by Lee Bond
In fact, she’d finally done enough persistent damage to the fucking thing that it’d dimpled inward, pulling itself –and popping the thick rivets holding into place- free from the wall.
More to the point, whatever mechanics inside the skull-dome’s thick plates had broken down, for her target had at last stopped healing itself of all damage!
The Queen of Ickford –not for long now, she feared- puffed out a small breath of thanks.
All that needed doing now was to pull it free, like a giant metal scab.
Agnethea strolled over to the warped hunk of metal and grabbed hold with both hands.
“It doesn’t matter, you know.” Blake’s voice rumbled through the chamber.
“What?” Agnethea seethed, trying to get a better grip on the metal slab. Were this ordinary brass or copper or even steel, the cruel strength given to her by Dark Iron would see her fingers digging into the material as though it were fresh baked bread, but not this stuff.
It resisted her strength. Another reason to warn Nickels. As the man from Outside, as Specter, as … as whatever he really was and because of whatever true reason he’d come to Arcade City, the Queen of Ickford knew that he was the only one who could stop this threat, who could save all the innocents.
Didn’t matter if she died in the process, no it didn’t.
Finally! Her deft, agile fingers found purchase –though not much- in a few subtle imperfections and she gripped for all she was worth.
“You, getting free, Queen Agnethea.” Blake was brimming with confidence.
“And why,” Agnethea crouched low as she could whilst maintaining her grip, “would that be?”
As comfortable as she was ever likely to get with both how she was holding onto the metal plate and her chances of success, Agnethea pulled for all she was worth, using every last ounce of Golem-born strength. Fire burned through her back and legs, her fingers felt as though the muscles were going to pull themselves right off the bones and her arms, oh her arms trembled and strained and threatened to seize on her any second. A blackened haze crossed her field of vision, vessels in her eyes bursting from the effort.
Trembling uncontrollably, certain she was –no matter her confidence, no matter her ego- going to fail, there, at the least moment before she gave up hope, the blasted thing popped loose. Reflexively, the Queen’s aching hands and burning fingers discharged their burden.
Barking out a yelp of fear, Agnethea allowed herself to fall backward, convincing herself even as she collided in a most unladylike clutter on the floor that she’d let go of the plate of her own volition when both she and the smirking King knew that had she held on for even a heartbeat longer, that cover would most certainly have squashed her flat.
She lay there, gasping in pain.
This was worse than anything she’d ever endured in her life, and here she included that first, horrific violation of the Vicious Elixir and her trials in the Shaggy Men’s warren.
Things inside of her were broken. Agnethea knew it. If she wasn’t afforded time to heal, she might very well perish.
“Because my dear, Garth N’Chalez is destined to die. You are wounded. Tearing that cover loose … impressive, by the way … broke you.” Blake paused, his voice replaced by a thoughtful hum. “It seems you and he are more alike than I imagined. And if I wasn’t about to destroy all of you, I’d love to finally spend time finding out why that might be. No matter, no matter. As I was saying. Even if you do manage to make your way out of my Gunboy, there is still the matter of the other three Gunboys, my most angry Gearman and everything else that awaits.”
Agnethea picked herself up off the slick metal deck. “You’re right about one thing, King Blake. Garth and I are a lot alike. Of that, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever. Though I cannot know his true purpose here in Arcade City, I am positive that your downfall figures somewhere into it. And for that…”
The Queen of Ickford limped her way towards the gaping hole that led into the ‘flesh’ of the Gunboy, which was jam-packed with hissing, steaming, pumping and moving parts. She eyed the opening warily. It wasn’t going to be fun, but there was one thing Agnethea knew she could count on.
The King had built these Gunboys to be traps for Master Nickels. They were designed to lure the man directly into the brain of the beast, and as she’d encountered no internal defenses on the way up, there was no way there’d be any on the way down.
“’And for that’, what?”
Crouching low to fit through the gap, Agnethea looked over her shoulder. “And for that, you bastard, I shall endure any pain, any suffering … anything. Your rule must come to an end, and if that means my death?” The Queen smiled sorrowfully, her black-hearted pumper shuddering with regret over all that she’d done in her misguided youth. “Then all the better, hey?”
