"Some of the human schools of war teach that your best weapon is your mind. People who advance that argument often end up beaten to death by a minion who has a much bigger club than them."

Gnarl


"Gel-domino!" Maxy yelled, head poking out of the top of the golem like a pimple on top of a boulder. He pulled back the arm, venting steam from the mechanisms as he strained against the heavy weight of the lever. The crude control mechanisms that Jessica had jury-rigged needed the brute force of a brown to move. The runic symbol on his right hand glowed a bright pink, kitten-warm with glee at this new and deadly weapon. "Char, more fire! Scyl, more water!"

"Next time I is gonna be the head!" Char shouted from down in the torso. With a grunt, he grasped his hands around the boiler, heating it up with the fire from his hands. He and Scyl were crammed up against each other, crammed into a tiny space with Maxy standing on their heads.

"Shut it, Char, you gotta make the fire!"

"We is gotta sin-con-eyes," Scyl said dreamily, hands wrapped around the vessel where the waterstones should have been.

"We got eyes and we can sin!" Maxy snapped. His golem raised both arms, up into a guarding position as he squared up against the other golem.

The mechanism seemed… confused. Its helmet swivelled from left to right, taking in the golem with a minion head poking from the top. It raised its hand in a warning 'stop' gesture. The purple mark on its brow grew brighter.

"Okay, okay, lads, time to step in and punch! Steam to the left leg and the right arm!"

With a jerking motion, the minion-golem stepped in and slammed its left shoulder into the chest of the other golem. It staggered back. Metal groaned under its weight.

"No, the other right, idiots! Stepping back!"

The minion-golem's movements were jerky and uncoordinated, not helped by the problems that both crew and pilot had with concepts like 'left', 'right', and 'wait for the steam to build up again'. Fortunately for them, the other golem was no longer the inexorable thing it had been before. The mark on its brow flickered, and its motions were stilted and erratic.

Maxy threw a right hook. The other golem's chest dented like it had been hit by a cannonball. The minion yelped as venting steam burned his ear, and he yanked the lever to pull back the fist.

Nothing happened.

"Where's my steam?" he yelled.

"Working on it!" Char shouted back. "You is using it faster than we can make it! Try again!"

This time the arm retracted. "Okie-dokie! " Maxy cackled happily. "Now, as I wrote in my poem 'An Ode to Broken Legs', 'break their knee and they can't flee'. So I reckon that are what we gotta do! You feeling up to a kick, lads?"

"No, we'll fall over," Scyl pointed out. "And-"

The other golem stepped in, slamming its fist into their chest. The inferior plating of the incomplete golem dented under its strike.

"It are getting a wee bit tight in here," Scyl shouted. The golem hit them again, metal bending under its blow with an ear-gouging shriek. Scyl's arms buckled as he tried to push back against the interior of the chest; his head was forced into Char's skinny chest. "Yep, we no got much space left before we is jam."

Maxy gritted his teeth, yanking hard on a rope. Whether by skill or - probably - luck, he caught the next blow on his forearm, knocking it off course. "Take that!" he yelled, pulling back on levers and throwing out an uppercut. It slammed into the base of the golem's helmet, crumbling it up like paper, and the golem staggered back.

His eyes flicked to the steam gauge. "More steam, numnuts!" he ordered, kicking Scyl in the head as he lifted his golem's arms up into a boxer's guard position. The overlady was trying to crawl away behind his opponent. "Oh, hi overlady, how are it go-"

"Smash that metal bucket, you morons!" the overlady screamed at them, without pausing in her attempted retreat.

"Aww, she do care," Maxy said happily. He stepped in, throwing a one-two punch that connected with the other golem's guard. "Woo! I is getting the hang of this!"

Like two metal titans the golems started to trade off blows. With each punch, the metal walkway shook. The light of the molten metal below danced over their features, illuminating the clouds of steam that both machines vented. Maxy took the offensive, stepping in with close-in punches. The other golem was more skilled, but whenever the purple light on its brow flickered it froze up. Two solid blows impacted with its chest, before the light flickered back on and it deflected the next punch with its forearm, hammering down on the shoulder of his right arm.

