Stephen Hunt - The rise of the Iron Moon

Jackaby barked in surprise as the first figures began to emerge from the gate. 'Jed Highaxe, Vela Hisstongue, Burnhand Luke!'

They came. Over a hundred and ninety Bandits of the Marsh, dipping their heads to Purity, recognizing their queen as she recognized them. A sea of spears, tridents, swords, armour and mist-twisted flesh. She knew them this time. The worst of the Kingdom of Jackals and the best of the Kingdom of Jackals. Purity gasped for breath as she let the gate dwindle into a spark dancing on the screen of her eyes. She hadn't been strong enough before. But she had been looking in the wrong place. She had been looking out into the world, not into her heart.

Purity turned to one of the bandits, a blonde woman with an eye patch. 'Emmaline Leap. I have two friends in peril but not enough time to save them and play havoc against those who have invaded Jackals.'

'With your permission.' The bandit placed her hand on Purity's forehead and closed her one good eye. 'Yes, I see them within your memories, a creature of steam and a woman and they are – I have them. An ogre of a woman is holding your two friends fettered. She tortures them in… inside a moon of iron?'

Purity's eyes narrowed. No, torture at least had a point. To the Army of Shadows, Molly and Coppertracks were unwanted butterflies with wings that needed tearing off. 'You know what you must do, Emmaline.'

'I do not have the strength to jump more than thrice within an hour,' said the bandit. 'You may yet need me…'

'My friends need you more than I.' Purity looked at Commodore Black. 'Please go with her. I can spare two.'

'Don't make me leave you again, lass.'

Purity touched her father's outstretched hand. 'Time has betrayed us, in every sense of the word. I need to close the rift into the past and they'll send every slat they have to try to stop me. You can still save Molly and Coppertracks.'

'Please, now, Purity, don't make me choose between them and you.'

'Many years ago, when you were trying to spirit a prince out of a cold fortress, what would my mother have said to you about duty if you had faltered?'

'Duty,' wheezed the commodore. 'Always the hard weight of duty for our cursed family. Oh my poor Alicia, dead in parliament's hands. And now you, I can't…'

'I have my people to protect me,' said Purity, indicating the Bandits of the Marsh. She took a spare sabre from one of her followers and pressed it gently into the commodore's hand. 'And you have no choice at all.' She nodded at Emmaline Leap and the woman grabbed Commodore Black.

'Say it once, lass. Just let my poor mortal ears hear it.'

'Good luck,' said Purity, 'Father…'

With a sulphur flash the bandit woman disappeared, the commodore winking out of the feeding pen alongside her. Only a small cloud of red smoke was left behind to show he had ever stood there.

'It is always hard,' said Jackaby Mention, seeing the tear in Purity's eye, 'leaving your family when you go to war.'

'I fear the hardest part is yet to come,' said Purity. She addressed the Bandits of the Marsh who now filled the corridors around the feeding pens, giants mingling with the surviving Jackelians from her raid on the beanstalk. 'I wish I had more time to speak with you. You all left your families for me, some of you have left your age. But now you have stepped into a new age and face an enemy who has also crossed the halls of time. You are in an iron moon filled with wonders and horrors. There are soldiers that are blind walking blades wearing their dark bones on the outside of their hides, giants with a beauty matched only by the fierce emptiness of their souls, blue-skinned beasts that would suck on your veins. They have violated Jackals and there are more of them than we can possibly fight and best in any battle today.'

One of the bandits raised a fist. 'It wouldn't make a good tale for the fireside if it were otherwise and my axe has woken up with quite a thirst!'

'Then it's time for me to warm my hands on a still-born star,' shouted Purity. 'And time for your axe to drink its fill.'

Purity looked at them, a handful of free Jackelians and the wild cheering fey bandits.

Two ancient powers were about to clash.

A new legend for the world to forget across the ages, whichever side won.

An arm swung down from the dissection array, printing a cold ink outline above Molly Templar's heart, a grid of numbered lines. A smaller arm capped with a flower of rotating scalpels was about to strike down into her chest when a buzzing from a console close to Coppertracks' trapped form interrupted the scholar.

Tutting, the giant woman raised the cutting arm and walked across to look at the readout. 'Finally!' She twisted a lever on the console and summoned a Kal wearing a white toga decorated with a golden helix on his chest. 'I have just relayed the key that will activate the looking-glass gate up to the hangar where the abomination ship is held. Ensure my bomb is signed out of the armoury and transported safely to the hangar. If there is even a dent on the bomb's casing when it gets there, I will flush your miserable life into the vacuum.'

The scholar's assistant left to do her bidding and she turned and twisted a knob, the vice around Coppertracks' skull flowering open but leaving the rest of his body still locked down. 'I told you I would tear your secrets out of you, abomination, one memory at a time.'

'You are a sentient race,' begged Coppertracks, his voicebox uncovered enough to speak. 'Consider the morality of what you are doing.'

'Your people are nothing but a virus replicating in metal,' said the scholar. 'But I will let you survive long enough to see our bomb make a tomb of your people's home. It is the least I owe you for your assistance in their extermination.'

Coppertracks emitted a sob.

'Simulated emotions,' sneered the scholar, going back to the dissection slab. 'Let us see what you make of this animal's screams when I open her up. Do you have a simulacrum of pity for your so-called friend?'

The rotating blades were dipping towards Molly's heart when sirens in the laboratory began to clang, a strident sound. There was a flash of light and sulphur in the room, the commodore and a blonde woman in marsh leathers appearing as if they had been borne into existence by the lightning clap.

Commodore Black was near enough to the dissection slab for him to grab the scalpel-tipped arm about to slice Molly apart, struggling against the strength of the device. The giant scholar abandoned the controls and pulled a pistol out of her belt, stumbling back and dropping the gun as the bandit slammed into her. There was another flash and they both disappeared, the giant's legs reappearing embedded in the iron wall of the laboratory, briefly flailing as the scholar impossibly tried to coexist with the matter of the wall, then kicking towards stillness as she expired. The Bandit of the Marsh stood panting just underneath the giant's gently trembling feet.

It took only a second for the commodore to open Molly's restraints and then she twisted the knob to free Coppertracks from the vice.

'They've been giving you a mortal terrible poking about, old steamer,' said Commodore Black, pulling Coppertracks free of the floor clamps and helped him close his exposed panels.

'My people!' said Coppertracks. 'The Army of Shadows is going to detonate something terrible in the heart of Mechancia using the gate we brought.'

'I saw the hangar,' said Molly. 'They have Starsprite up there. That's where the bomb's being taken.'

'Let me have your memory,' requested the female bandit, coming towards Molly. 'I can jump you there.' Molly flinched back.

'Please Molly softbody,' begged Coppertracks. 'My people's survival hangs in the balance.'

'It won't hurt,' said the bandit.