Time Tells: The Turned Trilogy, #2

By Christopher Percy

"Dark days are these.

 

"I am mourning the loss of my friend.  I am a broken man, incomplete.

 

"I left my home on a quest to destroy the bag or hide it forever but my heart died the day my friend did and I now lack motivation, purpose and hope.

Every day is a struggle to exist.  Every day is a fight.

 

"The witches are coming for me.  Three remain.  Two travel from their mysterious Kingdom of Kakkakin and the third has spent an eternity alone.  Epochs of isolation have driven him mad and he successfully anticipates our every move.  He plots and schemes.  He waits for us.

 

"I must stay ahead of the witches but the little I understand of the wide world is in flux.  Rights to the crown are being contested and life's proving to be dangerous both at home and abroad.  There is another golem, madder and more dangerous than the tracker and the turned continue to seek us out.  Some come to kill us whilst others to join our disparate group of survivors.

 

"Men, turned, witches and my ever expanding assemblage struggle to find a place in these rapidly changing lands and only time will tell if we can survive all the trouble that's heading our way.

 

"And I still have that damn bag and I swear it's started to look at me."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher Percy
• Release date: Sep 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201472733

Christopher Percy

Christopher Percy is an English author of the published dark fantasy novels Dark of Winter, All Roads Lead to Ammin and Since Never, Book One of the Turned Trilogy. He is currently working on the follow up to Since Never; Time Tells, Book Two of the Turned Trilogy and a new standalone book, Wolf in the Womb. True to Percy form both will be extremely dark and violent and may even feature some naked boobies. Something for the dads eh :-0 Christopher writes books that are simple to follow, imaginative, entertaining and as bloat free as possible. Personally he hasn't got time to invest in doorstop sized tomes to read and to write and thinks a lot of people share his sensibilities. Dark fantasy is serious but you're a tourist when you read it: you don't really live there and don't need pages and pages of superfluous information. Christopher writes books he wants to read and hopes there are like-minded people who crave fantasy in generous 'normal' sized books. A size comfy to read in bed and a story that you don't have to invest months to appreciate the depths. In short Christopher cuts to the quick but there will always be layers for the most stubborn of tourists to appreciate. :-) Christopher lives on the South Coast of England. He has a full time job and writes in his spare time. He can be found on Twitter @DarkofWinterbk, or loitering on Facebook and Instagram @ChristopherPercyAuthor.

Book preview

Start

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The bag!  They’ve got the bag!  I cried the moment I realised the thing was gone.

Whatever had taken it had burst through the ground, almost directly underneath the bag, and was gone in a heartbeat, taking the campfire along with it and scattering our belongings too.

Plunged into darkness I panicked, screaming, The bag!  Bent, the bag has gone!

Parts of the sundered campfire rained back down on us.  I patted franticly at my coat thinking it might alight when, whatever had grabbed the bag, gripped around my boot ankle and tugged.  I felt myself propelled down and forward, heard Bent yelling back that it was the Turned, Cabelasti, before my ears filled with wet suckering soil and I was pulled down into the earth and lost to the night.

Cloying earth pinned my arms to my side and for a time I travelled powerless to retaliate.  Cabelasti dragged me down and along like a plough gorging the land, over hard stones and down through boulder sized root bulbs.  I would’ve screamed only my mouth filled with old worms and wetness and I couldn’t find my breath.  Just as I thought I would die I stopped so suddenly I was propelled back out of the grave, rolling to a stop on my knees.  I coughed, retched like a dying man, jabbing three dirty fingers into my mouth to scoop the muck out.  I fingered a nostril, relieved when I finally breathed fresh air.

Bastard, I said, my voice sounding muffled and distant in my head and I reasoned my ears would be full of cloying rubbish too.  I felt Drawn settle down next to me.  A part of his long anatomy touched my left shoulder, bringing me in closer to him; protecting me.

Evin?  Ordesky? I coughed their names to the dark.  It felt like I’d lost all my senses.  The night blinded me and the earth filling my ears deafened me so even if my friends were close I wouldn’t be able to tell.  I hoped they were safe.  I hoped Bent was ripping Cabelasti apart and losing the bag in the fracas and the confusion.  He was my alpha problem solver.  He was the only thing in the world that could help me.  I truly believed that.

It seemed to me a long time passed before my ears finally popped and I snotted out the last of the cold, wet mud.  The ground trembled, or was it the air around me?  For a moment I couldn’t tell.

Great.  It was Evin’s sardonic voice.  All we need, she tutted.

