Steel People

By Colin Warden

It's a wolf time, a time of destruction, when robots and people are all the same. Raven finds Eagle dying in the snow, takes him in and heals him. They begin to develop a relationship, but is he an angel, or is he a devil? The answer may damn her, one way or another.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Colin Warden
• Release date: Mar 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215946947

Book preview

Chapter one

On the fells around Edderstead not even the ice-rats were moving, and the birds were tree bound, sheltering where they could, but Raven’s party was out of doors, travelling the ice-road because they had to. Raven had seen twenty one winters, her father nearer sixty five, and as for Hunder, no one knew how old he was or where he came from. They were looking for machines to salvage, and they weren’t having much luck. The dwarf, Hunder, was circling and howling, behaviour that came naturally to a creature with more dog in him than man, and more devil in him than dog, but the mist was so thick he couldn't be seen. Instinctively, he kept low to the ground, sniffing for salvage, snuffling for traces of red energy, the stuff that dribbles out of ancient machines. The timbre of his howl changed to say he’d found something. Follow! Follow! he yelled, and although he couldn't be seen, they knew he was there, somewhere. Glabba urged his limbs to move faster, but speed wasn’t the issue. It was near impossible to locate the little man in the mist, and they lost his trail as soon as they found it. There was always mist, in the afternoon. It cleared in the morning, usually, and at the moment the light was like a shroud.

The old man didn’t like travelling blind. He’d heard the stories, tales of bandits that lay in wait, and monsters that lived on the ridges.

Not many like me, he’d tell Raven. Not many like you either. It's why we’re here. No one normal’s going to stay with us.

I’m normal, Raven said back to him, but the old man would only laugh, and roll his eyes, and cast derision on her simplicity.

There had always been salvagers in Glabba’s family, since memory began, and there was nothing unusual in them turning out on a day like this, to seek for a stray machine or a lost mutation. The old man stared at his daughter balefully, as he trudged along beside her.

I name you fool, he said. Can’t you go faster, fool? My old legs are faster than yours. Remember, fool, that you got us lost here. Shap’s Ford was your idea of a short-cut, wasn’t it?

If you say so, I suppose it was.

Raven tried not to contradict her father. She was used to Glabba’s bad temper and knew that a reaction would make things worse, so she looked at the mist, and studied its texture, and she imagined that behind it the moon would be rising, out of sight and out of mind. She imagined the Man in the Moon staring back at her, eyeball to eyeball, wondering about the phases of the Earth, and counting its inhabitants, with all their heap of troubles.

Only I am too blind to see him, she murmured.

What’s that girl?

I was thinking of the moon, said Raven.

Fool’s silver we call it.

I heard different. They call it Egin’s mask. That’s what I heard. If it touches you, it changes you. That’s the story.

That’s it, yes. Egin Mohanderson fought with the gods, after they’d made him, and he killed one or two of them in open combat. He sided with us, against them you see, and he gave us his golden mask, all because he loved us. Sometimes on midwinter eve, his spirit comes down and enters the heart of some little mewling, puking brat and changes her into a female version of the old, great god, and that’s what some of us wait for. I don't wait. I say he never existed, never lived, never died and isn’t dead now.

You’re spoiling it.

It's just a story. By all the gods and monsters, I’d need a-one of those Wikipedias to answer all your niggles. I can’t tell you everything. I must have told you the answers to every question a thousand times already, and yet you forget, don’t you? You forget.

I do not.

You do, fool, you do.

Raven carried on in silence, her limbs sinking in the soft snow, like a gloved hand, a woman’s white hand, holding her back. There had been a heavy fall in the night and the fell-side had an innocent look to it, as if time had stopped, or never started, and she imagined new animals and new men waiting below the surface, ready to rise and take the place of everyone now living. She looked back at her footprints and wondered if the farm at Edderstead would still be waiting for her, when she returned to it. Anything was possible, she reasoned. She closed her eyes and made a wish, and when she opened them, her father was still there, still chiding her.

I name you fool, he said. I name you pardeen. I wish you’d go and seek your fortune, like you want to, and leave me here to die.

Raven made no answer, or very little answer, because she knew that silence would enrage him.

You don’t get it, do you? said Glabba. You’re always dreaming of a better life, but this is it! The ice, the snow, it’s never ending.

You think I care?

Maybe you’d like to throw me off Family Cliff, where the monsters go to die? You’re a monster. I name you jheel, I name you muthek. I name you damned! Soon you'll be speaking in tongues or singing filthy prophesies, or eating shit, or copulating with swine. The mark of the devil will out. You'll never lie with your mother in Fetch’s Orchard. Fetch’s Orchard was the name the fell-dweller’s gave to the cemetery, and Fetch was the little sexton god that looked after the souls of the departed when they went into the ice and started to freeze. Glabba was on a roll. You’ll grow to be evil, he rattled on. You don’t think so now, but one day soon you’ll be an old, withered crone, and you’ll know you wasted your life and all your roads will be crooked.

