The argument had started four towns ago.
The pair had already been walking for two months, leaving behind them the newly formed District of Cunning in search of work. Their funds had held for a time and they’d not looked very hard. But lately, as those funds noticeably dwindled, they found that no one seemed to need a pair of highly trained and skilled, armed and armored mercenaries.
Yelm, known professionally as the Iron Giant because he stood eight feet tall and consistently survived what broke other men, held that the War might truly be over. His partner of the last seven campaigns was called the Rabid Dwarf – not because he was a true dwarf, but because he was very short in stature and temper, and long in viciousness. And Tomas, that Rabid Dwarf, believed that that War could not possibly be over. Too often, he argued, they’d watched the lust for power burn itself out in the fires of the New Science, only to see it flare up again in some simple laboratory assistant.
Yelm countered with a litany of things they’d not seen in months: clockwork siege engines and steam-powered War Walkers, chemical-battery-powered Death Rays and mists that turned men and goats inside-out, wolves with the brains of dying soldiers installed into their altered skulls. Tomas agreed, perhaps the Mad Days were finally passed, but the War had been smouldering in the various petty Kingdoms and Grand Duchies and flaring up all across Europe for decades, for longer than either he or the Giant had been alive. No King had conquered all his opponents, no Science had proved final, there was no Emperor – ergo, the War could not be over.
But Yelm saw a land abused, a continent whose citizens had simply had enough. The pair had seen it in Cunning, while contracted to the Flame Army of King Herrold von Cunning to demolish the defensive works and offensive capabilities of the upstart Duke Ferdinand of Borovia. As the Flame Army campaigned against the Duke and his Scientists, the citizens of Cunning quietly sacked their King’s relatively undefended castle, committed regicide, and declared the kingdom (which admittedly consisted of little more than the one city and its surrounding farmland and hamlets) to be under the control of the city’s Rat. With the King gone and most of the Flame Army’s soldiers drawn unwillingly from the surrounding neighborhood, Yelm and Tomas had decided that their contracts were unlikely to be honored. They’d taken what they could find in lieu of regular payment and faded away onto the flame-lit night.
At first, neither Yelm nor Tomas had been in much of a hurry to find work. Yelm never much enjoyed fighting, for all the he was good at it. And Tomas had his little hobbies, which consisted in the main of conquering the virtue of whatever women might be nearest to him at any given time. But Tomas did like fighting, and their funds were not limitless, and Yelm ate a great deal. And if Tomas’s notice had frequently been engaged while they traveled, Yelm had time to note the absence of the sorts of Madboy Barons and Scientist Kings who had been such a feature of the landscape for so long, and he felt some concern about it. The Giant and the Dwarf had walked slowly but steadily south and west across the erstwhile German Empire without encountering a single working army, and Tomas was perhaps at last being jarred from his satiated complacency.
This morning the pair spent passing over a broad river bottom, its fields lazy and fecund in the summer heat, following the signs to Hekelsburg.
“Besides, amigo,” Tomas said, “If the War is over, what will we do?”
Yelm conceded that his companion had immediately targeted the crux of the situation. Even considering casualties, there were a lot of conscripts and ex-mercenaries to go around. Yelm himself, before his early conscription, had been apprenticed as a quarryman; and while he’d never completed his apprenticeship, nor in the last decade practiced its skills, he reckoned he might still be able to make it work. At the same time, he did not feel that he really wanted to try.
That uncertainty crept into his voice when he answered, “Work stone.”
The Dwarf snorted and eyed the stump of the Giant’s left arm, lost along with the left eye six months previous to an ingenious War Machine of the erstwhile Earl of Antseld. “And you’ll hold the chisel with your teeth?”
The Giant nodded and thought that he deserved the derisive tone – he still sometimes forgot. His gaze passed over the fields, full of ripening grains. Farming, he thought, was a labor-intensive endeavor with skills easily acquired. And if they couldn’t immediately afford any land, there must be someone who needed a set of strong hands. The Giant used his ten-foot long, steel-hafted glaive as a pointer, and swept it around to indicate the surrounding fields. “Farm, then,” he said.
The Dwarf hawked and spat. “Never, vergajo.” He looked up at the Giant with a face full of poison, his eyes flashing black above his huge mustache. “Never again.”
They were coming to a crossroads. The road they were on continued down the valley. To the right lay a ford, and the left road climbed a low prominence to Hekelsburg. Travel, even at their easy pace, was hot and thirsty work, and the pair turned left.
Tomas snorted quietly. “The noblemen of Iberia are allowed to levy tolls for passage across their hereditary lands. We might…install… ourselves as lords of some unclaimed territory and follow a similar gambit.”
Yelm growled. “No brigandry.”