"The arm what are on the near side no are working," hollered down Fettid, who was perched up on a hoist overlooking the fighting location. She had a newly gutted hare on her head, dripping blood down her face.

"What is you doing up there?" Maxy yelled, juking right to sidestep a straight punch from the golem as he yanked on the lever for the right arm, trying to get it to respond. "Where you been?"

"Jessica say we no have a bridge bunny and laugh, but then I got a new hat," Fettid said, sounding hurt. "You gotta finish this fast, Maxy. You no are like Maggat. You ain't a leader. You no can prior ties."

"Yes I is! An' I can!"

Fettid considered it. "Nah. 'Cause even now you is distracted by me."

And as if to emphasise that point, the other golem used the chance to step in on his right, focussing its blows on the vulnerable side. Screams came from the chest as it pounded on it again and again.

"My arm! It are crushed!" Char screamed.

"Oh yeah, that it are. Hold on. We'll just have that off…"

"Argh!"

"… and growing you a new one! See! All better! Oi, Maxy, stop standing on my head!"

Maxy frowned. His legs were cramped, Scyl was biting his ankles, and his ears were burned from the steam. "I gotta use my final, secret move!"

"What secret move?" Char demanded. "I no know about a-"

"It are a secret! Spin attack!" Maxy yelled, pulling on two ropes. The minion's golem began to rotate at the waist, slowly at first but picking up speed. Metal ground against metal with a shrieking battlecry. Maxy threw the golem into advance. "Charge!" he yelled.

"Maxy, I think I is gonna… hurgk!" There was the sound of Scyl being noisily sick down in the chest. Maxy didn't care, because it was Char who had caught most of the vomit.

"No time to be fakin' being ill! I need more steam!" Maxy ordered, wrestling the jury-rigged controls which had never been made with the intent that the torso was spinning like a top. The red of glowing forges blended together as the world around him whirled.

With a resounding clang the spinning arms hit the golem. The two metal walkers bounced off each other. The New Model Army golem now had a heavy dent in its head, like someone had hit it with a trip hammer. Whooping with joy, Maxy managed to get the staggering of his golem under control, and brought it around for another impact.

Clang! Again, Maxy landed a solid blow. This one mangled an arm and tore off a patch of hull, revealing the chains and metal bones underneath.

"One more should do it!" Maxy grated, trying to see straight. He gripped the levers tight, throwing them forwards again. "I want all the steam you can give me!"

The shriek of the metal at their golem's waist took on an even higher pitch. "You is lucky I no has made a union for mistre-"

"Forwards!"

Footsteps clanged. Steam hissed. Gears shrieked.

Metal hit metal.

And the two minions in the chest were thrown into one another as the spinning minion war machine suddenly came to a stop.

"What happened?" Char demanded.

"Uh… it caught the arm," Maxy said sheepishly.

Metal tore.

"And now we only got one arm. Lads, more steam! I has got a cunning pl-"

The golem's punch took off Maxy's head.

"Maxy! Maxy!" Scyl pulled the body in. "Your head are missin', you know that?" There was no response save for the neck-hole making 'blort' sounds. Which was admittedly about average helpfulness as far as minion responses went. "Uh… what we do now?"

With a snarl of flame, Char slammed his hands together. "We gotta stop stallin' and leave our marks on history," he growled. "You, get out. Or you is gonna be flat. And we is needing a blue."

"But Char…"

The metal around them bent in more as the other golem slammed its fist into the chest. Fortunately, Maxy's corpse served as padding that stopped the other two, currently-alive minions from being crushed.

"I is gonna lay down my life for the minions."

"Ah, see you when you is dead," Scyl said cheerfully, shoving Maxy's headless body out the top before bailing.

Char took his place at the blood-soaked head. The other golem paused, drawing back its fist, and the purple light on its brow flickered. It took a clumsy step back, clearly wary of another madcap move like the spin attack. The wounds of battle covered its torn torso.

He glanced at the controls. Jessica's crudely rigged steam gauge showed him how much pressure there was left in the boiler. He didn't know what that meant. But fortunately he didn't need much. Now what had the forgemistress said about how to move this thing?

The blood-splattered golem took one step. Then another. Then another. Breathing out little puffs of flame from the excitement, Char broke into a lumbering run. It wasn't clean. It wasn't elegant. It certainly wasn't clever.

