Blood and Iron (12 page)

A volley of shots sounded to Kavan’s right, and a huge explosion fountained brown soil into the air, smeared clinging dust across eyes and bodies. Black and grey and silver robots lost their nerve and began running for the surrounding hills, barely seen through the smoke and flame: they were cut down by shots fired by the grey robots that Spoole had stationed up there. A gust of wind blew clear the smoke for a moment, revealing silver Scouts running down the hills towards them. Some of his own Storm Troopers stepped forward to meet them, then the smoke drew back in, blotting out the scene. Were the Storm Troopers defecting to Spoole’s side, or were they fighting the Scouts?

Still the Uncertain Army moved on, a creeping determination spreading through the ranks as they realized they were now committed: there was no way to go but forward. The army moved like a robot carrying a large rock, unsteadily but with an unstoppable intent.

Grey infantryrobots spilled down from the hillside in front of them. Kavan thought that this was an attack, then saw the soldiers on his side that charged to intercept them pause and open their lines, welcome the infantryrobots back into their ranks. Kavan realized that the message was spreading.

Kavan was returning, and he was raising an army.

Silver Scouts came rushing up to join the battle on the hillside; they fought the Stormtroopers and the infantry alike, and Kavan saw the careful arrangement of Spoole’s troops unravelling, a tearing in the ranks that spread back along the hills further and further to the distant mountain peaks. Robots were changing sides as the fight reached them. Spoole’s and Kavan’s armies were flowing together and splitting apart and changing allegiances too fast to follow.

The grey band of infantryrobots that surrounded Kavan was growing thicker and thicker as more soldiers defected to his side. The infantry had always been loyal to him, he was one of them after all. The ground was shaking with the stamp and crash of so many feet. And then there was another noise, a high-pitched whistling.

The battle seemed to freeze for just a moment. So many robots halted, looking into the dark smoke, listening . . .

The area ahead of Kavan erupted in incandescent white fire. Metal and shrapnel exploded into the air, molten lead droplets rained down upon Kavan, melting into his panelling, searing the electromuscle beneath. The Uncertain Army moved forward once more, the fighting reforming itself around the smoking pit ahead.

‘What was it?’ Kavan realized he was asking the question of himself. Then he heard the answer. ‘Magnesium. They’re burning magnesium.’

The sense of outraged indignation spread through the robots battling in the flare and the noise. They were wasting metal! Those people who called themselves Artemisians were destroying metal!

Again, that same high-pitched whistling, and Kavan looked up to see something falling overhead. A dark metal sphere, it burst in the ranks behind him in another bright white flare. Hot air rushed forward, coating him with soot.

His ears were singing, some of the circuitry had been damaged by the blast, but he still heard the faint crump ahead of him, he saw the flames there on the slopes of the distant mountain. He stood taller when he knew what was happening.

The robots who fired the missiles had realized what they had done. It was the tipping point, even for them. Now those same weapons were being turned back on Spoole’s own troops. The mutiny had reached the artillery even as the Uncertain Army came within its range.

‘We are winning,’ shouted Kavan, ‘We are winning!’

He stamped his feet, once, twice, three times. Stamp,
stamp,
stamp; stamp,
stamp,
stamp. It was an old beat, one that the Storm Troopers had used in the past. Now Kavan adopted it for his own. His growing army marched on, with the sound of stamping rolling before it, shaking the very mountains themselves. It echoed from the mountains, it was taken up and copied by the soldiers that Spoole had brought to capture Kavan.

‘We are winning!’ shouted Kavan.

We are winning! We are winning!

The shout was echoed by the infantryrobots around him. It echoed down the ranks, spreading out in a circle, losing itself in the crash of the battle.

Kavan raised his arm and shouted into the noise.

‘And now, everyone who is with me, the time is at hand! This is the time of the final charge! Pour all your shot forward, slice every body that stands against you, claw with your hands, discharge every last watt of power from your electromuscle! Break yourself on the enemy, and watch as their ranks crumble and retreat! For this is the day when Nyro’s dream is finally realized!’

They couldn’t hear him, but it didn’t matter, it was already happening, Kavan could see it. Lines of metal peeling away from Spoole’s ranks: walking, pushing, running, heading for the trains and the route back to Artemis City. Spoole’s army was retreating.

Kavan sent all the power he had into his voicebox, almost rupturing it in the process

‘Charge!’ he called.

It wasn’t a rout. It wasn’t a glorious victory. It wasn’t even a battle in the end. It was what happened when soldiers no longer believed in what they were doing, that point when they turned and ran, thinking of nothing but the twisted metal of their own minds. All the noise, all the violence seemed to pass away, rising into the sky as gently as the black smoke smouldering from the battlefield.

Peace settled on the broken scene. Robots lay crushed and broken across the valley floor. Smashed by bullets and shot, trampled by other robots rushing to the charge or to the retreat.

Voiceboxes whined and whistled and screeched. Blue twisted metal lay tangled around arms and legs and hands and feet. It had tripped up robots; it had bound and sliced friend and foe alike. It was the same as on any battlefield, but this was only the visible sign of destruction. There was also the unguessable number of minds that lay trapped in bodies, on the valley floor, in the hills, on the mountains, fallen between cracks and down cliff faces and gorges. Minds whose coils had been broken, leaving the thoughts trapped in darkness for the rest of the robot’s life, or worse, minds where the coil had suffered a few breaks, leaving current surging agonizingly through the twisted metal. How many robots lay in silent agony, hoping, waiting for the salvage teams to discover them, to reclaim their metal and to crush the metal of their minds, ending their life and their pain?

