Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air

‘Ni.c.kle.by, h.ear m.y wo.r.d_s.’

It was Steamswipe, half-crushed, half-decapitated. Somehow the knight had managed to regain enough of his functions to communicate in the higher languages.

‘We a.r e a.ll c.lo.se to d.e.ac.ti.v_atio.n. The K.eep.er of th. e Et_e.rn.al Fla_me w.ill cle.an.s.e u.s all.Y.ou m.u_st sing. S_ing t.o p.lea.se th.e Loas.’

‘I am afraid I wouldn’t be much good at the hymns of your people, old steamer,’ said Nickleby. ‘I simply don’t have the voicebox for it.’

‘T_he.n yo.u m.ust in.to.n.e the ma.nt.ra of y.our k_in_d. O.ur ti.me i.s at an e_n_d.’

The pensman shrugged.

‘Oh, please no,’ said Vauxtion.

On the other side of the rock face the troopers and engineers halted their clearance work.

‘What’s that sound? Do you hear it?’

‘They are singing,’ replied one of the equalized workers. ‘They are singing “Lion of Jackals”.’

The whole cavern shuddered, as if the world had bounced the lost underground city a foot into the air. Crystals embedded in the cavern ceiling shattered, raining down the dust of ancient machinery onto the shakos of the Commonshare’s skirmishers. Equalized revolutionaries briefly halted then continued to the schedule of their work rota as if nothing had happened. Tzlayloc extended a hand down to Marshal Arinze and the soldier picked himself up.

‘The Third Brigade is here compatriot marshal. The revolution has arrived in Jackals.’

Commodore Black stared down the shaft they had just scaled. It had collapsed, filled in by an avalanche following the quake. A minute earlier and they would have been inside there.

‘The tunnels still stand,’ said Oliver. ‘I can feel the troops in their atmospheric carriages. Murderers and killers. Thousands of them.’

‘Silas? Your friends?’

Oliver shook his head.

‘Silas Nickleby, you dear blessed fool,’ wept the commodore. ‘Silas and Molly, both dead. All for nothing, all for nothing. I warned him what would happen. You heard me tell him. The scrapes that old goat got me into. What am I going to do without the impetuous fool? An army of the worst slayers in history nipping away at our heels. There’s nobody left, lad, just us. What have we got left?’

Oliver’s shadow swelled in the dirty tunnel like a living thing, his brace of pistols glowing with a light not cast by the tunnel lanterns. He lifted the bandolier of crystal charges off Black’s shoulder. ‘Forty bullets.’

Brigadier-general Shepperton stared up at the lone aerostat floating over Fulven Fields on the outskirts of Middlesteel. ‘What is Admiralty House playing at? We can’t move into position without cover from the navy — I don’t know what’s the matter with our bally aerostats today. Where are those damn loafers from signals?’

Major Wellesley turned on his skittish sixer, the horse unsettled by the ranks of shining metal bodies taking to the field in the low hills opposite; they had no smell and the horses of the riding officers had been spooked all morning. ‘Sir, none of our scouts have managed to locate a crystalgrid station that wasn’t fired last night by the Carlists.’

The major glanced up at the aerostat. It was an old Guardian Prester class, due to be decommissioned at the royal armoury and manned mostly by retired RAN types and a handful of enthusiast volunteers from the Middlesteel chapter of the Lighter than Air Society. A bunch of tail spotters in the fin-bomb room. Wellesley shuddered and prayed that they would remember which army below stood on their side.

A riding officer galloped at full tilt from the north, reining in at the last moment in front of the staff officer’s table. ‘Brigadier-general, sir, Admiralty House is burning. Spoke to one of the staff there, said some of the Admiralty Board were feybreed, fey wearing the bodies of the Sky Lords. Quite a to-do in the city, sir, shifties everywhere, barricades and Carlists manning them. Makes getting about rather tiresome.’

‘Where’s your hat, man?’

‘Shot off, sir.’

‘Draw a new one from the commissionaire,’ ordered the brigadier-general. I won’t have my boys looking unkempt, what what. Jack cloudies have let us down badly this time, ships of the line sitting around Shadowclock like a school of useless bally skraypers. There’ll be questions asked in the House.’

Wellesley winced. They had already told the brigadier-general twice that the House of Guardians had fallen early on in the Commonshare’s assault. It was pure luck the Middlesteel Rifles had been out of their barracks when the nighttime attack had begun.

‘Sir,’ said Major Wellesley, pointing to the neat lines of their troops. ‘Now we have confirmation that the RAN won’t be operating in support, might I suggest we look at our dispositions again?’

‘You may not, sir,’ said the brigadier-general. ‘The new pattern army has not lost a battle since it was formed by Isambard Kirkhill. Our order of battle has been tried and tested over centuries by some of the finest military minds produced by Jackals.’

Wellesley shifted irritably in his saddle. ‘With respect, sir, our current disposition is intended to involve close coordin ation with the high fleet. We have a single aerostat — our formation requires at least a squadron of the line. These fellows are not the colonial farm boys we saw off last year.’

‘Shifties, major,’ said the brigadier-general. ‘Shifties and a criminal rabble of Carlists. They will come at us in the same old way and we shall beat them off in the same old way. This is not the time to dabble with new thinking, major. I do not require more than a single aerostat to see off a bunch of damn shifties and a mob of traitors who have crawled out of the undercity.’

Wellesley started to reply, but seeing the look on the brigadier-general’s face thought better of it. This was turning into a nightmare. From the moment they had received word that Fort Downdirt had been overrun to sighting the Quatershiftian lines being dug in outside the capital.

The brigadier-general turned to the riding officer who had just come in. ‘You sir, lieutenant I-have-no-hat-sir. Ride over to the other side of the column and bring me one of the worldsingers. I want to know what feybreed are doing running around Admiralty House. And will someone please find me the Special Guard.’

‘There, sir,’ pointed a staff officer. Blazing through the sky like a comet, the Special Guardsman sailed in a lazy arc over the battlefield, overflying the Commonshare’s columns of troops and rows of cannon, before twisting off to head towards the Jackelian forces. With a shock of wind that nearly lifted off their shakos and tricorn hats the Special Guardsman halted above the ground in front of their map-littered folding table.

‘About bally time,’ said the brigadier-general. ‘Did you not receive the written orders I sent Captain Flare?’

‘We did,’ said the guardsman.

‘Then, sir, perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me where in the Circle’s name the guards’ companies are today?’

Passing a letter to the brigadier-general the guardsman saluted then sped off into the sky, looping back towards the capital. Brigadier-general Shepperton read the note, holding onto it for far longer than it should have taken to digest the message. Then he handed it up to Wellesley on his horse.

Major Wellesley read it for the benefit of the staff. ‘The guard will not fight for you. The guard will not fight against you. This is a hamblin war. Let us see how well Jackals fares without our intervention. Flare.’

‘Can they do that?’ piped up an officer.

From the left flank the riding officer returned with a worldsinger, his purple robes almost the same shade as the brigadier-general’s fuming cheeks. ‘You man! There’s a mutiny in the guards — what have you fellows in the order been doing about it?’