But when the mind of a minion was behind a tonne of metal, sometimes clever wasn't needed.

Char slammed his golem's chest into the New Model Army machine. It wrapped its arms around him, squeezing, but momentum was a cruel tyrant. The two of them went straight through the railings, and plummeted like a stone.

Red-hot metal went everywhere as the two golems fell into the metal, locked in death's embrace.


Louise swallowed. She had watched the entire fight. It had been a thing. It had definitely being a thing. Part of her was cackling and rubbing her hands about the prospect of minions in the stolen golem armour. Another part was yelling and flailing her arms at the thought of minions in the stolen golem armour.

Something was screaming from down in the molten metal. Lord, what a horrifying death. But she had a duty to see what had happened. She grabbed her dropped staff and leant on it. Steeling herself, she fixed her sight on the pool of molten metal. In which Char had steeled himself.

It was like she could still hear him.

"Help, help, help!" screamed Char, flailing wildly. "I'm drowning! Drowning!"

Louise blinked. She opened her mouth. She closed her mouth. She tried several times to describe what she was seeing. "How… you're sitting on top of the… molten… metal," she eventually settled on.

"... oh yeah, so I is." Char stopped flailing and sat up, brushing off splatters of red hot iron.

"You're on fire! And sitting on molten metal!" That bit was important.

Char sniffed. "Ah, bugger, my clothes!" He tugged at the carbonised remnants of his beret, which came apart in his hand, and sighed mournfully. "I are gonna have to liberate myself some new ones! Ach. At least all of Scyl's sick also burned off."

"You're…" Louise blinked. Well, molten metal was much denser than water. It must also be denser than minions if they floated in it. That sounded highly improbable, given how abjectly dense they were, but she couldn't deny the evidence in front of her. "Well, uh." She leaned against the wall, wiping her face on her surcoat. All her bones ached. "Good job all around, then. How did you get the idea of using that golem as armour?"

"It are the armoured fist of the prole-eat-a-rat. The forgemistress are now on the side of labour against the landed aristocracy!"

As a member of the landed aristocracy both by birth and as a would-be conquering overlady, Louise was not in favour of that. Fortunately, she was also fully aware that Char was a moron. "Good for you," she said wearily. Better for Jessica. Oh yes. If she could put minions in stolen golems…

"Overlady, you are laughing to yourself in the high pitched way and holding your hand up to your mouth," Scyl called down from the gantry.

"No I'm not," Louise denied reflexively, lowering her hand.

"It are the per-oggy-tave of a lady to cackle when she wanna," Fettid said.

"I wasn't laughing! Don't be stupid! And go bring Maxy back, Scyl!"

"Yeah, yeah, I is looking for where his head landed. Hey, Char? You see if it land in the gloopy metal anywhere?"

"Uh… dunno. It are-"

But what it are was never clarified, because a red hot hand shot out of the metal and grabbed Char.

"I are being oppress-" he began. Thick fingers wrapped around him, and squeezed, wringing him like a wet dishcloth.

Louise sighed, gently hitting her head against the wall. "Oh, come on!" she groaned, grabbing her staff tight. "What does it take to kill this thing?"

"I could stab it!" Fettid suggested.

"You'd catch on fire. You're a moron."

"I could use my water magic so it's not on fire," Scyl suggested idly as he searched for Maxy's head. Down below there was a hissing, sloshing noise as the golem tried to paddle in the molten metal. Swimming was evidently not something it had been designed for. "Then Fettid could stab him again!"

"Oooh, I like that bit!"

"That wouldn't help with…" Wait. Wait, sugar. That might work. Not from Scyl, but… Louise's eyes drifted over to a hoist full of waterstones. They'd probably been left there to fuel some of the steam engines. Well, she'd be damned if she was going to say something like 'Scyl, you're a genius'. He wasn't. What she instead said was, "Fettid! With me! We need to move those blue stones!"

"Woo hoo! Girl's night out!"

"Shut up and pull the rope!"