The Rabid Dwarf made quick, placating motions with his hands. “No, no, of course not. It is, as I say, an ancient and honorable practice amongst the nobility of my countryman. We would indeed be required to keep the road free of brigands and maintained in good condition, for which services rendered we charge a fair and reasonable fee.”
Again the Giant said, “No.” Had they not seen already the result of too many claiming powers of taxation and titles to which they had no right? Yelm did not want to become yet another petty Duke – let the War end if it was to be ended.
“Well,” Tomas said brightly, “If you’ll not consider such a …freelance position, perhaps we could advance ourselves as peacekeepers for some needy town?”
The idea appealed strongly to the Giant’s sensibilities. They would be fighting not for some megalomaniacal warlord or power-mad Scientist, but to protect the citizenry from those elements which so often sought to exercise the axiom that ‘Might makes right.’ But he shook his head.
“Silbersheim. Bad Munster. Feilbengert. Oberhausen,” Yelm said, naming the last four towns and cities through which the pair had passed.
“Ehh?” the Dwarf said.
“Troubled?” Yelm said.
“Ehh,” Tomas said, “I suppose no.”
In fact, Yelm thought, the only trouble they’d encountered in the last months had been manufactured by the Dwarf’s libido. They’d even been run out of and banned from Rauchenbad.
“Well, perhaps this Hekelsburg will still have a Lord in need of a pair of stout mercenaries to kick his latest plans into a higher gear,” Tomas said.
Yelm sighed, long and loud.
Only minutes later they arrived at another crossroads. An overgrown path was all that remained of what had once been a broad avenue leading from the lowlands road to a pile on now-ruined masonry peaking through the trees. Signs posted at the old intersection bore the blazon of a skull and crossed bones for the illiterate, while German and French scripts warned the educated that the ruins were the haunt of a deadly monster.
“Mierda,” Tomas said, and he kicked a stone at the signs.
Yelm was not surprised by the notices – they’d encountered many such since the turn of the year, even if the Dwarf hadn’t noticed. And he felt much relieved that their finances would not yet compel them to serve yet another pettifogging tyrant.
“Perhaps you are right, amigo; perhaps the War is over. At least in this part of Europe.”
Yelm shivered a little, in spite of the heat. It hadn’t occurred to him that the New Science might yet be active elsewhere. But Europe was a large and diverse land. The odds favored the Dwarf’s assessment.
“But for now,” the Dwarf said, “I need a drink.”
Yelm nodded and pointed with his glaive at another sign further up the road, painted with the figure of a laborer recumbent against a hayrick with a stein next to his leg. The script beneath the portrait read “Die Bauersruhen Gastwirtschaft,” ‘the Farmer’s Rest Public House.’
Tomas smacked his lips. “That will do nicely,” he said. “And maybe we’ll get some news as well as dinner.”
Yelm nodded and took up their leisurely, measured pace.
*
Perhaps a dozen farmers were indeed resting from their toils when the bright patch of the doorway dimmed. They first saw a very small man, perhaps four feet tall, but bristling with weaponry and an extremely martial swagger as if in compensation. Small, dark eyes gleamed above a huge mustache that entirely hid his mouth. The man behind the Dwarf commanded more of their attention, though. The Giant ducked under the lintel of the doorway and remained stooped once inside. Though not as heavily beweaponed, his size and disfigurements were striking indeed. He stood at least twice the height of the Dwarf. His left arm ended halfway between the shoulder and the elbow, and his left eye was a slack flap drooping over an empty socket in his heavily scarred face.
Silence dropped over the Farmer’s Rest. The Dwarf’s mustache moved in a manner which suggested a broad smile somewhere beneath the hirsute growth. The Giant looked tired, which state might have been attributable to the weight of the fantastically enormous weapon he carried. After a moment’s cool assessment of the room, the pair made their way to the bar, where the smaller man vaulted lightly onto a stool in spite of his considerable accoutrements.
“Four pints please, barman.”
The accent emerging from beneath the mustache sounded strange to the Teutonic farmers in the Public House, even after the considerable social mixing they’d experienced during the War. The barkeep folded his arms and stared across the scarred wood until the Dwarf pulled four coins from a pocket inside his vest.
“And stew. And bread. And cheese,” he said.
The barkeep squinted at the coins cupped in the callused hand and nodded.
In the silence, Tomas easily heard a man whisper, “We may not have the skills. But I would bet that they do.” The Dwarf grinned slyly at the Giant.
