Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess gg-2

by Phil Foglio

  A blue lance of energy sizzled into the rock wall, blasting away chunks of stone, along with a number of the creatures that were pouring out of an opening under the bridge, clinging effortlessly to the bridges underside, and clambering across the chasm.

  Realizing that further secrecy was pointless, they shrieked in unison, and began to pull themselves up and over the bridge walls, as well as the cliff in front of the defenders, where they had obviously been hiding.

  It was possible that they’d been human, once. If so, they’d been impossibly stretched out. Their arms and legs, fingers and toes, were long and thin, and they moved with a snapping sound that filled the air. Their faces were stretched as well, their lips pulled back in a rictus of rage by their chisel-like teeth. Their eyes glowed red as they swarmed towards the startled performers. There were hundreds of them.

  The deepening twilight was shattered by the sounds of two dozen weapons going off in unison. The first wave of creatures collapsed, exploded, or were blown backwards into the chasm. Instantly they were replaced by a fresh wave.

  Thundering Engine Woman swore as she snapped a fresh set of rounds into her massive twelve shooters. “There’s too many of them and they’re coming too fast.”

  Zeetha leapt forward and skimmed across the cliff edge, slicing as she ran, tumbling another dozen of their attackers off. “Perhaps we die. But we fight to give the wagons time to escape.”

  Raucous laughter filled the night. Stopping circus performer and monster alike. “Ho ho ho! Now vot’s de fun in dot?”

  Atop one of the circus wagons stood the three Jägermonsters from Zumzum. The one in the middle continued, “Ve fights to keel!”

  And with a howl, they leapt, transforming in midair into a whirling blur of teeth, claws and sharp metal that mowed down monsters wherever it touched. “Come on, hyu keeds,” the purple skinned cavalier sang out, “Hyu gots to fight like hyu means it!”

  The wielder of the great pole axe added cheerfully, “Dere’s lots uv monsters for efferyvun! Woo hoo!”

  Master Payne blinked, and then his voice roared over the battlefield, “DON’T SHOOT THE JÄGERS!”

  The green Jäger tore the throat out of a creature, turned to Payne and elegantly tipped his hat in thanks, before whirling back into the fray.

  Along with the Jägers, Zeetha carved a swath of destruction that earned her a constant stream of admiring comments from the monster soldiers. The four of them gave the other performers time to reload and recharge their weapons before unleashing another pyrotechnic volley.

  “These damned creatures go down blessedly easy,” Dame Ædith remarked as she fired another sharpened stake into a creature’s eye.

  Abner glanced under the bridge. By the dying glow of the molten rock where Agatha’s weapon had struck, he could see that the flow of monsters from the tunnel under the bridge was unabated. “Yes, but how many of these things are there?”

  Krosp had also been watching the rhythm of the battle and did not like what he was seeing. Despite their best efforts, the circus was retreating. Step-by-step they were receding from the edge of the chasm, which allowed the monsters more room. A small part of his brain noted and filed the fact that although they leapt and swirled throughout the battlefield, there was always at least one Jäger within two meters of Agatha.

  This was good, as after the first blast, her gun had begun to smoke, and she was pressed up against one of the circus wagons, a multi-tool in her hand, frantically poking about inside it.

  A groan next to her caused her to look up. Professor Moonsock was preparing to ignite a fresh whip, but she had paused, a sick look on her face. “They didn’t make it,” she said dully. “Augie and Lars are cut off.” Agatha saw that this was all too true.

  The two had reached the center of the bridge, but the sound of the horses’ shoes had no doubt alerted the creatures underneath, and they had swarmed up and over the sides in numbers impossible to push through. The two men were now hemmed in. Their horses were rearing and wheeling, dealing terrible damage with their iron shod feet, while Lars swung a large sword with deadly efficiency.

  Augie fired a last shot from a large rifle, and then started using it as a club. The sight caused Agatha to gasp, “Lars!”

