by Lee Bond
Garth clambered to his hands and knees and came eye-to-rivet with what he imagined was the baby toe of a gigantic roboKing intent on squashing one teeny-tiny would-be Savior of Reality into goopy paste. If the size of the toe was any hint, this one was –no matter what Jimmy had said about the last King he’d summoned- was easily fifty feet taller.
“Fuck me sideways.” Garth moaned.
Then, because he couldn’t think of anything better to do right then, Garth Nickels started running for all he was worth, scooting between the tremendous feet of the Big King and aiming himself back towards the path he’d taken.
The only thing on his mind was his hammer. If he could get to the hammer, there was a small chance of doing for this King.
Without it, he’d be Nickels Mincemeat.
The King bellowed in righteous, mechanical fury before hurried after its target, ripping trees free from the roots and making a ruckus loud enough to be heard for miles in every direction.
***
Deezy Cue and his crew of misfits –some gearheads, some wardogs, all loyal- weren’t having the best of years. They’d failed to take down their last two Kings –though the last weren’t on account of their own poor skills, no sir, that Clanging had been well awful- and more than half the crew were down to the last dregs of the old crudey-crude. If –and at this point, it was a big if- if they called themselves up a Big’Un, they’d damn well better manage to take the giant bastard’s head right off.
If they didn’t, if some of them got hurt too serious, well, either they’d come back for one last hurrah as a washout teaching fish at a Door Estate, hoping and praying for a taste of the dark-hearted foul elixir or … or they wouldn’t come back at all. Most were on their last legs and given their druthers, they’d druther not come back, not if the only choice left to ‘em were teaching.
Well, there were always Ickford, but them as spent their time fully in the city never looked too kindly on fallen Kingkillers.
“I say we head all the way down South.” Moaned a voice from the back of the crowd.
This, from Moxy Molly, an irritating scab of a lobber if there ever had been one. Deezy rolled his eyes. “Hain’t no better down Southways, Molly. Crews do each other no matter where you go these days.”
Weren’t that the truth? Times gone past, you could safely summon up your King and have at the lumbering metal monstrosity without having to worry one way or the other about a crew –or, Gods forbid, more than one- sneaking up behind you, taking out your pushers, pullers, thumpers and shooters. Nowadays, though, unless you managed to find yourself an out of the way Kingspawn, you’d be best suited to have twice the number of usual suspects in your gang. Meant a lot less Vicious Elixir to go around, but at least you could be guaranteed of getting some, and all to make sure weren’t done for. Them as did the poaching claimed it were on account of how they owned their points and any wandering crews were fair game. Deezy argued this were bollocks and mad beyond that; King owned all the ‘points and any gaggle as claimed otherwise might one day find themselves facing down their real monarch for true.
Not only that, hey, but gaggles were meant to meander, weren’t they just? They were to travel them open roads, spy upon summat new when the chance arose, not to skulk about in old castles and forgotten buildings, getting weirder and weirder and more violent wi’ each passing hour. Weren’t natural, no it weren’t.
Again, it were all Ickford’s fault. Them as lived there, well, they had a mighty thirst for Vicious Elixir, didn’t they just? Them awful smart smiths and artificers and their thirsty machines, hiring out gaggles as should be movin’ on inwards and onwards –so to speak- to hunt Kings for a percentage instead of the whole pie.
Like as not, they were tougher than nails, them scab crews, nowt more than one or two in each, all capable of doing for Kings and for kin as well. They went where they willed, summoned wherever they wanted, and like as not, them bastard greyskins were the cause of gaggle on gaggle violence!
“We should track down Nicked Jimmy.” Obese Patterson said around a mouthful of jerky. “He’s always running big crews.”
“Heard Nicked Jimmy finally got hisself nicked.” Deezy Cue said with a smirk, wiggling his eyebrows in that way that got Molly and the others laughing fit to burst.
Obese Pat, who they’d picked up outside Willingshire, frowned, so Deezy obliged the fat bastard, wondering all the while how in the hell a gearhead could get so fat.