At least she was safe.  Then I felt the first heavy drops of a thunderstorm slap the top of my mud covered head and understood the reason for her mocking tone.  I pulled my hood up, instantly regretting the action as cold mud emptied down my neck and back.  If it wasn’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all.

The heavens opened.  The rain fell so heavily I was clean in an instant but it slicked the ground around me so dangerously I never even attempted to stand.  I just remained on my knees, supplicant to the gods determined to grind me down to nothing.  We were their play things and oh how they loved to play.

Ordesky’s gone to round up the horses.  Perhaps you should head back to the carriage.  He’s got a lamp there, a travelling one you can shut the sides on.  We should attempt to join him there, Flendin.  Pick yourself up and get to the carriage and try and get dry.  You should get back to the carriage, Flendin.  Thieves being thieves we’d helped ourselves to the carriage in the hold of the ship that’d brought us across the sea.  We’d left the crew our rickety cart in ‘fair’ exchange.  Bent made sure they understood the transaction was just and reasonable.

I can hear you, Evin.  You go.  I don’t want to move.  The rainfall was so violent it was hissing around us, bouncing off my head like a thousand tossed pebbles.  Another ground shaking peel of thunder and I felt Evin physically jump next to me.  Go on, I shouted at her.  Try and get dry.  Much to my ire she never moved.  Damn her, I wanted to sulk alone.  Drawn, misplaced loyalty, refused to budge too.  I just wanted to sulk in privacy.  Why couldn’t they understand?  Why wouldn’t they leave me alone to do just that?

I just want to be alone, I uttered so quietly I guessed no one heard me above the furore of the storm.  Today, right now, I hated being me.  I was cold and wet and suckered to the cloying earth that moments before had tried to bury me.  I was hungry, scared and without direction, grieving for my dead friend and grieving for my old life which in a sense was another sort of lost friend.

We survivors of the battle of Never, custodians of the bag and the bones, had left the mainland with no real agenda other than to stay one step ahead of the witches.  In my heart I was determined to lose the bag at any cost.  The responsibility of keeping it from dread-evil had worn me down.  I wanted to be free from it but it had other plans.

––––––––

After the battle of Never we’d chartered a ship from Black Pots.  At the start of the four day journey to Parn, Bent had produced Cuncairn's bones, the witch that had lived inside Hunger’s hat.  I remembered him ripping her apart in the Fortune of War but in the excitement of those last days in Never I’d forgotten she’d ever existed.  We interred her bones with her sisters in my bag, consolidated the valuables if you like.  It proved to be a bad move as we just ended up cursing ourselves more if that was possible.

I threw the bag over the side of the ship.  To my mind I’d got rid of the problem for whom, or rather what magical powers could find anything at the bottom of the sea?  Forever moving sediment would cover it and years would bury it deep.  I thought I’d be free from the problem of the bag and would finally be in a position to try and get some semblance of my old life back, blessed thing that it was.

But the bag came back.  It was cold and wet and waiting for me in my cabin.  The composition of both sisters animated the thing and it almost adopted a personality of its own.  It seemed we’d cursed a cursed thing, a double hex.

We sailed past Marris and headed for a far less populated part of the isle of Laralon.  The fewer people that witnessed us the better so populous areas were to be circumvented.  We wanted to avoid Turned, shrunken heads and most definitely any more witches.  Going secret ways certainly made the party feel just a little bit safer too.

We berthed at a long forgotten dockside in the ghost of a shipping town called Big Oar.  Why it had died was a mystery but its misfortune in commerce played favourably to us and our desire for anonymity.  There was no one about.  Not even a stray dog nosing at the change in scent rolling off the quay. 

Along the shore and all around the algae covered jetty were thick growing brambles called barbed oysters.  They grew everywhere and formed a natural wall looking down at us and the waxing tide.  The thorns were the size of dagger blades and looked just as sharp.

We made along the rickety jetty and I impulsively tossed the bag into the heart of a dense sprawl of barbs and rode off guilt free.  There was a lot of rustling and the snap and crack of bramble branches the width of a man’s arm being broken and lo, behind me, the bag came lurching in pursuit.  Damn bag was tougher than it looked.

I guess it likes you, was all that Bent said.  Some support he was.

Evin and Ordesky were driving the freshly purloined carriage.  Bent and I were astride our respective steeds whilst Drawn kind of rippled in the air next to me, always primed, alert and ready to protect me.

