Black Iron

by Franklin Veaux

  Thaddeus took it from her and examined it. “Nope.” He looked curiously at the symbol engraved in the hilt, a stylized “B&B” in a square. “This is one of yours?”

  “Yep. Hold it against your shoulder here, pull this bit here, and hang on. Kicks like a mule, but that ain’t half so bad as what happens to the other guy. You reload it here, move this bit, pull on this, cartridge comes out, put a new one in, close it all back up. Spare cartridges are in this little case here on the strap, see? If you run out or don’t have time to reload, you can stab with the pointy bit on the end here. Hey, number two! You get the other one.” She tossed the second rifle to Elias, who snatched it gracefully out of the air.

  Donnie finished adjusting the straps. He picked up a long metal nozzle attached to the device on his back. Thaddeus saw sparks, then a tiny blue flame, smaller than the flame from a gas lamp. More flames winked into existence as the apprentices readied their weapons.

  “That thing really work?” Thaddeus said.

  “Dunno. I think so. Let’s find out,” he said.

  Under cover of shadow, they moved single file toward the stable, Donnie in front, then Claire, Thaddeus and Jake behind, and the apprentices taking up the rear.

  “I don’t like this. Where is everyone?” Thaddeus said.

  Donnie grunted. He moved forward cautiously toward the stables.

  There was no visible sign of humanity inside. Most of the stalls were empty, with only a single horse, black with a white star on its nose, in evidence. It regarded them with dull, incurious eyes.

  “What is that?” Elias hissed. He pointed to the far wall of the stable.

  There, the normal stalls had been removed and replaced with tall, narrow alcoves, far too small for a horse. Each alcove contained a single, horrifying occupant, a grotesquely misshapen, leather-skinned thing in the approximate shape of a human being. Each of the creatures was held tightly against the wall by wide iron bands locked around its arms and legs. Many of the creatures bore wide, jagged scars on their arms, legs, and necks. A complex tangle of tubes descended from the ceiling, entering the creatures at neck, shoulders, chest, and arms. Their eyes were open but unseeing, registering nothing. They did not move or breathe. A cloying stench rose from them, made of equal parts swamp and spoiled meat.

  “I thought animates were ugly,” Jake said, “but these things are a whole new kind of ugly.”

  “Someone’s been up to no good,” Claire said.

  Jake walked up to one of the creatures and prodded it with his club. “It ain’t moving,” he said. “It ain’t doin’ nothing.”

  “Get out of there! Are you crazy?” Thaddeus said.

  “What?” Jake said. He prodded the inert animate again. “See? It ain’t moving at all. I don’t think it’s alive. Or whatever those things are.”

  “Muddy,” Donnie said, “are any o’ these the one that tried t’ kill you an’ Alÿs?”

  Thaddeus examined the row of silent animates, hand held over his nose. “No.”

  “Hm. I think we burn ’em anyway. Move away. Elias, get th’ horse out of here.” He brought the nozzle from his device up toward the row of creatures standing motionless in their alcoves.

  Elias opened the stall. The horse seemed disinclined to move. He slapped its side. It looked at him reproachfully and ambled out of the stable.

  “Stand back in case this explodes,” Donnie said.

  “What? Is that a possibility?” Thaddeus said.

  Donnie shrugged. “Prototype. Y’know how it is.”

  “Wait! How is Lord Rathman going to feel about you setting fire to his stable?” Thaddeus said.

  “I’ll ask ’im if I see ’im,” Donnie said placidly. “Might want t’ move back now.”

  The apprentices took several cautious steps back out of the stable. Thaddeus took more than several steps back, until he was well into the courtyard. Jake watched Donnie curiously. Claire smiled.

  The nozzle in Donnie’s hand made a dull roaring sound. A geyser of flame gushed forth. A blast of heat, intense as a furnace, poured over Thaddeus.

  He didn’t know what to expect. A part of him thought the animates might do something—wake up, scream, tear free of their bonds and attack them, anything. The result was anticlimactic. The creatures did nothing at all as the flames consumed them.

