The Iron Wyrm Affair

It didn’t matter.

Clare leapt, the mecha leaping with him. Shredded metal punched into the arachnid’s leg; he pumped his arms, seeking to climb. Gears ground even further, pistons popping, the core at his chest furiously hot, shreds of his mecha falling in a silvery rain. Machines did not become tired, but Clare could swear the metal exoskeleton was exhausted. Shearing, fracturing, the rain of silvery bits intensified as capacitors bled away force, the equations multiplying so rapidly his faculties strained at the corners, seeking to juggle them all and push the Other away. It was a doomed battle, and when the core at his chest shattered Clare fell, narrowly missing spearing himself on spikes of discarded steel and glass. The force of the fall drove his breath out in a long howl, his head cracking against the paving.

It was a sheer, illogical miracle he didn’t split his bloody skull.

The shock of the core’s shattering caught up with him, drawing up his arms and legs in seizure. Hands on him, dragging, the smoke of rifle fire acrid, stinging his throat as he struggled to force air into his recalcitrant lungs. Equations spun inside his head, dancing, flailing like the thing above him.

He went rigid as they dragged him, staring at the massive bulk above him as it yawed, sharply, a ship sailing on thin legs. One leg spasmed, clipping the roof of the Palace, and stone shattered. There was an insect crawling on the vast shining carapace, a thin shadow against the glow of capacitors. Dust choked the daylight, but Clare squinted. He thought he saw—

“Retreat!” a familiar voice was yelling, a battlefield roar that would have done a Teuton berserker proud. Sigmund’s mecha was a smoking hulk, and it was two of the Guards – hard-faced country boys, one from Dorset if his nose was any indication – dragging Clare along. He tried to make his legs work, but could not. They might as well have been insensate meat, for all his straining will could move them.

“Inside!” someone else yelled. “Here they come! MOVE! ”

That was a familiar voice as well, and as Clare was hauled through the Palace’s door like a sack of potatoes he wondered just what Mikal was doing here.

A deep, appalling cry rose from among the attacking mecha. “Prussians!” Mikal cried, as Sigmund cursed in German. “Fall back! Brace the doors! Move, you whoresons!”

Well, at least Miss Bannon comes by her language honestly. Clare’s eyelids fluttered. Sig bent over him, something damp and cold swiping at Clare’s forehead. It was a handkerchief, dipped in God knew what. Prussians. The mercenaries. They must be very sure of overrunning us. And yes, mecha are not useful inside the Palace. Some part of the conspiracy wants Victrix captured alive, or proof of her death. A mecha cannot report on its victims as a man may.

“Mentath.” Mikal, hoarse and very close. “Why am I not surprised? And … where is the assassin?”

“Big Spinne outside,” Sigmund gasped, for Clare’s mouth wouldn’t open. “Dead, maybe. Wer weiss?”

Now Clare could see the Shield. Grey-cheeked, blood-soaked, his yellow eyes glowing furiously, the man looked positively lethal. Behind him, Eli conferred with a captain in the Guards, glancing every so often at the straining iron-bound door.

“That won’t hold for long,” Mikal said grimly. “Bring him. Your Majesty?”

And, impossibility of impossibilities, Queen Victrix came into sight, her wan face smudged with masonry dust and terribly weary. An ageless shadow in her dark gaze was Britannia, the ruling spirit’s attention turned elsewhere despite the threat to its vessel. “I must reach the Throne.”

“Indeed.” Mikal did not flinch as a stunning impact hit the door. Several of the Guards were still scurrying to shore its heavy oak with anything that could be moved, including chunks of fallen stone. “Come, then. Eli!”

“What next?” The other Shield looked grimly amused. Half his face was painted bright red with blood, but at least he had found better boots. He was alight with fierce joy, no measure of sleepiness remaining, and Clare found the iron bands constricting his lungs easing.

Sig walloped him on the back hard enough to crack a rib or two. Clare coughed, choked, and almost spewed on the Queen’s dust-choked skirts. She did not notice, following Eli out of sight, and Mikal glanced down at Clare.

“Well done, mentath. One of the Guards will find you a weapon. We make our stand before the Throne.”

Oh. Clare fought down the retching. “Yes.” He coughed, violently, turned his head to the side and spat as Sig hauled him up and Clare found that yes, indeed, his legs would carry him. Shakily and uncertainly, but better than not. “Quite. God and Her Majesty, sir. Miss Bannon?”

“Elsewhere.” Mikal turned on his heel and strode after the Queen. Sig clapped him on the back again, but more gently, thank God.

“Archie, mein Herr.” The Bavarian shook his filthy, bald-shining head. “You are crazy, mein Freund. Du bist ein Bastard verrücht.”

Clare coughed again, leaning on Sig’s broad shoulder. “Likewise, Siggy. Likewise.” If I must die, this is hardly bad company.

At his throat, the Bocannon turned to a spot of crystalline ice, and the skin around it began to tingle.

Chapter Thirty-Eight A Life’s Work

The globe of protective sorcery shattered, sharp darts of ætheric energy slicing trembling air. Emma skidded to a stop as Llewellyn staggered, the chant faltering. She intended to reach for the hilt, wrench it free, and stab him again, and again, as many times as it took to make him cease.

She did not have the chance.

A long trailing scream behind her, a wet crunching. One more Shield had fallen. She snapped a glance over her shoulder – the two surviving Shields were fully occupied now keeping the gryphons from their throats. The lion- birds darted in, the smaller wild ones swooping down in tightening circles. There were too many of them; even a Shield of Mikal’s calibre would not keep that feathered tide back.

Britannia’s steeds would not cease until this threat was contained and their furious hunger sated.

But Emma’s immediate concern was the Sorcerer Prime collapsing to his knees before the tower. An altar – a plain slab of stone – glowed before him with hurtful dull-red ætheric charge, buckled and cracked. He struggled to hold the chant, but a gap of a single note opened and became an abyss, the complex interlocking parts shredding and peeling away.

Her throat closed. A moment’s regret flashed through her – with Sight, she could see the towering cathedral of the spell, beautiful in its wholeness for a single instant before cracks of negation raced up its walls and exploded through its windows, twisting and warping the flawless work of a Prime at his best.

A life’s work. How long had Llewellyn been planning this?

Questions could wait. She reached for the knife again, but the Prime pitched violently backwards, his body lashed by stray sorcery escaping his control. It descended upon him, his flesh jerking, force a physical body was not meant to bear searching for an outlet and grinding the cohesion of muscle and blood away.

It was not a pleasant death. It replicated the dragon-fuelled simulacrum in Bedlam, shredding him to a rag of shattered bone and blood-painted meat, his eyeballs popping and his hair smoking as the spell, cheated, took its revenge. The knife fell free, chiming on rock; she bent reflexively to retrieve it, her fingers clamping on its slippery hilt. Something else rolled loose too, and her free hand scooped it up with no direction on her part, tucking it into her skirt pocket.

Oh, Llew.

The tower dropped back into its accustomed shape with a subliminal thud. No longer a single claw of a massive reptilian limb, it was now merely a shattered pile of masonry and moss, leaning as if into a heavy wind.

Shadows wheeled overhead as the gryphons dived, screaming triumphantly, and Emma turned away from the