*
Yelm and Tomas remained at the bar, Yelm facing away from the crowd so as to provide less provocation and Tomas facing toward the farmers in case they proved unwelcoming. Between the Giant’s glaive and the Dwarf’s flintlocks, most folk left the pair alone as long as they didn’t behave too outrageously. But Yelm read the farmers’ mood as somewhat volatile and signaled Tomas to be friendly and watchful as they awaited their meal. Conversation throughout the common room resumed in a subdued fashion and the Dwarf felt he could relax somewhat. They’d never yet been run out of a pub, but he had briefly feared that his reputation amongst honest husbands might have preceded him. The overheard comment intrigued him, of course; they needed work.
They waited for the barkeep to bring their food before taking a table near the front, the Giant with his back to the wall and the Dwarf facing the open door. A younger farmer, almost certainly an ex-conscript, stood from a table on the other side of the empty fireplace. The Dwarf’s quick ears heard, “Let them finish their meal, at least,” as the man sat back down. He quirked an eyebrow and grinned at the Giant, who merely shrugged and continued to demolish his repast.
Later, Yelm loosed a satisfied belch, his smile making the scars on the left side of his face a little less livid.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” Tomas said, and Yelm nodded. “Those Low Country folk know their beer.” Tomas stretched and belched in turn. “I suppose we’ll soon find out what that little fellow wanted, no?” he said.
Yelm nodded again. He was curious; the wiry little farmer seemed an unlikely candidate for an upstart Master, and certainly didn’t look the part of a burgeoning Scientist. Still, he might provide the pair with some kind of work. As long as he didn’t ask the Giant to pull a plow. He hated when people made sport of his size.
The smaller man stood again and carried his stein over to their table, followed by an older man of the same type. “May I sit?” he asked, and indicated the chair that placed his back to the door.
Yelm nodded, his face blank and open, and Tomas said, “Please do.”
“I am Jurgen,” the man said, “And this is Hans.” The older man took the seat facing Yelm and scanned the Giant’s impassive face.
“I am Tomas, and this is Yelm,” the Dwarf said, smiling under his mustache. “And what can we do for you gentlemen?”
The younger man, Jurgen, seems a little drunk, Yelm thought.
“I don’t know quite how to begin,” Jurgen said, “I don’t mean to be indelicate regarding gentlemen such as yourselves, but you are soldiers for hire, yes?”
Yelm was glad the farmer hadn’t asked if the pair were the result of some Madboy’s experimentation – such questions were not frequent, and very unwelcome.
“We are, sir,” Tomas said. “Do you know of work nearby for such as we?”
“I might,” Jurgen said. He hesitated, and glanced at the Giant’s disfigurements. “Doubtless you noticed the ruined castle on your way into town?”
“We did,” Tomas said. “What is its story?”
“That was the castle of Herr Hekel,” the older man, Hans, said. “Two years ago, a servant came running down from there and said the Master’s experiment had gone wrong. Herr Hekel was dead along with his entire household. The Burghers pressed for more detail, but the man fled and was never seen again. The next day, the Burghers went to the castle to seek an explanation. Only one returned. He was driven mad, babbling about some sort of creature loose inside the ruins, which had ambushed and killed everyone else. A few local boys, recently returned from campaign and fueled by drink, decided to go up to kill the creature and loot the castle. Again, only one returned, and he was broken, saying only that the creature ate his friends. He, too, left and never returned.”
“Hans, please!” Jurgen interrupted the older man.
Yelm couldn’t decide if he thought the younger man was more upset by the elder’s usurpation of the story, or because he feared scaring off the mercenaries. The story did not put the Giant off in the least; he’d seen much worse.
Tomas made what he thought was an encouraging noise.
“Yes, this is all true.” Jurgen looked from the Dwarf to the Giant and back. “Understand that we care nothing for Herr Hekel or his legacy, except that we paid taxes for years supporting him and received nothing back in the end.”
Yelm nodded; it was common enough, and provided another reason he wanted no part of the Dwarf’s pretensions to nobility.
“We only want the building materials lying loose on the ground,” Jurgen said. “But we cannot get them, for the Guardian of Hekelstein Castle still lives.”
The implications are obvious, Yelm thought. These farmers wanted the pair to get rid of this creature, this Guardian, which was haunting the ruins. Yelm noted that Hans’s face had become more and more rigid and pale as Jurgen spoke. There was some sort of conflict between the two regarding this castle. He looked at Tomas with a non-committal tilt of his head.
Tomas made a face. “I think I understand you. But what is in it for us?” The Dwarf was the true mercenary. And not, the Giant thought, very delicate.
“Whatever you can carry away from the ruins,” Jurgen said, although his voice was tinged with doubt.
The Dwarf spread his hands. “We are no merchants to haggle and barter over trinkets and objects of unknown provenance or utility,” he said. “Indeed, even a letter of credit would be of no use to us, I’m afraid.” He made a sad faced and shrugged. “Only cash will do.”
Jurgen’s face fell and he nodded.