  Within seconds, the stable was an inferno. Donnie smiled with grim satisfaction. “Let’s go find the other animate an’ finish this,” he said.

  “Where do you think it is?”

  “Dunno. It’s ’ere somewhere. Let’s start wi’ that tower. If it ain’t there, we keep lookin’. If there is anyone here, the fire should keep ‘em busy an’ out o’ our way while we look.”

  Donnie and Claire led the group away from the burning stables toward the tower. They had not even covered half the distance to the tower’s base when, with a loud metallic chunk, the courtyard was flooded with the harsh blaze of electric arc lights. Thaddeus froze. The shadows fled, leaving nowhere to hide.

  A door opened. A man of medium height in a white smock stepped out onto a balcony just above the tower’s gate. “Well, I’ll be a son of a ring-tailed lemur,” he said. “Donnie Bodger, is that you? I haven’t seen you since the Admiral’s birthday. And Claire, too! My, my. This is a surprise. Why are you setting fires in Lord Rathman’s estate?”

  Donnie shielded his eyes and looked up at the figure. “Doctor Franken—”

  “Please, call me Victor. We’re all friends here. At least I thought we were. Am I mistaken?”

  “We’re lookin’ for a murderous animate. You been buildin’ animates that talk, Doctor?” Donnie said.

  “I prefer to think of it as building the future,” Victor said. “The future is here, Donnie Bodger! The days of clankers are over. Science has moved beyond such crude artifice. You still hammer things out of black iron, while I build with the very stuff of life itself! Isn’t it amazing?”

  “Amazin’ is a word,” Donnie said. “Your animate killed one of us.”

  Victor spread his hands dismissively. “The value of my triumph is independent of the uses to which it is put. You know that. Donnie and Claire, the famous Bodger twins. How many people have your creations killed?”

  “Don’ matter,” Donnie said. His face was placid. “We’re ’ere to settle up.”

  “You came here to destroy one of my creations out of some misguided sense of loyalty? Oh, Donnie, Donnie, Donnie. The world must be a terrible place for someone like you. No. I don’t think that is going to happen.”

  “Ain’t askin’,” Donnie said.

  “My dear fellow. You may have rudely set fire to some of my laborers, but no matter. Did you think it would be so easy to come here and undo what I have created? You have absolutely no idea what I’ve accomplished here.” Victor spread his arms expansively. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? You are the past. I am the future. See what I have wrought!”

  The gate at the base of the tower opened. A shrill, inhuman scream rent the air. Nightmares poured forth.

  ✦

  The impact was greater than he had expected. The bayonet caught the red-uniformed man mid-chest. The shock of it ran up Roderick’s arm. The gun was wrenched from his grasp. The man screamed and fell, spouting blood.

  Roderick unfastened his cape and, in one fluid motion, slung it at the next man. It caught him in the face. The man flailed wildly. The bayonet on his rifle connected with Roderick’s side. Pain blossomed. He kept going, knocking the thrashing man aside.

  He reached the main gate before the soldiers. He opened the hatch next to the gate and pulled savagely on the lever inside it. A hundred tons of counterweight, free of the mechanism that held it in place, started its inevitable descent. Gears ground. Pulleys turned, protesting under the stress. The great iron portcullis began to fall.

  High overhead, operated
by a cunning arrangement of winches and ropes connected to that same counterweight, the alarm bell began to sound.

  Somewhere far behind him, Major Archibald screamed with rage. “Stop that gate! Get him! Now!”

  Guns spoke. Stars of pain erupted in Roderick’s body. He turned toward the gate, which was still descending, creaking and groaning in its track. Two of the soldiers darted through it, then another, and another. Roderick drew his sword. He staggered, holding on to the wall for support. Another man dove toward the narrowing opening. Roderick lunged. His sword connected with the man’s neck. Jets of red decorated the ground.

  Another round of thunder came from behind. Something slammed hard into Roderick’s back. His legs stopped operating properly. He stumbled sideways and fell.

  All around Roderick, running men were cursing and shouting, but they seemed far away, unreal. Someone shoved the lever back into place. The portcullis ground to a halt halfway to the ground. Darkness closed around him, and all was still.