King Barnabas Blake the One and Only watched Agnethea duck into the steamworks of his most perfect creation, an unreadable emotion on his face.
***
Master Pete nudged Chevy. “Oi, it do look as though that one-armed prick be comin’ this way, hey?”
Chevy bit his lower lip. It did indeed look that way, and that … was a problem. Mind still whirling in an effort to figure out just how Nickels had produced a weapon capable of blowing an arm off a metal giant and able to flatten four solid blocks of housing in such a short time, he was effectively incapable of deciding what they should do.
“You fink we should, like, take off, or summink?” Pete jerked his chin at their Gunboy. “The lads’ve got the Fool’s Basket all dismantled an’ all. They’s down there somewhere. Should we call an abort or summink? There’s still time.”
Chevy took a step back from the edge of the roof. That Garth was responsible for that colossal bit of destruction came as no surprise; whatever else their man from the Outside was, he took to the most destructive path whenever the opportunity presented itself.
’neath The Dome, that opportunity popped up more’n them long-legged bugs as showed up mid-summer.
“Question is,” Chevy asked aloud, partly to himself, partly hoping Pete, who’d followed, would have some insight into the proceedings, “why is the lad coming this way? He ought to know there’s every chance these two beasties will merge, hey?”
“Mayhap the great clanker hain’t the only thing as chasing this lad of yours.” Pete suggested. “I remember once, me and the lads, we was doin’ for this King down in the middle bit of desert there we all used to call The King’s Sandy Arsehole, right? ‘avin’ a bit of a good bosh, as them desert Kings are all sorts of fun, when we fell afoul o’ these giant scorpion fings. Never seen nuffink like ‘em before. Suddenly, we’s on the run, right, as none of us hain’t ‘ad a clue as how to do for these armor-plated stabbers. Run into another crew as we fled, didn’t we just? And well, they was surprised to see us runnin’ from our King ‘til they saw them stabbers as well. So, there you ‘ave it, guv. Someone’s chasin’ your man and it hain’t the Gunboy. Well. Erm. Obviously, it is doin’ some of the chasin’, but like, I get the feelin’ in me ‘sblood that the Gunboy hain’t as, erm, immediately life threatenin’. If… if you take me drift, sir.”
Chevy was back at the edge of the rooftop, stomach churning. Unaware he was all but shouting, he … shouted. “Oh, the twat can’t be doin’ that, no he can’t, I told ‘im to leave well enough alone ‘till we was all said and done with the threat as is clankin’ about, like! Oh, Dominic Breton, if you do for that man before ‘e’s done for these Gunboys, I shall be abso-fucking-lutely cross wiv you! You ‘ear me, you great Book-reading crotchface!”
Pete stepped up and tugged on Chevy’s longcoat sleeve. It took a few seconds, as the guvnor was busy hollering and screaming some fairly impressive –and quite vile- threats against his partner. When the Gearman did calm down enough to see reason, Pete pressed his old steampowered shout-box into Chevy’s gauntleted hands.
“’ere.” Pete said simply. “You might reach … Dom is it? You might reach Dom’s addled eardrums with this
, guv. You press the butt… ah. Yes, nat’rally. You got the right of it. So, the lads down there with the Basket? They press on?”
Chevy took a deep, deep breath. Gods, he’d never been so rightly pissed in his entire life as he were right then!
Had to be the helmet. Dom hadn’t had time to get used to working around the King’s anger as seeped into your brain when you wore the helmet, and with so much of their absentee ruler’s rage percolating through Ickford … well. Like as not, the King were wearin’ a Dominic Breton-shaped skinsuit at the moment and that were the long and short of it!
Chevy nodded. “Aye, Master Pete. You keep your Bastards apace. Though I can’t be certain of it, I warrant my man and his quarry, Master Nickels, are coming this way. If we’re lucky…”
An earnest grin split Mater Pete’s homely mug. “We can get ourselfs a twofer. Oh, we hain’t ‘ad one o’ them for a long while, no we hain’t. There’ll be fountains o’ Vicious Elixir for all!” Pete cupped his hands to his mouth and started shouting to the runners he’d placed down along the footpaths at ground level.