The metal hoist full of waterstone crystals was heavy. Even with Fettid pulling with her, it was so slow to shift. With a wet slopping sound, the golem pulled itself out of the molten metal. It wasn't moving very well in the dense liquid. Finally, Louise couldn't help but think. Something the dratted thing was bad at. Liquid iron sloshed out of the many holes, pooling on the stone. Each motion scraped more metal off its sagging joints. One of its arms hug entirely loose, the half-molten chain having snapped entirely.

The purple glow on its forehead was barely visible among the orange-to-red-to-black coating of metal, cooling in the air.

Eyeballing the angle, Louise muttered a soft prayer that this was going to work. Then, "Fettid! Cut the cargo cable!"

"The what?"

"The cable! The cable!"

The host fell, spilling its waterstone cargo around the feet of the golem. Some even stuck to the red glowing form, blue fragments embedded in the coating of metal.

Louise gasped for breath in the heat. She could feel exhaustion hands upon her shoulders, and here and now exhaustion was the cousin of death. But she still had something in her. One, or maybe two spells. She started to chant. Sparks played around the index finger of her left hand, fat and pink and hateful.

Lightning lashed out.

The waterstones detonated, filling the air with mist that was painted red by the forges. A knee-high wave of water hit like a hammer blow. Everywhere, the sizzle of water on hot metal could be heard. And a slowly cooling plink-plink-plink.

Choking, gasping, Louise covered her mouth and waved away the steam. Her face felt sunburned and her entire body ached.

Clank, shfft. Clank, shfft. Clank, shfft.

The golem slowly emerged from the fire-lit steam, jolting and juddering. Its armour plate was torn in many places. Red and blue light poured out of the holes in its chest; white light spilled from its split-open helm. Each motion had none of the brutal efficiency of earlier. It was like an aged man, with limbs that had none of the strength of youth. It dragged its immobilised leg behind it. The purple sigil on its forehead was embers-dim.

"Why won't you die?" Louise screamed.

Clank, shriek, rasp. Clank, shriek, rasp. Clank, shriek, rasp. Each step wrenched its metal further, tearing and groaning. Then something gave way in its one remaining leg, and it fell forward with a clatter. But even that wasn't enough to stop its relentless advance. Its clumsy arms flailed, one managing to find a place it could dig its claw-like fingers into and slowly, painfully pull itself forwards.

Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

Louise gritted her teeth, feeling almost as broken down as the golem. But she was upright, and it wasn't. Taking it one rung at a time, she descended the ladder and edged around the prone form until she could get behind it. Mechanisms whined in its form as it tried to turn to track her, but as long as she kept away from the flailing arms, it couldn't touch her.

With both hands, she gripped her staff. Louise stepped forward, placing her armoured boot on its back with a solid clank.

"You're finished," she hissed, working her staff into the join at the back of its neck where the helmet met the body. The metal there was torn, and pulling back and forth she pushed her staff in deeper and deeper.

With a yell and the full application of her body weight, she levered the helmet off the body. It rolled away, and the golem's body went limp. The head came to rest in a corner, facing Louise. The purple light flickered, and went out.

Louise sank down to her knees, panting, and tore off her helmet. "Sweet… sweet… merciful… something or other," she groaned. Finding the central figure of your religion was an evil overlord made it much harder to profane. It was very unfair. "Ow. Ow. Ow." She took account of the sprains, twists, bruises, burns, and other such injuries. They were numerous.

She was… yes. Just going to take a little nap. Because she had been running on adrenaline since… since…

Louise didn't complete that thought. The clatter of her armour as she fell didn't even wake her.


"Morning, sleepyhead." Jessica cleared her throat. "Well, it's late evening, but… uh. How're you feeling?"

Louise stared up at the ceiling. It wasn't familiar. Tilting her head to the side, she found she was lying on the carpet of someone's writing room. She considered various superlative adjectives to describe her discomfort. She then gave up, because she felt too awful for such word games. "Like I've been beaten with mallets," she croaked. "Or crochet hammers. Or I've run one of mother's training courses."

"Yeah, you're… you're going to need some bed rest. Because I'm awesome with my designs, nothing's broken, but… wow, I'm going to have so many dents to hammer out of your armour. And you bled on your padding a bunch."

"How much blood?"

"Not too much. Where, uh. Too much is the amount that would've killed you."

