The Rise of the Iron Moon by Stephen Hunt Page B

the prices in the capital are diabolical.’
    A third finger snapped and all the farmer could think of was how he was going to walk the shirehorse and the plough across his fields next week in this mangled state.
    ‘Don’t get me wrong, now,’ continued the ringleader, ‘but I just can’t see you sitting in the House of Guardians. They’re carriage folk, mostly, and there’s you with no carriage at all – why, I wager you wouldn’t even know which spoon to pick up from the table to use for your soup. You would just embarrass us all if you got elected.’
    The ringleader made to break the farmer’s last finger, but then shook his head as if changing his mind. ‘And here’s something I bet you haven’t considered. If you’re down in Middlesteel, hobnobbing with all the quality and listening to all those boring bills being read in parliament, then who’s going to be looking after your family?’
    The farmer’s heart leapt. Even they wouldn’t? A fourth thug emerged into the room with the farmer’s son struggling in his grip, one hand covering the boy’s mouth, the other clutching a pheasant-skinning knife.
    ‘Please!’ the farmer begged.
    ‘What, you thought we were joking?’ said the ringleader. ‘Thought we’d come a-visiting your home at night for a bit of sport, did you?’
    ‘Please!’
    The shadows in the room were growing longer, thicker. Like mist. But no one noticed. The farmer was struggling desperately under the weight of the thugs holding him down, the others were too giddy with the excitement of the kill.
    ‘ Shut up , you’ve got another two lads, you’re not even going to miss one of them.’
    ‘You can’t do this!’
    ‘I feel your pain,’ laughed the ringleader.
    ‘And I feel your evil,’ hissed another voice, as the thug holding the farmer’s son stumbled back into the shadows of the room. They were both enveloped and disappeared, a second before the grip holding the farmer fast seemed to slip away and he was free.
    The farmer backed away as the ringleader and the remaining thug glanced hastily around at the shadows of the room, hundreds of them, swelling and moving like the surf on the sea. Solid. Black. Laughter seemed to bubble out of those shadows, but there was no happiness in it. It was a pit to hell opened in that room, the echo of a fallen soul rising out of the depths. But where was his lad, and where was the thug who had been holding him?
    Twisting a knife around in his hand, the ringleader seemed to be trying to locate the sound of the terrible laughter. There was an explosion of light from one corner, blinding the farmer, then a series of wet slaps. As the dots cleared from the farmer’s eyes, he realized the only other person left in the room was the ringleader, the shadows twisting and circling around him.
    ‘You’ve carried your squire’s message for him this night,’ laughed a dark voice. ‘I have one for you to take back to him.’
    There was a snap-snap-snap of light – like the powder flash on a camera – the shadows and the light merging to become an angular figure striking at the gang’s ringleader. The farmer turned his head to avoid the shower of splintering glass as the thug was forced to leave by the window.
    The room seemed to return to normal, the intense light diminishing to a sparkle on the handle of a pistol – one of a pair – holstered on a figure wearing a jet-black riding coat, his face covered with a dark executioner’s hood.
    ‘My son?’ trembled the farmer, looking mesmerized at the three corpses lying on the floor of his bedroom.
    ‘Back in his room,’ said the figure. ‘A child’s mind is a very flexible thing. He’ll remember nothing of this night.’
    ‘Dear Circle,’ said the farmer, ‘what have you done, man? There’s three dead here. The squire has the county constabulary in his pocket, they’ll—’
    ‘The county magistrate is due a visit from me, as, I believe, is the squire.’
    ‘You can’t interfere