The approach to Pigtown that the two men from Peathurst took was a rutted and muddy track, gravelled in the last few miles as it neared the outskirts of the ramshackle township.
By the standards of the Low Districts, Pigtown was something of a bustling metropolis. It was sited on a convergence of roads, and acted as an assembly point for traffic to and from Dock, a maggoty collection of jettys and piers constructed from salt rotted timber that acted as a port; where sad sailed sloops ferried the scant exports of the region out of the greasy estuary waters to parts unknown.
The only courthouse to be found in the Low Districts was in Pigtown, as was the only brothel, a few yards further down Main Road.
The rest of Main Road was taken up by piggerys and slaughterhouses. The ditches and open sewers outside the rough yards were a mess of pig blood and offal, attracting thick black clouds of rattling flys that burst and condensed again over the spoils.
Scabby looking crows hopped through this buzzing fog, searching for more substantial scraps, only to be reguarly bothered by a errant stone flung by the children of Pigtown, this being one of their favourite games, after teasing pigs.
Despite its status as de facto capital of the Low Districts, Pigtown was still constructed - like most every town or village of the Low Districts - from scrap timber and wood, salvaged from whatever source came to hand and all of it slowly decaying in the dank climate. There wasn't a straight line to be found in the shanty town architecture.
The houses and shacks went through cycles of neglect and repair, replaced and rennovated piecemeal, as material became available, through fair means or foul.
On the morning the two men from Peat Hurst came into town, there was an argument brewing between Old Jenner, and his wife's nephew Fat Bill, over a door panel that Jenner had been using as patch on his roof, and that he swore blind was now batch a hole in the back south wall of Fat Bill's shack, where his kid Young Bill had ran through it during one of his turns.
As strangers, they had little to add to the encouragement and heckling offered by the neighbours who'd gathered round to watch, and headed up to the centre of town. They were a serious pair, clearly startled by the bustle of Pigtown and it's three busy streets.
They asked directions at Morley's Abbatoir, and were pointed up towards the low hill that over looked Pigtown's half hearted sprawl. Making the climb up the hill, they came upon the yard of Silas Claywright.
Silas was working on patching a boiler when the pair arrived. He was typical of the people of the Low Districts, the heavy solid clay soil raising people to match.
He had a square and thickboned build, with a heavy pair of brows and a sullen low slung jaw on face that coudl've been anywhere from forty to fifty. His dark hair was thick and bristly, cut short and scrappily. His hands were shovel sized and shaped, with solid, cable thick fingers with square cut tips.
One of the pair hailed him as he stubbornily hammered at a piece of copper plating.
Silas looked round slowly at the pair, before dropping the hammer onto the low bench he was working at, and walking across the gravelled yard towards them. In contrast to the squalid mud roads and chaos of Pigtown, the Cartwright yard was an example of well ordered chaos. Rubber hoses and copper pipes of various gauges and lengths where arranged in piles and coils against one fence. Several sheds stood against the opposite side of the yard, high marks of carpentry and construction, built with good dry timper, with nails and clean lines, as opposed to string and pallet wood.
At the back of the yard was the Claywright house, two storeys, with a corrugated iron roof. Silas Claywright was obviously a man of importance in Pigtown. The only other building the two visitors had seen with a proper roof on their way in had been the brothel.
"What sez ye?" asked Silas as he approached them, wiping his hands on a rag.
"You Claywright?" said the elder of the two men "Silas Claywright?"
Silas nodded, looking the two men other. They were dressed in the Low district fashion; Black woollen jackets - well worn and patched - flat caps and heavy boots travel in clay from tramping the roads. Whilst construction in the Low District tended to suffer from a "good enough" attitude, the locals demanded more from their clothing.
This time the younger man piped up. "We've come over from Peat Hurst. We'z wondering if'n you'z be able to help us out."
"Aye?"
"We were tol' yez woz man to help us, like."
Silas sucked at his teeth, his hands deep in his pocket. "S'like that, izzit?"
Both men nodded. "Aye."
