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Smidgen woke me early. “Watchman out front, says The Terrant’s been killing people again.”
I slapped my sleepy lips together. Bad taste in the mouth. I shivered. In the cool blue glow of the early morning Smidgen looked almost passably normal. But then most of him was outside my room, as he couldn’t fit through the doorjamb. I rubbed at my eyes, tried to pull him to focus.
“Do you want me to eat him?” he asked
“No,” I said. “You can’t eat everyone that comes a calling. Leave him be. No wait. Tell him we’re coming.”
I sat up fully and pulled my coat on. To break my fast would be nice but it was a luxury I simply didn’t have time for.
––––––––
I took the lead, Bent and Smidgen followed, the latter with the bag strapped to his back. I was aware of making a target of him but really it was safest there than with me.
We’d had trouble late last night. Turned, small impish looking and numbering around ten, snuck into The Fortune of War, found where Smidgen was sleeping and stole the bag from under him. He had woken just as they heaved it through his bedroom window and Smidgen had followed the broken glass down onto the street below. He had given chase, flattening one of the little Turned beneath his stomping feet and they had panicked and scattered into the night leaving the bag behind. Now we knew of their existence we would take no chances. Smidgen would wear it.
We walked silently through The Moss, our destination the bell tower of The Eagle and the Rose. In the dank gloom of the passageway my thoughts dwelled at the task ahead and a ball of fear knotted in my gut. The Terrant was a terrible monster. Mad, strong and unpredictable. It could move fast too. Just look at all its cruel, spindly legs.
I swallowed hard, couldn’t remember feeling so nervous before. Then I realised I’d spent the past four weeks feeling just so. Fear was nothing new to me. Just knowing that should make me feel better but it didn’t. I had to destroy the Golem. Maybe then things would get back to how they used to be. Maybe I would cease feeling scared every second of every day. Maybe.
When we emerged into Walled District a crowd awaited us. Their spirits lightened when they saw us and some even started clapping, slowly, awkwardly.
“You going to kill that thing?” a bearded man asked, squinting and pointing skyward to the top of the tower.
I nodded grimly. I wasn’t in the mood for conversation. I didn’t know how to do this and, despite being fifty feet up in the air, The Terrant still looked big and imposing. There was a quake in my legs now. They felt hollow, like they could just give, like they could snap with the weight of my body. I didn’t want to do this. I looked across at Smidgen and then at Bent. If either of those two felt half as scared as I did I couldn’t tell. Smidgen smiled at me. Perhaps he could read my thoughts, thought to allay them with a big wrinkly grin.
“The old fool Bannin’s had a go at The Terrant already this morning. He’s lost some more men trying to get it down off the tower,” a voice in the crowd informed us.
As I stood and wondered how to kill the thing, The Terrant raised a spindly leg and I watched as it spun in the air like a sail on a windmill and midst a shower of loose feathers the leg plucked a passing bird out of the sky.
“I swear it eats for the sake of it,” said a different voice.
We were one end of the plaza, the busy end. Some of the city watch stood by. They had short bows that intermittently they trained on The Terrant.
A twang of dry twine snapped and we watched as yet another iron-barbed arrow hummed towards its target. A languid leg twitched, effortlessly swiping the missile aside.
“Like swotting flies,” Smidgen noted.
I raised an arm, indicating for them to stop firing. “Lower the bows,” I instructed.
“Listen. It’s stopped wailing,” said Bent.
“So it has,” said I but what could that mean?
Concurring gasps came from the crowd. “What’s it stopped for?” they asked, looking at me. Like I was suddenly the font of all knowledge. I was a thieving bastard not some scribe writing scholar.
“It’s looking at one of us.” I cannot explain how I knew this. I guessed I sensed it. Somewhere in that black tangle of monstrous legs a sentient malice was glaring down the side of the tower at one of us.
Bent said, “It’s me. It recognises me.”
I wasn’t sure for I thought it was looking at Smidgen.
“I’ve never seen it so still,” a watchman observed.
Now would be a good time to move. “Follow me,” I said and again I took the lead. At this late stage I still hadn’t a plan but that didn’t stop the three of us walking towards the tower and The Terrant with purpose and grim resolve. Today it had to die.
