The First Book of Ore: The Foundry's Edge (18 page)

“Sounds like your kind of people, Toiletboy.”

“Th-this way,” Dollop chimed. “L-looks like a lang town up ahead!”

“Hey!” Micah called after Phoebe, who giggled as she limped off. “You said you wouldn't call me that! What happened to rule number two?”

They followed Dollop toward a settlement nestled deep in the sunken basin. The setting suns lined the horizon like a row of fiery bullet wounds, bleeding out dusky swirls of maroon and magenta. As the lip of the valley rose around them, the vanishing light made it hard to see. At least none of the buildings looked like they might get up and attack, which was a start.

But with every approaching step, it became more and more clear that something was wrong. Chusk grew abundant and unmanaged, forming tumorous reefs that they had to clamber over. Signs of destruction began to mar the terrain. There were craters gouged into the ore and lumps of scorched shrapnel scattered like refuse. The streets ahead looked more like a pile of rubble than a settlement.

Dollop was trembling so violently that bits of him began to shake loose and clatter to the ground.

“Come on,” said Micah. “Don't go all to pieces on us.”

He shook his head. “N-n-n-n-no. H-h-h-h-haunted.”

“Aw, gimme a break,” Micah scoffed. “Are these more of your psychic brain blower-upper Covenant thingies?”

“What is it?” Phoebe asked.

“U-u-u-u-u-uaxtu. Em-em-em-em-ember-reapers. E-v-v-v-v-vil spirits dr-drawn to dead places, um, hungry to m-make more!” He gathered his parts and started to flee, but Phoebe held him back.

“We don't have a choice. We need shelter,” she said.

“N-n-n-n-n-not here! An-n-n-n-nywhere but here!”

“Get it together. Ain't no ghosts gonna hurt you. Not with us here to protect ya. Right, Plumm?”

“That's right.”

“So just stay behind me, and we'll hightail outta here at the first sign of any ghosts or ghoulies or whatever.”

“P-p-p-p-promise?”

“You betcha,” Micah assured him.

“And everybody keep an eye out,” Phoebe added, looking at the ominous ruins. “For anything.”

They made their careful way into the devastated town, Dollop's loose pieces chattering like frightened teeth. It was eerily quiet. The broken bones of a surrounding wall and mournful fragments of buildings rose around them like a mausoleum.

Something wide wobbled under their feet, and Phoebe kicked aside debris to inspect it. For a fleeting instant, she wished she hadn't given up her Trinka, whose light had been invaluable. But emerging stars crept across the sky, stretching their shimmering webs like cracking ice, and in the pallid glow, they could just make out a sign.

“
‘Fuselage,
'
” Micah read aloud.

“Foundry,” she whispered, as if the mere name might stir up the phantoms that filled Dollop with such fear.

“How do you know that?”

“If it was mehkan, we wouldn't be able to read it.”

“Whoa! Check it!” Micah shouted as he ran down a ruined avenue. It was a graveyard—blasted hulls of Foundry machines locked in the grips of decomposing grundrull carcasses. The air was rancid, buzzing with clinking mehkan insects that hovered over corpses, their struggle immortalized in rust.

“We need to get out of sight,” Phoebe said.

“Why?” Micah asked, kicking aside a blackened chunk of ore. “Ain't nothin' here. This place is a ghost town.”

Dollop began to quiver fiercely at the sound of the word.

“Empty,” Micah quickly corrected. “I mean, it's empty.”

They proceeded down the dark narrow lane, wending around toppled smokestacks and the shattered frames of factory equipment. Bullet holes peppered every surface. Micah prodded one with a finger and discovered the perforations were filled with some kind of hardened white cement.

There was a sound like the warping of paper-thin metal. They spun around but only saw a couple of crumpled-up sheets of corrugated tin. Phoebe leaned forward. The metal wads were lined with wires that trembled as she neared. They unfolded in the blink of an eye, and she staggered back. Two more crinkled sheets opened up, then zipped off, transforming into a blur of shapes. They bent and folded to fit under low passes and flattened to slip through gaps, moving across the ground like newspaper scattered by the wind.

“L-langyls!” Dollop cried. “Wait, ex-ex-excuse me! We need your h-help! P-pardon me!” He took off running after them, calling out in Rattletrap.

Phoebe tried to follow him but stumbled over something, knocking it away with a clatter. It was a Watchman head, severed and partially crushed. Micah plucked the mechanical skull from the ground, and they both stared into the empty shell. Though they couldn't see well in the dark, they could make out broken circuit boards and some sort of a fat bundle of cables that must have been its fried Computator brain.

He let go of the Watchman head and gave it a swift dropkick. The skull bounced and tumbled into a nearby pile. Melted faces, severed limbs, and fractured torsos cluttered the ground, knee-deep in some places. There was even one skewered on a pole, its robotic entrails dangling in a nest of wires.

Phoebe knew the Watchmen were not alive, not like mehkans, but she was still unnerved. The sight of the mutilated humanlike figures was visceral, and it made her sick. Micah, on the other hand, was indifferent. He rooted through the mess of bodies, searching for something.

