Eleven years after their first meeting, seven years after the last, soft sigh of the Second Thirty Years War, Yelm the Iron Giant and Tomas the Rabid Dwarf stumbled through the wide-open gates of Chantique. The Dwarf staggered because he was exhausted from pulling a cart laden with flintlocks and wheellocks and explosives and the physical remains of the Haunt of Duke Regen’s Fen High Way. The Giant, because he was dying.
Three days later, the Giant, one-armed and one-eyed after the last major battle of the War, spent another night in a coma in Chantique’s best inn – twenty-eight stone of dead weight feverish with the effort of recuperating from burns induced by the final gasp of the chemical-battery-powered Haunt of the High Way. And at the eaves of the nearby Taurillac Wood, the Dwarf sat in the dark high up in a tree baiting a Haunt and directing an unending stream of invective against his absent partner.
#
“…that stupid, stupid man,” he said at the end.
The fat, spotted sow tethered in the clearing below grunted as if agreeing with him.
Tomas cursed Yelm not because he worried whether his partner would survive his most recent wounds; not for nothing was the man described as ‘Iron.’ Nor were their funds in immediate danger of depletion, even with the Giant’s treatments. Rather, the Dwarf’s discomposure centered on his own current situation: more than six years had passed since he’d last attempted a solo capture, and the world felt somehow just a bit too big without the Giant nearby to bring it into perspective.
The florid villagers of Rhonier, Veronier, and Chantaigne all said the same thing: their Haunt was a chimera – a completely biological rather than clockwork or electric or hybrid type of Haunt. They gave it the body and head and tusks of a boar, the claws and markings and tail of a pard, and a mouth in its belly bigger than the one in its head. Tomas shivered as he pictured it in his mind. He guessed that it had most likely been developed near the end of the War but never released, and only recently found its way to civilized climes from wherever its Madboy pater laired. It was bad enough to chase hare-brained after a chimera, but the Dwarf could not help recalling that the last, old Haunt he’d taken on his own had been a failing clockwork-biological hybrid vulnerable to small arms fire, while by all local accounts this Taurillac Haunt was in some fashion impervious to firearms. Tomas grimaced.
It was said that this chimeric Haunt had savaged more than a dozen sows in the last year. But when the villagers banded together to hunt it down – and lost half their party in the one-sided battle – it broadened its appetite to include Man. Two hovels in two weeks had been reduced to rubble as the beast rooted out the occupants. The village head-men presented the Mayor of Chantique with a petition and a partial bounty for the Chimera of Taurillac Wood even as the Dwarf presented the remains of the Haunt of the High Way.
When the Mayor matched the villagers’ bounty, Tomas took it for a sign. He launched himself at the contract, responding with haughty condescension to the Mayor’s subtle doubtfulness.
Now he sighed and shifted restlessly in his high hunter’s blind. His stubby fingers played over the pistols and blunderbusses arrayed in the darkness before him, their wooden stocks and steel locks comforting even if they were all too likely to prove useless. Usually, when firearms failed, the absent Giant’s ten-foot long steel glaive proved sufficient argument against the continued existence of a Haunt.
“Abandoning bastardo,” Tomas said.
The sow grunted good-naturedly.
Without Yelm, the Rabid Dwarf had been forced to slow down and produce a plan to compensate. He was not used to such work and worried that his self-reliance had gotten rusty. But it was a good plan; for while he preferred to let his guns do his thinking for him, this operation included a similarly simplifying factor, a comfortable indelicacy that left him with little doubt as to its eventual success. Two cords hung knotted next to the Dwarf’s right hand, at once reassuring and nerve-wracking.
“Simple plans are best,” Tomas said to the darkness.
Given that the average Haunt was merely a killing machine created by Madboys and New Scientists for the last, Mad Days of the War, Yelm and Tomas generally found using themselves as bait sufficient. They simply needed only go where rumor reported the Haunt, present themselves, and kill it when it attacked.
Without the Giant by his side, and facing a chimeric boar, the Dwarf had been required to alter those standard tactics. But acquiring the bait and the materials he wanted had been surprisingly easy, given his provincial location, and rigging the trap only needed half a day. Experience told him that the chemicals were potent and properly mixed, and the pair of grizzled farmers he’d employed to assess his purchase had assured him that the sow was everything she should be.
Tomas grinned. “No better than she should be,” he whispered, and wished he were nearer a city of a sufficient size to support a certain sort of gentleman’s establishment.
“Let me think. I have not had a wench in….” He started to count the days since the red-haired woman in Tuvalo, then shook himself. It wouldn’t do to get distracted now. After two days of tracking, he was certain the chimera was somewhere in the area, and he needed to be wary.
As if to reinforce the Dwarf’s restraint, the sow began to grunt in the pitch-black clearing below; at first in a manner seemingly interrogative, but soon rising to a note which Tomas took for panic. He didn’t hear any other noises – perhaps the chimera had inherited the pard’s stealth along with its paws. Then he heard a queer thud, and the sow’s grunting became squealing, almost like a human scream.
Tomas’s heart thrilled. “Yes, my darling,” he breathed. “We shall have a party.”
