Agatha H. And the Clockwork Princess (25 page)

It was a breathtaking chasm, surrounded as it was by magnificent mountains, which were washed purple and orange by the light of the setting sun. A fierce river could be heard roaring by somewhere in the shadows below, the sound booming upwards from between the sheer rock walls.

A poet would have taken one look at it all and dashed off something about the stark grandeur of nature, the quality of the light, the glory of all things, and still had time for dinner.

Luckily, around fifteen hundred years ago, a Roman engineer had taken a look at it and decided that it would be a good spot for a bridge. He had been a good engineer, and the bridge was still there.

A few of the circus members were stationed strategically, keeping a wary eye out on the surrounding countryside. They were the ones who first saw the two small figures rounding the turn of the road they had come up, and trotting (unsteadily in one case) up the slope towards them. But as things were pretty boring, the two were soon the center of attention.

When they reached the near end of the bridge, they stopped. Zeetha clapped her hands once in dismissal, and Agatha slid to her knees, panting.

Pix strolled over. “So, you two finally caught up.”

Agatha glared up at her. “You left without us!”

Pix raised her eyebrows. “Zeetha said you’d catch up.”

Zeetha laughed and tousled Agatha’s hair. “That’s right! Nothing spurs a good run like fear!”

Pix’s mouth quirked upwards. “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”

Zeetha grinned. “Oh yeah.”

Agatha climbed to her feet and vainly attempted to pull the hem of her small outfit further down her thighs. “Humf. If you thought you’d been abandoned in the Wastelands in this thing, you’d know what fear is.” She looked around for the first time and frowned. “Why are we all stopped? You weren’t waiting for us, were you?”

Pix shook her head as she led them to the cook wagon. A small, fat cauldron sat strapped in place in a sand-lined cooking box. Pix lifted the lid and a savory aroma wafted out. It was a pork goulash, thick with wild garlic, onions and spicy paprika. She handed Agatha two bowls and with an enormous iron ladle, scooped out a pair of generous servings. Zeetha reappeared with a loaf of dark break, which she twisted in half, releasing a puff of steam into the chilling air. She handed Agatha one of the half loaves, and the two dug in.

Agatha swallowed and sighed happily. A thought struck her. “I was so tired and hungry I forgot to ask. Why is everyone stopped here?”

Pix stole a chunk of Agatha’s bread and nibbled on it daintily. She waved her hand to indicate the far side of the bridge. “The next town is Passholdt.”

Zeetha interrupted. “Hey! That’s the town that makes those fried cream things
³⁰
!”

Pix nodded. “That’s right. They’re also the earliest open pass through the mountains.” Pix looked troubled as she absent-mindedly wiped down the pot and ladle. “We should have been there by now.” She looked at the now rapidly setting sun and frowned. “But Master Payne stopped us here, and he won’t cross the bridge until Lars and Augie come back. I don’t know why he’s being even more cautious than usual, but I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.” Her face made it plain that she wasn’t sure at all.

On the bridge itself stood Master Payne and his apprentice. Master Payne was on the roadway. He’d strode over almost every centimeter of the bridge at least twice, minutely examined every block and seam, and finally deciphered and translated every ancient line of chiseled graffiti with an ill-concealed temper. Abner, on the other hand, had stood motionless atop one of the wide stone railings for up to an hour at a time, a quietly ticking copper and brass telescope trained upon the far road.

Payne strode over to where the younger man stood and sternly addressed his feet. “As master of this circus and your employer, I demand that you give me the telescope.”

“Of course, sir. You just climb up here to this superior vantage point and I will tender it to you immediately,” Abner replied without moving.

Master Payne glared up at Abner, glared at the meter high railing, considered his dignity and muttered vile implications about Abner’s family in Estonian. Abner ignored him. This tirade was cut off by one of Payne’s pocket watches beginning to chime the hour.

“It’s getting late,” Abner said quietly. “They should have been back hours ago. I know it’s still a bit early in the year, but at the very least we should have seen
somebody
.” He stamped his foot. “This is the only bridge for fifty kilometers, but we haven’t seen anybody coming from this direction.”