Silas nodded his head, then jerked it back toward the house. "Best yez come in then." He said, before bawling out across the yard. "Jed! Visitors!"
A dark haired boy appeared from within a shed, carrying a bucketful of nails. He stared at the two men, then at Silas.
"Get the kettle on boil." The boy dropped the bucket and bolted into the house ahead of the men, skinny arms and legs pumping, the boots on his feet looking like bricks as they thudded against the ground
"Sister's boy." Silas explained as they tramped inside, stamping mud off their boots. "I've taken him on as 'prentice, like."
Inside, as the kettle shrieked and rattled on the rough black iron stove, steam fogging the thin glass panes. The men talked in low voices, whist Jed was put to work frying some bacon.
Over strong tea and bacon sandwiches, they finalised the deal.
"What'll ye take'n fer payment like?" The older Peat Hurst man asked. "I heard when as ye did a job for Gravel Quarry..."
"I'm in need of new fence posts for out back," SIlas cut in. "And two o' me hens stopped laying a two month past."
The two Peat Hurst men nodded.
"I could do with a couple of hundred weight of scrap iron as well."
The older man chuckled "Could'n we all sunshine. Yer outta luck there, there's nought of that to be had , we're scrapping 'round fer nails as is."
The younger man nodded. "Mascalls tellin' yer square like, we'z peat cutters like, ain't no scrap to be 'ad fer mile 'n 'alf"
Silas brightened "Peat? Fair'nough, I'm running low'n firewood fer stove, I'll take three barrows o' peat and we'll call all square aye?"
The men nodded, sealing the agreement with chipped mugs of strong black tea and plates of bacon.
_____
Silas Claywright set out early the next day, tramping up the rutted and muddy track to Peat Hurst, whilst Jed followed on the donkey carted piled high with strange, clanking equipment hidden from view by a large tarpaulin stretched over it all. Lengths of copper tubbing were strapped along one side of the cart, and neat lengths of hoses, tied up with labels reading "Number #2" and "Seven Gauge"and so on.
They made good progress across the uneven tracks and byways of the Low Districts. The season for the pig markets where over for the year, and the tracks where all quiet for the time being.
They arrived in Peat Hurst the next evening, after a miserable night spent camped out under the cart whilst a thin persistent rain fell on them.
Up on the moors, Peat Hurst kept out of the worst of the wind and rain common up in the northern parts of the low district by being built in the shelter of some low grey cliffs that shed scree and small boulders around their bases. The houses where all built up on pontoons, to keep them away from the damp that seeped up through the moorland mud.
Silas arrived as the peat cutters where trundling their carts full of peat turk back into town, ready to be stacked in the drying sheds - long thin buildings thrown up all along the cliffside of Peat Hurst's single street. After some confusion, visitors were not a common occurance to the village, Silas and Jed where bedded down for the night in the old barn, with loaf of day old bread and some good cheese between them, along with a couple of jugs of rough scrumpy.
That next morning, whilst a grey drizzle continued to fall, Silas and Jed were lead up onto the moors. The younger of the two men who'd recruited Silas - Steb Moxley - lead the way, past thin herds of sheep, and the long scars left by the peat cutters.
"It'd came down bout six ago now, we'z reckon," Moxley related as he took a route around boggy area. "talking about 'streamlined accounting' and 'special economic zones'."
"Di' ye pay it much heed?" Silas asked, as they tramped over the mud. A way back, a couple of the village lads cursed and stuggled with the cart, the donkey being given a chance to rest up from the journey up.
"Nah. It were carping onto the Widow Jessop 'bout summat called 'management consultancies' like, when alla us caught up with it."
The group drew up to a rough edged hole in the peat marsh, that steamed a little in the drizzle. A smell of sulphur, bad eggs and burnt rubber, drifted from within. A couple of heavy set men, with shovels and adzes stood aimlessly round the hole. They nodded to Moxley and looked warily at Silas and his cart.
