Blood and Iron p-2 Read online

  ‘What if I refuse to follow?’ asked Kavan.

  ‘We pick you up and carry you.’ Behind Forban, the other four Storm Troopers had shouldered their rifles and were marching up the stone path to join their companions. ‘If you continue to fight, I will have your mind removed from your body.’

  ‘Very well, I will follow.’

  ‘And what about you?’ Forban asked Calor. ‘Who do you follow now?’

  The Scout looked at Kavan uncertainly. Ahead, she saw the grey infantryrobots looking at each other as they stood, arms sloped, awaiting the order to march. The infantry had always had an affinity with Kavan. After all, didn’t he wear the body of an infantryrobot himself? The Storm Troopers, however, had never been quite so loyal. Six infantryrobots and six Storm Troopers. And one Scout. The odds were on Forban’s side.

  ‘Well,’ prompted Forban. ‘Which will it be? Artemis, or Kavan?’

  ‘Aren’t they the same thing?’ asked Calor. Kavan smiled at that.

  Forban pointed his rifle at Calor’s head.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said Kavan.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There are Scouts up there in the hills. If they see you shoot one of their own they will be very unhappy. And they will talk to each other. How far do we have to walk through these hills?’

  ‘I do what is best for Artemis.’

  ‘Forban,’ said Kavan. ‘I led an army across Shull. Listen to my advice. Let her be.’

  Forban looked from Calor to Kavan and back again. Slowly he lowered his rifle.

  ‘Very well. We march. Watch the Scout.’

  The Storm Troopers took a step forward. The grey infantry remained still. They were looking unhappily at each other. Forban rounded on them.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he shouted. ‘Didn’t you hear the order? We are to escort Kavan to Spoole! He is a hero!’

  Still the grey infantryrobots exchanged looks. Eventually one of them stepped forward.

  ‘What does Kavan say?’

  Kavan pointedly looked from the heavily armed and armoured Storm Troopers, to the thin shells of the infantry. When he was sure that everyone there had got the point, he gave his answer.

  ‘For the moment, Forban and I are in agreement. We march south.’

  Kavan and Calor, Forban and his troops marched south.

  The signs of long-abandoned robot inhabitation seemed to rise and fall across the landscape like tides on a beach. Long ago, robots had followed the Northern Road through this land, bringing news and devices from the Top of the World, carrying the metal they quarried from these hills back up there by way of trade. Kavan had heard something about the history of this land as he had fought his way north, but he had seen little, if anything, of its former glory. The robots who had built these roads and the half-collapsed buildings that stood by them were long gone.

  The hills rose and fell as they marched, the Storm Troopers beat a path through the wet turf, shouldering aside boulders, slashing at the twisted and weatherblown plants that clung to life in the thin soil. The infantryrobots marched on, eyes fixed upon Kavan, who walked silently in the centre of the group, his thoughts elsewhere.

  Calor’s gaze constantly searched along the top of the surrounding hills when they walked through valleys, it flicked from boulder to tree when they walked the high moors, watching the movement all around them.

  Because word of Kavan’s reappearance was spreading. Calor saw the flickers of sunlight at the top of the hills. Scouts, looking down at the grey and black bodies that marched south, relaying messages back and forth to others who marched nearby.

  Forban noticed them, and he spoke into a radio just out of Kavan’s earshot. Half an hour later, a squad of twenty Storm Troopers marched in from a side path and joined them.

  Kavan and the infantryrobots now found themselves surrounded by the black marching bodies. The air was filled with the percussion of metal on rock, the hum of electromuscle working and the prickling of electricity. Feet were covered in grey dust, mud and moisture.

  And then Calor raised herself up on tiptoes in a dancing, skipping movement, looking over the tall heads that surrounded them. She jumped and spun, dodging through the dark press of bodies, her hand blades slightly extended as she did so.

  Four Scouts were running up to join them. Calor dropped back to speak to them, and now Kavan found himself walking alongside an infantryrobot. Coal, his name was.

