Feet of Clay

‘Right. The smaller yez are the lighter yez fall. Well known fact. A spider’ll not even notice a drop like this, a mouse’d walk away, a horse’d break every bone in its body and a helephant would spla—’

‘Oh, gods,’ muttered Colon. He could feel the drainpipe with his boot now. But getting a grip would mean there would have to be one long, bottomless moment when he was not exactly holding on to the roof and not exactly holding on to the drainpipe and in very serious peril of holding on to the ground.

There was another crash from somewhere on the roof.

‘Right,’ said Wee Mad Arthur. ‘See you at the bottom.’

‘Oh, gods …’

The gnome stepped off the roof.

‘All okay so far,’ he shouted, as he went past Colon.

‘Oh, gods …’

Sergeant Colon looked up into two red glows.

‘Doing fine up to now,’ said a dopplering voice from below.

‘Oh, gods …’

Colon heaved his legs around, stood on fresh air for a moment, grabbed the top of the pipe, ducked his head as a pottery fist swung at him, heard the nasty little noise as the pipe’s rusty bolts said goodbye to the wall and, still clinging to a tilting length of cast-iron pipe as if it were going to help, disappeared backwards into the fog.

Mr Sock looked up at the sound of the door opening, and then cowered back against the sausage machine.

‘You?’ he whispered. ‘Here, you can’t come back! I sold you!’

Dorfl regarded him steadily for a few seconds, and then walked past him and took the largest cleaver from the blood-stained rack on the wall.

Sock began to shake.

‘I–I-I was always g-g-good to you,’ he said. ‘A-a-always let you h-have your h-holy d-d-days off—’

Dorfl stared at him again. It’s only red light, Sock gibbered to himself …

But it seemed more focused. He felt it entering his head through his own eyes and examining his soul.

The golem pushed him aside and stepped out of the slaughterhouse and towards the cattle pens.

Sock unfroze. They never fought back, did they? They couldn’t. It was how the damn things were made.

He stared around at the other workers, humans and trolls alike. ‘Don’t just stand there! Get it!’

One or two hesitated. It was a big cleaver in the golem’s hand. And when Dorfl stopped to look around at them there was something different about the golem’s stance, too. It didn’t look like something that wouldn’t fight back.

But Sock didn’t employ people for the muscles in their heads. Besides, no one had really liked a golem around the place.

A troll aimed a pole-axe at him. Dorfl caught it one-handed without turning his head and snapped the hickory handle with his fingers. A man with a hammer had it plucked from his hand and thrown so hard at the wall that it left a hole.

After that they followed at a cautious distance. Dorfl took no further notice of them.

The steam over the cattle pens mingled with the fog. Hundreds of dark eyes watched Dorfl curiously as he walked between the fences. They were always quiet when the golem was around.

He stopped by one of the largest pens. There were voices from behind.

‘Don’t tell me it’s going to slaughter the lot of ’em! We’ll never get that lot jointed this shift!’

‘I heard where there was one at a carpenter’s that went odd and made five thousand tables in one night. Lost count or something.’

‘It’s just staring at them …’

‘I mean, five thousand tables? One of them had twenty-seven legs. It got stuck on legs …’

Dorfl brought the cleaver down hard and sliced the lock off the gate. The cattle watched the golem, with that guarded expression which cattle have that means they’re waiting for the next thought to turn up.

He walked on to the sheep pens and opened them, too. The pigs were next, and then the poultry.

‘All of them?’ said Mr Sock.

The golem walked calmly back down the line of pens, ignoring the watchers, and re-entered the slaughterhouse. He came out very shortly afterwards leading the ancient and hairy billygoat on a piece of string. He went past the waiting animals until he reached the wide gates that led on to the main road, which he opened. Then he let the goat loose.

The animal sniffed the air and rolled its slotted eyes. Then, apparently deciding that the distant odour of the cabbage fields beyond the city wall was much preferable to the smells immediately around it, it trotted away up the road.

The animals followed it in a rush, but with hardly any other noise than the rustle of movement and the sounds of their hooves. They streamed around the stationary figure of Dorfl, who stood and watched them go.

A chicken, bewildered by the stampede, landed on the golem’s head and started to cluck.

Anger finally overcame Sock’s terror. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he shouted, trying to field a few stray sheep as they bolted out of the pens. ‘That’s money walking out of the gate, you—’

Dorfl’s hand was suddenly around his throat. The golem picked him up and held the struggling man at arm’s-length, turning his head this way and that as if considering his next course of action.