Iron Jackal (71 page)

Impossible to know. Maybe it had malfunctioned after millennia of inactivity. Maybe it was
supposed
to destroy the city, but had never been activated. Or maybe it recognised the people it was sent to annihilate, thousands of years ago.

None of it mattered now. The gulf of time was too great for guesswork. His only concern was getting them away from it.

A burst of gunfire shocked him. Two Sammie soldiers, caught between duty and self-preservation, had spotted them and opened fire. Samandra, who was in the lead, forward-rolled under their bullets and came up with both shotguns aimed. She fired them together, and the Sammies were blown backwards, minus their faces. Somehow, she managed to do it all without dislodging her tricorn hat.

She spun the shotguns, chambering a new round in each, and looked over her shoulder. ‘Better be careful,’ she said. ‘Ain’t just that ugly feller we got to look out for.’

Silo didn’t take them straight towards the landing pad. That would have meant crossing the entire expanse of the excavated zone. Instead he struck out for the edge, where it was bordered by foliage and there were no electric lights. That way he could avoid the majority of the Sammies, and hopefully the Juggernaut’s attentions too.

They heard the sucking noise again, the squeal of power building, the dreadful pause before the devastation. This time it came close enough to terrify, lashing the streets nearby. They were forced to shelter as pieces of ceramic pelted them from the sky.

The Samarlans were still in disarray, but Silo could hear the sound of machine guns drifting up from distant streets as some of them attempted to fight back.

Just like Sammies
, he thought.
Too wrapped up in ideas of nobility and codes of behaviour to save their own hides. Ought to be runnin’ as far ’n’ fast as they can. Ain’t a weapon in this city can hurt somethin’ that size.

But he’d have bet they were under the highest orders to keep hold of this place, no matter what the cost. So hold it they would. It kept them occupied, at least.

Silo and the crew made good time, and only encountered a few soldiers on the way. The Century Knights took them out with no hesitation. Most of them didn’t even have time to raise their guns.

The Juggernaut pounded onward, dragging a trail of destruction with it. Despite Silo’s attempts to avoid the monster, it was getting closer. It may have been slow, but its stride was long, and it didn’t trouble itself with following the streets. The ground shook as it barged buildings aside, blank gas-mask face turning this way and that as it scanned for targets.

A barrier of tangled greenery rose up before them as they reached the edge of the excavated zone. Silo would have liked to take them into the trees, where no one could see them, but one glance at the power station changed his mind. Smoke was fuming from its empty windows, and as he looked back, a section of the roof blew outward. One of the hourglasses had cracked near the top. Gas leaked out in a pastel cloud. Lightning flickered and roved around the damaged area.

The trees would be safer, but making their way through the undergrowth would take three times as long. They couldn’t afford the delay. Silo didn’t know how Azryx technology worked, but that power station looked an awful lot like it intended to explode sometime soon. So he led them along the streets, staying close to the foliage and as far from the conflict as he could manage.

For a few minutes they lost sight of the Juggernaut. They hurried along narrow, curving ways between high buildings, where there were no Sammies. Though they were hidden from the monster’s view, they could still hear it and feel its footsteps, nearer and nearer each time. There was nothing to do but keep going. Sometimes their way was blocked by encroaching trees and vines, or piles of banked earth, but for the most part they made progress towards their destination.

The foliage drove them on to a street which ascended sharply, becoming a ramp to a higher level. With no other option, they took it. It slipped between the shoulders of two close-set buildings and became a thin, graceful bridge that spanned a street choked with trees and undergrowth. Vines and creepers had made their way along its length, to clamber up the buildings on the far side.

They emerged onto the bridge, and there was the Juggernaut.

Silo’s breath caught in his throat. It stood a few streets away, taller than the rooftops, near enough to hear the massive muscles creak as they stretched beneath its armoured plates. He was pinned like a mouse in sight of a cat, crushed into insignificance by its appalling size. Though he knew it to be Azryx in origin, he felt as if he were standing in the presence of some vast, incomprehensible god.

