The Rise of the Iron Moon (23 page)

‘No, it’s the way people react to him, all the staff who arrived at the project from Quatérshift. Just look at that scientist, Jared. How still and pale he is. I’ve seen simple farm laddies and lasses being given their first lumps by a drill sergeant with less fear than that on their faces.’

‘Ah well, he’s the skipper of their boat, right enough. Back across the border Keyspierre would have the power to strip a man of his position and send work-dodgers off to organized communities. That’s the power to starve you and your family, or imprison you in a living death – until you’d come to welcome the real article when it moved you along the Circle.’

‘It’s more than that,’ said Duncan. ‘It’s a different sort of fear. And then there’s his daughter. She stalks about like a panther.’

‘She’s sleek lines, that Jeanne, I’ll give you that,’ said the commodore. ‘But the terrors of the revolution have been raising ladies mortal resilient across the border, that’s all there is to the girl’s manner. Compatriot Keyspierre and his daughter are decent enough salts at heart. Jeanne was quick enough to save me back in Quatérshift, when one of the Army of Shadows’ giant slugs was about to transform the iron in my blood into another wicked brick for their city.’

Duncan said nothing, but he seemed to cling onto his doubts.

Having finished with the scientist working on the firing ring, Keyspierre walked down along the curve of the cannon to stop underneath the scaffold where Duncan and the commodore were working.

‘Commodore Black, I see that your contribution to the effort here stretches beyond your rather curious specialist knowledge of the channels off my nation’s coastline.’

Duncan noticed the man’s voice was deep and smooth, his Jackelian accent very nearly flawless.

‘Just doing my bit, Compatriot Keyspierre,’ said the commodore. ‘A bit of Jackelian elbow grease to help chivvy this mortal fine piece of engineering along to completion.’

‘Grease being applied to a scheme generated by the inspired minds of the glorious revolution,’ said Keyspierre.

‘But cast,’ Duncan called down, ‘from Jackelian iron. Aye, much the same as the barrel on a redcoat’s Brown Jane. Your people are not strangers to our rifles, I believe.’

‘So it once was,’ snorted Keyspierre, the nostrils of his large nose flaring. ‘I can see how well our cannon is polishing up. A pity we did not have a few of these formidable devices completed during the Two-Year War. Who knows which way the winds of fate would have blown if we had been able to shell the House of Guardians when they were debating the continuance of their war against us.’

‘An interesting question, for sure,’ said the commodore.

Keyspierre nodded, before starting to walk away. ‘Quite. But we speak of the past, when it is the future both our countries needs to look to now. Please do pass my compliments on to the noble workers helping complete this most ingenious feat of gunnery.’

‘They must have a different set of history books across the border,’ bridled Duncan as the man left their earshot. ‘I was sure it was the laddies in Quatérshift who invaded us during the Two-Year War.’

‘As I recall, most of their books were fed into the fires on the boilers of the shifties’ steam-driven execution machines during the purges.’ Commodore Black looked at the figure of the departing institute official. ‘Ah, well. All friends together now, eh?’

Radford and Sykes lengthened the run of the nets alongside their shallow-draught fishing keel. It was usually such easy work this far from the estuary, where their competition was few and far between. The Gambleflowers splintered into a dozen channels around the marshland of Monymusk before reforming into a single course that snaked all the way out to the coast. The marsh was usually thick with insects and the river crabs, and the fish and birds that fed on them. But something was scaring the fish off today, with the result that the pair’s nets had been empty each time they hauled them back on board.

Sykes cast an eye at the lonely fish still flopping about the catching crate on their foredeck. ‘It’d be nice to have some friends for Mister Trout here. Some companions, so that we’ll have something more to show for the day’s labours than an ear-wigging from Damson Sykes when I get back home.’

‘Never seen anything like it,’ said Radford, pulling his leather hat down tight against the chill marsh air. ‘Empty, today.’ He nodded to the east where the river cut through Middlesteel. ‘You expect bad waters down by Old Reeky; but then when the capital’s mills have got a stink on, the fish all head up to us. Look at the bugs flitting over the water. Got to be something wants to bite on them today.’

