The Court of the Air j-1

by Stephen Hunt

  ‘I can make women see a god-given human form when they look at me, twist dreams like clay,’ said the Whisperer, ‘but you put something in their soul. That’s not a talent that came out of the feymist.’

  ‘Run your hands through the soil,’ said Oliver. ‘You’ll find your answer in the dirt.’

  Another sound drifted in from the south, an unholy wailing like a wolf pack pleading to the moon. Out of the falling snow a line appeared, soldiers in the lobster-coloured uniforms of the regiments, kilts in garish tartan billowing in the cold. With bag-like sashes strapped around their tunics the front line played sackpipes, an unnatural noise, its fierce melody flaying the wind.

  ‘Uplanders!’ said Mad Jack. ‘By the Circle, I was never so glad to hear a cat being strangled.’

  A woman from the head of the column rode up to meet them, the back of her brown coat strapped with three loaded rifles. Not fancy fowling pieces, but workaday Brown Janes, the standard rifle of the Jackelian redcoat. ‘Bel McConnell. Guardian McConnell. I have stripped out every bonnie boy and lass with a taste for a scrap from all the acres from Braxney to Lethness. We’re holding the caliph’s border with nothing but bairns and companies from the clan MacHoakumchild, and I’d rather trust a weasel in a henhouse than rely on a MacHoakumchild.’

  ‘Wanted to see the capital, eh?’ said Mad Jack. ‘Place ain’t what it used to be. Shifties have got the picnic blankets out for King Steam over at Rivermarsh.’

  ‘We were following the smoke of it ourselves, laddie,’ said Guardian McConnell. ‘We’ve been marching for days and have got a hunger on.’

  ‘Let’s inspect the shifties’ spread, then,’ said Mad Jack. ‘Your pipes can play us a merry tune as we ride out.’

  ‘Are you daft, man?’ said the uplander Guardian. ‘Sackpipes are the music of lament. We’ll play a dirge for the Commonshare and their shiftie-loving downlander friends. No offence meant.’

  ‘None taken, I am sure.’

  It took half an hour to cross the downs, and by the time they crested the hill to Rivermarsh the dark leviathans of the air were moving after them, scudding across an ocean of black smoke where Middlesteel burnt beneath their hulls. Oliver’s sixer whinnied with fright as the vista of battle opened up before them. The Third Brigade and Tzlayloc’s revolutionary army held the west side of the field, King Steam and the remaining forces of parliament the east. Shrouds of smoke surrounded the clashing armies, the crackle of fire from Tzlayloc’s rifles answered by the saw-like whine of steammen pressure repeaters. On the higher ground at the rear of both armies steammen gun-boxes and Quatershiftian artillery fought their own duel, great gobs of earth erupting from the frozen ground and scattering troops as fire licked out from the opposing cannonry.

  A fizz of energies punctured the shroud of war as worldsingers and the Special Guard traded blows, the leylines throbbing in Oliver’s sight as the land’s power was leeched out from the bones of the earth. At the far end of the plain gusts of snow moved like phantoms, shapes appearing and whirling around each other, then vanishing into white. The Steamo Loas were losing to the Wildcaotyl, Oliver could feel their fatigue, the presence of Tzlayloc at the rear of his army like the stab of a migraine. The leader of the revolution was different now, fused with his masters, an ant flattened on the boot of giants, his hate for Jackals amplified under their possession and leaking across the battlefield in waves of pure loathing.

  Oliver could see Tzlayloc was channelling in the souls of the dead. Drawing strength from the screaming Jackelian on the plain with his leg torn off by a rolling cannon ball; drawing strength from the equalized revolutionary limping in circles, his head caved in by a steamman knight’s hammer; drawing strength from the two laughing Third Brigade troopers spearing a parliamentarian as he slipped on the blood of his comrade; drawing strength from the confused refugees running away from collapsing steaming towers in Middlesteel; drawing strength from the tears of Benjamin Carl and Hoggstone as they shouted orders that would send more of their people to the slaughter; drawing strength from the agony in Captain Flare’s heart as his guardsmen tore apart their own countrymen, Prince Alpheus hanging like a banner behind him on Tzlayloc’s cross of pain. Tzlayloc was feeding, growing stronger from the harvest of evil, and after the aerostats arrived and decimated the Jackelians and their allies, he would rip open the walls of the world and spill a sea of hungry insects into the land.

