by Peter Newman
The Hammer grunts in understanding. ‘Fair.’
‘No it isn’t!’ says the boy.
In answer the Hammer takes the boy’s ear between thumb and finger and tugs it, gentle. ‘I play.’ The boy screams. ‘You like?’
‘Oww! Stop it, stop it, please!’
She lets go. ‘See?’
The boy rubs at his ear. ‘Yes.’
‘Next time,’ she points at the goat, ‘bring food.’
‘Okay.’
She touches her ear. ‘No pulling.’
The boy sniffs. ‘Okay. Who are you? My name is Dal but my brothers call me Dally.’
The Hammer nods. ‘I Hammer.’
Dally’s eyes go extra wide. ‘You’re the Hammer that Walks!’ He takes a few steps back.
The Hammer scowls. ‘Where home?’
Dally points at some faraway towers. ‘Over there. I haven’t come this far before but I wanted to stroke the goat.’
‘Go home.’
‘I will. Where are you going?’
She points back towards her own tower. ‘There. Sleep.’
Dally waves and begins to scurry off. As soon as he has moved away the goat hops down from the strut and comes to the Hammer’s side.
They only manage a few paces before the goat stops, her head raising sharply. The Hammer rests a hand, comforting, on her back. Something isn’t right.
A shape unpeels itself from behind the carcass of one of the old carriages. A human body wrapped in a cloak that bulges with inhuman additions. One of the half-alive from Wonderland, scavenging for living parts.
Most know better than to steal direct from the villages. They are the property of Slake, and Slake is the property of the Uncivil. Though the infernal is ambivalent about the actual people that live there, she is careful to protect the feeding processes. For Wonderland to create its marvels, it requires the factories of Slake, and for Slake to function, the villages must remain productive.
A lone boy however, taken from outside the Uncivil’s protections is a different matter entirely.
The goat takes one look at the alien shape and bolts. The Hammer sees it looming over Dally, a new master threatening to break or destroy.
She runs, one step, two, a bound, a short leap, each one that follows sailing her a little further, a little higher.
When she catches up with the robed figure, she is coming from above, her shadows eclipsing those below, out-looming the loomer.
At the last moment it senses her approach, looking up. There is a glimpse of a puffy scar-riddled face, the sound of tearing fabric as its additional limbs start to extend, and then her fist is coming down, all of her strength and momentum behind it.
Neither true infernals or true half-breeds, the half-alive are humans augmented by the Uncivil and her Necroneers. In some, dead limbs are grafted to living tissue and animated with inert essence. In others, failing muscles are rejuvenated, bones replaced. It is said that if one can gain the Uncivil’s favour that endless life is possible.
The Hammer’s fists have little respect for such life. While the Usurper has made her a thing of strength, the Uncivil creates brittle things tenderly tied with essence. It is a simple matter for her to pull them loose.
There is a flurry of activity, the Hammer’s fist cracks against the half-alive’s skull, her knee driving it to the floor beneath her. In response, the half-alive’s extra arms, bone-bladed, thrust for the Hammer’s head. She catches each as they come, tearing them free with ease and tossing them over her shoulder. The original body parts do not fare much better under her care.
Seconds later the half-alive is fully dead and the Hammer is standing up.
Dally is watching her, his eyes so large they threaten to pop. His body shakes for a moment, his jaw quivering, then: ‘Wow! That was amazing! That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen! Wow!’
The Hammer shrugs. ‘Weak.’
‘Not to me! I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.’
He is impressed with her. Why? It was nothing, it means nothing. And more than this, the sense of hollow victory is familiar, tickling memories.
As adrenaline fades, the Hammer sinks to one knee, her injuries demanding their due. She takes a moment, closing her eyes, and though she does not want to, she remembers.
The first days after she was changed into a Usurperkin are a blur of movement and violence. As the Usurper travels the fringes of its domain, it creates new Usurperkin and though a few flee in horror, most stay, embracing their new power and bowing to the Usurper’s majesty.
