Dark Iron King II: Arcadia Falls (Unreal Universe Book 5) Read online

  The weld-light pricked up again and stayed on for longer and suddenly, Harvard was doing Dark Iron consumption tallies in his mind, comparing all that he knew –which was everything- about Al’s business versus how much Iron even the shoddiest welding machine took to operate for more than a few seconds.

  Harvard twiddled his fingers again before pulling free a special telescope he’d worked on for months to get proper. Mickel wanted one quite desperately, but was unwilling to pay the price. The older artificer snickered as he always did at the memory of the smith coming ‘round one fine morning before the rest of the world woke up, casually asking after the price, and how beet red his face had gone when he’d asked for both Sharp and Bullet for a solid week of free work.

  Harvard pressed the telescope to his eye and gazed thoughtfully on what he saw.

  “Most distressing, most distressing indeed.” Harvard said quietly to himself. He swung the scope to Twisted Mickel’s encampment and swept about until the man swam into view. All unawares that he was being spied on, Mickel was in the midst of a presentation of his own, but as Havilland Harvard watched on, it grew quite evident that the other smith already knew of what was going on in Shackled Al’s dilapidated tent.

  Being the man of action that he was –Twisted Mickel was, in fact, the man who’d sparked the War of Tinkerers by strolling into the middle of the square and proclaiming himself the best blacksmith in Ickford-, Harvard was willing to bet the shop that the man already had people in the crowd wandering over to take a peek under the tent flaps, as it were.

  Why, were he a man of action without thought, Harvard knew he’d do the same thing. Harvard laughed dryly at his own wit, then retrained his telescope onto Al’s property to spy a little more on what was going on, wondering as he did so if Mickel had already realized that whoever was working Al’s forge wasn’t merely visiting but announcing his own candidacy for best blacksmith.

  “Of course he has, dear boy, of course he has.” Harvard whispered to himself, looking on at the burly blacksmith in the heavy clothes as he worked quickly, efficiently, and without wasted gesture.

  Whoever he was, wherever he came from, the unknown smith certainly knew his business.

  And that were a problem. A big problem, as far as Havilland Harvard was concerned. Since Mickel already knew what was going on inside the tent, it was a certainty that the other smith was already planning to do something about it, and that was a situation to make a proper artificer sweat through his finery; there were doings in the deeper city that had Agnethea quite riled up of late, and although Harvard didn’t know what the trouble was, he did know that their pale-skinned Queen was violently short-tempered at the moment.

  Any kind of altercation in Tinker Square would be just the sort of spark to that particular flame and then they would all find themselves swept away in the volcanic fury of an angry Obsidian Golem. Harvard shuddered, recalled the sight of Agnethea literally sweeping through Tinker Square, starting at one end and just moving through the crowd of jostling tinkers and artificers and smiths, mowing down those who failed to move quick enough to get out of the way, her pale skin soaked in blood and thick, thick Dark Iron, face blazing with dark joy.

  She’d been a sight to behold, that day, and for very good reason, from that day forth, many men and women who called Ickford their home behaved like good little boys and girls. Most of the time. Dark Iron ran hot, after all, hot as a sun they say once existed outside their Dome.

  Saucy Miss Smith finished up her exhortations and flounced off the stage, allowing her compatriot in the explosives game, Danny-Boy Boom, to stroll up in his Sunday Best; dressed head-to-toe in a brown suit delivered direct from the Eastern ‘shore’ of Arcade City, Danny-Boy Boom looked a right proper gentleman.

  Harvard liked Boom’s approach, as did the clients. They bought Boom’s mines and other destructive devices like they were going out of style. Those who walked away with the gentleman bomber’s wares would be going after Shamblers or trolls –they weren’t all gone, not yet, not likely ever- or those Widows Peak things that were terrorizing out of the way Estates.

  Danny-Boy Boom went into his patter like a fresh fiend, he did, throwing up, as he always did, a scenario wherein gearheads are traveling through the darkened woods up north, intending to make the passage to the Triplet Estates, where it is said you can find ancient things not oft seen any longer when all of a sudden, they are beset by those furry beastmen known as Shaggy Men.