  ‘We’re losing,’ said the Whisperer. ‘They have the numbers and they have the guns.’

  Oliver reached out to grab the reigns of a riderless horse that was galloping away from the skirmish, jumping over to the blood-splattered saddle and leaving the gypsy steed to the Whisperer. ‘You know where the bridge is, Nathaniel.’

  ‘Aye, there’s our spread alright,’ called Guardian McConnell back to her forces. She slipped a claymore out of her saddle and pointed it towards the enemy’s right flank. ‘That’s where we’ll take them. Strike up a tune, my bonnie boys and lovely lasses. Play “The Scouring of Clan McMaylie” for your Bel.’

  Mad Jack’s company formed into two columns, one on either side of the uplanders, trotting along amid the howl of the sackpipes. The uplander troops pulled leather hoods out from the sash-like instruments, raising them up and covering their heads. They were meant to protect from the poison that rose from the feymist curtain, but the hoods also gave them a hideous bird-like appearance, striking terror into enemy hearts. They were marching to their deaths and they knew it, but the mountain people of the south lived freer than any other Jackelian, by their lochs and their glens, and it was only the toss of dirt on their coffins that could tame them.

  On the battlefield the plumes of smoke solidified, slowly freezing as a silence fell over the plain.

  ‘Still not taken the rat tunnel, I see.’

  Oliver dismounted from his frozen horse to face the Shadow Bear, the creature watching the battle from his bubble of suspended time. ‘That would be too easy.’

  ‘There never was any point in saving even a handful of you,’ said the Shadow Bear. ‘Look at you people. Look at the mess you’ve made of things. Even when everything is lined up for you, you won’t do what is expected. Tell you to run and you stay. Tell you to stay and you run. Frankly, the other side of the curtain doesn’t need vermin like your kind breeding and fighting and squabbling.’

  ‘I have been there,’ said Oliver. ‘And that is something we can agree on.’

  The Shadow Bear pointed down towards the heavy weight of Tzlayloc, the pressure of his Wildcaotyl masters pushing into the world. ‘See that. That is what your race is. Condensed and packaged into a tight little ball of destruction and hate and pointlessness. My predecessor cleans out the weeds and your kind just let them grow back.’

  ‘That’s not us,’ said Oliver. ‘That’s not us at all.’

  The thin slash of red that was the Shadow Bear’s eye turned away from Oliver. ‘They’re pretty furious, the Wildcaotyl. You’ve kept those wasps trapped in a jar for a thousand years, and now they want to re-paint the canvas without you in the picture. I might almost agree with them, except for the fact they don’t plan on leaving us in the canvas either, and that is something that is not negotiable.’

  ‘I thought it might be something that basic,’ said Oliver. ‘You handle the level of detail down here a lot better than my mother, but I suppose your function is rather basic too. And I would really rather you didn’t lecture me about the violence of my people. How many times have you destroyed everything, killed everyone?’

  ‘I do not kill all that is,’ said the Shadow Bear. ‘That is the job of entropy. How can you kill something that is not immortal? You are all going to die anyway; one day later, one week later, one star death later. No, I reset all that is. The same way your foresters burn out an overgrown copse to renew it. Your people are dead wood, Observer child, time to move along and make way for something more worthy.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Oliver, remounting his time-frozen horse. ‘Rules, rules
. You do so hate to be broken. I wonder how you feel about being bent out of shape a little?’

  ‘You are so righteous,’ snarled the Shadow Bear. ‘But the rule-set is there for a reason. Without the rules to set a trajectory for growth all you have is the perfect tick of the perfectly empty clock, going round and round and going nowhere to the random froth and fizz of the universe. But it is within my power to save you. I could leave time suspended for you; you could still reach the feymist curtain with a few of your twisted half-breed friends.’

  ‘As you said, the more you try and get me to run, the more I seem to want to stay,’ said Oliver.

  ‘Where are you going, Observer child?’

  ‘I’m going to ask the Wildcaotyl to leave. And when I am done with them, I’ll be asking you the same.’

  The Shadow Bear snorted. ‘It will be amusing watching you try. After you have rogered things up, I shall let you live just long enough to see how things really end.’