Steb Moxley spat and gestured to the hole. "Wez chased it up'n there like, Young Jimbo and Jack Shanter have been keepin' watch, making sure it stays put, like."
Silas nodded, and looked to the two men. "He say much of any sort to you lads?"
One of the men shook his head "Wez heard him shouting about 'investment' n' 'deregularated markets', but Young Jimbo just heaved some sods o' muck down hutch after him, put paid to alla tha'."
Young Jimbo scratched his head under his cap "He were chuntering on 'bout such as 'commodity diversification' n'all."
Silas nodded, then turned to the tarpaulin cover cart. "Gis a hand with the gear, then hurry back up with some fuel fer the boiler. Wez best get a shift."
______
It was late in the afternoon that Silas and Jed made their way down the large hole with the aid of ladder and rope. Up above, some boys from the village threw dried bricks of peat into the stove heating a large copper plated boiler. A wide bellied hose wormed it's way from a hissing valve point and down into the hole, where Jed marshalled coils and loops of the hose, that eventually attached itself to a brass , trigger gripped nozzle that Silas gripped grimmly.
His face was obscured behind heavy goggles, and his clothes protected with a large rubber apron. Thick gloves protected his hands as well. Silas turned to Jed. "Right, I'll be as ready to start blasting 'im out in a two minute. Huzzt yersel' upside and add a three gallon of thick vinegar to the tank, and then back down as sharp as ye can with two number seven wrenches. Y'clear?"
Jed nodded, and started to haul himself back up the ladder wedged against the soft sides of the peat walls of the hole. Silas called after him "And don't forget yer goggles like, that vinegar stings summat awful as'n when it's a-steam."
He returned his attention to the bottom of the hole. Quite wide at it's beginning, it narrowed down to a gap scarcely wide enough for a man to fit through. Silas peered into the gloom.
"You seem like a man of rare industry..." Began a voice from within the dark reaches of the deeper hole.
"I wouldn' know as 'bout that." said Silas.
"Listen," The voice continued "I can tell you're a smart guy, am I right? You're not from around here, are you?"
"Tha' I ain't."
"Wha-? Nevermind, look - You don't need me to tell you, this whole area is crying out for redevelopment, and I think that you're the guy that can make it happen, with a little bit of advice from me."
"Oh Really?" Silas said, looking round at Jed as he quietly picked his way down the ladder, with two number sevens. He quietly clambered over the hoses toward Silas, a pair over goggles pulled down tight over his eyes.
The voice in the hole continued to speil "... And once we've set up the basic infra structure, that's when we introduce trade tarriffs, tax havens, even hedge funds..."
Jed leant in close to Silas' ear. "The vinegar is up t a fierce boil, yez can go jus' a soon as ye like."
"...what do you say, huh? Are you with me?"
SIlas pulled the long brass trigger, and a jet of roaring acrid steam exploded out of the nozzle end, screaming into the dark depths of the deeper hole.
A tortured, howl burst from within, a tortured screaming noise that gibbered and wordlessly pleaded in screeching panicked vowels.
Silas released the trigger. The steam cut off, and the screeching descended into panting whimpers. The air was filled with the sharp tang of hot vinegar.
Silas pulled the trigger again. Again the blast of hot stinging steam rocketed down the deep hole. Again the screech howled out from within.
The steam cut off. Silas crouched down and bellowed into the hole. "Get out! Gets out before I gets yez again!"
He gave a another blast to punctuate his statement, another yowl of pain and outrage greeted him.
A sound of scrabbling came from within.
Jed looked to Silas. "Is he coming out?"
"Dunno." Silas answered, peering into the hole. "No - No, the little fuck'r trying to dig 'is way deeper."
Another long searing blast from the nozzle. Again Silas bellowed into the hole, its roof now dripping with condensed vinegar. "Out I said, yez tricky fuck! Out!"
This time the scrabbling came towards them.
"Hold yessel' ready lad." Advised Silas, adjusting his grip on the nozzle. "Lessee what's we've brung ourselve."
