Gerrard Cowan - The Machinery

‘Your vassals?’

‘Yes!’ The King was nervous now; Katrina could feel it. His anger was exaggerated, his confidence feigned. ‘The Second City; Anflef; Siren Down. These three and others will come at my command.’

The Tactician cocked her head to the side and smiled again.

‘Do you read books, your Majesty?’ she asked, her face a picture of wide-eyed innocence.

The King hesitated. ‘My kingdom, madam, contains the greatest scholars on all the Plateau.’

‘You should know, then, your Majesty, that I have allies of my own.’

There was a flurry of black as three robed figures fell from somewhere in the ceiling to the stone floor. The King’s guards leapt into belated action, swinging their swords wildly. They halted as quickly as they had begun when they saw that, in the arms of each of the masked strangers, was one of Seablast’s daughters.

The King became very still.

‘No doubt you have steeled yourself for such a scenario, King,’ the Tactician said. She returned to her seat, patting away the creases in her gown.

Seablast said nothing, but Katrina noticed a slight movement in his sword hand. Brightling turned to one of her Watchers; Katrina saw immediately that it was Aranfal, wearing his raven’s mask, a black and twisted thing that still frightened her, even today. The girl in his arms was the youngest, perhaps ten or eleven years old, with long, curly, blonde hair, thin, regal limbs, and fierce blue eyes. Katrina was suddenly seized by the image of her own brother, in the Operator’s arms, falling through the earth to the Underland. Is he afraid, still? Is he even alive? She had told no one what she had seen, back then, in the Great Hall of Paprissi House. Not even Brightling. What would she tell them, anyway? She had not been able to hear much of what the Operator had said; all she knew was that Alexander had been taken. Perhaps it never actually happened. Perhaps her family was destroyed for another reason.

There is no time for these thoughts. Not now.

‘Do you surrender, King?’ Brightling asked.

Seablast looked at his daughter; Katrina could not read the expression in his eyes. Was he weighing up his options? His daughter or his kingdom? He nodded at the girl, an almost imperceptible tilt of his head, and turned back to the Tactician.

‘No, madam. I do not.’

Brightling sighed and nodded to Aranfal. A slight jerk of a gloved hand and the girl’s neck was bleeding. She flinched, but did not cry out.

There were some parts of being a Watcher that Katrina Paprissi did not like.

‘The Second City, Anflef and Siren Down,’ Tactician Brightling said again. ‘Your Majesty, do you have a map?’

‘What?’ the King stammered, his eyes on his daughter, whose face had grown pale.

‘A map, your Majesty. Have you not heard of such things? They are developing so well. Oh, forgive me,’ said Tactician Brightling. ‘There it is.’

She walked to the southern wall, on which hung a map of the Plateau, if it could be called that; it was an unsophisticated affair, lacking the remotest sense of distance and perspective. Brightling reached into her shoe and withdrew a short, thin blade. The guards had not dared to carry out a thorough search, Katrina realised. It was always the same way.

‘The Second City, Anflef and Siren Down,’ Brightling said, pointing each out on the map with her blade. ‘The Second City,’ she said again, before slashing the city away. ‘Anflef,’ she said, and tore it apart. ‘Siren Down,’ she concluded, stabbing into its position with her knife, which vibrated as it stuck into the wall.

‘Your Majesty, you should pay more attention to your neighbours,’ she said, turning to the King. ‘These three allies of yours are now part of the Overland and under the beneficence of the Machinery.’

Seablast’s face was a pallid grey, his arms limp at his sides.

‘That cannot be,’ he hissed. ‘I would have heard something.’

‘Why? Your Majesty, while you slept, I conquered. Some of your allies fell to the General Brandione, a clever man who knows his way around the most terrible weapons you have ever seen. Others fell to me. I won’t tell you how I did it.’

Brightling’s smile returned.

‘If you become part of the Overland, willingly, the Machinery will forgive you. You will have a chance, like every one of its subjects, to rule the greatest nation in the world, if you are Selected.’

‘To be one of the politicians,’ the King rasped, his eyeballs rolling. ‘And if we resist?’

‘Then an entire continent will be thrown against the walls of this city.’

Farringer came stumbling back, lifting his visor to expose his sweat-drenched face.

‘What happened here, anyway?’ he asked, handing Brandione the map. ‘Why did they declare war?’

Brandione sensed a new tone in the older man’s voice: fear. Farringer was not made for this.

‘They have a new leader,’ he replied. ‘Their last King died a year ago. He was a clever old sod, that particular Seablast. He towed the line, and tugged his forelock, and did whatever Brightling told him to do. The new one is possessed with … something. You know the type.’

‘He thought he could lead his people against the Machinery.’

‘Yes.’ Brandione rolled his eyes and drew a finger across his throat.

Farringer chuckled and spat in the dirt. ‘Where’s Brightling?’

‘She’s in the city, talking to the King.’

‘He let her in?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well then, this should not take long.’

As if in response, the great gate of Northern Blown began to open. The troops jolted to life, hoisting their weapons and leaping to attention at their war machines. But only two individuals emerged: Tactician Brightling, admired and distrusted in equal measure by the soldiery of the Overland, and King Seablast, whose very beard looked disconsolate. He lumbered along behind Brightling, a prisoner without chains.

There was someone else there, too: a girl in a state of mourning, to judge by her white rags. She flittered along behind the Tactician and the King, her footfalls swift and light, her black hair gleaming in the cold northern sun. Brandione had not seen her before: some Watcher, no doubt.

How had Brightling managed it? She had been able to enter one of the greatest fortresses in the world and persuade it to surrender, and not for the first time. Brandione had served with her before, here in the North and in the Western Rebellion. There had been other times like this one, when his skills were entirely worthless. Even when they did deploy their military might, she was always somewhere nearby, giving him little words of advice, he who had forgotten more about war than anyone else could remember, he who had been hand-picked by the Strategist himself to serve as his most senior adviser. Truly, there was something about the Tactician. She had been a Watcher for twenty years before her Selection, Brandione knew. That was a long time to serve the See House. The troops bowed as she brushed past, lowering their heads and averting their gazes.

The Tactician and her prisoner arrived at Brightling’s tent, a modest, green affair, and entered, the girl following in their wake.

‘No battle with Northern Blown, then,’ Farringer said.

‘No.’

‘What are your orders, sir?’

‘Nothing. We wait on Brightling.’

‘Ah! It looks like they’re done already.’

Indeed so. Just moments after she had entered the tent, Brightling had reappeared. Brandione could not see the expression on the Tactician’s face, but could well imagine her satisfaction.

Brightling crossed the bloodless battlefield to a trebuchet, wind-battered and pockmarked with arrows. Its operators scrambled away as the Tactician scaled the machine, refusing all offers of assistance. The troops crowded around her without prompting, Brandione among them.