Chris Wooding: The Iron jackal

Malvery stared for a moment, rocked by the raw power of the thing.

The author of the devastation was lumbering across his path, several streets away, searching for new targets. Its smooth white armour sparked now and then as bullets bounced off it. Beyond it, a short way upslope, was the landing pad, rising like some ancient tree above the city.

He deliberated a moment, catching his breath, then struck out across the plaza. To go around would be a detour he wasn’t sure he could manage. He was hot and damp and red-faced, every muscle hurt, and he didn’t know how much he had left in his legs. It frightened him to be so exposed with that thing nearby, but there it was. No help for it.

He just had to hope the damned thing didn’t look his way.

He staggered on through the wreckage of the camp. The smell of burnt bodies seeped its way down the back of his throat. They lay bundled up among the tatters of the tents, curled in on themselves or clawing grotesquely at the sky. There must have been a lot of Sammies here when it got hit.

The carnage didn’t much bother him. He’d seen enough bodies in his time as a medic. After a while they became like dead trees or blasted vehicles: just another part of the battlefield scenery.

He was most of the way across the plaza when he saw something he recognised. Something that shouldn’t have been there. He came to an unsteady halt.

It was the shape of it that caught his eye. A cluster of straight lines and regular circles amid a landscape of bent and broken things. A bright emblem of gold, glinting in the light of a nearby fire. It was set into a small metal box lying amid a scattering of curled papers that skidded and rolled in the updrafts from the baked surface of the plaza. He glanced up at the Juggernaut, which had turned away from him.

‘Sorry, mate,’ he said to the man on his back. ‘Gonna have to put you down a minute.’

He let Grudge slide off his back and laid him on the ground as gently as he could. After a quick moment to examine his patient, who still showed no signs of waking, he walked painfully over to the box. He winced as he bent down to pick it up.

It was still hot to the touch, and the gold of the emblem had melted slightly. It was a document case, often used to protect and secure precious letters and files in transit. He tried to open it, but it was locked. He turned it around, looking for clues, but there was nothing to be seen but the emblem. Six circles, joined by interlocking lines. It was something every Vard grew up seeing in the towns and cities of their homeland, and tattooed on the foreheads of the faithful.

The Cipher. The symbol of the Awakeners.

But what’s it doing here?

He stared at the emblem, and felt a cold certainty that the answer to that question would open doors he might never be able to shut. But before he could consider it further, he heard the sharp crack of a rifle, and a bullet splintered a nearby tent pole.

He looked up and saw two soldiers on the far side of the plaza. One of them was just raising his rifle; the other was aiming again.

He swore under his breath and ran back to Grudge – though it was more of an agonised jog – taking the document case with him. He hauled Grudge across his back in a fireman’s carry, gritted his teeth and tried to stand.

The strain was incredible. Picking him up a second time was twice as hard as the first. His muscles were already fatigued, his back ached, and he’d be damned lucky if he got out of this without a slipped disc and a double hernia. But still he lifted, driven by a strength he didn’t know he possessed, and somehow he found his feet.

‘You,’ he puffed, ‘are one dead weight son of a bitch.’

He set off as fast as his legs could carry them, the document case clutched in one hand. The Sammies were shouting behind him and more bullets whined through the air, but they’d have to be better shots than that to hit him at such a distance.

Of course, they wouldn’t need to be such good shots once they caught him up.

He couldn’t let himself worry about it. Couldn’t even look behind with Grudge draped across his shoulders like a fallen bear. All he could do was stumble towards the edge of the plaza.

It didn’t even occur to him to leave Grudge behind.

Beyond, the streets resumed, winding ways bordered by white ceramic dwellings that flowed into each other like blown glass. He blinked sweat from his eyes. He felt like he was at the limit of his strength. He’d felt like that for a while now. Yet somehow momentum carried him on, even though his legs trembled and his neck hurt and his spine felt like it was being crushed. Any minute now, he’d be shot, but there was no help for that. All he could do was prolong the moment as much as he could.

Ahead, the rattle of a machine gun. A building fell in an avalanche of rubble nearby. The Juggernaut was close. He caught sight of it through a gap in the buildings. The curved alley he’d chosen was taking him right towards it.

No help for that, either.

At the end of the alley he halted. A wide boulevard lay in front of him like a still river in the yellow glow of the electric lights. On the far side, more alleys.

It sounded like he was almost on top of the machine gun, so he peered out. To the left, in the middle of the boulevard, a dozen Sammies had set up behind a barricade of fallen debris. To the right was the Juggernaut, turning into the street, dragging a slithering slope of rubble with it. The machine gun kept up a hail of bullets, shredding the air along the boulevard, as the creature swung its head towards them.

Malvery turned about, swinging Grudge’s weight with him. He could hear the soldiers coming up behind him. He swung back and stared across the width of the boulevard. The space between was busy with invisible agents of death. From the Juggernaut, he heard the now familiar squeal of gathering power.

No help for it, he thought, and he wondered how a man who was once so in control of his own life had become a man accustomed to having no choice.

Then he ran out onto the boulevard.

He looked neither left nor right. His brow furrowed, he stared only at his destination, as if by force of will and concentration he could deny the bullets that whined past them. He ignored the surprised shouts of the soldiers behind the barricade; he closed his ears to the rising sound of the Juggernaut’s cannon. He forged doggedly onward, fast as he was able, and that was all.

Seconds passed. Impossible seconds, as he hurried across the boulevard. Then the Juggernaut’s squeal fell silent, and there was only the clatter of the machine gun.

He surged forward, forcing one last effort from his legs. His balance failed him and he tripped, but Grudge’s weight on his back bore him onward, and he stumbled into the shelter of an alley. He twisted as he fell, and the Century Knight came off his shoulders. They fell in a heap with Malvery on his side. He looked back in time to see his pursuers rushing headlong out of the alley he’d come from. Then the Juggernaut unleashed its beam down the length of the boulevard, and all was screaming whiteness.

Malvery threw his hands over his head as the boulevard detonated. Flame boiled up in the mouth of the alley. A wall of baking air blasted both him and Grudge, sending them sliding away. Chunks of ceramic rained down, falling to the ground around them with solid, bone-breaking thumps.

Then, quiet.

Malvery raised his head. His glasses fell off his nose and cracked on the ground. His skin burned, his lungs and throat felt scorched, and he was weak with shock and fatigue.

‘Damn,’ he croaked in amazement.

Slowly, painfully, he climbed to his feet. He shuffled over to Grudge. The Century Knight was still unconscious, but otherwise unhurt.