The Juggernaut hadn’t seen them. Its attention was elsewhere. The ascending shriek had begun again, and bright motes were being sucked out of the air, warning of an imminent blast from its cannon.

‘Go! While it ain’t lookin’!’ Samandra urged the group. She ushered them past her, onto the bridge, her eyes never leaving the beast.

Bess led the way, with Malvery, Pinn and Ashua close behind her. Silo and the Century Knights brought up the rear.

The shriek reached its apex. There was a taut moment of anticipation. Then the beam blasted forth with a scream of expelled energy, devastating everything it touched. The Juggernaut swept its head left to right, raking the beam in a wide arc through the streets in front of it.

Swinging towards them.

Silo saw it coming an instant before it happened, but far too late to do anything about it. There was an instant of blinding light, and a terrible sound like the fury of Mother herself. Then the bridge behind him exploded.

A wave of heat and force made him stagger. The world tipped. The ground shifted beneath him, and was suddenly gone. He threw himself forward, clinging to something,
anything
that would save him. His chest smacked against the surface of the bridge, now tilted almost vertical. He slipped and scrabbled, pulled down by invisible hands. Then his fingers found an edge and locked there.

Behind and below him was empty space. The bridge was a ruin, ripped through the middle. The sides of the tear drooped downwards in broken sections, attached to the main structure by thick cables of a tough, rubbery material that ran through the ceramic.

Silo lay flat against a dangling piece of the bridge’s floor. He got his other hand up to the edge and hung there. Ten metres below him was a moon-grey mass of treetops, vines and rubble.

Up on the bridge, the others were shouting over one another. He heard Malvery and Pinn calling out names and arguing, and Samandra was swearing repeatedly through gritted teeth.

To his right, he heard the Juggernaut lumbering away. It hadn’t even noticed his plight. They were insects to it.

His fingers were already beginning to burn. He pawed for a toehold, but the surface was frustratingly smooth. Looking around, he saw a thick cluster of vines to his left, straggling down from the sundered bridge. Too far, perhaps. He tried to reach them anyway. He took his left hand from the ledge and stretched, but his right hand immediately began to seize up and he lurched back to prevent himself from falling.

‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Hey!’

Ashua’s face appeared above him, face shadowed against the moon.

‘Silo’s down here!’ she called. She scanned the terrain beneath her, a crazed ladder of cracked ceramic and strings of rubbery Azryx substrate. He was only a few metres below her, but it was too far for her to reach without climbing down herself.

In that moment, he froze her image like a ferrotype. His mind, suspecting the end, was eager to drink in every detail before his extinction. He saw her quick, wary eyes, the delicate tattoo on the left side of her face, her lean, spare frame to match her lean, spare existence. She was an opportunist, a scavenger, a survivor. Merciless and unemotional, because that was what she had to be. Whatever her true motives for joining the
Ketty Jay
, they were certainly selfish. The crew were useful to her, nothing more.

She wouldn’t help him. Not at the risk of her own life. She wasn’t crew.

If it had been Jez there, or Frey, they might have come down to save him. But Pinn was wounded, and Malvery too hefty. The Century Knights might have tried, but the noises coming from Samandra sounded like someone suppressing a scream, and he’d heard nothing of Colden Grudge.

His fingers began to shake. His tendons were on fire. He was going to fall. It might not kill him, but it would probably break him enough to make no difference.

Ashua’s eyes shone, hard in the shadow. Then she shook her head and gave a tut of disgust. ‘Shit,’ she muttered. And she slipped over the side and went climbing down towards him.

She was from Rabban, a city of rubble, and she negotiated the shattered face of the broken bridge with ease. When she was low enough, she found a good foothold, hooked one hand into a crack and reached down with the other.

Silo didn’t question his fortune. He reached up with his right hand and grabbed on to hers. She hauled, thin arms straining. He added what strength he could, but he didn’t have enough left. He tried again for a toehold and failed.

