Secrets of the Fire Sea (42 page)

‘Those noises,’ Hannah coughed.

‘Mortars, rifles and cannons. We’re in a shooting war, lass. And I think I know whose…’

Whose soon became clear. The plain outside Hermetica City’s battlements was full of Pericurian soldiery, the capital’s wall standing silent without the killing hum of electricity that usually flowed along its surface. Rows of tents and makeshift palisades were being raised in its lee. Massive iron cranes had been driven into the top of the black cliffs of Jago, lifting up more Pericurian formations and supplies onto the dark basalt
plain from a fleet that lay out of sight below. Every gate in the sloped iron battlements that Hannah could see was wide open, ursine troops marching through.

Commodore Black pointed to a line of new pennants raised from one of the wall’s sentry stations. Dozens of triangles of fabric fluttered in the chill arctic wind, each a different colour, each bearing a different tree—oaks, sycamores, blackthorns, camwoods.

‘There’s the blessed answer, flapping in the breeze. Pericur!’

But the capital was yet to fall entirely. Whatever the state of affairs above ground, there were puffs of rifle smoke rising from the structures built into the slopes of the Horn of Jago, answered by the roar of cannon fire from the Pericurian siege below.

Reaching the lee of the capital’s silent battlements, Hannah and the commodore’s cage was lowered towards the ground and when the door was sprung, they found themselves facing Ortin urs Ortin, with a ring of Pericurian soldiers pointing turret rifles at them.

‘Put your guns down now,’ wheezed the commodore. ‘There’s just me and the girl and I’ve no weapons nor fight left in me besides.’

‘Where’s everyone else?’ asked Hannah. ‘Where are the trappers?’

‘They opened fire when Tobias Raffold went down,’ whispered the commodore. ‘The wet-snouts killed them all. We were only spared because we were out of our suits and already beaten into the snow for our troubles. The ursine weren’t there to clear the aqueduct, Hannah. They were there to cut off the city’s drinking water supply. The brutes blew it to pieces after they shoved you and me into the cage.’

Hannah looked angrily at the ambassador. ‘This is badly done.’

‘It is necessary,’ said Ortin urs Ortin, motioning at the troops to lower their massive weapons.

Commodore Black indicated the pennants raised above the capital’s battlements. ‘Those are the flags of the great liberal houses, ambassador. Not the wicked firebrands that follow the archduchess, but your people!’

‘It is the only way to secure our fortunes, dear boy,’ said the ambassador. ‘We will present the baronial council with something no one in history had been able to do before – the removal of all interlopers from the sacred soil of Jago.’

‘How can you do this?’ Hannah pleaded. ‘To Nandi, to the Jagonese?’

‘How could we not, young lady?’ The ambassador pointed at the lead tabernacle that had been recovered from the chamber deep under the Cade Mountains. ‘How can you even ask that after everything that we saw on the other side of the mountains? This land is cursed, nothing can prosper here. Its poisons have infected the Jagonese and your society has been on its deathbed for centuries. Pericur is not here to conquer; we are here as
liberators
. When we’ve defeated the nobles who are your jailors, do you think we will need to drag the common people out of their vaults, crying, kicking and fighting at the tips of our sabres? No, we will point to the empty holds of our freighters and offer your people free passage to the colonies across the sea and they will flood away. No more ballot, no more protected professions, no more exile into the wastes for those caught trying to stow away for just the chance of a better life.’

‘Spare us your cant, lad,’ said the commodore. ‘You’re doing this for politics, not for the people here.’

‘Nobody’s hands are clean, dear boy,’ said the ambassador. ‘Especially not yours. What do you think our houses needed all those transaction engines for? Why do you think our last
archduchess was willing to give a ship of the
Purity Queen
’s reputation a trading licence?’

Hannah’s heart sank. So much processing power. Enough, perhaps, to approach the power of the transaction-engine vaults of the guild, if not the sophistication of the guild’s valve-based engines. ‘You were modelling the flows of the Fire Sea.’

‘Safe passage through the magma,’ smiled Ortin urs Ortin. ‘For the greatest war fleet our nation has ever raised.’

Commodore Black’s eyes blazed in anger, but Hannah could only shake her head in disgust. How long had Jago’s neighbour on the other side of the Fire Sea been planning this holy war of theirs? As she pondered, a figure she recognized came striding out of a gate opened in the battlements. The First Senator’s pet, Stom urs Stom.

