Blood and Iron by Tony Ballantyne Read Free Book Online Page A

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 shouted, 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