  Harvard returned Boom’s smile with one of his own and went back to staring through his telescope at both Mickel and Al, though for the time being, he was more focused on Mickel’s crew of oddities as they hawked their wares; unlike Mickel’s crew, Miss Smith and Boom were capable of using their equipment against those fabulous beasts that cropped everywhere you looked. It cost either a lot of Dark Iron or goods in return for hiring a gearhead crew to ship his team from place to place, but those bombers and lobbers and whatnot that spent the Iron for their wares knew they would work as them as were doin’ the sellin’ had tried ‘em firsthand.

  The harrowing ‘scenario’ Danny-Boy Boom was relaying to the crowd now, working them up, stoking their internal fires, as it were, was no scenario at all. That very thing had happened to Boom not six months ago, and the lad had stood his ground brave as any gearhead. Why, Tall Tom the Magnificent swung ‘round the shop on a regular basis, actually trying to acquire Boom for his team, saying he’d never seen someone not welded to the Iron be so brave afore.

  Harvard smiled at that. Boom knew he’d never do it. It was likely, following that event, that it would be quite some time before Boom went back out: the lad had night terrors now, great, shrieking nightmares as had ‘im all drenched in ice cold sweat and weeping considerable. Thankfully Saucy Miss Smith was taking some of the pain out of that particular wound.

  Harvard scowled as he watched that weird gimp of a blademaster ‘Doctor Sharp’ bend the ear of a few rapscallions lurking on the far edges of that crowd, their faces shining eagerly as whatever it was Twisted Mickel wanted them to do was relayed. The two, who Harvard recognized as Fleet Pete and Doozy ‘Dozy’ Daisy, gestured to a few others once Sharp wobbled his way back up to stand tall beside Mickel. More information was exchanged.

  The gentlemanly artificer tucked his telescope away, nodding firmly to himself. He knew what was up. Mickel worried that the smith using Al’s equipment was a new player in town, and as Harvard had suspected, was planning on doing something about it.

  “Well now, I am in a quandary.” Havilland Harvard said to himself. “Competition of any sort is never any good, and from what I saw of that man’s use of the welder, he is a skilled and competent sort. He is at home with those things. Could Tinker Square afford a third master in the midst?”

  He and Mickel had a silent, mutually beneficial agreement. They did not poach on the other’s particular areas of expertise without first discussing terms and arrangements should a specialty client specifically request a sword from Harvard, for example, or some boomers from Mickel.

  A third man in the mix would feel no compunction to hew by their unspoken covenant and if he were any good –which Harvard felt deep in his bones he was- this new smith could –would, given to which how quickly idle gearheads took to the new and the novel- scoop many clients from both sides of the fence.

  “Do I simply allow Mickel the luxury of dispatching this upstart on his own?” Harvard continued, mulling this over.

  The gentlemanly smith was never one to rush into things as Mickel was, and if he knew the other man’s mind at all, for the time being, the wastrels he’d enjoined to filter through the crowd had been told simply to spy upon the man. When time came –if time came- to do for the new man, it’d be gearheads all the way. You couldn’t use normal folk for a smith, not these days, not with the way weapons’ technology was progressing.

  “Or,” Harvard asked aloud even though he’d already decided, “do I toss my own fiends into the mix?”

 
It was a single smith from who knew where. He hadn’t had time to sneak in and set up his own shop, so all that he had on him was all that he’d be able to use to defend himself. And from what Havilland Harvard had seen through his scope, it weren’t much.

  Agnethea’s warnings against sparking another Tinker War would go ignored.

  After all, Havilland Harvard asked himself as his eyes roved the crowd for anyone belonging to Tall Tom’s crew, face lighting up when he fell upon none other than the cadaver-colored giant himself, lurking in the background. The smith waited until he caught the gearhead’s eye, then gestured with his whirring cane.

  Oh yes, fun times tonight, in Tinker Square.