“Met some bloke, they say, out Blackened Moor way, as you know he does once a year, right? Got the mystery man, who some say is a fish and others says is the absolute opposite of a newbie, took him ‘round Kingspawn Pub, dosed him up right and proper with crudey-crude as folks sometimes does, looking to bind this new fish to his way of thinkin’. You know how it goes.” Deezy Cue shrugged his lumpy shoulders and nodded knowingly.
The crew nodded solemnly, those in the group who’d been introduced to the Dark Iron grip in that way reaching involuntarily for their throats. They did indeed know how it went when you was all bright eyed and bushy tailed. You run into a fella like Nicked Jimmy, well, that brightness and bushiness was burned out of you proper quick.
Deezy Cue took a sip of water and continued on with the tale, eyes scanning the rumpled piece of map-paper they’d secured at great cost from some fella calling himself a carrotgrapher or some such foolishness. No matter the self-important title nor the man’s need to sound more than he were to his friends, the bloke was a map maker, and the slip of paper he’d sold to Deezy Cue held the locations of a half-dozen unused Kingspawn points all over the area. There was supposed to be one nearby, which was what they was doing out in all this nature for in the first place.
Cue sucked at a dagger-sharp tooth. He weren’t normally one for nature of this sort, but when a gaggle was full of nowt but hard luck like they was, what else was there to do?
“Anyways,” Deezy drawled the word out of all natural proportion, “as the story I heard goes, this fishy-fish weren’t no fish at all, but some new kind of beastie dreamed up by our mad monarch. Drank down sixty gallons of the crudey, all to naught.”
“I heard it weren’t no more than half-gallon.” Riddled Smitty said, wrinkling his nose and sticking his tongue out at Deezy, who got this look on his face like he was going to do something about being corrected.
Deezy Cue let the correction slide with a flutter of the map in his hand. “Don’t matter none which way, now do it truly? A quarter-liter or sixty gallons, hain’t a fishy in the world as left standing. So anyways, this fish or beast or what have you does, not only for Nicked Jimmy and his crew, but the wonky-eyed EuroJap Mistar Chang, Sally Ahoy and her lot, and All-Points Eric afore running off into the dark o’ night, screamin’ like the Devil Hisself.”
Obese Pat chewed at his lips. “That’s near on fifty gearheads through and through. Not even a Big’Un can do for a crew that size. You’re sellin’ me a pork pie.”
Deezy and the others laughed. “Mayhap I am, mayhap. But if’n I is, someone sold one to me first, Obese Patterson, you great landwhale of a man. Now. Who knows if we’re reading this piece of paper proper?”
“Hey, Deezy?” Coralline Criss pulled her battered and ill-used field glasses from her handbag. She didn’t use them much any longer because one of the lenses was all but useless and she had hardly the Iron to pay for repairs, but with a bit of imagination and squinting, they worked well enough.
“Aye lass?” Deezy tossed the map to Moxy Mollie, who caught the fluttering piece of paper before it hit the ground. He strolled on over to where Criss was leaning against Large Ronald. “What’s on your mind?”
Criss pointed with a finger at the old forest about a mile away. Her and Ronald had been standing there, wondering what it would be like inside such dense forest when her eyes –much keener than Large Ronald’s by a damn sight- had detected motion. “You got your glasses, hey? Newer than mine? Take a peek there and see if I’m not losing my daft brains.”
Deezy wrinkled his nose
. Two of his crew being bossy in a matter of minutes. Well, they were all run a bit ragged these days, and all rattled at having seen their long-time friend and aces shooter Bob Blammo getting his head squeezed like a pimple. The leader of the gang found his field glasses and took a peek at what had Coralline Criss all worked up. Large Ronald, Deezy noted, was asleep standing up. What a twat.
“I see nowt but forest … well.” Deezy Cue focused the binoculars with a bit of twiddling. “Would you look at that? Appears to be some sort of maniac running this way carrying quite a large hammer. Must’ve seen some ghosties or summat in the deep dark forest over yonder, hey?”
Everyone laughed heartily, if with a tinge of somberness. Men traveling on their lonesome in Arcade City were either madmen or blacksmiths and if what Deezy said was true about him running, he weren’t a blacksmith. Madmen came in all flavors and shapes.
“What if he’s this bloke as what did for Nicked Jimmy et cet?” Obese Patterson asked, readying his chainsaws.
