The Iron jackal

Forty-Seven

Malvery huffed and puffed as he scrambled down an incline of vines and rubble. It had taken him longer than he’d thought to find a way back to the street under the bridge. While he’d been following Silo, he hadn’t paid attention to how complex and strange these Azryx paths were. He was already wondering if he’d be able to find his way back.

Not too far away, there was a huge explosion from the power station, loud in the night. He cast a worried glance at it and hurried onward.

If Colden hadn’t been obliterated in the blast – which, to be honest, he probably had – then he’d have fallen into the foliage beneath the bridge. It was a long way down, but branches and vines made for a better landing than most surfaces. While there was a chance, Malvery had to look.

He had no special love for the man. In fact, he barely knew him, and Grudge had been an enemy as often as an ally. But that didn’t matter. There was a rightness to what he was doing, a certainty of purpose that propelled him forward. That man was a Century Knight, one of the Archduke’s loyal elite. The cream of Vardic warriors. And he was damned if he’d leave a soldier of his country behind.

He stopped to catch his breath. If only he didn’t drink quite so bloody much. If only he’d stayed in shape. But all those soft years in Thesk had made him sluggardly, and in the years that followed he’d been more interested in booze than exercise.

Well, he might have the body of a fat bastard, but he had the heart of a young man. A young man who’d gone to war for his country once. A young man who’d been betrayed by the old man that succeeded him.

Angered by that thought, he stormed on, calling Colden’s name. A Sammie soldier burst out of the undergrowth, attracted by the noise, waving his rifle. He was a young man too, and he seemed startled to find an overweight Vard with a flowing white moustache and round, green-lensed glasses perched on his nose. Maybe he’d never seen one before. His hesitation meant he never got a chance to see one again.

Malvery cranked a new round into his shotgun and walked on. The bridge was almost overhead now. Despite Silo’s misgivings, it hadn’t collapsed yet. The Juggernaut was still somewhere nearby, ripping up the city. Malvery did his best to ignore it.

Out on the battlefield, you couldn’t think about all the dangers around you. If you did, you’d be paralysed. Every man knew they might be hit by a shell or nailed by a sniper at any moment, and they’d never see it coming. It didn’t matter how careful you were, or how highly trained. It was blind bloody chance. You just had to get on with it.

He found Grudge at the foot of a tree, barely suspended in a cradle of vines, a dark shape in the moon-shadows. There were broken branches all around him, and his autocannon lay nearby. Malvery put fingers to his throat and felt for a pulse.

‘Blimey,’ he said.

He checked him over for broken bones, but all he found was a lump on his head the size of an egg, buried beneath his shaggy hair. He tilted Grudge’s head towards the silvery light and peeled back the eyelids, looking for blood in the whites. Then he slapped him a couple of times to see if it would get any reaction.

Head trauma. Possible skull fracture. He might wake up in a minute, or never. Maybe he’s already dead, but his heart and lungs ain’t worked it out yet.

‘Let’s get you out of all that armour, then,’ he said. ‘ ’Cause you can bet your arse I ain’t carryin’ you in that.’

Armour or no armour, he hadn’t gone far before he realised exactly how heavy a man who stood over two metres tall could be. Malvery had always been strong, with a bulk that belied the delicacy of his profession, but he suspected that he’d overestimated himself this time. He’d been taken with visions of pulling a Century Knight’s fat out of the fire, just like he’d done with those soldiers in the First Aerium War. Belatedly he remembered that he’d been in his prime back then, fit from Army training, and those men he’d saved had all been a good sight smaller than Grudge.

His legs burned. His back ached. He’d barely gone a hundred metres.

Gonna be a long walk.

There was no point backtracking; he’d never catch up with Silo. He decided to make his own way.

The streets were confusing, always curving, sloping, splitting into different levels. The Azryx seemed frustratingly fond of dead ends. Malvery kept having to readjust his heading, navigating by glimpses of the landing pad between the buildings. The Juggernaut was still nearby, but thankfully its attention seemed to be focused in another direction. The sound of collapsing walls was an almost constant background noise, and Malvery tensed every time he heard the steadily climbing squeal that heralded another blast from the cannon. Gunfire floated up from the streets as the Sammies fought back.

He put his head down and kept going. All he could do was put one foot in front of the other and hope no one – no thing – noticed him.

