Chapter 7: Mysterious Remnant

  Turner was glad to see that Captain Tarnlow had survived. The soldier - like Turner himself - was covered in scrapes and bruises, but otherwise his only real injury was a bad sprain that kept his arm in a sling. Surprisingly, Grana Thess had been completely uninjured aside from a bump on her knee. Likely this was because she stayed well away from the battle, but this didn't stop her from complaining about it loudly.

  The battle had been far more deadly than anyone had thought. Out of a dozen people, with ten of them direct combatants, four had died that night. A fifth was crippled - possibly for years - by a broken collarbone. Nora and Grana Thess had made the attempt to set it properly, so there was a better than even chance that he'd recover... but still decent odds he'd never recover full use of that arm.

  "We shouldn't have pushed ahead once the rain really started coming down," Turner grumbled, rubbing the side of his face. Nora's poultice had kept the bruises from getting too bad, but he still didn't want to look in the mirror any time soon. He still ached, even after sleeping in.

  Captain Tarnlow grunted, taking a seat. "You and I both know it might have run by then. Or maybe not. No clue what this thing was for." He shifted uncomfortably in the chair, groaning under his breath. Turner was surprised that the farmer had lent them the use of the barn for this, after they'd burned down the stable and torn up the fields, but in a close-knit frontier community maybe it made sense. They had lost a number of their defenders last night, which meant there was a good chance some of them had been the farmer's friends.

  A loud CLUNK of a prybar broke into the conversation, pulling Turner's attention to the middle of the large room. Arkson, the town's best blacksmith, certainly looked the part as he pried the misaligned plating under the construct away from its innards. Stout, bulky, with biceps that were as thick as Turner's thighs, the man screamed 'BLACKSMITH' when anyone looked. The rough callouses and signs of burns helped, for those sharp enough to look, but Turner had seen such a variety that it oft took him by surprise when someone matched the stereotype.

  "It's not as bad as it was before, yet something still feels... wrong about this thing," Nora murmured from nearby. Beside her, Grana Thess growled her own agreement. The two couldn't be said to be friends, but last night's ordeal had certainly helped them build up trust between one another.

  Disassembling the strange machine had been a natural decision, after it had caused so many deaths. Captain Tarnlow had kept it quiet, but he'd needed to bring in some others. The one largely-uninjured watchman wasn't present, nor the crippled one, but everyone else from last night was in this room. Added to the six survivors, Arkson the blacksmith had been called in, along with the slim and reedy-looking town's tinker, Phillips. Hodgeworth wasn't large enough to support a full machinist shop, especially out here on the frontier, so Phillips handled any of the simple machines that did break down.

  Lord Gantston filled out the remaining slot of the nine in the barn. Hodgeworth didn't have a mayor, exactly, but Lord Gantston served that role by being the main patron here, and the highest-ranking noble they had. This didn't take much, out here in the sticks. Turner didn't think much of the nobility, but he had to admit that the middle-aged man's intense stare and clear concentration earned him some respect.

  Arkson grunted again as the final panel popped off, exposing the half-melted innards. Nora's "Sunburst" mixture burned hot enough to melt steel, given enough time. Most of the inner components of the machine had been brass, from the look of the slagged lump near the front of the shell. Turner didn't like her carrying them - they ignited on contact with air, making a rupture in the pack a horrifying idea - but today he was glad she'd carried one.

  "Can you tell where it came from?" Lord Gantston asked, interrupting Turner's thoughts. The man was watching the disassembly with some interest, but Turner doubted he really knew much about it. Even Turner himself couldn't follow what he was looking at, and he had more experience with modern technology than most people out here on the frontier.

  Phillips's expression looked pained. "My Lord... no." He gestured at the half-melted innards. "Look at this. This machinery, it's... it's unlike anything I've ever seen. Intricate, yes, but so very precise as well. The boiler system alone, even broken as it is, would have to be the result of at least two Master Engineers working together."