“Wot? You mean the one they call Specter?” Deezy Cue retrained his field glasses on the man running for all he was worth from the trees. He was lugging a big hammer across metal-encased shoulders. Every few seconds, the fleeing man looked over his shoulder before hunkering down and trying to run harder.
Out of curiosity, Deezy Cue switched his field of view to the trees.
His heart near jumped out of his chest. “Nah,” Deezy said shakily. “Nah, that were a … well holy shit, friends o’ mine, it appears as though yon lunatic did find the Kingspawn point we were on the lookabout for and … there it goes again … lookie, them trees, they are shaking.”
And this time, none of the crew needed to guess Deezy Cue knew what he was talking about, had no need to doubt or to assume he was telling more ghost stories to pass the time: an entire section of trees trembled, then blew apart in a haze of kindling.
Then the stentorian, steam-driven scream of a truly pissed off Big’Un reached their ears.
Large Ronald opened his eyes, snorted surprise and reflexively went for his shooters. Deezy Cue put a hand over one of his, and the shootist raised an eyebrow.
“We wait, hey?” Deezy jerked his chin towards the lunatic with the brass hammer. “He set that up on his lonesome, so the payload of Kingsblood will be enormous. We do this right, we can steal it from underneath him, hey? Be tricky, for cert, hain’t but heard it bein’ done, but well worth it, given our poor circumstances.”
The looker and leader grinned at the hungry look of understanding blossoming on everyone’s faces. They were on board. Though it were a risky trick, if they pulled it off, all their problems would be solved for decades.
Risk versus reward was a thing everyone inside Arcade City understood very well.
***
Electronic keyboard strains of Styx thundered through Garth’s beleaguered mind, but the man couldn’t spare the few seconds it’d take to switch things up in the old mental jukebox; no one had ever once said to him that Kings moved like wide receivers who’ve spent the whole night doing speedballs.
So. While Garth Nickels ran away from a hundred foot murderous Kingbot that filled the air every few seconds with shouts of rage far too reminiscent of Godzilla losing his shit in Tokyo, James Young implored a dispassionate listener to give him a job.
Awesome.
Garth risked another quick look over his shoulder. It wasn’t to see if the fucking thing was still chasing him. All he needed to do was feel the earth buckle and tremble beneath his cowardly feet to know that the Kingbot was still on his sorry ass. No, he was looking … yep.
Kingbot had himself a mighty oak tree in one hand and was swinging it around like a golf club.
Super awesome.
“No one fucking said anything about these Ultraman knockoffs using goddamn weapons!” Garth wheezed and snorted and the sound track in his mind skipped and stuttered apace but kept on playing.
The ex-Specter cursed, bellowed the refrain from Blue Collar Man, deked left, zigged right, nearly tripped over his own feet –which were moving faster than they ever had since that time his dad had caught him making out with what had later turned out to be a goddamn Kith- then forged off on a forty-five degree angle, intent on finding a nice, flat plain where he and Kingzilla the SuperBot could duke it out mano e roboto.
“Long nights, impossible odds…” Garth rolled the hammer off his shoulders and prepared himself for the possibility of a scrap right here; the incline of the grassy hill he was looking to run up struck him as a little too steep and …
A humungous leafy hockey stick swung through the air a fraction of an inch too close to his head for comfort. As it was, branches and leaves smacked Garth in the head and sent him tumbling to forward.
The hammer, being carried ‘properly’, did its own thing, which made him distinctly unhappy.
“Shitshitshitshitshit!” Garth tried twisting as he fell, tried to do anything to stop what was happening from happening, but a lack of preparation for being almost-beaned in the head by an oak club the size of a small building conspired to fuck him over pretty thoroughly. Even as Garth fell to his stomach, the only option was to watch the hammer’s pressure plate fall forward towards the earth.
“Fuck me sideways.” Garth moaned miserably. DarkEye barfed up a couple split-second warnings. The ex-Specter tightened his grip and tiny pneumo-clamps in his gauntleted hands ratcheted against the haft. It’d take a lot to break that grip. The thundering earth stopped acting like an earthquake and Kingzilla’s steam-engine driven bellows of rage transformed into ones of glee.
