The Iron Wyrm Affair: Bannon and Clare: Book 1

by Lilith Saintcrow

  … and buried itself to the hilt in Llewellyn Gwynfudd’s back.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Hardly Bad Company

  I know you, Clare realised, as his mecha landed with bone-rattling force. The arachnid screeched, one of its massive legs twisted and hanging by a thread of metal. That thread was massive in its own right, but the gigantic mecha listed, its mass knocked off balance. Two of Clare’s subordinate mecha tore at the Prussian capacitors lining its abdomen, glass shattering and bolts of energy sparking as they arced.

  Sig’s mecha crouched on the steps of the Palace below, its cannon crackling as he sought to hold back the tide of frog-headed, slump-shouldered mecha controlled by the Other. The Queen’s and Queen’s Life Guard – Beefeaters, Coldwater, and other regiments, scarlet and blue flashing through the smoke and dirt – was behind him, firing rifles in blocks and chipping away at the oncoming wall of metal. No few among them were sharpshooters, and the Bavarian had marshalled them to shoot at the golden discs; if the core was shattered, the mecha would engage in a jerky tarantella before it died, smashing its fellows before sinking to the ground in a crackling, dangerous mass of sharp quivering metal.

  Valentinelli’s mecha dangled, a mess of metal and glass, from the thread holding the almost severed leg. He could not see if the Neapolitan still lived, and in any case, it was academic.

  Archibald Clare had tribulations of his own.

  The arachnid heaved, and one of Clare’s mecha flew, describing a graceful arc before crashing like a falling star in the mess of the Park, a geyser of mud vomiting up from its impact.

  This is not going well.

  His own mecha, its cannon twisted into broken spars serving as grappling hooks, wheezed upright. He had been seeking to climb the leg in front of him and get to where he suspected the Other crouched inside the arachnid, contacts clasped to his own head, battering at Clare with streams of cold logic. If Clare could just get close enough, there was a chance of wresting control of the larger logic engine away from the Other. Who was, he realised, Cecil Throckmorton, still not dead, forcing the brains of other mentaths to obey him, and still utterly bloody insane.

  The oncoming horde of mecha could not be stopped, though Sig and the Guards were valiant indeed. There were simply too many, and Throckmorton’s core was too vast.

  Clare tensed every muscle, the mecha around him wheezing and grinding as its tired gears responded. What am I planning? This is insanity. It is illogical. It is suicide.

  It didn’t matter.

  Clare leapt, the mecha leaping with him. Shredded metal punched into the arachnid’s leg; he pumped his arms, seeking to climb. Gears ground even further, pistons popping, the core at his chest furiously hot, shreds of his mecha falling in a silvery rain. Machines did not become tired, but Clare could swear the metal exoskeleton was exhausted. Shearing, fracturing, the rain of silvery bits intensified as capacitors bled away force, the equations multiplying so rapidly his faculties strained at the corners, seeking to juggle them all and push the Other away. It was a doomed battle, and when the core at his chest shattered Clare fell, narrowly missing spearing himself on spikes of discarded steel and glass. The force of the fall drove his breath out in a long howl, his head cracking against the paving.

  It was a sheer, illogical miracle he didn’t split his bloody skull.

  The shock of the core’s shattering caught up with him, drawing up his arms and legs in seizure. Hands on him, dragging, the smoke of rifle fire acrid, stinging his throat as he struggled to force air into his recalcitrant lungs. Equations spun inside his head, dancing, flailing like the thing above him.

  He went rigid as they dragged him, staring at the massive bulk above him as it yawed, sharply, a ship sailing on thin legs. One leg spasmed, clipping the roof of the Palace, and stone shattered. There was an insect crawling on the vast shining carapace, a thin shadow against the glow of capacitors. Dust choked the daylight, but Clare squinted. He thought he saw—

  “Retreat!” a familiar voice was yelling, a battlefield roar that would have done a Teuton berserker proud. Sigmund’s mecha was a smoking hulk, and it was two of the Guards – hard-faced country boys, one from Dorset if his nose was any indication – dragging Clare along. He tried to make his legs work, but could not. They might as well have been insensate meat, for all his straining will could move them.