You’re getting excited, said Raven. You know it’s not good for you. You’ll have a heart attack if you aren't careful.

You’d like that, wouldn't you?

They trudged on silently after that, but far away, from out of the mist, Hunder was howling again. Raven turned to the sound and started to run. She should have stuck to the ice-road, but all she cared about was getting as far from her father as possible, so she went where the going was hard.

She crested a rise and that’s when she saw the body, the arms stretched out, the face painted with ice and the eyes wide open. Except for a tattered coat, he was naked from the waist up, not heavily-built, or thickly muscled. In his hand was the hilt of a phase pistol, the barrel burst and the core bleeding over the snow. He’d been in a fight, that much was clear, but how he'd got there, and where his enemies had melted away to was another matter. Apart from his wounds, the most striking thing about him was his long, black hair, and the white, colourless skin that was almost invisible against the snow. The phase gun was remarkable too; it wasn’t unusual in itself, but the fact that it had worked long enough to explode was, to say the least, surprising. Phase guns and all the other ancient weapons had stopped working one by one as the years went by, and it was the same for all the rest of the sorcery-powered engines. People kept them as curiosities, they hung them on the wall, but they didn’t get much use, and they were almost impossible to repair. No doubt it was different in the cities, but in Raven’s world the past, with all its mechanical wonders, was dead and buried and long forgotten.

She’d never seen a jheel before, but that’s what he was, definitely. There was a depression at the centre of his forehead, for a third eye that didn’t exist. The socket was smooth, like the eye was inside him, and Raven knew what he was, knew all about him. She’d heard the stories. His hands, and his limbs, and all the rest of him had been grown in vats of sightless substance. His flesh was soft, but his mind was hard. That’s what he was. A creature like that wouldn’t die easily, and even if he looked dead he’d be alive somewhere, deep inside. She was certain it was so.

Glabba joined her and drew a phase blade from his belt. He stole wary glances all around and his head bobbed this way and that. Whatever did this to him might be near at hand. That's what scares me.

I saw him move. She knelt by the body and noted how the creature's inner workings had begun to spill out of his wounds.

He looks dead to me, said Glabba.

Not yet. I’m sure I saw him move. The girl had decided it was so and nothing was going to change her mind.

If you’re going to lie, make it a good one. Glabba kicked the jheel’s thigh and the jheel stayed still. Spoke to you, did it? Well, let's have a nice little chat with it, shall we? Let's ask it who killed it. Let's ask how it ended up here, wounded by energy weapons, cut with swords, crushed by chains. Have nothing to do with it. Step wide of it. Let it die.

He isn’t dead! Raven was taking charge, as she often would when the old man’s cowardice became an issue. I want you to fetch the sledge. We’ll carry him home and make him better.

They aren’t like us, he said. You can’t heal them. You can’t make them better. Not if they’re dead. And if he’s alive we need to be careful. They’re as wicked as the Shan Chu, as brutal as the mirdak, and worse by far than any of the muthek. We ought to leave him where he is.

He needs our help, and I don’t care what you think, he’s coming with us to Edderstead. Raven stood up and got ready to fight. She knew a few wrestling tricks, and she’d use them if she had to.

The old man stroked his chin. A shiver of superstitious fear went through him and he tried to forget the tales he’d heard of ghosts and monsters roaming the fells around the steading.

His daughter began shovelling with her hands, clearing the snow from the body, and the old man was trying to haul her back, but then he saw the glint of metal. The fingers of the jheel curled back and offered up a purse of steel glittered with silver. The lid was shaped like a half moon, decorated with panels of garnet, and when Glabba opened it up ancient golden tokens scattered at his feet and lay in the snow, winking at him.

This is money, he stated. They used it long ago, for the purposes of trade. It’s beautiful and scarce so maybe we’ll take it as the snow’s gift.

Taking the snow’s gift was the term the fell-dwellers used for keeping what they found and stealing what they needed. The old man wasn’t one to turn his back on the snow’s bounty. Whatever the snow offered, the fell-man would take no questions asked, and the snow would look after a man like that, and keep him safe. That was how the tundra men thought.

This is a pretty thing, he said.

We’re wasting time, said Raven. I’ll run and fetch the sledge. Then we can carry him home, and do what has to be done.

Glabba stared at the gold and nodded assent. There was no point arguing when his daughter was in this sort of mood, so he let her retrace her steps and fetch the sledge. They lifted the jheel on board, covered him up and headed back. The old man talked as he drove and he couldn’t stop the memories coming. He spoke of old battles, and old, dead heroes. In particular he dwelt on Handa Rid, where the jheel had fought the mirdak and slaughtered the Shan Chu and driven them back to the snake jungles. That had been out of character, a rare departure, because according to him the jheel were evil to the core and never to be trusted.

Good with machines though, he admitted. Good at fixing them. They aren’t like us. They’re as wicked as the Shan Chu, and as brutal as the Mirdak, and worse by far than the muthek.