She didn't have more time to ask about bleeding. Not when there were more pressing questions. "... Jessica?"

"Yes?"

"Why is your arm a demon arm?"

"Yeah, about that." Jessica rubbed her muscled, clawed, furred arm with her human one. She had a sizable bruise on one side of her face. "I'm gonna need some bed rest too."

"You're not dead?" Louise checked.

"... no, boss, I'm not dead. And they have dragons here, so I'm keeping them. We just need to get them back to the tower and I'll have dragon flame! And on top of that..."

Louise listened to Jessica chatter on what she had found here. She probably had to ask it. "Have Magda and her demon shown up?"

"Yeah, no sign of her." Jessica looked pensive. "So given that she unchained most of her bindings on the demon-god Falufarghlesh, we may have to face the possibility that a wicked, amoral monster with access to terrible reserves of power has been unleashed on the world to take cruel enjoyment in the suffering of mortal men and bring death, destruction and havoc to all."

"Falufarghlesh is a terrible threat," Louise said, paling. "I'm not looking forwards to having to deal with that."

"Wait, what?"

"Well, I…" Louise paused as realisation dawned. "Oh."


Sir Michael Hanson picked his way through the disgusting fens around Grantebrycge. Urgh! This was disgusting! This was just the worst day! The horrid little Tristanian overlady had shown up somewhere where she wasn't meant to be! Hopefully the Mark II would kill her, but for now it would be better to retreat to a safe distance - to better oversee the glorious victory, of course.

Unfortunately, any form of safe distance involved heading through the fens. They smelled awful! Well, it was a jolly good thing he was nearly out of here! Just a little longer, and he'd be somewhere dry and warm!

His feet squelched in the mud, and he bitterly bemoaned the fact he had not the strength to levitate all the way out of here. Birds called overhead, circling before heading away. Crickets buzzed in the undergrowth.

Wait.

Crickets didn't buzz.

Those were flies.

He screamed and covered his mouth and eyes as an impossible number of buzzing insects poured out of the ground and shallow water. They drowned out everything; light, sound, even all sensation save their crawling on his skin. The horror seemed endless. He couldn't even hear his terrified shrieking over the cacophonous swarm.

After a small eternity, the pressure of the insects relented, and Michael Hansson looked up. There was something goat-shaped towering over him, made of something almost - but not entirely - like cloth. Its button eyes spun madly; its black fabric crawled and squirmed under his gaze.

And standing between the legs of the tree-sized goat was a little blue-eyed girl. She smiled up at him with a gap-toothed grin. There was neither mercy nor charity in that smile, and the only innocence was a childish lack of understanding of one's own mortality.

"Hello, Mr Bad Man," the little girl said softly.

He screamed at her, because his nerves were still more than a little unsettled from the flies, and he wasn't quite up to words just yet.

"That's not very nice, is it?" She tilted his head. "I know you."

"Y-you do?"

"Yes. I do." She jammed her hands in the pockets of her mud-covered dress. There were little flecks of blood on it, he realised, under the mud. "You were there. At the house."

At the… he frowned. There was something familiar. Something about her gaze. Her innocent demeanour. That mild-mannered appearance, combined with deeply disturbing behaviour. And those flies. He had heard them in the night. "You're… you're the daughter! The youngest daughter! Those eyes!"

"What's my name?" the tiny demon in human skin asked softly.

"You're… you're…" he swallowed. "Alice?"

"No. No I'm not. You didn't know my name. You killed Mummy and Daddy and James and Harry and Alice."

"Would… w-would it help if I said sorry?" he tried desperately, reaching behind him for his wand.

"I am Elizabeth Magdalene Victoria Caroline Esther Stewart," Magda said softly. "Do you want to play a game with me?"

"Of course I do! Y-yes, of course!" Slowly he slid his backup wand from the back of his hose.

Magda didn't smile. She patted the leg of her great cloth goat-monster. "I don't. It's not time for games. Fluffles. Eat his face. But don't kill him. Yet.

"That comes later."


"I'm… I'm sure she's having fun," Louise said numbly.

"Yes. That's what I'm scared of."

"Jolly good." She closed her eyes again. "Good job with the golems."

"Yeah, he helped with that too. He's a keeper."