  ‘You’re outnumbered, Kavan,’ said Coal. ‘Forban has been on the radio, calling up yet more Storm Troopers to join in the escort duty. They have always been more loyal to Spoole. You need to find more infantry! They will support you!’

  ‘Move away there! Get back to your place!

  Forban appeared at Kavan’s side. The infantryrobot stared at Kavan significantly and then fell back to his place in line.

  ‘We are bearing a little too far to the west,’ said Kavan.

  ‘There is an old road over this way,’ answered Forban. ‘It runs south across the whole of Northern Shull. Didn’t you notice when you marched these lands?’

  ‘It runs north, not south,’ said Kavan. ‘All the way north to the Top of the World. The robots of these lands believed that Alpha and Gamma, the first two robots, were made up there. Their descendants travelled down the Northern Road to populate Shull.’

  ‘Do you believe that, Kavan?’

  ‘I know it’s not true. I have seen the proof, up on the northern coast. There is a building there, I have been inside. I know that robots evolved here on Penrose.’

  ‘I think… hey, who are you?’

  Calor had rejoined the middle of the party, but there was another Scout with her now. They were both speaking to one of the infantryrobots that trudged along. The new Scout looked at Forban for a moment and then turned and quickly ran off, body flashing in the sunlight as she dodged between the black bodies of the Storm Troopers.

  A quarter of an hour later they joined the Northern Road, a grass-grown expanse of broken stone, long stamped down by the tread of many robots.

  A squad of forty infantryrobots was waiting for them there. Kavan recognized their leader as Gentian, a woman who had served under him in the past. Forban gave no sign of being either pleased or disappointed at their presence.

  At the approach of the escort party, the infantryrobots picked up their rifles and joined the procession, heading south.

  Spoole

  Spoole leaned on the stone balustrade, looking out across the vast landscape of Northern Shull spread out below him, and he felt, for just a moment, his power.

  All that he could see, he commanded.

  Except, of course, he didn’t. Spoole was too much of a realist to think otherwise. It was part of the pattern twisted into his mind, a realization that there was a time to lead and a time to step aside.

  The difficulty, of course, was knowing when that time was.

  The robots who had built this citadel had not been able to tell. Whoever had built this place must have been way in advance of the other civilizations that inhabited these mountains. Why, they must have been well into the Stone Age whilst the surrounding tribes were still struggling through the Iron Age, and yet, despite that, they were long vanished.

  The citadel was an island of rock at the edge of the Northern Mountain range. The builders had taken a mountain just like any of the others around it, and had chipped and hammered and dug and blasted away the surrounding stone, isolating their peak from all the others save for three stone arches leading east, west and south that they left to serve as bridges. But this had only been a prelude to their greatest feat of engineering.

  Spoole had heard Kavan’s reports of the reservoirs that lined the mountains of Central Range. He had seen them himself as he had travelled north but he hadn’t appreciated their use until he had visited the citadel. The robots who made this place had used water to carve their home. The water that had been hoarded behind dams was directed down sluices and aqueducts towards this place, carrying r
ain and snowmelt and channelling it to just the right point, then they had let the water run over hundreds of years, smoothing the pillar that supported the great city until it shone dully in the sunlight, the bands of rock clearly visible, climbing in tilted shelves almost a mile into the sky.

  All the while the water was carrying out its work, the robots were busy on the peak of their mountain, carving it flat to give a circle half a mile across. On this they had used dressed and jointed stone to build walls and forges, keeps and houses. The north side they had left for their final glory: a huge window, five stories high, formed of three arches, empty of glass but looking north across the lands of Shull to the Top of the World.

  Now the citadel stood as a gateway to the north, and Spoole and his Generals had commandeered it to await the arrival of Kavan. The Supreme Commander of Artemis stood on the roof of Shull, waiting for its most favoured soldier.

  Except, of course, that wasn’t quite true either. In any respect.

  He heard movement behind him and turned to see General Sandale approaching. For a ridiculous moment, Spoole imagined the General rushing forward and pushing him backwards, sending him tumbling back out of the open window to be smashed on the rocks far below. But, no, General Sandale merely raised a hand in greeting.

