Mike Wild - The Clockwork King of Orl

"Dolorosha," the sergeant repeated. "Godsh, sheesh uggle… uggloo…" He gave up and jabbed a finger across the table — jabbed it everywhere, really, including into his eye. "But you, Mish," he warned, "youse pretty an' oughts to givvup before youse lose your looksh… ow, bloody 'ell." He looked stunned, suddenly, and then added, "Oh gawds… oh, bluurrrfff!"

Kali's tankard froze in mid-air as the sergeant's head hit the table with a thud. She sat back with a smile then motioned to his men to take him away, which they did, bundling him out of the door while their heads shook in disbelief.

Another triumph for the Tavern Tot, Kali thought.

She bounced down the steps and slapped the now reseated Red on his back. "Next time," she advised, "wait 'til longnight, eh? Dolorosa, get this man another ale. Me, too, while you're at it. Please."

"You musta be hungry? You wanna some Surprise Stew?"

"Don't know. What's in it?"

"Oh, the beer hassa made the bossgirl funny, now! Hey, why not washa that outfit of yours because you steeeenk. Anda while you at it, sew uppa the pants because your bum it sticka out! Hoh, she smiles! Aldrededor, where issa my sharpeeest knife?"

Kali was halfway back up the steps when shadows darkened the windows again. Another group of men entered, clothed in common travellers' garb, but she recognised the leader of them immediately.

New recruits but same old story. The Munch Bunch.

But something was different. From the shapes that were barely concealed beneath his and his men's cloaks it was clear that they were more heavily armed this time. It wasn't the weapons themselves that worried Kali but the fact that their Final Faith talismans were absent from their sleeves, too. Munch and his cronies had obviously gone to lengths to distance themselves from looking like agents of the Final Faith, and that could mean only one thing. The gloves were off.

"Miss Hooper," Munch said. "You have been really quite difficult to track down."

"I like it that way. How's tricks, Stan?"

"They will be better when I have recovered what belongs to me. The key, Miss Hooper? Please?"

"The key? Oh, that key. Little difficult — I don't have it any more."

"You… don't… have it." Munch repeated, slowly.

"That's right. I threw it away."

Munch laughed out loud, spun to face the watching locals in the tavern. "Did you hear that?" he shouted. "She doesn't have it! She threw it away! Oh, well that's all right, then — we'll all just leave and go home to — "

Go on, Kali thought. Say it. Say Scholten and give yourself away. Let all these people know who you thugs really represent. But instead of continuing Munch slammed his fist down on the bar and with a roar swept away the drinks standing there. "Hey, watch out there," Red said, and made to move on him, but in under a second Munch had whipped a shiny new gutting knife from under his cloak and held it to the big man's throat. He pressed the point into Red's flesh until he was forced to sit back down.

Munch turned back to Kali. "Go home?" he said again, as if pondering. "No, I don't think so."

"I already told you, I don't have the key," Kali said. "Now, why don't you just leave before I tell everyone here who you are?"

"That would not be wise," Munch said. "Because then we would have to kill them all." As one, his cronies took crossbows from beneath their cloaks and trained them on the regulars.

"Miss Hooper, if you really do not have the key then I fear I have no choice but to change my plans again. This involves causing you great pain. Do you understand? Oh, and if you are thinking of fleeing from us as you did from the Sardenne Forest, I'm afraid that without the means that might prove a little problematic." Munch smiled coldly. "But if you doubt me, why don't you take a look outside?"

What the hells is he talking about? Kali wondered. Automatically her mind flicked back to her flight from the Spiral, the escape from its conflagration, the gallop away on Horse. No, she thought suddenly. No!

Surely even this bastard…

Kali pushed past Munch and his cronies and burst out of the door of the tavern into the stable-lined courtyard beyond. There she stopped dead. Horse was being led towards her by another of Munch's men. But something was wrong. Very wrong. Horse stumbled as he came, sweating, whinnying sadly, his eyes rolling as they always did, but this time in pain. As Kali fought to take in what it was that was wrong with him her eyes were drawn to the reason for Horse's weak and unsteady gait. The fetlocks on both of his hind legs had been cut almost through. Sinew and cartilage dangled from raw and sliced wounds that bled freely and left a trail behind them, like red ribbons on the ground. The trails, Kali saw, led back to his stable, where this vicious deed had obviously been done, for there a puddle of blood the size of a small pond had already begun to soak into the straw. With that much blood gone and the wounds that he had, it was a wonder that Horse could walk at all. Kali already felt sick enough but then the true cruelty of what had been done to him — and to her — became clear. Horse's fetlocks had been sliced with an almost surgical precision, to the degree where they were held together only by the finest threads of gristle and tissue, and the fact that he was being forced to walk towards her now was providing the strain that would finish them off. As Kali watched in horror, the remaining threads of the fetlocks snapped away and, with a loud whinny of pain, Horse collapsed, dropping onto his rear, the blood beginning to run from him more freely than ever.

Kali roared and attempted to run to him, but Munch had stationed two more of his men on either side of the tavern door and they each grabbed one of her arms, holding her back. At the same time, more of Munch's men appeared on the roofs of the stables, aiming crossbows down. Munch stepped casually through the door behind her and said, "The nag was old. If the strain of fleeing once again hadn't killed it, the knacker's yard would have finished it soon enough." He stepped around to Kali's front, and smiled. "Trust me, Miss Hooper, I was doing you a favour."

Kali spat in his face, and struggled anew in the hands of her captors. Over Munch's shoulder she saw Horse fold down onto his front legs and then, with a winded and tremulous expulsion of breath, collapse heavily onto his side, his legs kicking spasmodically. Blood began to pool there, too, and he began to shake, soaked in his cold sweat. His dazed large eyes — as innocent as a child's eyes — rolled in confusion, for there was no way he could understand what was happening to him.

But Kali knew what was happening, and she couldn't believe it.

Horse was dying right in front of her.

"Let me go to him," Kali said. "Please."

Munch laughed. "The interfering adventurer shows her softer side. A compassion for all living things, all… creatures great and small. What a wonderfully pious attitude." He chuckled and, leaning in, whispered, "Perhaps you should consider joining our church?"

"Damn you!"

"The Lord of All knows my cause is righteous."

Behind her, the others were bundled out of the Flagons. Munch signalled his men on the rooftops to train their weapons on them.

Red and Aldrededor and Dolorosa stared grimly out at the scene before them, the woman raising her hand to her mouth. "Oh, no, no, no… oh, all the gods," Dolorosa said.

"'Ere, wosh goin' on out here?" another voice enquired, and the Sarge, his head looking as though it had been dunked in a bucket of water, strode from a stable, his men following behind. Munch scowled, and with a flick of his head ordered his men to lower their weapons. Idiots these men might be, but they still represented what passed for officialdom in these parts and, obviously, it was Munch's intention — perhaps his orders — to keep the situation as unofficial as he possibly could.