Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess

“Hoy! Time to go!” Effortlessly, the Jager scooped up Lars and Augie and tucked them under his arms. The other two Jagers had swept the immediate area free of monsters, and although more continued to pour over the side of the bridge, the structure was clear enough that they were able to head back at a trot.

“A gurl like dot,” the Jager explained, “Ven she sez ‘moof ’—” The remaining two Jagers answered in cheerful chorus, “Hyu MOOF!”

The circus performers concentrated their fire on the remaining creatures on the bridge, allowing the retreating party to move relatively unhindered. As soon as they touched the road, Agatha wound up and slung the now sparking gun with all her might. It arced towards the center of the bridge. Just before it would have landed, it detonated with a blue-white explosion that knocked everyone to the ground.

When the lights faded from her eyes, Agatha could see that the bridge was gone. There was nothing left but some stone rubble growing out of the ancient chasm walls.

Around her, everyone else began to climb to his or her feet. The creatures were up first, but instead of attacking, they stared at the remnants of the bridge and shrieked in despair. The nearest one to Agatha unfroze and swiveled towards her just as Master Payne stepped up behind it and ran it through with a cutlass. The creature coughed wetly as the sword pushed out through its chest, and it bonelessly collapsed when it was withdrawn. Looking around Agatha saw that the remaining creatures were going down with similar ease.

On the opposite side of the chasm, a growing crowd of monsters could be seen. They screamed and shook their fists at the circus, a few of them getting so excited that they fell, shrieking, into the depths.

Once the monsters around them were dispatched, some of the performers began to turn their weapons on these observers. After the first few fell, the rest retreated and loped back up the road.

The circus milled around. Lars began to shake. “We... we did it! We got out!” His voice began to rise.

Abner swore and pushed towards him. “Oh no, not now...”

The Jager nearest Agatha, the wielder of the great pole-axe, raised his eyebrows questioningly and jerked a large clawed thumb towards Lars. “Vot’s hiz problem?”

“Lars gets hysterical after a fight,” Agatha explained. “It’s hard to calm him down.”

The Jager walked over to Lars and rabbit punched the back of his head. With a sigh, Lars collapsed onto the roadway. The Jager turned back to Agatha and smiled proudly. “No it ain’t.”

Agatha looked at Lars. “Oh dear. I’m sure that’s wrong,” she looked over at Zeetha. “Although I can’t think why.”

Abner turned to Augie, who was staring at the nearest Jager in horrified fascination. “How are you feeling?”

“Wonderful!” Augie proclaimed loudly, “Never better! Calm and collected!”

The green Jager nodded. “Hokay.”

Master Payne had been examining one of the dead monsters. With a grunt, he climbed to his feet. “All right, Augie. What’s the story?”

The older man sighed and leaned against the nearest wagon. “We didn’t get much past the bridge when Lars began to get twitchy. It took us awhile to figure out why. There weren’t any other riders. There wasn’t any sign that there had been any riders from the town for quite awhile. Lars insisted we leave the road and he looked around. That’s when we noticed that there weren’t any animals. Not even birds. This is spring, they should be all over the place. But we couldn’t find any active burrows. No fresh nests. No fresh tracks. No droppings. No bodies. No bones. Nothing.”

Agatha looked troubled. “But you kept going.”

Taki handed Augie a bottle of brandy. He gratefully took a pull from the bottle and wiped his mouth. “Passholdt isn’t just any old town we can swing around, Miss Clay. There’re only a few passes open this early in the year. It was a hard winter.”

Abner spoke up. “We’ve seen dead towns before. They’re creepy, but we can pass through them if we must. Plus, it’s always possible that while the surrounding area might be affected, the town itself might have held out and is still secure.” He looked at Augie questioningly.

The advance man wearily shook his head. “No such luck. We stayed off the road and in the woods as long as we could. The farms around the town were deserted. A few were burned out, but the rest were just abandoned. All the livestock is gone. So was the stored grain and seed stock. The silage lofts were mostly full. Whatever happened, happened last fall or over the winter.

“We finally got within sight of the town. The fields were empty. Haven’t even been turned. The city walls are still intact. We didn’t see any smoke, or sentries, but Lars still took over an hour sneaking up to a tree tall enough that he could look over the wall.”

Augie took another deep drink. “Inside the walls, he said that most of the buildings looked intact, but there were smashed carts and wagons and bones. Bones everywhere. Apparently people kept coming to Passholdt for quite awhile.” Another drink.

“And crawling over everything were those... things. There weren’t any people or animals. Just them. They were sprawled on the roofs, shambling through the buildings, picking through the bones. Hundreds of them. Thousands, probably. Lars said that as he was climbing down, he snapped a dry branch. Just one as big around as your finger,” Augie held up an index finger to demonstrate. It was shaking slightly.

“He said that the ones nearest to him whipped their heads around towards him and started shrieking. That spread through the whole town and they all started running towards us. Well, he dropped five meters straight down to the ground and we grabbed the horses and started running.” He looked at the remnants of the bridge and a shudder went through him. “And they still beat us here,” he whispered. “We were damned lucky they started from inside the town.”

Master Payne turned away and looked at the bridge. “Well, no one will get caught by them from this direction. Unfortunately, this leaves us in a bit of a predicament.”

“Us?” Agatha gestured over the chasm. “What about the townspeople?”

Augie looked at her. “For all we know those were the townspeople.”

“You don’t know?”

“How the devil would I know?”

Agatha nodded. “Losing the bridge will certainly make it more challenging, but it does mean that they won’t be expecting anyone to come from this direction. That’s good.”

Master Payne looked at her blankly. “Good for what?”

“Our attack on Passholdt.”

Abner blinked. “Our what?”

Agatha shrugged. “Attack might be the wrong word,” she conceded. “But we have to do something to try to save the people of Passholdt. I guess the first step will be to analyze one of these corpses and see if these creatures were once human. Perhaps we can—”

The concentrated glares from her assembled listeners finally registered, and Agatha’s monologue stumbled to a halt. “No?” she asked.

Master Payne sighed and removed his spectacles. “Many newcomer Sparks make the same mistake, Miss Clay. But I confess that I’d thought you more... grounded[31].”

Agatha was confused. “I don’t understand.”

Payne nodded. “We are actors, Miss Clay. We only pretend to be heroes.” He spread his hands and his spectacles hovered in midair. “We are fakes. These are tricks. Our lives, the lives I am responsible for, are dangerous enough without questing for adventure. We are Sparks, yes, but pitifully weak ones, and we know this. It is this knowledge, the knowledge of just how weak we are, that keeps us alive.”

Agatha interrupted, “But the town—”

Payne snatched the floating spectacles from the air and slammed his great fist down upon a wagon yoke. “At our next stop we will inform the Baron’s people. These are his lands? He can keep them clean!”

Agatha tried one last time. “But—”

“BUT NOTHING!” Payne roared. “For all we know, those things are... are some new form of revenant, and the only thing that can be done for them is to kill them!” He wheeled about and looked Agatha in the eye. “Could you burn down