DIRE : TIME (The Dire Saga Book 3)
Page 33
They couldn’t have let him keep it of course. It was magically active. Probably interfered with the binding. So they’d hidden his face, and sent him out to kill for the Reich. Sent him to war, and wasn’t that appropriate?
After all, what else would you do with a Crusader?
CHAPTER 19: DIRE – THE LAST CRUSADE
“We lost Stalingrad because of the Black Knight and Koschei, the traitor. But mostly because of the Black Knight. We could not fight him, any who tried simply died. He broke the Steel Brotherhood, he killed Nine Knives Lyudmilla. He ignored every invention that the science bureau threw at him. But one day? He left, almost in the middle of the fight, and never came back. We never knew why. We never found out what happened. But when we realized he was well and truly gone? Comrade, the Germans could not hold us, for our rage carried us west over their bloody corpses...”
--Sergei Vasinnollivich, veteran of the Eastern Front, two-time recipient of the Order of the Red Star
Der Schwarze Ritter was Crusader. The conclusion echoed in the chambers of my mind, borne on a sea of rising dread. Somehow they’d gotten him, somehow they’d found him before he was known to the world, trapped him, bound him. And the result loomed in the sky above the castle, about to come crashing down on us like a dinosaur-killer asteroid on its way down.
Except... no, he couldn’t do that, could he? He’d have to pull his punches a bit. Hitler was nearby, and Hitler was only human, so he couldn’t cut loose the way we had in Icon City.
That was my hope, anyway. With my armor as broken as it was, I wouldn’t last five minutes against him.
Power warnings chimed. So, less than five minutes regardless. Great.
Blood. I needed his blood. They’d used some during the binding, so if I could find some unbound blood, we might be able to pull this off. I ransacked the pile of possessions and artifacts next to the armor. Nothing. Some clothes, a monk’s robe, a bent sword, an old bronze crown... no vials, jars, or other such containers of any kind. Nothing.
Wait.
Wait a minute. I already had his blood! I’d gotten him to bleed during our last fight, and a few drops had splashed my gauntlet! I literally had the answer right on my fingertips!
Except I didn’t. I stared at the dusty and dented metal. I’d just ripped up stone, traded punches with armored suits, and wrecked my way through the castle. Somewhere along the way I’d worn the dried flakes of blood away. They were back there in the castle somewhere, along with my hopes, dreams, and chances of success. I had no time to find them, if that was even possible.
Well, shit.
Outside, I heard Loge laugh, wild and crazy and as carefree as a child. “You think to challenge me, mortal? Allow me to show you the power of a true—”
A thunderclap, and a crash of stone. Through the doorway, I saw Loge’s spear go flying, whirling end over end before embedding itself in the cobbled ground of the courtyard, and wobbling back and forth like a tuning fork on steroids.
I redoubled my search, finding nothing more but scraps of paper, what looked like parts of a journal written in some language I couldn’t read, and an old daguerreotype of a hairy, short, muscular man in a kilt throwing his arm around a burly, mild-looking man in a monk’s robe. Scrawling letters on the bottom of the crude photograph proclaimed it ‘To Giraud from Gil. See you again in a century!’
Cute, but not very useful.
Loge screamed outside. I’d never heard a god scream before.
I took a breath, took another. No plan, no advantages, no strategy that would survive first contact with Crusader’s fists.
Ah hell, I’d had a good life.
I marched outside, steeling myself and routing power to the various weapon systems that still functioned. I’d made him bleed once before. It might be possible to take him out of the fight, or even knock some sense into him. He was supposed to be fighting his binding, after all. Perhaps enough pain would do the trick.
“CRUSADER!” I roared, as I burst out of the chapel. Three steps to the spear and I jerked it from the pavement, leveled it at the dark steel-clad figure who was pummeling Loge through the wall. He paused, one swastika-emblazoned gauntlet frozen inches from Loge’s cringing face.
They’d given him spiky black armor. It was more Gothic than his golden suit, with layers of battered steel substituting for the magical metal of his original. I couldn’t see his eyes when he looked my way. Couldn’t get a measure of how much of the man was left as he let a limp Loge fall boneless to the ground and turn to me, crimson cape billowing in the wind.