Payne grimaced. “Yes. This is looking worse and worse.” He breathed deeply. “There’s something odd in the air.” Abner took a deep sniff. Payne waved his hand impatiently. “I’ve been watching Moxana’s game. I don’t like what I’m seeing. Something is going to happen.”

Abner continued his slow pan of the countryside. There were signs of civilization. Stacks of wood, a small shrine by the side of the road, but it all had an air of neglect to it. “Here in Passholdt?”

Payne shrugged. “Soon enough that I want to know the status of the town before we cross this bridge.”

“A sensible precaution,” Krosp remarked casually. Both Master Payne and Abner started violently, which almost resulted in the younger man pitching over the edge of the railing. Despite his new bright red and gold coat, Krosp had proved annoyingly good at sneaking up on people. “I thought I’d met everyone in the circus by now,” he continued. “So who is this Moxana?”

Payne and Abner stared at each other, and then simultaneously broke into chuckles. The younger man returned to his watching. “Heavens, it must sound odd.”

Payne grinned. “Oh my, yes. We’ll have to introduce you to Moxana as soon as possible.”

Krosp studied them. There was something strange here. “Yes. I’d like that.”

Suddenly Abner froze. “Whoa,” he exclaimed. “Is that them?”

Through the telescope, he now saw two figures had emerged from the tree line and were riding furiously towards the bridge. The horses were galloping full out. As they came into sight, one of the figures reared back in its saddle, took the reins in his teeth, and began waving his hands furiously.

“What the devil is Lars doing?” Abner muttered, “The damn fool’s going to fall off his horse.”

“Can you see any pursuit?”

Abner swung the telescope across the horizon. The ticking sped up as the focus mechanisms desperately tried to adjust. “I don’t see anything. But they’re riding so hard—” Abner lowered the scope. “We’d better pull the wagons back.”

Payne turned and almost tripped over Krosp, who was staring fixedly, not across the bridge, but back at the wagons.

“Don’t try to move all the wagons out,” he snapped. “You won’t have time. Get all the women and children into the wagons furthest down the road.
Quickly!
”

Payne gestured to the distant riders. “But we have time—”

Krosp leapt up onto the bridge rail, grabbed hold of a lock of Master Payne’s beard and jerked it back towards the circus. “Look at the horses!”

Abner gasped. ”They’re going crazy!” Indeed they were. All of the horses in the circus were rearing and bucking in harness. Several of the wagons were already rammed against each other in a carter’s nightmare of locked wheels and tangled reins.

Krosp took a deep sniff and the fur on his tail bristled alarmingly. “They smell what I smell. Whatever it is, it’s bad, and it’s closer than Lars and Augie.”

Payne and Abner glanced at each other, then Payne was running faster than anyone who didn’t know him would have thought possible. Abner cupped his hands and began to shout, in his best showman’s voice—“To arms! To arms!”

Agatha was in the main room of the Baba Yaga, just buckling her skirt when she heard the call. She slammed her hand against a ceiling panel, which popped open and her latest weapon dropped into her waiting arms. It was a round metal tube topped with a series of glass and copper spheres. As she dashed outside, she spun a small crank on the side. Small red lights began to wink on.

Outside, she found the circus rapidly separating into two groups. Children and the non-fighters were being hauled out of their wagons and sent back down the road to the last three wagons, which were already in the delicate process of being turned around.

The other group was much larger, and weapons and other devices were being charged and brandished about. A subset of this group was grimly trying to calm the horses. Professor Moonsock appeared with an armful of hoods, which when pulled over the horse’s heads began to calm them down.

Krosp leapt to the top of the nearest bridge pillar and howled out orders. There was a significant pause as everyone stared at him, and then, as one, they turned to Master Payne, who, breathing deeply, arrived at the foot of the bridge. He had heard the last few orders Krosp had issued and made an instant decision. He pointed to Krosp and ordered the crowd, “Do as he says!”

Krosp nodded once, and again began issuing orders. Agatha took all this in from her vantage point atop a small boulder. “I don’t see anything,” she said to Zeetha.

“Don’t say that like it’s a good thing,” the green haired girl replied.

Everyone could see the approaching riders now. Dame Ædith scowled. “I… see no pursuit, yet they ride as if pursued by the hounds of Hell.”

Abner swung the telescope up again. “They’ve pulled their weapons out,” he reported.

