Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air

‘Ah, lad, we are related you and I. When Isambard Kirkhill rolled the rightful king off the throne, one of my great grandmothers many generations back was married to the King’s brother. In another world you would have been my nephew and I the Duke of Ferniethian.’

‘But it is this world I find myself in,’ said Prince Alpheus. ‘Shortly to gain the crown and lose my arms in the process.’

‘The House of Guardians’ wicked bargain for your pauper’s throne,’ said the commodore. ‘Dear lad, what in the Circle’s turn are you doing in this nest of monsters and villains?’

‘It is not only my jailers in the Special Guard who long to be free,’ said Prince Alpheus. ‘I do to boot — and so I shall be. Every notable in Jackals is swamping Middlesteel at this instant, waiting for the surgeon royal to raise my blood-spattered arms in Parliament Square like a flag up its pole. But my new compatriots are going to give the mob quite a different spectacle.’

‘Lad, they’re our people. Our fight is with parliament. Circle knows, I have suffered at their hands too, hunted down by the kingdom’s warships and aerostats, seen my brave friends, your family, slaughtered at the whim of turncoats and traitors. But our cause is to rule for the people, not over them. Otherwise we might as well take all the empty estates royal and turn them into mills stuffed with children earning a penny a day and run for election as Guardians.’

‘I wish you had met my father, Duke of Ferniethian,’ said Alpheus. ‘I think you would have become fast friends. Your cause is finished. The mob is an empty beast that would rather hurl jinn bottles at us every time a game of four-poles is rained off. They take guardsmen like Captain Flare here-’ the prince touched the captain’s arm ‘-the finest man I know, and put him on a leash that becomes a hangman’s rope if he pulls away too hard. There’s nothing and nobody in Jackals I have a care to rule for. When the war is over, I shall ask them for your life, duke. But that is all I shall do.’

The prince and the guardsman left the prisoners to their fate, their footsteps echoing down the passage. Commodore Black sat down and sobbed. ‘So that is our cause then. A fool of a boy raised in an empty marble cage who has forgotten his duty. And us to be turned into metal slaves or tortured until death becomes a blessed relief.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Oliver. ‘We’re not going to live that long. They think they’re riding a tiger, but the reality is that the tiger is riding them.’

‘My, but you’re a cheerful one,’ said Molly. She closed the panel on Steamswipe’s belly. ‘There you are old steamer. You’re running at a level where you can cope with your broken stack. You won’t be able to smash down fortress walls and lift aerostats any more, but I wouldn’t want to stand in front of your hammer all the same.’

‘Truly the Loas ride you, young softbody,’ said Steamswipe, raising his centaur-like body on his armoured legs slowly, testing the weight. ‘You heal our race as if you were tutored inside the hall of the architects.’

‘Molly,’ coughed Nickleby from the floor. ‘Commodore, for the love of the Circle will one of you get my pipe out from my pocket.’

Oliver was nearest, so he pulled the battered wooden pipe out and filled it with mumbleweed while the pensman’s friends checked his left arm, bandaged with green cloth torn from his jacket.

‘So you have your story now,’ said Commodore Black. ‘The mystery of the Pitt Hill slayings. But the devils won’t be letting you out to Dock Street to write it.’

The pensman held up his mangled left arm. ‘Well, I never was much good at writing with my right hand.’

Molly grimaced as she saw the bloody stump Tzlayloc had made of her friend’s limb.

Nickleby looked at Oliver and Steamswipe. ‘I thought I had dreamed you, thought I was going to wake up back at Tock House.’

Oliver flicked the flywheel on the side of the pipe and sparked the weed into life. ‘You know, ever since I left Hundred Locks I have been waking up every day feeling the same way.’

Nickleby lay back in relief as the smoke started to lift out of the pipe’s head.

‘If you are a son of the mist, northern boy, how about you turn your fey nature on these bars,’ said Molly. ‘Melt them or walk through them or something.’

Oliver glared at her. ‘I’m the shield, not the sword. That’s your job. There’s Special Guard by the door — and I know you can feel the other things out there — the ancient ones.’

The commodore shook his head in despair. ‘Dear Circle, is it not enough that we are trapped down here without a mortal drop of jinn to warm our hearts, must we have terrible spirits to contend with too?’

‘Dear Circle is right,’ said Nickleby. ‘Jackals has had a millennium following the Circlelaw, a millennium prospering without the passion of gods to bend our knee to. Tzlayloc will return us to an age of Chimecan darkness.’

‘At least we are together,’ said the commodore. ‘Molly, it was your ancestor who crowned the first king of Jackals and until the civil war, it was my family that protected the realm from the return of monsters such as these. Our fates have led us here. We have done our mortal best and there is no shame in that.’

‘Someone is coming,’ said Oliver.

‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Molly.

‘I wasn’t using my ears.’

Flanked by two Special Guardsmen and diminutive in comparison, Count Vauxtion stood in front of the bars of the cell.

Molly spat at the bars. ‘I thought you would be spending your mug-hunting bounty by now, count.’

Count Vauxtion held up a sheaf of paper. ‘More work for the wicked. My benefactor has been very generous with his patronage. I dare say we will catch most of the splendidly distinguished names on this list when Middlesteel falls. Tzlayloc has his ancient atmospheric tunnel cleared now. The Third Brigade is arriving through it as we speak.’

Nickleby groaned. The Commonshare’s Third Brigade, their shock troops. As the revolution in Quatershift had raged the communityists had emptied the jails and conscripted political prisoners, murderers, rapists, thieves. The Third Brigade was where the worst of the devils had ended up, their name synonymous with the greatest excesses of a brutal civil war. They were demons in uniform.

‘You’re a true topper, count,’ said Molly. ‘A real piece of work.’

‘I am truly sorry, my dear. It gives me no pleasure to do this.’ He indicated the lock on the cell and one of the Special Guardsmen pushed back his cloak to reach for the keys. ‘The locust priests request your company upstairs for another of their holy services. Say goodbye to your companions, Molly. The war criminal and the sailor will be among the legions of the equalized when you return … and there are some truth hexers who want to pick through the minds of the boy and the steamman.’ He smiled coldly at Oliver. ‘If Molly survives the priests’ blessings, she may want to wipe the drool away from what is left of you.’

Oliver knew what was coming. The pressure on his hands increased, the weight of holding an anvil no one could see. With a click the door swung open and the hulking Special Guardsmen moved into position to cover the exit. The tallest of the two looked down in disbelief as a spot of blood appeared on his uniform, the sword pushing out of his chest. Oliver cut the second guardsman’s connection to the mist as the count slid his sabre out of the first and turning decapitated the other guard with a stroke so fast it barely registered. The others had not even noticed the brace of ornate duelling guns that had appeared in Oliver’s hands.

‘I doubt we can afford your rates,’ said Nickleby to the count. Count Vauxtion wiped the gore off his blade and reassembled the sword cane.