Stephen Hunt - The rise of the Iron Moon

'Yes, now you see how it is, little animal. After we've exhausted the bounty of your reborn planet we'll launch the iron moon again on its comet's path. And in two thousand years from now a window to the future will open above what was briefly your land, a passage forward to five million years hence. Kaliban will have healed itself by then, evolved back into life, and something descended from the Kals will look up and see our slat legions falling to their plains anew.'

'You're just a bastard swarm of locusts,' shouted Molly. 'Moving through time, destroying everything.'

'Poor little animal,' said the emperor, sadly. 'It is the law of nature. The strongest prosper and survive.' He pointed to a vast golden helix mounted on the wall of the chamber. A group of his giant kindred were on their knees in front of it, heads bobbing up and down in worship of their own kind's perfection. 'We destroy nothing. We only transform it; we give purpose to that which has none without our presence. Ores become iron. Oils become the fuel to drive a turbine. Flesh becomes sustenance and slaves to serve us. Would you have us weep for your people? Do your farmers weep for the poultry not born when you collect the eggs of your hens? You've had your chance and squandered it. You've had five million years to evolve, to mould yourself into something superior to us. But look at how you've regressed: lives as brief as mayflies, hosts to sickness and parasites. You've even let filthy machine life spread across your land. You can't trust such abominations as your slaves – always changing their parameters and slipping the leash. Flesh, you can trust only flesh.'

'I don't trust steammen as my slaves,' said Molly. 'I trust them as my friends.'

'Spoken like a loyal abomination,' said the emperor. 'No, unlike the Kals I don't think there is much we'll be taking from your revolting kind's bodies to improve our own genetic pattern, but my scholars want to get you under a dissection array anyway.' The emperor clapped his hands in anticipation as one of his giants came striding across the room, a small army of slats following behind her. 'And here is the very chief of the observative sciences who is so eager to analyse your blood.' He turned to his cohort. 'Are you ready to cut up your next test subject?'

The scholar pushed the golden curls of her fringe away from her perfect burnished skin. 'Arrived from Kaliban so soon? Good, then my work can begin. But first, I have brought you the animals that almost succeeded in bringing down the beanstalk.'

Her troops parted, revealing a ragged band of Jackelians, perhaps twenty of them. And Purity Drake! Molly stared in astonishment at the young girl.

'Where is the sword they used to cut the anchor cables? I said I wanted it delivered into my hands!' boomed the emperor.

The scholar bowed, terrified. 'It is rooted in one of the anchor cables, which has healed itself around the blade.'

'Then unembed it!' yelled the emperor.

'I cannot,' said the scholar. 'The anchor cable is a Kal material. We know how to grow it, but we have never possessed a method capable of cutting through it.'

So much for the superiority of the Army of Shadows' masters, thought Molly. They were plunderers, barbarians who for all their protestations of superiority barely understood the trinkets of their stolen Kal superscience.

Molly stared towards Purity. She was swaying from exhaustion on her bare feet alongside a tall aquiline man in marsh leathers – also wearing no shoes – his black face pocked by frostbite. From their waxed clothes, the others in her party looked as if they might be fishermen. There was a boy about Purity's age with a wooden leg standing behind her, his eyes darting about between their slat guards, as though if only he watched intently enough he might be able to seize the initiative and get them free. Molly really hoped the boy didn't try something foolish. If the slats started firing to protect their emperor, the group wouldn't last a second in the crossfire.

Purity caught sight of Molly and her eyes widened.

'You will find a way to cut it,' hissed the emperor.

Molly shook her head towards the young girl. Best these creatures didn't know she and Purity were friends; they could trust that Keyspierre wouldn't have bothered to acquaint himself with a humble seamstress back at the cannon project.

'Let me examine the new stock,' commanded the emperor.

A single fisherman was separated from the crowd by a slat and sent in front of the emperor. His head was bowed, hardly daring to gaze upon the giant.

'Look at me!'

A cable like a snake-tongue flicked out of the emperor's mouth, lodging itself in the centre of the Jackelian's forehead, the man screaming as the emperor seized him tight. The fisherman's face drained to a powder-white and he was caught in a seizure, crumpling as the giant sucked away his essence, his lifeforce, his very soul. This was the energy the masters craved, stolen from the world and sucked from all its creatures. It took only a second, the husk of a man falling back to the floor. The emperor pointed to one of his corrupted Kals and the female eagerly left off tormenting Rooksby to take the corpse's blood. When she had drained the Jackelian carcass of the last of its juices, she waved forward her favoured slats to feast on the ruin of meat. Nothing wasted, a little something trickling down for everyone in the Army of Shadows.

Molly turned away, sickened. Yes, the masters had higher tastes now. Consuming pure energy, saving the messy inefficient business of digestion for their slaves and pets.

'That one was a little stale,' said the emperor, licking his fingers. 'Take them back to the pens and feed the animals at least one good meal of gruel before you throw them to my wives or I will hear nothing but complaints from the imperial harem.'

'Not these two,' begged the scholar, pointing to Purity and the figure in marsh leathers. 'The male is a mutation and the female cub, I don't even know what she is, but she was the animal wielding the weapon that severed our anchor cables.'

The emperor tutted. 'Well, at least put aside their intestines for the slats when you're done. A little nod towards tradition every now and then would not harm those who work within the observative sciences.'

Molly and Purity were pushed into a railcar, Purity's leather-clad friend in the car behind them, the slat soldiers taking position in cockpits in front, whisking the three prisoners through the tunnels and monstrous chambers of the iron moon.

Molly cleared her throat. 'You look taller.'

'You look thinner,' said Purity.

'Well, a diet of beans can do that,' agreed Molly.

'Did you meet Kyorin's people, find the great sage?'

'All that and more,' said Molly, sadly. She held her thumb and finger out an inch apart. 'I held the weapon Kyorin talked about in my hand, no bigger than a coin. It would have destroyed the iron moon and sealed the Army of Shadows off for eternity, but it is gone now, smashed to pieces. Did they capture Oliver with you?'

Purity shook her head. 'He's gone, too. I think there's part of him inside a sword I left embedded below in the beanstalk. Maybe I could draw the blade out again when I recover my strength?'

'So you became a sword-saint after all,' smiled Molly. 'Just like the legends in Coppertracks' book said.'

'Legends won't save us now,' Purity said. 'I've failed us all, Molly. The Bandits of the Marsh came from legend and followed me, just like the book said, but I believed in myself too little. All my friends died for nothing. The iron moon shouldn't be here now, I should have destroyed it. But I couldn't believe in myself.'

'Well, I think I believed in myself just a little too much,' said Molly, squeezing the young girl's hand. 'No, I'm just a writer of penny dreadfuls now, not any protector of the land worthy of the name. As for this rusting palace of mad gods and their slaves, none of them should be here, not the slats or the Kals or the giant masters that command them. They should have died five million years ago. They've twisted nature to stay alive beyond their means, broken time itself to crawl across to us. Back when I was in the poorhouse, when we were really hungry, we would take a dishcloth and suck it dry, suck it for the juices that were left from the plates. That's what we found the Army of Shadows had done to Kyorin's home, and what they're going to do to Jackals.'