  Time jumped forward to the whine of cannon balls scratched across the sky. Oliver kicked his sixer down after the Whisperer.

  ‘Lad,’ shouted the commodore. ‘You’re alive.’

  Oliver caught sight of the submariner on the other side of a square of steammen, soldiers moving in tight formation singing a hymn of battle in their machine voices. A cloud of acrid smoke from the battlefront briefly enveloped them, and then Oliver was through it. ‘Commodore, where’s King Steam’s command frame?’

  ‘This way, lad, I’ll take you.’

  Oliver checked the Whisperer was still following and fell in with Commodore Black. ‘You did it, Commodore. They listened to you and Guardian Tinfold.’

  ‘Ah, much good has it done us, Oliver. That devil Tzlayloc has had years to plan his campaign, while parliament’s forces are in disarray. These rag-tag companies have never fought beside each other, or followed the leaders that now ask them to die. I would not trust these green-legs to help me lift a harpoon at a slipsharp, let alone crew the guns of a man-o’war. They’re fine fellows when it comes to cracking a debating stick over the head of a rival, but they have never faced a charge of exomounts, or been asked to hold a square for an hour while the Third Brigade’s six-pounders give them a broadside.’

  Oliver moved aside to make way for a column of steammen knights, their bright banners crackling like whips as they raced past. Then they were at the command post. Riding officers galloped into King Steam’s command position, shouting reports to the Jackelian officers there before riding out to their units with fresh orders. In one of the hexagonal frame domes the Free State’s own command staff sat cross-legged and track-still, slipthinker brains co-ordinating their mu-bodies, allowing the conscript army and orders militant to move as a single entity. It was a formidable advantage — a collapsing line would be rapidly reinforced from the rear, a sudden enemy advance countered by knights that always appeared out of the snow like sorcery, cannon fire on their lines answered by counter-battery fire from the gun-boxes in the hills behind.

  Oliver rode past the giant war body of the King and spotting the child-like form of the Free State’s leader, dismounted. Hoggstone was there, and Ben Carl in his bath chair, still being pushed by the girl who had led them through Middlesteel’s sewers. The conservative dark jacket of the First Guardian was at odds with the medley of brilliantly coloured uniforms of the surviving officers of the regiments.

  ‘Oliver softbody,’ said King Steam. ‘So, you have chosen to stay and fight with us. Well met.’ He looked over towards the Whisperer. ‘And you come with one who is not what he seems. You choose dangerous allies, Oliver softbody. You have unleashed the weaver of dreams.’

  ‘These are dangerous times, Your Majesty,’ said Oliver. ‘And I seem to be running short of allies. Steamswipe and Lord Wireburn are dead. They died to protect me … they died well.’

  ‘Do not mourn for them, child of Jackals. The Keeper of the Eternal Flame now walks with the Loas and Steamswipe’s honour is restored. There is no better end for a warrior. They gave their lives to preserve the great pattern and I can feel their harmonics powerful and proud in the hymns of the people.’

  ‘Ah, Your Majesty,’ interrupted Commodore Black. ‘We are all going to end up in your mortal hymns now. Look!’ He pointed towards the hill Oliver had ridden down, the beak of an aerostat nosing over the snow-covered downs, then another and another.

  ‘Prepare to receive fire from the air,’ commanded Hoggstone, his officers running to give an order that up to a month ago would have been unthinkable for a Jackelian army.

  ‘It is time,’ said King Steam, relaying his orders to the slip-thinkers in the command dome. ‘Give the command to load the gun-boxes.’

  From the dome Coppertracks emerged and bowed before the King. ‘Loading has already begun, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Gravity is on the shifties’ side, Aliquot Coppertracks,’ said the commodore. ‘I’ve seen boats trade fire with stats, and their ballonets take a fierce beating before they sink.’

  Coppertracks’ transparent brain crackled with blue fire. ‘Dear mammal, Jackals has held a monopoly on celgas for generations, but we have always planned for the worst — that one of the other nations might discover their own supply. We are not loading with mere ball or grapeshot.’

  Gangs of steammen pulled long silver shells on flatbed carts past their position, smoke from their stacks steaming in the cold with the exertion of dragging the heavy load. Oliver watched with curiosity, a memory of a siege jumping unbidden into his mind, giant mortars like bloated toads thumping out rounds as large as these — surely they weren’t going to use shrapnel against the coerced vessels of the RAN?

