At first the soldier had been confounded, then amazed, happy, frightened, sorrowful, guilty…so many emotions crowding into him that he could not think. Until his commanding officer ordered his return to the battlefront and he discovered that now he could not feel, and feeling nothing, he did not care. When the letter came about the death by typhus of his wife and child, the army was glad to send him away at last—a broken toy soldier, a mistake they wished they’d never made.
Sarah stroked his cheek. “You are no mistake, my love.”
“Am I your love, truly? A man who must wind up his heart like a watch?”
“I don’t care how your heart beats, only that it does. I loved you when it was a mystery, and I love you still, now that it’s not.”
“Then hand me that key, beloved, for I have much to do before Mr. Halprin springs his traps.”
“Do you believe he means the things he said?” Sarah asked, passing him the small brass key from the dresser.
“Oh, yes. He means to kill me,” the soldier replied, fitting the key to the odd scar on his chest, “and he’ll no doubt take half the town with him, for he’s clearly quite insane.”
“You mustn’t let him hurt you,” Sarah said, her face going pale, though who could tell whether it was from fear for him or the sight of the little brass key sinking into his flesh…?
The soldier did not look up as he wound his clockwork heart. “I don’t intend to. Nor let him harm this town any further. I’ve stopped him before and I’ll stop him again. I’ll regret it mightily, but if I must put him in his grave to do it, I will.”
He drew the key away at last and raised his head to look at Sarah. Her mouth was set firm, but there was a softness in her eyes that was neither pity nor tears. “I am sorry to present you such a terrible betrothal present,” said the soldier. “You can still refuse….”
“No, in fact, I cannot.” She smiled gently and kissed his cheek.
The soldier and Sarah sat together for quite a while, talking of their own future and of Halprin’s threat. Sarah informed the soldier of Halprin’s past in greater detail—which was sufficient to turn even that battle-hardened man pale.
“Halprin is a very monster,” Sarah concluded. “I don’t doubt for a moment that he set that fire himself, though why he should burn his own properties I can’t guess.”
“As you said once, there will be no lack of buyers once the railroad is through.”
“But the fire ruined the new-laid tracks,” Sarah objected.
“Only those that run beyond the town. The station and warehouses at the edge of Stone Crossing remain untouched.”
“And those warehouses belong to Mr. Halprin,” Sarah added. “No doubt filled with his horrible devices ready to be shipped back to the war in the East.”
The soldier looked startled and Sarah asked him what was wrong.
“I am suddenly reminded of something that was missing….”
“What? Has someone robbed your room?”
“No, my love, but there may be a worse problem. Pass me the music box from the dresser, please.”
“Why?” she asked, even as she handed him the box.
“I fear Mr. Halprin’s threats may be all too real and we may need a great deal of help to counter his plans, but I must ask a question of a dog first.”
He put the key to the music box and turned it once, twice, thrice. The chimes rang out in three dreadful chords and the tune began to play. Its strange, discordant notes were still shivering on the air when they heard the sound of metal feet clattering against the roof outside the window. Sarah helped the soldier to the window and threw up the sash.
The smallest of the mechanical dogs stepped inside, its copper and brass no longer so bright as when the soldier had first seen it, but its eyes glowed as if lit by hellfire. Beyond it the head of the largest hound peeped over the roof ledge, gilded a dull silver by the cloud-shrouded moon.
“What would you have us do, Master?” the dog asked as before.
“Are both your brothers outside?” the soldier asked.
The dog nodded.
“Then I will go down to meet them.”
The sun was long gone by this time, the late-autumn night clouded and the wind speaking of snow soon to come. The soldier dressed warmly and went down to the porch to speak with the mechanical dogs. If any of his neighbors peered out of their windows, he made no remark upon it.
The first dog scrambled down from the roof and joined the other two, making a row by ascending size: the first normal-sized, the second huge, and the third a giant whose head overtopped the doorway to such a degree that the soldier commanded it to lie down and thus ease his neck from craning upward to see the beast.