Chevy nodded. “A twofer, indeed.” He just hoped it were the right twofer.
The Eldest Gearman put the shout-box to his lips and started lacing into Dominic Breton, caring little who else might hear. “Now you listen to me, Dominic, an’ you listen good…”
***
The flashing warning lights in his heads up display were so commonplace now that Dom no longer batted an eye when new ones popped up. He and Master Nickels were trading shots with such furious frenzy that there were times he quite honestly forgot to move out of the way; the other man’s shotgun was a vicious, deadly piece of work and the Gearman considered himself well lucky that Nickels was having a difficult time firing and aiming with that wounded shoulder of his.
Truth be told, Dom thought to himself as he staggered against a wall, taking deep breaths and willing the pain in his leg –shrapnel from a shotgun shell had peppered the blasted thing, digging deep in through the gears to work their way into his flesh- to go away, truth be told he were well lucky to still be alive at this point.
Nickels was a savage, aye, that he’d revealed to those who’d been looking for him this entire month, but beneath that … beneath all that grim violence and evil, there pulsed the mind of a genius.
Dom checked his ammunition. One clip with twelve bullets remaining plus three left in the chamber. Theoretically more than enough to do for one jumped-up poseur wearing hand-crafted armor.
The Gearman wished he’d taken everyone’s bullets, and their guns, not to mention all their grenados, bombs, launch… Dom smacked himself upside the head. He should’ve conscripted the whole bloody lot of loons as deputies is what he should’ve done! Doing for Nickels was proving to be a damn sight more difficult than anticipated.
“Suppose I should’ve paid more attention to the fine details, hey, what?” Dom peeked around the corner, and the alleyway he was skulking through was filled –yet again- with another shattering boom from Nickels’ shotgun.
The Gearman ducked out of the way, ignoring the sound of broken brick peppering off his helmet.
Dom risked a look behind him, to where the thing that chased them both stood. It was watching the proceedings with intense interest, it’s vast, lamplit eyes shining with far more intelligence than ever before. It’s cries of anguish –presumably, they were shouts of rage and sorrow at merely being alive than anything else- had dwindled down to the occasional bellow in response to the other Gunboys and their ceaseless cries.
Why, it were almost as if it were well pleased to be in Master Nickel’s presence, e’en if that’d meant having an arm blown clean off to get there. Which didn’t make no sense at all!
“Now, if I am right…” The Book Club Regular had been counting in his head this whole time, a simple trick once you knew how to do it properly. Anticipating the Gunboy’s movements had become a matter of survival, as it seemed that Master Nickels was using the giant as some kind of prop; somehow the bastard was using the beast’s urge to do for him to his own advantage, arranging things so that a poor Gearman had been –twice now- caught flat-footed and jostled about by …
“’ere it comes, hey?” Dom quickly sheathed his pistol and grabbed hold of the wall next to him frantically, armored fingers digging into the extraordinarily tough Ickfordian stone.
A tumultuous clatter filled the air, thunder like none had heard since the Great Clanging, and once again, the alleys and passageways connecting all the places of Ickford to one another were flooded with bone from fallen gearheads, brick from shattered buildings, and whirlwinds of air clotted with choking dust.
Ears ringing, Dom let go the wall and immediately started running for all he was worth towards the last place he remembered Nickels being, and for more than the obvious reason of wanting to do for the bastard as quick as possible.
Heavy footfalls made the landscape dance, reminding Dom of how insignificant he’d become since arriving in Ickford.
There was a trick to running when the world bounced and shook and danced like a belly dancer’s glorious hips, and the trick were to not run when that were happening.
“Ain’t gonna stop now, no, by the King’s Will, I am not.” Dom drew his gun and leaped sideways across the threshold to the side street where he’d last seen Nickels. A row of buildings just behind him shook, shuddered, then crashed in on themselves, spewing yet more dust and liberated brick all about.
Dom landed amidst a clatter of brick and discarded gearheads. He started, a momentary zing of terror as the eyes of one poor lady gearhead seemed to take notice of him. It took a shaky, clammy-handed second for him to realize that, like all the others, the afflicted was dead, body drained of Vicious Elixir, that the eyes in her head rolled to and fro about on account of the Gunboy’s actions.
