Iron Angel (43 page)

Anchor shook his head. “No, he is from another land. They do not know Menoa’s forces like you.”

The soldier snorted. “A soft breed, then? Not trained to resist the Deceiver’s persuasion as we have been.” He peeled away the breastplate and shuddered.

Caulker felt sick.

Beneath the soldier’s armour, the man’s chest was a red mess of scars. His skin had been punctured in half a hundred places. The metal plate, Caulker saw, was lined with four-inch knives, each pointing inwards.

“You see?” Anchor said to Caulker. “Rys’s soldiers wear such armour from the age of seven years. The knives start small, then as the child grows, the armour plates are changed for ones with longer blades. The body adapts around the metal.”

Caulker turned away.

“Many die,” Anchor said.

The soldier laughed. “But the survivors grow stronger.”

They left the soldier and walked west around the city walls, passing legions of assembled men preparing for battle behind earth and timber palisades. Caulker stared at their silver armour with dread, imagining the torsos within.

“The suffering makes them resilient,” Anchor said. “King Menoa finds it hard to sway men like this. It takes many years in Hell to break them. Ah, look, here is the iron angel now.”

It was vaster than Caulker expected. From where he stood he could see nothing but a pair of monstrous skeletal feet and leg bones which disappeared high into the fog. A shadow filled the sky overhead.

“Big, yes?” Anchor chuckled. “And strong. It has found a weapon.”

Caulker looked again. Something huge and metal hung in the mists above his head. He peered harder. He could just make out a long, bulky iron object with a funnel and rows of metal wheels connected by couplings. It moved suddenly, and a shower of black stones fell from it.

Coal?

“Perhaps we should return to the city,” he said to Anchor. “The soldiers will not thank you for bringing this fog.”

“I help them in the fight,” Anchor replied, still staring up at the arconite. “They put up with Cospinol’s fog. Fair trade, eh?”

“I don’t believe it,” Trench hissed.

Rachel turned to see the group of passengers who had disembarked from the steamship outside the city walls. Now Silister Trench, the archon who had accompanied her all the way from Deepgate, rushed over to greet one of them.

The old man clad in queer glass armour looked up as Trench approached, and grinned. “You made it, then? And without wings, I see.”

“You appear to have lost more than a few feathers yourself.”

They clasped arms.

“Rachel, this is Hasp,” Trench said, “the Lord of the First Citadel and commander of the Maze Archons. Ulcis’s brother. Hasp, this is Rachel Hael, a friend of the angel who gave up this body.”

Rachel swallowed. How many more brothers of Ulcis was she likely to meet?

Hasp said to her, “You knew Dill?”

She nodded. “Trench told me you would search for him in Hell. I…” She hesitated. “Did you find him?”

Hasp studied her for a moment. “He exists still.”

Relief flooded her heart. If Dill’s soul had not been destroyed then there remained a chance to return it to his body. Trench had promised her as much. But then she had a sudden thought. What did it mean that the Lord of the First Citadel was here on earth? Who, then, was looking after the young angel in the Maze?

“Menoa got to him,” Hasp said bluntly. “I tried to protect him but I failed.”

“What do you mean? What’s happened to him? Where is he?”

And Hasp explained.

“We go to look at the enemy now.”

“What?”

John Anchor beamed. “Cospinol’s fog makes it difficult to see. Come…” He beckoned to Caulker. “We will go and see what type of demons we are facing.” He started walking down the slope towards the hidden horde.

“Shouldn’t you wait for the soldiers?” Caulker called after him.

Anchor glanced back over his shoulder. “What for?” Then he laughed and set off again, dragging his massive rope behind him.

Caulker hesitated. He’d seen Anchor fight, and knew that the big man was probably more than a match for whatever pickets the demons had placed around their encampment. And he realized that this might be the one chance he’d have to betray the tethered giant to his enemies. But the thought of walking into that terrible unknown made him pause.

Anchor had almost disappeared into the fog ahead. It was now or never. He bolted after the big man.

“Jack Caulker,” Anchor said as the cutthroat drew alongside him. There was a hint of sadness in his tone. “You once asked Cospinol to tell you how you die. He did not know the answer then, but he knows it now.”

Caulker was stupefied. Now he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know the answer to that question. He eyed the big man warily.

“You die trying to betray a friend,” Anchor said.

Caulker said nothing. A feeling of unease crept over him. How could Anchor possibly know his intentions? The big man was trying to trick him again, the same way he had tricked Caulker into swallowing the tainted soulpearl. And there was the truth of it, Caulker realized. The soul had somehow been rotten—that’s why it gave such horrible visions of death. As they marched on through the fog, down towards Menoa’s horde, the cutthroat became angry.

“You betrayed
me,
” he said. “You fed me a poisoned soul.”

“No.”

“You cursed me! Every night you return to murder me in my dreams.”

Anchor shrugged. “It is the nature of Cospinol’s soulpearls. These ghosts are angry. They live inside us, and give us strength, but they will try to hurt us, too.”

“But
you
don’t suffer.”

Anchor stopped. Dark shapes were shuffling at the limits of the fog ahead, while vague shadows sagged in the grey gloom behind.
Tents or banners?
Caulker smelled the dense odors of beasts and charnel. He heard the rasp of steel, the creak and rumble of an axle turning, and a thousand other low grunts and snuffles.

The tethered man whispered, “I have the same dreams, Jack Caulker.”

“Liar!” He reached for the leather pouch at Anchor’s side, but the big man grabbed his wrist, stopping him.

“All of these souls are angry, rotten, and bitter,” Anchor said quietly. “The one you chose was more benevolent than most.”

“No.” Caulker hissed through his teeth. This damned giant was lying to him again. Had Anchor brought him here to
betray
him? Did he hope to gain King Menoa’s favor
first
?