There were vestiges of The Terrant’s meals littered around the base of the tower and bits of people, half eaten, deformed and broken, stained the plaza stones red. We stepped through the mess unwilling to look too hard but I saw enough to upset me. The sights and the smells of the carnage made me feel ill and I felt the colour drain from my sweating face.
“Bent, Smidgen, arm yourselves,” I said. This thing had to be killed.
Bent’s weapons were his hands whilst Smidgen pulled his man-sized mace out and swung it about so that it sung as it cut through the air. I could feel the displaced air on my back and there was power behind it. I pitied The Terrant if Smidgen landed a hit. I meant a good solid whack. “Ready Smidgen,” I primed. “Get ready with it.”
Whoosh, he swung it above his head in practice and we continued walking until we reached the base of the tower.
“How... how do we get it down?” I touched the side of the tower, its cold stone chilling the tips of my fingers. A tingle of nerves spread throughout my body for I was now standing in the shadow of The Terrant and I remembered the scale of destruction this thing had caused. Its power, its anger, was phenomenal. “We could enter the building and climb to the top.” I proffered unhelpfully, anything to delay the inevitable confrontation. One of its many legs twitched and sidled down the body of the tower oblivious to us three. Oblivious at the moment anyhow.
Pragmatic Bent reached up, grabbed the stray leg of The Terrant’s and pulled hard. The Terrant fell, screaming as it came down fast, flailing its many legs out in the hope of snagging something with which to catch its death fall.
It failed and landed with a thud.
Smidgen waded in with his mace, slapping it around The Terrant with a speed and determination I was hard pressed to match.
“Kill it Smidgen,” I screamed, stabbing at the twitching parts with my sword. Suddenly spurred to action I was gripped in a frenzy and hit anything that moved.
A leg came up beside me, dwarfed me. I cut it off and all the time I hacked at it Smidgen drummed his mace into the body of the Turned. “Smash it up. Smash it up,” I screeched. Nerves had left my body to be replaced with bloodlust and breathlessly I slashed at The Terrant, not believing it was dead even when it stopped struggling. What legs remained attached folded in upon themselves and the body heaved once and then was still and still I hit it, Smidgen too. He flung his giant mace with the tireless strength of a man obsessed, turning the body of The Terrant into mush and pulp.
“I think it’s dead,” said Bent.
Gradually my frenzied strokes slowed. I was tired and my arms were aching but I didn’t trust the Turned. I thought it could shake us off and scurry up the side of the tower at any moment so I hit it some more. Dealt it some more vicious cuts. I stabbed it three times where I thought its face may have been.
“Flendin, it’s dead,” Bent repeated again.
I blinked The Terrant’s blood out of my eyes and called at Smidgen to stop too. My chest rose and fell rapidly with excitement. “We got it,” I exclaimed elatedly, and I punched the air with my sword.
Cheers erupted all around us and the crowd rushed forward. They were wary at first, but then came full speed across the plaza.
Congratulatory slaps across Smidgen’s back and he was pushed and pulled like a fond toy.
Savour the moment, I thought, for I understood how fickle people could be. In any other city Smidgen would have been persecuted and not revered but today he’d killed a monster and that made his ugliness acceptable. So savour the moment but don’t be disappointed when, come tomorrow, no one cares.
“He’s a hero,” one man blustered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Yes,” I agreed but then the crowd distanced themselves from Smidgen and he was ignored and the smile fell from his face. I was lifted up on someone’s shoulders and I laughed and cheered and whooped with the rest of them.
No one approached Bent. If it hadn’t been for his initiative the fight would’ve played out differently and it was thanks to his speed of thought and action that The Terrant was given no chance to strike back. To my shame I ignored him too as I was carried all the way around the plaza.
––––––––
“You were faithful to me once, said you loved me more than anything else you’d ever created,” Hunger reminisced and it was enough for Hat to hesitate.
