Stephen Hunt - The rise of the Iron Moon

The ex-soldier drove a foot down into the creature's knee, ducking under its sweeping claws and seized the beast from behind. There was a quick flash of glass as Duncan slashed the creature's throat. The beast stumbled forward, the sudden fountain of blood slowing almost immediately as it congealed rock-hard. But whether it was healed enough to resume its attack was left to conjecture as Commodore Black kicked open the bedroom door.

'Hello, my bucko.'

The multi-barrelled deck-sweeper that had once graced the conning tower of the commodore's u-boat jolted with an eruption like a cannon and the creature was shredded and thrown across the room, flailing onto Molly's bed. The beast tried to move, spitting out a few guttural words in a language Molly didn't recognize – but then the words' meaning formed in her mind like an echo of the alien tongue. It was counting, reeling off a line of numbers before growing still. How could she possibly understand what this terrible creature was saying, and what did the sequence of numbers mean?

'That's a blessed ugly thing you've let into the house to disturb my sleep this night, Molly Templar.'

Molly waved her diminutive purse pistol at the commodore by way of thanks and looked over at Kyorin, his body half-concealed by the kneeling form of his ragamuffin companion. Tiny sparks of the vision from Molly's joining with the foreigner flickered in her mind as she bent down beside them both.

'Please,' Purity begged, tugging at Kyorin's sleeves. 'Don't leave me. You'll be fine, you'll see.'

Molly ran a hand along the claw gashes marking Kyorin's chest. It was a miracle he was breathing at all.

'I should have been able to save him,' cried Purity. 'I killed a political officer when I didn't even mean to. So why couldn't I save him from the slat when it smashed the window?'

Slat? An ugly name for equally ugly creatures. 'You tried,' said Molly. 'But that thing on my bed isn't from the race of man. If it weren't for my two friends here, everyone in the house would be dead right now.'

Kyorin's eyes flickered open, glancing at Purity then sliding over towards Molly. Kyorin and Molly exchanged a glance – both of them knew he wasn't going to make it.

'You – must – travel to meet – the – great sage.'

'Your home,' said Molly. 'You mean Kaliban, don't you?'

'Our joining – has – left – a mark on you. My brothers – and – sisters – will know you – now.'

'Sweet Circle, fellow, I only write about travelling to the moon. I don't actually own any airship that's capable of making the flight!'

Kyorin coughed out a stream of green blood from his mouth as he forced a smile. 'You can't travel – to – Kaliban by dirigible. There – is only – one who – can help – you get there. He is – a – prisoner of – your – watchers in the air.'

The commodore shouldered the weight of his monstrously large gun. 'Ah, no. You don't mean who I think, do you? You can't ask Molly to trust those rascals in the Court of the Air.'

'Yes – your – Court. The man is – called – Timlar Preston.'

Kyorin's back arched as his body began to convulse from the damage done to him.

'Kyorin,' Purity sobbed. 'Use your power, use it to heal your body.'

'I have no – power. Only – what I borrow – from your land. Home is – so far – away.' Kyorin groaned as the pain grew too much, clutching the arms of the two women by his side. 'The – face. The face. Set my – people free.'

'What face?' Molly asked.

Kyorin's hand stretched out to feel the tears rolling down the ragamuffin's cheeks. 'Purity – Drake.' The air expelled from Kyorin's lungs.

Kyorin's arm slumped down and he moved no more.

By the door Duncan Connor twisted the dial for the bedroom's gas lamps, bright yellow light flickering into life and casting the two corpses into sharp relief. 'Aye, and I used to believe garrison duty along the southern frontier was dangerous.'

Molly closed the traveller's eyelids with her hand and as she drew it back she saw the pink dye staining her fingers. Reaching into her nightdress she withdrew a tissue and rubbed at Kyorin's face, revealing his real blue skin underneath the paint – as bright as the cobalt waves of a cove. 'Good grief, he's blue! A blue man.'

'Aye, he's painted his skin to be able to walk among us,' said Duncan. 'He would have caused quite a stir if he hadn't.'

'I never knew,' said Purity. 'All this time with him and I never knew.'

'Come on now, lass,' said the commodore, moving Purity's shocked form away from the corpse. 'It's no good you crying here. Your friend has moved along the Circle and that's the way of it.' Commodore Black choked back his surprise as he had a good look at the ragamuffin for the first time in the gaslight and saw her pinny with the golden crown so obviously ripped from it. Two royalists hiding under Tock House's roof now, then, the commodore and Purity both, and a monster lying dead in Molly's bed. Molly had experienced better nights. They all had.

A voice called up from the small quadrangle at the centre of Tock House. Molly carefully poked her head out of the broken window. Coppertracks stood surrounded by mu-bodies, his diminutive drones clutching everything from pitchforks to a blunderbuss. They were prodding at the dead bodies of two more slats; brothers to the beast lying blasted apart in her room.

'I have never seen such a strange-looking creature,' the steamman's voicebox carried up at its maximum volume. 'Molly softbody, are you and the others safe?'

'Quite,' answered Molly. 'Come on up, old steamer. Those things down there look dead enough and we could do with your help in here. And you-' she turned from the window and announced to the air '-you took your damn time getting here.'

A figure stepped out of the shadows behind her four-poster bed. 'Please, there were two of them and they took a lot of killing.'

'According to the penny dreadfuls, the Hood-o'the-marsh has had a lot of practice recently.'

'Few who didn't deserve it,' said Oliver Brooks. The two guns at his side flashed their approval with a wicked patina.

'Oh, this is a bad turn,' said the commodore. 'We're in the eye of the storm, now, if you've come back to us, lad.'

'Not in the eye yet,' said Oliver. 'The storm is sweeping towards us from the north this time. I'll take that as a thank you for killing those two monsters outside.' He pointed to Kyorin's corpse. 'Was your blue-skinned friend really serious about Kaliban? And what did he mean when he said the face?'

'He was serious enough to give his life bringing us the warning. And he was talking about his face,' said Molly. 'Or one very like it. How about it, Jared, you helped me and Coppertracks present to the Royal Society, doesn't his face look familiar to you? Think about the slides…'

Commodore Black sucked in his breath. 'You're right, lass. No wonder his mug looks familiar. His face is the face on Kaliban, the mortal great carving from the observatory slides.'

'You wanted to know who on Kaliban was signalling to Coppertracks,' said Molly. 'The message in a bottle we heard. It was Kyorin's people. I think they're slaves, a subject race, and their masters are the ones toppling Catosian city-states and taking over Quatershift.'

'Kaliban!' said Duncan Connor, the meaning of Molly's words finally dawning on him. 'You're saying yon fellow and his ugly kelpie both travelled here from another celestial sphere? Surely this is whimsy?'

'You served in the New Pattern Army,' said Molly. 'Have you ever heard of a horde of polar barbarians capable of overrunning a Catosian force defending their own gates?'

Duncan sighed. 'No. If it weren't for the Royal Aerostatical Navy protecting us, we'd probably be a member of the Catosian League ourselves. There is no lord of the north with barbarians enough to storm one of the league's fortress cities.'