‘You’re too heavy,’ she said.

Malvery and Pinn had appeared at the lip of the bridge. Gunfire rattled in the distance. ‘Hang on!’ said Malvery. ‘I’ll find something to throw down!’

But there wasn’t time for that. Ashua was willing, but she didn’t have the muscle to lift him, and he was weakening fast. If she didn’t let him go, he’d pull her off with him. And besides, what would Malvery find up there? Vines?

Vines!

‘Swing me!’ he said. He looked to his left. Ashua saw the bundle of vines, just out of his reach. She nodded, her jaw tight with the effort of holding him.

‘Back and forth, alright?’ she said.

‘Ready.’

‘Go.’

He let go with his left hand and grabbed on to her wrist, putting his whole weight on her dangling arm. At the same time he pushed himself away from the vines with his feet, swinging out like a pendulum, then back again. He heard Ashua cry out with the effort of holding him up, and then he felt her jerk and she shrieked and her grip came loose. He let go, flailing through the air for the briefest of instants—

—and his hands clamped firmly to the body of a thick vine. He crashed into the bundle, scrabbled for an instant, and then his feet found a loop and he pressed on it, taking the weight from his arms and hands. Relief flooded through him. He clutched himself to the vines, enveloped by their sharp green scent.

Ain’t dead yet.

He looked over at Ashua. Her arm was dangling by her side, the other still hooked in a crack. Above her, Pinn was lying on his belly, reaching down.

‘Doc!’ Pinn called. ‘Quit messing about. Get back here and help!’

She let Pinn pull her up, and once Silo saw she was safe, he began his own climb. Malvery appeared at the top in time to lend his arm.

Silo wasted no time on recovery. He was assessing the situation the moment he had his feet under him. The crew was all safe, thankfully. Bess sat on her arse against the side of the bridge, looking as bewildered as a faceless metal golem could. Samandra was sitting as well, in the midst of several slabs of rubble. Her teeth were clenched in agony and one leg was stretched out straight in front of her. The foot of her boot was twisted at an unnatural angle.

‘Where’s Grudge?’ Silo asked.

Malvery looked about as if it had only just occurred to him. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘ ’Scuse me, I gotta see to Ashua.’

Silo followed. Ashua had collapsed to her knees, holding her shoulder. Her face had gone a darker red than her hair. Malvery took one look at her and said ‘You popped the socket.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, between deep breaths. ‘You gonna pop it back?’

‘Have to,’ he said apologetically. ‘I ain’t joking. This’ll hurt.’

‘You think?’ said Ashua, with a sarcastic and slightly hysterical laugh. Then she sobered. ‘Do it.’

He told her to lie back, and she did so. He put his boot on her chest and lifted her arm so it stood out straight. She screwed her mouth shut, trying not to make a sound.

‘On five,’ he said. ‘One . . .
two!
’

There was an audible crunch of cartilage as he pulled on the straight arm. She made a small whimpering noise in the back of her throat, then let out a long gasp.

‘Better?’ Malvery asked.

‘Shit, yes,’ said Ashua, with transcendent joy in her eyes.

Malvery snapped his fingers at Pinn. ‘Come here. I need that sling.’

‘It’s
my
sling!’ Pinn whined.

‘You’re wearing a sling ’cause you shot yourself like an idiot. She just saved Silo’s life. See the difference?’

‘No,’ Pinn said stubbornly, but he let Malvery undo the sling anyway.

Ashua sat up, massaging her shoulder tenderly. Her eyes met Silo’s. He gave her a grave nod of thanks. He’d misjudged her, it seemed. He didn’t do that often.

‘Colden!’ Samandra cried. He looked up and saw the Century Knight trying to get to her feet.

‘Hey! Stay down!’ Malvery barked at her. ‘I’ll get to you in a sec. That ankle’s broken.’

She ignored him. ‘Where’s Colden?’