“What are you doing?” she asked anxiously.

“Figures,” he huffed, picking up a melted hunk of metal and tossing it aside. “All these bots and not a single working Dervish rifle between 'em. Not even a freakin' hand-cannon. I mean, gimme a—Oh, hold on a sec.…”

He pulled something from the dead soldier's grasp.

“Guess you won't be needing
this
anymore,” he muttered. It was a worn clublike weapon with a handgrip covered in unintelligible knobs and a business end that flared out into a ridged coil. He fiddled with the scorched gadget, trying to turn it on, but it appeared to be busted.

“Better than nothin'.” He shrugged.

And then the looted corpse twitched.

It bucked as if seized by an external force.

The kids backed away. Something was emerging from the Watchman's torso.

It was the size of a warthog, with five stout piston limbs, dripping with grease from the Watchman's innards. Its entire front half was taken up by a horrifying mouth, a sparking crevice of circular grinders and rotating blades. Knotted along the outside of its whirling maw was a nauseating array of spiny protuberances and paddles. It began to pump up and down on its cylindrical legs, faster and faster, as a fiery light flared through vents in its side.

CRACK! It sounded like a gunshot. The abomination was gone in a blast of light. The kids spun in a panic, jolted from their momentary paralysis.

There was a thud as the creature landed behind them, its hydraulic legs recoiling from the leap. Micah brandished his new club as a pile of debris next to them shuddered and parted. Another creature appeared, its dreadful mouth gnashing. They leaped like monstrous fleas—
crack, crack!

Dozens of them pressed in.

Hungry.

hoebe was running for her life all over again. It felt like she hadn't stopped since they entered Mehk. She was hollow, a mere shadow of herself, as disconnected as a puppet.

They raced through Fuselage, hurdling debris and whipping around corners to flee the sparking mehkans. Startling bangs blasted as the fiends leaped in pursuit. Micah seized a leaning stack of wreckage and toppled it behind them to block the way, but the predators scampered up walls, using their piston legs to punch holes and give them purchase.

CLANG. One of the sparking monstrosities landed in front of them. It was so close that they almost slid right into its whirring grinder mouth. Micah grabbed Phoebe and yanked her into another alley. Each time her feet hit the ground, she felt heavier and heavier. Her legs threatened to buckle, but she pushed harder and harder.

“There!” he cried.

At the end of the lane stood a building with shattered windows and a fractured roof. Emblazoned on its facade was the familiar sunburst logo. The gunshot crack of their pursuers drove them toward it. They sprinted past toppled security walls and into a vast courtyard where blackened shells of war machines were strewn about like toys. The kids slammed against a battered door, but their combined weight barely budged it. Something inside was blocking the way, leaving only a narrow opening. Phoebe went first, sucking in her breath as she squeezed inside. Halfway through, her skirt snagged.

“Hurry!” Micah shouted.

The blasts were getting close—no time to free herself. With all of the force she could muster, she threw herself forward. There was a loud tearing sound as her skirt ripped, and she fell face-first into a gloomy antechamber. She picked herself off the ground, and Micah wriggled in behind her. They shoved the door closed as rocking blows crashed against it. Hideous clattering mandibles scratched at the gap, spraying sparks and singeing the kids' arms. Panting, Phoebe and Micah rammed another desk against the makeshift barricade.

Piston legs thumped on the outer walls as the hunters searched for a way in. The kids glanced frantically around, trying to orient themselves. They were in a decimated foyer that reeked of the Foundry's opulence. Scorched rugs lay in tatters, jagged holes pocked the wood-paneled walls, and broken furniture blocked every passage. The only escape was a winding staircase, its fractured balustrade missing posts like a broken-toothed grin.

They raced up the cracked marble steps to a massive pair of ornate doors. The kids plunged through the entryway and into the ruins of a huge chamber. The wooden floor was splintered and peppered with broken glass, and the remains of a crystal chandelier dangled like a glittering severed head. The few fragments of wall that remained showed once-cheerful colors and details of geometric silver filigree. Slender doors that led to an elegant balcony were now just melted ribbons of iron sagging over amputated ledges.

No sooner had the kids gotten their bearings than flickering sparks appeared in the dark. The grinding sounded from all sides as monsters crawled through the open roof, perching on skeletal fingers of wreckage and scuttling through cracks in the ravaged walls.

There was nowhere left to run. Micah readied his club, trying to find a target. The weapon trembled in his hand—he barely had the strength to hold it.

Phoebe's heart boomed as the creatures advanced.

Then, out of the darkness, a shrill whistle pealed.

A pinpoint of light appeared on the ground, and the monsters hesitated. They focused their attention on the glowing spot. The nearest pawed at it as another few got low on their haunches to watch. Then one of them pounced at the light. Twittering appendages folded in to seal off their grisly grinder mouths, and the paddles atop their heads perked up and swiveled. In an instant, the swarm of fearsome beasts turned into a litter of playful puppies.

