Stephen Hunt - Jack Cloudie

‘As do the Pasdaran,’ called Westwick, pointing her sword at the grand vizier as if her blade might leap out and skewer the chief minister.

‘I am the future,’ railed the grand vizier. ‘I have given the empire a new golden age.’ He pointed at the Imperial Aerial Squadron sailors and marines, a tone of pleading intruding into the ice of his voice. ‘I have given you heaven’s command. I have given you victories and plunder. I have given you a new beginning. This, this is only the start of what we shall achieve together.’

High above, the beyrogs laid into one of the producer’s tanks with the butts of their huge crossbows, shattering the crystal walls and rolling its twisted, bloated occupant to the edge of the gantry.

‘Take a good look,’ yelled Omar. ‘This is her new beginning.’

There was a series of enraged shouts from the airship sailors at the end of the chamber, officers desperately trying to keep their men in formation, followed by a series of yells as the officers collapsed to the ground to the echo of rifle shots, their mutinous troops surging forward. Lost in the roar were the frightened yelps from sorcerers wearing the symbols of the Sect of Razat, dozens of them fleeing from a mob made up of howling womb mages and their servants.

‘I gave you the future!’ yelled Immed Zahharl, backing away as the provoked Cassarabians surged towards him, his retinue of beasts standing by his side, cutting the air nervously with their sabre hands.

‘The gratitude of kings,’ whispered Commodore Black, looking up at the caliph. ‘I told you it was a mortal poor thing, Maya.’ It’s a hard thing I do for the Kingdom today; as wicked hard as any, to save it by putting down a slave uprising down here. Maybe that’s why no Jackelian believes in hell … because when you find yourself in it, you can only pick the lesser of two demons.

‘He still has his regiment of monsters,’ said Westwick, pushing her way through the defensive square of beyrogs as the claw-guards fell back around the grand vizier.

The chamber erupted into violence as the Imperial Aerial Squadron marines opened up on the grand vizier’s claw-guards with their carbines, adding their balls and gun smoke to the rain of crossbow bolts suddenly being loosed by the beyrogs from above. Immed Zahharl and his bodyguard retreated out of the concourse under the fierce hail.

Omar Barir was sliding down the rails of the stairs towards their position and the caliph leant over the gantry to call down. ‘Take the grand vizier alive if you can, guardsman. He has many secrets to tell us before he can be allowed to pass.’

A ball from a marine’s gun buzzed between the commodore and Westwick, bouncing off the cuirass of one of their beyrogs.

‘I’ll keep the boy safe,’ said the commodore. ‘You make sure his majesty up there lives long enough to declare peace with Jackals.’

‘And the grand vizier,’ said Westwick, in a flat tone of voice that Commodore Black wasn’t sure was a statement or a question.

‘Best efforts, lass.’ He patted his sword.

‘The abomination will be heading for the citadel’s airship harbour,’ said Westwick. ‘It’s what I would do. Rendezvous with the fleet and then bomb the city into rubble. Leave no survivors alive to tell of what happened here.’

‘There’s a pity,’ said the commodore. ‘Given that surviving is what I do so blessed well.’

He ran after the young guardsman, the beyrog captain and his giant soldiers following and cutting a path through the ranks of claw-guards trying to stop them. All down to me, again, curse my unlucky stars. In the heart of enemy territory, two nations to save, and only the sword of an unlucky old fool to rely on.

Omar was running through the Citadel of Flowers’ oppressive halls and passages, a dozen beyrogs and the commodore fast on his heels, as the Caliph Eternal’s voice finished echoing out of the voicebox in the wall. His order to hunt down the grand vizier and the Sect of Razat was fading from the corridor, but the promise of a caliph’s fortune if the chief minister was handed over in chains had clearly had its effect on the commodore, the old u-boat man’s eyes twinkling with new-found zeal for their task.

Omar suddenly drew to a halt.

‘What is it lad?’ the commodore wheezed, catching up with him. ‘A stitch in that sorcery-poisoned gut of yours?’

‘The grand vizier didn’t come this way,’ said Omar.

‘This is the way to the blessed airship harbour,’ said the commodore. ‘Where that rascal’s private packet is tied up snug alongside all the other pocket airships.’

‘He’s not running for the harbour,’ said Omar, extending his senses through the citadel to confirm his suspicions. ‘I can feel the venom of his soul, and he’s not passed this way.’ He pointed to the floor. ‘That way. He’s going lower into the citadel, to the east wing — I’d swear it on the gates of heaven.’

‘Those gates won’t be opening for the grand vizier any time soon,’ said the commodore, scratching his beard as he recovered his breath. ‘The gates of your hell, now, that’s another matter. So, what’s he up to?’

‘Immed Zahharl must have realized we’d look to seize him at the harbour,’ said Omar. Always one step ahead of me, but not this time. I can smell your stinking soul, grand vizier. Soaked as it is with the blood of Shadisa and everyone else who’s died to keep you in power.

‘The cunning devil won’t be ducking into the city’s streets on foot,’ said the commodore. ‘He might be able to get away with one of the slavers’ caravans, but by the time he reaches the next town his mortal ugly mug will be plastered across the garrison’s walls. His scalp carrying a sum of gold so large that he’d have every wicked bounty hunter in the empire turning over barrels trying to cut his throat. He needs to act fast if he’s to stay in power and he knows it.’

Omar looked at the one-eyed beyrog officer waiting in front of his troops. ‘What’s in the east wing of the citadel, captain? What do they have down there that we won’t find in the rest of the fortress?’

Commodore Black looked towards the young guardsman for a translation of the beyrog officer’s rapid flicker of sign language.

‘It’s the great stables,’ said Omar. ‘Where the womb mages’ new stock is bedded down before being sent across the empire.’

‘Well, he’s not heading down there to help the stable hands clean out their stalls, lad,’ said the commodore.

‘No,’ sighed Omar.

What sly mischief would the murderous traitor who had corrupted Shadisa be working against them among the womb mages’ creations?

They ran, Omar driven by the frantic dread that the grand vizier would have vanished by the time they reached the stables. Vanished like a mist of pure evil, one of the life-leeching djinn of legend, reforming elsewhere to continue his perverted schemes. Something undead and unkillable. But I’ll try to kill him, fate, by the hundred faces of heaven, I’ll try. And you will let me. You owe that much to me for Shadisa’s death.

By the time they gained the arch to the vast series of chambers that composed the great stables, Omar found they weren’t the only ones attempting to hunt down the grand vizier’s cabal. A company of Immed Zahharl’s surviving claw-guards was locked in unequal combat with the stable staff — pitchforks and baling hooks no match for the monsters’ sword-length talons. The beasts were assisted by a mob of robed figures — keepers and holy servants from the Sect of Razat — along with a scrum of highly placed womb mages. So, the grand vizier’s inner circle had heard the Caliph Eternal’s commands and were trying to flee the sinking ship alongside their master.