Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air

Marshal Arinze was shouting orders to his artillery to elevate their cannons, but it was too late. The only aerostats in this battle should have been on his side and the Court of the Air was blowing his batteries apart. His skirmishers were trying to meet the black-clad soldiers that had been dropped down around Rivermarsh, but the troopers were falling to the enemy snipers’ long guns and the impossibly fast rate of fire from the interloper’s weapons.

He was about to give the order to the forward companies to fight a rearguard cover while the rest of the Third Brigade withdrew to Middlesteel — the defensive plan they should have stuck with from the start — when one of the Free State’s advancing gun-boxes found the range of the Quatershiftian general staff. Shells thumped into the hard snowy ground and the issue of whether Arinze’s positions around Middlesteel would hold or not became academic.

On the royal war frame Oliver stood up from the buckled pilot cage. King Steam was deactivate, his body still and empty. Somewhere in Mechancia the seers of the mountain kingdom would be throwing the Gear-gi-ju cogs to locate the steamman child that would be the latest incarnation of their monarch. Across the field Oliver watched the Hexmachina swooping over Tzlayloc’s remaining demons, the golden halo burning their skin, beetles scrambling for the darkness of the cracks.

Oliver glanced across to the enemy lines shrouded in smoke from gun-box fire. The cross that had held the crucified prince was empty! There was no life left in Flare’s body, but his son had disappeared; had one of the Special Guard honoured their commander’s dying wish and rescued the young noble?

At Oliver’s side one of the Court’s warriors pulled down his leather hood, the rubber air tubes dangling around his gloves. It was the disreputable Stave! Somehow Oliver was not surprised. But if this figure was Harry, where was the Whisperer? Nathaniel had disappeared into the confusion of the battle. He had plans, and they did not include the Court of the Air or the worldsingers scooping him up for his cell back in Hawklam.

‘Damson Griggs always said you turned up like a bad penny, Harry.’

‘A bad penny with good timing,’ said Harry. ‘The shifties are being routed.’

‘Looks like they’re retreating back to the deep atmospheric line.’

‘Bloody good luck to them, then, old stick. The incrementals have already paid it a little visit. The only way back home for them now is a long trek to the border and a prayer to their sun god that their worldsingers have found the key to their cursewall.’

‘They’re all going to die, aren’t they?’

Harry shrugged. ‘A message, Oliver. You don’t poke your nose in Jackals’ affairs and expect to keep it on your face.’

‘Your people arranged for the worldsingers who knew how to take down the cursewall to be fingered in the purges, didn’t they? You were never in danger, Harry.’

‘A wall protects both ways, and I was always in danger,’ said Stave. ‘The hunt for us was real. We knew the Court had been infiltrated. The only way for us to find out how wide and deep it went was for me to act as bait. Make the shifties think I knew about their plans and go on the run, see who would come after us. It was far worse than we feared or suspected. The radicals had people in the Court of the Air, in the whistler network, in Ham Yard, in Greenhall, in the regiments and the navy. They called in all their favours to track us down and we followed the chain all the way back.’

‘A few more bodies floating down the Gambleflowers,’ said Oliver. ‘A few more prisoners for the cells of the Court.’

‘That’s the way the great game is played.’

Oliver looked out across the battlefield. It was twilight now. Had they really been fighting all day? He was exhausted; his body still aching with the power of the earth that had flowed through his fey bones. ‘My family paid the price. Our allies, our people, the people in Middlesteel. They all paid the price.’

‘Dear Circle, lad. We would have stopped this if we could,’ spat Harry. ‘That’s what we do. We didn’t know about Shadowclock or the Special Guard or Tzlayloc’s plans for a return to the old ways. When I volunteered to be the bait I just thought this was going to be 1581 all over again — a bunch of Carlist extremists with Commonshare gold jingling in their pockets who wanted Hoggstone’s head on the end of a pike. We watch, Oliver. But we are not omnipotent, we are not gods.’

Oliver stared at the remaining Wildcaotyl fleeing from the radiance of the Hexmachina and nodded. ‘No, Harry, you are right. No gods for Jackals. Never again.’

‘Your uncle knew the risks, Oliver. I’m sorry about Titus, I really am. But you know the man he was. He would have given his life twenty times over to save Jackals.’

The sound of sackpipes floated across the fields of Rivermarsh and Oliver heard a sixer whinny. It was Mad Jack, in the shadow of the steamman war frame. ‘Good hunting, young fellow?’

‘Yes, major. Where’s Guardian McConnell?’

‘There’s a bit of her over there, and a bit more over that way. Damn bloody shiftie cannon took her head off. Met that gypsy filly by the way, mad as hell at you. Wants her horse back.’

Oliver looked around. ‘I believe it ran off.’

‘Ah well, she’s a witch — she’ll call it back to her.’ Mad Jack stared up at Harry and the incremental soldiers. ‘You bally navy types took your time. Marine regiment?’

Harry tapped the gold lion on his leather tunic. ‘Political.’

Mad Jack tapped the side of his nose. ‘Ah yes, enough said.’

‘I would say the Commonshare are losing, major,’ said Oliver.

Mad Jack turned his sixer towards the fleeing Third Brigade troopers. ‘Of course. We’re Jackelians, and this is our land, eh? Best be back at it, there’s plenty of trees between here and Quatershift and a lot of rope for stringing them up.’

‘Good hunting, major.’

Harry watched the cavalryman kick his horse after the retreating Third Brigade companies. ‘We need to talk, Oliver.’

Oliver nodded. ‘Somehow I thought we might.’

The Court of the Air had weapon-smiths. Mother Loade had been right.

Commodore Black stepped out in front of the two figures fleeing the battlefield, one of them so weak he was staggering — practically being carried by the other. ‘Ah now, Jamie, it seems like you are in the same pickle as I.’

Jamie Wildrake looked up. ‘Well, well, the Duke of Ferniethian.’

The submariner pointed to the semi-conscious body the agent was hauling behind him. ‘Thinking of becoming a royalist, now your wolftaker friends are after you?’

Wildrake dropped Prince Alpheus’s body in the snow. ‘The House of Guardians will pay to get him back. I’ll share the reward with you.’

‘What’s a king worth, Jamie? As much as the reward that was on my head, for the sea boots of poor old Samson Dark? As much as the blood money they paid you for the fleet in exile? A king must be a rare old thing these days — how many of the royal breeding house did your compatriots push into a Gideon’s Collar?’

Wildrake put his hand on his sabre’s hilt. ‘One too few, it seems. Let’s just say noble pedigrees will be at a premium once the Guardians discover how many royals were processed inside the collars. Now get out of my way, fat man.’

The commodore pulled his sabre out. ‘You’re right to be blessed worried, Jamie. There are worldsingers lying comatose all over Rivermarsh with faces like they’re sucking on a berry with no juice. You’re duelling on barren ground, Jamie, but even without your witch fighting tricks you’ve still got those fine muscles of yours. Why don’t you show me what they’re worth?’