Phoebe clung to the wall, trying desperately to remain on her feet, but Micah was still on guard, scanning the room for the source of this distraction.

Lingering in the darkness was a tall, well-dressed man with willowy limbs. He was projecting the light from a lantern mounted on his head.

She froze—was it a Watchman?

The man took a loping step out of the shadows. He appeared to be dressed for the opera in an exquisite Durall ensemble consisting of tailcoat, top hat, umbrella, and crisp white gloves on waggling fingers. But despite his attire, he was anything but human. His limbs were long, flexible hoses of tarnished metal, and instead of a lantern on his head, the lantern
was
his head. Sprouting out from his extendable neck was a complex periscope that projected light, fanned by an array of dewy lenses that slithered on vinelike stalks.

Even in her stupor, Phoebe recognized this unusual face. He was an Omnicam. Or rather, this mehkan's people were hunted for their heads, which were used to make high-tech security cameras like the ones in the Foundry.

The elegant figure whipped his head to the side, and his spotlight zipped out of a hole in the wall. Several of the frisky mongrels bounded after it in pursuit. Another shrill whistle sounded as a squat form emerged from behind a pile of rubble, a rusty pipe clutched in his thick mitt. The sight of the stranger's weapon made Micah grasp his own club tighter. But instead of threatening them, the stout figure hurled his pipe out a window, and the remaining mutts hopped after it with a joyful screech of gears.

The whistler was a fat little mehkan, shorter even than Micah, with knobby brown hide and a wild explosion of quills on his head, bunched into bushy muttonchops and eyebrows. He had a lumpy, potato-shaped face and beady eyes that moved independently, like a cast-iron chameleon. A disk with dozens of holes of various sizes sat where his nose should have been, and he wore a shaggy overcoat of overlapping metal fiber flaps, fronted by an outrageous green-striped necktie.

The tall mehkan's spotlight bloomed to a warm glow. He focused his luminous eye on Phoebe and Micah, blinking rows of horizontal shutters like a signal lamp. The squat one bowed low, a gear-toothed grin of tarnished gold twisting his wide mouth wider.

Phoebe felt herself fading. Her lips were moving, but she couldn't weave the words together in her muddled head.

“You all right?” Micah whispered nervously. “You don't look so hot.”

She offered a vague nod.

“Jubilations and salutations,” growled the fat mehkan. They were surprised to hear his gravelly baritone speak their language. “The pleasure be thoroughly ours, little acquaintances. We mean you not a modicum of harm.”

“Who's ‘we'?” Micah demanded. “Who you callin' little?”

“Oh, me most humblest apologies. How unforgivably boorish.” The fat mehkan licked his hand with a black tongue and flattened down his bushel of spiny hair. “Mr. Pynch, at yer gentle service. And this be me esteemed associate, the Marquis.” The debonair mehkan tipped his top hat and bowed.

“We coulda handled them monsters,” Micah said.

“The sparkies?” Mr. Pynch let out a grating rasp of a laugh. “Rambunctious mayhaps, but not monsters. Mere scavengers, rapacious for ore long expired. Purely pusillanimous they be, I most suredly assure you.”

Micah stared blankly, baffled by his jumble of big words.

The fat mehkan looked up sharply. His disc-shaped nose rotated, spinning like the cylinder of a revolver. It whirred and clicked into place, and he sniffed the air.

“Me nozzle tells me we got company,” Mr. Pynch growled to the Marquis. His bizarre nose spun again, this time lingering at a larger nostril hole. “Anomalous…Can't identify it. Quick!” he barked at the kids. “On yer guard!”

Micah dropped into a defensive stance with his club.

Phoebe had no fight left in her.

They heard something plodding up the stairs.

Mr. Pynch held his breath and blew as hard as he could, ballooning up and popping out an arsenal of spines from under the flaps of his coat. The steps were getting closer. The Marquis snapped the shutters of his signal lamp head closed, while his lenses stood on end. He drew his umbrella like a rapier and took a few swipes like a fencer preparing for a duel.

Phoebe's breath was coming in short, ragged gasps. Blood pounded in her ears, and her vision was blurry. The world went dark around the edges. She felt like she was watching herself at the end of a tunnel.

The doors crashed open. A horde rushed in.

Sparkies.

They all had wiggling objects clenched in their stubborn jaws. Behind them staggered a familiar figure.

“Dollop!” Micah cried.

“Th-there you are!” he warbled, stumbling in and trying to wrestle his limbs away from the sparkies.

“You know this mehkie?” Mr. Pynch asked, confused.

“S-s-sorry, I g-g-got a little t-turned around. Gimme that b-back!” He swatted at a critter that refused to let go of his detachable arm. “I mean, I w-was trying to t-t-talk to the langyls when—Phoebe!”

She had held on as long as she could. The unrelenting terror, the agonizing hunger and thirst—it was all too much. Her body failed. That last burst of frantic energy had drained her dry. A dizzying wave of nausea took her, and she swooned. It felt like she was falling forever, falling into nothing.

If she hit the ground, she didn't feel a thing.