Big Teeth: A Steampunk Fairy Tale (The Clockwork Republic Series)

by French, Katina

  It rolled brass and steel shoulders, the movement suddenly more fluid, less mechanical. The tilt of the creature's head, the balance of it on its feet, were different, lighter, faster.

  Lu paused a moment, caught in a tangle of raw, feral horror. The thing now moved almost like a living creature, far more naturally than any of the clunking clockwork automatons she'd ever seen. Mechanicals required constant direction, except for the simplest repetitive tasks. Creating one capable of acting freely was a crime whose penalty was death everywhere in the known world. Lu watched as the evidence of Evelyn's illegal activity snorted and crouched, preparing to leap after her from across the broad lawn.

  So much for the laws of man and science.

  The Snow Queen had built a mechanical monster to guard her secrets. Now Lu had set it loose.

  She scrabbled up into the saddle and spurred Bernadette into the woods. Maybe the wolf would stop at the end of Derringer's property. Maybe it would turn back when it reached the town limits. Maybe it couldn't maneuver well through the uneven ground of the Appalachian woods and foothills.

  Even as her desperate brain rattled off those possibilities, she knew they weren't likely. The Snow Queen didn't let people get away with trying to steal from her. Somehow, she suspected the wolf would pursue her till it shredded her into ragged, bloody chunks.

  Her small hope shattered as she galloped past the edge of town. The wolf rumbled after them with no hesitation. Bernadette was faster, but not by much, and not for long.

  The wolf need not stop for rest, food or water. It'd just keep coming till it caught her. If the horseless steam carriages she'd seen were any indication, the alchemical coal burning away in its belly could last for days. It didn't need to outrun her. It just had to outlast her.

  She whipped out her pistol, turning around in the saddle as much as she dared, and firing at the infernal machine. Her aim was true, but the bullet glanced off its metal skull. The beast's head jerked back a bit, almost like a flinch, but it didn't slow down.

  Her mind raced to think of a place she could reach before her pony gave out. Only one possibility sprang to mind. There was no way she could make it all the way across the Tennessee border to the Caravan. None of the local miners or settlers would willingly offer her sanctuary. But there was one person who might offer it grudgingly. At least, if the blood flowing through her veins counted for anything to someone who shared it.

  Granny Pearl was her only hope. Granny Pearl hated her.

  Hopefully, she didn't hate her enough to let her die on the doorstep.

  Lu pointed Bernadette towards Granny's cabin, weaving a reckless pattern through the woods. The metal creature was slowed a bit by thick brush and vines wrapped around fallen trees Bernadette could jump over. The paint pony never stumbled, despite the terror behind her. Low branches and thorny boles of devil's walking stick clutched at Lu's red cloak, but she didn't dare take a clearer path, for fear of losing the precious distance they'd gained.

  Chapter Three

  The new people called him Tom Woodmancy. It was better than listening to them gargle over his Shawnee name, Tenskwatawa.

  He didn't know what "Tom" meant, other than "easier to say than my real name." New people didn't have names that meant real things anyway, most of the time. At least the "Woodmancy" part meant something. His clan was shaman, and the foreigners called his people's priests "woodmancers." He'd heard a word, "druid," some of them said meant the same thing. A druid or woodmancer listened to the woods, could pull the magic from trees and wield it. Like his own people, the new people once had priests who could speak to the woods and ask the woods for protection. He sometimes wondered why they'd stopped.

  He was in Kaintuck to do a bit of trading before winter set in. The foreigners called his land "The Free Nation of Indiana."

  Foreigners called their lands republics instead of tribes or clans or nations, but it was the same as it had always been. The land was a patchwork. Sickness and battle had thinned the numbers of the first people after the new people came. They'd drawn back, clans and tribes came together, merged into lands and numbers they could hold. They'd ringed the land with high walls and guard posts manned by their priests. The villages were closer than before the new people came, but that was more a comfort than anything else. It meant the new people left them in peace.