  “Inside!” someone else yelled. “Here they come! MOVE!”

  That was a familiar voice as well, and as Clare was hauled through the Palace’s door like a sack of potatoes he wondered just what Mikal was doing here.

  A deep, appalling cry rose from among the attacking mecha. “Prussians!” Mikal cried, as Sigmund cursed in German. “Fall back! Brace the doors! Move, you whoresons!”

  Well, at least Miss Bannon comes by her language honestly. Clare’s eyelids fluttered. Sig bent over him, something damp and cold swiping at Clare’s forehead. It was a handkerchief, dipped in God knew what. Prussians. The mercenaries. They must be very sure of overrunning us. And yes, mecha are not useful inside the Palace. Some part of the conspiracy wants Victrix captured alive, or proof of her death. A mecha cannot report on its victims as a man may.

  “Mentath.” Mikal, hoarse and very close. “Why am I not surprised? And … where is the assassin?”

  “Big Spinne outside,” Sigmund gasped, for Clare’s mouth wouldn’t open. “Dead, maybe. Wer weiss?”

  Now Clare could see the Shield. Grey-cheeked, blood-soaked, his yellow eyes glowing furiously, the man looked positively lethal. Behind him, Eli conferred with a captain in the Guards, glancing every so often at the straining iron-bound door.

  “That won’t hold for long,” Mikal said grimly. “Bring him. Your Majesty?”

  And, impossibility of impossibilities, Queen Victrix came into sight, her wan face smudged with masonry dust and terribly weary. An ageless shadow in her dark gaze was Britannia, the ruling spirit’s attention turned elsewhere despite the threat to its vessel. “I must reach the Throne.”

  “Indeed.” Mikal did not flinch as a stunning impact hit the door. Several of the Guards were still scurrying to shore its heavy oak with anything that could be moved, including chunks of fallen stone. “Come, then. Eli!”

  “What next?” The other Shield looked grimly amused. Half his face was painted bright red with blood, but at least he had found better boots. He was alight with fierce joy, no measure of sleepiness remaining, and Clare found the iron bands constricting his lungs easing.

  Sig walloped him on the back hard enough to crack a rib or two. Clare coughed, choked, and almost spewed on the Queen’s dust-choked skirts. She did not notice, following Eli out of sight, and Mikal glanced down at Clare.

  “Well done, mentath. One of the Guards will find you a weapon. We make our stand before the Throne.”

  Oh. Clare fought down the retching. “Yes.” He coughed, violently, turned his head to the side and spat as Sig hauled him up and Clare found that yes, indeed, his legs would carry him. Shakily and uncertainly, but better than not. “Quite. God and Her Majesty, sir. Miss Bannon?”

  “Elsewhere.” Mikal turned on his heel and strode after the Queen. Sig clapped him on the back again, but more gently, thank God.

  “Archie, mein Herr.” The Bavarian shook his filthy, bald-shining head. “You are crazy, mein Freund. Du bist ein Bastard verrücht.”

  Clare coughed again, leaning on Sig’s broad shoulder. “Likewise, Siggy. Likewise.” If I must die, this is hardly bad company.

  At his throat, the Bocannon turned to a spot of crystalline ice, and the skin around it began to tingle.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  A Life’s Work

  The globe of protective sorcery shattered, sharp darts of ætheric energy slicing trembling air. Emma skidded to a stop as Llewellyn staggered, the chant faltering. She intended to reach for the hilt, wrench it free, and stab him again, and again, as many times as it took to make him cease.

  She did not have the chance
.

  A long trailing scream behind her, a wet crunching. One more Shield had fallen. She snapped a glance over her shoulder – the two surviving Shields were fully occupied now keeping the gryphons from their throats. The lion-birds darted in, the smaller wild ones swooping down in tightening circles. There were too many of them; even a Shield of Mikal’s calibre would not keep that feathered tide back.

  Britannia’s steeds would not cease until this threat was contained and their furious hunger sated.

  But Emma’s immediate concern was the Sorcerer Prime collapsing to his knees before the tower. An altar – a plain slab of stone – glowed before him with hurtful dull-red ætheric charge, buckled and cracked. He struggled to hold the chant, but a gap of a single note opened and became an abyss, the complex interlocking parts shredding and peeling away.