Nobody laughed.  It wasn’t funny.  If we couldn’t get rid of the bag it was as good as a noose fixed around all our necks.  Finally, one day, our luck would run out.  We’d killed one witch, perhaps more by accident than design.  Another had been assassinated but not by us.  Three remained.  Three witches focused on us and our demise, wanting their sisters remains back at any cost.

Like I say our luck would run out. 

––––––––

Today, right now, it felt like it had done just that.  I couldn’t remember feeling so despondent before even at the height of our struggle with the Golem and Hoolivard the Bold.  With time things just got worse.  Diminishing returns, I think Bent had called it.  Clever man for a Turned, for a devil, was Bent.  There was more going on in his head than even I reckoned and I reckoned a lot.

The rain lessened just enough for me to see without blinking incessantly and it no longer hissed in my ears.  The thunder didn’t last long either.  Wet through and shivering I continued to kneel.  I was loath to break my self-imposed bondage, to move and press on with our hopeless task when I suddenly became aware as an orange dot appeared in the dark.

It’s Ordesky returning with the bolted horses, said Drawn calmly for he’d noticed the light a little before I had.  He stretched upwards, extending his height by another six or seven foot.  I guessed he could see better in the dark than I could and was checking ahead.  He must’ve eyes like a cats to penetrate the blackness.  No not a cats, more like a sedentary thoughtful owls.  I saw Drawn more as an owl than a cat.

What else do you see? I asked.  Hopefully a dead Cabelasti and no bag was what I was thinking.  Please no bag.

I could make out Bent as well for he wasn’t too far from Ordesky.  The light from the latter’s lamp highlighted the silver pommels of Bent’s twin swords.  One each side of his waist and not rammed into his spine like he used to carry them.  Bent was bent no longer, yet the name endured, as would his deeds in pubs and taverns all over Never forever more.

My heart sunk a little as it was evident Bent carried no trophy with him.  I guessed Cabelasti had got away again.  That was twice now and I thought Bent was infallible.  Perhaps he should’ve kept his hood and mask on.  Psychologically the process of removing his cover, his shield from the world, had drained his killer instinct.  Nonsense of course as that slimy bastard Turned had simply been lucky and like with us it would run out one day.  It had to.

As I watched Bent walk back it struck me that he was not only Cabelasti light but bag free too.

Had our luck finally changed and had we finally managed to lose it?

Before I could get too excited I noticed it waddling behind him, almost invisible in the middle of the night and ten paces behind Ordesky’s light.  I guessed it was using two femurs to walk on inside the bag for its gait was passable as almost human.  Almost. 

Damn the bag, would I ever be free from it?  Damn it.  The damn thing would follow me to hell and back just like the rest of them would: Evin, Ordesky, Drawn and Bent.

I just wanted to be left alone.

I just wanted my old life back.

Damn them all. 

Damn us all to hell.

Critter

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The pig had died only two days before and moved awkwardly, rigor mortis slowly setting pale flesh to stone.  Rancel guided it down the street, correcting its haphazard path with a stinging strike from his cane whenever she veered to investigate curious scents.

This way Critter.  Rancel struck her on her left side, then again when she didn’t respond immediately.

Critter grunted.  It was a deep broken sound, another indication that her resurrection hadn’t been a perfect transition.  There were tell-tale signs she wasn’t a normal pig.  Well very obvious ones when people stopped to look.  Very obvious and definitely disturbing ones.

Two days prior a wayward cart had smacked into her side, opening her up like a pink bag of flour.  The force of the hit popped her eyes out.  Even now, in spite of Rancel’s haphazard field surgery, they rolled loosely in her skull, sliding down her snout whenever gravity intermittently suckered them free.  Crude stitching held her ruptured guts in place and an old hessian sack fixed over the top of the wound did nothing to combat the stench of internal fluids and mucus.  She was almost blind and definitely mad.  Her excursion to the afterlife had rendered her a confused and broken thing.

Forward, Critter, Rancel encouraged her through the thick mud of the thoroughfare.  Another couple of swishes from his cane and she finally complied, automatically responding to the coercion once she realised she was being struck.  There was no indication she could feel the pain of his strikes but she could certainly feel something.

A low rumble of a grunt emitted from her front end.

Don’t get mad with me, Rancel snapped.  Secretly he worried she’d grunt at least one of her loose fitting eyes out again and he’d have to pop it back in with his fingers and thumb.

