Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air

‘I know you will.’ He could barely hear her. She raised a liver-spotted hand to rest on Oliver’s pistol, the gun seeming to feed her the energy she needed for one last whisper. ‘Don’t trust them — Oliver. Never — trust — the — Court of — the Air.’

She was gone. He lowered her down, her back staining the snow red. Black shouted a warning. The troops from around the back of the shop had found their way to the front of the street. Oliver heard whistles. They sounded like crushers, but he doubted any constables from Ham House would be responding to the call.

Oliver staggered back towards the shop. Commodore Black wanted Mother’s gun, but first he had to prize it away from her dead fingers. He dragged the pressure repeater and its pipe back through the doorway. Equalized revolutionaries with pikes trotted down the street towards them, following their Quatershiftian officers.

‘Sorry, lad,’ said the commodore. ‘I think this is our last stand.’

Oliver sighed. Mother would keep glass-lined casks of blow-barrel sap in her cellar next door to the tools of the glass blower’s trade. They could blow them, follow Steamswipe’s example and take a street’s worth of the jiggers with them.

‘I’m sorry too, commodore. We should have run for the coast, hidden among the crowds of refugees.’ Oliver felt tired, like he could sleep for a thousand years. In a few minutes he would have an eternity of peace.

‘None of the would have, could have, should have now, lad. They’ve chased you down for your fey blood as they’ve chased old Blacky down for the royal claret that runs through my veins. Let’s sell it to them blessed dear.’

The witch-blade was in Oliver’s fist, extending out like a lizard’s tongue, feeding him shadow memories of his father facing a hunting team of toppers. Commodore Black rested the smoking pressure repeater on the shop’s counter and covered the entrance. The battle cries of the enemy were getting nearer. Oliver checked both his pistols were loaded, the heat from the steamman gun warming his face.

Harry Stave was in a Court cell, what was left of his mind ripped to shreds by the wolftakers’ truth hexing. Steamswipe and Lord Wireburn were walking the halls of the Steamo Loas. Oliver could almost feel their shades standing beside him.

‘I’ll see you soon.’

The enemy was upon them, filling the passage, breaking down the boarded windows of Loade and Locke’s establishment.

‘Send us the Third Brigade,’ Oliver shouted above the saw-scream of the commodore’s gun. ‘Send them all.’

Molly and Slowstack were almost across the bridge, a swaying line of glass bricks threaded together with silver cable, the transparent crossing giving them an all too apparent view of the chasm below. It was so hot this far down in the earth, lava running in streams and lakes, bubbling rivers filling the corridors with choking fumes. Once these hidden holds had echoed to the boots of the masters of an underworld empire that covered the entire continent, but the Chimecans had faded long ago. Now only their crystals remained, their sorceries still sucking the power of the earthflow and filling the world they had created with an eerie, inconstant light.

The vision struck Molly without warning, Slowstack grabbing her as she stumbled against the hand cable.

‘Do you see her?’ asked the steamman.

‘I see her,’ confirmed Molly. The ghostly figure of the small girl stood at the far end of the crystal bridge.

‹ They come,› said the Hexmachina.

Molly pulled herself along the bridge, the figure receding as she drew closer. ‘I can hear you.’

‹I am speaking through your blood, Molly. I draw closer to you as you draw closer to me. You vibrate with my essence.›

‘We found Molly softbody,’ said Slowstack. ‘We pulled her into the deep atmospheric tunnels, into the protection envelope of the enemy’s own aura to survive the blast.’

‹You are both clever and brave, Silver Slowstack. But I must ask more of you. They come. The Wildcaotyl ride six hunters from the race of man. They do not wish me to join with an operator. They ride to slay you.›

Molly reached Slowstack on the other side of the canyon and the steamman cut the cable supporting the bridge with one of his manipulator claws, the crystal bricks tumbling into the chasm below and flaring as they rained down onto the lava. ‘Let them ride the air.’

‹The cities of the coldtime have many passages, Silver Slowstack,› said the Hexmachina. ‹Many ways to reach you.›

‘Are you close?’ asked Molly.

‹Closer every hour. My lover the Earth has been helping me. I no longer ride her caress in the centre of the world; her liquid heart of fire has carried me through many levels of her body, pumping me towards you at ever-greater velocity. I come for you, Molly, but still the enemy will reach you before I do.›

‘I can feel you in my blood,’ said Molly. ‘The nearer we get to each other. I can feel my body changing. I can feel the earth’s heartbeat, the thoughts of the world.’

‹The earth is alive, Molly. Her warmth and passion have kept me for these many centuries, kept me where all my friends and kin have fallen. She loves us yet, as we scar her skin and consume her resources, she loves us yet, as we steal her power and draw songs of sorcery from her leylines. She cared for us even as the Chimecans burrowed into her core like worms through an apple, as they desecrated her rocks with the blood of your own kind, even as your minds and souls fashioned wicked gods that sealed her skin in a prison of ice.›

Molly felt ashamed.

‹You grow stronger as you near me, Molly. Together we are invincible, the sword of Vindex. In the enemy’s desperation they will do anything to prevent this. The six who hunt you have split into three pairs, chasing the echoes of your soul I have scattered throughout the undercity.›

‘They come as agents of Xam-ku,’ said Slowstack. ‘They come as agents of the ancient ones.’

‹Not Xam-ku. Not yet. The great powers of the Wildcaotyl are still trapped beyond the walls of the world waiting for my death and the feast of souls Tzlayloc plans to offer them. Only the shadows of Wildcaotyl have squeezed through to walk Middlesteel. These things that hunt you are lesser powers, tiny death beetles which clean the skin of the old gods.’

‘Powerful enough,’ said Molly.

‹Yes, Molly. Quite powerful enough. They are wicked creatures, and they are riding the foulest and strongest of your kind.›

‘We followed you in our dreams,’ said the steamman, ‘when we were Silver Onestack, and we will follow you now.’

‹Then follow my trail, dear loyal friend of the metal. Molly, you must RUN, as fast and as long as you can. Run to preserve your existence and the hopes of the world.’

They did. As if the gates of hell had opened behind them.

There came a new sound over the tearing-wood shriek of the commodore’s steamman weapon, like the crash of the sea at Ship Town, loud enough to be heard over the cyclone of ricocheting balls smattering against the corridor. Black took his finger off the trigger and a single remaining ball rolled down around the inside of the drum on top of the gun. Shouts from outside — the Quatershiftian officers who had been only too glad to let the equalized Jackelian revolutionaries clog up the shop corridor with their corpses.

‘Do you hear it lad?’

Oliver vaulted the broken counter of Loade and Locke’s sales room. ‘People, commodore. A sea of people.’

Outside the shiftie company was running down the street. Middlesteel’s equalized revolutionaries had their pikes raised ready to skewer the wave of attackers coming towards them. The two sides met in a flurry of debating sticks and pike heads. The metal-fleshers were slower than their unequalized adversaries, but the panels of their new shells took quite a beating before their remaining organs burst and they stumbled and fell.