One of the roustabouts hefted a long pike. He twisted the handle and the blade began to turn, slowly gaining speed. “What are we looking for, Herr Cat?”

Krosp had closed his eyes, and was sniffing deeply in different directions. “I don’t know. Something we don’t expect.”

“Oh, that’s helpful.”

Embi spoke up. “Augi and Lars. They’re trying to signal us about something. Something we should know. What do they see from there that we don’t?”

Everyone looked around.

“The wagons?”

“The hillside?”

“Us?”

“What can they see that we
can’t?
” asked Agatha.

Krosp froze. Then he leapt down and grabbing Agatha’s skirt, dragged her to one side of the bridge. “That gun of yours puts out a big flash of light!”

“Well… yes… but that’s just a result of the electro-voltaic discharge—”

“That’s the boom part, right?”

Agatha rolled her eyes. “Yes,” she conceded.

“Perfect!” He dragged her to the edge of the chasm and pointed. “There! Shoot down there, underneath the far side of the bridge.” The area in question was lost in blackness, so Agatha simply aimed under the end of the bridge and snapped the switch.

A blue lance of energy sizzled into the rock wall, blasting away chunks of stone, along with a number of the creatures that were pouring out of an opening under the bridge, clinging effortlessly to the bridges underside, and clambering across the chasm.

Realizing that further secrecy was pointless, they shrieked in unison, and began to pull themselves up and over the bridge walls, as well as the cliff in front of the defenders, where they had obviously been hiding.

It was possible that they’d been human, once. If so, they’d been impossibly stretched out. Their arms and legs, fingers and toes, were long and thin, and they moved with a snapping sound that filled the air. Their faces were stretched as well, their lips pulled back in a rictus of rage by their chisel-like teeth. Their eyes glowed red as they swarmed towards the startled performers. There were hundreds of them.

The deepening twilight was shattered by the sounds of two dozen weapons going off in unison. The first wave of creatures collapsed, exploded, or were blown backwards into the chasm. Instantly they were replaced by a fresh wave.

Thundering Engine Woman swore as she snapped a fresh set of rounds into her massive twelve shooters. “There’s too many of them and they’re coming too fast.”

Zeetha leapt forward and skimmed across the cliff edge, slicing as she ran, tumbling another dozen of their attackers off. “Perhaps we die. But we fight to give the wagons time to escape.”

Raucous laughter filled the night. Stopping circus performer and monster alike. “Ho ho ho! Now vot’s de fun in
dot?
”

Atop one of the circus wagons stood the three Jägermonsters from Zumzum. The one in the middle continued, “
Ve
fights to keel!”

And with a howl, they leapt, transforming in midair into a whirling blur of teeth, claws and sharp metal that mowed down monsters wherever it touched. “Come on, hyu keeds,” the purple skinned cavalier sang out, “Hyu gots to fight like hyu means it!”

The wielder of the great pole axe added cheerfully, “Dere’s lots uv monsters for efferyvun! Woo hoo!”

Master Payne blinked, and then his voice roared over the battlefield, “DON’T SHOOT THE JÄGERS!”

The green Jäger tore the throat out of a creature, turned to Payne and elegantly tipped his hat in thanks, before whirling back into the fray.

Along with the Jägers, Zeetha carved a swath of destruction that earned her a constant stream of admiring comments from the monster soldiers. The four of them gave the other performers time to reload and recharge their weapons before unleashing another pyrotechnic volley.

“These damned creatures go down blessedly easy,” Dame Ædith remarked as she fired another sharpened stake into a creature’s eye.

Abner glanced under the bridge. By the dying glow of the molten rock where Agatha’s weapon had struck, he could see that the flow of monsters from the tunnel under the bridge was unabated. “Yes, but how many of these things
are
there?”

Krosp had also been watching the rhythm of the battle and did not like what he was seeing. Despite their best efforts, the circus was retreating. Step-by-step they were receding from the edge of the chasm, which allowed the monsters more room. A small part of his brain noted and filed the fact that although they leapt and swirled throughout the battlefield, there was always at least one Jäger within two meters of Agatha.

This was good, as after the first blast, her gun had begun to smoke, and she was pressed up against one of the circus wagons, a multi-tool in her hand, frantically poking about inside it.