Yelm suppressed a smile. Whatever Tomas said, the Dwarf was a master of haggling, and he often helped himself to spoils from their military actions. But at the same time everything he said was true, Yelm thought. Then an idea crystallized in the Giant’s mind. The pair had been traveling for months without encountering a single working army, let alone one in need of a pair of qualified mercenaries. But they had seen a lot of ruins, had heard many, many stories of…things…haunting those ruins. They had been fighting, killing, and surviving the attacks and attentions of the New Scientist’s creations for years. It was very likely that they could continue to do so. And if people were willing to pay….
The same thoughts seemed to have occurred to the Dwarf. “For you, amigo, fifty marks,” he said.
“What?!” Jurgen said.
“Mein Gott,” Hans said. “I could buy a prize ram for that!”
Even Yelm was a little startled by the Dwarf’s price. But it was after all only the opening bid in the haggling process.
“Twenty,” Jurgen said, with a little heat. “And that will near ruin me.”
He did look doubtful, Yelm thought. But, the Giant reflected, quarried stone was expensive. Given access to a ready supply, all the folk of the town could be saved hundreds or even thousands of marks, in the long run.
“Forty-five,” Tomas countered, eyes gleaming. Not for nothing was he called ‘Rabid’.
Hans hastily gulped from his stein, as if to cover his outrage. But this was Jurgen’s negotiation, not his. Yelm thought he detected a hint of satisfaction mixed with the indignation in the cast of the older man’s face.
Jurgen’s face, already swarthy and flushed with drink, started to purple. “Now see here! We are but poor farmers. I’m lucky if I can save twenty-five marks for the end of the year, to spend on my wife and children. I already owe the mason twenty marks for the last course he delivered. I couldn’t possibly give you more than thirty, and that only if I sell half my goats!”
The mason, Yelm thought, could well be put out of business if they killed the Guardian. Everyone always complained about the prices charged by craftsmen, little reckoning the danger and expense of something like quarry work. Let alone mercenaries.
“I’m a reasonable man,” Tomas said, and again Yelm was forced to suppress a smile. “I appreciate your lot. But this one.” He hooked a thumb at the Giant. “He is very expensive to feed. Thirty-five.”
Jurgen glanced away and made a noise half way between a growl and a moan.
It was true that Yelm required a lot of resources. When employed by an army, he ate as much as he wanted. Food was always part of the contract. But now, he was still hungry, even after three portions of stew and two whole loaves of bread. And, he thought, unlike a warleader or a baron, this little farmer was not alone. That thought made up his mind.
“One hundred,” the Giant rumbled. It was as much as he and the Dwarf would have received in a week of combat under mercenary contract.
Hans sputtered and choked on his beer. Jurgen cried out inarticulately. Even Tomas stared in shock at the Giant.
Every eye in the House was turned to their table.
“How can you ask that?” Jurgen said in a strangled voice.
A low grumble passed through the room as the other farmers wondered what the mercenaries had asked.
Yelm pointedly gazed around the room, swiftly counting sixteen hardened sons of toil. “All will benefit,” he said. He reserved the thought, Except the mason.
Hans stood and said, “Impossible.”
But Jurgen said, “No. No, you are right. It is a deal. I will collect your fee.” He reached a shaking hand across the table.
The Dwarf shook himself and pasted a grin onto his hairy face. “Bueno! Once you have the money in hand, we will take your monster in hand.” He spoke loudly enough that all in the room would hear, and intercepted Jurgen’s handshake.
The room slowly returned to normal as neither of the mercenaries made any overtly menacing motions and Hans and Jurgen headed for the door, already arguing.
“That was masterfully bargained,” the Dwarf said quietly, grinning up at the Giant.
Yelm shrugged. Perhaps it was a bargain; they knew nothing of this Guardian. It was possible that neither of them would survive to collect. But it was a bargain they both had made many times before, marching with many warbands, he thought.
“Ho, barman!” Tomas signaled the barkeep over. “As you’ve no doubt heard, we have a contract with a local man known to you. Will you extend to us credit against that contract?”
Yelm thought this presumptuous. They did not know Jurgen’s reputation locally. But Yelm readily conceded that such presumption was very much in the Dwarf’s nature.
The barkeep appeared to think this over, but Yelm didn’t think he was really much troubled by the question. “Within reason.”
Tomas grinned under his mustache. “Another round, then. And where might we find a decent inn for the night?”
Yelm nodded. They would need their rest. Even if Jurgen didn’t get enough money right away, the Dwarf and the Giant had a good deal of scouting and planning ahead of them.
*
Jurgen needed two days to raise the money, but in the end more than twenty local men were interested. One hundred marks were deposited with the town Burghers against the successful elimination of the Guardian of Hekelstein Castle, along with a lien from the innkeeper and the barkeeper for funds spent at their establishments.
