The Iron Wyrm Affair

Chapter Thirty-Nine Who Dies Next?

The inner courtyard of the Palace, choked with drifts of dust and quaking underfoot, opened around them. The front door had broken, and the brown-jacketed Prussian mercenaries with their white armbands poured through, firing as they advanced. Many of the Guard fell, buying time for Victrix to flee through the halls. All that remained was to cross the courtyard and gain the relative safety of the Throne Hall.

Though how that great glass-roofed hall could shelter them was somewhat fuzzy to Clare. He suspected he was not thinking clearly.

Clare limped along, Sigmund hauling him, the vast shadow of the arachnid mecha stagger-thrashing above. Stone crumbled, the centuries of building and replacement work smashed in a moment. Something was wrong – the arachnid reeled drunkenly, shattering glass from its capacitors falling like daggers.

Victrix stumbled. Mikal and Eli all but carried her, one on either side, and the Guard fanned out. Rifleshot popped on the stones around them – the Prussians had gained height and were firing from the windows. The door to the Throne Hall had never seemed so far away.

They plunged into dust-swirling darkness just as a massive grinding thud smashed in the courtyard. A gigantic warm hand lifted Clare and flung him; he landed with a crunch and briefly lost consciousness. He surfaced in a soupy daze, carried between Sig and a bleeding, husky Guard with a bandaged head and a limp, who nevertheless moved with admirable speed. Breaking glass tinkled sweetly overhead, and the Bocannon at his chest was a fiery cicatrice.

Shouts. Confusion. Mikal’s hoarse hissing battle cry. Queen Victrix screamed, a note of frustration and terror as mercenaries poured in through the side doors.

Clare lifted his head. He blinked, dazed. There was another giant impact, and he realised he’d been half-conscious for too long. They were surrounded, Mikal and Eli flanking the Queen, whose young face was pale, one cheek terribly bruised and her dark hair falling in ragged strands.

Miss Bannon looks much better dishevelled, he thought, and the illogical nature of the reflection shocked him far more than the queer swimming sensation all through his limbs.

Sig had a pistol from somewhere. He was grim and pale, covered in dust and soot, and his mouth pulled down at both corners. A jab of regret stabbed Clare’s chest. He should not have drawn his friend into this.

They were all about to die. Except possibly Victrix, whose face aged in a split second, Britannia resurfacing from wherever Her attention had been drawn, alert to the threat to Her vessel.

More shattering glass. The ground quaked violently, almost throwing Clare from his feet.

Then they descended.

The glass fell in sheets. The ancient roof of the Throne Room bucked, snapped, and fell, the shards – some as long as a man’s body – miraculously avoiding the knot of Guards, Shields, and mentath-and-genius. The sound was immense, titanic, the grinding of ice floes, as if the earth itself had gone mad and sought to rid itself of humanity.

The gryphon was massive, and black. Its eyes were holes of runnelling unholy red flame. Driven into the top of its sleek skull was a fiery red nail, a star of hurtful brilliance.

Perched on its back was a battered, wan, half-clothed Miss Bannon. Her dress had been ripped to tatters and her hair was an outrageous mess stiff with dirt, sticks, feathers, and matted blood. Bruising ran over every inch of flesh he could see, and the other shadows were more gryphons, breaking through the roof as Miss Bannon slid from the beast’s back. The red flame winked out, and the deadwinged beast slumped to the strewn floor. It twisted, shrivelling, dust racing through its feathers and eating at its glossy hide.

The dead gryphon collapsed. Miss Bannon bent, wrenching the nail from its head.

It was a knife, and it dripped with crackling red as she turned. The Prussian mob drew back, the feathers in their hats nodding as her gaze raked them, slow and terrible.

“Gryphons,” Britannia whispered, through the Queen’s mouth. The single word was horrifying, as cold and ageless as the Themis itself, a welter of power and command.

Miss Bannon nodded, once. She did not sway, her back iron-rigid, but something was wrong. She held herself oddly, and her gaze was terrifyingly blank. Clare groped to think of just what was amiss.

The sorceress looked … as if she had forgotten her very self.

“Who dies next?” she murmered, very clearly, the words dropping into a sudden rustling silence as gryphons drifted down to land, their claws digging into stone and fallen timber, making slight scratching noises against steel. “Who?”

The first Prussian screamed.

After that, the gryphons feasted. But Clare gratefully closed his eyes, finally able to cease deducing. The inside of his skull felt scraped clean and queerly open. For once, he did not want to see.

The sounds were bad enough.