“Now, tell me, has your former master returned to the caverns lately?” the soldier asked.
The first dog shook its head, and the soldier marked it as by far the cleverest and most nimble of the three.
“And has anything more been taken away since I first called upon you?”
All three dogs shook their heads, and the porch shuddered as the largest dog knocked one of the pillars with its snout. This one, the soldier thought, was the juggernaut of the company—ponderous, but as near unstoppable as a comet hurtling through space.
The soldier pointed at the first dog and named it. “Scout—for that is what you are—can you record information?”
The smallest dog seemed to give it thought, and then nodded. The soldier nodded also. “Very well, then. Take yourself stealthily to observe your former master and what preparations he may be making against me. Then return and let me know what you’ve discovered. We have only until daybreak to lay our plans.”
While they awaited the dog’s reconnaissance, Sarah sat down beside him and asked where the dogs had come from and what their purpose was. The soldier replied that he had found them in a cave filled with mechanical wonders and metal nightmares, and as to their original purpose he was not sure, but as of now, their charge would be to protect the people of Stone Crossing from Mr. Halprin’s machinations.
The moon had just tipped past its zenith when Scout returned. The dog’s metal body was soiled with dirt and soot and marked with scratches. It paced off a large circle and began to draw in the dirt with its forepaw. Sarah brought more lanterns so that she and the soldier could examine the drawing: two buildings, two long parallel lines, and many rows of small circles backed by more rows of oblongs. The couple stared at the drawing for a while, not knowing what it represented, while the dog-shaped machine trotted across the circle to draw some more: a collection of boxes and lines….
“That’s the town,” Sarah said, pointing to Scout’s newest drawing.
The soldier peered at it. “If that’s true, then these lines to the northwest must be the train rails, and that would be the station house beside them and Halprin’s warehouse beside that.”
“What are all these things spread outside it?” Sarah asked, pointing to the circles and oblongs.
“I don’t know…but I suspect,” the soldier started. Then he looked at the dog. “Did these things come from the cavern once?”
Scout nodded and the other two dogs mirrored its movement.
The soldier remembered the empty room beyond the middle cavern where the plans for machines of war and destruction had lain and he thought of the lightning generator at Shiloh…. “I’m not certain, but I suspect they are engines of devastation, meant for the war, but now arrayed against all of us…. Can he really mean to attack the whole town for the anger he feels toward me?”
Once again the dogs nodded and the chill wind sent shivers down the humans’ spines. A terrible guilt struck the soldier. He stood up. “If I am gone by morning, perhaps this madness won’t come to pass.” He looked at Sarah and she looked back, shaking her head.
“And perhaps pigs will sprout wings and fly across the Alleghenies every spring,” she replied. “Have you not understood all I’ve told you of Mr. Halprin? He is more than half mad, cruel, and unca
ring for his fellow creatures. Did you not see that for yourself? It is not against you alone he swore his threats, but against all of us. I believe he means to carry out his revenge in the worst way. What shall we do?”
“Si vis pacem, para bellum,” the soldier muttered. He studied Scout’s drawing awhile longer, then looked up at the dogs. “We shall be ready for him, but we must ensure that his first strike does no harm….” First he named the dogs from smallest to largest for convenience’ sake: Scout, Bucephalus, and Juggernaut. Then he told them all his plan and sent the dogs to their duty, bringing everything that walked or rolled from the caves while he and Sarah went to rouse the house and town….
Well before dawn, the grinding sound of gears and the grumble of heavy feet began rising in the northwest. By the time the first rays of light had pierced the clouds, the townsfolk were arrayed in trepid wonder at the western edge of Stone Crossing with great piles of chain and rope at their feet, staring out at the burned fields where a cotillion of delicate automata danced and gamboled slowly west in the pink light. Just beyond, ranks of brass and iron machines spewing steam and smoke walked implacably southeast to meet them, some on four legs, some on six, and some on cleated tracks. They bore a variety of weapons from the spiny heads of torpedoes to huge guns and the shining upright tubes of mortars that looked like hellish calliopes.