Tomas and Yelm went to the ruins on the first day to get the lay of the land. They’d been told that the Guardian had never left the general confines of the old castle, for reasons unknown, but that it was also deadly accurate with thrown weapons at long ranges. They soon discovered that calling the ruins a ‘castle’ was somewhat misleading.
“Looks like it was more of a semi-fortified manor house to me,” Tomas said. “Never would have withstood a determined assault, even by the locals.”
Yelm nodded. There was no evidence that there had ever been any walls or outlying fortifications. No moats, ditches, or watchtowers. It appeared that the main house had burned and collapsed completely – it was merely a pile of rubble and charred timbers. Two wings stood on either side of it, relatively intact. They consisted of three stories with thick masonry walls and large windows covered by heavy-looking metal shutters hanging from rusting hinges.
“Their monster could be anywhere in there,” Tomas said, and sucked the end of one of his mustaches.
Yelm didn’t think so. It was difficult to tell from their angle, but it seemed to him that the roof of the west wing was gone. Exposure to the elements would have badly weakened that structure, and local legend held that the Guardian must be huge. Yelm grunted. Of course, no one could say what Herr Hekel’s creation actually looked like. He stabbed the butt end of his glaive into the ground and bent to pick up a stone. He gave it a mighty heave and sent the fragment clattering down the sloping mound of rubble in the center of the ruin.
“Good idea,” Tomas said.
They spotted a flicker of movement behind one of the few remaining windows in the east wing. But whatever it was didn’t show itself. Tomas pulled a set of brass-rimmed goggles from a pocket on his vest.
Yelm quirked an eyebrow.
“I…liberated them from the workshop of that Madboy in Yelnick,” he said. As he tightened the strap around his head. “I don’t know how they work, but they allow me to see things by how much heat they put off. You, for example.” The Dwarf peered at the Giant. “You glow like a blast furnace, even in the heat of this summer day.” He turned his gaze back to the ruined manor house and stared for some minutes. “Unfortunately, they work much better in the dark.” He sighed and removed the eyewear.
“It must have some intelligence,” Tomas said, “To remain hidden like this. I hear that Herr Hekel was a Biologist of some kind.”
Yelm nodded. So probably not a clockwork soldier, or a walking cannon. Perhaps some kind of bio-mechanical hybrid, but more likely a pure bio-hybrid, he speculated. Perhaps a revenant or beast-man, given that it had apparently eaten some of the townspeople. They’d survived many such miscegenations during the War. He looked down at the Dwarf.
“Under other circumstances, I would say we should go closer and try for a better look,” Tomas said. “But I’d hate to be forced to destroy it before we got paid.” He chuckled, a little evilly.
Yelm had to agree. He sent another rock clanging off a shutter without provoking the so-called Guardian to reveal itself. He didn’t like the idea that they might actually have to enter the ruins to hunt down the creature. They wanted to draw it out, not be drawn in. He shrugged. With any luck, the Dwarf would get a clean shot before they needed to offer any close combat.
*
They started back toward town, but hadn’t gone much out of sight of the ruins when they saw movement on the trail ahead.
An exceedingly burly man in well-worn leathers strode toward the pair, followed by three more men who by their similarity must be the leader’s sons. All wore heavily-laden tool belts full of hammers and chisels.
“Hold, friends!” the leader cried, his tone not terribly friendly.
Tomas eyed the group and his hands drifted to the pommels of his pistols. Yelm didn’t think the mason and his sons, for it had to be them, were at all likely to warrant such a response. He’d half been expecting the mason to seek them out. Hekelsburg was a small town, and news inevitably traveled quickly in small towns. The quartet of tradesmen approached until they were within two or three paces. Yelm thought the youngest two looked very apprehensive, but the older son appeared to be spoiling for a fight; he already sported some bruising on his jaw.
The mason himself spoke, “I understand you fellows are aiding the farmers in exterminating the vermin occupying this edifice?”
Yelm thought the mason’s diction deliberately affected.
Tomas nodded, and said, “Si. Assuming they can manage to meet our terms.” He shrugged. “But it appears that you have the advantage of us.”
Clever, thought Yelm. He’s putting the quartet more at ease by giving them a seeming of power.
“Who might you all be?” Tomas asked.
“I am the mason, Detlef; and these are my boys.” He glanced over his shoulder, as if to reassure himself that his sons were still with him. “I apologize if this seems indelicate, but I am asking you to reconsider.”
Tomas cocked his head. “I don’t follow you.” But Yelm thought he did.
“If you kill the Guardian,” the mason said, “You will ruin me. And my sons. We will have no work while the farmers rob these ruins. We will starve, and our families with us.”
The older boy growled something that sounded like, “Ja.”