“YOU’RE UGLY AND HITLER DRESSES YOU FUNNY. SETTLE THE FUCK DOWN AND STOP BEING A DICK.”
He took a step toward me, and I tensed up. Another step, and he hesitated, looking to the wreckage of the staff car, and the dead guards around it.
A forage cap poked up from behind the wreck, and the most hated man in the world glared at me.
“Kill him!” Hitler shrieked. “Kill him for the glory of the Reich! I command it!”
Crusader charged me, flying a foot off the ground, coming in with both arms in front of him. I set the spear, dug it into the ground and put my full weight behind it. Maybe a god’s spear could withstand him? Slow him down a bit? Make him hesitate?
It didn’t do any of those things. It shattered into hundreds of pieces, taking a few plates of his armor with it. None of which helped me, as I was driven back, feet grinding into and through the ground, spraying cobblestones across the courtyard like cannonballs. Hitler shrieked, and dove for cover again.
I twisted, rolled with his force, managed to straight-arm him away as he tried to grab me, and he stopped, turned in midair, and tried to punch me. I tanked the blows as best I could, arms up in a boxer’s stance, letting the reinforced arms of the heavy suit take the beating.
It wouldn’t last. Every punch dented or fractured, and I shuddered in my harness as the remaining impact gel reservoirs strove to compensate, to keep the layers full even in the face of dozens of leaks.
But as I fought, I realized something; this Crusader, this Nazi-controlled Crusader, he had no real technique to him. He just punched, and backhanded, and tried to hit me without any real finesse or art to it. He had nothing of the skill his future self had exhibited, and whether it was due to fifty fewer years of experience or his current bound status, I couldn’t tell.
So I started dodging more, evading his punches, slipping back and to the side as well as I could on my suit’s busted leg. Couldn’t dodge everything, but I could and did slow him down. Bunny had put me through some basic close quarters combat training, and though I’d never been able to beat her, the rudimentary arm blocks and footwork were actually giving me a little bit of an edge.
The damage readouts told me it wouldn’t last forever. And the energy reserves were going fast... I was buying time, but to what end?
I spooled up the remnants of my weapons array. I’d drawn blood from him before. Perhaps he was weaker now, in this time? Perhaps I could knock him out or hurt him to the point that he was forced to withdraw? It seemed unlikely, but I was out of options.
Two micromissiles spattered off him like raindrops, the third exploded in the tube. I ejected the smoking assembly, as the rest of it cooked off to the side. No real damage to my main armor, but I’d created a weak spot in the hollow compartment left in its wake. Fortunately he didn’t seem to recognize that.
The phlogiston igniter burned the cape from him, and heated his armor to a cherry red, but nothing more and I didn’t have the power reserves left for a sustained cooking. In any case, he didn’t seem to care, so I shut it off after a few seconds of toasting.
The freeze ray did create big cracks throughout his armor. Weaker than the golden stuff, definitely. Taking a risk I took a few direct hits to clobber him with a quick one-two in return, shoving him back and shattering his chestplate, along with his visor. He wore smoking, charred remnants of a shirt below, and on his broad, muscular chest the sigil of the Thulite binding pulse
d bloody and red over his heart, beating in time with its rhythm.
I stared at it a fraction of a second too long, and paid the price.
The world spun, and I slammed back and forth in my harness while the bricks of the keep gave way. Staring up at a wooden ceiling, I realized that he’d knocked me into the antechamber of the castle. I struggled to sit up, found my waist actuators locking up, and rerouted through the remaining intact redundant circuitry left to me. It took three tries, but finally I was kneeling, and in the courtyard Crusader reached up to his broken helmet, and peeled it away from his face.
A broad face, with crinkles around the eyes. Brown eyes, long brown hair that waved gently in the wind. Unshaven, with a beard that hadn’t been trimmed in some time but was still short.
I recognized him from the picture I’d found. Not the guy in the kilt, the one in the robe. He’d been smiling then, but his face was bare and blank now, emotionless as he started to float toward me, barechested and bareheaded but entirely uninjured. I gasped, and tried to rise to my feet. Couldn't, I knew he'd be on me before I was clear.
The world slowed, as a hand fell on my shoulder. I twisted around, stared up into Loge's eyes. Blood coated his face, ran down his chin to drip on me. Bruised, battered, with a swollen eye and a face of pure fear as he glanced between me and Crusader.
