Stephen Hunt - The rise of the Iron Moon

Gravity was gradually being restored by their proximity to Kaliban, the supplies and members of the expedition attracted to the hull. The very hot hull, getting hotter with each second.

'You need to assume a shape that will shed heat, young knight of the steammen,' announced Coppertracks. 'And a shape that will brake our descent. Otherwise the friction of entering Kaliban's atmosphere will incinerate us all.'

'Are you my papa?' asked the craft. 'Some of my organs appear to match the pattern of your frame.'

'A brother, perhaps,' said Coppertracks. 'Of the race of the metal. Your older, wiser brother.' He seemed pleased with that idea.

'What is my name, brother? My designation?'

'For the love of the Circle, steamman,' shouted Lord Rooksby. 'Forget about your cursed name. My boots' soles are steaming. You must grow wings, fly!'

'Nonsense,' argued Keyspierre, being steadied by his daughter as the craft bounced under their feet. 'A shell, compatriot craft, form yourself into a cannon shell. That is the best shape to assume.'

'Use your shields,' ordered Molly. 'That was how your mother survived her crash in the mountains of Mechancia.' Shelter next to the skin of a sun, indeed. Time to put the craft's boasts to the test.

'Yes,' said the young voice. 'That's an idea. I can grow those, I know how.'

Molly nodded in desperation. 'Good girl. Grow your shields now.'

'No, not grow shields, shields need to be projected out,' replied the voice. 'I mean grow a shield generator inside my body. I can start to gestate the seed of one within a week.'

Commodore Black groaned. 'Ah well, lass, it was a mortal fine try.' He spat on the porthole and watched his spittle crackle into steam. 'It's blessed unlucky to be falling to our deaths on any ship without a name, so I'll give you a name, you silver-skinned beauty, if you could but see us safe to Kaliban's hateful sands below. I baptize you the Sprite, the Sprite of the Stars.'

'Really now, that is no name for one of the people of the metal,' protested Coppertracks, holding onto his drone body as the newly born ship jounced in the turbulence. 'You shall be called Lady Starsprite. For this craft is still a daughter of the Free State and a champion of the Chamber of Swords.'

Around them the hull started contracting, assuming a pear shape, concentrating mass under their feet at the base of the teardrop. Was this a better shape than a sphere for diving down onto Kaliban? Molly felt a nudge from Duncan Connor.

'Even if we can save ourselves from a cooking in this oven, we're going to be killed by the impact of landing,' whispered the ex-soldier. He was clutching his travel case like a talisman. 'But we can use yon steammen portal to escape. A minute open would be long enough for us all to jump through.'

Molly tried to ignore the climbing heat and think clearly. Abandon the mission? Come so far, risk so much, only to flee back home at the last moment. But what use staying if they all died?

'Aye, I know, it sits bad with me too,' added Duncan. 'But this young foal has no shielding. So high up, we are going to be murdered in our breeks trying to get down to the ground.'

With a tremendous slam, a pocket of atmospheric turbulence spilled Molly onto the floor. She looked out of the window. All she could see was a line of fire fleeting up towards the black edge of space. It would be so easy. Step through the steammen's strange looking-glass gate. Save their lives. Keep them all alive: alive for as long as it took the Kingdom of Jackals and all the nations of the continent to fall to the Army of Shadows.

A hundred thousand miles away, the craft that had once been known as Lord Starhome folded space around her hull, squeezing the universe harder and harder and building up an impressive head of speed. Free, so gloriously free at last. Her sensors were almost fully regrown, a little dive through an asteroid belt having added enough matter to more than make up for the damage she had suffered helping those ingrate little ground huggers on their foolish mission.

She rotated her newly formed sensor array to capture an image of the starfields hanging densely around her, little twinkling motes of gravity from the nuclear furnaces that burned so distantly. Where to go, what to do? So many choices. So many wonders of creation to explore, far from this dreary little solar system where the fickle hand of fate had chosen to maroon her for an interminable age. Time to feed the surrounding constellations' patterns into her systems, compare them to the master maps she held deep within her, take a bearing, and get on with the rest of her sublime existence.

It took an hour of frantic diagnostic checks for her regrown sensor systems to realize that something was very wrong. But not with her sensors. With the universe around her.

How strange it was to be attacked by these invaders, the slats loping up the hill like killer apes, terrible eyeless faces marking Purity and the Bandits of the Marsh's positions with their chattering throats. The slat horde hurled themselves up the slope towards the circle of standing stones with an animal-like tempo, but some of them were carrying rifles, flinging burning bolts of energy towards them rather than bullets. It was as if they were being attacked by a pack of ravening wolves who had only discovered sentience a couple of minutes earlier: which was no less odd than the style in which they were received at the crest of the slope.

Purity brushed the bolts of fire aside with her blade, turning them on its mirrored surface, as light as air in her hands, using it as instinctively as breathing. There was something reassuring about its unearthly heft. Only when the slats had closed with them outside the stone circle did Purity realize what it was – holding the blade was like holding Oliver's hand. He had become the blade itself and if he had once been a shade of death stalking across the land, in her hands the sword felt as if it was capable of so much more.

Samuel Lancemaster leapt forward by her side with a roar and headbutted one of the attacking slats, twisting his spear as if his weapon was the sail of a windmill. It was then she saw why Jenny Blow and Jackaby Mention hadn't bothered to produce weapons when the slats had surrounded them. Jenny Blow opened her mouth and started projecting a banshee scream, the force of it cracking into the slimy black chitin- like chests of the attacking slats, hammering them off their clawed feet. In amongst their ranks Jackaby Mention ran at a speed so fast he had turned to a blur, only briefly visible in the seconds between slowing down to kick and strike at the slavering slave soldiers.

Whatever the slats had been expecting to face on top of the hill, it wasn't this! Also lost to sight was the long-in-the-tooth druid – but then Purity located him, the old fox trying to hide behind the stones in the centre of the circle – stumbling and cursing as the slats came at him, his fighting style a curious mix of retreating and simultaneously turning to fling the sorceries of the worldsong at his pursuers. His silver hair tossed flaring under the night sky as wild sparks of wizardry hissed and recoiled around the inside of the stone circle. It was like watching a drunken pugilist weaving among a gang of toughs, landing blows and avoiding their flashing fists by his chance, clumsy stumbles. Except these fists had talons attached to the fingers, one of the clawed hands lashing past Purity's face as she weaved back herself. ‹Poison,› the sword seemed to whisper to her, the organic compound of the corrosive secretion flashing through her mind. She could understand it, see how to render the posion benign inside her blood if she was clawed. What in the name of the Circle was this blade of hers, how much was it capable of?