"Yes, that… wait." Something clicked in her brain. "Who?"

"So, the guy who that lump of lard was shouting at? Yeah. I sort of flipped him."

Louise moaned. "Jessica!"

"What? It was super amazing of me!"

"Yes, but now I have to talk to him! Get me…" she considered her current position and approximate capacity to stand. Well, that didn't matter. As mother always said, 'I was too tired' wouldn't save the world.

"You're kidding. You can't stand in that state."

"I don't have time to lie about and I can't look weak! Get me up into that chair!" She swung her legs off the table, every muscle protesting, and then followed her legs off the table with a clatter.

"Told you so."

"Ow," she said from down on the floor.

"Yeah, no." Jessica loomed over her, hands on her hips. "I'll handle this. Go to sleep, Lou."

That was… not unreasonable. "Well, at least pick me up," Louise mumbled. "Let me just call Gnarl to tell him…"

"Louise. You're too tired to even cast this magic."

"Why isn't he answering?"

"Louise!"


The minions were running around outside and occasionally screaming in pain as Maggat reasserted any authority he might have lost while dead. Jessica found Hooke safely in his offices, packing up books and journals. "Oh, Jessica," he said cheerfully. "You wouldn't happen to have found any spare parchment that your minions haven't looted yet, have you? I want to leave some false plans behind that'll blow up catastrophically if anyone tries to build them."

She quirked an eyebrow at that. "That's eager."

"I spent two years being told what to do by inbred cretins from public schools, who assume that just because they went to the right school and know the 'right' people, they were born to rule. When actually they're morons. Morons whose family and heritage they brag about is a plank, not a tree."

"You have a… uh, a lot of built-up spite."

"Yes," he said with feeling. "Yes, I do."

Jessica gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up. "That's what I like to hear! Once this is all over, we can head back down to my place. But I need to get the dragons back first."

He flipped a stray lock of hair out of the way. "I'm glad that someone's taking care of Alice and Mary. They're too old to be flying in combat, but they're good girls." He considered this statement. "By the standards of bad-tempered giant flying reptiles."

Jessica giggled. "Sure, whatever you say." She leaned against the wall, admiring the way the muscles in his upper back shifted as he lifted up hefty piles of paper. Something had been bothering her. "Oh yes. So, when we first showed up, your boss seemed really surprised to see us. Well, mostly the overlady."

Hooke paused in his stacking. "Oh, well, yes. I suppose he was expecting her to follow her ally into the trap."

"Her… what?" Jessica frowned, the veins in her demonic arm starting to glow. "What ally? What trap?"

"She is allied to the Dark Queen of the dark elves, yes?" He leaned on a pile of books. "Or were the reports wrong?"

"Well, yes, she is, but…"

"I think there's some big trap being set for the dark elves? They've been a constant thorn in the side of the Commonwealth, so I think they're setting some big bait with seeded intel reports to lure them into… something. I'm not sure what. I only heard what Hansson was bragging about."

Jessica's mouth hung open uselessly. She was making little angry noises that rumbled out of her throat. Hooke blinked at her curiously.

"Is that a problem?"

"Of course that's a problem!" Jessica pulled out a thin obsidian slab. "Let me just call Gn… someone. Call someone." She fiddled with the slab. "Why isn't it working?"

"What?"

"There's a… a way demons can communicate across long distances," Jessica said, not looking up. "And I can't access it. The cursed magic it relies on… it's disrupted. Like someone or something has thrown a rock into a pool of water and now it's all choppy and broken up."

"Albion is moving," Hooke said. "Would that do it?"

"How do you know that?"

"I was born here. Can't you feel the way the air is moving and the change in pressure? By my judge, we're heading south."

Jessica swallowed. "South. Towards Tristain. That kind of south?"

"Well, yes, but…"

Jessica held a claw to his lips. She turned, and gently banged her head into the nearest wall. "Fuck! Fuck!"

"I don't follow."

"That's how you invade Tristain without windships. And when you're building a giant chain you can use to drag an island around…" Jessica thumped the wall with her demonic hand, shattering the stone. "Fuck!"

"I mean, that's bad, but…"

"She's going to be so smug that she was basically right!"