Nandroid Witchhunt III

	Another day whiled away at the fireplace, making good work of her chores and knitting, Prudence arose for bed. She’d not seen Aldham the entire day, not daring to enter his workshop while he was tinkering for fear of startling him again. She felt the gentle onset of fatigue, the slow halting of her moving insides signalling to her it was time for bed. As she rose from her seat she was halted by the growing orange flickering outside of the home, a great sea of lights marching in from the direction of the town. Her eyes widened, heavy lids thrust upwards in alarm as she dashed for the workshop; all pretenses of privacy were thrown out, now. She hammered upon the door just as Aldham swung it open, Prudence slipping forward into his steadying arms.
	“I’ll handle it, Prudence. You stay in here.” He clenched his jaw, turning back out the curtained window before returning to his robot. He popped open the little door on her chest, pausing anxiously before winding her taut once more her lithe form energized again as she shivered with newfound alertness.
	“But sir, I-”
	“This isn’t your fight, Prudy. Go in the workshop and take what you can, and go.” He left the little robot as he went for the front door. Stepping outside his breath fogged in the moonlight, a mass of black men standing in the small clearing ahead of his home. Their faces illuminated by torchlight, many holding muskets, their lead stepped forward.
	“Aldham,” he yelled. “You’ve much to answer for, you heathenous… defiler! Playing with Satan’s toys! Get up here, boy. Tell him what ye saw.” The man pulled a young man by the arm to his front. The heavy woolen coat that shrouded him betrayed his bony face, the rail-thin arms and lanky fingers as he shook in the cold. He shivered and rubbed his arms, great spasms running up and down his body before he swung his head side to side and steadied himself, stepping forward.
	“I-I-I w-was on the road to Salem, t-t-to meet the Pastor. I w-was to bring h-him safely t-to town,” he started, gulping in the cold air as he tried to speak his peace. Aldham was less sure that the cold was what made him stutter as he continued. “A-And I found, dead on the road, th-the pastor’s h-horse, and he was nowhere to be found, there was blood everywhere and-”
	“That’s enough boy, we understand,” the man scolded. The boy couldn’t, *wouldn’t*, heed his words, he only continued the inexorable advance of horror-marked words about the remains of whatever he’d found on the trail. His narrow frame rocked with each word he spat, the stutter gone as he quickened in pace, spittle flying from his mouth as he fell into convulsions on the ground, a handful of men pulling him backwards into the heart of the crowd.
	“But you, Aldham, *you* saw the pastor this morning, *you* had an argument with him, *you* couldn’t bother to finish what he demanded so you used your vile magicks to kill him. And for that,” their leader continued, revealing a great length of rope from the inside of his coat, “we cannot have you near our town any longer. You or your machines.” The little congregation all pulled from their coats mangled and dented metal corpses, tossing to the ground the scraps of the little helpers that had once populated their homes. Aldham winced as they tossed them into the dirt, the dancing torchlight glinting off of them like little stars suspended in the returning hoarfrost at their feet.
	“Friends in God,” Aldham began, “I understand your anger that the good Mister Jeduthan has been abducted, or possibly worse. I will not fight your decision for I can see you’ve made up your minds.” He eyed the rope knowingly, breathing deep before turning behind him where he caught a peeping face looking outside through the window, curtains rushing shut as he shook his head. “Allow me just a moment to get myself in order, yes?” The cloaked leader of the mob spat into the ground before allowing him to go. The man retreated quickly into his home and seized the little robot by the arm.
	“Sir, where-”
	“Prudence, quiet, please. Just come with me.” He pulled her into the workshop and thrust into her arms the little brass box and, from a concealed priest hole, his long rifle. She propped the pristine gun up over her shoulder in half-shock, a weapon never used in anger now in her hands as her master was to be judged. “Take these, and find the Pastor. That’s all I can say now - he’s alive out there somewhere, I know it. But save him, for the town’s sake, okay?”
	“Sir, I can’t let them-”
	“Prudence,” the man yelled, quieting his anger after a breath. “Just go, I’d rather only one soul be sent off tonight. They’re here for my blood alone.” He hefted up a great hammer from another corner of the shop and proceeded to the rear wall of his home, swinging its steel head against the wall there with a raucous crack, the wood splintering open. He pointed through the small hole in the wall and shoved her beyond, watching her dawdle with the musket and box before he shooed her away, fleeing into the woods beyond. Brushing the dust and wood fragments from his chest he proceeded back to the front of his home. Prudence knew only to run and run far, her rewound body propelling her with speed rare to natural men, casting her head backwards to the little clearing as she fled into the wooded hills above and beyond her home.
	After a great sprint up the hill she was shrouded in the deepening dark of the woods, staring down the ridge at the smouldering orange of her former home, the townsfolk long departed into the town and woods, likely searching for her. She couldn’t see any human figures, and knew not where they’d hanged her master, just that he was gone, forever. She lapsed backwards onto the hillside and thrashed in the dried leaves on the ground, the crack and crinkle beneath her quieting her tearless sobs. A dog’s barking echoed through the forest and launched her onto her feet. The box in hand and rifle over her shoulder she continued her flight into the forest in hope of some escape or refuge, thoughts of the Pastor momentarily departed as she continued her escape.
	It had been hours of hiking and trekking through the dark, running northward and parallel the road to Salem, the great expense of her energy left her fatigued and incapable of winding herself back up. The moon was setting on the far horizon, blackness encompassing her in totality as she struggled to keep moving forward and away. Her panic had left for raw fear only, flickering lights in the woods and inhuman howls harrying her as she moved, now relying on the butt of the rifle to steady herself while she cradled the box in her other arm. The little needle was still almost the whole way but now, as she’d moved along the road, it slowly drove away from its ‘north’, now pointing directly to its westward mark. Prudence tried to ignore the little device, convinced by the pastor’s anger and her late master’s frustration that it was defunct, useless for whatever purpose it was made, but it and the gun were all she had in the way of scraps of her old life.
	Holding the little box up in the dim starlight she could only barely make out the needle jiggling to her immediate left, towards the road. She breathed haggardly and made the sharp turn that the compass indicated, stumbling over gnarled roots as the bare stretch of road came increasingly into sight. In the muddled light she could just make out a great hulking black form in the darkness, motionless on the road and swathed in a stain upon the ground. She unsteadied herself and lifted the rifle to her shoulder, leaning on one of the thicker trees for support, lowering the rifle again knowing it was likely empty.
	She resigned herself to whatever fate awaited her as she breached the treeline and stood on the deserted road, now seeing the glinting pool of ichor and gore across from her, the sticky red-black of coagulated blood spilt all around it. No flies buzzed around in the Autumn air but she knew it was a corpse, its hooved legs stuck in the air and pinned to the sides of the bloated, ripped belly. Were she human she’d feel the nauseous urge to vomit, but she could only feel pity for the unfortunate horse ahead of her.
	She checked the compass again, slipping sideways as her strength waned more. The needle was spinning chaotically, some force unknown possessing it as she neared the horse to examine it closer. It’s hide was marked by claw marks easily two, maybe three feet long running the diameter of the glassy-eyed beast beneath her. As she knelt closer to examine them the compass calmed itself, calibrating to some unknown force as it swung from north to south, settling on a sloping direction to the northwest, easily missing Salem by a few miles she reasoned. She arose once more, standing expectantly for the culprit to ambush her in her last moments of growing weakness, but no such enemy came. She listened for the ticking of her mechanical heart and knew by its lessening pace she’d only a few hours left, at best. The grade westward was flat enough, neither up nor downhill, however, to keep her up until at least sunrise. She steeled herself for the extra miles ahead and made her way towards her fate.