  ✦

  “No! Wait!” Alÿs said. “You’re making a huge mistake! It’s Rathman! He’s behind it all! He—”

  “Alÿs de Valois, Eleanor de Revier, I am placing you under arrest on suspicion of high treason and murder,” Julianus said. He grabbed Alÿs tightly by the arm. “Your Grace, please return to your quarters. We have reason to believe this woman is involved in multiple murders, including the attack on the Cardinal this evening.”

  Margaret gave Alÿs a long look. “I thought we were friends,” she said.

  “We are!” Alÿs said. “You have to listen to me! It’s not me, it’s Rathman! He—”

  Outside and above them, the alarm bell started tolling.

  “Take them!” Julianus said to the Guardsman at the door. “Bring them to the cells. Your Grace, get in your quarters and lock the door. Max, come with me. Something—”

  All the lights went out.

  ✦

  Most of the things had probably been human once.

  They ran on two legs, many of them. Some of the legs were human. Some were large and covered with fur, powerful muscles rippling beneath. A couple of them carried weapons, long curved machetes that glinted in the harsh light. The rest had arms that ended in claws or hooks or slashing blades of bone. One had four arms, the two long ones ending in talons, the shorter ones in sharp, piercing spikes.

  And they were fast, so very fast.

  “What the f—” Thaddeus said.

  “Language,” Donnie said. A column of flame poured from the nozzle of his device. The closing swarm of creatures dodged aside, evading the roaring gout of fire easily.

  Claire’s crossbow twanged. A bolt appeared in the center of the chest of the closest creature. Blue ichor dripped from the wound. The creature ignored the wound, closing the distance in great bounds of its legs, claws spread wide.

  The animates crashed through the group. People screamed. Thaddeus twisted aside, narrowly evading a slashing claw. Behind him, one of the apprentices, a boy barely fourteen years old, cried out in anguish and died, a ragged hole in his chest.

  Tongues of flame licked out. One of the animates went up like a torch. It continued on in the direction it had been heading, colliding heavily with the apprentice who had ignited it. The apprentice spun out of the way, frantically stripping off the heavy tank and his smoldering clothes.

  Jake’s club whistled through the air. It connected with the head of a creature whose disturbingly human eyes looked out from over a large pair of grasping mandibles. It chittered and slashed at him. He twisted away.

  “We can’t stay here!” Jake said. “They’ll tear us up.”

  “Back against the wall,” Claire said. “We need to keep them from coming at us from all directions.”

  The small group broke out in a run. The animates circled around behind them, slashing and clawing. Another apprentice went down with a cry. Donnie spun around. Flame erupted. The animates scattered.

  The apprentices formed up, turning to face backward. More hungry flame licked out, hungering for a target. The animates hesitated, wary.

  “I don’t like this,” Claire said. “They’re smart.”

  The group edged back toward the stone wall surrounding the estate, cautious. The animates followed, staying just out of reach of the fire throwers. The fire had spread through most of the stable. Thaddeus could feel its heat.

  “Now what?” he said.

  “One problem at a time,” Donnie said. The device on his back roared. Flame jetted.

  Claire’s crossbow thwanged again. A human-looking animate with quills all over its body looked down at its chest where the bolt had appeared in a splotch of blue ichor. It pulled the bolt out, then looked at Claire and smiled. Its teeth were pointed like a shark’s.

  “What do we do now?” Thaddeus said.

  “We kin only ’old ’em off ’til we run outta fuel,” Donnie said. “Best make fer the gate before that ’appens. We need t’ run. ”

  The animates, on some unspoken signal, pulled back. They fanned out in a loose semicircle around the small group of people.

  “That’s weird,” Jake said.

  There was a dull rumble from above. Thaddeus looked up.

  The thing might have been an alligator, once, in some distant past. It had a long, scaled body and a triangular tail. But alligators don’t ordinarily have wide, leather wings, like the wings of a bat, if perhaps that bat were the size of a horse.