The streets of Propagate were busy as usual.  Some traders were already folding up canopied stalls.  Tossing perished fares onto the streets.  Municipal guards bribed wealthier stall owners or ushered stragglers on.  Carts toiled up and down, fanning the wet mud so that everyone from boot to waist was brown coloured and odious.

Rancel guided Critter through the cacophonous lanes.  Their destination in all the noise and confusion was the seedy little pub, ‘The Man from Nook’.

They’d visitors waiting for them there, affluent city folk who wrote on thick parchment with bold, elegant swirls.  These strangers said they’d a job for Rancel if he could really bring the dead back to life.

And he could, sort of.  Critter was proof that Rancel could do it, could reach into the eternal abyss and drag a soul back to the corporal world.

Critter grunted and Rancel checked her eyes were still in place and hadn’t rolled down her snout.

Critter was a tan coloured West Murmant pig.  A pretty pig in her living days, a grunting shitting monstrosity in her purgatory.  Her owner bequeathed her to Rancel and his dark arts for two fennigs and a bag of turnips.  Since she’d first died she’d died two more times again.  Just keeled over mid faux breath and struck her purple coloured trotters up.  Rancel had been present both times she’d passed and managed to resurrect her via his secret magical ways.  It was important that today, if she stayed on all fours long enough, he could secure a payment large enough to set himself up for life and finally get out of Propagate.  He couldn’t afford to blow this meeting.  He couldn’t afford for Critter to either.

So we have a deal, he hissed to her, half bowing to bring himself just that little bit closer to her folded shut ears.  You pretend you’re well and good and get me out of this place and I’ll stop hitting you with the cane.  Might even set you free, eh?

An approving grunt emitted from Critter.  It didn’t sound right, like there was some loose bit deep inside that fat pink, rotting body.

Just keep breathing, he reminded her as they reached the tavern.  Thankfully a rough looking labourer was leaving just as they arrived and held the door open long enough for Critter to seize the initiative and trot in.  The labourer bulked when he finally registered the state of the pig.  Rancel tilted his shapeless felt hat as a thank you and quickly followed her in.

No, no, not here, Rancel, the landlord, attuned to the squeak from the door, looked up just as Critter barged in, snout wavering and twitching like a divining rod for food.  Get that monstrosity outta here!

Come on Boug, we won’t be long, promise.  I’ll make it up to you I swear I will.  Rancel spurted insincerely, looking always in the gloom of the tavern but never at the landlord.  What would the travellers from Never look like?  He knew to expect two of them as per the correspondence.  He scanned the room for a couple.  He also scanned for Goudalai.  He owed that fool money.

The man from Nook, Boug, rescinded as he didn’t fancy ejecting her, didn’t want to be anywhere near the pig.  He kept to the opposite end of the bar from the inquisitive Critter, ready to flee if she got too close.  She was snorting and sniffing, repeatedly banging her head blindly on furniture as she searched for something she didn’t even know she wanted.

Rancel spotted the travellers at the far end of the dark and smoky room and he waved at them.  They sat staring across from him, faces locked in humourless expressions, large hats placed on the table top.  They looked wealthy enough, thought Rancel basing his logic on the size of the feathers sprouting from the brim of these glorious hats.  They held a wooden cup each, which they sipped from like they weren’t really enjoying the local brew.

They were probably used to finer stuff, the city dwelling ponces.

Boug, Rancel said from the corner of his mouth so it looked like he wasn’t talking.  Has Goudalai been in here looking for me?

Nah.

Good.  Give Critter something to eat.  Keep her occupied before she spoils the interview.  Last thing I need is for her to keel over dead.

What, die again?  How many times is that now?

Yes, again.  I don’t know how many times the old girl can keep coming back but every time she does her grunting gets lower, sadder.

Do I got to? Boug was going nowhere near that grunting monster and didn’t see why he should accommodate her.  A quick check of his inventory and he pushed a patrons abandoned half eaten meal off the bar and onto the floor.  Critter tucked right in.

Rancel neared the strangers table.  Are you gentlemen from Never? He enquired warily.

One continued to stare at him, the other nodded, That’s right.  What’s left of it.  It all got smashed to hell but we struggle on.

Another quaff? Rancel had no money and was relieved when they both emphatically declined the offer.  He pointed at the empty chair opposite the couple and the quiet one inclined his head so he joined them.  A few heralds passed through Propagate.  The stories of the Turned attacking are truly terrifying.  I must say that thankfully we haven’t suffered their presence here; that I’m aware of anyhow.  I can’t imagine what you’ve both been through.  To live through such terror puts a cold dread in my blood.  See how I shiver, Rancel proffered a shaking hand as evidence.