It was early morning. Red tinged snow glistened in the meadow, mimicking the hue of the rising sun, and gossamers of wind trailing webs fanned out from the low branches of trees and white hedgerows. The webs wafted like the arms of trapped spirit children and The Golem of the South felt drawn to touch them all but he didn’t, not with such a dilemma playing out before him. Not when the potential to lose Hat was so real.
Hat was ahead of him and travelling fast. Pockmarks gouged the deep snow behind it, giving indication that something was living inside the giant hat for a hat alone couldn’t have left such marks.
“This is a gift to you. I’ll not turn this one,” Hunger called after it, hoping to slow its leaving and he pointed towards the dead man.
There was a farm labourer sprawled across a handcart. He’d died from shock, or a single evil word from the Tracker, and Hat passed it by for even food couldn’t entice it to stay.
“Do not leave me,” a final desperate cry from the Golem and he held out a grasping hand. Stiff, ceramic fingers twitched in anticipation of touching. He wanted Hat. He would’ve reached out and grabbed him only Hat was too quick, too wily. He needed him though. Madness would take him if his only confidant were to leave. A terrible ceaseless madness would gorge upon him for the rest of eternity. “I’d wander the world lonely, with only my memories to comfort me and you’d be all alone too. Think on that. You’d be alone too for how could you find your way home without me. They wouldn’t come for you for they don’t love you like I do.”
Hat creased in the middle then stiffened. A moment passed, a moment whereby it could be contemplating options, and then it wobbled back to the Tracker.
“We’re meant to be together, you and I,” Hunger affirmed as Hat scuttled up his back to settle on his head. “You’re angry with me, I understand. I disappoint you, I know I do but we’re going to Never and when we get there I’ll get you the bag. I promise. I know that I don’t move as quick as you’d like but we’ll get there.” He raised a heavy leg and took a step towards the city. The ground shook and a rumble like thunder tolled in the red sky. “We have to look out for one another, you and I.”
A head, driving against the morning wind, veered drunkenly towards the Tracker.
Hat became agitated. It hated the shrunken heads.
“Do not eat it. Leave it well alone and it’ll go soon enough,” advised Hunger.
“The General’s in Never,” said the head, only just remembering in time to avoid Hat. It zipped down level with the Tracker’s face. “The General’s in Never.”
“Quiet, listen.” Hunger pushed the irritating head away with a swotting hand as it struggled to hear better for something had suddenly become apparent. Something once obvious and taken for granted was no longer there. “I can no longer hear him. Shut up and listen.”
The Terrant’s wail had been constant, relentless and inescapable only now it had suddenly stopped.
“Why would it stop?” Hunger sounded confused. “It shouldn’t stop.”
“The General’s there.”
“The General should protect the Turned. That is his duty”
“Mere speculation but maybe he killed it.”
“To what end?”
“For a ruse. Or can he really be trusted?”
“You sow the seed of doubt. If we cannot trust the General then who can we?”
“Hoolivard the Bold.”
“He’s been talking to you.” Hunger dismissed the head. Hoolivard liked talking. He could sway the simple just with bravado alone. “Where is he anyway?”
“Not far. He’ll kill the horses the speed he’s going.”
It had been a risk to play the General so far away, to remove him from the Tracker’s authority to a place where others could influence him, for if he were susceptible he could be swayed. But Hunger had assumed loyalty was unwavering in his most proficient killer.
Now doubt had been raised and Hunger was worried.
He had sent the General to kill Flendin the Blade and to salvage the bag and in both tasks he’d failed. How could such a powerful Turned have failed? For weeks he had been missing too only to be discovered travelling with the very man he’d been sent to destroy.
Either the General was playing a very complex game or the Tracker had lost his allegiance. He should’ve kept him close to hand and never have sent him to Misery all those many weeks ago.
––––––––
The sick, disabled and old Neverens came to the barred windows of The Eagle and the Rose and peered outside at the noise. Grey smocked physicians and those simple folk paid meagre wages to look after the infirm gathered in the arched doorway to look down at the reverie.
For days The Terrant had them prisoners. Unable to leave the sanatorium for fear of sudden death they now braved the outside with uncertain steps and wide-eyed astonishment.