  The new people talked for a while of uniting under one tribe, after their war with the chief-across-the-sea a hundred years ago. Nothing more than talk had come of it. They couldn't hold together. He couldn't imagine a single tribe covering the whole land between the seas. The lands they called colonies before their war, they called republics or territories after it. They could call their lands republics or territories. They could call their priests "alchemists," and their warriors "soldiers." It didn't matter what they called it all.

  Magic was magic, fighting was fighting, land was land. They'd fought like jealous brothers for years. But there was not so much fighting lately. Nobody seemed to want land badly enough to deal with fighting or magic. So now, there was trade. Tenskwatawa had visited several of their cities and villages over the past few years.

  The new people were fascinated with building things. They built tall houses, and wagons that didn't need horses. They built ships that sailed the sky and men made of metal to serve them.

  Tenskwatawa had seen these metal men, which they called 'gens, while trading in their cities. But he'd never seen anything like the metal beast that stalked the red-hooded girl on the painted pony.

  It was more like a wolf than the metal men were like men. The metal men had the shape, but not the spirit, of a person. They moved, but didn't live or reason.

  His spirit could see the spirit of a real wolf bound to the metal wolf. The enraged wolf-spirit quivered from within the metal flesh like it was a spring trap it could not escape.

  Something else bound it. Some power drew the wolf after the girl. The wolf-spirit could not stop pursuing her any more than it could exit the loathsome metal body. It poured all its rage into catching and killing her. Perhaps that would release it.

  Too bad for the girl.

  He'd been traveling on horseback through the forest on his way to one last trading post before heading back home. He preferred to travel at night. Less chance of running into trouble that way. The girl on her pony made enough racket to scare off any game for miles, but the abomination following her might as well have been a tornado: deafening, brutal and unstoppable.

  He turned to go his own way. It was none of his concern. If the new people wanted to build monsters, then let their monsters kill them. Let their foolishness be its own punishment. He loosened the reins on his own horse, which had spooked a bit at the noise from the others' passing. He adjusted his pack, checking to see that it was secure.

  Something hard smacked into his head with stunning force. A black walnut bounced to the ground beside him. He blinked, shook his head, and looked up in the dark sky, patterned with inky branches, sparse leaves, and stars sprinkled between them. Nothing moved. He started to move his horse back onto the path.

  Another walnut came crashing down on his skull.

  One could be bad luck. Might even be the result of standing too close to the storm cloud of dark magic trailing after the damned wolf-spirit in its metal cage.

  Two was not just bad luck. He looked up again. This time, Squirrel was clearly visible in the starlight, bristled tail swishing in agitation. He chattered angrily at Tenskwatawa, a third walnut clutched in his tiny paws.

  "Squirrel," he said softly "it's none of my business. She's not my kin. I didn't trap the wolf."

  Squirrel glared, whiskers twitching. He brandished the third walnut with menace.

  Tenskwatawa, whom the new people called Tom Woodmancy, sighed in resignation.

  He turned and followed the swath of trampled brush left by the pony and the wolf, patting his saddlebag to check for the small axe he always carried. It usually served to clear a path when he needed it. Tonigh
t he might need it to serve as a weapon.

  Chapter Four

  Bernadette streaked through a small break in the trees. A tiny plot of open ground surrounded Granny Pearl's cabin. When they reached it, Lu spurred the pony to a last burst of speed.

  The wolf was hard on her heels. A slow scroll of smoke furled out the cabin's chimney and a dim candle burned in one window. Granny was at home, and awake. Finally, something had gone her way.

  Assumin she opens the door.

  Seeing her chance, Lu slipped her feet out of the stirrups, slid one leg across Bernadette's backside. They had covered half the distance across the clearing. Without anything to slow it down, the wolf had to be gaining on them. Bernadette whinnied in panic.

  "Granny! Open the door! It's Lulabelle!" Lu shrieked.

  She jumped to the ground, tucking and rolling to avoid having the breath knocked out of her. Rolling back onto her feet, she fled towards the cabin as fast as her legs could carry her. The terrified paint hadn't even slowed down, bolting right past her, a brown and white blur disappearing around the cabin.