The head of the free company fighters marched up to the survivors of the expedition and her eyes widened when she saw the lead tabernacle retrieved by the ambassador. ‘The Divine Quad has smiled upon you, my ambassador.’

There was a light in those eyes, Hannah realized, a light that had been well hidden before. The glare of a fanatic.

‘Just so, my captain,’ said the ambassador. ‘I have seen such things out in the wilderness. The ruin of paradise. The words of the scripture are true, all of them. How long have our forces been camped here?’

‘A day only.’

‘I did not anticipate quite so much activity on the surface,’ said the ambassador, looking across their camped legions.

‘The tug service jammed the lifting rooms on the seabed. We weren’t able to enter the harbour with the fleet. It is only a small set-back.’ Stom urs Stom indicated her forces massing in front of the wall. ‘We have taken the coral line; we have taken the city wall and secured all the gun emplacements
protecting the capital. The Jagonese have no reply to our cannons except a few police militia pistols and rifles on the slopes of the mountain. With all the airshafts under our control on the surface we can drop down into the city vaults at any point, as we will.’

Ortin looked up at the Horn of Jago. ‘You have troops enough to assault the slopes?’

‘Only a few scared policemen shelter behind the stained glass windows,’ said the officer triumphantly. ‘Without even the counsel of their leaders now that the head of the snake has been decapitated.’

‘Traitor!’ shouted Hannah. ‘Traitor to the oath of the free company.’

‘Keep her quiet,’ snapped Stom. ‘Or I will cut out her tongue.’

‘These are no mere free company fighters,’ said Ortin urs Ortin. ‘During my years in the Kingdom of Jackals I played my own small part in that ruse. Paying corrupt pensmen working on the Kingdom’s newssheets to plant false stories concerning the exploits of the continent’s most successful band of ursine mercenaries. The free company’s activities were legendary, making them the natural choice for the First Senator to hire when he decided to engage his own private army to cling onto power.’

‘You’re a clever fellow,’ said the commodore, ‘taking by subterfuge what you could not take by force.’

‘Not bad for a savage, you mean, old fruit? Not bad for a simple wet-snout? You really shouldn’t have underestimated our people so, and the Guild of Valvemen shouldn’t have recorded in their archives everything that they read in quite so unquestioning a manner.’

‘We are the chosen,’ said Stom, proudly pointing to the army’s pennants. She growled another word Hannah didn’t
recognize. ‘The bodyguards of the great houses. Shock troops. Our loyalty cannot be questioned. It was just, unfortunately for the Jagonese, never your First Senator’s to command.’

‘Please don’t do this, Ortin,’ said Hannah. ‘Don’t let your people do this. I know that you’re not bad, but this terrible thing is not right or rational.’

‘It is entirely right, dear girl,’ said the ambassador. ‘We have the righteousness of the scriptures as well as the weight of the large guns on our side. Your people’s time here desecrating our forbidden soil is at an end, and not even your own commoners will mourn your age’s end.’

Religion, always religion. Hannah shook her head. This disease was too deep for any other course to run here.

‘We don’t despise you,’ said Stom, watching her soldiers step forward and manacle Hannah and the commodore’s hands. ‘We pity you. Your forefathers were burnt of their fur for their sins. It is only natural you should be attracted back, but staying here is an offence against the Divine Quad. Your presence on this bitter ground is twisting your people to ruin, soiling your symmetry, until one day you will become demonic enough to call down another Armageddon upon the world.’

‘Well, that’s mortal big of you to feel sorry on our account,’ spat the commodore. ‘After you and your traitorous diplomat friend have taken the life of a girl who was under my protection. Someone who had not an ounce of wickedness in her bones, nor any cause against your people.’

‘Someone who has sailed the world should not be so naïve,’ said the ambassador. ‘There are always innocent casualties in these affairs, dear boy.’

‘I’m always ready to be disappointed, and sure enough the world’s always obliged me there,’ said the commodore. ‘But I’ll trade you your pity for your corpse. Toss me a sabre and I’ll pit what I’ve learnt on my voyages against you and your
chosen brutes here. Line them up and let’s see how well your filthy scripture protects a gang of cowards.’

