Simon Green - The Man with the Golden Torc

(It was never intended that they should be able to take down a Drood. We never take the chance that our own weapons might be used against us.)

They pulled at my golden legs, trying to overturn me, pressing in from all sides, but I stood firm and would not fall. I tore them apart, limb from limb, and no blood ever flowed, just more straw sticking out of ragged sockets. I ripped their hollow bodies apart, throwing the pieces this way and that. Heads rolled across the grass, the eyes still alive, still suffering and hating.

When this was over, the family would just put them back together again. No rest for those who dared to be wicked against us.

Molly took out her fair share of the scarecrows. She hit them with the four elements, all at once. Hurricane winds whipped up out of nowhere, picked up the scarecrows, threw them high into the sky, and then slammed them to the ground again. Sudden downpours targeted individual scarecrows and soaked them so heavily they could hardly move. Others burst into flames that burned so fiercely that the straw-filled bodies were consumed in seconds. And finally the earth itself cracked open, swallowed up all the scarecrows left standing, and then slammed itself together again, trapping the scarecrows underground. Molly looked around her and nodded once, satisfied.

"Damn, we’re good."

"Yes," I said. "We are."

I could have used the Confusulum to interrupt the forces that kept the scarecrows going. I could have used it to free the trapped spirits from their scarecrow bodies. But I didn’t. Because they had attacked my family where we live, and we never forgive that.

We were almost at the Hall when a voice in my ear suddenly said, Sorry! That’s it! Business calls and I have to be going! It was fun; we must do this again sometime! I looked down, and the badge on my lapel was gone. Just like that, the Confusulum had abandoned me. About to enter the centre of my family’s power, Molly and I were on our own. Which…was just typical of the way my life had been going recently. I decided not to tell Molly. It would only upset her.

I strode up to the main front entrance, pushed open the door with a flourish, and marched on into the hallway beyond. Molly couldn’t wait to get in, actually pushing past me in her eagerness. I shut the door carefully behind us, and the background roar of my family fighting the dragon was immediately shut off. Inside the house, everything was quiet and peaceful, just like always. The slow ticking of old clocks; the smell of beeswax and polish and dust. Home. And then the Sarjeant-at-Arms stepped out of his security alcove to confront me, and I remembered why I’d been so happy to leave in the first place. He stood solidly before me, blocking my way, stiff and formal as always in his old-fashioned butler’s outfit. The man who had always been so much more than just a butler. I stood very still. I was still wearing my armour. I looked like any other Drood. There was a chance…

"I know it’s you, Edwin," said the Sarjeant. "I recognise the way you move. You always were sloppy, undisciplined. When the defences in the ground couldn’t lock on to anyone, I knew it had to be you. Always the lateral thinker, the sneak, skulking in the shadows. And your companion is the infamous Molly Metcalf? Didn’t take you long to fall into bad company. I always knew you were no good, Edwin. Even when you were just a boy."

I armoured down to face him. I wanted him to be able to see my face. "I haven’t been a boy for a long time, Sarjeant. I’m not afraid of you anymore. You see this man, Molly? He made my life miserable when I was a child. He made all our lives miserable. Nothing we did as children was ever good enough for him. You see, all adult members of the family can override the collars of the children. So they can discipline us, control us…Punish us. We’re a very old family, very old-fashioned, and we never did believe in sparing the rod. And this man…loved to punish children. For any reason, or none. Just because he could. We all lived in fear of the Sarjeant-at-Arms when we were kids."

"It was for your own good," the Sarjeant said calmly. "You had to learn. And you were always so very slow to learn, Edwin."

I armoured up again and held up my fist. Golden spikes rose up out of the heavy knuckles. "Step aside, Sarjeant. I’m not going to be stopped this time."

"It’s not too late," said the Sarjeant. "You could still surrender. Submit to family discipline. Make atonement for your crimes."

"I never committed any crimes! Never! But the family has."

The Sarjeant sighed. "You never listen, and you never learn. Lose your armour, Edwin. Or I’ll make your companion suffer."

He pulled weapons out of the air. His singular talent, given to him so that he could protect the Hall. A gun appeared in one hand, a flamethrower in the other. He aimed them at Molly, and I lunged forward to protect her. Bullets hammered against my armoured chest and ricocheted away, but the flames swept right past me to threaten Molly…only to turn aside at the last moment, deflected by Molly’s magic. She jabbed out a hand at the Sarjeant, and he staggered backwards from the unseen impact. Molly laughed at him.

"My companion can look after herself," I said to the Sarjeant.

"Damn right," said Molly.

The Sarjeant started to subvocalise the Words that would call up his armour. He should have done that the moment he recognised me, but in his pride he still saw me as a child to be chastised. But even as he started the Words, Molly hit him with a rain of rats. They fell on him out of nowhere, streams of big black rats swarming all over him, clawing and biting. He cried out in shock and pain, slapping at the rats and trying to shake them off, unable to concentrate long enough to say the Words that would have brought up his armour to protect him. He staggered back and forth, beating at the rats with his bare hands. One sank its teeth deep into his palm and hung there, kicking and wriggling as he tried in vain to shake it off. Another ripped at his ear. Blood ran down his face as they tore open his scalp.

I would have liked to stand around for a while and watch him suffer, but I didn’t have the time. So I stepped forward and punched him out. The strength behind the golden fist almost took his head off, and he crashed to the floor, barely twitching. Molly disappeared the rats with a gesture. I stood over the Sarjeant-at-Arms, looking down at him, and it felt good, so good, to have finally avenged myself for years of pain and scorn. Now he didn’t look nearly as big as I remembered him. He was still conscious, just.

"How many children did you whip for running in the hallways?" I said. "How many did you flog for being late or not being where they should be? For answering back? For daring to have minds and hopes and dreams of their own?"

The Sarjeant stirred painfully, blood running out the corner of his torn mouth as he smiled. "It’s a hard world, boy. Had to toughen you up so you could survive it. You learned your lessons well, Edwin. Proud of you, boy."

"We were just children!" I said, but he was unconscious and couldn’t hear me anymore.

"Your family do love their mind games, don’t they?" said Molly.

"Not now, " I said. "Please."

I stepped into the Sarjeant’s security alcove and opened the emergency alarms locker. It was keyed to open to anyone wearing a torc. I looked at all the switches set out before me, grinned, and then hit every single one of them. Interior alarms, exterior alarms, fire, flood, witchcraft, and Luddites. (Some of our alarms go way back.) Bells and sirens went off throughout the Hall, ringing and howling and clanging in an ungodly cacophony of noise. Lights flared and flashed, emergency doors slammed shut, steel grilles came crashing down, and members of the family ran wildly this way and that, driven mad by the whooping alarms. I always said we needed more emergency drills.