The Court of the Air. Stephen Hunt
Vauxtion threw a set of rusty Gear-gi-ju wheels on the floor. ‘You might as well blame Guardian Rathbone station’s controller. Do you know how difficult it is to torture a steamman mystic? They can shut down their pain centres at will. I had to find a specialist to break your friend down to a state where he was willing to tell me where to find you.’
‘You softbody barbarian,’ cursed Silver Onestack. ‘May the Steamo Loas blight you for your evil.’
Count Vauxtion casually shot one of Onestack’s legs off with the remaining barrel of his harpoon weapon. With only two sides left on Onestack’s tripod the ponderous steamman bowled over, beached in his own workshop. He tried to stand, slipped, then lost consciousness, his valves overwhelmed by the pain.
‘Hardly a barbarian,’ Count Vauxtion said to the immobile steamman. ‘The controller described you as a mad old boiler scratching art with peck blood and fungus water, but he lacked the sensitivity or the reference points to adequately describe your works. They are magnificent, steamman. As one artist to another, I shall leave you your arms and sight. Call it a professional courtesy. I have taken the liberty of taking one of your miniatures as payment; the scene of the girl against the canyon wall.’
Molly took a step towards the stairs, but the gas gun was instantly pointing at her. A rubber pipe from its handle dangled like a cobra from the count’s sleeve. ‘Please, Molly. My commission requires you to be delivered alive. And there are no chimney stacks in Grimhope for you to shin up.’
‘Alive!’ Molly spat. ‘An invitation to supper would have been cheaper.’
‘Not to mislead you, my sweet. I have the feeling my present patron will not be leaving you in that state for long.’
‘You tell my stepfather to go to hell.’
‘Stepfather?’ The count seemed amused. ‘Perhaps, although I doubt it. My current patron prefers to hold to his anonymity, so I can’t speak as to his motives or cause. Not that it really matters. I do not participate in causes any more. I spent most of my life following that course and all it bought me was a cemetery full of friends, family and fallen comrades.’
‘Let me help Slowcogs,’ Molly implored.
The count shook his head. ‘You are too slippery a catch, my dear. And I aimed for your friend’s boiler. Put your hood on and say your goodbyes. Bear in mind anyone you try to warn on our journey out of Grimhope will be dead before you close your beautiful lips, as will you. My patron will pay more for you alive, but dead will do almost as well.’
Molly tried to reach out to the steamman as the count pushed her towards the door. ‘Slowcogs.’
‘Follow your pattern, Molly softbody,’ whispered the dying metal creature. ‘Wherever it may take you.’
Standing outside, Molly tried to punch the topper. ‘You’ve bloody killed him.’
‘I led twenty thousand of my own soldiers to the slaughter at Morango,’ said the count. ‘And I loved them. One more, one less – just a number, Damson Templar, just another number in a forgotten ledger no one is numerate enough to read anymore.’
Producing a key, the count locked the door to the workshop. In the street a fat man approached them, puffing. ‘Is compatriot metal not in?’
‘The excitement of the rally was too much for him, compatriot,’ said the count. ‘He is taking the rest of the day off.’
‘But there’s a broken extraction belt at mill twenty! What shall I tell my committeeman?’
‘Tell him?’ the count, said. ‘Tell him that compatriot metal is currently putting a couple of his legs up for a while.’
Getting into Grimhope with a well-known boiler like Silver Onestack had been relatively simple. The crimson-hooded guards blocking their path showed that leaving with Count Vauxtion was not going to be so easy.
‘Papers of travel, compatriot,’ said one of the soldiers.
‘There have been reports of a pride of pecks attacking the farms,’ said the count. ‘Productivity will suffer. The committee demands answers.’
‘Pecks are always dragging off spore hands, compatriot. We’d have more luck farming the black-furred little buggers instead. But it’s your papers of travel I need to see if you want to go on a picnic with bright eyes here.’
‘But of course,’ said the count. He reached inside his cloak as an explosion lifted the roof off a mill in the bottom of the valley.
‘Sweet Tuitzilopochtli!’
‘Stay here,’ the sergeant shouted at one of the men. ‘The rest of you with me. It could be counter-revolutionaries from the Anarchy Council.’
Count Vauxtion smiled at the remaining guard. ‘And where would any good revolution be without its counter-revolutionaries?’
‘You stay put, compatriot,’ scowled the guard. ‘Until we’ve sorted out what’s happening in town you ain’t going nowhere.’
‘Hardly very fraternal, compatriot,’ said the count, bending down to pick something up from the cavern floor. ‘As for the mill, I think you’ll find someone rather carelessly turned the water system off on one of the boilers. See here, a worm.’
‘Do I look like I bleeding care?’
Molly tried to pull away, but the count pushed her back. ‘It’s a matter of philosophical niceties, compatriot. My own personal form of equalization, although where I come from it’s called a vendetta.’ Vauxtion’s hand shot up and a blast of gas spurted into the guard’s face. The brilliant man collapsed to the ground as if an axe had felled him and the count tossed the worm contemptuously on his body. ‘See, compatriot. I have made you equal to both my family and these toiling gardeners of the soil. May the worms enjoy the meal.’
‘You murderous old goat,’ Molly shouted. ‘You don’t care who you kill.’
The count waved his gas gun in the direction of the fungal forest. ‘Quite the opposite, my sweet. Shall we go for our picnic?’
‘I—’ Molly flinched back as a boot came down from the sky, flashing past her cheek, and sending the count sprawling over the corpse of the dead guard. The breath whooshed out of her as an arm rammed her spine, encircling her, tossing her into the air and onto a wicker floor. She gazed up stunned into a craynarbian face.
‘Ver’fey!’
‘I told you it was her,’ said Ver’fey.
Standing behind the craynarbian was a large woman, the sleeves of her shirt cut short, massive tanned arms jutting out. The same arms that had just seized Molly and lifted her from the ground. She looked oddly familiar.
Molly rolled off her back and onto her feet. She was in a wicker gondola hardly larger than a boat; above her was a sausage-shaped canvas. A miniature aerostat. Beyond the woman a man stood holding the tiller of a pivot-mounted expansion engine. Molly swayed for a second, dazed, and looked back towards the ground.
Count Vauxtion was a small dot on the edge of the fungal forest.
‘Molly.’ The craynarbian steadied her human friend. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘Back,’ said Molly. ‘I need to get back to Grimhope.’
‘You’re joking, kid,’ said the woman with the muscled arms. ‘Those asylum rejects would shoot us down as soon as look at us.’
‘I have friends down there,’ protested Molly.
‘Then make new ones, because we’re heading for the surface.’
‘Ver’fey,’ said Molly, ‘in Circle’s name what are you doing here? Can’t you tell her to put us down on the ground?’
Ver’fey shook her armoured skull, pointing to the man tending the expansion engine. ‘I told him where to find you, Molly,