They travel together, a growing horde, fighting anything that comes their way, showing off, doing all they can to impress their infernal master.
Of them all, the Hammer that Walks is the Usurper’s favourite. She is bigger than the others, stronger, sharing a link with the infernal that the others envy. Already, she is called Usurper’s Daughter and is allowed to walk at its side where others follow behind.
They are children in the bodies of monsters, pumped full of rage and hate, freed of rules and set loose on a broken world.
All of them have new names now. One of the strongest is called Knuckle but she remembers that once, in another life, he was just a boy and that he hurt her.
He is standing with a group of Usurperkin in the ruins of a settlement that none of them have bothered to learn the name of. There is little point, such details are rendered irrelevant from the moment they arrive.
She is taller than him now, easily able to reach his shoulder to tap it.
He turns, it is the first time they have been so close since the day in the basement. Like her, he has been changed, his body thickened and swollen, potent muscles twitching under skin turned green. His face has altered less than the rest of him, the features bigger but still recognisably, shockingly human. Though the nose is now a different colour it has the same blobby shape.
Any concern Knuckle has for personal safety is swept under pride. His chest expands as his fists move to rest on hips. ‘What?’ he growls.
She takes a moment to enjoy the fact that she can see the top of his head. Knuckle lets his hair grow wild, the dark locks already hiding his eyebrows.
He raises himself to his full height, not quite on tiptoes but not far off. Their eyes are almost level now. ‘What is it?’
‘No.’
‘No?’ he asks.
‘No,’ she replies, striking him squarely in the face.
This time, he moves more than a step away, staggering several feet before managing to regain his balance.
Despite the shock, the outrage, something in Knuckle’s nature exalts in the moment and the fight that it heralds.
The Hammer is no different.
If they didn’t hate each other so much, they might smile.
He knows she is the stronger, he knows she is faster. The Hammer knows it too. Knuckle fights anyway, because he has to, because he wants to and because, in the moment that they engage there is a feeling that anything is possible.
No subtlety is brought to the fight, both combatants so eager to hurt the other that neither bother to defend themselves. Blows are exchanged.
The Hammer feels his fist connect with her gut, then her cheek, jarring teeth. It hurts, but no more than her old beatings used to. It is nothing to fear.
Her fist is a different matter. It is wrecking ball to the masonry of Knuckle’s face. He roars with anger before throwing himself at her.
Bodies crash together and the two giant Usurperkin fall to the ground. Fat veins rise along arms and necks and temples, standing purple and proud. Knuckle begins on top, trying to pin the Hammer’s hands with his own.
He establishes a hold, snarls a smile.
She gives him a bloody one in return and begins to push back, forcing him to watch as his arms move slowly upwards, her own inching off the floor, overmatching his power and bodyweight and gravity with sheer strength.
The Hammer swings Knuckle off her, reversing their roles. She pins his wrist
s in one of her huge hands, cupping his head with the other.
He bucks and kicks, trying to dislodge her. Rage still drives him rather than fear but it has a desperate edge now.
She places her thumb over his right eye.
Another Usurperkin, one of Knuckle’s group, has moved alongside her. He does not interfere, does not dare, but he does speak. ‘Don’t kill him.’
The Hammer nearly laughs. That is exactly what she intends to do. She presses her thumb down, feeling the soft jelly begin to bend underneath it.
‘Don’t!’
Ignoring the thrashing body beneath her, the Hammer looks round. ‘Why?’
The other Usurperkin seems lost for words. He is not as big as her, not even as big as Knuckle. She does not know his name. She doubts the Usurper even notices him.
Unimpressed, the Hammer returns to her opponent. She takes her time, feeling the need to make Knuckle suffer. She does not understand this need but then, in the Hammer’s life, understanding is not required.
The resistance grows slowly under her thumb and Knuckle begins to scream properly now. It annoys her, the screaming; she wants to hear the sound his eyeball will make when it pops.
