Alan Campbell - God of Clocks

“Or butchered?”

“My men will resist that. The mules… that's fine, but not the horses.”

She nodded. “We'll buy the horses from you. Do with them what you wish.”

“And the wagons?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don't push me, Oran.”

“These wagons are all some of us have left. You can't expect families to abandon them without some recompense.”

“Those who wish to stay with their wagons are welcome to do so if they think Menoa's arconites might offer them a better deal. The rest will come with us to the foot of the Temple Mountains.”

Oran looked doubtful. “We're Rys's men,” he said. “And Sabor will not look kindly upon us crossing the border into Herica. These two gods have respected each other's sovereignty for hundreds of years. Sabor might regard an intrusion now as an act of war. After all, you are luring Menoa's Twelve into his realm.”

“The Twelve would get to Herica eventually,” Rachel said. “We're going there to beg for Sabor's help while we still have a chance to achieve something. The god of clocks has been Rys's ally against the Mesmerist incursion. If he still lives, I don't believe he will view our presence in Herica in such an”-she chose her words carefully so as not to offend the woodsmen leader-“inflexible manner.”

Oran did not seem to be entirely convinced. Nevertheless, he accepted her proposal.

“We can't delay here any longer,” Rachel said. “Get everyone, and everything you can carry, into this inn.” She turned to the thaumaturge. “How much time do we have?”

Mina closed her eyes and inhaled. She frowned, exhaled, and then took another breath, her eyes moving rapidly under their lids like those of someone dreaming. “Oh, shit,” she said. “Get the people aboard now. Leave everything else behind except the weapons.” Her eyes snapped open. “One of the Twelve has picked up our trail.”

With the women and children taken into account, the refugees numbered almost four hundred. Despite Oran's shouted orders, they were not prepared to leave their possessions behind in the wagons. Men grabbed up tents and bundles of clothes or coils of rope and crates of woodcutter's equipment: axes, saws, and chisels. Young boys unhobbled the mounts and smacked their rumps and yelled at them to scram, while old women shouldered past with sacks of flour and meal, barrels and baskets full of salted meat or vegetables. A group of younger women stood out by virtue of their frilled lace frocks, rouged cheeks, and powdered faces, and by their apparent disdain for lifting anything heavier than makeup and jewellery boxes.

“Whores?” Rachel said.

Mina followed the assassin's gaze. “Pandemerian whores. They came here with the railroad to service the workers in Rys's logging camps.”

“Don't the woodsmen's wives object?”

“Rys sent those wives to brothels in Coreollis and Cog. That way the Pandemerian Railroad made twice the profit on their services.”

Rachel was aghast. “These men let Rys do that?”

Mina shrugged. “Men follow gods as blindly as dogs follow men. The god of flowers and knives drowned this entire land once, and they didn't object. Hasp ranted for a full hour about the situation while you were unconscious. I don't think he approves.”

The older women carried hides, water skins, and pots and pans, loading them all onto the ring of open ground around the Rusty Saw, before heading down to the road for more. The whores clambered up onto the earthen island, stumbling and shrieking and chatting amongst themselves. All of the children were already inside the building and most of these were howling in distress.

“How long now, Mina?”

“Minutes only.”

Rachel grabbed Oran's arm. “We're leaving now, with or without your people.”

The big woodsman leapt down the bank of earth and then stepped from the arconite's hand onto the forest track below it. He grabbed an old woman who was heading away from the inn, swung her round, and yelled at her to go back the way she had come. He then shouted, “Everyone who wants to live, get into that fucking inn. We're going now.” He moved amongst them, grabbing at the men and women who tried to return to the wagons, knocking packs of goods aside and shoving people back up towards the inn. A group of young boys took it upon themselves to assist him in this task, until Oran slapped one and bellowed at them all to get inside.

Rachel and Mina exchanged a look, then followed him down into the mob of people. They helped carry anything that could not be left behind, dragging baskets of desiccated beef and skins of water back up the slope between them.

As they reached the level part of the earth island surrounding the Rusty Saw, Mina shot a worried glance back down the road. “It's gaining,” she warned.

“Can you do anything to slow it?”

“I don't know. Basilis has the real power. I just channel it. I'll need to confer with him.” She pushed her way into the crowd. “Assuming these woodsmen haven't already eaten him.”

“Be quick.”

Oran joined the last of his people outside the Rusty Saw. There was now barely room to move amidst the jostling crowds surrounding the old building. He shouted at those near the edge to get inside, but the inn was already stuffed full of people and goods. From the upper floor issued a barrage of curses and protests, a voice that Rachel recognized.

“Abner Hill,” she informed Oran.

Oran grunted. “I'll deal with that bastard later. I don't suppose he's happy you commandeered his building?”

“My concern for his feelings diminished considerably after he shot me in the face.”

The woodsman laughed.

Rachel couldn't see any stragglers down on the forest track so she called out, “Get us out of here, Dill.”

And the huge bone-and-metal automaton raised his hands and bore skywards the lone building upon its great clod of earth. A chorus of shrieks and startled cries went up from the frightened passengers. Several unsecured sacks slipped over the edge of the arconite's palm and fell to the ground below, but by the time the women ran to save them, the goods were already lost.

They were now moving, fast.

The Rusty Saw pitched like a raft caught in a sudden swell as it rose further up into the night sky. An ocean of dark forest rushed below the building's foundations. Cold mist broke around her wooden facade. Her joints all creaked, and her shutters slapped against their frames. A windowpane snapped in two with a sound like a musket shot. To Rachel it seemed that the heavens themselves lolled around them. The crescent moon loped through misty darkness like a swinging lantern.

Upon that cramped island it was too early yet for the conflict and arguments that must inevitably break out amongst such a crowd of people. Woodsmen positioned at the inn door herded those who would be herded inside, but the saloon floorboards were already protesting under the weight of hundreds: warriors in handcarved armour, honing blades or waxing bowstrings; greybeards singing of past glories and clinking glasses; gamblers already at their dice and bones; spinsters and shy young women with babes in swaddle, and whores slapping and nudging and laughing with the men; young boys crowd-weaving with beakers of whisky for their fathers and older brothers, or sitting listening under tables and peering up at the girls; children running up and down the stairs and shrieking loudly on the landing, and banging doors and then running from their grandmothers' curses. The stoves had been well fed and stoked, all the candles lit and lanterns burning till the windows blazed like openings in a furnace.

“I'm beginning to understand why Abner Hill hid his booze,” Mina muttered.

Rachel was trying to listen for their approaching foe, but she couldn't hear anything above the din from within the saloon. Fog shrouded much of the night beyond this tiny island of noise and light, though she spied the sheer dark cliff of Dill's torso filling the sky behind them. His forearms hovered in the gloom like vast and hellish barges made from bone.