After a short time, which seemed like an age, he found himself standing on the edge of an enormous plaza. He knew this place; he’d seen it earlier. It was the Samarlan base camp, where dozens of tents had been set up as barracks, command centres and the like. The hub of the Sammies’ operation.

Where there had once been orderly rows of tents, now there were only smoking rags, flapping in the rising thermals. The burnt-pork stink of cooked human flesh was thick in the air. The debris of a military encampment was everywhere: blackened stoves, melted weaponry, scorched foot lockers. To either side of the plaza was a trench olapping inf rubble that cut through the surrounding buildings, marking the path of the Juggernaut’s beam.

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.

Malvery would have dearly liked to lie down and sleep right there. Instead, he hauled Grudge into a sitting position, put him over his shoulders, and stood up.

The landing pad was close now. It didn’t feel like he could possibly make it. But he was going to try anyway.

There was no help for it.

‘There she is!’ said Crake, pointing up into the starry sky.

And there she was, coming in over their heads: the Ketty Jay, slipping through the moonlight towards the landing pad.

Frey hefted his pack and allowed himself a private smile. She was coming in with no lights and her thrusters on minimum. Jez might have been out of it ever since Gagriisk but she still understood the need for stealth without having to be told. He could kiss that woman sometimes, assuming she wouldn’t mutate into some bowel-loosening horror and tear out his kidneys.

The Juggernaut hadn’t seen her. It was marauding away in a different direction with the landing pad to its rear. There had been a minute or two when it had come uncomfortably close, and Frey had half-expected it to destroy the treelike structure out of spite. But it seemed more interested in attacking people than indiscriminate destruction, and the landing-pad had been deserted then.

He wondered if it would take more of an interest if it saw an aircraft there, and hoped he wouldn’t have to find out.

Ugrik was jogging along beside them, his pack troubling him not one bit. Crake was unencumbered. They’d been forced to leave some of his equipment behind for the sake of speed, since they didn’t have time to pack it up. Crake had protested furiously until Frey promised to replace whatever was lost. Between that and a new Firecrow, it would wipe out all the gains he’d made from betting on Harkins in Crickslint’s race, but Frey would have promised him anything to get him moving.

They made good speed and were panting by the time they reached the base of the landing pad. There had been a certain amount of backtracking to negotiate the demolished streets, but Frey counted them fortunate to have made it the whole way without coming across a live Sammie. Still, he reckoned with all the bad luck that had come his way lately, he was owed a bit of the other kind.

‘How do we get up there?’ asked Crake, who was annoyingly spry. Ugrik had barely broken a sweat, either. It was only Frey who seemed to be suffering, which was frankly a bit unfair.

He looked up the shaft of the structure to where it split out in white branches to support the flat top. ‘Isn’t there an elevator?’ he asked plaintively.

‘Power’s out,’ said Ugrik. ‘Bet there are stairs, though.’

There were. By the time they reached the top, Frey was starting to wonder if it would have been preferable to have died at the hands of the Iron Jackal.

They emerged on to the landing pad to find the Ketty Jay idling there with her cargo ramp open. The sweet, wonderful Ketty Jay. And the rest of the crew were already here! He saw Bess disappearing inside, and Silo was ushering Pinn and Ashua after her. Between them they carried Samandra Bree, who was hopping on one foot.

Silo spotted him and hurried across. Frey was doubled over, sweaty and parched.

‘You ought to wear your damn earcuff every so often, Cap’n,’ Silo snapped. ‘Had no idea where you got to.’

‘Yeah. Uh… sorry,’ said Frey, who was a bit surprised to be spoken to that way. Then Silo hugged him, and Frey hugged him back.

Crake’s gaze had drifted to the Ketty Jay. ‘I might just go and. .. Er…’ he said, walking off.

Frey stopped him. He shucked off his pack and shoved it into Crake’s arms. ‘Here. You can carry it the rest of the way,’ he said. ‘Now go see your bloody sweetheart.’

Ugrik cackled and followed Crake into the Ketty Jay, having a conversation with himself as he went.

Frey rolled his neck and massaged his aching shoulders. ‘Everyone alright?’ he asked.

Silo’s eyes flickered downward for an instant. ‘Not everyone. Grudge went missin’. The doc went off after him.’

Frey stared at him. And you let him?

‘Only so much you can do when a man’s determined, Cap’n,’ Silo said.