  ‘Forban has Kavan,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ replied Spoole. ‘Good.’

  General Sandale remained where he was, gazing at Spoole. His body was polished to a shine, a contrast to Spoole’s matt-iron body. It wasn’t that Spoole wasn’t made of the very best materials; it was just that he didn’t advertise it. The leaders of Artemis never had done in the past. When did that thinking change?

  Still the General waited.

  ‘Yes, General Sandale?’

  ‘Nothing, Spoole.’

  The General joined Spoole by the open window. Again, Spoole had the ridiculous idea that the General would push him out. As if the General would stand a chance. Spoole had fought battles in the past. The General was one of the newer leaders, rarely having left the command post, seldom having felt the surge of current as he rushed into battle, suffered the blistering feedback as an awl pierced electromuscle. But then, at least he had fought, unlike some of the other leaders.

  ‘So, Spoole. We were wondering. What is it you will do with Kavan?’

  ‘Recognize his achievements, of course.’

  ‘And stop him attacking you. He would have marched upon Artemis City if you had let him. He would have replaced you as leader.’

  ‘He would have replaced us all, Sandale.’

  ‘Perhaps-’

  ‘Don’t question me, Sandale,’ said Spoole mildly, but there was current there. Enough to make Sandale pause. Suddenly, his shiny, unscratched body seemed so ineffectual compared to the workaday iron of Spoole’s.

  ‘Perhaps you have work to attend to?’ suggested Spoole, and after a moment, Sandale turned and left to join the other Generals, leaving Spoole alone on the wide balcony. He leaned on the stone balustrade, looking out once more across the vast landscape of Northern Shull.

  The central mountain range ran east-west across the continent of Shull, effectively cutting it in two, separating north from south. That was until Kavan had blasted a path through the mountains with atomic bombs. The northern end of that path could be seen to Spoole’s left, a wide cleft in the mountains through which silver railway lines ran, branching across the green plains of Northern Shull before burying themselves in the low rounded hills that rose up to the north. Kavan was out there somewhere, hidden in the twists and turns of those hills, being escorted back here by Forban and his troops.

  Standing in this place, it was easy for Spoole to feel invincible, but only a fool felt so. The robots who had built this citadel must have felt the same once, but they were long gone, vanished from this place before even Kavan and his troops had come here.

  Spoole didn’t care. He was waiting for Kavan.

  Kavan

  Kavan and Calor, Forban and his Storm Troopers, Gentian and her infantryrobots, plus all the various Scouts and other soldiers who had joined their growing band, marched south.

  The Northern Road was old and unmaintained, but it had been well built and the troops made good progress over its still mainly smooth surface. The road wove its way through the hills like an animal; only occasionally did it slip and fall. Kavan and the rest of the robots walked through yet another river, the bubbling water cold on their electromuscle, the broken body of the road strung out above them on the hillside. The earth must have shifted over the years, exposing the road’s interior, the paved surface, the gravel beneath it, then the larger stones, then the rocks. All the strata reminded Kavan of the body of a whale he had once seen taken apart, back in Wien.

  Still the robots marched on, and the band grew larger as robots drained from the surrounding hills to join the procession.

  The countryside was changing. Ahead of them, when they rose to the level of the surrounding moors, the robots could make out the snowy peaks of the central mountain range. The character of the Northern Road changed too, the shape of the stones that paved the surface altering, becoming a little smaller and more rounded. The hills were lower, the valleys wider.

  Calor ran up from behind Kavan. Her body was developing a slight squeak, she needed oil and grease. They all did. Still, she wasn’t complaining. Kavan appreciated that.

  ‘Someone is waiting for us up ahead,’ she said. ‘Someone important.’

  ‘What is the land like there?’ asked Kavan.

  ‘Quarries. The valley has been widened as robots have dug into the hills. There are sheer walls standing to the east and west.’

