‘Madam, the game.’
The Tactician waved at the table.
‘It’s just a stupid board of Progress.’
‘There – that is it, then: the last holdout on the Plateau. Prepare the cannon, men! Prepare the cannon!’
General Charls Brandione reluctantly turned to face his assistant. Farringer was a cringing, scraping man of at least sixty who stared at the enemy position through his weasel eyes and scratched his arse with the hilt of his stumpy sword. He had an unaccountable love of fashion and had come to the field in full, ancient plate armour – heavy, inflexible, and useless in modern warfare. To make matters worse, he had festooned it with ribbons and feathers. The decorations ranged across the full gamut of gaudiness, from the orange of a sunburst to the pinks and greens of some southern bird.
Brandione’s armour was less striking, but better placed, allowing for manoeuvrability: a battered steel breastplate, a plate for his back, and a standard steel helmet, worn and rusted through years of use but solid and dependable.
‘Farringer, bring me a map of the city.’
The older man hesitated.
‘But General, I want to see—’
‘Now, Farringer – do it now.’
Prepare the cannon. Brandione smiled at that as he turned back to the great wall of Northern Blown. All around him, men struggled with the new artillery pieces, cursing as they hoisted them awkwardly into position. Soldiers traipsed to the supply lines to collect barrels of precious gunpowder, recently arrived from the West, which they gingerly rolled back to their iron dragons.
It was the smell that got to Brandione, more than anything else: that acrid stench.
But they were powerful, oh yes. Brandione had seen them in action since their first development. Rapid advances over the last two decades meant the largest could fire stones weighing hundreds of pounds, though the damned things seemed to kill more of his own troops than the enemy, when he ever got to use them.
He tapped the weapon at his side. This sort of cannon, he could live with: one that fitted in his hand.
When he looked to the fortress before him, some faith in the old ways returned. The new weapons were powerful, true, when pointed in the right direction and not falling victim to one of their many flaws. But Northern Blown was old, and hardened through constant war. Standing in resplendent isolation, with the Northern Peripheral Sea behind it, it looked like it had been torn from the Plateau itself, a living creature of alleyways and moss-covered towers that had forced its way into the continent. And all around it stood that jagged iron wall, thirty feet thick at its weakest point.
Between Brandione and this armoured metropolis were spread the more conventional forces of the Overland, still active today despite all the changes in the world, a metallic mass of thousands of serrated pikes and halberds that shimmered in the early afternoon light. Dotted among them were the siege machines of old: trebuchets, catapults and battering rams, all standing at the foot of the city. In a way, these reassured him more than the exploding iron pipes.
Is this really the end? Brandione had served the Overland for almost fifteen years, ever since he had left the College and turned his back on a career as an Administrator. He had seen towns razed to the ground and ploughed through corpses. He had struck down rebellion in the West. He had seen cities fall, here in the North. Is all of that really over, now? Or will we find a new enemy, one worse than all the others?
He shook himself; there was no time for this, not any more. He eyed the walls for signs of the enemy. Still nothing. He shifted on his feet.
‘Surrender?’ King Seablast was red in the face. ‘Tactician, know that Overland waves have broken against my wall in the past. Yours will be no different; we will cast you into the Peripheral Sea.’
Seablast is a warrior, thought Katrina. Even here, in his throne room, with our forces all around, he is prepared to fight. He was a thickset man, stout without being fat, his belly like a cannonball. He wore a wooden breastplate below a chainmail mesh, his helmet at his feet and his sword at his side. He was standing over Brightling, who sat in a high-backed, silver chair. The King leaned in close, his black beard almost touching her forehead and his bright-blue eyes blazing into her own.
Katrina stood some way behind the Tactician, her attention flickering between the scene before her and the furnishings and trappings of the throne room. Light spilled through four huge, stained-glass windows, bathing everything in a hazy purple and orange glow. At the far end of the hall, beneath a window on which was engraved a flaming sword, sat the throne itself, a large but unadorned iron chair that spoke of older times.
A slight cough from Brightling was enough to refocus Katrina’s attention. The Tactician was unruffled, smiling serenely at the King. She had been disarmed of her handcannon and sword upon entering the castle, but seemed utterly at ease.
‘You come here,’ Seablast continued, beginning to pace his throne room, ‘with a handful of troops and fire spouters, and you make the most outrageous demands of me. I know where this comes from. It is that toy of yours, that machine; it makes politicians of you all. But our walls will stand against politicians and toys.’
The King’s retinue laughed. As Brightling lazily regarded the monarch over the rim of her spectacles, her smile grew thinner.
‘What year is this, madam?’ asked the King, cocking his head to the side.
‘I do not know what the date is in the heathen calendar, but by our reckoning it is the 10,000th year.’
The King whistled between his teeth. ‘A bad time for you then, no?’
Brightling was very still as the King spoke.
‘Did you know, men, that according to the bullshit beliefs these people follow, on the 10,000th year since the Gifting of the Machinery, it will all far apart? It will break!’
The men laughed.
‘That is an evil Prophecy,’ said Brightling, so quietly that Katrina struggled to hear her.
The King shrugged. ‘That may be so, but I know that many of your people believe it.’ He turned back to his men, a glint in his eye. ‘You won’t find that Prophecy in their Book of the Machinery, lads. No one knows where it comes from, they say. It’s an old wives’ tale. But enough of these bastards believe it. Enough of them think that something really bad will happen. Well, I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.’ He spat on the ground, inches from Brightling’s feet. ‘I have sent word to our vassals,’ he said, leaning over the Tactician’s chair again. ‘They will be here within the day. I suggest you and your friends return to your machine, before it dies.’
Tactician Brightling nodded slowly, appearing to think this over. Then she was on her feet, the King and his guards taking an involuntary step backwards.
‘Your vassals?’
‘Yes!’ The King was nervous now; Katrina could feel it. His anger was exaggerated, his confidence feigned. ‘The Second City; Anflef; Siren Down. These three and others will come at my command.’
The Tactician cocked her head to the side and smiled again.
‘Do you read books, your Majesty?’ she asked, her face a picture of wide-eyed innocence.
The King hesitated. ‘My kingdom, madam, contains the greatest scholars on all the Plateau.’
‘You should know, then, your Majesty, that I have allies of my own.’
There was a flurry of black as three robed figures fell from somewhere in the ceiling to the stone floor. The King’s guards leapt into belated action, swinging their swords wildly. They halted as quickly as they had begun when they saw that, in the arms of each of the masked strangers, was one of Seablast’s daughters.
The King