The mechanical mountains loom with a red rusted hue over the crimson forest. Like the spine of a metal giant of industry long lost to the world, they are a largely ignored relic of a past that tale and time had almost forgotten.
In stark contrast, the crimson forest teems with life and song, and nowhere more so than the bustling village in its centre. Today, as on most days, it bristles to the melody of steel on steel played to the rhythm of the hypnotic feet of the sword dancer Brink.
‘Careful Brink! You’re going to make the rest of us look bad!’ her best friend Del grins, tumbling to the floor to call an end to their training bout.
‘Then dance faster!’ Brink winks back at him, helping Del off the ground.
‘Again, again! Show us again Brink!’ the small crowd of children gathered to watch the daily apprentice sparring session cry in delight.
Brink smiles ear to ear with an excessively elaborate bow, ready to oblige as she usually does, when a few drops of blood splatter on the floor next to her.
‘Looks like you caught me for a change Del’ Brink chimes his way, blowing him a sarcastic kiss.
‘Maybe the little ones will be cheering your name soon, I better go get this all cleared up’.
Brink departs all grins and laughs as ever, as she heads home to dress her wound, a cut on the cheek that stings and weeps but shouldn’t scar.
Striding through her front door Brink calls out to her master in the kitchen, heading to the store cupboard.
‘Another standing ovation as always! You should have seen them cheer even if it was just a training session. Master, where do we keep the wound dressings?’
‘Dressings? What on earth would you need those for?’ Brink’s master replies.
‘Oh just a nic on the cheek, I think I’ll live’ Brink replies with a customary wink.
But turning to see Brink’s bloody face, her master becomes stone.
‘What have you done!’ They exclaim.
Brink tries to calm them, ‘It’s just a…’
‘Why are you still treating this like a game Brink!’ her master interrupts.
‘If it was a real battle you could have gotten yourself killed! All it takes is one strike. How many times do I have to tell you? You have to be perfect!’.
Brink’s smile drains away and her tone, usually full of song, falls flat.
‘Yes master. I’ll be better next time, it won’t happen again I promise’.
‘That’s my girl’ Brink’s master replies, relaxing a little at last, as they clean and dress Brink’s wound.
‘That’s my girl’.
The next day at training, Brink is not her usual self. No dance, no song, no smiles. In training she is deadly efficient.
‘Where are those famous feet?’ Del chimes in, as they start their bout at the end of the day.
‘Not today Del’ Brink snarls through gritted teeth, as she lunges at him with uncharacteristic ferocity.
But Del is fast, not as good a dancer as Brink, not as technical, not as talented, but fast enough to side step Brink’s lunge and leave her stumbling to the floor off balance.
‘Gotta dance Brink, you know that!’ he says, still chipper as he extends a hand to help her up.
Brink bats his hand away, red with fury as she gets up and stalks out of the training ground.
‘Where are you going?’ calls Del?
But there’s no reply, as Brink follows her feet out of the village. Out of the forest even, and before she knows it, finds herself standing at the foot of the rusted and towering mechanical mountains.
Fog looms all around Brink as it does up and around the whole mountain, obscuring it’s peak so that it might well have stretched up to the heavens forever. It was at this moment that Brink remembered the old tales of the mountains, the ones uttered on quiet nights around campfires to scare children. Tales of how the mountains contained secrets with power enough to change your fate, at the right price.
And though Brink’s insides were screaming at her to turn back and go home, her master’s words echo in her mind: ‘You have to be perfect’. And so on she strides, up and up beginning the treacherous climb.
Traversing the mountains is perilous. Sharp and rusted edges lurked around every step and fragments of metal shear off loose holds if gripped too tight. But on Brink climbs, through scratches from wires and grazes from cogs, past the strain of effort and the burning of her muscles, up through fog and cloud until the peak of the mechanical mountains rest beneath her feet.
Battered and bruised, Brink pants and sighs, gazing around and wondering now just what she was supposed to be looking for. While the view was spectacular, with the sun setting now to cast the crimson forest a million shades of red, Brink doesn’t even notice. She can’t! Her attention so set on finding whatever secrets might finally make her perfect and safe from her master’s scorn.
Restless and frantic, Brink shifts metal and scours the peak inch by inch, until the smallest of passages appears.
At first just a small gap between the cogs and wheels, with some investigation and prying of metal, the gap widens, then opens up into a full tunnel which Brink squeezes through without second thought. Barely wide enough for her to fit, it leaves her scratched and bloody, but on she presses until it opens up into the most peculiar of places.
Inside, lit by fire and bellowing with steam is the strangest blacksmith’s Brink had ever seen. In here, the cogs and wheels turn all by themselves and adorned all across the walls are hands, legs, eyes, fingers, feet and arms, not of flesh but of great gold shining metal.
‘Welcome to the lab!’ a funny little voice croaks from an even funnier looking little man. Head no higher than Brink’s waist, donned in goggles and gloves and with a thick white beard draping down to his feet, the little man introduces himself.
‘I am the fixer, and you must be Brink.’
Brink gasps, about to stutter out a thousand questions when the Fixer interrupts her.