  One of the Jägers followed her gaze and then grinned at her. “Ho! Hyu vant heem?” He bellowed out a roar, which was answered by the other two Jägers, who immediately started cutting a swath in their direction. He continued to Agatha, “Ve go get heem!” To the other two he commanded, “To de bridge!” With a howl they chopped their way through the advancing hoard.

  A movement in the distance caught Abner’s eye. He grabbed the telescope, swung it up to his eye, and cursed.

  Krosp leapt over an outstretched monster’s claws and landed next to him. “What?”

  Abner pointed to the distant road. “More of them. A lot more of them are coming out of the woods and are heading straight towards us.”

  Krosp hissed and jumped to a higher vantage point. He cupped his paws before his face and shouted. “We need to take out the bridge! Destroy the bridge!”

  Payne ignited another monster and stepped back. “Timmonious,” he roared. “The explosives in Red Wagon!”

  “Insufficient,” a small man in a large leather apron replied. He paused to squirt a stream of liquid at a set of attackers who screamed as they began to smoke furiously and threw themselves over the precipice. “It’s a very well constructed bridge! Look at the care they took placing the—” His analysis was terminated by a monstrous claw closing over his head.

  “I think I can do something about it,” Agatha shouted. Her work within the depths of the gun had new purpose. “But I want to wait until Lars and Augie are safe.”

  On the bridge, one of the horses had been pulled down from under Augie. The other was still holding its own against a ring of monsters, but was obviously tiring. The two men were trying to stay close enough to the remaining horse that they were protected by its desperately flailing hooves without being struck by them themselves. It was a nerve-wracking position.

  They were surrounded by a ring of monsters, clustered thickly enough that they continually got in each other’s way. Lars chopped and slashed with his sword, while Augie had replaced his now shattered rifle with a pair of large, ornate hammers.

  For a lack of anything better to talk about, the two were arguing. “These are Monrovian dueling hammers,” Augie explained patiently.

  “They look ridiculous,” Lars retorted. “I’m going to be embarrassed to be found dead within three meters of them. Someone might think I was using them.”

  This was ended by one of the Jägers appearing between the two startled men. “Ho ho! Hyu iz wery fonny guyz. Hyu gots to poots dot in hyu show!”

  “Don’t encourage him,” Lars replied hotly.

  Abner squinted through the telescope. “Are... are they chatting?”

  “I’m surprised they’re not dancing!” Agatha slammed the cover down on the gun, which had started vibrating as more and more lights began to come on along its length. “CLEAR THE BRIDGE!” she yelled.

  “Hoy! Time to go!” Effortlessly, the Jäger scooped up Lars and Augie and tucked them under his arms. The other two Jägers had swept the immediate area free of monsters, and although more continued to pour over the side of the bridge, the structure was clear enough that they were able to head back at a trot.

  “A gurl like dot,” the Jager explained, “Ven she sez ‘moof ’—” The remaining two Jägers answered in cheerful chorus, “Hyu MOOF!”

  The circus performers concentrated their fire on the remaining creatures on the bridge, allowing the retreating party to move relatively unhindered. As soon as they touched the road, Agatha wound up and slung the now sparking gun with all her might. It arced towards the center of the bridge. Just before it would have landed, it detonated with a blue-white explosion that knocked everyone to the ground.

  When the lights faded from her eyes, Agatha could see that the bridge
was gone. There was nothing left but some stone rubble growing out of the ancient chasm walls.

  Around her, everyone else began to climb to his or her feet. The creatures were up first, but instead of attacking, they stared at the remnants of the bridge and shrieked in despair. The nearest one to Agatha unfroze and swiveled towards her just as Master Payne stepped up behind it and ran it through with a cutlass. The creature coughed wetly as the sword pushed out through its chest, and it bonelessly collapsed when it was withdrawn. Looking around Agatha saw that the remaining creatures were going down with similar ease.

  On the opposite side of the chasm, a growing crowd of monsters could be seen. They screamed and shook their fists at the circus, a few of them getting so excited that they fell, shrieking, into the depths.

  Once the monsters around them were dispatched, some of the performers began to turn their weapons on these observers. After the first few fell, the rest retreated and loped back up the road.