Even the god feared Crusader.
Smart god.
“You won't win this in battle.” He whispered. “But his soul struggles. Use it. Call his name!” I tried to answer, but my mouth opened slowly, so slowly. Rubble fell in slow-motion, speeding up as Loge withdrew his hand. “My debts are paid. Good luck valkyrie!”
And he was gone. I took a breath, and before Crusader could reach me, I spat out my question.
“SO. ARE YOU GIL OR GIRAUD?”
He stopped, and his hands shook. Just for a second, but the tremor was there. I finished climbing to my feet. “THIS ISN’T YOU, MAN. SNAP OUT OF IT. FIGHT THEIR BINDING!” I took the opportunity to rise to my feet.
“Kill him!” Hitler shrieked, from behind his cover. “Shoot him, kill him, end him! I order it!”
And damned if the Nazis on the walls didn’t start shooting at me. Didn’t do much, I was pretty well proofed against the calibre of stuff they were bringing to bear. I ignored them as the bullets sleeted off and around me, and strode to the edge of the hole, staring at Crusader, meeting his eyes with the armored backing plate where my mask had once resided.
Crusader’s face twisted into abject sorrow, as he took a step forward, took another. He was on the ground now, I saw. “GIL?” Nothing. “GIRAUD?” He flinched, but kept coming, picking up speed as he ran, a cry rising wordless and keening from his throat. He was short, I saw, shorter than me, even if I hadn’t been wearing the armor.
Not that this would matter if he got his hands on me.
Well, I had a few more weapons to test. Without expecting much, I flipped open my remaining sonic directional screamer, and poured power into it. A keening wail rose on the wind, and I saw the Nazis on the wall clap their hands to their ears.
And Crusader flinched.
It was slight, it was barely there, but his charge slowed for a second, as his eyes narrowed and his face screwed up in pain. Directed sonics that would literally explode a man’s head at this distance seemed to make him uncomfortable, and with adrenaline-boosted attention, I saw a tiny trickle of red ooze from his nose.
I’d given him a nosebleed, before. With the armor on, I hadn’t been able to notice it, but now...
Then he was on me, grabbing the sonic screamer, ripping it free of my armor as he punched me.
When I finally fetched up three rooms away, and knocked a suit of plate mail away from me when I rose, I was grinning. I had the ingredients on hand to take him out. Just a matter of surviving until I got to them. I surveyed the great hall around me, and rubbed my hands together. He’d knocked me a good distance, and if I could capitalize on that, get away from him before he could catch up to me, then I could double back and give plan ‘F’ a try.
I turned and fled through a wall, heading deeper into the castle. Three turns later I was running past a wide staircase, when a shout made me pause.
“Doctor!” Henri’s voice!
I looked up to see Grant, Henri, Timetripper, and Tesla on the balcony above me, just a flight up. “WHERE’S BRYSON?”
“He is getting the Jews to safety!”
“NO TIME. CRUSADER’S RIGHT BEHIND ME.”
“Say what?” Timetripper looked flabbergasted.
“DER SCHWARZE RITTER IS CRUSADER! THE NAZIS ENSLAVED HIM, PUT BLACK ARMOR ON HIM. HE’S FIGHTING IT, BUT HE’S STILL INCREDIBLY—”
The wall behind me exploded, peppering my armor with brickwork as I rocked forward with the hit.
“—DANGEROUS.” I finished up. “GO! GET AWAY!”
I tried to run, but he was on me, his face blank and empty again. I parried as best I could, but the elbow actuators were moving slower, now. With the gel reserves depleted, every hit shook the structure, causing wear on the pistons and cables. Only a matter of time until something broke or something gave. After that, the next thing to give would be, well, me.
And then, as I shuffled back, Crusader cocked an arm and froze. He turned his head, moving as if in a daze, lowering his hand. I looked up to the balcony, to see Henri mirroring Crusader’s motions with one hand, sweat pouring down his face like water from a faucet.
Mind control. He’d managed to snag him with the mind control.
“I cannot hold him long! He is strong and I am very tired! What are we to do?” Henri gasped.
