revolutionary limping in circles, his head caved in by a steamman knight’s hammer; drawing strength from the two laughing Third Brigade troopers spearing a parliamentarian as he slipped on the blood of his comrade; drawing strength from the confused refugees running away from collapsing steaming towers in Middlesteel; drawing strength from the tears of Benjamin Carl and Hoggstone as they shouted orders that would send more of their people to the slaughter; drawing strength from the agony in Captain Flare’s heart as his guardsmen tore apart their own countrymen, Prince Alpheus hanging like a banner behind him on Tzlayloc’s cross of pain. Tzlayloc was feeding, growing stronger from the harvest of evil, and after the aerostats arrived and decimated the Jackelians and their allies, he would rip open the walls of the world and spill a sea of hungry insects into the land.
‘We’re losing,’ said the Whisperer. ‘They have the numbers and they have the guns.’
Oliver reached out to grab the reigns of a riderless horse that was galloping away from the skirmish, jumping over to the blood-splattered saddle and leaving the gypsy steed to the Whisperer. ‘You know where the bridge is, Nathaniel.’
‘Aye, there’s our spread alright,’ called Guardian McConnell back to her forces. She slipped a claymore out of her saddle and pointed it towards the enemy’s right flank. ‘That’s where we’ll take them. Strike up a tune, my bonnie boys and lovely lasses. Play “The Scouring of Clan McMaylie” for your Bel.’
Mad Jack’s company formed into two columns, one on either side of the uplanders, trotting along amid the howl of the sackpipes. The uplander troops pulled leather hoods out from the sash-like instruments, raising them up and covering their heads. They were meant to protect from the poison that rose from the feymist curtain, but the hoods also gave them a hideous bird-like appearance, striking terror into enemy hearts. They were marching to their deaths and they knew it, but the mountain people of the south lived freer than any other Jackelian, by their lochs and their glens, and it was only the toss of dirt on their coffins that could tame them.
On the battlefield the plumes of smoke solidified, slowly freezing as a silence fell over the plain.
‘Still not taken the rat tunnel, I see.’
Oliver dismounted from his frozen horse to face the Shadow Bear, the creature watching the battle from his bubble of suspended time. ‘That would be too easy.’
‘There never was any point in saving even a handful of you,’ said the Shadow Bear. ‘Look at you people. Look at the mess you’ve made of things. Even when everything is lined up for you, you won’t do what is expected. Tell you to run and you stay. Tell you to stay and you run. Frankly, the other side of the curtain doesn’t need vermin like your kind breeding and fighting and squabbling.’
‘I have been there,’ said Oliver. ‘And that is something we can agree on.’
The Shadow Bear pointed down towards the heavy weight of Tzlayloc, the pressure of his Wildcaotyl masters pushing into the world. ‘See that. That is what your race is. Condensed and packaged into a tight little ball of destruction and hate and pointlessness. My predecessor cleans out the weeds and your kind just let them grow back.’
‘That’s not us,’ said Oliver. ‘That’s not us at all.’
The thin slash of red that was the Shadow Bear’s eye turned away from Oliver. ‘They’re pretty furious, the Wildcaotyl. You’ve kept those wasps trapped in a jar for a thousand years, and now they want to re-paint the canvas without you in the picture. I might almost agree with them, except for the fact they don’t plan on leaving us in the canvas either, and that is something that is not negotiable.’
‘I thought it might be something that basic,’ said Oliver. ‘You handle the level of detail down here a lot better than my mother, but I suppose your function is rather basic too. And I would really rather you didn’t lecture me about the violence of my people. How many times have you destroyed everything, killed everyone?’
‘I do not kill all that is,’ said the Shadow Bear. ‘That is the job of entropy. How can you kill something that is not immortal? You are all going to die anyway; one day later, one week later, one star death later. No, I
‘Ah,’ said Oliver, remounting his time-frozen horse. ‘Rules, rules. You do so hate to be broken. I wonder how you feel about being bent out of shape a little?’