Kavan didn’t care. As far as Artemis was concerned, there was no mind, there was only metal.

Kavan walked to the head of the pass, saw the broken podium where Spoole must have stood, waiting for Kavan to be brought to him. It was deserted. Spoole and the rest of the Generals were long gone, the first on the trains that had loaded up and headed south as the tide of battle turned. The railway lines were littered with the metal of those robots that had not made it on board the trains; mostly raw, untempered recruits, chased down by the silver Scouts, their coils broken by one swift swipe.

Later, some of Kavan’s troops would walk the broken railway lines, the metal twisted, the sleepers and ballast wrecked by Spoole’s retreating army, and they would follow a line of dead bodies that led through the mountains to the very edge of the Artemis plain itself.

But for now, they looked around at the carnage, incongruously roofed by the fresh blue sky, sharply illuminated by the clear spring sun.

His army was taking shape, all by itself. Robots were forming ranks around him. Infantryrobots, Storm Troopers and Scouts. Even some Generals and engineers, recently defected from Spoole’s army. Did they really believe, or were they just taking the most likely route to survival?

He would find out soon enough.

He counted his troops. Nearly three thousand, he guessed, arranging themselves in squares on the floor of the pass, in tiers up the sides of the low hills to the north. Not bad. But not enough to launch an attack on Artemis City.

At least, not yet.

He raised his voice.

‘Robots of Artemis,’ he called. He paused. He heard his words being relayed back through the crowd, and he felt an electric glow of satisfaction. This was how it had been in the old days, standing in the trenches, passing on commands. This speech would take some time for the message to get through. But for all the old soldiers out there, it would be more poignant for the method in which it was delivered.

‘Robots of Artemis,’ he repeated. ‘This was our easiest fight, out here, on
our
territory, on the battlefield, the place we are familiar with, the place that Spoole and his City Generals have forgotten or have never visited. This battle was
always
going to go our way.’

He paused, hearing his words relayed out, a diminishing electronic whisper.

‘Of course it would go our way! We had the will! Our former leaders are no longer true to Nyro, they dwell too much on their own lives and comforts, to the exclusion of Nyro’s way. It is obvious that their day is past!

‘But now we face a harder struggle, for we cannot remain here long. What would you have us do? Lurk here in the mountains, preying on the folk who live here, building our strength, for the day we feel comfortable attacking Artemis City? That would be the easiest way, but it is not the Artemisian way!’

The cheer was ragged. This was where the true followers of Nyro would show themselves, thought Kavan. Those who had followed him all this time would understand the necessity to move now. It would be those who had joined his army out of convenience who would be having second thoughts.

‘And so,’ continued Kavan, ‘we march on Artemis City itself! Not in a month’s time, or even a day’s time, but now! Because that is what we must do, even if that is the dangerous choice, because
we
are the true Artemisians! Because we are true to Artemis, we must march to where the Generals are on their home territory. To where the soldiers will huddle safe within walls and behind trenches. We must march to where we are outnumbered.’

More cheers. Were they more or less enthusiastic? It didn’t matter.

‘But do not be too disheartened. Our numbers will grow as we march south. Some of you will slip away into the night. We will reclaim you in the end, for those robots who see the truth in what we do will be marching to join us even now, and, cowards that you are, you will see that your path returns you to us. But most of you will follow because you know what we do is
right
! Even though the journey will be hard, for you know that Spoole and the rest will fight us every step of the way . . .’ He paused, turned in a circle to see all of his troops. ‘But from a distance,’ he continued, ‘and half-heartedly. Because that is all that Spoole and his Generals will know and will dare. That is why we you
know
we will triumph, because we have the will. And because we are right!’

Somewhere behind him, back where the infantryrobots assembled, someone began to stamp their feet. Stamp,
stamp,
stamp; stamp,
stamp,
stamp. The beat spread out to fill the whole of the pass, and Kavan did something he very rarely did.

He smiled.

Spoole

‘What you should have done . . .’ began General Sandale.

‘Later,’ said Spoole, evenly.

‘I only meant to say—’

‘General,’ Spoole was aware that all the Generals in the railway coach were attending. This coach was made of the best metal and insulated with plastic. The noise of the wheels on the track outside could barely be heard, and the Generals were listening closely to what was being said. He knew what they were thinking: they were wondering
is today the day we get a new leader?

‘General,’ repeated Spoole, and he lowered his voice a little further so that all present strained to hear, ‘I don’t want to hear what you
only meant to say
or what you were
only asking
. I don’t want any suggestions about what
we
could have done after the event.’

He stressed the word
we
. General Sandale’s voice was smooth.

‘I do think a thorough examination of what went wrong would be appropriate.’

‘And this shall be done, when we return to Artemis City. Although I think it obvious already what happened back there, General. Kavan is right. Artemis has lost its way. Its own soldiers obviously believe that.’

‘You’re the leader, Spoole. The state is what you made it.’

‘It’s what
we
made it, Sandale,’ answered Spoole. ‘Look at us all, look at this coach. Gold and copper and plastic. This isn’t the way that Kavan will travel, I bet.’

‘A leader does not need distractions—’

‘Leaders?’ interrupted Spoole. ‘Leaders stand at the front of their troops. What’s the last battle you fought, Sandale? How long ago was it?’

Before Sandale could answer, Spoole was looking around the rest of the Generals.

‘And you Spine, and you Pont? Ossel? Wines? Chekov? At least Sandale has seen action. You younger ones have never been out in the field, have you?’

The silence in the carriage deepened.

‘I think—’ began Sandale.

‘No,’ said Spoole. ‘I don’t want to know what you think. Not now. Perhaps when we get back to Artemis City.’