At the northernmost edge of the town, the soldier stood with Sarah, the massive dog he had named Bucephalus—for his head was surely as large as an ox’s—and Scout, and watched the mechanical army descend. “So, this is how a general must feel, playing with his toy soldiers,” he said.
“Yes, but none of these soldiers are flesh and bone,” said Sarah.
“So we shall hope. For if this plan fails, it falls to men and not machines to fight these monstrous things that come upon us.”
“It will not fail,” Sarah replied, staring out at the blackened ground filled with golden toys.
In the field, a gleaming rabbit of brushed copper and brass gave a mighty hop into the air, windmilling its ears. Three of the walking guns swiveled toward it and a shattering hail of bullets tore the toy to glittering shards. The townsfolk gasped and recoiled at the sight. But the soldier nodded and muttered, “He may have the force, but he hasn’t any strategy at all.”
In a moment the first of the walking torpedoes clashed against the tumbling jester in his jeweled motley and exploded with a roar of gunpowder. Gleaming metal confetti and mechanical entrails scattered outward in all directions, setting off two more of the explosives.
The rain of shrapnel drew the attention of the walking guns, and they began firing in ragged volleys, sweeping back and forth so long as the cloud of metal hung in the air. A bullet ripped through the soldier’s sleeve, slicing a hot groove in his arm, and he winced.
Sarah reached for him, but he pushed her back. “No,” the soldier said. “Fall back now. Take them all to the engines. Remember: our goal is to turn his line south of the town and flank him, not to make dead heroes.”
“What of you?” she said, her voice sharp.
“I’ve been a dead hero once—I’ve no need to do it again.”
Sarah gave him one last look and ran toward her neighbors. At her command, the townsfolk ducked and scurried away as the field filled with the gold-dusted explosions of dozens of murdered automata. The battle line turned slightly south as the walking guns tracked to each new blast of destruction. Behind them the mortars crouched down on their articulated legs and fired off their first ranging volley.
The ground between the automata and the town erupted, throwing dirt clods and burned stubble into the air with a roar.
The soldier looked to the smallest of the mechanical dogs. “Now, Scout, go!”
The mechanical beast, brown and rusty as a dirty penny now, dashed away beneath the cover of the earthen explosion, heading southwest to a lonely stand of trees, and vanished into their morning shadow. In a minute it emerged again, circling back to snatch a knotted rope between its metal jaws and run northwest.
Juggernaut broke from the stand of trees, clutching the other end of the rope in its own massive mouth, its head held low as if on the scent. The ground shook with each step the giant dog took across the field, pulling the makeshift line of rope and chain taut, inches above the ash-covered ground.
As the dust began to clear, the mechanical dogs raced on west, dragging the line between them until it pulled against the legs of the front line of walking machines of death, toppling them backward and sideways into the machines behind them. The first three ranks exploded with a roar that shook the earth. The torpedoes all destroyed, some of the remaining walking guns staggered and fell, some toppling on their sides while others righted themselves and walked on in random directions. But most only corrected their path to the south—toward the largest mass of falling machines—and marched on, spewing bullets and fire over the gleaming bodies of the machines in front of them.
The soldier turned to the last dog and said, “Now, Boo. We’re off to find the villain himself.”
The large beast bent down and the soldier climbed on his back. He felt absurd riding astride a metal dog, but the time for vanity was long past. The huge mechanical beast leaped forward, running to meet Scout in the north end of the field.
As they hurtled onward, the soldier turned his head to see Juggernaut racing up and down among the stumbling guns, throwing up clods of dirt and metal debris in all directions, luring them steadily southeast and destroying what it could. The nearest guns turned to fire and shot their own kind instead, the giant dog bolting past under the whine of ricochets and the hissing of escaping steam.
Then two engines roared onto the field, one from the southwest and the other from the northeast. A long stream of water shot from the pumping engine as some of the townsfolk drove it into the shattered line’s flank from the livery at the south edge of town. The other, clanking forward from the north end, came forth spitting fire from twin barrels that poked out of a makeshift shield of steel plates hiding two men who drove the smaller machine, sweating with heat and fear, but going forward nonetheless.