Tomas let his shoulders slump a little. “That is hard,” he said. “I’m afraid we hadn’t considered that possibility. But. We are under contract. And have indeed spent against that contract already. Our hands are, unfortunately, tied.” He almost looked contrite.
“I can pay your present debts,” the mason said, his voice a little strained. “And whatever forfeit is incurred for breaking your contract. I would even match your fee on top of that! Just. Leave well enough alone what does not concern youI”
Although he was standing behind Tomas, Yelm knew the gleam that would be appearing in his partner’s eyes upon hearing this. A bidding war always suited the Rabid Dwarf. He lightly set his massive hand on the Dwarf’s shoulder. “No,” he said quietly.
The mason paled at hearing the Giant’s denial, but his oldest son’s face purpled.
“You would rather serve the dirt-scratchers? You would kill us for them?” He started to step forward, shrugging off the grasping hands of his younger brothers. His hands balled into powerful-looking fists. “Better to kill us now than to let us starve!”
Tomas drew his pistols in a smooth blur and pointed one at the belly of the mason, the other at the belly of his most aggressive son. “It would not make me happy to oblige you,” he purred. “But if I must.”
Yelm picked up the Dwarf with his single hand still clamped on his partner’s shoulder, and said much more forcefully, “No!”
The mason had turned and put his large hands on the chest of his son. “Mergan, stop!” He looked over his shoulder at the Giant, who still held the struggling Dwarf. “But he is right. You would be killing us, one way or another. I beg you one last time to reconsider.”
“Put me down, you great lummox!” the Dwarf shouted, straining to twist in the Giant’s grip.
Yelm shook his head, his Cyclopean gaze pinning the mason in place. He would not break a contract, and he had spied a way out of the confrontation. He lowered the Dwarf until his feet touched the ground, but did not release him. He gave Tomas a little shake, and said, “Transport.”
The two younger sons had by this time taken their older brothers’ arms, and the mason turned back to the pair. “What?” he said. “What do you mean?”
Even Tomas looked up at the Giant with a completely mystified expression. Yelm sighed. The world has changed, he thought, and we must all change with it, or starve. He said, quietly, “Who moves your stone?”
“What has that got to do with anything?” the oldest son said, very nearly shouting.
But Tomas’ face lit up. “I see!” He turned as Yelm loosed his grip. “When you cut the stone from your quarry, who takes it to your customers?” He sheathed his pistols and crossed his arms. He looked as smug as if he’d been the one to discover the solution.
The mason said, with a note of confusion still in his voice, “Well, I do. It takes a rather specialized kind of wagon to move that much weight, and a lot of horses.”
“And,” Tomas said, grinning. “Who is going to move the stone from these ruins to the farmers’ homes?”
“Well, they could,” said one of the younger sons.
Comprehension dawned in the mason’s eyes. “But they haven’t the time for the number of trips it would take them to equal even one of ours.”
“Father,” the oldest son said, then he lowered his voice as if to keep the bounty hunters from hearing him. “Once the monster is dead, what’s to keep us from occupying the ruins ourselves and charging all who come, both for the stone and for the transport?”
Yelm shook his head, and once more said, “No.” He reckoned that the ownership of the ruins was something the Burghers would have to decide, but it certainly wouldn’t devolve to whomsoever squatted there. “Don’t be greedy.”
“He is right,” the mason said, turning to look in reproof at his son. “You will go to confession tonight.”
“Besides,” Tomas said. “Think. You already have specialized knowledge of haulage, on top of your quarrying skills. You could easily diversify.”
“They are right, Mergan,” the mason said. “The world is like a chisel, and we are stones. The hardest stone breaks easily; we must be like the soft, shaped to fit.”
Yelm nodded; he liked the mason’s analogy.
“Thank you,” he said, and turned his boys away from the Giant and the Dwarf.
Tomas blew out a long breath and slapped his thigh. “Well. That could have gone worse.” He looked up at the Giant. “You have got an awful lot going on in that enormous head of yours, haven’t you?”
Yelm cocked his head at the Dwarf, and smiled a slow smile.
Tomas laughed and slapped the Giant’s thigh. “I’ll see you at the Farmer’s Rest this evening. I’ve got an appointment to keep.” He grinned up at his partner.
Yelm sighed. He hoped that whoever the Dwarf was meeting, her husband or father or brothers wouldn’t discover it until they were well out of town. It wouldn’t do to be run out before they got paid, especially as they’d already had to work so hard to make sure they could get paid. But the Giant had long since given up trying to talk Tomas out of his ‘conquests.’
*
As always, Yelm found the actuality of combat easier to bear than the anticipation of it.
