Words of Power by Wendy N. Wagner. Narrated by J.S. Arquin. Featuring an afterword by Wendy N. Wagner. 

Kádár scrutinized the flake of clay on the blade of the screwdriver. "He's just getting too old to be a war truck," she said. "Look at this clay. The logos barely flickers in it."

Zugsführer Warren spat on the packed earthen floor of the machine house. "You know I can't see that magic shit," he growled. "And it wouldn't matter if I did. An order is an order, Gefreiter Kádár, and the Oberst needs every last golem out on the field."

The small woman wiped the screwdriver clean on her shirt tail and restrained a sigh. There was no point arguing with the big American; if anyone was a stickler for following orders, it was the Zugsführer. They'd butted heads before, and Kádár had come away with a headache.

She stroked the pitted side of the golem. Even the Amero-Hungarian state seal, painted on each of its shoulders, looked worn out. "Poor old Benchley."

"You name them?"

She didn't bother glancing at Warren. Instead, she studied the dull gray places where the field operators had patched the injured clay. She narrowed her eyes. "This patch clay is shit," she growled. "Even the clay I used to convert him from a fighting man to a war truck was better than this, and I wouldn't have used that crap to make a singing tea pot."

Wendy N. Wagner is the editor-in-chief of Nightmare Magazine and the managing/senior editor of Lightspeed. Her short stories, essays, and poems run the gamut from horror to environmental literature. Her longer work includes the novella The Secret Skin, the horror novel The Deer Kings,  the Locus bestselling SF eco-thriller An Oath of Dogs,  and two novels for the Pathfinder role-playing game. She lives in Oregon with her very understanding family, two large cats, and a Muppet disguised as a dog. https://winniewoohoo.com/

Twitter: @wnwager

facebook.com/wendynwagner

This is the final episode of The Overcast. Thank you so much for listening and for all of your support over the past 7 years! 

Until we meet again... Keep dreaming,

                                J.S. Arquin