Spout

Spout is a character that appears in the Stoneheart Trilogy. He is a cat gargoyle from the St. Pancras Station. Spout begins his role as an antagonist, but his wing is later healed by George, and from that point on he begins to help George, despite the fact that he is a taint.

Appearance
Spout is a limestone gargoyle that has a cat-like face. His color has been faded over the years to a combination of black and gray streaks, due to weathering. He has a pair of wings and two legs with clawed feet, but he does not have any arms. A pair of devil-like horns sprout from his head, and a piece of his right wing is missing.

Personality
Spout is initially much like every other taint in the books: angry and hateful with a lust to destroy everything in his path. However, after George removes his spout, Spout begins to show signs of intelligence. He is shown to be very inventive as he uses a fellow gargoyle as a hammer/bludgeon in both Ironhand and Silvertongue, and is able to understand complex human speech, though the concepts of left and right initially eluded him. He is also fiercely loyal to George, taking on a horde of his own kind to buy the boy maker some time to escape. He is not, however, able to speak properly due to the construction of his mouth, and as such cannot pronounce most words properly. After Ironhand, George begins to pick up on his speech patterns, discerning Spout's warning of "Taints, Ironhand, many taints!" from his peculiar manner of speaking: "Gaings, Eigengang, genny gaings!"

Stoneheart
Spout first appears near the parking garage that George and the Gunner are hiding in. He begins to look around the area for them, and after seeing a dog barking at Edie (who happens to be hiding nearby), Spout finds Edie and traps her in the bush that she was crouching in. Edie pulls out her heart stone, as it is the only thing that she has left to try in defense. Fortunately, it begins to rain, so Spout has to return to his roost at St. Pancras Station. The gargoyle left Edie without harming her.

Edie first thinks that her heart stone was responsible for the gargoyle retreating so quickly. However, the Gunner later explains that it was actually because of the rain that Spout left.

Spout later reappears outside of George's apartment. He joins up with the Walker and the Raven to find George. However, by the time the three of them meet with each other, George and Edie had already fled the building. Spout flies after them.

Spout is seen again when he aids the Raven in attacking George on top of the Monument to the Great Fire of London. George manages to remove the copper spout from the gargoyle's mouth, but this only manages to free Spout's teeth and anger the taint. Before the two attackers can pull George from the top of the tower, they are both shot away by the Gunner. Spout is seemingly killed by the gunfire, and he then disappears.

Ironhand
Spout reappears at the beginning of Ironhand, when he grabs George off of the ground and flies him away from Edie. Spout flies George to the top of a building, where the gargoyle then drops the boy onto the roof and searches the rooftop for something. At this point Spout's intentions are unclear to George; the gargoyle could have killed George at any moment, but he has not done that. George is also confused as to how Spout is still alive, as the gargoyle had previously been shot by the Gunner.

George is rescued from Spout by Ariel, the statue of a golden girl who is able to fly. Ariel takes George and flies him off of the roof. Spout seems to give chase for some time, but he is not as fast of a flier as Ariel, and he eventually loses them.

Later on, George tries to escape a duel against the Last Knight, but he is pinned to a gate by Ariel, who does not want him to escape his fate. Before the Knight can strike George with his lance, though, Spout shoots out of the sky and snatched George up to safety. George's dodging the lance causes Ariel to be stabbed by accident.

Spout then flies George to St. Pancras station; the gargoyle's intentions are still unknown to George. George first thinks that Spout wants his copper water spout back, but this is tossed away by the gargoyle. By miming with his wing, and by trying to speak, Spout is finally able to show George that he wants his damaged wing repaired. George, with the broken-off piece, at first tries to explain that the wing could not be repaired without the proper tools. But suddenly, his maker powers activate, and his hand heats up. Spout's wing is healed, but the exertion causes George to black out momentarily. Nevertheless, the gargoyle appears grateful to have his wing fixed.

When a horde of gargoyles appears around them, Spout fights off a number of him on his own. He then swoops to save George from slipping off of a building. He carries George to another building that is still under construction, he takes a broken gargoyle wing from George to use as a weapon, and he tells George to run. George listens to his new friend, and he leaves Spout alone against the horde of gargoyles.