From out of the hole, wincing as it came, a pinstriped figure dragged itself out, hands held in supplication. It's suit was well cut, albeit stained with peat and vinegar, and scratched and torn at the knees and elbows. The figure's skin was a scorched lobster red, and already starting to peel, thanks to the vinegared steam. Two small horns pressed out of his forehead.
"Okay, you're a man of action, you prefer more direct methods. Excellent, I respect that approach, it's what the world needs, a man to cut through the bullshit. You want to play on your terms, I understand that, I can work with that."
Silas blasted the devil again. The force of the steam knocked the devil back into the side of the peat wall of the hole, where it screeched and gibbered and thrashed under the roar of the steam.
Silas looked to Jed "Ready lad?" Jed nodded, and stepped forward as Silas cut off the steam, swinging the number seven wrench in a smooth arc that connected just under the devil's ear. With a dull thud, the devil fell wheezing to the ground. Silas dropped the hose and stepped in the fray, bringing his wrench down with a crunch onto the back of the red skinned skull. With heavy boots and wrenches, Silas and Jed set about the devil, until any movement had effectively stopped.
For a while, they stood panting, looking back down at their handiwork. Then Silas clapped his hands.
"Right, I'll keep an eye on him while you step'n fetch the piping. After that we'll 'ave a tidy up and see 'bout getting a brew like."
That evening, Silas and Jed set out from Peat Hurst, the devil bound with copper pipe and slung on top of the tarpaulin. Camping for the night, they ignored the devil as he tried to negotiate terms for release.
Upon their return to Pigtown, they had loaded the devil onto a cart bound for dock, where a man who had circus contacts would pay good money for a genuine devil from the Low Districts. Then Silas, the sound of new copper coins clanking in his pockets, climbed back up the hill to the Claywright yard, young Jed following behind.
"Was' 'Progess', mean like?" Jed asked Silas, who had a little schooling. "Tha devil was summat keen tha' word."
"S'word like change." Silas decided, after a while. "Folk round here don' like such things."
By the standards of the Low Districts, Pigtown was something of a bustling metropolis. It was sited on a convergence of roads, and acted as an assembly point for traffic to and from Dock, a maggoty collection of jettys and piers constructed from salt rotted timber that acted as a port; where sad sailed sloops ferried the scant exports of the region out of the greasy estuary waters to parts unknown.
The only courthouse to be found in the Low Districts was in Pigtown, as was the only brothel, a few yards further down Main Road.
The rest of Main Road was taken up by piggerys and slaughterhouses. The ditches and open sewers outside the rough yards were a mess of pig blood and offal, attracting thick black clouds of rattling flys that burst and condensed again over the spoils.
Scabby looking crows hopped through this buzzing fog, searching for more substantial scraps, only to be reguarly bothered by a errant stone flung by the children of Pigtown, this being one of their favourite games, after teasing pigs.
Despite its status as de facto capital of the Low Districts, Pigtown was still constructed - like most every town or village of the Low Districts - from scrap timber and wood, salvaged from whatever source came to hand and all of it slowly decaying in the dank climate. There wasn't a straight line to be found in the shanty town architecture.
The houses and shacks went through cycles of neglect and repair, replaced and rennovated piecemeal, as material became available, through fair means or foul.
On the morning the two men from Peat Hurst came into town, there was an argument brewing between Old Jenner, and his wife's nephew Fat Bill, over a door panel that Jenner had been using as patch on his roof, and that he swore blind was now batch a hole in the back south wall of Fat Bill's shack, where his kid Young Bill had ran through it during one of his turns.
As strangers, they had little to add to the encouragement and heckling offered by the neighbours who'd gathered round to watch, and headed up to the centre of town. They were a serious pair, clearly startled by the bustle of Pigtown and it's three busy streets.
They asked directions at Morley's Abbatoir, and were pointed up towards the low hill that over looked Pigtown's half hearted sprawl. Making the climb up the hill, they came upon the yard of Silas Claywright.
Silas was working on patching a boiler when the pair arrived. He was typical of the people of the Low Districts, the heavy solid clay soil raising people to match.