  The circus milled around. Lars began to shake. “We... we did it! We got out!” His voice began to rise.

  Abner swore and pushed towards him. “Oh no, not now...”

  The Jäger nearest Agatha, the wielder of the great pole-axe, raised his eyebrows questioningly and jerked a large clawed thumb towards Lars. “Vot’s hiz problem?”

  “Lars gets hysterical after a fight,” Agatha explained. “It’s hard to calm him down.”

  The Jäger walked over to Lars and rabbit punched the back of his head. With a sigh, Lars collapsed onto the roadway. The Jäger turned back to Agatha and smiled proudly. “No it ain’t.”

  Agatha looked at Lars. “Oh dear. I’m sure that’s wrong,” she looked over at Zeetha. “Although I can’t think why.”

  Abner turned to Augie, who was staring at the nearest Jäger in horrified fascination. “How are you feeling?”

  “Wonderful!” Augie proclaimed loudly, “Never better! Calm and collected!”

  The green Jäger nodded. “Hokay.”

  Master Payne had been examining one of the dead monsters. With a grunt, he climbed to his feet. “All right, Augie. What’s the story?”

  The older man sighed and leaned against the nearest wagon. “We didn’t get much past the bridge when Lars began to get twitchy. It took us awhile to figure out why. There weren’t any other riders. There wasn’t any sign that there had been any riders from the town for quite awhile. Lars insisted we leave the road and he looked around. That’s when we noticed that there weren’t any animals. Not even birds. This is spring, they should be all over the place. But we couldn’t find any active burrows. No fresh nests. No fresh tracks. No droppings. No bodies. No bones. Nothing.”

  Agatha looked troubled. “But you kept going.”

  Taki handed Augie a bottle of brandy. He gratefully took a pull from the bottle and wiped his mouth. “Passholdt isn’t just any old town we can swing around, Miss Clay. There’re only a few passes open this early in the year. It was a hard winter.”

  Abner spoke up. “We’ve seen dead towns before. They’re creepy, but we can pass through them if we must. Plus, it’s always possible that while the surrounding area might be affected, the town itself might have held out and is still secure.” He looked at Augie questioningly.

  The advance man wearily shook his head. “No such luck. We stayed off the road and in the woods as long as we could. The farms around the town were deserted. A few were burned out, but the rest were just abandoned. All the livestock is gone. So was the stored grain and seed stock. The silage lofts were mostly full. Whatever happened, happened last fall or over the winter.

  “We finally got within sight of the town. The fields were empty. Haven’t even been turned. The city walls are still intact. We didn’t see any smoke, or sentries, but Lars still took over an hour sneaking up to a tree tall enough that he could look over the wall.”

  Augie took another deep drink. “Inside the walls, he said that most of the buildings looked intact, but there were smashed carts and wagons and bones. Bones everywhere. Apparently people kept coming to Passholdt for quite awhile.” Another drink.

  “And crawling over everything were those... things. There weren’t any people or animals. Just them. They were sprawled on the roofs, shambling through the buildings, picking through the bones. Hundreds of them. Thousands, probably. Lars said that as he was climbing down, he snapped a dry branch. Just one as big around as your finger,” Augie held up an index finger to demonstrate. It was shaking slightly.

  “He said that the ones nearest to him whipped their heads around towards him and started shrieking. That spread through the whole town and they all started running towards us. Well, he dropped five meters straight down to the ground and we grabbed the horses and started running.” He looked at the remnants of the bridge and a shudder went through him. “And they still beat us here,” he whispered. “We were damned lucky they started from inside the town.”

  Master Payne turned away and looked at the bridge. “Well, no one will get caught by them from this direction. Unfortunately, this leaves us in a bit of a predicament.”

  “Us?” Agatha gestured over the chasm. “What about the townspeople?”

  Augie looked at her. “For all we know those were the townspeople.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “How the devil would I know?”

  Agatha nodded. “Losing the bridge will certainly make it more challenging, but it does mean that they won’t be expecting anyone to come from this direction. That’s good.”

