A stiletto was not Daud’s favorite choice of blade, but it was better than nothing. He moved to the top of the steps and reached forward.
In the blink of an eye he had crossed the Sixways, appearing behind the clockwork soldier. Before the machine could react, he stepped up onto the crook of the thing’s knee and lifted himself onto its back. The torso was covered with amber-wood plates, but the complex mechanisms underneath were within range of his blade.
The mechanical creature spun around, momentarily unable to determine where this new attacker was. The blade-arms flailed, snapping back and forth, but Daud, his head ducked down, remained out of reach. He clung on, ignoring the machine as it announced a new string of protocols, and peered between the plates on the thing’s back.
This close, the machine’s heart looked so delicate and fragile—the narrow stiletto was the ideal weapon. Ignoring the large spinning gear wheel that was sure to snap the small blade in an instant, Daud slid the knife under the lip of an amber-wood plate and used it as a lever. He pushed the stiletto up to get a better angle, then plunged it downwards.
There was a spark, and the hot smell of oil, but if he had managed to inflict any damage, the clockwork soldier didn’t show any ill effects. It whirled again, having now realized its attacker was clinging to its back. Servos whirred as the machine pivoted violently at the waist, trying to dislodge him. The surviving members of the Sixways Gang dodged out of range of the long bladed arms as the clockwork soldier jerked and staggered around in a small circle, fighting to get Daud off.
Daud’s grip slipped, momentarily. He needed a new plan—the internal mechanisms of the creature seemed tobe just as tough as its exterior framework, and with the machine determined to get rid of him, he knew he would be thrown off any moment.
Then the machine pushed its torso forward, bending sharply at the waist. Surprised, Daud slid up its back, until he was forced to loop an arm around the clockwork soldier’s neck just to stay on. Then the machine straightened, Daud’s legs flying out behind as he struggled for purchase.
He felt the sharp sting as his leg was glanced by an oblique sweep of one of the blade-arms. Daud hauled himself up the machine’s back, straddling the shoulders, the back of the carved wooden head pressed against his chest.
He was in a vulnerable position. There was little to hold onto, and he was exposed to the four swirling blades.
The head was large, from the tip of the beak to the base of the skull-like shell almost as long as Daud’s arm—but the neck mechanism on which it sat seemed ridiculously slender, no more than a spinal rod and three piston-like struts with universal joints, allowing full freedom of movement. Daud rammed the stiletto into the machine’s neck, sliding the blade between one of the struts and the central column rod until the hilt stopped any further progress. Then, grabbing the small handle with both hands, he pushed the weapon sideways. Something was going to give—either the machine’s neck, or the knife.
He needn’t have worried. The stiletto was a fine piece of metalwork, and one of the clockwork soldier’s neck supports snapped cleanly, breaking like a twig. The thing’s head lolled and the machine’s blade-arms fell as its whole body listed to one side for a moment. With the struts on the other side of the neck now presented to him, Daud jammed the knife home again, shoving it with the heelof both hands, and broke both universal joints on the support rod. The rod came out entirely and dropped to the cobbles with a clatter.
The machine made a sound like the brakes failing on a rail carriage and it reared up again, another attempt to rid itself of its attacker. Daud shifted up so his knees were on the machine’s shoulders, locked his fingers underneath the thing’s beak and yanked upwards.
With a spray of sparks, the creature’s head came off in his hands and Daud fell backward, bracing himself as he hit the cobbles.
Neck sparking, the machine tottered on its thin legs, its arms swinging, the sharp tips of its blades gouging the cobbles, throwing up hot orange sparks.
“Catastrophic damage to head. Increasing power to audio detection.”
Now the Sixways Gang saw their chance. Daud counted only two men and one woman left standing, but they charged in, blackjacks swinging, easily dodging the now slow, uncoordinated movements of the blade-arms. With several well-placed blows, the machine buckled and the gangsters jumped back as the twitching creature finally folded onto the road with a crash. One of the bulbs on the front of the torso caught a cobble on the edge and shattered, and a moment later the other bulbs dimmed. The clockwork soldier twitched for a few seconds before the machine stopped moving altogether. Thick, bluish fluid—processed whale oil—began to pool out from underneath the machine, mixing with the blood of the fallen gangsters.
The three survivors stood panting and wiped the sweat and blood from their faces. The silence on the Sixways intersection was almost palpable.
Then came the sound once more.
Metal on stone, rhythmic, heavy.
Getting louder. Getting closer.
Jack ran down the steps of the Suicide Hall and pointed. “Look!”
Two more mechanical nightmares clattered into view, striding out of Wyrmwood Way, marching toward them with disconcerting slowness, their legs rising and falling in stiff unison, each machine lifting and re-folding their four arms in sequence, the blades snapping together, like they were marking time and drumming out a beat of death and slaughter.
And behind the machines, Daud could see the Grand Serkonan Guard, their white helmets pulled low, each armed with a heavy pistol. It was only a small squad, eight advancing at a crouch, using the pair of clockwork soldiers in front of them as the perfect cover.
Daud grabbed the shoulder of the nearest gangster.
“Get out