One of them lowered a mug to talk.  It was bad.  It will be a long time before Never gets back to normal.  Hundreds of Turned rushed the city.  They pulled people apart, ate them, massacred men, women and children.  Buildings were destroyed.  The Eagle and the Rose reduced to rubble.  It breaks our heart for we love our city.

Truly horrific, Rancel sympathised though it was impossible for him to imagine the emotional impact of such an attack.  No wonder these strangers from the city seemed subdued and despondent.  The things they’d been through would be enough to haunt the most stalwart of hearts.

"Have you heard tales of the Golem?  The Golem of the South and the witch that travelled in its hat?"

Rancel had.  Yes.  It’s rumoured to have passed through here hundreds of years ago.  We’ve old stories about it and were surprised when the herald told us about the battle you were a part of.  He told us about it attacking Never, this thing from so long ago we thought it just a tale, a contrivance to scare little ones and not a real monster alive and crazed and deadly.  We all heard how it smashed down the walls, killing nearly everyone in the city.  We heard how the witch whispered magic to it the whole time, making it stronger, harder to kill.  It was a terrible thing but it’s dead now though, no?

A slow incline of a head and then sedately one of them said, Yes the Golem and its witch are dead.  It was a great battle but Never is a city of heroes and we won.  We fought back and we won.  But the Golem killed someone we want not to be dead.

They must be important then.

Another nod and the same person spoke again, He was a great man and saved a lot of lives before his own was taken from him.  We want you to bring him back to us, now.

Straight to it, eh? Rancel tapped the end of the cane on the floor, making patterns in the dirt and dust.

The quiet one spoke up, We understand time is important.  We don’t want rot to set in.  If we got the wrong man and you can’t help then sorry to have troubled you and we’ll be off.  They both reached for their hats and made to stand.  Chair legs scraped on the badly chipped flagstone floor.

I’m the man.  See that pig over there, Rancel gestured through the pipe smoke and the loudly recoiling customers.  Whoever Critter accidently stumbled into moved quickly to distance themselves from her, like her condition was catching, transmissible.  She was killed two days ago in an accident.  Now look at her.  Moving around, eating, living!

Impressive, I think, mused the quiet one.  He could clearly tell something wasn’t quite right about the pig but in the lack of light and through the tobacco haze couldn’t tell what it was.  How do you do it?  How do you bring the dead back?

Rancel wasn’t expecting that most obvious of questions.  He smiled bluff confidence as he desperately tried to think of something clever to say.  Come now, when you’ve a bad head you don’t ask the physician what’s in the linctus, you’re just grateful for the remedy.

Was he sweating?  It felt like he was sweating.

Nonetheless, the quiet man persisted, resting a thoughtful finger on his chin, It is something that intrigues me.  Maybe with time it’s something you can share with me.  I don’t wish to profit from such knowledge, just have an interest in the macabre. 

Somewhere beneath the tables and chairs Critter let out a mighty grunt and a knot of patron legs kicked out at her simultaneously.

Another time I will gladly talk about my craft.  Rancel shot a worried look over his shoulder.  Thankfully they weren’t kicking his pig.  The cowards had all backed off towards the door away from her inquisitive snout.  Perhaps when we’ve celebratory drinks in hand and your friend is returned to us well and good I can divulge some of the secrets of my art.  Was Rancel overplaying his skills?  Probably.  He needed to stop talking, needed to get out of the pub before the locals did find the courage to attack Critter.

If you bring our man back from the dead we’ll give you two hundred fennigs.  If you fail you’ll get nothing, said the other one, eager to keep things professional.

Time to haggle and see how much this dead man really meant to these city guys.  Three hundred fennigs, Rancel declared brazenly.

Agreed.

I agree to those terms, Rancel proffered a deal securing hand.  Sod it.  He should’ve asked for more.

I’m Rauper, said Rauper shaking on the deal with a limp hand.

And I’m Nice.  We leave for Never in the morning and you will come too.  Bring everything you may need but please, leave the pig.

Rauper and Nice squared their hats upon their heads and left.  They both eyed Critter intently as they went.

As soon as the door squeaked shut Critter defecated and keeled over dead.

Rancel made towards the door.  He put the cane gently on the bar, stopping to say, I think she has a problem with her digestive tract.  Whenever she eats she dies.  All yours Boug.

I don’t want that thing.  Take it with you.  Rancel pick the thing up and take it with you!

