Rusted Heroes

by Andrew Post

  Because of Erik’s use of odious in She, Who Was Fire, a muckraker started referring to them as the Odium, the voluntarily despised, in his articles. It caught on. And neither the revolutionaries nor Erik minded it. Every cause needed to be called something, as well as every group behind the cause. The Odium it was.

  The inclined were freed. That was the first move. As each gifted wizard and wizardess was brought back into the suns they hadn’t seen in years, they were given food and water and brought back to New Delta City. They gained a friend in the Adventurer Company, one of the thrill-rag publishers. Each of the stories the inclined brought back from the Hall was published. The old plates of thrill-rags were tossed aside. Only truth would be published from now on. One inclined told Erik that the Hall had more solid books on its shelves day by day. Things were being learned. Naysayers abounded, of course. But as time passed and more tomes became solid, the truth, unbidden, proved to be stronger than any wall of doubt.

  The inclined helped the Odium in other ways. Elixirs soon became unnecessary. Clean magick replaced chemicals. New ways of doing anything sprang up all over Rammelstaad. The deep prisons, in their far-flung corners of the map, became the places where the paid-off corrupt were being shoved—into cells that had wrongfully housed the inclined for years. The edges became clear as the Odium grew—they had a focus, one last pin to topple. Plans were made.

  Erik watched out the coffeehouse window, thinking again, as he often had, about her. When a shot was fired, the bodies rushed forward in their sashes and armbands and carrying Erik’s words on placards above their heads. One of the odious ones barged in and told Erik, “We’re heading in! We’re ready! It’s today!”

  Erik raced out with the others, proudly tying his own sash across his heart. The mass of bodies pushed back against the blackcoats, downing more of them than sacrificing their own. Soon, once the blackcoats had retreated to call for reinforcements and draw up a new strategy, Erik followed his brothers and sisters, fellow odious ones, back to the palace square. They’d been there this morning but were forced to pull back when the blackcoats had stormed in, flanking from both the side and behind.

  They could continue their work. With some of the rebels facing out, six-guns and rifles and farming implements as makeshift weapons, the workers could continue. Erik himself picked up a hammer. He had to have another odious one set the nails for him. They trusted him to swing and not crush their hand. The wood was soft, and his hammering wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t need to be a structure that’d last forever. It would need to stand for only one use; it could come down afterward. Or it could remain until it rotted away. A temporary monument to mark the new Age.

  When his arm became too weak to continue, Erik appointed another odious one to take over hammering. He stood back to look up at the balcony, under which they were building the guillotine. The Ma’am’s curtains shifted; they were always shifting. Her cabinet people or servants or Committeemen kept peeking out. They’d probably been tasked to get a look and they’d return to her chamber, bowing as they entered, to reassure the queen that the guillotine wasn’t there for her; that it was for someone else; it was simply a scare tactic; a prop.

  Once the guillotine was finished, Erik and his odious ones had the palace’s front doors as their next objective.

  Then the stairs to the Ma’am’s chambers.

  After that, the struggle to peel her away from all her little people angling to be near her—or replace her. None of them would replace her, if any of them intended to lead as she had. Like infected broken fingers, they’d be cut away to leave a shiny nub. Not quite as functional, no, but clean. They’d adapt to the loss.

  The curtains shifted one last time before the final nail was driven in and the odious ones began ramming the door with long lumber poles. And Ursula Stellen-Austenhoff saw Erik, and Erik saw her. He shielded his eyes from Aurorin and Teanna. Ursula didn’t pull away. She looked, and he looked, one above and one below . . . soon to both be below. Then one no longer had their head on their shoulders. Erik wondered if the Ma’am had read his book, had become aware of what her people now knew. The look in her eyes certainly said she did.

  Erik turned to see those he called his brothers and sisters—and he could see Anoushka in each and every one of them. Her spirit, her vigor, transferred; printed, perhaps. He feared what he’d helped create. That pebble, nudged, had started a landslide. He imagined it as a boulder, as great as the Burned Mountain, rolling forever only to loop around behind Gleese and reappear some far-off day on the reverse horizon, behind him and his odious ones, pushed by different hands. To crush them and replace them, with a new call that challenged that of the Odium. On a long enough measure, corruption in anyone given power is inevitable.

  But for right now, it was still fresh and honest and moving in what felt like a necessary direction. Erik could hear her voice in theirs. It was intoxicating. He could hear her among the chorus screaming for the Ma’am to come down, come down, come down—clearest of all in the song of one particular throat.

  Acknowledgments

  For musical insight: Jordan Roske and Lazerbeak. And a huge thank-you to Emily Steele and the entire Medallion Press team.

  Soundtrack

  “Metal Health (Bang Your Head)”—Quiet Riot

  “Wasted Years”—Iron Maiden

  “Hero of the Day”—Metallica

  “I Remember You”—Skid Row

  “Ghosts of War”—Slayer

  “Breaking the Law”—Judas Priest

  “Painkiller”—Judas Priest

  “Flesh & Blood”—Girlschool

  “Back in the Saddle”—Aerosmith

  “Behind the Wall of Sleep”—Black Sabbath

  “Bad Reputation”—Joan Jett

  “Nothin’ but a Good Time”—Poison

  “Train in Vain”—The Clash

  “No One Is Innocent”—Sex Pistols

  “Mother of Mercy”—Samhain

  “Paranoid”—Black Sabbath

  “Who Made Who?”—AC/DC

  “The Chase Is Better Than the Catch”—Motörhead

  “Here I Go Again”—Whitesnake

  “Wind of Change”—Scorpions

  “Rusted Heroes”—Slash’s Snakepit