He suppressed the urge to anger. Silo was right; there were plenty of times when he’d failed to stop his crew doing something daft. This wasn’t the military. And if he chewed out Silo, he’d be undermining the authority he’d given him as first mate.

‘Alright, well, it’s done,’ he said neutrally. He looked out from the edge of the landing pad. From up here the bowl of the oasis sloped away from them, and he could see the whole of the city. Most of it was in darkness and concealed by the trees, but there were still electric lights in the excavation zone, showing up swathes of ruination left by the Juggernaut. The night was lit up by a fresh string of explosions as the creature unleashed its beam again.

Silo touched his ear as if listening. ‘Yeah, he here, Jez. Still not wearing his earcuff, though.’

Frey took the hint and dug it from his pocket. ‘I’m here, Jez. What’s up?’

‘What’s up?’ she cried. ‘Have you seen that thing? Can we get out of here yet?’

Frey’s face became hard. It could only be a matter of time before the Juggernaut spotted them. And if it chose to fire that terrible beam their way, they’d never have time to take off before the landing pad collapsed.

Silo had the same thought. ‘What you wanna do, Cap’n?’

What did he want to do? The brief hours of freedom he’d felt in the desert were long gone now. The burden of captaincy was on him again. The doc could well be dead. Waiting for him might easily doom them all. But abandoning Malvery? Could he really do that, even for the sake of the others?

No. If there was one thing this whole sorry mess had taught him, it was that they were meant to stick together. His crew had followed him here, even after he tried to leave them behind. He couldn’t repay that loyalty by betraying the doc.

‘We wait,’ he said. ‘And hope to damnation that thing doesn’t spot us.’

As if it had heard him, the Juggernaut turned its face towards them.

‘Cap’n?’ said Silo. ‘Think it just did.’

Frey felt a pit open in the bottom of his stomach as he felt its blank, dreadful regard. There was the eye that he’d seen buried beneath the foliage when he’d first arrived with Ugrik. He’d thought it was a statue then; but it was something much, much worse.

‘Hate to say this,’ said Jez, ‘but we really gotta go.’

‘Not yet,’ said Frey. ‘Fill the aerium tanks so she’s right on the edge of floating. Keep the thrusters hot and-’

‘I’m doing that already!’ she interrupted. ‘It’s coming this way!’

There was no mistaking its interest now. It was moving closer with slow, deliberate strides.

‘Anyone notice how long it takes between cannon blasts?’ Frey asked.

‘Huh?’ said Jez.

‘Well, it could level this place with that beam, but I haven’t seen it fire twice in a row without a pause, and the beam never lasts. I think it needs time to charge.’

‘I haven’t been here long,’ said Jez. ‘A few minutes, maybe. But it’s fired twice in that time.’

Frey chewed his lip. Damn it. Damn it.

‘We can move off and circle,’ Jez suggested. ‘We could come back.’

Frey’s gaze went to the power station. The hourglasses to either side were heavily cracked now. Lightning flickered over the whole building, and it was surrounded by a cloud of pallid gas that glowed with bruised colours.

If they took off, they wouldn’t be coming back. He knew that, even if Jez didn’t. He had as much responsibility for everyone else on board as he did for Malvery, and he had to get them safe.

Frey was a man accustomed to riding his luck. But this time, the stakes were so, so high.

‘Cap’n, we got to go,’ said Silo, his voice low and hard.

‘Not yet!’ he replied stubbornly.

‘He ain’t comin’.’

Frey bit back a retort. Whatever he said would sound childish. He knew the doc wasn’t coming. He just wanted to believe that he would.

The Juggernaut stamped onward, crushing the rubble of the shattered city beneath its feet. Its blank face was a mask of dispassionate brutality. How could Frey stand up to that?

They had to go. Waiting longer would be suicide. Frey opened his mouth to say it, but other words appeared in their place.

‘Will someone bloody help me?’

If Frey had believed in any kind of god, he’d have fallen to his knees and thanked them then. But damned if that wasn’t Malvery ’s tortured bellowing.

The doctor appeared at the top of the stairs, rising step by clumping step, with Colden Grudge slung across his back. His face and pate were bright red, giving him the appearance of a tomato with a moustache. He took one last step, tipped the Century Knight off his back and collapsed.

