Shadows Fall

by Simon R. Green

  Everything would work out all right, in the end. They’d promised.

  But it was still hard to sit in his study and do nothing while people suffered. Right from the beginning of the invasion, he’d wanted to go out and help, but the Warriors wouldn’t allow it. They insisted he stay put, and even put a guard at his door, to protect him in the event his collaboration with the Warriors became known. He hadn’t liked the use of the word collaborator, but he’d nodded and agreed. There were those who wouldn’t understand.

  For a time people had phoned him, begging for help, and he’d offered what comfort he could, but then the phone stopped ringing, and when he lifted the receiver there was only silence. He didn’t know whether that was part of a general problem, or simply that the Warriors didn’t want him talking to anyone. It had been hours now, since the phone went dead. The Warriors had assured him the invasion would be over quickly, with a minimum of force, that the element of surprise gave them all the advantage they needed to overwhelm the town’s defences. And with the defences down, there should have been nothing to stop the Warriors roaring right through the town to the Sarcophagus, and via that, Time himself. He’d tried contacting the Warriors on his special phone. He could hear it ringing at the other end, but no one answered. They must be busy. They wouldn’t just ignore him.

  There was a loud knock at his front door, and he jumped in his chair. He flushed guiltily, and for a moment didn’t want to answer the door, in case the Warriors had come to punish him for harbouring doubts. But he pushed the thought aside, and got to his feet. Undoubtedly someone had been sent to explain to him what the problem was, and why things were taking so long. How thoughtful. They didn’t want him to be concerned. He composed himself, and went unhurriedly to answer his front door. The soldier on guard nodded casually to Callahan, and presented him with a large hat-box. Callahan took it automatically, and was surprised by its weight.

  “The Imperial Leader sends you a present,” said the soldier. “He says it’s for your collection.”

  Callahan tried to thank the soldier, but he just turned away and resumed his guard duties. Callahan blinked at the soldier’s unresponsive back for a moment, and then stepped back into his hall and shut the door. His collection? He had talked briefly with Royce about his interest in pulp magazines and memorabilia, but the Leader hadn’t seemed particularly interested. And why send him such a gift now? To keep his mind off things perhaps, to stop him worrying? He hefted the hat-box, and something moved heavily inside it. The lid had been sealed shut with masking tape. Perhaps there was a note inside; in any event, it’d be a damn sight more sensible to take the thing into his study and open it, than stand around in his hall wondering what it was.

  He took the heavy box into his study, dumped it on his desk, and went looking for some scissors. As always, they turned up in the last place he thought of looking. He briskly cut the tape, lifted off the lid, and then stopped as the smell hit him. It was thick and unpleasant, and vaguely familiar, though he couldn’t place it. He put the lid down beside the box, lifted out a wad of paper that had been used as packaging, and looked at what Royce had sent him. It was Lester Gold’s severed head. One eye had been shot out, and the back of the head was a ragged crimson mess. The mouth gaped slackly, the chin crusted with dried blood, and the single eye looked up at Callahan accusingly.

  Something for your collection…

  Callahan was too shocked to feel ill or angry or even regretful. There was only room in him for a raging sense of betrayal. They promised him the invasion would be a civilized affair, with only the barest minimum of force used.

  They lied.

  He had to get out of the house. Go out into the town and see what the Warriors were really doing. If the Warriors had lied to him about the use of force, what else had they lied about? Dear God, what had he let loose in Shadows Fall? He bit his lip hard, breathing deeply as he fought for control. He had to think this through. Obviously Royce didn’t expect him to be any threat to the Warriors’ plans, or he wouldn’t have sent the head. It was meant to intimidate him; make sure he wouldn’t interfere. Royce thought he was weak. He’d have to prove the Warrior Leader wrong.

  Getting out of the house shouldn’t be too difficult. There was a guard at the front door, and probably someone watching the back, but he doubted there was anyone watching the patio doors. After all, they only led into a walled garden with no exit. Except for the low door the previous occupant had put in for his dog. Callahan hadn’t seen a need for it, and had allowed it to become overgrown. Now you couldn’t even see it, unless you knew it was there. It would be a tight squeeze, but he’d make it. He had to. He put the lid back on the hat-box, patted it once as though apologizing, and then left by the patio doors before he could start thinking of reasons not to go.

  It was easy. No one saw him, and no one tried to stop him. His car was out in the street where he’d left it. He opened the door and got in, half expecting a shout or even a bullet at any moment, but all was quiet. He started up the engine, murmured a brief prayer, and drove down the street, into the town. Into hell.

  In every street there were buildings that had been shelled or torched. Fires were still burning, and no one came to put them out. Men and women had been shot, and left impaled on railings as examples to others. Here and there some had been crucified, nailed to stone walls with heavy iron stakes through their arms. A few were still alive. There were signs and slogans everywhere, painted on walls. Repent, Sinner. The Guilty Will Be Punished. This is the Day of the Lord. Bodies lay sprawled in the street, in pools of their own blood, left to lie where they fell. Flies were gathering. Callahan had to slow down to drive around the bodies. There were more houses burning as he drew nearer the centre of the town, flames leaping up on all sides. This is the day of the Lord of Hell, thought Callahan. And I made it possible.

