The Iron Wyrm Affair

to snap together into a pattern. What was that hideous grinding noise? It could not be his teeth, for all that his jaw was clenched tight.

“Do not look up,” Miss Bannon said softly, hurrying him along. Their steps were muffled in the ash, now above ankle-high. How often did they clear the streets here? It had to be frequently, else anything living would choke to death.

The terrible grating continued, and Miss Bannon muttered another highly colourful term. A hot, rank breath poured past them, tugging at Clare’s coat and hat, flapping the sorceress’s skirts. He did not raise his eyes, but his reasoning leapt ahead. The street. The street is moving. He could imagine it, from the ripples pouring through the field of cracked and rutted cobbles, walls receding and others pushed forward as the Wark reshaped itself. Miss Bannon exhaled quickly, a short sharp puff. “Tricksome,” she muttered. “Very tricksome.”

His stomach revolved. His digestion was not its usual capable self. But as they hurried on, Miss Bannon’s boots now clicking faintly instead of muffled in ash, it settled remarkably. She was humming, a queer atonal melody looping on itself, and Clare found that the sound covered up the grinding tolerably well. It did not cover the choked cry from their left, or the rushing skitter of tiny metallic rodent feet. Miss Bannon’s grip on him tightened, but whether that was for his comfort or her own, he could not guess.

The composition of the ash underfoot changed, slick and greasy instead of fine and dry, and Miss Bannon’s humming grew strained. The grinding suddenly ceased to their left; the sorceress lunged forward, dragging Clare along. A subliminal snap echoed through Clare’s entire body, the iron bands constricting his chest loosening slightly. He dared to glance up, and the grey bulk of Queensbench Gaol shimmered with pinpricks of light. The prison’s massive gate yawned, the gibbet in the small square before it crawling with blood- coloured charter charms. Their pace quickened, ashfall turning to hard hail-stinging pellets. A sharp turn to the left, and he understood by the sudden close rumble of traffic that they were skirting a thoroughfare. Darkness pressed close, gaslights muffled, and they plunged into a maze of debtors’ tenements. Another cry sounded to their right, ending with a clash of steel.

Mikal. The Shield was doing his best to hold back their pursuers. But the shadows were alive with tiny crimson eyes now, and small twitching metallic noses.

It was a dreadful time, he reflected, to wish Miss Bannon had more of Mikal’s type about. “Miss Bannon?” Clare whispered, as their pace quickened still more.

“What?” Her tone could in no way be described as patient.

“I rather believe we should run.”

Chapter Eighteen We Use You Dreadfully

Emma had rarely been so glad to see Londinium’s yellow fog tonguing the surface of buildings and swallowing carriages. Clare stumbled, blinking, as they emerged on Greenwitch Road, gaslamps hissing cheerfully to greet them. Behind them, the Wark boiled, stray cinders popping and sizzling as they pressed against the street’s boundary. Traffic had moved away from this side of Greenwitch, but the crowd very pointedly did not look to see what might have been ejected from the ashfall.

The mentath stumbled again, went heavily to his knees, and proceeded to retch. Emma clamped a hand to her side, the freshly healed stab wound unhappy at rough treatment. Her corset, loose as it was, still cut intolerably. She shook her hair, spitting a clearing charm between her teeth, not caring if she would need the energy later. The dross of the Wark fell away in veils, grey matter shushing as the charm crackled it loose.

It would take more than a minor sorcery to get the burnt-metal tang of Southwark out of her mouth, though.

A clockrat spilled over the rim of the street, scuttling weakly as it fought the constraints of normal time. Emma’s hand jabbed forward, the golden ring gleaming – but Mikal appeared. A quick hard stamp, a scream of tortured metal, and a puff of vile-smelling crimson smoke; and the rat was merely a twisted scrap of metal and moth-eaten fur. The Shield’s eyes glowed furiously, and specks of blood and other fluids dewed his filthy coat. He looked little the worse for wear, despite being covered in Wark-ash.

She shuddered. Clare retched again, feelingly. “A ranger!” he choked. “From thirty- three to eighty-nine per cent! It can only be explained in a range!”

Dear God, is he seeking to analyse Mehitabel? Or the rats? “Clare.” She coughed, caught her breath. I think we may have survived. Perhaps. “Clare, cease. There are other problems requiring your attention.”

“Prima.” Mikal’s hand on her shoulder, his fingers iron clamps. “Emma.”

She swayed, but only slightly. “You’ve done well.” Well? More like “magnificently”. One Shield, a small army of Mehitabel’s flashboys, the rats – I cannot understand how we are not all dead.

Either she had hurt the ironwyrm far more than she thought possible or likely, or Mehitabel had expected Emma to flee in a different direction – perhaps north, the way they had entered the Wark. Or – most chilling, but a prospect that must be considered – Mehitabel the Black let them go for some wyrm- twisting reason, even though Emma had used her truename.

“Easy hunting.” Mikal’s mouth twisted up at one corner, a fey grimace. The ash gave him an old man’s hair, caught in his eyebrows, drifting on his shoulders. “Her troops are clumsy, and loud, and had to check every dark corner.”

“What problems?” Clare managed, through another retch. “Never. Never again.”

“Oh, we shall brave the Wark again, if duty demands it.” Emma let out a shaky breath. The idea of going home, throwing her corset into the grate, and watching it burn was extraordinarily satisfying. “But not tonight. At the moment, Mr Clare, we are on Greenwitch, and I wish you to help me find a hansom.”

“Oh, excellent,” Clare moaned. “Wonderful. What the deuce for?”

“To ride in, master of deduction.” Her tone was more tart than she intended. “We have news to deliver.”

It was past midnight, and the stable smelled of hay and dry oily flanks. Restless movement in the capacious stalls, half-opened eyes, the perches overhead full of a rustling stillness.

The gryphons were nervous. Iridescent plumage ruffled, spike feathers mantling; sharp amber or obsidian beaks clacked once or twice, breaking the quiet. Tawny or coal-dark flanks rippled with muscle, claws flexing in the darkness. Emma stood very still, carefully in the middle of the central passage, her skirts pulled close. Mikal was so near she could feel the heat of him.

Clare peered over one stall door, his eyes wide. “Fascinating,” he breathed. “Head under wing. Indeed. The musculature is wonderful. Wonderful.”

The gryphon stable was long and high, dim but not completely dark. Britannia’s proud steeds took sleepy notice, ruffling as they scented a Prime.

Of all the meats gryphons preferred, they adored sorcery-seasoned best.

Mikal’s hand rested on Emma’s shoulder, a welcome weight. A door at the far end opened, quietly, skirts rustling on a breath of golden rose scent, overlaid with violet-water. Emma stiffened. Clare did not straighten, leaning over the stall’s door like a child peering into a sweetshop.

“Mr Clare,” the sorceress whispered. “Do stop that, sir. They are dangerous.”

“Indeed they are.” A female voice, high and young, but with the stamp of absolute authority on each syllable. “No, my friend, do not courtesy. We know you must be uncomfortable here.”

Emma sank down into a curtsey anyway, glad she had applied cleaning charms to all three of them. Mikal’s hand remained on her shoulder, and Clare hopped down from the stall door, hurriedly doffing his hat. “And who do we have the pleasure of— Dear God!” He lurched forward into a bow. “Your Majesty!”

Alexandrina Victrix, the new Queen and Britannia’s current incarnation, pushed back her capacious sable- velvet hood. Her wide blue eyes danced merrily, but her mouth turned down at the corners. “Is this a mentath?”