  Master Payne looked at her blankly. “Good for what?”

  “Our attack on Passholdt.”

  Abner blinked. “Our what?”

  Agatha shrugged. “Attack might be the wrong word,” she conceded. “But we have to do something to try to save the people of Passholdt. I guess the first step will be to analyze one of these corpses and see if these creatures were once human. Perhaps we can—”

  The concentrated glares from her assembled listeners finally registered, and Agatha’s monologue stumbled to a halt. “No?” she asked.

  Master Payne sighed and removed his spectacles. “Many newcomer Sparks make the same mistake, Miss Clay. But I confess that I’d thought you more... grounded[31].”

  Agatha was confused. “I don’t understand.”

  Payne nodded. “We are actors, Miss Clay. We only pretend to be heroes.” He spread his hands and his spectacles hovered in midair. “We are fakes. These are tricks. Our lives, the lives I am responsible for, are dangerous enough without questing for adventure. We are Sparks, yes, but pitifully weak ones, and we know this. It is this knowledge, the knowledge of just how weak we are, that keeps us alive.”

  Agatha interrupted, “But the town—”

  Payne snatched the floating spectacles from the air and slammed his great fist down upon a wagon yoke. “At our next stop we will inform the Baron’s people. These are his lands? He can keep them clean!”

  Agatha tried one last time. “But—”

  “BUT NOTHING!” Payne roared. “For all we know, those things are... are some new form of revenant, and the only thing that can be done for them is to kill them!” He wheeled about and looked Agatha in the eye. “Could you burn down people? Women and children? Even if you knew—you knew, that they had irrevocably become monsters?”

  Agatha tried to step back, and found her way blocked by the side of a wagon. She swallowed. “I... no...” She looked down. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  Payne stepped closer. “The Baron can. The Baron has. I respect him for that, but I do not want to be him. No sane man would.” He grasped Agatha’s chin in his hand and dragged her eyes back up to face his own. “Now you drop any ideas you have about being another Othar Tryggvassen, unless you want to leave my show and manage your heroics on our own. Do you understand?”

  “Yes!” Agatha wrenched her head from his hand. “Yes, I understand!” Tears filled her eyes, “But I don’t have to like it.” She turned to go and found Zeetha blocking her wa
y.

  Zeetha reached out and grasped Agatha’s shoulders. “Remember this,” she hissed. “Remember this union of understanding and rage. This is the balance that will keep you fighting. And to make sure you remember this occasion—” Agatha’s eyes widened in fear—until Zeetha slung a comforting arm across her shoulder. “A drink.”

  As a relieved Agatha was led away, Payne turned back to the rest of the circus, who were busy not meeting his eyes, until he clapped his great hands together. “I don’t like it either,” he announced quietly. “But I like dying even less. Move out.”

  At this, a collective sigh went up from the group. They dispersed and soon the wagons began rumbling down the hill. Payne stood apart looking out at the ruined bridge until Abner came up and coughed discreetly.

  Payne nodded without turning. “Is the warning sign posted[32]?”

  “Yessir. Of course, we’ll want to post another at the turn off.”

  Payne nodded again. Now that the bridge was out, there was no reason for anyone to climb the two-kilometer slope. He hoped the Baron would take care of this soon, but it was quite possible that he would abandon the road, and simply increase the amount of air traffic to the area. Payne had seen it happen before. He gave a final pat to the ancient stonework before he turned away. It had been a very good bridge.

  Abner continued. “I told Dr. Kleeporg to preserve one of the monsters. I thought the Baron might want it[33].”

  Payne again nodded. “Good. Now let’s get moving. I want us as far as we can get by morning. Anything else?”

  A voice rumbled from above his head. “Vell, now dot hyu mentions it...”

  The two men spun in surprise. The green Jäger was squatting on the roof of the cart, a huge grin smeared over his face. “Hello dere.”

  Payne visibly pulled himself together. He had found himself facing far worse while traveling in the Wastelands. “My humble thanks,” he said sincerely. “You really helped us here.”