  ‘A good place for an ambush.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  The road wove between the hills before disgorging the growing band into a wide valley. The walls that surrounded them were old and weathered, the quarry works long since abandoned. A few old tumbledown houses stood by the river on the valley floor next to a broken-down forge. Grass and moss had poured down from the hills, leaping from the sheer planes of the quarry walls, like streams in a waterfall to cover the grey stone of the buildings. Some of the robots escorting Kavan broke off from the main party and went sifting through the piles of discarded stones by the buildings, in a hopeful search for metal to repair themselves with.

  Gravel roads ran down the hillsides in all directions, leading from the exhausted quarries that surrounded them.

  A company of Storm Troopers were waiting for them up ahead, their black bodies sleek and well built, a contrast to the derelict background. At its head was a robot dressed in iron and bronze, silver and platinum and gold.

  ‘General Mickael,’ said Forban, and the relief in his voice was obvious. Kavan was no longer his problem.

  General Mickael walked forward to meet them, the surrounding troops opening up, leaving Kavan and Forban and the General alone in the centre of a circle of metal.

  ‘General,’ said Forban. ‘I present to you Kavan. I have escorted him this far. What would you have me do now?’

  ‘General,’ said Kavan. ‘Have your men fall in and join my army. We march south, on Artemis City.’

  General Mickael looked from one robot to the other, his blue eyes glowing. Then he laughed coldly.

  ‘Your army, Kavan?’ he said. ‘You dare to give me orders? Damn your cheek!’

  ‘You’re discredited, General,’ said Kavan. ‘I marched across this continent with you and the rest of your kind nowhere to be seen.’ He raised his voice. ‘Now that Shull is conquered you emerge from your city to claim the spoils, walking across the backs and broken metal of the soldiers who fell during the fighting. Soldiers who believed in the cause of Artemis. What did you believe in, hiding back there in the city? Nothing more than cladding yourself in the best metal.’

  And he reached out with one hand and scraped a finger across the General’s chest, tearing and smudging the gold filigree. The General recoiled.

  ‘Silence him!’ he shout
ed, rubbing at the damage on his own chest. ‘You, remove his voicebox.’

  ‘His name is Forban,’ said Kavan. ‘I always know the names of the soldiers that I fight alongside. How about you? How many of the soldiers here could you name?’

  ‘Be quiet, Kavan,’ said Forban urgently. ‘I’m still loyal to Artemis. I don’t want to have to remove your voice.’

  ‘I don’t think that these soldiers would let you.’

  Forban looked around the wall of metal that surrounded them. Red and yellow and green eyes glowed. Silver and grey and black bodies were still for the moment, but the hum of charging electromuscle was rising. Forban shifted slightly.

  ‘You are still outnumbered, Kavan,’ he said. ‘There are still more Storm Troopers than anyone else. General Mickael’s troops are clean and tuned, not like the rest of us. Listen, Kavan. I bear you no ill will, but times have changed. They mean to make you a hero. Let us take you to Spoole. You will come to no harm.’

  He looked at Mickael for confirmation, but the General pretended not to hear any of this.

  Kavan spoke quietly. ‘That’s what you don’t understand, Forban. Whether I come to harm or not is of no concern to me. It does not concern a true Artemisian.’

  Kavan and Calor, Forban and his Storm Troopers, Gentian and her infantryrobots, General Mickael and his Storm Troopers, all of the Army of Uncertain Allegiance, marched south.

  Kavan’s army – or maybe it was General Mickael’s army – was growing as the hills sunk down beneath the land and the peaks of the central mountain range rose up before them.

  There were now two thousand soldiers marching south down the Northern Road. They spilled over the verges, black Storm Troopers tramping down the borders, smashing trees, crushing stone. Silver Scouts ran in flashing patterns around them, grey infantryrobots plodded across the land, tearing holes and ruts in the mud and grass, all making their way back towards Spoole and his Generals, come to meet the conquering hero.

  They had left the uncharted lands of the far north and were back amongst the signs of Artemisian expansion. Railway lines threaded north, trains could be seen in the distance carrying metal and plate and wire and coal.