  The man's finger hovered over the open construct. He traced some of the tubing down to the legs. "See here? It's not just heating the water. It has a full system of pressurized tubes to carry it to the legs, complete with valves and secondaries in case of damage." He tapped the edge of the casing. "It even had a means of restoring water after usage and pressure loss. And that's just the steam and clockwork part."

  He looked up at the noble. "Lord Gantston... I can't even tell how it was able to manipulate the valves. It has some clockwork parts, but no mainspring to power them. This isn't technology that we can find here on the continent, unless it's very, very new."

  "Can't be that new," Arkson grunted as he held up one of the bronze plates. "It's been wandering around for at least a few months. An alchemist might be able to make a fake patina, but it wouldn't look like this. This is all natural." He scratched a fingernail down the plate, showing everyone the variation in thickness of the coating. Turner didn't actually know how long it took for bronze to form that film, but Arkson seemed to know what he was talking about.

  Turner felt the need to note what he'd seen. "During the fight, it got flipped on its back. It seemed to lose pressure, or something. It slowed down and was more clumsy, but started to get faster again when it was upright." He frowned and added, "I heard the boilers start up. I couldn't figure out what was firing them up."

  Before anyone could answer, Gantston cut in. "It started the boiler up after you arrived?" The noble's eyes were on Turner when he asked that question, but they looked to Captain Tarnlow immediately after, searching for confirmation.

  The Captain just shrugged his good arm, wincing as it shifted his injured one. "I wasn't close enough to notice, myself." His brow knit as he spoke more gravely, "But this is one of the reasons I called you in to watch. This thing definitely moved on its own. It reacted to us, like it had a mind." He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. "I don't think it was very smart. It was savage, and it did show some basic idea of avoiding danger and going after immediate threats, but it was like fighting an animal."

  Lord Gantston frowned again, crossing his arms while he considered the half-dismantled machine. "Brass, bronze, steel... and precision work. This thing is expensive, enough that I can't believe someone would send it all the way out here just to kill Henley. If they wanted him dead there'd be easier ways to do it that would get less attention. Besides, he has friends in high places... the man was starting to be a legend. Why send something that's not just expensive, but revolutionary?"

  Phillips again had to admit defeat as he spread his hands. "The more I look at this, the more questions I have, too, my Lord." He rapped a finger against the melted hunk of brass that used to be a face, of sorts. "I can tell lenses were on here. I assume for sight of some kind, but I can't tell how. Maybe some material that didn't leave a remnant in the heat ran through the tubing. But I did just find something strange..."

  The tinker used a pair of metal rods to pry parts of the machinery away from something deeper inside the mess of gears and tubing. He reached in carefully, as if something would bite him, which made Turner curious what he'd seen. What he finally extracted was a small, fist-sized bit of metal, wrapped to make a loose sphere around a glassy crystal.

  Now it made sense why he'd been so careful. Turner could see from where he stood that the crystal was a bluish-clear glass, and one side of it had shattered. Glass fragments had to be all over the inside. He watched as Phillips turned it over a few times, then had to ask, "I've never seen anything like that. What is it?"

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  Phillips shook his head as he gingerly set the frame and crystal aside. "I don't know," he admitted without any hesitation. He didn't try to play up his knowledge at all. Either the man was very humble, or he was just that far out of his depth. "I suspect that this was the real power source. Or possibly whatever made it act out that way. It had a number of wires leading into the rest of the-"

  Turner hadn't seen Nora move. One moment, she'd been standing quietly to the side. The next, she was pushing aside Phillips, forcefully yanking at the small contraption and tearing out the crystalline heart of it. She moved so fast, nobody even had a chance to say anything before she'd hurled the crystal into the wall of the barn, splintering it into hundreds of tiny shards, and two larger pieces.

  "What are-" Lord Gantston started to shout, but he cut himself off when Grana Thess smashed her cane down on one of the larger pieces, grinding it to powder. Another quick SMACK smashed the other piece, and the old woman panted, her withered body rising and falling with deep breaths.