The lines holding their net seemed to judder at his complaints and both men began to haul the net in. ‘That’s more like it.’

Sykes winced. ‘Is we stuck? This is heavy, Circle it is.’

The pair of fishermen heaved at the lines until the pulley began to run again and the net lifted up. They swung the catch over and down onto their foredeck.

It landed with a heavy slap and Sykes advanced on it, scaling knife in hand. ‘What’s this, then?’

Radford sucked his breath in as the wash of water dragged blackened cloth away from the sodden mass under the net and revealed the pale white stretch of a human hand against their boat’s boards. ‘It’s a floater!’

Sykes bent down to loosen the net from around the body. ‘Poor unlucky bugger. Ain’t seen one of these for years, not since I worked the six-penny boat in Old Reeky.’

Radford watched his friend uncover the corpse. ‘Must have come down with the morning tide from the sea. Wonder if this is the fellow that’s been putting off our fish?’

Sykes tapped the flat of his knife thoughtfully against his bushy beard. ‘Now then, I think we knows him. Last week. Don’t you remember? He came down to the docks, wanting to know if there were any inns with spare rooms left in Sheergate. One of the carriage folk wanting to travel on to Spumehead for passage out to the colonies.’

‘I think you may be right,’ said Radford. ‘He was a flush jack with his pocket book. Bit too full of himself for my taste.’

‘Have to be a dreadful severe sinking right off the coast for him to roll in this far with the tide, mind.’

‘Could be so,’ said Radford. ‘Steamers have been running full to Concorzia for weeks, putting out dangerously low on their waterlines from what I been told.’

Radford was bending over to help Sykes clear the corpse entangled in their net when their little boat jolted to port, a pitter-patter rain of thuds pushing their hull back into the marshy reeds of the bank. Trying to keep their balance, both men dropped the tangled netting and swayed to the other side of the boat.

Down the river, thousands of bodies drifted face down with the tidal waters, as if a forest of humanity had been felled and loggers were moving the harvest downstream. Blackened, burnt clothing; men, women, children, all dead. Sykes reached down into the water and pulled out a sodden blue sailor’s cap floating by to inspect its name badge. The Jackelian Navy Ship
Excellent
, one of the huge ironclads that had been guarding the harbour entrance at Spumehead. It appeared there would be no sudden influx of new colonists arriving in Concorzia after all.

Both men were so intent on watching the horrific migration of death following the tide towards the capital, that they failed to notice that the swelling mist rising behind their backs was tinged with veins of crimson, an ominous reflection of the blood-filled waters of the Gambleflowers. In fact, it took Radford and Sykes minutes to hear the hollow bony clicking deadened by the fog. And by the time they saw the hulking black silhouettes of a legion of slats cutting through the cover, it was too late for either of them.

Two new burnt, torn-up bodies joined the black tide and bloody waters heading down towards Middlesteel.

Molly could see that the camp commander, Colonel Buller, was getting irritated – possibly due to the pressure he was under to deliver a successful test firing this afternoon – especially considering almost everyone involved in the project was thronging around the spiral-shaped cannon as if a festival day had been declared – whether their schedules of work said they should be labouring right now, and whether they were invited or not. Everyone was desperate to see whether the great contraption – this bastard fusion of Jackelian engineering and Timlar Preston’s Quatérshiftian genius – was going to live up to their hopes or blow apart in an explosion that might put a volcano to shame.

The colonel leant over the wall of the firing station, a platform built on stilts like a tree house with a panoramic view of the organized chaos below. ‘Sergeant, clear those work-shy layabouts away from the firing rings – filling the reservoirs is dangerous enough work as it is, without being jostled by malingerers.’

Soldiers from the Jackelian Corps of Engineers pushed back the navvies that were getting in the way of the careful work of filling the glass-lined fuel reservoirs. Molly approved of the commander’s caution. When it came to dealing with the volatile explosive liquids needed to drive their engine of gunnery, human error would be enough to scupper the whole project.

‘He’s in a snappy mood, today,’ said Purity.

‘I’m afraid we won’t get too many chances to do this,’ said Molly. ‘Timlar Preston has calculated that the force of any more than four firings will wreck the cannon’s barrel beyond use. Two test firings to calibrate, one live, and one left in reserve: that’s all the chances we’ll have.’