Her thumb slides deeper into Knuckle’s skull and she realises she has missed it. A sense of anticlimax takes her then. It is only a slight press further and Knuckle will be dead but she does not feel the thrill she expected.
Somehow, the other Usurperkin has interfered and ruined her fun. It is not supposed to be like this. She wants to hear the pop!
She looks at Knuckle. Watery blood runs down the side of his face, thicker blood bubbles from his nose. His remaining eye has become animal, terrified. The sight repulses her.
Releasing him, she stands up, wanting to be elsewhere, anywhere.
The other Usurperkin nods his thanks to her as she goes.
This is a mistake.
Rage flies back into her body, surging from brain to fist in an instant. He crumples around her arm, enabling her to bring her other fist down on the back of his head. There is a crack, satisfying, and then he is supine in the dust.
It would be easy to do more, to crush him beneath her feet, but the Hammer walks away, unsure why this victory has been so joyless.
An insistent finger brings her back to the present, prodding skin, still tender. The Hammer opens her eyes and growls at Dally. ‘No.’
The boy and his finger retreat quickly. ‘Sorry. You’d stopped moving for so long I thought you were dead.’
The Hammer rubs at her face. ‘Not long.’
‘It was. One moment you were talking and then you just stopped. For,’ he lets the beginning of the word drag out for emphasis, ‘aaaaaages.’
‘No!’
Dally seems ready to argue the point but a look from the Hammer changes his mind. ‘What now?’
She points at him. ‘Go home.’
Disappointment claims his face but he nods and turns away, feet dragging, slow.
The Hammer pushes herself up and looks around. The surrounding area appears quiet. ‘Goat?’
‘Your goat’s gone,’ says Dally, suddenly at her side again.
‘Where?’
‘Umm …’ Vaguely, he points. ‘… That way. I could help you find it, if you want?’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why help?’
‘You saved me from getting harvested by that half-alive!’
The Hammer considers this, grunts.
Dally beams and the two set off together.
Villages are left further behind, the goat’s trail taking them off beaten pathways and broken roads, where grasses grow unkempt, and the ground beneath is riddled with loose stones, treacherous.
Neither talk much. The Hammer is too tired and Dally too wary. He spends most of the time watching her out of the corner of his eye, and trying to stand taller. Arms are held out from the body, but instead of making the boy appear bigger, it underscores scrawny arms and oversized clothes.
The Hammer doesn’t notice. She is too busy worrying about the goat and feeling the strain on her still-healing wounds. She should be resting, not wandering out here, armour-less and weak. Fatigue and pain shorten an already short temper, each step accompanied with a soft growl.
Dally puts an extra few feet between them, suddenly happy to be small again.
A lone tree juts out ahead, defiant. The trunk is gnarly and twisted, the leaves fat and covered in yellow moss. Nestled within the upper branches is an old woman, her skin blending with the bark, her hair with the spiderwebs, glistening, decorative.
Dally comes to a stop, urging the Hammer to do the same. ‘We should go round.’
‘Why?’
His voice takes on an edge of awe as he repeats words said to him by others. ‘That’s the Woven Woman. The spiders made her and the spiders feed her.’
The Hammer pauses to grunt at Dally, then continues forward.
Leaves rustle as the Woven Woman turns her head, tugged by silken strands that connect her temples, cheeks and chin to the branches. She peers down at them, eyes like grey acorns, shrunken. ‘Who comes? Who is it disturbs our sleep? Is it food? Perhaps. But which is the food? The big one or the little one? Makes no difference to us. Babes and brutes, we wrap them the same, break them down till the flesh slips off the bone and down the throat.’ She leans forward, making wood creak like old joints. ‘Well, what’s it to be? Talking? Trading? Or are you for the feasting?’
The Hammer squints as she looks up, blinded by the sunslight. ‘Goat,’ she says.
‘Please don’t get angry,’ adds Dally quickly. ‘We’re looking for a goat. Have you seen one?’