The pneumatic hammer’s pressure plate hit the ground.
White noise filled Garth’s senses and earth filled every open orifice.
***
Deezy Cue et al hooted, gasped and howled in sympathy as they watched the pneumatic hammer collide with the earth, their jocularity redoubling a scant second later when the fool who’d summoned a King on his own suddenly found himself airborne. The looker turned to Patterson. “’s why I don’t let you have a punch-hammer, Pattie. That sort of thing happens all the …”
“Kings Bloody Blood!” Patterson flinched reflexively along with the others. “Kingy-wingy hit that fella with ‘is tree! ‘ammer-man is comin’ this way!”
Deezy Cue spun on a heel, verified that yes, the King had struck his summoner with his mighty oak knobkerrie as though he were playing at sports and that yes, the fool with the punch-hammer was now flying through the air. “All right everyone, let’s … relocate, shall we?”
And so it was that the Deezy Cue Gang did indeed hastily relocate some fifteen feet away from where they stood; long experience told them that –as improbable as it all seemed- the hammer-toting loon was going to land right where they were stood at. If he weren’t dead, the King would resume tromping after him soon enough.
***
Garth cleared his throat and considered where his life had gone wrong. Oh, obviously, his life had gone wrong when he’d accidentally fallen through the substrates of Unreality to wind up in the Engines’ template for a much-loved proto-Reality, but … where had it gone wrong?
It was a toss-up between waking up that one morning, mind buzzing with ideas for Alpha and Bravo and when he’d decided to be all tricky with the fucking hammer.
“Gonna go with the hammer, Mister Trebek.” Garth did his best to rotate himself in midair, preparing himself for the ground that was coming his way with resentful, sullen speed. “What is ‘fucking around with a hammer that obviously has major fucking design flaws?’ for a bazillion dollars? Oh, look. A crew. Jesus fucking Christ. Could this day get any better?”
Garth watched the gaggle run away as fast as they could. A moment later, a brassy bellow of rage shattered the relative silence.
Kingzilla was on the hunt again.
***
Deezy and his crew watched the man fall from the sky, his skilled looker eyes automatically calculating the worth of the hammer in his outstretched hands and the truly mi
raculous network of brass plates and gears encasing hands, forearms, shoulders. The man was a veritable treasure trove of highly prized artificer equipment.
“Well,” Deezy replied casually, “least we know why he thought he could do for a King on his own, hey?”
“Got to be at least gallons of Dark Iron all over ‘im.” Coralline rubbed her hands greedily. “Hopefully he dies when he hits the ground, that way we just strip the corp … ouch.” Their golden-armed buffoon hit the ground with a harsh-sounding thump. Coralline winced.
Obese Patterson pointed with a trembling, sausage-like finger. “Hammer.”
“Oh.” Deezy Cue shook his head once more, and his crew laughed. “This bloke has got the worst luck in the world, hey? If that crash landing didn’t do for ‘im…”
***
Garth came to just as the pneumatic hammer’s overly sensitive and soon-to-be fucking demolished pressure plate tapped the earth ever so gently. There wasn’t a person in the world that would blame him for … deciding, yes … deciding to take a brief nap during his date with destiny.
The familiar click-hiss-boom of the nanotech-driven demonic weapon of bullshit popped in Garth’s ears and he suddenly found himself airborne again.
“Maybe …” Garth said this hesitantly, eyes drinking in the surroundings, confident that he was the only person in recent history to get such a bird’s eye view of Arcade City, “maybe building locks into the haft of this fucking thing so I wouldn’t accidentally let go during battle mode was a stupid fucking idea!”
At least the arms were doing their job by eating up all the strain of being launched into the air like a spring-driven dufus.
With a new and wondrous vantage point of Arcade City at his command, Garth opted to memorize as much of the lay of the land as he could instead of focusing on Kingzilla the First; if this splash down didn’t turn his bones to dust and send his precious insides squirting all over the landscape, there was a really fucking good chance that either the crew –currently moving even further out of the way- or the Kingbot –who was tracking his ascent with eerie sophistication- would; if he survived, knowing the best way to … run was only practical.