  "It's evil," Nora said, her voice pale. "I don't know what it is, but that feeling that I... that we've been having? That's what it was from. I think Martin broke it, mostly, with that last thrust." She took her own breath, letting some color return to her cheeks. "It calmed, mostly, then. But we kept feeling it, just a little, every time we came near to the... corpse."

  Grana Thess hissed, "The witch is right. Whatever that thing was, it wasn't meant to be." She pointed her cane at the inert construct. "That's just a machine. But its heart was... I've never felt something so wrong. This girl doesn't follow our ways, even if she knows them, but we agree on this."

  The scowl that the nobleman wore turned into a look of worry now. Even if Lord Gantston weren't a believer himself, he knew better than to try going against an elder of the temples. "That makes even less sense," he murmured, eyes looking at the slag inside the machine's body. "Expensive metals, shaped with precision that would take an entire team of people in a shop that could only exist across the mountains, controlled by... you're saying some kind of foul magic? All to kill one glassmaker? Henley was good, but that seems... excessive."

  Up until this point, Arkson had been quiet. The blacksmith had busied himself with disassembling some of the surviving components, examining the thickness of the bronze and steel. The sharp clang of one of the steel rods from the legs of the construct rapping against the chassis drew everyone's attention. The heavyset man held up the rod, "Not just precision, this."

  All eyes turned toward the blacksmith, with Gantston's surprise turning to a wary hope. "Can you tell where it was made? Did you find something? A maker's mark or something?" That would be too much to hope for, Turner thought, but a lucky break if so. He couldn't blame the man for asking. Anyone who could field something like this was quite an enemy to worry about.

  Again, the metal rod tapped against the bronze-clad shell, then Arkson held it up and turned it over, showing it off with a gleam of the light off the smooth steel. "Not exactly," he confessed. "Didn't find any marks at all. Ain't even got the ones that should be there." He turned the rod over, lined it up with the socket it had come from, and dropped it in.

  The slender rod slid right in, whisper-quiet until it clinked against the far end of the metal tube that housed it. A perfect fit.

  "That's not precision work," Arkson said, glancing at the puzzled Phillips. That sort of assessment was more a tinker's job, and Arkson didn't strike Turner as being any sort of mechanist or engineer. "This steel's too perfect," the blacksmith continued. "I don't mean it's good quality steel. It's 'bout average, I guess. But when you work it, steel gets a... grain, I guess you could say. This thing's grain is smoother than a babe's bottom. Er... sorry, Grana."

  He tapped the cylinder that housed the rod. "Look at the way it fits. You could call that precision work, yeah. But the rod doesn't show any signs of being sanded or ground down. It couldn't have been forged in that shape, with heat applied all even. It's like it was just... born that way."

  That description prompted both Tarnlow and Gantston to look at Nora, as if she had the answer. Turner wasn't sure why, until Nora shook her head and answered, "Witchcraft doesn't do that kind of thing. At least... not any that I've ever heard of. Maybe something alchemical? My alchemy skills aren't nearly advanced enough to do something like that."

  Phillips interrupted with a hand raised to grab attention to himself. "I know there's a lot here that we don't understand, but what we can understand, just barely, is that some of this is very advanced and expensive technology. It doesn't have to be magic or witchcraft or even alchemy. It could be pure technology. If they can build something this intricate, maybe they have bigger, more delicate machines to make the parts."

  That reminded Turner of something from the battle. "This one was durable, all right." He gestured to the machine. "It may not have worked when flipped over, but we saw it - uh, or at least felt it - get struck by lightning. It barely had any effect at all. Some of it was pretty delicate but this thing took out five men before we stopped it. And your town's Watch is better than most I've seen out here. They weren't veteran soldiers or anything, but any normal threat would have had a rough time."

  Tarnlow nodded somberly. He'd probably trained them himself. Without comment, he began digging through the satchel at his side. Turner wasn't sure why. Maybe he was just thinking about the men who had died.