He pulled the first cord.
The braided hemp pulled the cover from a large chemical lamp, its lens and reflectors positioned for maximum illumination. Brilliant white light hammered the clearing, colors leached and shadows accentuated by the glare. The Dwarf’s eyes, protected by smoked goggles, adjusted swiftly, and he swore at what he saw. The Haunt was as the villagers had described it, chimeric and unhybridized, but they’d failed to mention its size. It stood easily as tall as a draft horse, dwarfing the sow.
“You would think they would have extemporized upon that,” he said. “It would make them sound even braver. Ha.”
The chimeric Haunt mounted the sow, rutting with her vigorously, and Tomas spared a moment’s consideration for the resultant mayhem if such a creation were allowed to breed true. The imperative to breed was strong and implicit in the injuries described in the livestock previously lost – once one also knew of the Haunt’s second mouth. Even now, that orifice mindlessly attacked the sow’s back, which the Dwarf had thoughtfully armored with several layers of uncured hide.
He had no intention, however, of allowing further dispersal of this Madboy’s wretched miscegenation.
“I would very much like to play, too, big boy,” he whispered.
He pulled the second cord.
The gelatinized black-powder explosives fixed to the sow’s back, beneath the protective layers of leather, detonated. Tomas grinned hugely – the sound was almost as satisfying as the discharge of a double-charged blunderbuss at point-blank range. Unfortunately, the explosion wrecked his hearing and blew out the hissing spark of the chemical lamp. Tomas was not about to leave the safety of his perch without knowing the final effect of his plan, and he wouldn’t know that until either dawn arrived or the ringing in his ears passed. Either option would take hours, but that was just as well. If the Haunt survived, he would just start over in the morning; and if not, he would collect another bounty right off. Whichever proved correct, he had the chance now to sleep, his third-favorite thing to do. He chuckled quietly and settled as best he could, and was soon snoring in the trees.
#
Tomas awoke in the misty twilight before dawn, cold, stiff, and surrounded by birdsong. The scent of chemicals, reacted and not, filled his nostrils, overlaying the mouthwatering smell of roasted meat, the tang of scattered entrails. He scared off a pair of wolves as he climbed down the ladder; his arrival was nowhere near enough to disturb the feasting of the crows.
The mess was awful. Tomas doubted that the hunters he’d paid for the use of the blind would be thinking any too kindly of him in the coming months. But the Haunt of Taurillac Wood was definitely dead. Tomas grinned so broadly, he thought his head would split in half.
“I did it I did it I did it!” he crowed, and danced a little jig until he slipped and nearly fell on a knobbly bit of chimera. “Who needs a giant when he has got chemicals? Ha ha!” Then he looked at the crows and said, “Do I not just sound a right Madboy?” He sobered. “And now I am talking to crows.” He shook his head. “I suppose I had best get to work.”
It took a grim half hour with a hatchet to hack the chimera’s head free of the wreckage of its body. Tomas quickly discovered another feature unique to this creation: unlike a regular boar’s stiff, almost spiny pelt, the Haunt had the coat of something more like a porcupine. He spent a further ten minutes working a pair of barbed quills out of his forearm.
“Thoughtless, uncharitable bastardo,” the Dwarf gritted as he pulled the second barb free. “He would have had that head off in but two strokes, and never near enough to get stuck. Got himself injured on purpose, I have no doubt.” He didn’t really believe that; he just didn’t like having to work so hard.
He chopped off the paws as well; when collecting a bounty, it was de rigueur to submit as much of the target as possible. Although in the case of a Haunt as large as this, exceptions were the rule.
Tomas was just putting the pieces into leather sacks, preparing to load them into his cart prior to collecting the rest of his equipment, when he heard rustling in the undergrowth north of the clearing. He cursed softly and his heart dropped into his stomach. Possibilities presented themselves quickly to his mind: another Haunt, the chimera’s companion. He rejected that as unlikely as he scanned the bushes; there were no reports of multiple contacts. A spectator? No, they’d not attempt to conceal their presence. It was most likely a bounty jumper; Tomas’s lip curled. A dwarf, no matter how well-armed, always seemed an easy target, and a bounty could only be collected if you were alive to collect it.
He heard a wet, gurgling voice say, “Don’t.”
Tomas dropped to the ground, squishing into entrails and meat, and a shot resounded, silencing the birdsong.
He pulled a pistol over his shoulder and aimed at the bushes, which began to thrash about and grunt as if a second chimera were indeed about to burst forth. The noise and motion ended with a loud crack and a thud.
#
A titanic form emerged moments later, dragging a limp figure behind it. Tomas scrambled to his feet and ran forward, his heart leaping in his chest.
“Yelm!” the Dwarf cried, for it was he.
Yelm the Iron Giant, his face still raw and oozing with chemical burns, nodded. He face suggested a general state of mental non-presence.
Tomas stopped. “You look like shit, mi amigo,” he said. “Should you be up?”
Yelm shook his head no and dropped the bounty-jumper’s leg.
“I guess you did not abandon me after all,” Tomas said. “I humbly retract my previous imprecations.”