‘You are so righteous,’ snarled the Shadow Bear. ‘But the rule-set is there for a reason. Without the rules to set a trajectory for growth all you have is the perfect tick of the perfectly empty clock, going round and round and going nowhere to the random froth and fizz of the universe. But it is within my power to save you. I could leave time suspended for you; you could still reach the feymist curtain with a few of your twisted half-breed friends.’
‘As you said, the more you try and get me to run, the more I seem to want to stay,’ said Oliver.
‘Where are you going, Observer child?’
‘I’m going to ask the Wildcaotyl to leave. And when I am done with them, I’ll be asking you the same.’
The Shadow Bear snorted. ‘It will be amusing watching you try. After you have rogered things up, I shall let you live just long enough to see how things really end.’
Time jumped forward to the whine of cannon balls scratched across the sky. Oliver kicked his sixer down after the Whisperer.
‘Lad,’ shouted the commodore. ‘You’re alive.’
Oliver caught sight of the submariner on the other side of a square of steammen, soldiers moving in tight formation singing a hymn of battle in their machine voices. A cloud of acrid smoke from the battlefront briefly enveloped them, and then Oliver was through it. ‘Commodore, where’s King Steam’s command frame?’
‘This way, lad, I’ll take you.’
Oliver checked the Whisperer was still following and fell in with Commodore Black. ‘You did it, Commodore. They listened to you and Guardian Tinfold.’
‘Ah, much good has it done us, Oliver. That devil Tzlayloc has had years to plan his campaign, while parliament’s forces are in disarray. These rag-tag companies have never fought beside each other, or followed the leaders that now ask them to die. I would not trust these green-legs to help me lift a harpoon at a slipsharp, let alone crew the guns of a man-o’war. They’re fine fellows when it comes to cracking a debating stick over the head of a rival, but they have never faced a charge of exomounts, or been asked to hold a square for an hour while the Third Brigade’s six-pounders give them a broadside.’
Oliver moved aside to make way for a column of steammen knights, their bright banners crackling like whips as they raced past. Then they were at the command post. Riding officers galloped into King Steam’s command position, shouting reports to the Jackelian officers there before riding out to their units with fresh orders. In one of the hexagonal frame domes the Free State’s own command staff sat cross-legged and track-still, slipthinker brains co-ordinating their mu-bodies, allowing the conscript army and orders militant to move as a single entity. It was a formidable advantage — a collapsing line would be rapidly reinforced from the rear, a sudden enemy advance countered by knights that always appeared out of the snow like sorcery, cannon fire on their lines answered by counter-battery fire from the gun-boxes in the hills behind.
Oliver rode past the giant war body of the King and spotting the child-like form of the Free State’s leader, dismounted. Hoggstone was there, and Ben Carl in his bath chair, still being pushed by the girl who had led them through Middlesteel’s sewers. The conservative dark jacket of the First Guardian was at odds with the medley of brilliantly coloured uniforms of the surviving officers of the regiments.
‘Oliver softbody,’ said King Steam. ‘So, you have chosen to stay and fight with us. Well met.’ He looked over towards the Whisperer. ‘And you come with one who is not what he seems. You choose dangerous allies, Oliver softbody. You have unleashed the weaver of dreams.’
‘These are dangerous times, Your Majesty,’ said Oliver. ‘And I seem to be running short of allies. Steamswipe and Lord Wireburn are dead. They died to protect me … they died well.’
‘Do not mourn for them, child of Jackals. The Keeper of the Eternal Flame now walks with the Loas and Steamswipe’s honour is restored. There is no better end for a warrior. They gave their lives to preserve the great pattern and I can feel their harmonics powerful and proud in the hymns of the people.’
‘Ah, Your Majesty,’ interrupted Commodore Black. ‘We are all going to end up in your mortal hymns now. Look!’ He pointed towards the hill Oliver had ridden down, the beak of an aerostat nosing over the snow-covered downs, then another and another.
‘Prepare to receive fire from the air,’ commanded Hoggstone, his officers running to give an order that up to a month ago would have been unthinkable for a Jackelian army.
‘It is time,’ said King Steam, relaying his orders to the slip-thinkers in the command dome. ‘Give the command to load the gun-boxes.’