Raven smiled. Most of the monsters in Glabba’s list didn’t even exist, not anymore, and he had a bigger evil in mind, and he called it gold. He didn’t say what he was thinking, that when the jheel died, they’d search the body and take what they wanted. The golden coins were just the start of it. It was wicked to waste the snow’s bounty.

Chapter two

The steading had been designed for a warm climate and there should have been fields of wheat, except that wheat was extinct and everywhere now people went hungry. Beggars wandered the ice, derelict humans and half-machines that roamed indefinitely, searching for shelter, begging for fuel. You’d hear their voices in the wind and occasionally you’d see them staring out of the ice, watching. Still alive, they waited for the big thaw-out.

Hunder was there, in the courtyard of the steading, when the sledge came home. The dwarf saw what they were carrying and began to spin and howl and he refused to come to Raven’s call.

What’s with the mek? he said, when he’d calmed down and ceased to howl and spin and run on all fours. Mek was a general, catch-all term for half-machines, blendings, part metal and part flesh.

He’s not mek. He’s jheel. Can’t you see that?

I can see he’s dying. And if he’s not, we can kill him easy!

We’re making him better, said Raven, and between them they hauled the wounded man off the sledge and made for the dwelling house.

Glabba wasn’t having that.

Raven heard the old man’s step on the snow, the swish of his coat, the slick noise of the lap gun.

What are you doing?

Making him better, that’s what. He rested his chin on the gun stock and with one eye on his daughter and the other on the dying man he pulled the trigger. Or to be accurate he began to pull it, and as he aimed, and lined up the shot, Hunder leapt, grabbed the barrel and bent it out of shape. Strong, that Hunder. Strong and fast and vicious when he had to be.

Not right! the dog man howled.

He needs to die, you little ingrate. Glabba aimed a blow, and Hunder danced away and hid behind Raven, like in a game.

You two ganging up on me?

Yes, said Raven. This is a man. He’s bleeding, dying, and we must save him and help him, because we are as human as he is.

He’s no man. He’s a monster.

Don’t monsters have rights?

Rights, is it? There’s no health and safety out here, you little idiot. You’re always spouting rubbish. No one has rights. Everyone’s corrupt. Glabba edged closer, a step or two, and examined the creature, his bleached, skin, his ancient, golden eyes. He doesn't look human to me. Whatever he is, something wanted him dead and if we help him now we’re choosing a side. It might be a mistake. Probably will be. It’s a risk I don’t want to take. Glabba pulled his back-up pistol out of his belt and fired, but in the same instant Hunder leapt again and knocked the gun away.

Raven heard the shot, felt the projectile graze the cheek of the dying man, and the man’s eyes came open, his head moved a little, and in his central forehead, a third invisible eye looked right at her. She’ll do, the eye was saying. This one. Her. She’ll do. And from her fingers down to her toes Raven felt a fierce, prickling sensation that felt so very, very good, and for just an instant, the eye looked through her and into her, and then it was shutting, clicking off, and the light of it was dying.

He’ll live, said Raven. I won’t let you kill him. We’ll put him in the machine-shop and see if we can heal him.

What does Hunder want?

Take him, take him! Heal him like she says

He’ll end up costing us plenty.

I don’t care.

I have a bad feeling about this. Glabba wagged his fingers over the body, as if he was casting a spell. He knew better than anyone that the creature in the snow was a monster, made in the darkness, by technology. Its eyes had been forged in vats of sightless substance, its lungs had been like wings, beating wildly. And his master, or if not his master his enemies, would follow him and find him and track him down to Glabba’s door. The old man saw it coming. He shrugged. Whatever. If anything untoward comes of this, if that devil comes alive in the night and cuts our throats, it'll be your fault. Remember that when you’re dead. Put him with the rest o the machines and lock the doors. You’re wasting your time whatever you do.

The old man hurried away, and the girl and the dwarf hauled the jheel into the machine-shop. As they entered, the lights came on in a shimmering roll and they saw an immense hangar, machines stacked on the side-benches, scattered at random, and at the back, where the red light glowed, that was where the reactor spat out energy. It still worked, sometimes.

It wasn’t too cold in the shed, but the radiation was killing. Even Hunder disliked it and he’d been born in the heat-spew from a sick reactor. Mutations like him were frequently destroyed at birth, but whenever they survived into maturity they turned out strong and clever, which made up for their ugliness and the deformed nature of their mental attributes.

They dragged the man near to the reactor. Raven fetched sutures and dressings and covered him in a silver survival blanket. She found a portable heater and set it up next to him. The dressings covered his wounds but the sutures didn’t seal the flesh, because the flesh wasn’t human, and he continued to bleed, continued to die.

That’s all we can do, said Raven.

Could be too much, could be too little. Could be he’s on the mend, could be he’s on the last lap. The dog-man sermonised, with his knuckles on his chin, his hams on the ground, elbows on his knees, bald head wagging. The lights in the workshop dimmed to save