  "Ah..." Phillips cleared his throat. "I think I know why. Arkson, pry this plate back a little more? Yes, just like... there." He pointed a finger, and Turner leaned in to see thin copper wires embedded in the shell. Phillips explained, "Copper is very good at directing electricity. I don't really know much about it - not much call for that out here - but my guess is this mesh running along the shell let the lightning run through it without damaging things too much. I did find some parts a little melted around the edges, though. I'd bet it couldn't take more than one or two strikes before starting to break down."

  Gantston rapped on the nearby beam to get everyone's attention. "I understand this is something far beyond what we've seen before, but that just makes my real question more urgent. What is it doing here and why did it kill Henley, of all people? The man had few enemies. This freelancer here," he gestured to Turner, "isn't even the first one to do a rush delivery for something luxurious."

  "I think I have a clue about some of that," Tarnlow spoke up. He dropped something on the table next to the corpse of the machine. It was shattered, only a third of it intact, but Turner recognized it as a piece of one of the lenses that had looked like the thing's eyes. He dimly remembered it had been missing one by the time he fought it. This must be a piece of the one that broke before the sunburst had hit it and melted the other two.

  Tarnlow tapped the glass, carefully. "One of the field workers found this just this morning, right before we came in here. It's good glasswork. And it looks familiar, doesn't it? I have Simmons over at Henley's workshop right now, to see if he had any others."

  Now Turner joined in with the theorizing. Sort of. "Milo, tell them what you found in the forest outside of town a few days back." Had it only been a few days? To Turner, it felt much longer.

  Everyone turned to Milo, whose eyes were wide now that attention was on him. He'd been quietly in the back for most of the discussion. "Uh... as we mentioned before when the Captain was asking us about the murder, we'd seen those marks before." He nodded to Tarnlow, but continued for the benefit of Lord Gantston. "Two wolves, killed in the same manner. But I also found a footprint from... I think it was from a young boy or very small teen. Or a small woman wearing men's shoes, I guess." He added that last in a sudden inspiration, then looked away, embarrassed.

  "So... there's someone else out there who knows more," Gantston realized. He turned to Captain Tarnlow. "Captain, I want you to take some men and... no, no." Turner was mildly impressed as the nobleman stopped and rubbed his temples. "We've just lost most of the active militia. We can't leave the town unprotected like that."

  Tarnlow nodded, "Agreed. Best we can do is send a message up to Sparston and hope they pay attention." The tone of his voice was bitter, as if he knew the chances of the larger city paying any heed were slim, at best. "We can't spare enough people to hunt down anyone dangerous enough to-"

  "I'll do it," Turner said.

  Everyone turned to look at him, even Grana Thess, who cut off her quiet mumbling. Milo and Martin had wide eyes, shocked at what they'd heard. The only one who wasn't staring was Nora, who looked more thoughtful.

  Milo muttered, "What?"

  Turner shrugged, "I said I'll do it. With my team, if they'll follow." He looked around the room. "We’re not from here. No one will miss us. But if we do nothing, the trail grows cold. None of us know what these things are, or how many of them are out there. We were lucky this time. What if something like that came across a smaller town with a less competent Watch?"

  He paused to look around. Arkson and Phillips were looking anywhere but at him. Gantston had a raised eyebrow, while Tarnlow was now tapping his chin in thought. Milo and Martin still stared, but Milo reluctantly nodded his head. "Yeah..."

  Less than a week ago, the brothers had been eager for something more substantial. It was not lost to Turner that they'd finally learned some caution. At least they were both still alive to enjoy it.

  Turner let out a deep breath. He couldn't avoid danger forever. And this... this he needed to do. "I won't ask any of you to come with me if you don't want," he reassured. "You can take your cut of the scrap and go. It’s more than enough to get you started with another crew. Otherwise..." he looked around.

  "We'll leave tomorrow morning."