The duo waited until the sun was high over head the next day to make their assault, having been informed in the morning of Jurgen’s fund-raising success. Much of the town had been present to see them off, although Yelm noted that the mason, Detlef, was conspicuously absent. Yelm wore his full suit of armor, scavenged over the years from pieces beat to fit his massive frame by a score of blacksmiths. The Giant was to go in first, getting only as near as necessary to draw the Guardian out enough for the Dwarf to get a clean shot. If that didn’t work, the pair would advance into the ruins and engage the monster in its lair, Either way, they only had to kill one Madboy’s arcane creation in order to secure a week’s pay – more than sufficient motivation to take some chances.
Tomas carried two long-barreled flintlock pistols and two hatchets; Yelm as ever wielded only his glaive. Tomas remained silent as he picked his spot. He then placed the second pistol ten feet away, to be clear of the the black-powder cloud should a second shot prove necessary. As soon as the Dwarf nodded, Yelm started walking toward the pile of rubble in the center of the ruin.
He kept his eye open for any sign of movement.
The Giant’s glaive rested deceptively across his shoulder. Yelm was a very, very strong man; using his shoulder as a fulcrum allowed him to attack with the massive, all-steel weapon with devastating swiftness and force. It was a technique he was still developing, a required adaptation to the relatively recent loss of his arm.
The first story of either wing was all but completely blocked off by the collapse of the central house. Yelm found that footing was surprisingly good – the pile had had a long time to settle. He wondered how many basement levels there might once have been. The second floor started perhaps three feet above the general level of the rubble. It and the third floor gaped open to the missing central section, as did the attic space of the west wing. Yelm’s gaze roved ceaselessly in search of a sign of the Guardian. He didn’t bother checking on Tomas.
Something moved at the edge of Yelm’s sight, and he turned in time to take a heavy stone thrown from the shadowed second floor straight to his armored brow. A man of lesser stature might have been staggered by such a blow. An unarmored man would have been killed instantly. Yelm’s head rocked back, but not far. His helm and gorget were designed to limit exactly such motion. He heard a sort of rumble and tried to make his eye focus properly. He saw a massive shape hurtling at him, a humanoid form nearly as large as he was, but with six arms instead of one. Yelm began to swing his glaive. But he was too late. The Guardian was already inside the Giant’s reach, swinging a variety of hand weapons.
Yelm threw himself backwards, praying he didn’t slip or trip on the rubble. A dull sword glanced off his thigh armor, and a mace skipped down his breastplate, narrowly missing his head. Had he actually still had his left arm, it would have been struck by both a sword and an ax; instead, the weapons bit only air. A third sword thrust at his groin, only to be deflected by the stroke of the errant mace, and a second, smaller ax could not be brought to bear.
The Guardian’s face might have been a man’s, heavily bearded and crowned by a massive thatch of tangled and greasy hair, and its body was wrapped in a ragged patchwork of scraps of cloth and hides.
Yelm danced backward awkwardly, shifting his grip on his glaive and warding off a pair of blows with its steel shaft. Then there was a sound like an explosion behind him as Tomas fired, and the Guardian bellowed in pain. Before the Giant could strike, the creature turned and fled. A sword clattered onto the rubble as it disappeared through a hole seemingly too small to allow it access to the ground floor.
Yelm stood panting for a moment, waiting for another charge, then slowly backed down and out of the ruins. Tomas recharged his pistol as Yelm came back.
“Fast, isn’t it?” the Dwarf said.
Yelm nodded, still searching the ruins for motion.
“I hit it, I’m damned if I know where. It only dropped one weapon?”
Yelm nodded again.
“Bah,” Tomas said. “Probably just an arm, then. Not remotely fatal.” He rammed the wadding home and turned to the sack by his side. “Did you notice? All of its arms were different. At least two looked like they belonged to an Ethiopian. I bet it’s a revenant.” He looked to Yelm for confirmation.
Yelm hadn’t had time to see the creature very clearly, but the Dwarf’s assessment made sense in the face of the obvious physiological facts.
Tomas began to screw a small carbide lamp onto the brow of his helmet. “Come on,” he said. “Give me yours and then we’ll go inside and finish this.”
Yelm really didn’t want to expose his skull to the Guardian, having already experienced its power and accuracy, but it was unlikely to be able to duplicate the shot at this range, especially when wounded.
Tomas screwed a reservoir onto the Giant’s helmet and activated the little chemical lamp before handing the headgear back. He replaced the pistols in their sheaths, checking that the priming charges were still in place.
“All right,” the Dwarf said. “Let’s go.”
Yelm nodded, and they began to climb the rubble. He reflected that at least he didn’t have to worry that the floors might not support his bulk. The Guardian had displayed no hesitation in charging across them.
“I don’t think you’ll fit,” Tomas said, gauging the gaps between the rubble and the ceiling of the first floor. “Well, I’m not splitting up. There must be other stairways in there.”