Molly should have resented Purity, but try as she might, she couldn’t. The young escaped royalist had been filled with the power of the land, just as Molly’s own connection with the power she had taken for granted had been snapped. She had been as young and eager as Purity, once. But this was the way of all things. Youth faded. Cynicism deepened. When Molly looked in her mirror to brush out her red coils of hair she saw lines on her forehead that she found hard to recognize sometimes.

‘Well, manners don’t cost anything,’ said Purity.

Yes, she saw more than a little of who she had once been in the young Purity Drake. ‘I hope you’ve been busy building up a stock of rubber lining for the cannon, young damson. Because after today’s test firing it’ll all need to be re-laid for the next attempt.’

Purity wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘I go to sleep in my bunk and all I can smell is blessed rubberized sheeting.’

Molly smiled. ‘You’ve been spending too much time with the commodore.’

A uniformed engineer came into the firing station and saluted Colonel Buller. ‘We have the blank shells on the loading turntable, sir. I’ve finished testing them, and I can report they match Lord Starhome’s dimensions and weight exactly: we are now ready to fill the first shell with sand to approximate the flight crew.’

‘Fill it with sand equal to ten people’s weight, captain,’ said the colonel, pointing to a turntable mounted above the spiral-shaped cannon where Lord Starhome and a series of blank shells rested in metal cradles.

‘Ten!’ Molly started. ‘I wasn’t planning to take passengers—’

‘Apart from me,’ interrupted Purity.

Colonel Buller looked surprised then vexed. ‘I thought Lord Rooksby had told you…’

‘Told me what?’ Molly demanded.

‘You are not to be allowed into the craft on the day of the launch. The party to Kaliban is to be headed by Rooksby. Parliament felt that you were too close to this project and your motives may have been tainted by your association with one of the foe’s natives.’

‘Tainted! Molly shouted. ‘This is
my
cannon, and the native you’re so concerned about gave his life to make sure it was constructed.’

‘That is as may be, damson, but the guardians on the committee overseeing this project are firmly of the opinion that the expedition to Kaliban will have far more chance of success if it is appropriately composed of a selection of scientists, ambassadors and soldiers. I think upon reflection you will agree that professionals are better suited to survive the hardships of the journey, as well as scouting the weaknesses of the enemy while finding and negotiating with potential allies. Certainly better suited than writers of penny dreadfuls and—’ he indicated Purity, ‘—shoeless seamstress friends of the author.’

Molly’s face was turning crimson with anger. ‘This is
outrageous
.’

‘No, Damson Templar, it is
expediency
. If the tales from our army’s survivors are to be given credence, we are currently facing complete military disaster. Your vision contributed to the marshalling of resources necessary to complete the cannon, and parliament now judges your contribution honourably discharged. We cannot possibly stake our nation’s survival on the fate of a single celestial fiction author.’

‘Parliament now judges,’ spat Molly. ‘I know who’s been pouring poison in the right ears. Oh yes, Lord Rooksby has changed his tune since the RAN was defeated, that dirty snake of a scheming jigger. When I arrived here, he was swearing blind that the Army of Shadows had marched over the polar ice from the other side of the world, not come from Kaliban. He said this cannon was a joke and now he wants to bloody
command
it?’

‘This is madness,’ protested Purity. ‘You can’t do this to us. Molly was touched by Kyorin, she knows things that are vital to—’

‘Young lady, half my comrades have been touched – touched by the Army of Shadows and lying dead in the killing fields across the border in Quatérshift. I rather think that the House of Guardians is very well-decided in this matter.’

‘We shall see!’ Molly stalked off. ‘We shall see how well they’ve bloody decided.’

Molly ran down the ramp from the firing station, ignoring the sound of Purity still attempting to argue the colonel around, brushing past a gaggle of scientists coming up the ramp. Oliver was in the crowds below, pushing through the spectators from the forest’s mills and manufactories and smelting works. He could see how angry she looked.

‘What is it?’

‘You’re the Circle-damned key, why don’t you ask your friend Purity up there.’

‘Molly – what?’