He had a square and thickboned build, with a heavy pair of brows and a sullen low slung jaw on face that coudl've been anywhere from forty to fifty. His dark hair was thick and bristly, cut short and scrappily. His hands were shovel sized and shaped, with solid, cable thick fingers with square cut tips.
One of the pair hailed him as he stubbornily hammered at a piece of copper plating.
Silas looked round slowly at the pair, before dropping the hammer onto the low bench he was working at, and walking across the gravelled yard towards them. In contrast to the squalid mud roads and chaos of Pigtown, the Cartwright yard was an example of well ordered chaos. Rubber hoses and copper pipes of various gauges and lengths where arranged in piles and coils against one fence. Several sheds stood against the opposite side of the yard, high marks of carpentry and construction, built with good dry timper, with nails and clean lines, as opposed to string and pallet wood.
At the back of the yard was the Claywright house, two storeys, with a corrugated iron roof. Silas Claywright was obviously a man of importance in Pigtown. The only other building the two visitors had seen with a proper roof on their way in had been the brothel.
"What sez ye?" asked Silas as he approached them, wiping his hands on a rag.
"You Claywright?" said the elder of the two men "Silas Claywright?"
Silas nodded, looking the two men other. They were dressed in the Low district fashion; Black woollen jackets - well worn and patched - flat caps and heavy boots travel in clay from tramping the roads. Whilst construction in the Low District tended to suffer from a "good enough" attitude, the locals demanded more from their clothing.
This time the younger man piped up. "We've come over from Peat Hurst. We'z wondering if'n you'z be able to help us out."
"Aye?"
"We were tol' yez woz man to help us, like."
Silas sucked at his teeth, his hands deep in his pocket. "S'like that, izzit?"
Both men nodded. "Aye."
Silas nodded his head, then jerked it back toward the house. "Best yez come in then." He said, before bawling out across the yard. "Jed! Visitors!"
A dark haired boy appeared from within a shed, carrying a bucketful of nails. He stared at the two men, then at Silas.
"Get the kettle on boil." The boy dropped the bucket and bolted into the house ahead of the men, skinny arms and legs pumping, the boots on his feet looking like bricks as they thudded against the ground
"Sister's boy." Silas explained as they tramped inside, stamping mud off their boots. "I've taken him on as 'prentice, like."
Inside, as the kettle shrieked and rattled on the rough black iron stove, steam fogging the thin glass panes. The men talked in low voices, whist Jed was put to work frying some bacon.
Over strong tea and bacon sandwiches, they finalised the deal.
"What'll ye take'n fer payment like?" The older Peat Hurst man asked. "I heard when as ye did a job for Gravel Quarry..."
"I'm in need of new fence posts for out back," SIlas cut in. "And two o' me hens stopped laying a two month past."
The two Peat Hurst men nodded.
"I could do with a couple of hundred weight of scrap iron as well."
The older man chuckled "Could'n we all sunshine. Yer outta luck there, there's nought of that to be had , we're scrapping 'round fer nails as is."
The younger man nodded. "Mascalls tellin' yer square like, we'z peat cutters like, ain't no scrap to be 'ad fer mile 'n 'alf"
Silas brightened "Peat? Fair'nough, I'm running low'n firewood fer stove, I'll take three barrows o' peat and we'll call all square aye?"
The men nodded, sealing the agreement with chipped mugs of strong black tea and plates of bacon.
_____
Silas Claywright set out early the next day, tramping up the rutted and muddy track to Peat Hurst, whilst Jed followed on the donkey carted piled high with strange, clanking equipment hidden from view by a large tarpaulin stretched over it all. Lengths of copper tubbing were strapped along one side of the cart, and neat lengths of hoses, tied up with labels reading "Number #2" and "Seven Gauge"and so on.
They made good progress across the uneven tracks and byways of the Low Districts. The season for the pig markets where over for the year, and the tracks where all quiet for the time being.