‘So a trading is it? A goat has come by our tree, skittered round our root-webs not long ago. We can tell you where and when. We can tell you exactly where it went … for the right offering. Which will you trade, the brute or the babe?’
Dally takes a step back, whispers: ‘We should run.’
‘No,’ says the Hammer, though to who it is unclear.
‘No?’ replies the Woven Woman. ‘We must be paid, in blood and meat or coin as sweet.’
‘Coin?’ asks the Hammer.
‘Yes, we will take your coin.’
‘Take coin?’ The Hammer’s voice rises in anger. ‘My coin?’
‘We take your coin or we take you both, dress you in silk. Two pretty packages for our many teeth.’
‘My coin!’ roars the Hammer. Rage follows quickly, washing away the need for words. This is not the first time she has been threatened, nor will it be the last.
Leaping half the height of the tree, the Hammer digs her fingers in, pushing easily into rotting bark, to haul herself upwards.
‘Come them, brute! Come to us. Our webs are wet and waiting, our jaws, juiced and jagged.’
The Hammer just growls and continues to climb.
‘We will digest your innards for seventeen spins of the suns!’
Reaching one of the thicker branches, the Hammer hauls herself up.
‘You will lay the ground for many, many eggs! You-Ahhh!’
Thick fingers encircle a scrawny ankle.
The Woven Woman lunges for the Hammer and it seems as if the whole tree lunges with her. But the Hammer does not care. Still gripping the Woven Woman’s ankle, she presses her feet against the trunk and kicks away, taking the Woven Woman with her.
Whatever binds the human body to the tree, be it silk or skin or moss, tears, and the Woven Woman screams.
The Hammer lands and brings the old body down onto the ground.
Again, the Woven Woman screams. In the sunslight she is a pitiful thing, a featherless bird, scrawny, ugly.
The Hammer strikes, splintering eggshell bones, roars and raises her fist to strike again.
This time, it is Dally who screams.
The Hammer looks up, expecting to find him in trouble. From spiders or raiders, or even the tree itself. But the boy is unharmed. He is looking at her, horrified.
It is like ice-water in her face, dousing the anger. How many times has she been here? Victorious. Empty. Another broken form in her fingers.
She does not remember her first battle anymore. There is the time she defeated Knuckle, and then her memories become less distinct. In the early days after her change, the fighting is so frequent, so savage, that it blurs together, a montage of bloodied knuckles and shattered bodies.
But a memory comes to her now, so sharp that she forgets about goats and boys and the enemy in her hands. Images of the past painting over the present.
There are fights, endless, one, then another, and another, and she wins them all. Again and again proving herself the strongest of the Usurperkin, the quickest, the most successful. As the half-breeds grow more confident, some start to carry makeshift weapons but the Hammer prefers her fists. She considers them deadly enough.
At first the Usurper travels with them from place to place, taking whatever life it finds and twisting it into new shapes. Plants, people, animals, treating everything the same way, as things to be claimed or destroyed.
And yet, even the Usurper is not without limits. The light of the suns beats down on its head, the winds seem to push against it, every microbe of the world wearing on the infernal, trying to force it back.
Close to the Breach, reality is weak, and the Usurper is untroubled by such forces. However, the corruption has only extended so far, and while it is able to shore up the areas near the Breach, making a habitat more agreeable to its nature, there are borders it does not dare cross.
Increasingly, it pulls back to the Fallen Palace, allowing the lesser demons and the half-breeds to go in its stead.
The Hammer that Walks takes to the work quickly, extending the Usurper’s reach, enhancing its reputation. Only in the quiet times does she doubt, finding a small emptiness inside that no amount of violence can sate.
Briefly, she sees Dally’s face again, and her own form reflected in his eyes, two tiny Hammers, both lost. She is so sad. So alone. The boy is still crying, and her fist has moved several times of its own volition. But neither her body’s automatic reactions nor the Woven Woman’s pain-laden shrieks reach her, for she is slipping away again.
To the last time she felt this way.