Trent Jamieson - Night's engines

He took one last bite and walked from the cold room, shutting the door behind him. His stomach rumbled, he chose the biggest cleaver he could find, and a bag of salt, and walked back through the window, almost forgetting to wipe the smear of blood from his lips. His teeth were red with it.

“Sorry, it took me a while.”

Before Margaret could say a word, he severed the head from the neck, swinging down in a single swift movement, utterly definitive. “We can’t do it here, of course. But this should serve for now.”

He lifted the head by the hair. It was surprisingly light.

He grabbed one of the shuddering feet, and began to drag it down the street. “Now, if you could just grab a foot.”

Lightning cracked, like a skull hitting stone, and it started to rain. David turned to Margaret. “Just like home,” he said.

His side ached. He reached down, fingers finding the source of the pain, and pulled. The piece of glass that came free was almost the length of his forearm. “Not so good,” he said. Something squelched and he realised that his boots were full of blood.

He felt light-headed, but still he dragged the corpse behind him. Then he realised that perhaps that wasn’t the wisest way to be hefting around a body. There was a wooden box nearby; he dragged it over to them. It was covered in web, which he methodically removed, pinching several spiders to their deaths.

He didn't like spiders. He'd once seen a man eaten by them.

David swung the blade with a precision and a brutality that just a few weeks ago, Margaret would not have believed him capable of. She didn’t know whether to be impressed or concerned. He carefully dumped the remains in a box.

“We have to take this somewhere and burn it,” he said.

“Why not here?”

“People are coming,” David said.

“I can't hear anything.”

“Trust me.”

He hefted the box up. Margaret grabbed the other end.

Twice the box had twitched in their grip; the first time Margaret dropped it, glancing furiously back at David. “Did you feel that?”

David nodded “I was expecting it,” he said. “Don’t be surprised. It’s quite normal.”

As though anything were normal, he thought.

She seemed ready for it the next time. Didn’t even flinch. They found cover — behind old boxes from Chapman that smelt of rot and the sea — in an alleyway, the closest most deserted place they could find, and put the box down.

Margaret used a few drops of the endothermic chemicals from her shells. As an accelerant it worked well, though Cadell’s flesh burned far easier then, giving off a peculiar cool heat. The smoke was thin and oily, and quick to drown in the rain.

David stuck a toe in the ashes, then dumped a bag of salt over them. Surely nothing could have come back from that anyway, but it didn’t hurt to make sure.

“One Old Man dealt with,” he said without much satisfaction. “Only seven more to go.”

“You still think they’re hunting you?”

“Yes, I can feel it in my bones. And when I sleep.” His voice lowered, though there was no one there to hear it but her, “And they're getting closer.”

THE CITY OF DRIFT 1200 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL

There was a crystal glass of good Drift rum before her, untouched. Kara didn’t feel like drinking. Actually, she did (and a serious sort of drunk), but here and now it wouldn’t help. In fact, it might serve to dig her deeper into trouble. Mother Graine’s breath, though, smelt as though she had no such concerns.

One is not often summoned to an audience with a Mother of Sky, and this was Kara’s third summoning. She did not enjoy it — in all honesty it terrified her — the Mothers of the Sky were meant to command from a distance, this was too personal. Better to be pounced upon by Mother Graine than to come to her chambers anticipating it. And yet here she was again, in the chamber of Mother Graine, with two guards standing outside, both armed with almost as much weaponry as mad Margaret Penn.

There were things that Kara wanted to ask, but knew she couldn’t. Where were the other Mothers? They’d not been seen for nearly a month, and normally they would have patrolled the city’s outer walls, a stern eye cast to the air. There were rumours of a sickness, something that had passed through the Mothers, and left Mother Graine whole. But Kara could not imagine something that might sicken a creature so powerful as Mother Graine and her kin. Death was something that happened to other people.

“How can you be sure he’ll come?” Mother Graine asked, and it wasn’t the first time. Kara had to struggle not to roll her eyes, despite her fear.

“He’ll come because he’s an honourable man,” Kara Jade said, tapping a finger against another. “And he’ll come because he owes me. He’d be dead but for me and the Dawn.” And that name caught in her throat, as much as she tried for casual, it just caught. “If we hadn’t gotten him, gotten them, out of Chapman, they'd all be rotting there. David isn’t one to forget something like that.”

And, she thought, he’ll come because he’s read the double meaning in my letter. Something so obvious that even David couldn’t miss it.

“You’re saying he’s gullible?”

“I’m saying he’ll come. What happens afterwards… you didn’t see what I saw.” Now, she did pick up that glass, and take a quick gulp, it really was good stuff, it warmed rather than burnt.

“Believe me, I am aware of the kind of… power he holds. David is a new Old Man, there’s potency in that youth that will keep building for many months yet. He is dangerous, but we can contain him.”

Kara put down her glass, half empty. “He tore three of those iron ships out of the sky, and scattered their contents across the ground as if they were nothing but toys.”

Mother Graine leaned towards her. The hair on the back of Kara’s neck stood up; she couldn’t help it, she leant back a little. “Does he frighten you?”

Kara wasn't stupid. What she was really asking was: Does he frighten you as much as I do?

“No… yes… I don’t know. He’s just a boy, well, he was. I don’t know what he woke to, after that great bloody rending of the sky. Maybe he’s a monster now, but I doubt it, he's still a boy.”

Mother Graine sighed. “He is an anomaly, and an aberration, so many wrongs bound in the flesh of one man. And you must remember he was also an addict.”

“He never tried to hide that.”

Mother Grain’s brow furrowed. “Do not confuse candour with truth,” she said, almost gently. “It's an addict’s strategy. They are not to be trusted.”

Kara grimaced. “And what does that make you? Isn’t the sky your addiction?”

Mother Graine shook her head. “It is my comfort, it is the presence eternal or near enough. And it would be all for me, if I could believe in one thing. But I do not.”

“What is it that you believe?”

“We’re all heading towards a doom that only I can stop.” She gestured at the glass. “Now, finish your drink.”

And Kara Jade did. You can only say no to a Mother of the Sky so many times.