The Battle of Ashers Farm

by Hannah Robinson

tle of Ashers Farm

  By Hannah Jade Robinson

  Copyright 2011 by H J Robinson

  All characters in this publication are fictitious

  and any resemblance to real persons,

  living or dead is purely coincidental

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  Thankyou for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Preface

  Two young girls in an unreliable time machine had saved eight crewmembers of the doomed asteroid miner, 'Hood', from certain death during the alien invasion of Earth, but then they were all stranded when their time ship stopped working.

  Trapped in the year 4300, or thereabouts, society had become female dominated and medieval, and they decided to help the free thinking Easterners to overcome the tyranny of the Western alliance

  This year was the far future for the miners, but the dim and distant past for their rescuers, and the girls from the future knew what was going to happen. It was all recorded in their prayer book, 'Mother and Lady'. But was the book accurate?

  No longer a cook

  Marcus Tanto

  David Tanto was an accountant in a publishing house. Well no, actually he was a junior clerk, but to all his acquaintances, he was an accountant. Jemma, his long suffering wife, had left him, taking the seven year old Marcus with her, and gone to live with her parents in Seattle South, about a day away on the speedway. They were pleased that she had left him at last because, in the words of her dad Fred, David was ‘one small step away from Doctor Spritz’, the local psychiatrist.

  By day, he was David Tanto, but three times a week, when he went to his club, he was known to his lodge brothers as ‘Firestorm’, hero of Mars and rescuer of ravished damsels. Sword and Sorcery films, model making, war games and suchlike were high on the list of entertainments on offer there.

  Once a month, they organised paint ball and laser rallies in Ravenna Park, and it was in those woods that David Tanto finally went over the edge. Red team’s Charlie platoon were about to storm the Green team HQ, when a screaming figure dressed in bearskin and leather dropped from the trees into their midst and started wielding a great sword about his head. Their terror turned to anger when they realised that the plastic sword didn’t actually cut anything, but it wasn’t until Firestorm’s wig came off that they managed to subdue him. He was banned from the club, and ridiculed as a pathetic figure, but other members secretly began sewing barbarian costumes for themselves, and six months later, he was reinstated as a full dog soldier of the lodge.

  Promoted to Commander, Firestorm led the Green team into battle with lasers and plastic swords every month.

  His fathers enthusiasm for all things romantic and barbarian rubbed off on Marcus, and when he was offered the chance to move from office canteen to the monster asteroid miner, Hood, both he and his father were ecstatic. Marcus actually saw Mars, from a distance of course, but he still sent squirt messages to his father, which were full of the dangers of space travel and near misses with asteroids.

  With a son actually out there, in space, David’s standing in the lodge reached dizzy heights and he was content. Then the Stream invaded through the warp gate.

  Marcus was devastated by the reality of alien warfare, and the first two months of fighting in Spain were a time of permanent terror for him. He inherited a Growler super capacity laser rifle when Specs Donovan was evacuated with gangrene, and feeling more secure behind the big gun, the horrors of war diminished slightly, and turned into only occasional nightmares.

  His father would have been proud of him, but the North West of America was now a wasteland, and details of the miners actions were known to only a few.

  Landing at Burnt Wood in the dying time ship, and then moving to South Farm had been like a homecoming for him, and it was as if he had been dropped into one of his dad’s dioramas. The village girls adored him, and although no one was bigger than Anton the security chief, Marcus’s teenage physique was becoming decidedly Conanesque.

  He now thought of himself as Marco, son of Firestorm and Venga the she wolf, but didn’t think the dogs would understand that bit, so kept it to himself. It was actually true, sort of, because his mother had briefly joined her husband’s lodge as Venga, but found it all a little disturbing, so had resigned after five weeks.

  So it was, that on the second day of the battle below Guardians Nest, when half of the Eastern army were thinking of fleeing from the massed spears of Central, Marco son of Firestorm, strutted majestically onto the battlefield with his permanent escort of seven amazons and twelve wardogs.

  Asher’s field

  The greatly unequal armies were now only 150 metres apart, facing each other across the uneven fields of Asher’s farm, and the unnatural silence of the expectant day was broken by a rising buzz of speculation and excitement as Marco’s little war band moved steadily from the right flank, where Caren, the angel of light, was taking practice swings with her alien sword, to take up their position front and centre.

  His appearance brought different reactions from all corners of the battlefield.

  Central’s tyrant leader, Violet was fuming again.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know what it is?” she shouted at Pansy Prayerbook, the unfortunate acolyte delivering the message.

  “The machine can’t see it properly, your highness.”

  “Then give it another goat and tell it to get a move on.”

  She aimed a kick at the cringing girl who was just bright enough to move only slightly, so that Violet still had the satisfaction of her foot making contact with flesh, then Pansy limped away towards the gaggle of anxious priestesses gathered round the ‘machine’.

  The Homesteaders were proud of their Marco and cheered as he passed by, and he acknowledged them with a clenched fist held high.

  “Lady, look at them muscles, bet he’s stronger than Billie now. He’s magnificent.”

  “Have you seen them trollops with him? They’ve hardly no clothes on, same as him.”

  “Should be ashamed of themselves.”

  “Gonna be a bit chilly come autumn.”

  “Look good though, don’t they.”

  “Yeah.” There was a brief silence, then they simultaneously gave large sighs.

  “Wish I was down there with him.”

  Opposite Marco, the Ibis contingent were becoming alarmed at the sight of the creature in front of them.

  “And I’m telling you, that ain’t human. Look at all that hair round it’s middle an down it’s back. It’s a weird wolf that is.”

  “Must be bloody weird, or them dogs would have had it by now. You know that dogs and wolfs don’t get on.”

  “Yeh well, them dogs are not so or
dinary themselves, are they? You ever seen a dog with helmet, sword and shield before?”

  “Forget the dogs, that there’s no wolf, more like a forest devil. Most of them over there are from round Burnt Wood.”

  “So?”

  “Well you know what they say about Burnt Wood don’t you.”

  “What’s that then?”

  “Well, you know, there’s forest devils there.”

  The woman in the rank behind them leaned forward, “more than devils girl. There’s tree beasts as well.”

  A heavy silence fell on the unhappy group as they looked upon the fearsomeness of the first tree beast ever seen outside of Burnt Wood. (It would have been the first one seen anywhere actually) Above his sandals, a hunting knife was strapped to each leg, and he was dressed in an animal skin kilt with leather straps across his enormous chest, and his helmet was covered in fur and decorated with horns. Twin swords hung down his back, their handgrips peering expectantly over his shoulders.

  Marcus was never to be seen again, now that Marco had made his grand entrance, and as the worried murmurings began to be heard from the Central militia, the cheering from the Eastern army grew louder.

  “Have you ever seen anything like it before?” said Gudrun,