  The door flung open.

  Granny stood in the door, shotgun propped up against her stooped, bony shoulder.

  "I've told you, chile, yain't welcome here!" she shouted.

  At that exact moment, she saw the mechanical wolf charging behind Lu. The barrel of her gun dropped several inches in surprise.

  Lu seized the opportunity to slap the gun barrel down a few more inches. She shoved her grandma back into the cabin.

  As Granny yelled, both indignant and terrified, Lu slammed the door behind them. She slapped down a heavy wooden beam, barring it. Hardly a moment later, something slammed into the door with vicious force. The thick wooden door and the beam crossing it shuddered, but held fast. A second later, the wolf crashed into it again. And again.

  The door was holding.

  In a flash, Lu skittered over to the window, jerking a rope. A heavy wooden shutter clattered shut outside. Thank God the beast was focused on the door. The oil paper covering Granny's windows wasn't going to provide much protection.

  She turned to run into the other room and drop that shutter, and nearly ran into Granny. The old woman had raised the shotgun again, and pointed it at her.

  "What in tarnation were ya thinkin, girl? You've lead the wolf to my door, just like I always said you would!"

  Lu pushed the barrel of the shotgun out of her face, slipping around her grandmother. The old woman wobbled off balance and landed hard on a bench. Lu didn't stop.

  "Yeah, Granny, but I don't think either o' us figgered it'd actually be a wolf. Much less a metal one!" Lu threw up her hands in exasperation. She had to get to that other window before the wolf noticed it. Granny's stubbornness would be the death of them both.

  She rushed into the other room, yanking the rope that dropped the shutter. Oak shutters couldn't hold out a determined brass and steel automaton forever. At least it bought them a little time. The back door to the cabin was already closed and barred for the night.

  "What trouble have ya dragged me into now, girl?"

  Chapter Five

  Granny was back on her feet. She still held her shotgun, but at least she wasn't pointing it at Lu anymore. Although, by the look on her face, she might've been debating whether it was too late to shoot her and toss her out the window.

  Not that Granny could have hefted her that high. She was pretty tough for a woman her age, but she was a good head shorter than Lu. Years and grief had bowed her spine even since the last time Lu had seen her years ago. But the dark brown, nearly black eyes reminded her of Ma, Clarabelle.

  Ma had been Pearl's only child who'd survived to adulthood. Two boys, one older and one younger than Ma, had died as babies. Papaw Fred had left her a widow not long after the youngest passed, from the same fever. Lu had never known him, aside from the faded daguerreotype that sat on the mantel over Granny's fireplace.

  Granny hadn't ever consented to the marriage between her daughter and Gregory. He was already the Robber Baron of the Caravan when they'd met. But Ma could be just as stubborn as her mother, in her own way. She'd run off with the dashing young scoundrel, and taken to Caravan life like she'd been born in a painted wagon.

  Pearl had warmed a bit to Pa when Lu was born. Lu could faintly remember visits to the cabin as a little girl. A ragged doll Granny Pearl had made and given to her one Christmas still lay tucked into a chest in her wagon back home.

  Then Ma died. Pa didn't like to talk about it. All Lu remembered was Pa and Ma heading out one night with a big group, laughing and bragging about the haul they were going to bring back. By the next morning, Pa and a few others had managed to drag themselves back to camp, nursing wounds and weeping over the fallen. Caravan tradition held that when a job went sideways, you left the dead where they fell. Pa refused to leave Ma's body. The few survivors had carried her, limping themselves, all the way back.

  Pa broke tradition again by leaving the camp to tell Granny about their loss in person. The old woman told Pa never to darken her door again. Lu could still remember the tears and shouting, the awful words hurled back and forth between them. Grief had twisted their previous differences into a fathomless ravine.

  Lu had been too little to understand why the people who loved her mother so much were filled with hate for each other now.

  Pa had bundled her up and rode away, vowing neither would ever return.