  Oliver pointed to the pinned-down maps on the collapsible command table. ‘When I was coming down here, I saw our forces being rolled back on the eastern flank.’

  ‘That is where the Special Guard are fighting for the Commonshare,’ said Hoggstone. ‘Most of the Free State’s knights have been committed here, but they are being badly punished. Flare’s guard are holding back, but they are crawling with worldsingers from the Commonshare. A few of the guard refused to fight at the start of the battle and the shifties executed them by torc in front of us.’

  ‘What of Jackals’ worldsingers?’ asked Oliver.

  ‘We have a few,’ said Ben Carl from his chair. ‘But most of the order fled Middlesteel when the capital was invaded. I hate to say it, but we are out-gunned — those that have passed through the flesh-mills are slow, but they carry their own armour with them. The Third Brigade are veterans and-’ Carl’s words were interrupted by the thunder of the aerostats’ fin bays emptying their cargo on the body of the Free State’s forces.

  ‘-they have our navy,’ said Oliver. He shut his eyes as the ground trembled. The leylines were being sucked dry by the Commonshare’s worldsingers. Once pregnant with the land’s power, they were thin and barren now. He could feel the weather witches in the Jackelian lines trying to whip up the snowstorm to push the aerostats back, but the bones of the earth under their feet was too thin.

  Oliver looked up to the brow of the downs. The mocking presence of the Shadow Bear was there, watching the advance of the Third Brigade troops, gloating as the Jackelian fighters wavered in panic at the shadows of the passing aerostats. It would not take much now to cause a rout. He could feel how close their soldiers were to breaking and running.

  ‘They’re about to run,’ said the Whisperer.

  ‘I know.’ Oliver turned his horse to the east and nodded at King Steam. ‘You hold the line against the aerostats, I’ll try my luck with the fey.’

  Oliver flew across the Free State’s lines, the Whisperer’s steed hard-pressed to keep up. Nathaniel Harwood could convince the troops he was a six-foot fighting god — even convince his steed — but the illusion of a horseman’s skill was not the actuality.

  Commodore Black watched the two riders disappear through the ranks of steammen auxiliaries, swallowed by snow and the swirling flags of the army.

&
nbsp; ‘That shootist has spirit,’ said Hoggstone.

  ‘He’s riding with the devil,’ said the commodore. ‘I’m just glad he’s riding for us.’

  Black pulled his undersized greatcoat in tighter — it had belonged to old Loade before he pulled it off its peg back in Middlesteel and the blessed fellow must have been a grasper of a man. But it was warm Jackelian wool and helped shield a poor fellow from the biting cold of this perverse summer. On the command table the maps started shaking, a brass telescope rattling until it fell over. Gun-boxes jolted forward on their stubby legs. The house-sized artillery pieces had abandoned their position on the high ground and were settling down alongside the steammen formations. Rolling the strange-looking shells onto loading cradles, steammen conscripts heaved them into the loading position behind the gun-boxes. Sucked into the breach, the shells vanished, followed by the clank-clank-clank of crystal charges of blow-barrel sap being lowered into position to propel the missiles on their way. Commodore Black covered his ears. Their barrage had been deafening enough when they had been in the hills duelling with the Third Brigade’s artillery.

  With the crack of a titan’s hammer on the earth the barrels of the gun-boxes flowered flame and flung their shells towards the chequerboard hulls of the aerostats. Some of the shells struck the airship’s gondola structures, smashing wood and metal, others tore holes in the hulls, the fabric of their catenary curtains left flapping in the wind. A few ballonets spilled into the air, the gas cells floating out of sight. Not even slowed, the aerostats continued to glide across the fields of Rivermarsh.

  Black nodded sadly. History was repeating itself. It was just the same as when the RAN had raided his fleet of royalist privateers. You could pierce their hulls with ball, with shrapnel, hit them with fire, but the cursed vessels were almost indestructible. Celgas did not burn, and each aerostat was filled with thousands of ballonets, each man-sized canvas sphere swelled fat with the precious lighter-than-air substance. Puncture one with shrapnel and they still had a hundred more to lift them out of the range of enemy guns.