  ***

  Shackled Al ran the back of one hand nervously across his lips, caught sight of how badly he was shaking, then jammed his hands in his pockets. He’d never seen anything like what he’d just witnessed, and back in the day, before things had gone all sour and rotten, he and the others had been invited to watch both Mickel and Harvard ply their trades. They had all shown one another how they did things, back then, only now, years later and far too late, they’d learned –and unkindly- that it’d been a test.

  One they’d all failed.

  But now, now things might be different. If Garth Nickels truly was going to set up shop in fair, dank Ickford, well, those two flash bastards would find themselves out the door and down the road before too many more nights had passed. The man with the brass and copper hands had fitted together the shootgun with speed and rapidity, and never once had his dexterous fingers failed, never once had he paused in the construction to think on what he was doing, never once had he missed a step.

  It’d been as though the whole thing had existed perfectly and pristinely inside the man’s head from the start. It’d been as if the various parts laying in a clutter on the table had wanted to be made into the thing the … the … sorcerous smith now cradled in his hands, one blue eye glinting like the devil’s own, a wicked cruel smile on his face.

  “Wh…what d’you call that, then?” Al whispered. The man had taken the cylinder and done … something … to it. He’d cut one side off, cut out a section, added in some springs and sprockets and some kind of ratcheting mechanism and tiny steam engines so delicate and no bigger than a thumbnail to drive the whole thing. He’d taken the square tubes and molded them to the original barrel –which Al knew had come from some poor gearhead somewhere along the road- turning a single shot into three.

  Beyond that, he’d mounted another tube around the newly formed barrel, attached more rods and joints to it, then connected that whole arrangement to the stock, inside of which was apparently a very powerful engine. Cocking the tube backwards kicked the stock-engine into gear, pulling the trigger set the mechanism inside the … barrel? Cylinder? Drum? Whatever it was, pulling the trigger got it moving a bit, dropping shot into position. Releasing the trigger allegedly fired shot, though Garth was too cagey a fella to open fire with something that’d undoubtedly sound like the ends of the world inside Tinker Square.

  “It’s,” Garth held the fucking thing up into the torchlight, feeling like he was about to kill some deadites and blast the Necronomicon into fleshy scraps, “a belt-fed shotgun, Shackled Al. Modeled after the Russian Saiga 12. I can’t figure out how to make it full auto, which is kind of a drag, but each pull on the primer mech should give me enough steam to rattle out three or four shots before I have to pump it up again.”

  “R…russian?”

  “Long ago and far away, pal. Ain’t no one got time for that story.” Garth put the shotgun on the table and opened up the barrel. “Do you mind if I raid your stores for things that’ll fit in here? All my stuff is at the bank.”

  “B… by all means.” Al gestured as grandly as he could, but his mind refused to let go of what he’d seen. Mickel was rough and ready, sure enough, yet you couldn’t argue against his designs. The brash smith was exceedingly good at what he built. Harvard was a huckster, pure and simple, but again, for all that, there was no one better at what he did. “I … you … Havilland and Mickel …”

  Garth pulled out handfuls of shot that’d fit nicely into the chambers of his drum and started loading up. He looked outside through the tent flaps. While he’d been working on the shotgun, he’d maintained cautious scrutiny on the two master smiths and their ridiculous shows.

  Were he not just passing through and eager to get well away from Barnabas, Garth knew he could count on himself to hang out, watching those two charlatans work the crowd. Hell, if he wasn’t at least halfway sure that -should he be successful in eliminating the Dark Iron King from the playing field- Arcade City would go down in flames, coming back to Ickford to set up shop for a bit before moving on to Emperor-for-Life sounded like the perfect way to end an absolutely shitty adventure.

  But Arcade City would fall. It had to. King’s particulate was too powerful to be set free.

  “I know.” Garth slotted more shot into the drum, wishing he had the time and wherewithal to start building proper bullets; virtually everyone used whatever was to hand, and that usually meant nuts and bolts and all sorts of random crap. Far as he knew, the only one to use real bullets had been Shooty Jane. “If I haven’t already been spied on, I will be soon. Either way, they’re gonna come for me.”