  Would ya rather I let the wolf take me, Pa?

  Lu sagged down onto the floor, exhausted. She didn't like to question Pa's decisions, but they seemed to be conspiring to make her life pretty difficult at the moment. If he disapproved of her seeking shelter here, she'd just have to deal with it later. Right now, she needed to concentrate on getting back to the Caravan in one piece. That meant making peace with Granny Pearl.

  "Ya know I'd never have come if I'da had a choice, Granny. Figgered not wantin to see me didn't mean wantin to see me dead. If that's wrong, I'll try and slip out the back door. Just gimme a minute to catch my breath."

  She slumped against the log wall. The red hood had flown back during her wild escape, and the edges of the cloak were tattered from snatching on branches. She'd lost the scarf which usually held back her curly red hair somewhere between here and Pineville. Her head looked like an explosion in a copper works, coils springing in all directions. Brambles and brush had scraped what felt like half the skin off her arms, and at least three painful scratches stung her face.

  She was lucky her new nickname wasn't "One Eyed Lu" after that ride. The hot, throbbing pain in one ankle was hopefully just a sprain, after jumping off Bernadette.

  In short, she looked like she'd just got in a losing fight with a clockwork hay baler.

  Granny reluctantly lowered the gun, setting it on the table.

  "Not dead, no. Like as not, you'd just haunt me outta spite." The old woman sat back down on the bench, fixing Lu with a hard stare. "Now I'm askin ya again. What in tarnation is that shiny devil tryin to bust down my front door?"

  As if to punctuate her words, the door rattled with another loud crash.

  "It's … well, let's just call it a mechanical guard dog."

  "Well, let me guess. You tried to steal whatever it was guardin?"

  "That's about the size of it."

  "I shoulda known. Just like your Pa. Riskin life and limb to take what ya probably could've had honest, with a little work."

  "Granny, it's not like that. The Caravan's in danger. Pa's in danger.…"

  "Figgers! Good for nothin rascal! Sendin his own child, his own blood, into harm's way to protect his own worthless hide!"

  The wolf continued slamming its metal body against the door, pausing only to scrape at it with steel teeth and brass claws. Its engine snorted and huffed loudly enough to hear over the din.

  Lu started to snap back at Granny, to defend Pa, then she stopped herself.

  Right now, Pa was safe back in Tennessee. In a precarious position, but safe.
He'd sent her on this job, knowing the risk. She'd always taken it as an honor, a sign of his trust in her skills, when he sent her out on a job despite the danger. But right now, it wasn't her skill keeping her safe. It was Granny's cabin door.

  The door was made of aged hard rock maple, dried and baked by the sun and the warmth of a cabin fire till it was near as solid as stone. Lu wasn't sure whether metal or maple would give first. At least they'd be a while finding out. She hoped the beast didn't think of testing the shutters. Those were certainly less sturdy than the door or the log walls.

  The machine was relentless, not smart.

  As she opened her mouth to say "Thank you" for letting her in, a loud clattering echoed through the chimney, followed by a wet plop. Both Granny and Lu looked at the fireplace. Something had dropped into the cast iron kettle of water hung by a hook over the cinders.

  "Now what?" Granny skittered over to the kettle, pulling it out with a hook and peering into it. "Well, I'll be danged."

  In the kettle, sitting beneath the water, was a polished river stone. Someone had written a word on it in oily black charcoal. It said "Help?"

  "Help? Who in tarnation would ask for help at a time like this?"

  Lu sighed. "Granny. I think someone is askin if we need help."

  Granny frowned, doubtful anyone would see the steel monster battering her front door and do anything but run screaming the other direction.

  "Can't imagine any o' my useless neighbors doin that. Can't imagine your people bein willin to risk their hides, neither. So who do ya suppose it might be?"

  "You're wrong. They're too far away for it to be them, but Caravan folk take care o' their own."

  "Well, that explains what happened to my Clara. She weren't none o' their own, I reckon. At least, not when it mattered."

  Lu dropped the rock back in the water and headed for the back door.