Stom urs Stom angrily drew her short sword and looked ready to grant the commodore his match, but the ambassador pushed the blade back into her scabbard for her. ‘The great houses would much prefer to choose their wars, my dear captain, rather than have them forced upon them. Let’s try not to kill any more Jackelians today. Lock these two up in the fleet’s brig. After we’ve captured the Jackelian embassy staff, they will all be given safe passage across to their colonies.’

Hannah coughed as a wave of pungent cannon smoke drifted over them. The Pericurian formations were moving into position to attack the city; perhaps as many soldiers as there were citizens of Hermetica City. Their black leather uniforms were weighed down with ammunition belts, blades and the brass tanks to power their turret rifles. Hannah choked down her despair. And against what? Shoemakers and gondola men, storekeepers and merchants. Many of whom, it was true, would be only too glad to accept their conqueror’s offer of passage away from Jago if they survived this war.

Their time here was at an end.

P
art of Jethro Daunt knew where he was, shivering inside the cell of the militia fortress, his sleep disturbed by the muffled cries of agony that could be heard at night in any house of correction. And other sounds, too. Otherworldly sounds. Jethro could hear Badger-headed Joseph snuffling around outside the cell door, just as real as the wan light thrown from the single electric lantern in the ceiling.

‘Such a disappointment,’ snuffled the ancient god. ‘Not even brave enough to put your principles to the test. Pushing a little girl out into the darkness just so you wouldn’t have to suffer temptation.’

‘The frustration in your voice is enough to tell me that I made the rational choice,’ Jethro called to the voice behind the cell door.

‘What makes you think that yours wasn’t exactly the decision we wanted?’ growled the ancient god. ‘Your young friend hasn’t had a good time out there in the wilderness, fiddle-faddle man. Do you think we had to line up behind Bel Bessant and push and prod her into creating the god-formula? No, she saw what the veneration of science over nature leads to, logic over
spirit, learning without play, laws without passion.’ There was a noise like a shudder of relief. ‘And now your young friend’s returned cleverer than you. Just like Bel Bessant. Clever enough to see things without the pipe-smoke of your pious humanist humbug. Soon, she won’t be looking into the core of humanity for answers; she’ll be looking to us. Joining us!’

So, young Hannah Conquest was safely returned. Perhaps the gods had been looking after her.

‘All she needs now is to see her people as they really are, and there’s nothing like a good war to put a shine on your kind’s true nature.’

There was a moment’s silence as Badger-headed Joseph waited for a reaction from the ex-parson. But the ancient spirit was to be disappointed. ‘Have you not even the breath to deny us?’

‘Not today, good emissary,’ said Jethro. ‘This day, I’m going to do the one thing your kind truly can’t suffer. I’m going to forget you, and by the time I’m finished on this island, you’re going to be just another echo lost in history, your idols threepenny curiosities in an antique shop – good for a bookend or a doorstop.’ Jethro started laughing and the voice hissed in anger at his mockery, the hiss transforming into the steam escaping from Boxiron’s stack.

The steamman was shaking Jethro awake. ‘I’m glad you can find some amusement in our confinement. Clear your eyes of sleep. Something is happening outside. Cell doors are being opened up along the corridor and I have heard gunfire in the distance.’

Jethro rubbed his tired eyes. ‘It’s a war.’

‘Jago is unassailable, Jethro softbody,’ said Boxiron. ‘If I wore my old war frame and had every steamman knight that ever served King Steam given to my command, I would still not wish to assault this place.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Jethro, touching his heart. ‘But that’s not where the war that matters is going to be fought.’

From outside their cell came a clanking, then the door was pushed inward and the space filled by a fat militiaman. ‘It’s your lucky day, my bucks. Follow the others up the stairs to the courtyard level. Draw a rifle. You’re going to get to fight for your freedom.’

‘I’m not a soldier,’ said Jethro.

‘Everyone’s a soldier today, friend.’

‘Who is the foe?’ asked Boxiron.

‘It’s the wet-snouts, metal shanks. Seems they got tired of bleeding us dry slowly with their trading boats. Now they’re here to finish the job fast with their armies.’

‘We are Jackelian citizens,’ protested Jethro.

‘The wet-snouts are climbing down the shafts and killing everyone they come across,’ said the militiaman, impatiently jingling his keys and kicking straw on the floor at them. ‘When they find you they won’t see a kingdom man, they’ll see meat to decorate the end of their bayonet. Now get out – any prisoner who’s not joining up today, we’re hanging.’