“GIVE HER A TWO MINUTE HEAD START, THEN BRING HIM TO THE COURTYARD! UNSTOPPABLE, MR. TESLA, WE NEED TO CLEAR OUT THE NAZIS AND SUBDUE HITLER. YOU’RE WITH HER.”
“Uh, what about me?” Timetripper whined.
“STAY WITH HENRI. TRY NOT TO FUCK UP.”
He raised his hands with a ‘who, me?’ gesture, but I was already turned around and moving... and on two minutes power, I noticed. Had to end this quickly.
At this point momentum was my friend. I charged through wall after wall, keeping my arms wrapped around my body to protect the sparking and shattered components left to me. Finally I was out in the courtyard... to see Hitler, now up on the wall, slash his arm across his chest and scream.
“Fire!”
Rockets screamed by me, machinegun bullets slammed into me, grenades sheeted down around me, and an honest-to-god Flammenwurfer spewed burning petroleum over my armor.
I stood there, raising my hand in defiance, and roared to shake the walls, a raw primal scream of fury as I thrashed, stilled, and slowed.
“Cease fire!” Hitler howled.
The weapons fire slowed, and stopped. Through the smoke I saw the helmeted silhouettes of every Nazi on the wall as they peered up, peered through the haze, trying to see what was left of me.
I waited for the smoke to clear, for the petroleum to burn out, and I laughed there in my dented and scorched and shattered armor, with all my weapons destroyed or useless and a minute of operating power left to me. I laughed, and the deep, twisted modulated screams of my mirth echoed through the courtyard and shook the wall, as they shrank back in disbelief.
“OH YOU SAD, SORRY, SCHUTZSTAFFEL SOULS. YOU FOOLISH FEARFUL FILTHY FREAKS. YOU GENOCIDAL GERMAN GAS-HAPPY GEEKS. YOU MADE ONE FATAL MISCALCULATION, AND IT’S JUST LOST YOU THIS BATTLE.”
Hitler, the only one who wasn’t showing fear, leaned forward on the wall and glared down at me, postage stamp mustache twitching. “And that would be?”
“SHE WAS THE DISTRACTION.”
Lightning flared behind me, and five of the Nazis on the wall screamed, and tumbled backward.
Tesla was here, he was free, and he was pissed.
Gunfire echoed as Unstoppable joined the fray, and I oriented, turned myself toward the hole in the wall. Forty seconds left... twenty more than I needed. “DON’T KILL HITLER YET! CAPTURE HIM IF YOU CAN.”
I gave it about twenty seconds for my new allies to thin out the Nazis, then I took a deep breath. Had to risk it.
I pulled the emergency release, and dropped out of the back of the suit. This was the flaw in the plan, this was the risk I was taking, and if one of the Nazis remained clear-headed and had sufficient aim, then I was dead.
So I ran. I ran for my life; I ran for the future; I ran for the friends I’d lost and the rest of them that I stood to lose if this failed, and I didn’t look back. Things had been set in motion... guesswork and prayer, mostly, and the best I could do was hope that we were on the right track.
Perhaps a bullet spattered near me, perhaps it didn’t. I couldn’t differentiate the gunfire from the wall and I didn’t have time to care. I made it across the courtyard alive and that was all that mattered.
There was a guard taking cover in the motor pool, and I didn’t slow down, pulling out one of the shock grenades I’d whipped up the night before. He sizzled and writhed and I leaped over his body, as I pounded feet toward my true objective.
The Lowën tanks.
Now I understood why they’d been stored here, in a place where they could very easily bring down the castle. These tanks, these sonic siege weapons, were kept here just in case Crusader broke free during the ceremony.
Then I wriggled down the hatch, glanced around the tight confines, and popped my monocle in. Dark in here, and the nightvision showed me the switches and mechanisms I was looking for.
Bit tricky driving solo; it was meant for a crew of five under optimal conditions. Still, I wasn’t trying to do anything fancy, just get it across the courtyard.
It was slow. God, it was slow. Here I’d been tooling around in an armored suit that pretty much doubled my ground speed, even crippled, and now I was managing a cranky tank by myself, trying to get it into a good gear without throwing a tread. Fortunately, whatever weird skill base my supergenius had provided me seemed to include piloting vintage tanks. It seemed like minutes, it was probably more like moments, and finally I was in sight of my halted armor, stopped and frozen in its challenging ’come at me’ stance.