Read Online Blood and Iron by Tony Ballantyne - Free Book Online Page B

likely, one of his brothers, before. Banjo Macrodocious. They all had the same name, they were all unnaturally strong. And, despite the fact they were obviously intelligent, they had no sense of self.
    ‘You shouldn’t stay here,’ Karel warned. ‘Kavan has his troops out hunting for you. He knows that you escaped from the Northern Kingdom before it fell and he wants you all destroyed. Kavan doesn’t believe in the Book of Robots, he thinks it’s nothing more than sedition.’
    ‘It’s no matter,’ replied Banjo Macrodocious.
    ‘Why not? I thought the book was important to you! Don’t you carry it in your mind? I thought you all did!’
    Banjo Macrodocious was unconcerned.
    ‘We do. But Kavan and his troops are currently no threat to us, if it can be said that Kavan still commands any troops. The soldiers that once filled our land are marching south. Artemis is undergoing a time of change. Spoole and Kavan and the rest will fight to determine who leads Artemis and what its future direction will be.’
    There was an iron-grey lid on this strange land. Karel stared at the dull sky, trying to remember another world, one filled with metal and stone and singing with the current of life.
    ‘Who leads Artemis has nothing to do with me,’ said Karel.
    ‘It does. Your wife is in Artemis City.’
    Karel felt as if he had been struck by a hammer. For a moment, his head seemed to ring like a bell. Susan was still alive. Happiness and fear mingled within him.
    ‘Is she okay?’ he asked, his voice almost crackling with joy. Banjo Macrodocious didn’t seem to notice.
    ‘She is healthy. She works in the making rooms, twisting new minds.’
    Now Karel felt his gyros lurch.
    ‘They’re . . . raping her,’ he said.
    ‘Every night.’
    He struggled unsteadily to his feet, water still dripping down the grey metal panelling of his body. Mud covered his fingertips.
    ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, wiping his hands on the grass. ‘I need to save her.’
    ‘Not now. Not like that.’
    Weak as he was, Karel bunched his fists, squeezing more water from them as he did so. ‘Who are you to tell me what to do?’ he asked, anger surging within him.
    Banjo Macrodocious moved forward, blocking his way. He was a big robot, humming with power. Karel was well aware that, even were he not in his current, weakened state, the other robot would have no trouble subduing him. Karel lowered his hands, dampened the anger that was telling him to push the big robot out of the way.
    ‘Why won’t you let me go?’ he asked.
    ‘I’ve come to take you to someone who may help you. His name is Morphobia Alligator.’
    ‘Morphobia Alligator? Who is he?’
    ‘He’s a pilgrim. He has been looking for you.’
    Wa-Ka-Mo-Do
    Jai-Lyn was young and sheltered, she had never been outside the Silent City before. Now she was torn between the view from the window of the train and the company of Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.
    ‘Is it really true that you have travelled all the way from the High Spires to the Silent City, Warrior?’ she asked in awe.
    ‘Much of the journey takes place on metalled roads, Jai-Lyn, and through the lands of the Emperor. There are few of the robbers and the other dangers of the old tales.’
    ‘You say few of the robbers! Did you meet any?’ ‘Some. When they realized who I was they did not attack.’ ‘I suppose you made them hand their ill-gotten gains back to the peasants. Am I not right, oh my master?’
    ‘It is true that the peasants benefitted from my passage.’ The robbers he had met were poorer than the peasants upon which they preyed, reflected Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. He had dispatched the unfortunates with a blow of his sword, cutting cleanly through the metal of their minds, then he had dragged the metal of their bodies to the closest forge, where it was recycled to the benefit of the people, and through them, their Emperor.
    ‘And what about monsters? Did you meet the Nightwalker?’ ‘There are few monsters in the Empire,