  Her throat closed. A moment’s regret flashed through her – with Sight, she could see the towering cathedral of the spell, beautiful in its wholeness for a single instant before cracks of negation raced up its walls and exploded through its windows, twisting and warping the flawless work of a Prime at his best.

  A life’s work. How long had Llewellyn been planning this?

  Questions could wait. She reached for the knife again, but the Prime pitched violently backwards, his body lashed by stray sorcery escaping his control. It descended upon him, his flesh jerking, force a physical body was not meant to bear searching for an outlet and grinding the cohesion of muscle and blood away.

  It was not a pleasant death. It replicated the dragon-fuelled simulacrum in Bedlam, shredding him to a rag of shattered bone and blood-painted meat, his eyeballs popping and his hair smoking as the spell, cheated, took its revenge. The knife fell free, chiming on rock; she bent reflexively to retrieve it, her fingers clamping on its slippery hilt. Something else rolled loose too, and her free hand scooped it up with no direction on her part, tucking it into her skirt pocket.

  Oh, Llew.

  The tower dropped back into its accustomed shape with a subliminal thud. No longer a single claw of a massive reptilian limb, it was now merely a shattered pile of masonry and moss, leaning as if into a heavy wind.

  Shadows wheeled overhead as the gryphons dived, screaming triumphantly, and Emma turned away from the body on its carpet of boiling blood, her hand lifting to shield her face.

  The ground settled as well. Vortigern, the colourless dragon, the Third Wyrm and mighty forefather of all the Timeless children still awake in the world, sank into slumber again, the Isle on his back pulled tight like a green and grey counterpane, upon which mites scattered and pursued their little loves and vendettas.

  And Emma Bannon, Sorceress Prime, wept.

  The silence was as massive as the cacophony beforehand had been, and she lifted her head, wiping her cheeks.

  Most of the gryphons had settled into feeding at the fallen Shields and the three lion-bird corpses. The ripping and gurgling sounds were enough to unsettle even her stomach. No doubt even Clare’s excellent digestion would have difficulty with this.

  Clare. She swallowed, hard, invisible threads twitching faintly. Londinium was a fair ways away. She had ridden Khloros to bloody Wales, of all places.

  One of the gryphons mantled, hopping a little closer. It was edging away from the carrion and eyeing her sidelong, its gold-ringed pupil holding a small, perfect image of a very tired sorceress armed with a toothpick.

  Oh dear. Emma swallowed again, drily.

  The gryphon’s indigo-dyed tongue flicked as its beak opened. It was the remaining black from the carriage, its glossy feathers throwing back the morning sun with a blue-underlit vengeance.

  “Vortigern,” it whistled. “Vortigern still sleeps, sorceress.”

  That was the whole point of this exercise, was it not? And now I have other matters to attend to. The hilt, slippery with blood and her sweat, was pulsing-warm in her clenched fist. “Yes.”

  “We are hungry.” Its beak clacked.

  “You have the dead to feast upon,” she pointed out. “And Vortigern sleeps.”

  In other words, I have done you a favour. I am loyal to Britannia, as you are. Or, more plainly, Please don’t eat me.

  It actually laughed at her. Its claws flexed, and the reek of blood and split bowel tore at Emma’s nose. Blood could drive the beasts into a frenzy—

  The invisible threads tied to a pendant twitched again. For such a movement to reach her here meant Clare was in dire trouble indeed.

  “I am sorry,” she told the gryphon, and her grip on the knife shifted. The stone at her throat, frost-cold, became a spot of ice so fierce it burned, and she knew a charter symbol would be rising through its depths, shimmering and taking form in tangled lines of golden ætheric force.

  The beast laughed again, its haunches rising slightly as it prepared to spring. Its feathers ruffled, and its pupil was so dark, the gold of its iris so bright. “So am I, Sorceress. But we are hungry.”

  Force uncoiled inside her. She was exhausted, mental and emotional muscles strained from the opening of her Discipline. Her sorcerous Will was strong, yes, but the toll of ætheric force channelled through her physical body dragged her down. It would slow her, just at the moment she needed speed and strength most.

