Brass Automaton

10 - Etching Gullies

"Who has eaten my bread?"

"Those are my vegetables, wench!"

Odc picked up his displaced brass mug. "Boys," he said to the rabble stomping around the room. When no one heeded his words, he bellowed, "Boys!"

His six companions looked to their leader. "The oracle has foretold this moment." Odc looked to the young woman peeking out from behind an immense wardrobe. "Come out, girl."

Seven pairs of eyes followed Snow as she stepped away from the wardrobe. She smoothed the front of her dress and curtseyed to the gathered faithful. The silence was palatable, and could've used a side dish. Unfortunately, Snow ate the hoarded bread and vegetables.

"Master dwarf," Snow knelt at Odc's feet.

"The Tenyks are advancing on us, Highness."

Snow blinked at the words that didn't belong. "Master dwarf?" she asked.

"Snow," an urgent voice penetrated her dream.

Snow woke with a start, and her grip tightened on the lance that lay across her lap.

"They're almost upon us," Sky hissed in her ear.

Snow peeked out from her hidden vantage, and the dream faded into the recesses of her memory. "Now!" shouted Sky as the roof of their hiding spot sprang open and the sisters followed.

Sky rebounded off the hatch, her twin brass scimitars brandished with the tips brushing her elegant elbows. Her strike with the pommel missed her first target, only to have the scimitar slash across the throat of the missed target as her fist hit home against the Tenyk beside. A fountain of blood erupted from the downed Tenyk, drenching the tips of Sky's blond hair strawberry.

Willow rose high enough for her clockwork crossbow to clear the blind. The twang of the brass line was a language only she knew. Recoiling, the stock reset and a brass cylinder rotated another bolt, knocked into position. Steam hissed from her matching brass forearm bracers as each bow loosed death into the advancing horde. She waded into the bodies, her braided hair swinging to and fro with each duck and weave.

Snow's gaze shifted. Where is Daisy? she thought, surveying the battlefield. An explosion of noise and steam flung the mindless Tenyks as Daisy's gauntleted hands swung a Tenyk by the ankles, his body bludgeoning all obstacles in her path. When her brilliant gauntlets were dripping in Tenyk blood, and her weapon was pulverized into a boneless lump, she discarded it and seized another of the horde. Daisy's close-cropped red hair didn't show the blood of her enemies, but her white teeth brandished through a mask of blood and gore formed a smile as she spat globs of viscera over her shoulder.

Snow watched as Sky's blade erupted from the chest of a hapless Tenyk, her knee striking the body to slide it from her weapon. Sky met Snow's eyes, and they exchanged a look and a wink. Snow spun her lance, wedged the handle into a crevasse and vaulted into the fray. She ran the bladed edge through three Tenyks, before she twisted the handle, and steam forced the shaft to collapse on itself. Another twist and the lance snapped to its original position. Again, she planted the handle, and once more she leaped into a group of Tenyks pushed back by Daisy's unstoppable fury.

The quartet dispatched the Tenyks, using the walls and ceilings of the tunnel to outmaneuver the pitiful, mindless men. Each death Snow witnessed weighed on her heart. These men and boys she once called her subjects, had had their souls stolen by an evil that knew neither bounds nor limitations. Ceridwen was a blight on the world, and she moved from kingdom to kingdom consuming everything in her quest for something as arbitrary as beauty.

Even with all her dark magick, Ceridwen couldn't match the beauty of a young Snow White. What did her envy get her? A broken magic mirror, and a body of brass. Snow was certain Ceridwen was now more machine than human as her unattainable quest for perfection and beauty consumed her twisted mind.

Snow stood over the fallen Tenyks, valuable tears etching gullies into the dirt and blood that caked her face. Her three Sisters didn't echo her sadness. To them, the Tenyks were an enemy army to be defeated. To Snow, they were brothers, uncles, and children. Sky, Willow, and Daisy congratulated each other and slapped each other on the shoulders and backs. None of them would know the sorrow of killing her own people.

* * *

Ceridwen bounded into the throne room antechamber. "Where is it?" she asked of an elegiac King John.

John looked up and sneered, the mirrored fragment that had ruled him for so long clouded over. "I'll never help you!" he shouted. "Your hold over me is finished!"

Ceridwen kicked him in the stomach, and picked him up by his throat, the clockwork and steam forcing her artificial limbs to her command. John beat his fists against her magnificent gleaming arm as his vision faded. "You have failed," he whispered as the light in his eyes faded.

Ceridwen screamed and tossed John's body against the throne. She didn't even listen for the telltale sound of broken bones. Turning toward the false wall, she cocked her arm and let loose a brass fist against the stonework. Each impact smashed brick and dented her fingers a little more. Her fingers would need replacing, but she was almost through the stone barrier.

As the hole widened enough to grant her ingress, Ceridwen saw her creation stomping up the stairs. She stood aside as pressure built up, and the brass automaton crushed the stone that remained between them.

The Automaton seized Ceridwen by her metal waist and leaped through the roof of the throne room. She saw Jarvis limp up the steps and prostrate himself at the site that the mechanical beast had vacated. Ceridwen cocked her head slightly, and the Automaton set her down before dropping back into the throne room to retrieve a grateful Jarvis. A leap back to the roof and her creation held them both in its arms and thundered into the sky.

Ceridwen looked back as Snow and her warrior Sisters clamored into the throne room. They could only watch helplessly as the greatest menace their kingdom had ever seen disappeared into a pristine cloudless, azure sky.