‘Tut tut tut! No questions here, just solutions! So what will it be, what are we fixing for you today’ he says, glancing around the room at the metal body parts covering the walls.
‘Well, I got a cut across my jaw…’ Brink tries, with the timidness of a toddler. ‘That can’t happen again.’ She finishes.
‘The jaw! Excellent choice Brink, excellent choice! Anything else the old Fixer can help you with today?’
Buoyed by his encouragement, Brink continues ‘Well I slipped too, my legs gave way, they weren’t fast enough’.
‘Another fine choice Brink’ The Fixer grins, taking her hand and leading her to a table. ‘Here, drink this’ he says, plucking a vile of purple liquid from a shelf.
‘What is it?’ Brink asks.
‘Uh uh! No questions remember, just drink it, it’ll help with the fixing’.
Brink hesitates, suddenly aware of the strangeness of where she finds herself, just how different and alien it is from her home in the crimson forest. She thinks of Del’s warm smile and how he’d tell her to dance on out of there and just come home and is about to stand to leave, when her master’s voice returns to her ear. ‘You’ve got to be perfect!’. Looking down at her battered and scratched body, she can’t imagine going home now, not like this. So she tilts her head back, drinks the purple vile in one foul gulp and drifts back onto the table in a haze, images of golden limbs looking menacing in the flickering firelight now, before everything fades to black.
Three days pass, and the village of the crimson forest is in uproar. No one has seen Brink since she left the training grounds and everyone from the young to the old have been searching the surrounding forest day and night for any sign of her, without the barest glimpse. This afternoon, Del is searching a series of caves on the outer edge of the forest, beyond where any would usually travel. It’s dark, dank and as he moves deeper into the shadow, bones scatter the floor. ‘Brink!’ he hisses, ‘Brink!’. The sound echoes into silence, and then a rustling, and thuds on the damp stone floor fill the cave. ‘Brink?’ Del whispers, holding his torch fire towards the sound only to see a monstrous shadow of jet black fur, razor sharp claws and bloodied pointed teeth tower over him. But Del is fast, and faster without a torch for sure, dropping the light and sprinting from the cave and back to the village without even a glance over the shoulder.
Returning to the village gates, a mess of sweat and shakes, breathing in great rasps and collapsing to the floor, villagers surround him and their gazes follow the only gesture he can manage, pointing back to the forest.
Brows furrowed and eyes squinted, they see it, a huge and towering bear of monstrous proportions charging through the forest and directly towards the village.
Panic consumes everything. Villagers scramble to pull Del inside, to shut themselves away, or simply just to run. In the confusion, a lone child, one who frequented the training grounds, stands crying in the middle of the square, her parents scattered in the chaos.
The bear is closer now, charging still and almost upon her, when a light catches the child's eyes and she wipes them to look up in confusion and hope as something glimmers and shines towards the bear at breakneck speed. ‘Brink!?’ the child cries out, as the shining figure tumbles into the bear.
Dust kicks everywhere and as it settles, the bear towers in fury to face a figure with glowing golden legs of metal and steam and a mechanical face from the nose down, shining and beading with moisture from sweat and steam alike. Brink stands, sword in hand, returned, perfect, and ready to save her people.
The bear lunges, all rage and fury, but it is no match for Brink’s speed. Gone are the flowing movements of her past, replaced by rapid, precise and anchored steps.
The bear turns, lashing out, and the villagers, now all watching, cry out as it strikes Brink in the face!
But Brink is unmoved, tilting her metal chin to the blow as the claws glance off with a harmless spark, and as the bear stumbles from being off balance Brink lunges, driving her sword into the bear’s face, through it’s cheek and into it’s skull to finish the animal in a single blow.
The village erupts, this time in cheers and excitement as the fear and horror of a moment ago is replaced with the relief and joy of the village’s returning hero.
The children and even the adults sing out, chanting Brink’s name. A group comes out of their hiding places, lutes and drums in hand to produce the music the village is so famous for as they burst into song and dance.
Children surround Brink now, hand in hand, dancing to the beat and singing Brink’s name. One calls out ‘sing with us Brink!’ another, ‘dance with us Brink!’ all full of laughter and joy.
Brink moves to join the dance, once so fluid and graceful she was considered the town’s best. But her legs, now metal and mechanical and built with a steampowered precision cannot match the music. She waddles, clumsily and out of time and the children back away from her in their dance to keep the tempo going.
Confused, Brink tries instead to sing with them and to join the melody of the whole village. She moves her mouth, but it is all creaks and clunks and out comes a harsh shrill grinding of metal on metal that tears through the music and brings the song to a halt.
The village stops and stares at Brink, uncomfortable in the silence left from the terrible screech, until a villager calls out ‘maybe Brink should just guard the village, there might be more bears?’. Murmurs then echoes of agreement come from every corner and even the children look wearily at Brink now, as she looks around and becomes painfully aware that everyone is waiting for her to leave. And so she does, moving to the edge of the village, gathering her sword to stand a perfect guard ready for whatever threat comes next, while, in her absence, safe behind her watchful gaze, the song and the dance return to the rest of the village.