The Iron Wyrm Affair

closed in its casing let out a piercing shriek of unholy glee. Emma screamed, terror seizing her, and sorcerous force struck. It was a blind, instinctive assault, force spent recklessly, and it had precious little effect.

The mechanical casing hunched, eerily mimicking the movements of the man inside it. The head was a smooth dome, its shoulders high so it shambled and slouched; its feet were oval cups. Cogs whirred and ground. Oil dripped from shining metal, and the thing screeched like a hound from brimstoned Hell.

The man shook his head, cogs sparking and grinding as the casing’s domed top replicated the movement. It looked like a squat, bronze bald frog, especially as the controller sank back and it bent its oversized knees. The arms came up, fuming smoke pouring from the left, and a large hole pointed straight at her.

“Hiiiiiiii!” The yell came from a human throat, but a grinding rumble swallowed the last of it. A metallic gleam lurched, and Emma’s faculties almost deserted her as a second monstrosity shambled forward, its stubby arms rising in a weirdly graceful arc. The first thing’s left-hand barrel was knocked skywards, a deafening roar sounded, and a hole opened in the roof. Stormlight poured in, and the sorcerous defences cracked yet further, sagging.

Emma backpedalled blindly, scrambling, her legs tangled in her skirts and her veil torn, her hat knocked askew, curls falling in her face. Eli yanked her again, and her abused shoulder flared with dull red pain. She realised she was screaming, could not help herself. The thing was not sorcerous; her mental grasp could not close around it and crush it. It simply shunted the force aside, spending it uselessly, and fresh terror clawed at her vitals.

The right-hand barrel lowered, pointing at her. The man inside the casing laughed, shrilly. There was a flicker of movement, bright knives lifted, and Mikal’s feet slipped, seeking vainly for purchase on the thing’s domed head. He fell, but twisted catlike in mid-air, and the knives flashed again as he drove both at the chest of the thing’s internal rider. They missed, one skittering across the glowing golden disc; it cracked and fizzed, bleeding sparks.

The second metal abomination staggered, its dome head swivelling. But it lurched forward, and knocked aside the second gun just as it spoke.

Confusion. A massive noise, a geyser of dirt and splinters. And something else, invisible threads tightening.

The sorcerer was in the shadows, and she could sense his Shields. She recognised him just as Mikal hit the ground, curling and springing up. She saw messy tangled hair, fingers curled into a half-recognised Gesture, charter symbols spitting venomous crimson as they roiled between his palms.

Kill his Shields. Don’t kill him. You need him alive for questioning, and he is only—

But before she could finish the thought, he cast the bolt of crimson charter charm. He could not have expected it to hold her or even damage her, for he immediately lunged backwards – but Eli knocked into her from the side as a flash of gunpowder igniting added to the confusion, driving the breath from her in a sharp huff and killing the chant rising to her lips.

One of the sorcerer’s Shields had fired a pistol. And Mikal was otherwise occupied.

Gears screeched, grinding, and the falling-cathedral noise of a sorcerer’s death filled the factory. No! No, don’t kill him, I need him for questioning, Mikal!

Something atop her, pressing down. She struggled, treacherous skirts suddenly chains, her wrists caught in a bruising grip. “Pax!” someone yelled in her ear, her head ringing and swimming. “Pax, Prima!”

She went limp, ribs flickering as they heaved with deep drilling breaths.

What was that? Dear God, what was that?

Eli rolled aside, and as he pulled her to her feet Emma stared at the slumped mountain of metal. Its chest was empty now, the golden circle dead and cracked, lifeless. Shouts and clashing metal, Mikal’s hissing battle cry rising over the din.

The second thing clicked, humming as its arms lowered, and Archibald Clare, his lean face alight with glee, hung inside its chest. It replicated his movements uncannily, a glowing golden circle strapped to his chest like a flat witch-ball. The glow threw his features into sharp relief, his hair blew back, and the metal structure around him creaked and shuddered.

The circle of light dimmed. Mikal appeared, glanced at Clare inside the metal abomination, visibly decided he was not a threat, and turned on his heel. Stopped, staring at Emma, whose knees were decidedly not performing their function of holding her up with their usual aplomb and reliability. Eli held her arm, not hard but very definitely, bracing her.

The light at Clare’s chest snuffed itself. “Most …” The mentath’s speech slurred. “Most intrig— Oh, hell.”

Ludovico Valentinelli, singed and bleeding, appeared out of the gloom. A stolid older man with massive side whiskers also appeared, and Emma blinked. What in God’s name just happened here? What are those … things?

“Sig!” Clare sounded drunk, or perhaps so exhausted his lips were numb. “Come … damn straps, man. Help me.”

“Ja.” The stranger, his whiskers half singed as well, climbed up the metal man-thing with quick dexterity. He began fiddling with the straps holding Clare inside it, and the mentath sighed wearily, closing his blue eyes.

Emma told herself firmly that now was not the time to engage in a screaming fit, or a swoon, though both would indeed be very welcome.

“Are you well?” Mikal was suddenly before her, his face inches from hers. “Prima? Emma? ”

“Sorcery does not affect it,” she managed, in nothing like her usual tone. “Dear gods. Sorcery did not even touch it.”

That caught Clare’s attention. “Rather … regrettable … side effect.” The words slurred together alarmingly. Had the man been at gin? If he had, Emma rather hoped he had saved some. She could do with a tot of something stronger than tea at the moment.

Leather creaked, and the man with side whiskers cursed under his breath. Valentinelli peered up at the twisted ruin of the other metal monster, whistling low and tunelessly.

“Here.” Mikal had a flask, held it to her lips. Rum burned; she took a grateful swallow. Her eyes stung, and it was a good thing Tideturn was soon. She had expended a truly ridiculous amount of ætheric charge on the thing, and it had not even affected it.

There were shapes under canvas standing in serried ranks all through the building’s maw. They were all roughly the same size and shape as the mechanisterum abominations uncloaked before her. She took another long swallow of fiery liquid; it burned all the way down, and she handed the flask back to Mikal with numb fingers.

And … yes, her sensitised eyes pierced the gloom with little trouble. There was a body on the floor. She studied it and breathed a most impolite term. “That … is Devon. Hugh Devon.” She sounded half witless, even to herself. “I needed him for questioning … oh, blast and bother and Hellfire.”

“Rather … changes things.” Clare almost fell; the side-whiskered stranger braced him, and they negotiated the distance to the ground more gracefully than seemed possible, given Clare’s slurring and the portly stranger’s girth. “Miss … Bannon. We need … to talk.”

“Well, rather.” The irritation was a tonic; she braced her fists on her hips and tilted her head. Whoever had been inside the wrecked abomination had made good his escape; that was an annoyance as well. “Someone will be along soon to see this mess. I suggest we repair to a far more suitable location. Where on earth is the brougham I engaged to—”

“Strega. I take them.” Valentinelli did not turn away from the corpse. “What we do with body, eh?”

Clare leaned on his stout friend. The sulphurous glow sliding through the holes in the roof dimmed, and Emma did not like that, despite the comfort it afforded her aching eyes.

“Well, if he was alive I could question him.” She tapped one gloved finger against her lips. I sound as if my nerves are steady. Thank God. Who was in that … thing? And Devon, dead.