  It circled once, pinned in the glow of the arc lamps, then folded its wings and dove, front claws outstretched. It had a belt of some sort fastened around its body, ringed with small round protrusions…

  The claws opened. A small round object fell. There was a crack, like a mug shattering. A ball of fire spread up from the ground, engulfing an apprentice and his bulky fire thrower. For a second, his eyes locked with Thaddeus’s.

  Then he was gone, somewhere behind a pillar of flame. Thaddeus heard screaming. The pillar jerked and was still.

  “Back t’ the stables!” Donnie called. “We ’ave t’ get under cover.”

  “But the stables are on fire!” Thaddeus said.

  “You got a better idea?”

  The creature rose, soaring in the rainy air, front legs scrabbling at the belt around its waist. A second, nearly identical creature lifted off from within the tower, wings beating fast as it climbed rapidly to join its fellow.

  ✦

  Julianus felt his way along the wall to the nearest gas lamp and pressed the button. The igniter popped. The lamp glowed. Glints of light danced on the gold leaf that decorated the ceiling. “Your majesty, are you alright?” he said.

  “Yes, we are.” There was a steely tone in Margaret’s voice. “What is happening?”

  Gunfire sounded, somewhere below and far away.

  “Your Majesty, please go into your quarters and bar the door,” Julianus said.

  “No!” Alÿs said. “There are too many of them! There’s an entire army down there!”

  “How do you know that?” Max’s voice had an edge.

  “Because an army left Rathman’s estate earlier this evening.”

  “Lord Rathman?” Margaret said. “Nonsense. He has always supported us.”

  “He doesn’t!” Alÿs cried. “He means to do something terrible! Your Grace, we have to get you out of here. It’s not safe. They are too many.” She tugged at the hand on her arm.

  “Is that your idea, my lady?” Julian said. “To draw her out of the Palace, where there are fewer guards to protect her?”

  “No!” Alÿs said. She stamped her foot impatiently. “Your Grace…Margaret! It’s me! You know me! Please, we have to get you out of here!”

  The booms of gunfire sounded again, closer this time.

  “We are friends!” Alÿs said. “When I came here, I was alone and frightened, and you
were kind to me. You’ve known Eleanor your whole life. You know neither one of us is a traitor. Why would we turn against you? Please, we’re running out of time. They will be here soon. I don’t know what they mean to do, but I know you’re in terrible trouble. Margaret, it’s me! We need to run! Please!”

  Margaret looked back and forth between Alÿs and Julianus. She made a decision. “Very well. We will go. Release Alÿs and Eleanor. Max, Julianus, you will come with us. You,” she said, pointing at Percival, “find my brother. And you,” she said to Rudolf, “stay here and cover our escape.”

  “Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but this is a terrible idea,” Max said. “If you mean to go with the Lady Alÿs, let me find your brother.”

  “No,” Margaret said. “You are the captain of the Queen’s Guard, and you will accompany us, in the event that Alÿs is a traitor.”

  “Your Grace,” Julianus said, “I don’t think that’s—”

  “We have made our decision,” Margaret said.

  ✦

  In the great courtyard, a large group of soldiers in the red livery of Rathman’s levy had taken up positions in rows along the walls, rifles at the ready. In front of the gate stood a small triangle of mounted soldiers, alert and wary. Lord Rathman had assured them they would encounter no resistance from the regular military, though he had been vague on details. In principle, the whole affair would be concluded within the hour, and the sun would rise tomorrow on a new Britain.

  But one thing any veteran of any military service knows is that the only thing you can rely on is you can’t rely on anything. So they waited, attentive, ready to defend their compatriots inside the Palace. They were sowing the seeds of a brave new world, and sometimes, the seeds of a brave new world required liberal watering with blood. The men in the courtyard were determined that should that eventuality arise, the blood would belong to someone else.

  In the Palace, the Queen’s Guard had had little time to react. The alarm bell was unfortunate, but Lord Rathman had thought to kill the electricity to the Palace, plunging much of it into darkness. His men carried lanterns. The gas jets required manual intervention to ignite, exactly the sort of oversight common among those who try to plan for contingencies they don’t really believe will happen.