Streams of fire and water smashed into Halprin’s walking guns, battering them with opposing forces of heat and moisture. Heating them, melting them, then cooling and shoving them. When the cold water hit the gleaming sides of hot metal and straining boilers, the machines on the south end of the line exploded with a screech of scalding steam, rivets and metal flying wide and raining down again like metallic snow. The townsfolk crouched beneath the engine and let this devil’s rain fall. On the north flank, flames from the other wagon melted the chains of projectiles that fed the guns and they ceased firing, walking onward with no purpose but to smash bodily into the buildings of the town while their companions staggered and fell in warped piles of metal, hissing and bursting in clouds of steam and exploding ammunition, or going down in flame from their own ruptured fuel tanks.
The townsfolk swept the streams of water and fire across the broken line of machines as the mortars crouched again….
This time the mortar shells struck the first buildings of Stone Crossing, blowing wood and fire into the air as the buildings exploded and tumbled.
The water engine turned to put out the fires while the flame-spewer and Juggernaut converged on the rest, fire washing over the devilish calliopes until the shells exploded inside the tubes, rupturing the mortars and sending their pipes spinning into the sky. The townsfolk who could be spared from the water engine attacked the disarmed machines with whatever came to hand: axes, poles, or shotguns. They battered at Halprin’s automated army, knocking it down piece by piece while Juggernaut wreaked havoc on the remaining armed guns, pouncing from behind and flinging them into the air to shatter on the ground. The clanging and roaring of destruction and fire deafened the ear, and the stink of burning metal and wood clouded the fields.
The soldier rode on toward the train station, running parallel to Scout at a distance and bolting from cover to cove
r.
Scout raced across the churned field in wild zigzags, turning sharper than a dancer as a single heavy gun picked at the mechanical dog from the warehouse. Bucephalus and the soldier—ever the cavalry man at heart—swung out wider, heading for the rear of the building from its blind side as the gun continued to try to score a hit on the smaller, swifter metal beast. In the distance, they could feel the pounding of Juggernaut’s dashing and digging shaking the ground.
As soon as the soldier and Bucephalus were safe beyond the warehouse’s front wall, Scout took a sudden turn and bolted south toward the disintegrating remains of the mechanical army.
The soldier and his strange mount crashed through the back door of the warehouse, the building shuddering as they came inside. In the loft, Halprin spun to stare at them, staggering under the weight of the large gun he cradled in his arms.
“Bastard,” he shouted as the soldier slid off the back of the massive hound.
Halprin, a moment too late, squeezed the trigger of his gun, sending a smoking stream of bullets just over Bucephalus’s back and across the top of its head. The soldier hit the floor facedown and the brass-bound dog turned its head upward and opened its jaws, one burning eye extinguished.
Then the dog launched itself up the stairs toward Halprin, making a terrible roaring sound as it went. The soldier jumped after it, calling, “No, Boo. Stop!” but, apparently by its own desire, the creature of brass and copper and steel had set its path and leaped forward without heed.
A cheer rose outside as if a crowd were drawing near to urge the mindless copper beast onward. The soldier ground his teeth and started after the massive dog.
Halprin reeled back, the gun chattering as the bullets rattled against the hound’s chest and head. And then they tore through, the heavy metal beast lurching forward as its gears blew apart and ground to a halt. Mighty Bucephalus fell with a thunderous clatter, collapsing the stairs and dragging the loft flooring down with it as it plunged to the floor.
Halprin tumbled as the earth shuddered and shuddered again. The soldier ran to the side of the shattered hound, its body bullet-ripped and its huge eyes darkened forever. It was only a thing of gears and metal—it could not think or dream or hurt—but he hadn’t felt such sorrow in a long time as he felt for this unlikely beast.
Clockwork Fairy Tales - A Collection Of Steampunk Fables Page 10