They arrived in Peat Hurst the next evening, after a miserable night spent camped out under the cart whilst a thin persistent rain fell on them.
Up on the moors, Peat Hurst kept out of the worst of the wind and rain common up in the northern parts of the low district by being built in the shelter of some low grey cliffs that shed scree and small boulders around their bases. The houses where all built up on pontoons, to keep them away from the damp that seeped up through the moorland mud.
Silas arrived as the peat cutters where trundling their carts full of peat turk back into town, ready to be stacked in the drying sheds - long thin buildings thrown up all along the cliffside of Peat Hurst's single street. After some confusion, visitors were not a common occurance to the village, Silas and Jed where bedded down for the night in the old barn, with loaf of day old bread and some good cheese between them, along with a couple of jugs of rough scrumpy.
That next morning, whilst a grey drizzle continued to fall, Silas and Jed were lead up onto the moors. The younger of the two men who'd recruited Silas - Steb Moxley - lead the way, past thin herds of sheep, and the long scars left by the peat cutters.
"It'd came down bout six ago now, we'z reckon," Moxley related as he took a route around boggy area. "talking about 'streamlined accounting' and 'special economic zones'."
"Di' ye pay it much heed?" Silas asked, as they tramped over the mud. A way back, a couple of the village lads cursed and stuggled with the cart, the donkey being given a chance to rest up from the journey up.
"Nah. It were carping onto the Widow Jessop 'bout summat called 'management consultancies' like, when alla us caught up with it."
The group drew up to a rough edged hole in the peat marsh, that steamed a little in the drizzle. A smell of sulphur, bad eggs and burnt rubber, drifted from within. A couple of heavy set men, with shovels and adzes stood aimlessly round the hole. They nodded to Moxley and looked warily at Silas and his cart.
Steb Moxley spat and gestured to the hole. "Wez chased it up'n there like, Young Jimbo and Jack Shanter have been keepin' watch, making sure it stays put, like."
Silas nodded, and looked to the two men. "He say much of any sort to you lads?"
One of the men shook his head "Wez heard him shouting about 'investment' n' 'deregularated markets', but Young Jimbo just heaved some sods o' muck down hutch after him, put paid to alla tha'."
Young Jimbo scratched his head under his cap "He were chuntering on 'bout such as 'commodity diversification' n'all."
Silas nodded, then turned to the tarpaulin cover cart. "Gis a hand with the gear, then hurry back up with some fuel fer the boiler. Wez best get a shift."
______
It was late in the afternoon that Silas and Jed made their way down the large hole with the aid of ladder and rope. Up above, some boys from the village threw dried bricks of peat into the stove heating a large copper plated boiler. A wide bellied hose wormed it's way from a hissing valve point and down into the hole, where Jed marshalled coils and loops of the hose, that eventually attached itself to a brass , trigger gripped nozzle that Silas gripped grimmly.
His face was obscured behind heavy goggles, and his clothes protected with a large rubber apron. Thick gloves protected his hands as well. Silas turned to Jed. "Right, I'll be as ready to start blasting 'im out in a two minute. Huzzt yersel' upside and add a three gallon of thick vinegar to the tank, and then back down as sharp as ye can with two number seven wrenches. Y'clear?"
Jed nodded, and started to haul himself back up the ladder wedged against the soft sides of the peat walls of the hole. Silas called after him "And don't forget yer goggles like, that vinegar stings summat awful as'n when it's a-steam."
He returned his attention to the bottom of the hole. Quite wide at it's beginning, it narrowed down to a gap scarcely wide enough for a man to fit through. Silas peered into the gloom.
"You seem like a man of rare industry..." Began a voice from within the dark reaches of the deeper hole.
"I wouldn' know as 'bout that." said Silas.
"Listen," The voice continued "I can tell you're a smart guy, am I right? You're not from around here, are you?"
"Tha' I ain't."
"Wha-? Nevermind, look - You don't need me to tell you, this whole area is crying out for redevelopment, and I think that you're the guy that can make it happen, with a little bit of advice from me."