The eastern wing looked to be about fifty feet wide and perhaps twice that deep; the ceilings were a comfortable fourteen feet high. Its further end was lost in shadows, but the beams of the pair’s chemical lamps showed that many of the interior walls had been at least partially demolished. There was almost no evidence of the former furnishings. They kept their distance from any of the gaps leading to the ground floor, and Yelm lifted Tomas up to the level of the second floor before stepping up what was for him essentially a tall stair. There must have been a balcony at one time, facing onto the central House, Yelm thought – lumps of stone like the stumps of posts sat regularly spaced along the edge of the floor.
A howl echoed from somewhere within the ruins, at once a simple, animal cry of pain, and a wholly human moan of anguish, even heartbreak. Yelm shivered.
“This kind of action makes me wish we had another dozen soldiers,” Tomas said, his voice a little unsteady. “It’s a big space for just two to search.”
Yelm nodded. They needed to draw the creature out again. Well, he thought, they were invading its den. Wounded or not, it ought to want to protect that.
He motioned to the Dwarf to take a flanking position and swung his glaive in a great arc over his head. Lathe and plaster showered to the floor following the hollow boom of the stroke against the wall. Tomas got the idea. He stomped his feet and shouted.
“Hai, hai, hai! Come on, you foul-faced, unnatural son of a Madboy’s polluted fart!”
Yelm struck again, and again, as the Dwarf stomped and hurled imprecations.
Suddenly, the Dwarf raised his pistol and shouted, “Rear!” The black powder weapon roared, spewing smoke and sparks and leaden death at the revenant, which had evidently circled around the outside of the ruin and charged up the back side of the central slope.
Yelm spun, the momentum of his enormous frame swiftly overcoming the inertia of his glaive. The Guardian was already tumbling backwards, blood spewing from the hole in its chest. The tip of the glaive just caught its torso, slicing into the belly of the revenant. Tomas dropped his discharged weapon and drew his second pistol as he rolled clear of the cloud of smoke. Yelm leapt over the edge of the former balcony, shifting his grip to drive the glaive through the Guardian’s heart even as it tried to right itself and flee again.
*
Tomas scouted the second floor of the east wing of the ruin, and made a brief foray onto the first floor.
“What a stink!” he said as he clambered through one of the gaps back into the light. “Looks like it was using that as a lair. Every scrap of cloth it could gather seems to have been piled into a sort of nest. There are a couple of rooms stuffed with metal, too. But it’s all scrap.” The Dwarf extinguished his lamp. “These Madboys never were too concerned with wealth, eh? Always only power.” He hawked and spat.
Yelm motioned his partner to where he stood just over the crest of the pile of rubble. The far side was littered with bones, mostly it seemed of small animals, although the occasional antlered skull poked out. A pair of human skulls grinned up from the bottom of the pile.
The Dwarf nodded grimly. “Pretty easy in the end. But we’ve done a good thing today. No telling how many unwary travelers this thing’s caught, even with the signs.”
Yelm nodded; the Dwarf’s incisive moral perception caught him more than a little by surprise. He hadn’t thought of it like that. In fact, he’d been feeling rather guilty at the ease with which they were taking the farmers’ money, even if the locals were getting the bargain of a lifetime. One hundred marks was a lot to such a community, whatever the long-term profit. But the shock of hearing Tomas, of all people, make something more of their actions than a mere business transaction was more than sufficient to shore up the Giant’s own justifications.
Yelm pointed down the opposite side of the pile of rubble to where he’d dropped a number of saplings.
Tomas grimaced. “Having only one hand is a poor excuse for not doing any real work, you know.” He winked at Yelm and went to build a travois to drag their evidence back to the Burghers of Hekelsburg.
Yelm snorted. After all, he was the one with a dented helmet, not the Dwarf.
The Guardian’s scraps of clothing fell away from its body as the Giant dragged it down to level ground. Thus exposed, it was much more obvious that the creature had been stitched together from at least a dozen disparate bodies and reanimated by some Scientific process by the erstwhile Herr Hekel. Strange knots of tissue bulged under the skin of its back.
Yelm shook his head at the sad wreckage of the corpse. They had indeed done a good thing that day. Stopped a killer and put perhaps a score of souls to rest, many of them likely housed within the same body. And in so doing they’d also freed a community from a threat and shaken up its financial institutions.
And it occurred to him that they’d found their new line of work – there were an awful lot of signs posted around Europe, warning folk away from ruins such as these.
Whatever we do, he thought, the world goes on. It would surely feel good to help in some small way guide it away from the Madness, to help make right what the Madboys put wrong.
He snorted quietly.
And to allow the gratitude of their fellows to fill their bellies – he could accept that, he thought.