Then he saw. In the glazed over, shining metal orbs that were the dead woman’s eyes, Garth Nickels, descending from high above, shotgun arm drawn and ready to fire.
By the King! The man had weathered the tumultuous assault atop a building! The stones on him had to be the size of a Big’Un’s riveted ballsack.
The Gearman tried moving quickly, but sometimes, even with augmented armor forged by King’s Will, you couldn’t move quick enough. Dom bit back a curse as his entire left shoulder erupted into a haze of feverish pain. Warm blood started flowing freely down the longcoat’s sleeve.
Nickels landed off to one side, foot striking the very same head as had given Dom equal warning and fright, causing him to land quite awkwardly.
A strangled yelp erupted from Garth’s lips as he fell sideways.
Dom flipped over onto his back as Master Nickels tried clumsily regained his footing on such treacherous ground, squeezing the trigger of his gun once, twice, and a third time. The first two rounds went –as always, with this bloody weapon- wide, missing their mark by an unconscionable amount of distance, but the third, ah, that third one clipped his target low and off to the side.
Laying on his back, gun in both hands, panting desperately, Dom eyed Garth as he tried probing the wound.
“Do you,” Garth muttered angrily, “have any fucking idea how difficult it is to stick your fingers into a bullet hole when one hand is still partially a fucking rifle and the other is a fucking shotgun?”
“No clue, mate.” Dom took one hand off the gun and tried –as furtively as possible- groping for the remaining clip at his waist. The Gearman hoped and prayed Master Nickels was too distracted by the wound in his arm and stomach to be paying any attention. “Now, why don’t you just give me that there Book, hey? Don’t belong to you, now does it?”
Garth looked down at where DarkBook was moored to his chest, shotgun arm pointing directly at Dom’s head. “Is that what this is all about? This?”
Dom’s gauntleted fingers closed around the clip. He nodded. “Aye, that, and other reasons.”
“We’re in the middle of something much more important.” Garth insisted. He could do
for Dominic right then and there; the shotgun manifested rounds quite literally out of thin air, drawing matter in through ports all along the stock, while Dom’s classic pistol relied on actual bullets. “Be reasonable.”
Garth knew the Gearman was out of bullets, if for no other reason than the mad asshole would’ve already drilled him full of extra holes.
The request was enough to make a man laugh. Be reasonable. They already lived –to hear men and women from the Outside tell stories- in the most unreasonable place in all the Universe. He, Dominic Breton, was in Ickford, a damned city he most certainly would not survive, waiting for another titanic foot to send them all scattering about like children’s toys, staring down the barrel of a gun forged by a smith that violated all the demands set upon them by their king, talking to a man who currently had guns for hands and a Book that did not belong to him by any stretch of the imagination and … and …
Garth dared demand for reason under times like this?
Dominic did laugh. He couldn’t help himself. His whole world was in ruins. “Be reason … what in the bloody fuck is that?”
***
Idle Eric couldn’t believe his luck, oh no, he couldn’t, not at all. If he weren’t well and truly convinced their local deity, him they all called King Barnabas Blake the One and Only, weren’t a complete lunatic turned murderous bastard, well, Idle Eric would consider the wee gift he’d been given something of a miracle.
Eric thumbed the gouges across his chest and the thick gash down one side of his head, put there –in a roundabout manner- by Master Nickels, who was that moment caught in a bit of a standoff with one of the Gearman as had come to plague their fair city. They were as healed as they were ever going to get, and the soft, warm, taffy-like constitution of the Dark Iron seams that’d rushed to fill the gaps in his weak flesh were all the convincing he needed that he were at the end of his ropes.
Unless he could get hold of some Dark Iron, and in fairly large quantity soon enough Idle Eric reckoned he could count his life in minutes; behind Gearman and Nickels was one o’ them big giants as all his brothers and sisters of the Kingsblood were trying to do for, and this one were acting all sorts of strange. More than the others, who just sort of stood about, letting everyone and their gnarled old Grams come at them, this one were watching and were far too thoughtful by half.