Yelm made no reply, as if he hadn’t heard the Dwarf. He swayed gently, like a tree in a breeze.
“I sincerely hope I will not have to carry you home, you great, doddering hulk,” Tomas said as he watched the Giant seemingly struggle to remain upright. “It would be just my luck to have to make two trips.” He scowled at the thought, but as the Giant seemed stable for the moment, Tomas turned to the present opportunity.
The brigand was dirty, dressed in clothes that suggested to the Dwarf someone local, but certainly not in the general citizenry’s good graces. “I wonder if I bring the Burghers here will there be a second reward?” He chuckled and went through the brigand’s pockets, finding little worth the effort.
Disappointed, he turned his attention back to his friend. “So. When did you wake up?”
Yelm’s voice was a ravaged whisper, painful to produce, painful to hear. “Explosion.”
“My apologies, then,” Tomas said, straightening. “I did not mean to disturb your slumber. I was merely engaged in a little work on the side while you rested.” He looked at the rough-clad man stretched out on the ground. “Although I am glad you were feeling up to coming along.” Yelm nodded. “But how did you actually find me?”
Yelm stared for a long moment as if marshaling his thoughts, then shrugged lopsidedly. He nudged the bounty-jumper. “Followed,” he whispered.
Tomas shuddered; he’d never considered the possibility that he might be followed. If Yelm hadn’t been awakened, hadn’t ambushed the ambusher…. If the bounty-jumper had better aimed his shot….
Certainly, bounty hunting was dangerous work, but Tomas didn’t usually come so close to his own mortality. He didn’t like to think about it, and so focused on more immediate subjects.
“You stay right there while I get set, and then we will get you back into bed, shall we?” Tomas said, and patted Yelm’s hand.
Yelm nodded. He looked almost entirely somnambulant, and his lone eye drooped shut.
“You certainly have earned your share of this bounty,” Tomas said quietly. Yelm said nothing, asleep where he stood.
Tomas sighed and finished collecting his gear. The chimeric boar’s head was nearly as big as the Dwarf, and much more massive, but he managed. People always underestimated him, especially when he was standing next the Giant. He found that he didn’t mind the implications so much now, after Yelm had so markedly saved him, than when the Mayor had dubiously offered the bounty to the temporarily solo Dwarf.
Tomas did not neglect to secure the unconscious brigand, tying the would-be bounty-jumper into the midst of the stinking corpses. He thought it fitting, penning the beasts all together.
He shook Yelm’s hand. “Vamos,” he said. “Back to the inn.”
He started pulling his cart, heavy with firearms and bounty.
“I must admit how very fortunate it is for me to have you as my partner,” he grunted as they trudged along a path between fields and the edge of the forest. Yelm did not respond, and Tomas thought it most likely that he heard nothing apart from his own pulse, slow and heavy in his ears. But the Dwarf thought best aloud.
“Oh, I manage all right.” He grinned and mimicked the sound of an explosion. “But I fear I would all too likely succumb to the lure of Science, the power of chemicals and explosions.” He chuckled. “Although I suppose it is probably more likely that I would end up like that rancid bastardo back there, scavenging from my betters.” He looked up at the much-bandaged Yelm, towering above him. “So you keep me civilized, and I….”
Now the Dwarf was troubled. “What do I do for you, eh?” He glanced up at his companion, his raw and oozing flesh dappled by the early morning sunlight.
If he considered it, Tomas was forced to admit that it was usually the Giant who delivered the death blow to their prey. The Dwarf certainly had a place, slowing the monsters with his firearms and bombs, his smoke-grenades and flash powders. But he feared that Yelm could just as easily handle solo most of the Haunts they hunted.
Of course, there always were those who needed some sort of testimony that the Giant was not himself a Haunt. “So, you keep me civilized, and I keep you human, keep you alive, eh? A good trade.” He then felt compelled to acknowledge the imbalance of his statement. “Of course, you have just now kept me alive.”
Yelm made no reply as he shuffled along next to the creaking cart. Tomas could not help also acknowledging that Yelm generally wound up with draft duty, as well. The Dwarf again felt no small fear that he was at best a burden upon the Giant.
“Well, I am sure we will find some way to balance the sheets,” he said. “After all, is that not what civilization is all about? Association for mutual benefit?”
It occurred to him that this was rather a cynical thought. An idea hovered at the borders of his consciousness, a comparison. If mutual benefit defined ‘civilization,’ something about acknowledging its necessity defined ‘humanity.’ The Dwarf shook his head, brushed aside the difficult and nebulous concepts with another mimicked explosion.
“All this thinking is spoiling my sense of accomplishment,” he said, pouting. “We peasants should only be concerned with the immediate, and leave such fine distinctions to the philosophers. What I need is a wench, and you need fattening up. That is all the civilization the likes of us want, eh?” He chuckled, grunted and swore as the cart stuck briefly in a rut. “And as long as there are Haunts to be hunting, we will get what we need.”
This was a thought which fully satisfied the Dwarf’s conscience, and he ceased speaking, whistling breathlessly all the way back to town.
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