I’m off to Never.  Sell her as meat or cut her up yourself, though I don’t recommend eating her.  Even better give her to Goudalai if he comes here looking for me.  She all yours, Boug.  I said I’d make it up to you.

Rancel!  Boug picked the cane up and hurled it at the shutting door.  Rancel, you cheating half arsed would-be wizard of shit!

Buried

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The plot was easy to find for nothing grew there.  The canker lay many feet beneath the soil, its foul essence poisoning the immediate area.  The sky mirrored the dead black dirt and bore no birds.  No chirping insects foraged around the wide border of the plot either.  It was as if some life eating acid had bled through the ground to nullify the immediate area.  It was a testament to the evil thing buried there that it wouldn’t tolerate life.  It would kill all.

The handcart squeaked to a halt a little before the death scorched plot.  A gangly figure wedged its foot beneath a wheel to stop it rolling forward.  The figure was little more than a skeleton, all bones and taut fading skin.  Its eyes deep set in a bald head punctured with scars from a thousand chastising hits.

Its mistress was in the cart; a witch crumpled up and lying flat, hiding from the midday sun.  A thin and patchy cloth covered the barrow but she slipped a pale ringless hand out from it.  One finger extended, lethargically swished in the plots general direction.  A feeble voice croaked, Open it up.

Skeletal figures, like the one pushing the witch, appeared through the ring of canker free trees surrounding the plot.  More crawled out from under thickly knotted roots, from shadowy damp holes in the ground and silently they set about exhuming the mysterious evil buried deep, deep down.

Some wielded wooden shovels whereas most had to bite at the damp, foul tasting earth to move it.  The uncanny quietness of their congregation changed when work began in earnest and industriously and as one they began to uncover the thing buried in the ground.  The sound of many workers retching and spitting and the tap tap of shovels hitting stones reverberated around the site and they worked with a manic fervour totally at odds with their debilitated physiques.

More sorrowful people arrived.  They helped move the loose soil from one pile to deposit on another.  These folk were typical of the tortured denizens of Kakkakin.  The land was bountiful and rich and verdant but its rulers were twisted shapeshifting witches.  Their hold on the population was choking, their presence toxic.  Like the thing in the ground the rulers of Kakkakin bleached life away just by existing.  They took much but gave very little in return.

The hand in the barrow waved sedately and a gaunt worker, understanding the vague gesture, shuffled over immediately.  It peeled the cloth covering off and for the first time in a generation real sunlight hit the skin of the witch.  She gargled throatily as the interaction clearly affected her then the slim white hand slammed into the side of the cart.  With her hand thus anchored she levered her head up just enough to peer over the rim of the barrow.

Davad-Bo, she hissed feebly for the effort of supporting herself was almost too much to sustain.  For years she’d slept in darkness, her only exercise thinking and plotting and predicting.  Her atrophied muscles recalled the pain of usage but it would take time to develop them again.  Time she didn’t have.  The Kodders, the witches’ body guards, had been late reacting to current affairs, late in waking their mistresses up.  Most had been executed in retaliation.  Examples had to be made and the younger sister was always hungry, was always eating.

Down the hole was the half exhumed figure of a golem.  This one was bigger than tracker Hunger and had part of a twin stuck on its left side.  The twin was little more than a half mound made like the creator had given up or died halfway through sculpting it.  The oddity was called Bo, or The Bo and Davad was the fully formed part.  They’d been set deep into the ground many years ago as punishment.

You learnt your lesson Davad-Bo?  You learnt temperance?  You learnt the importance of self-control?  You learnt who’s in charge and that you are nothing without my consent, without my generosity of spirit?  You sleep when I tell you to and you wake when I tell you to. 

The golem never moved.  It was quite the inert thing stood stock still as people busied themselves around it.  Whatever magic had possessed its obsidian heart had perhaps faded over time.

I know you hear me.  Sulk all you want.  You’re more temperamental than the Hunger we set upon the world.  If you’ve learnt nothing I’ll put the soil back over you.  Bo, stop whispering to Davad.  Stop inciting him.  I can hear you.

The witch, Snorgkillian, tapped the side of the barrow and obediently it was raised forty-five degrees affording her a better view of the half-entrapped golem.  The workers were still exhuming it.  Coughing and spluttering, biting at the earth around its wide midriff, working down and down in an attempt to free it from its muddy prison as soon as possible.  Those armed with wooden shovels narrowly missed the heads of their co-workers as they slammed the tools recklessly into the mud and more of the mad Golem was revealed to a world