  “You don’t sound surprised.” Shackled Al looked nervously out through the tent flaps, unconsciously mimicking Garth’s own gesture of a moment ago. The two showmen were winding their various displays down. Mickel and Harvard were both displaying some of their own handiwork this time. It was obvious from the lack of force in their rhetoric they didn’t expect to sell anything.

  No surprise there, either, Al thought. They’d been distracted this last hour, trying to figure out what to do about the new smith in town.

  “It’s a thing I do, Al. I pay attention.” Garth slotted the shotgun back into position, noticing the drag in his right arm and frowning. It’d happened a few times during the construction. Assuming it to be some kind of kink in the mechanism from being used ‘outside normal parameters’, he’d chosen –reluctantly- to push off taking a look until the weapon had been fixed and he was well away from anyone with any kind of Will-born skill.

  ‘Allowing’ Al to see how talented he was in smithing weapons was one thing.

  Giving the poor schmoe a proper peek at Geared Armor would have the geek out the flaps and in the center of Tinker Square in a fucking heartbeat.

  Unfortunately, the way the arm was biting and dragging against internal gears hinted at a far more serious problem, one that’d only get in the way once Mickel and Harvard’s men came after him.

  Jabbing a finger at Al that said ‘if you move or say anything, your face will be removed from your skull and worn over mine’, Garth proceeded to move his arms around in varying degrees of weirdness. The burnt-out smith raised his eyebrows so far up they almost shot off the top of his forehead and he stepped back, muttering a near-incomprehensible streams of prayers and promises.

  Al watched Garth wiggle his arms. Up down. Up down. Back and forth. Left and right. Twist the elbows, wiggle the fingers. He’d seen gearheads do similar before a fight. Given what were coming, Al guessed that were a good idea.

  Garth frowned. The left arm was catching too, only he hadn’t noticed it because in order to cause that catch, he had to extend his arm pretty much all the way behind his back and flex his hand upwards, fingers pointing towards The Dome.

  The frown turned into a scowl.

  “This ain’t happening.” Garth closed his eyes and sighed. “This can’t be fucking happening.”

  “Wot’s that then?” Al had a small suspicion about what had the smith so upset. You couldn’t hardly hear the ticking and whirring and gentle hissing coming from beneath the man’s clothes, but upon a time, he had been a smith of some mild import. By that same token, Al had seen enough to keep his gob shut. A man who could invent a … a … belt fed shotgun that looked like it could kill a fully Ironed gearhead
in one go was a man who could invent anything.

  “Turns out,” Garth slammed a hand on the smithy table, “turns out I didn’t need to come here at all, to work out my problem. Turns out my arms were slowly but surely siphoning the Dark Iron out of my body the whole time. My arms are failing me now, and I am willing to bet all the Dark Iron in my possession that I don’t have time to connect them to the rest of the array. I … fuck. Just fucking fuck. I’d need to take them off, remove the hooks, rewire the pumps and tubes and … and fucking fuck me sideways I do not need this shit.”

  The whole goddamn armature would need seeing to.

  Hours. It’d take hours. During which time he’d be totally defenseless. Well. Not defenseless. He’d be out of the suit the whole time, so … dangerous. He’d be dangerous during that time.

  There was no time. He’d spent the time he could’ve used fixing his arms on building the most badass shotgun in the whole history of Arcade City. Except in order to use it effectively against whoever Twisted Mickel and Havilland Harvard sent after him, he’d need fucking Dark Iron in his veins to fuel the arms. Not enough crudey-crude in the veins meant the arms would lock up at –given his luck- precisely the wrong moment.

  There’d be only so much running away before crews of Kingkillers caught up to him, especially across unfamiliar terrain.

  “Shackled Al,” Garth said sorrowfully, pulling three containers of Dark Iron from the pouch at his waist, “I need for you to leave your shop now.”

  Al stared nonplussed at the glinting phials of Dark Iron. How much more did Garth have on him? A King’s ransom, it seemed.

  “Al!” Garth shouted, jerking the smith out of his reverie. “Al. I need you to leave.”