Smidgen had hit The Terrant so hard most of the Turned couldn’t be lifted from the plaza stones but the parts that could be, mainly legs, were now being dragged behind a horse and cart Thim Baygoe had stolen from an abandoned street corner. Thim Baygoe, an optimistic, intelligent, low down thieving git of a man was making money from the carnage at a fennig a touch of one of The Terrant’s mashed legs.
A cautious physician, grey robed and with a tyre hat pulled down hard and low over his ears, investigated Baygoe’s trophy. “It’s true. They’ve killed it alright.” This was signal to the remaining able bodied to come out too and they burst forth cheering, hobbling on crutches, supported by able arms or walking gingerly yet unaided.
“Hail the Blade for killing the monster,” they cheered.
Collectors were summoned immediately to clean up the heroic dead scattered around the base of the tower. Rauper and Nice numbered amongst six of them strong stomached enough to shovel the grisly remains up and not once did they complain as they set to with spades and grit determination.
I pinched myself, still not believing we’d killed The Terrant. It was remarkable that something so powerful had been quelled with such apparent ease. Bent had caught it unawares then Smidgen had bashed its brain to pulp in violent seconds. I travelled with dangerous men. That was the truth of it.
Sheriff Bannin came limping towards me. “Get men on the tower,” he shouted orders along a pointing arm and watchmen armed with bows ran single file into the hospital, The Eagle and the Rose tower.
“Thank you, Flendin the Blade. Thank you for killing The Terrant.”
I should tell him it was Bent who’d done the damage. It was he who pulled The Terrant down many stories to a crash landing, dazing it, confusing it. Me and Smidgen did the easy bit. We had just hit it. Lots. “It had it coming,” I said gruffly. What a hero.
“Have you seen Haven?”
I shook my head, “I’ve hardly had time,” I said. “I’ll go tonight, when it’s dark.”
It was Bannin’s turn to shake his head, and he said, “I suggest you go now.”
Sheriff Bannin was pushy as hell. I thought he’d forgotten who held all the cards in this game of nereck. Perhaps I should tell him how it is. “Just keep reminding yourself who killed The Terrant,” I said, adding, “and while you’re at it who’s going to sort out Haven. The moment you start contributing to the welfare of this city I’ll stop and pay you some attention.” How times had changed. I sounded almost respectable defending the city as I did. I made to walk away. The cheek of the man.
“Captain Tankready,” a watchman yelled down from his elevated position on a dividing wall. “It’s Captain Tankready.” The man’s arm was straight as an arrow and pointing south to the open ground just outside the city.
Excitement ignited like wildfire and cheers erupted all around me again only this time they weren’t directed at me. Those hard at work cleaning up the plaza stopped to throw their arms in the air in exultation. Captain Tankready was the toughest Neveren I made a point of keeping my distance from. And I thought him long dead.
Bannin rolled his eyes like his thunder had just been usurped. “Captain Tankready is coming,” he repeated.
“I thought he got eaten by a Turned the night the King was killed.” I couldn’t hide my disappointment.
“So did I. It seems the tough bastard finally managed to fight his way out.”
“Hell,” said I.
Bannin sighed. Everything sat heavy with him.
“What else?” It didn’t take a soothsayer to predict my trouble didn’t start and end with the sudden inexplicable appearance of the bellicose Captain. “What else?” I said again.
The watchman on the wall screamed out, “Turned.” And suddenly every sword, poleaxe and sharp implement was drawn simultaneously.
Bannin looked agitated as a watchman approached to whisper in his ear. “He’s running for his life and Turned, all of them by the looks of it are giving chase.”
Oh hell, no time to think straight. “Get that bastard Captain inside the walls then draw out the planet-stones. Secure the city as best you can.”
“You do for Haven,” said Bannin.
“I’ll go now. I’ll get the Neverens out of Tambroite. Bent, Smidgen, stay here and help the watch, kill the Turned.” I flicked my hood up, cleaned my sword by dragging it along the hem of my coat and slid the notched blade into the back scabbard.
The joy of killing The Terrant had passed and Smidgen and me were no longer celebrities. As I’d foreseen so accurately, the moment had passed.