The Iron Wyrm Affair

The Shield shouted again, and the wyrm made a sound like half-molten metal tearing and bubbling. The sorceress threw out her hands, fingers flashing in a complicated gesture that ended in a contorted fashion Clare recognised as a faintly obscene gesture more suited to a hevvy or a dockmancer than a lady of quality.

Miss Bannon was becoming more and more interesting.

Sorcery crackled, a rain of crimson sparks bleeding from her pale fingertips, and the sorceress leaned as if pulling a heavy weight, her body arched and a word bursting free of her lips. Blood spattered from her flayed hands; Clare winced, his throat tightening with something suspiciously like fear, raising the pistol. Two more shots. Perhaps its menace would keep the gathering crowd back.

He needn’t have bothered. For Miss Bannon moved, flinging her arms, her skirts swaying, and the long, black-scaled body of the wyrm was tossed aside like a wet sheet, directly into the crowd of flashboys and workers.

The Shield moved smoothly back, his curious glove-soled boots shuffling lightly through accumulating ashfall, and glanced back at them. His yellow irises glowed, and his lean face was bright with a fierce, devouring joy.

Shouts, screams, the wyrm’s cheated howl. Mikal reached them, nodded once, ash crowning his dark hair and that terrible happiness glowing through his entire body. Miss Bannon turned, smartly, and her bloody hands were full of a low reddish light, somehow cleaner than the Wark’s glow.

The light pooled between her fingers, and she cast it at the floor. Smoke roiled, puffing up, and Clare understood they were to flee.

His lungs were afire and his ribs seized with a giant gripping stitch. Clare wheezed, leaning against the alley’s wall, desperately seeking to regain his breath. The ashfall had intensified, a soft warm killing snow. At least they would not freeze to death here, but suffocation was a real danger.

Mikal examined the sorceress’s hands, his fingers tapping and plucking while charter-symbols bled from his flesh to hers. Clare did not wish to observe the way her rent flesh was closing, in violation of physical laws. He also did not wish to observe Miss Bannon’s pinched, wan little face. The silvery witchlight had vanished, and so had most of the sphere of normalcy; every angle was off by a random number of degrees and the falling cinders obeyed no law that he could find, except the law of downward motion. Among these annoyances, the least was Miss Bannon’s face.

“That is all I can do.” The joy had left Mikal’s lean features. His coat was torn and the ash in his hair turned him prematurely grey.

“We must escape the Wark.” Miss Bannon closed her dark eyes, leaning wearily against the same wall propping Clare up. “She will have her eyes about soon.”

“Which route?” Mikal did not let go of her hands, examining her palms critically. The cuts had been deep and were still flushed and angry-looking, despite the soft foxfire glow of charter sorcery stitching the flesh together.

“West.” Bruised circles stood out underneath Miss Bannon’s eyes. Her skirts were tattered, and there was a smudge of ash on her cheek. Still, most of the falling cinders avoided her; the grit clinging to her hair was perhaps from lying face-down on the Blackwerks floor. “Borough or Newington. Probably the former; but both pass by the gaols, and that is not her purview. At least, not while Ethes is present.”

“Very well.” The Shield finally let her blood-masked hands drop. “We shall not be free of pursuit for long.”

“Oh, I know.” A curl fell in her face; she wrinkled her proud nose. “The mentath?”

“Well enough.” Mikal didn’t even spare Clare a glance. “Do you need—”

“No, Mikal. Thank you.” She finally opened her eyes. “Mr Clare. Thank you, as well.”

His breathing had finally eased somewhat, and the stitch was slowly retreating. “Most … diverting.” The pressure behind his eyes mounted another notch as he sought to find some pattern in the random angles, or the spinning flakes of ashfall. “Though I would very much like to exit this district, Miss Bannon. It … discommodes me.”

“You have survived your first encounter with a dragon. They affect the orderly progression of Time most strongly, and the illogic you are seeing is a result of her presence.” Bannon shuddered. “I will not take either of you to task for not fleeing when I gave the word.”

“Good.” Clare swallowed, hard. An illogic so strong it could affect Time itself? The very notion caused an uncomfortable sensation within the cage of his ribs. I could live quite comfortably for the rest of my days without another such experience. Still, having an explanation for the warping and strangeness helped. “For I believe we did very well indeed.”

Mikal’s head tilted. “Feet,” he said, softly. “Small, and large.”

“Newington it is.” Miss Bannon straightened. The remnants of her gloves fluttered as she plucked gingerly at her torn skirts. “Come along, gentlemen. There is no time to waste.”

The streets of the Black Wark trembled slightly, like a small animal. The buildings stood blank-faced, no light in any of the infrequent, often broken windows, their holes stuffed with various fabrics and papers to keep the elements at bay. Warehouses leaned against each other, slumping dispiritedly under the caustic unsnow. The roofs were steeply pitched, and the only sound was the kiss-landing of cinders or the sudden whispering slide of ash off a roof edge, landing with a soft plop on the street. The gaslamps here were infrequent, wan, sickly circles of orange glow pulled close about their stems.

Clare blinked away ash and followed the swish of Bannon’s ragged skirts. He fixed his eyes on the draggled hem, cloth behaving very much as cloth should. A certain relief at the sight loosened the tightness inside his ribs and the iron band around his temples.

“How far?” Miss Bannon whispered.

“Three streets, I think.” Mikal’s footsteps were soundless. “The rats. Dodger, possibly. I do not think I killed him. Perhaps one or two others.”

“She expected me to move in a different direction.” Miss Bannon sounded thoughtful. “Which one, I wonder.”

“Passing close to Horsemonger is also dangerous. Not to mention Queensbench.” Mikal, soft and equally thoughtful. Well, Clare thought. He obviously respects her ability. That is most heartening.

“Ethes is no trouble, and Captain Gall even less. But I see your point.” Miss Bannon halted. “Mr Clare? Are you well?”

It was becoming more difficult to draw breath. “Well enough. Damnable atmosphere here.”

“Oh, good heavens.” She half turned, snapped her fingers, and muttered a word he could not decipher. Immediately, the ash shook itself free of his hair, whirling away, and he no longer felt as if he were breathing through a damp woollen blanket. “Better?”

“Quite.” He stared at her boot toes, peeping at him from her ragged hem. If he concentrated on those, on how they rested against ankle-thick ash that behaved as ash should near them, he could ignore the rest for a short while.

A soft, scraping sound. Metal, drawn from a sheath. “Go.” Mikal, tense now.

“Take the mentath, I shall delay—”

“No.” The Shield thought little of this notion. “They come to kill, my Prima. Take care near the prison; I shall be close.”

“Mikal – oh, bloody hell.”

Clare might have raised his eyebrows to hear such language from a woman, but he was too busy studying her boots. He could infer much from the way she stood, toes pointed slightly outward, the fractional favouring of her right foot meaning she was right-handed. She must dance well, and lightly. And she can move very softly if she wishes. Best to remember that.

Her toes were whisked away as she turned, and her hand crept into the crook of his elbow. She tugged him along, and Clare allowed himself to be led.

A low, grinding noise had begun, but Clare felt absolutely no desire to look up.

“I did not think it would affect you this badly. Come, Mr Clare. It shall be better very rapidly; the closer we are to the gaols, the less stray sorcery there is about to trouble you.”

“Jolly good.” His skull squeezed everything inside it, pressure building again. Every random angle he had measured since stepping into the Wark’s confines, every calculation of the speed and drift of cinders falling, refused