Anchor untied the pouch from his belt. “If you don’t believe me, then choose another. It will only add to your suffering.”

Caulker eyed the bag of pearls. How many dozens had the giant consumed since the Deadsands without suffering any ill effects?
The souls of warriors from a hundred distant lands, battle-archons and demigods.
And yet Anchor had tricked Caulker into consuming the rotting essence of a madwoman.

The cutthroat snatched the bag and ran.

He ran towards the armies of the King of Hell, and as he ran he gorged himself, stuffing the glass beads into his mouth. The shadows in the fog ahead became clearer. He sprinted past a barricade of bones and wicked crystal-tipped spears. Hobbled shapes flinched and grunted in the gloom all around, but still Caulker ran. And then suddenly he was past the pickets and leaving Anchor’s fog. He could see the whole encampment spread out before him, the horde amassing on the crimson lakeshore. He glanced back, and noticed that the fog was flowing quickly back up the incline towards Coreollis. Anchor had decided not to pursue him.

Caulker grinned and ate more pearls.
These
were not rotten, for he was already growing stronger. With each new soul he consumed, he felt his fatigue lift. All of the hard years he had spent on Missionary cogs and in the streets of Sandport simply peeled away. He could have run forever.

He could make out individual groups now among the throng: chained human slaves urged forward at spear point; tall figures on stilts and warriors in white armour following behind; red flayed things which crawled like beasts? Machines with human skin and faces crowded among the gears and chains?

Caulker slowed his step.

Where was the King of Hell? But, of course, these were minions, foot soldiers, slaves. No doubt the leader would be directing the battle from the rear. All Caulker had to do was find a way to get to speak to him.

He must offer a gift.

Alone at the encampment border, the cutthroat held up his stolen pouch. “A gift!” he cried. “Souls for your King Menoa. Let me speak to him.”

The demons advanced. They marched, crawled, or slithered up the incline. Before them they drove a group of twenty or so chained humans. It had become a true killing field. Slaves cried out as Menoa’s warriors cut them down to soak the earth before them. Wheeled machines belched smoke from hot pipes and crushed their bones. Savage howling things set about the flesh with claw and fang. The twenty slaves became ten, and then five.

Caulker swallowed another soulpearl for strength, and then another.

Grinning faces leered up towards him. Huge men in bronze armour clicked metal fingers together. Steel grated steel. Teeth chattered and axes fell. Five slaves became four, and then three. Their bones crunched and their blood flew, soaking the advancing horde. Witchspheres rolled among the throng, whispering, gouging shallow trenches in the fresh red earth.

“A gift for your master,” Caulker cried. “I seek an audience with him. I have important news.”

Nobody would answer him.

Somewhere distant he heard a hag scream and cackle. Caulker reached for another soulpearl, but the bag was empty. How many had he eaten? Twenty? Fifty? He could feel their power soaring inside him. It gave him confidence.

The king’s army marched closer, glaring at the cutthroat the way a predator inspects food. The last slave fell before them, his scream echoing across the sunlit slope. Swords and spikes were raised. Mouths drooled and salivated.

“I demand an audience with your king,” he said. “I demand—”

But the army had reached him now, and they had no more slaves left with which to bloody the ground.

From the fringes of Cospinol’s fog, Harper watched the reinforcements join the main bulk of Menoa’s army. And now she could see the human slaves among them. They had been harvesting the lands of Pandemeria en route to bloody the ground before Coreollis.

Part of Harper’s heart urged her to abandon these humans and join the demon hordes. Her bulb of mist had almost dried up and her strength would soon fade. She was not one of the living and she could not survive for long among them. Hell waited for her inevitably at the end of this day.

“There must be a hundred thousand souls in that army,” Jones muttered, “without even counting the slaves.”

“More,” she said. “Menoa uses souls as ammunition. Each acid bolt and ball of flame is someone’s life. These weapons feel as much pain as the victims they burn.” She turned to face him. “Why did Edith Bainbridge betray the Mesmerists? What did Rys offer her that Menoa couldn’t?”

He smiled. “The god of flowers and knives is very handsome.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” He gave a shrug. “She’s vain and foolish, rich and arrogant and selfish. But she’s still a woman.”

“How would Rys feel, I wonder, to know that his looks helped to turn the war?”

“It would appeal to him greatly,” Jones mused. “But if Menoa unleashes the remainder of his arconites, this turn of events would seem to make little difference. We have only one giant.”

The reservist was right. Dill might slay every demon on the field down there, but he would be hard-pressed to stand against even one of Menoa’s twelve remaining arconites. She said, “Can we hope for more aid from the thaumaturge?”

The old man shook his head. “Mina Greene has been reunited with her pet. But the hound is nothing more than a Penny Devil. Basilis is crippled and debased, but I fear he has already overstretched his powers.”

“Then we’re doomed to fail.”

“I think so, yes,” he replied. “But not today.”

Horns blared suddenly down by the lakeshore. Menoa’s armies began to stir. Now they herded hundreds of their human slaves onto the battlefield, slaughtering the stragglers even as they urged the remainder forward. The king’s war machines, more resilient to untainted earth, rolled out to flank the main force.

An answering trumpet came from Rys’s Northmen. His army bellowed and clashed swords against their shields. Then they marched on, a tide of silver flowing down the incline to meet the threat. Banners of yellow and white streamed over their heads. The sound of their boots resounded like the beat of a metal heart.

And Dill moved. He opened his wings to blanket the whole of the northern sky, disturbing low clouds. In one hand he gripped
The Pride of Eleanor Damask
like a club, the old locomotive shedding coal and oil upon the grass. He stooped to pick up the
Sally Broom
with his other hand. The empty steamship gave a mighty groan. Her hull buckled under his grip and her single remaining funnel collapsed.