“Gilliam”

"Gilliam"

Susanna was confused and angry. Somehow, she was at the back of the procession of warriors with a baby on her back.

It had been her command! Her goal!

And both Glendon and Rolande had pushed her aside!

And the very people she'd pulled together had just accepted it!

But how!

She'd managed to keep at least one of the axes she'd managed to wrangle up, and she was pretty sure the axe's owner had no idea who they'd given the axe to. So, despite the disgusting push aside, she'd managed to pillage herself an axe.

People crowded towards the looming Golem which had eaten up the light. How it was doing that suddenly made sense. Gritty sand tumbled down from it like a hailstorm of beads. It was like nothing Susanna had ever seen. It snuffed out the light as sand and pebbles washed over the flame.

Something in her mind clicked as she watched the Golem move, shrinking as it entered the village, like it knew where it was going…

The Shrine!

She took off sprinting, holding the axe and towel knot around her chest, securing both. The baby 'oohed', 'aahed' and cooed while bouncing up and down.

The village had three shrines, but which God would the Golem approach? She stared at the crowd moving around and she stared at the three enormous statues and picked the owl, it made the most sense.

At the head of the rush, she stepped in front of the owl representation and saw the straight line of road.

"Everyone move! Clear the way!" She yelled, waving her new axe around, trying to be menacing.

All it got her were the kind of looks she wished Gilliam would get.

So she switched tactics. Her Golem, which had taken a more human appearance, started moving offerings, pots and even beds where people had been laying as spirit offerings were lifted and placed a distance away. Old women yelling at her Golem as they were lifted.

The people seeing her move rushed to help move things along. By the time her strategy was proved correct there was a straight and clear path which the Golem followed.

Sand poured off of it, drowning homes entirely, some wooden structures engulfed so completely they sunk and crashed down under the sheer weight. Then slowly it shrunk until it towered to 'only' double Susanna's height. A crowd formed around her but as it got closer, they dispersed. It was human in shape, and as the Golem crumbled, it became a woman of pale marble, beautiful with thin lips, a sharp jaw, a long neck but large eyes and curves of rock as it held something bundled in its arms.

There was more life to it than expected because those dead stone eyes were focused on them, no her!

Susanna, at the centre of the ultimate attention, was rooted to the ground, axe in hand. What she would do against a Golem was…well… nothing, but she was positive she had to be there.

But as the number of people in front of her hit zero and those next to her dwindled too, she started to move.

Then words escaped the woman of a Golem. Words loud and reverberating! She could have sworn the creature was using multiple voices, one of which most definitely belonged to her and Solveig.

It was in front of her having shrunk to three heads taller and beefier than her, like a berserker, a child bundled up against its rocky bosom.

People tried to approach, but tendrils of rock burst out, smashing shields, breaking bones and cracking rock as Golems protected their humans. A Golem, being that violent to a human was unlike anything she had ever seen! Its words repeated and she stepped forward. Tendrils shot out but surrounded her, like a tunnel of death. The words pushing her, the words loud:

"Bite! Family! Share! Death! Husband! Alone! Help! Gilliam!"