"Oh Really?" Silas said, looking round at Jed as he quietly picked his way down the ladder, with two number sevens. He quietly clambered over the hoses toward Silas, a pair over goggles pulled down tight over his eyes.
The voice in the hole continued to speil "... And once we've set up the basic infra structure, that's when we introduce trade tarriffs, tax havens, even hedge funds..."
Jed leant in close to Silas' ear. "The vinegar is up t a fierce boil, yez can go jus' a soon as ye like."
"...what do you say, huh? Are you with me?"
SIlas pulled the long brass trigger, and a jet of roaring acrid steam exploded out of the nozzle end, screaming into the dark depths of the deeper hole.
A tortured, howl burst from within, a tortured screaming noise that gibbered and wordlessly pleaded in screeching panicked vowels.
Silas released the trigger. The steam cut off, and the screeching descended into panting whimpers. The air was filled with the sharp tang of hot vinegar.
Silas pulled the trigger again. Again the blast of hot stinging steam rocketed down the deep hole. Again the screech howled out from within.
The steam cut off. Silas crouched down and bellowed into the hole. "Get out! Gets out before I gets yez again!"
He gave a another blast to punctuate his statement, another yowl of pain and outrage greeted him.
A sound of scrabbling came from within.
Jed looked to Silas. "Is he coming out?"
"Dunno." Silas answered, peering into the hole. "No - No, the little fuck'r trying to dig 'is way deeper."
Another long searing blast from the nozzle. Again Silas bellowed into the hole, its roof now dripping with condensed vinegar. "Out I said, yez tricky fuck! Out!"
This time the scrabbling came towards them.
"Hold yessel' ready lad." Advised Silas, adjusting his grip on the nozzle. "Lessee what's we've brung ourselve."
From out of the hole, wincing as it came, a pinstriped figure dragged itself out, hands held in supplication. It's suit was well cut, albeit stained with peat and vinegar, and scratched and torn at the knees and elbows. The figure's skin was a scorched lobster red, and already starting to peel, thanks to the vinegared steam. Two small horns pressed out of his forehead.
"Okay, you're a man of action, you prefer more direct methods. Excellent, I respect that approach, it's what the world needs, a man to cut through the bullshit. You want to play on your terms, I understand that, I can work with that."
Silas blasted the devil again. The force of the steam knocked the devil back into the side of the peat wall of the hole, where it screeched and gibbered and thrashed under the roar of the steam.
Silas looked to Jed "Ready lad?" Jed nodded, and stepped forward as Silas cut off the steam, swinging the number seven wrench in a smooth arc that connected just under the devil's ear. With a dull thud, the devil fell wheezing to the ground. Silas dropped the hose and stepped in the fray, bringing his wrench down with a crunch onto the back of the red skinned skull. With heavy boots and wrenches, Silas and Jed set about the devil, until any movement had effectively stopped.
For a while, they stood panting, looking back down at their handiwork. Then Silas clapped his hands.
"Right, I'll keep an eye on him while you step'n fetch the piping. After that we'll 'ave a tidy up and see 'bout getting a brew like."
That evening, Silas and Jed set out from Peat Hurst, the devil bound with copper pipe and slung on top of the tarpaulin. Camping for the night, they ignored the devil as he tried to negotiate terms for release.
Upon their return to Pigtown, they had loaded the devil onto a cart bound for dock, where a man who had circus contacts would pay good money for a genuine devil from the Low Districts. Then Silas, the sound of new copper coins clanking in his pockets, climbed back up the hill to the Claywright yard, young Jed following behind.
"Was' 'Progess', mean like?" Jed asked Silas, who had a little schooling. "Tha devil was summat keen tha' word."
"S'word like change." Silas decided, after a while. "Folk round here don' like such things."
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
johnnyforeigner:
That put me in mind of H. P. Lovecraft in terms of narrative. With the exception that you actually said what was in the hole rather than some vague, indescribable terror.
johnnyforeigner:
Pah! Prepare to be terrified:
SPOILERS! (Click to view)