  I am not ready to die. She knew it did not matter. Death was here all the same, the payment demanded by Khloros. Death was inevitable.

  Her fingers tightened on the knife’s hilt. Inevitable as well was Emma Bannon’s refusal to die quietly.

  Even for Victrix.

  The gryphon sprang.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Who Dies Next?

  The inner courtyard of the Palace, choked with drifts of dust and quaking underfoot, opened around them. The front door had broken, and the brown-jacketed Prussian mercenaries with their white armbands poured through, firing as they advanced. Many of the Guard fell, buying time for Victrix to flee through the halls. All that remained was to cross the courtyard and gain the relative safety of the Throne Hall.

  Though how that great glass-roofed hall could shelter them was somewhat fuzzy to Clare. He suspected he was not thinking clearly.

  Clare limped along, Sigmund hauling him, the vast shadow of the arachnid mecha stagger-thrashing above. Stone crumbled, the centuries of building and replacement work smashed in a moment. Something was wrong – the arachnid reeled drunkenly, shattering glass from its capacitors falling like daggers.

  Victrix stumbled. Mikal and Eli all but carried her, one on either side, and the Guard fanned out. Rifleshot popped on the stones around them – the Prussians had gained height and were firing from the windows. The door to the Throne Hall had never seemed so far away.

  They plunged into dust-swirling darkness just as a massive grinding thud smashed in the courtyard. A gigantic warm hand lifted Clare and flung him; he landed with a crunch and briefly lost consciousness. He surfaced in a soupy daze, carried between Sig and a bleeding, husky Guard with a bandaged head and a limp, who nevertheless moved with admirable speed. Breaking glass tinkled sweetly overhead, and the Bocannon at his chest was a fiery cicatrice.

  Shouts. Confusion. Mikal’s hoarse hissing battle cry. Queen Victrix screamed, a note of frustration and terror as mercenaries poured in through the side doors.

  Clare lifted his head. He blinked, dazed. There was another giant impact, and he realised he’d been half-conscious for too long. They were surrounded, Mikal and Eli flanking the Queen, whose young face was pale, one cheek terribly bruised and her dark hair falling in ragged strands.

  Miss Bannon looks much better dishevelled, he thought, and the illogical nature of the reflection shocked him far more than the queer swimming sensation all through his limbs.

  Sig had a pistol from somewhere. He was grim and pale, covered in dust and soot, and his mouth pulled down at both corners. A jab of regret stabbed Clare’s chest. He should not have drawn his friend into this.

  They were all about to die. Except possibly Victrix, whose face aged in a split
second, Britannia resurfacing from wherever Her attention had been drawn, alert to the threat to Her vessel.

  More shattering glass. The ground quaked violently, almost throwing Clare from his feet.

  Then they descended.

  The glass fell in sheets. The ancient roof of the Throne Room bucked, snapped, and fell, the shards – some as long as a man’s body – miraculously avoiding the knot of Guards, Shields, and mentath-and-genius. The sound was immense, titanic, the grinding of ice floes, as if the earth itself had gone mad and sought to rid itself of humanity.

  The gryphon was massive, and black. Its eyes were holes of runnelling unholy red flame. Driven into the top of its sleek skull was a fiery red nail, a star of hurtful brilliance.

  Perched on its back was a battered, wan, half-clothed Miss Bannon. Her dress had been ripped to tatters and her hair was an outrageous mess stiff with dirt, sticks, feathers, and matted blood. Bruising ran over every inch of flesh he could see, and the other shadows were more gryphons, breaking through the roof as Miss Bannon slid from the beast’s back. The red flame winked out, and the deadwinged beast slumped to the strewn floor. It twisted, shrivelling, dust racing through its feathers and eating at its glossy hide.

  The dead gryphon collapsed. Miss Bannon bent, wrenching the nail from its head.

  It was a knife, and it dripped with crackling red as she turned. The Prussian mob drew back, the feathers in their hats nodding as her gaze raked them, slow and terrible.

  “Gryphons,” Britannia whispered, through the Queen’s mouth. The single word was horrifying, as cold and ageless as the Themis itself, a welter of power and command.