Frey and Silo ran to them. Malvery was wheezing so hard that Frey seriously thought he was having an attack of something. ‘Stairs…’ he whispered, with a noise like a deflating tyre.

There was no time for sympathy. Silo picked up Grudge and Frey dragged Malvery to his feet. ‘The box…’ Malvery gasped, pointing down at a small metal box the size of a book that he’d dropped when he fell. Frey picked it up without really looking at it, and then they carried their casualties as fast as they could towards the cargo hold.

A shrill sound drifted through the night. An ascending squeal. In the distance, the Juggernaut was powering up.

They were met at the cargo ramp by Ashua, who had left Samandra with Pinn, and by Crake, who had evidently thought better of facing her right now. ‘Move it, Jez!’ Frey yelled as soon as his feet touched the ramp. ‘Move it now!’

The Ketty Jay lurched forward, screeching on its skids. The thrusters kicked in before the aerium lift could get it off the ground. Frey shoved Malvery into the waiting arms of Ashua and Crake; the three of them staggered into the hold and fell flat. Silo, unbalanced by the sudden movement of the aircraft, dumped Grudge to the ground and then fell over as well. Frey tottered and clutched one of the ramp’s hydraulic struts to stabilise himself.

The floor tipped as the Ketty Jay rose, pushed forward and banked all at the same time. The inert bulk of Colden Grudge slid up against one wall and stayed there. Silo got his arm through one of the restraining straps they’d used for the Rattletraps. Ashua and Crake were pulling the gasping doctor to safety as best they could.

Beyond the ramp, the world tilted and swayed. The landing pad disappeared behind them, swinging out of view. Suddenly Frey was standing on the edge of a dizzying drop.

He couldn’t reach the lever to close the ramp. Jez could have closed it from the cockpit, but he didn’t want to distract her. And besides, despite the danger, he didn’t want it closed. There was something unbearable about the thought of shutting himself in and waiting in the gloom to be destroyed. If they were going to die, he’d rather see it coming, and end it with his eyes open.

The Juggernaut slid into view, behind and beneath them. Frey couldn’t hear it over the roar of the thrusters, but he could see the sparkling aura around its tube of a mouth as it sucked i n that deadly energy.

He could see when the lights went out.

‘Jez!’ he cried. ‘Now!’

The Ketty Jay banked hard, and Frey’s sight was filled with the blinding white of the beam weapon. It scorched past aft of them, missing them by mere metres. He clung on for his life as the Ketty Jay accelerated and climbed. As the dazzle faded from his vision he saw the excavated zone spreading out below him, and the dark city beyond it. The Juggernaut scraped the night sky with its beam, chasing after them like a searchlight, but the Ketty Jay was too fast and the creature couldn’t sustain it for more than a few seconds. As suddenly as it came, the beam was gone, and they were out of the Juggernaut’s reach.

The wind rushed around him, flapping his hair against his face as the buildings dwindled. He saw that one of the hourglass towers of the power station was collapsing, tumbling in slow motion. Lightning forked out from it in great crooked fingers, darting across the oasis, a wild barrage striking everywhere. He sensed what was coming, and braced himself.

A few more seconds. Just a few more seconds.

And now he could see the whole of the oasis, the excavated zone a patch of light and flame in the dark, and all of it surrounded by the endless moonlit desert.

That was the last he saw of the city before the power station exploded.

The detonation was silent. There was no shockwave, no debris flying this way and that. A great blue sphere of lightning swelled up from a single point to encompass the whole of the oasis, sending fizzing arcs writhing across the desert in all directions. It dissipated as it expanded, fading faster the larger it grew, until its outer edge was only an afterimage burned on Frey’s retinas.

It was a peaceful, deadly obliteration.

When the lightning had reduced to crawling sparks, all that was left was a blackened crater in the desert. The oasis and everything in it had entirely disintegrated.

Sensing that the danger had passed, Jez eased off on the thrusters, and the wind calmed a little as they slowed to cruising speed. Frey gazed down at the crater, and he was taken with a huge sense of calm. It was over. It was finally over.

Crake stumbled across the hold and joined him, hanging on to another hydraulic strut. He, too, stared down into the crater, but there were tears glittering in his eyes.

‘Did we just destroy a ten-thousand-year-old Azryx city?’ he asked, with a wobble in his voice.

‘Yeah,’ said Frey proudly. ‘I think we just did.’