Stephen Hunt - The rise of the Iron Moon

Molly climbed across the turntable, ducking under the nose of one of the reserve shells. 'Help you…?'

'Coppertracks is inside, he is going to use the keen eyes of his shiny celestial boat to track how high we shall shoot today.'

'I am not his boat,' said Lord Starhome, tetchily. 'I have agreed to cooperate in this endeavour out of my steadily stretched good graces, that and the increasingly slim hope that this primitive explosive slingshot you have constructed will be able to restore me to my natural environment.'

'Let's not keep you waiting any longer, then, my lord,' snapped Molly, slipping the control ring Hardarms had given her over her finger and pressing it against Lord Starhome's cold, slippery hull. 'Recognize operator function.'

'If I must,' sighed Lord Starhome.

'Lass,' said Commodore Black as Molly swung through the opening. 'What are you about?'

Molly glanced back outside the ship for a second, alerted by shouting. Redcoats were moving through the crowds below, burly-looking provosts; she knew exactly who they were coming to arrest.

'I'm going to save the kingdom, Jared. Every thick-witted guardian in parliament, every useless civil servant working in Greenhall, and every treacherous thinker in the Royal Society.' Molly turned to Duncan Connor and Coppertracks. 'Get off.'

'Molly softbody, my monitoring apparatus has been fitted into Lord Starhome, I cannot simply-'

But Molly manoeuvred around the supplies stacked in the back of the ship, slipping into the cockpit at the front. 'Seal the bridge off.'

At her command the walls of the ship flowed like quicksilver, separating her from Coppertracks, Commodore Black and Duncan Connor.

'Please lass,' the commodore's voice sounded from behind the wall. 'You're not ready to cast off now…'

'They've left me with no choice. They're planning to snatch the expedition from under me and give it to that blackheart Rooksby.'

'Let him have it then,' cried the commodore. 'Let it be his wicked bones that are left strewn across the angry sands of blessed Kaliban.'

'If we don't stop the Army of Shadows, it'll be the Kingdom of Jackals that ends up as a desert. Get off, now, all of you.'

'Please…'

'Can you load yourself into the cannon?' Molly asked Lord Starhome.

'I'm held by the turntable's clamps,' said Lord Starhome. 'But I have a magnificent communications array that includes a light transmission mechanism that would serve to burn them off.'

'Do it!'

'An official order to launch? Your whim is my command.'

Molly could hear banging on the other side of the wall and Coppertracks' voice pleading to no avail with the half-steamman craft, when a hiss of melting metal sounded from outside.

'I'm the only one that understands,' said Molly. 'Kyorin showed me, not them. I have to do this.'

'I really don't care,' announced Lord Starhome in a detached manner. 'If it means I am free again, oh by the light of my creators, yes. To be free of this place and able to chart my own course again. Nearly there. I've melted the port clamp away, time for my starboard chains to go.'

'Jump out,' Molly yelled back towards the wall. 'Unless you're planning to come to Kaliban with me, you all need to abandon ship now.'

'You foolish woman,' a muffled voice shouted back at her, in an arrogant tone that she recognized from far too many tedious meetings at the camp. Lord Rooksby.

'We are days from being ready for anything but a practice firing,' called another voice in a Quatershiftian accent – Keyspierre. They were arguing loudly with Molly's friends in the back of the craft. She could hear the shifties' daughter shouting for cutting tools to be brought on board.

'You're the fool, Rooksby, to think you could steal this cannon from right under my nose with parliament's blessing.'

'You may be inside there, compatriot,' called Keyspierre through the wall, 'but the cannon firing mechanism is outside on the cannon and controlled by us. You can stay loaded in the breech until thirst and hunger bring you to your senses.'

'Show me what is happening outside,' Molly ordered. 'Is he right?'

Lord Starhome turned the front of his nose transparent, revealing dozens of engineers and soldiers abandoning their posts, even a couple of Coppertracks' mu-bodies, all of them running towards the turntable. 'Correct enough in the literal sense of his words. Are you ordering me to assist you in firing the cannon?'

'You know the answer to that, ship.'

'I shall take your answer in the affirmative, little ground hugger, and allow you to correct me if I have grasped the wrong end of the stick.'

There was a keening protest on the other side of the bulkhead from Coppertracks' voicebox. It sounded as though the steamman had fainted.

'He's not the only one who can spread his consciousness among drones,' said Lord Starhome, pleased with himself. 'Quite acceptable. And the drones are not even mine.'

Outside, the mu-bodies the ship had possessed were running for the fuse station at the centre of the iron spiral. On the other side of Molly's impromptu bulkhead the banging had grown ferocious.

'Last chance to get off,' yelled Molly, 'or-'

She stopped as the sky above the camouflage netting grew dark, rolling scuds of an unnatural crimson storm front advancing at an accelerated pace.

The Army of Shadows had arrived at Mount Highhorn.

Purity sensed the wrongness in the sky even before the soldiers' shouts sounded the alarm; an instinct gifted to her by that ancient queen from Jackals' past. She was outside the firing station and heading for Lord Starhome when she looked up; a cloud of darting sail riders riding the ruby storm front in, hundreds of black triangles beginning to peel off and fill the air above – slats whistling over the tree line. Her hand fled to her belt, but she was weaponless. All the sabres and guns she had practised with were in a chest under the commodore's cot. She made to run back towards the barracks, but the sudden jostle of soldiers and navvies – either running to their stations or running out of harm's way – pushed her back.

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.