wavering above the sword's pommel. 'It's not just Oliver inside the sword, I can feel something else. More than the land, more than you…'
‹The blade contains a little of the essence of the god-machine. It is the power to split worlds.›
Purity shivered. A little of its essence. Now it had been revealed to her, she could feel a similar energy humming in each of the stones circling her. The rest of the power was stored, but stored for what purpose? 'The Hexmachina. Oh, Molly. Why did you have to go to Kaliban without me? This is your legacy, not mine.'
‹No. Molly Templar serves as a symbiote for the god-machine. Like Oliver, she could join with the blade, but she could never carry it. That is your heritage, Purity. Do not hesitate, do not show fear. This is your blade and your destiny alone.›
Purity bit her lip and reached out to wrap her fingers around the grip, a spark of fire leaping out between its crosspiece and her skin, burning, but burning with a fiery cold. The sword slipped out of the fallen menhir with a rasping song of stone, as if its granite had been shaped to be the blade's sheath, the long silver length of the blade so thin and light the metal might have been folded with air.
She had it! Purity gazed at the blade in wonder. 'The sword hardly weighs a thing.'
‹So, a queen after all. Like so many things, the weight of the blade is felt in other ways. By the deeds you will be called towards. Now, strike the tallest stone and strike it well.›
Purity clutched the grip harder, strange symbols flowing down the metal like light on the waters' edge as she did so. 'The sword will shatter against the stone. I broke one of Jared's practice blades on much less than that.'
‹The one who carries it may shatter, but never the blade. It is no mortal sword. It is the last hope of Jackals wielded by the last true queen of this land. Its power is as limitless as your belief in yourself. Now, bow to the stone in front of you and strike it with all of your will.›
Purity spun the blade twice in slow windmill turns, then lashed out at the menhir. At first, just for a second, Purity thought she had missed it, though the Circle knows how she could have done so at such a short distance. No impact, or clatter of steel on rock. Then Purity realized she had not missed her target. The top half of the menhir was sliding down the slope she had carved through it, tumbling to the side with a heavy rumble. As the stone fell away, a volcano fire lifted out of the section still resting on the grass, leaping from rock to rock until the circle of stones was a carousel of flames and light. It was being discharged, all the power of the god-machine. The space between each menhir had become a gate of energy, crackling and shimmering in the cold air and filling the hilltop with a fire-grate warmth. Figures began to step from out of the gates, silhouetted against the burning energy behind them for a moment before it winked out of existence.
‹Hail,› said the voice inside Purity's head. ‹Hail, the Bandits of the Marsh.›
Bandits? Purity glanced around the darkening circle. A handful of figures. Four of them. Three men and one woman. The legends of Elizica of the Jackeni from Coppetracks' books came back to her. Two hundred warriors who had fought to free the land from the invaders from the sea. A sword-saint to lead them. 'Aren't you about one hundred and ninety-six bandits shy?'
‹The sword is only as powerful as your belief, Purity Drake. You should have believed more.›
One of the figures was wearing an archaic metal breastplate with a high steel collar, his hair shorn brutally short like that of a Circlist monk. 'This is the queen? She is but a girl, a shoeless child.'
'We have slept an age,' said the oldest of the bandits, scratching at a scruffy silver beard. 'Under the hills and far away. Would you know her better if she carried a trident, Samuel? Only those with the true blood of Elizica running through their veins may summon us.'
'How much royal blood flows through her flesh, old man? There are only four of us here. Where are all the others?'
'Show some manners,' commanded old Silver-beard.
'Have the gill-necks returned from the ocean?' the monk-like bandit asked of Purity, obviously trying not to snarl out the words.
'No. We face a different invader,' said Purity. 'We've been at peace with the underwater kingdoms for as long as I can remember.'
And she was meant to save Jackals with these four strange-looking anachronisms? Wearing dark marshmen's leathers studded with iron pins. Even two hundred bandits couldn't be considered an army – what could she do with this motley group? Offer to field a damn game of four-poles? Purity sighed. 'The ones attacking us are called the Army of Shadows and they have legions of slave soldiers called slats fighting for them.'
'The enemy always has legions, that is what makes them worth fighting. I am Ganby Meridian,' said the old fellow with the silver beard. 'My three companions here are Jenny Blow, Samuel Lancemaster-' he pointed to the tall, monk-like figure, then indicated the rangy black-faced bandit standing by their side '-and this taciturn fellow is Jackaby Mention. You speak very strange Jackelian, lady. We must have slept longer than we expected. How are you known among your people?'
'Just Purity, Purity Drake. You are truly the Bandits of the Marsh?'
'These three are bandits,' said Ganby Meridian. 'I myself am not fey, although I found myself attached to their outlaw ranks by curious happenstance, being of the noble order of druids before circumstances drove me into the margins of the marsh waters.'
The sole woman in the group sniffed the air. 'It wasn't circums
tances; it was a baying mob of your own people, old man. This Army of Shadows, young shoeless queen, do they smell like damp rodent fur, no, like bats…?' 'They don't smell of anything,' said Purity.
'Jenny Blow is never wrong,' noted the bandit Samuel Lancemaster. He pointed outside the stone circle down towards the bottom of the slope. 'Her nose knows.'
Purity saw them. Black shapes, a hunting pack of slats, clicking with their rattlesnake throats and surrounding the base of the hill below. There were dozens of the horrors down there and it had taken all of her friends to slay a small handful of slats back in Tock House. The memory of Kyorin dying in her arms leapt back at her. She and the Bandits of the Marsh were about to discover the difference between the Army of Shadows and the invaders from the sea they had once fought, to experience it very directly indeed.
The old man who claimed to have been a druid appeared frozen in terror at the sight of the slats. 'Always are we outnumbered!' The tall one, Samuel Lancemaster, removed a knuckle-duster-like device from his armour and it extended into a full-sized spear at his touch. The other two bandits seemed content to move by his side, unarmed, while the druid overcame his terror enough to cower behind the hastily formed line.
'But rarely are we outclassed,' Samuel shouted down to the enemy.
‹Your sword,› the voice whispered to Purity. ‹Raise the blade in front of you.›
Death came up the hill at them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Molly had expected to tumble into the airless certainty of an icy death out in the celestial darks, but instead she found herself colliding with Commodore Black inside the storage chamber at the aft of Lord Starhome.
'This is disgraceful behaviour,' called Coppertracks, his sole drone hanging onto his master's tracks as the treads rotated uselessly in zero gravity. 'You owe your existence on the great pattern to King Steam.'