  He stopped at the end of a street to check his way, and saw a group of soldiers having fun with Derek and Clive Manderville, his church handymen. The soldiers had formed a circle, and were taking it in turns to knock Clive back and forth within the circle, hitting him just a little harder each time. Already there was blood on his face, and his legs were weakening. He was too dazed to defend himself. The Sergeant was standing outside the circle, laughing, and keeping Derek back at gunpoint. Derek was talking desperately, no doubt using all his persuasive skills, trying to make a deal. The Sergeant didn’t look as though he was listening.

  Callahan looked away. He couldn’t interfere. He couldn’t risk being stopped and captured. He was responsible for what was happening in Shadows Fall, so it was up to him to put a stop to it. He thought he knew a way. There was one man who might be able to stop the Warrior invasion and turn it back. One man, with the faith and the power. Saint Augustine.

  Father Callahan laughed aloud, and it was not a cheerful sound. Together, he and Augustine would show the Warriors the true meaning of the wrath of God.

  —

  The elves came howling out of the land beneath the hill, materialized in the town of Shadows Fall, and fell upon the Warriors like wolves upon their prey. Thousands of elves appeared in a moment, clad in their ancient armour, with all their awful weapons. They rode on elvensteeds of gleaming brass and copper, and swept through the skies on gossamer machines of spun silver. Kobolds rode on magnificent motorbikes whose fuel was human blood, and Spriggans came in shapes that were so inhuman they were barely recognizable as life. The Warriors stopped in their tracks, angered and bewildered by the new enemy. The officers quickly named them demons and devils, Satan-spawn from the Pit itself, and tried to ward them off with raised crucifixes, but the elves just laughed. They were older than any human religion. They ripped through the massed soldiers with heartstopping speed, and bodies fell to all sides in a welter of blood. Swords flashed and guns roared, and energy weapons blazed in the evening gloom.

  The battle raged all across the town, with scattered elves taking on isolated Warriors. One elf threw himself upon an armoured tank a
s it lumbered out of a sidestreet. His long claws ripped through the steel plating with ease, opening it up like a tin can to get at the goodies within. The soldiers screamed, and the elf clung to the side of the tank like a rider on a steed as it rocked and roared, trying to throw him off. He laughed breathlessly, squirmed through the opening he’d made and leapt on the terrified soldiers. They were trapped in the cramped confines of the tank, without room to fight or retreat. The elf ripped off their heads and drank their blood as it spouted from their necks. Piercing screams resounded briefly inside the tank, and the elf ripped and tore and was content. He saved the driver till last, tore out his heart, and ate it while it was still beating. Then he left the tank, singing an old song in a forgotten language, and went in search of new prey to assuage his awakening hunger.

  Out in the streets and squares, the Warriors met the elves with a withering crossfire of spraying bullets. The elves were slowed but not stopped. It took a lot to kill an elf, and cold iron was just a myth man made up to comfort himself. Sometimes a group of soldiers trapped an isolated elf and raked him with bullets over and over, to watch him squirm and scream. But inevitably they stopped, or ran out of bullets, and then the soldiers watched in horror as the elf healed in seconds and fell upon them with undiminished fury. Rocket shells and grenades tore elves to pieces and scattered them across the streets, but even these would slowly crawl together and reform, given time. The Faerie could not shapechange and still wield weapons, thus making themselves more vulnerable, but the damage those weapons could do far outweighed the drawbacks. They met rockets and explosives with particle beams and high energy lasers, and death and destruction ran riot.

  Up in the skies, dragons went one on one with helicopter gunships. The helicopters had armour plating and devastating firepower, but the dragons were faster and more manoeuvrable, and they breathed fire. They launched themselves upon the helicopters from impossible angles, and burning machines fell out of the sky like crumpled handkerchiefs. The wreckage landed upon soldiers and elves alike, but only the elves walked away.

  Tremble all the worlds that be. The elves go to war once more.

  Oberon rode his elvensteed of gleaming bones into the heart of the chaos, and the Spear of Light flew from his hands again and again. The Spear could not be stopped or evaded, and could pick out one man among thousands, wherever he might hide. It drove through houses and punched through steel to find its victims, and then returned to Oberon’s hand like a hound to its master. Warrior officers died one after another, sometimes carried away transfixed on the glistening length of the Spear. Oberon kept their heads and tied them to his saddle.

  Titania strode through the heart of the fighting wrapped in an armour of thorns, the ancient long sword Bone Ripper in her hand. It cut through flesh and bone and metal alike, and none could stand before it. She hefted the great length of metal as though it was weightless, and the sword cut a wide path through the battle.

  And Puck, withered Puck, Weaponmaster Puck, hobbled through the fighting, giving orders and planning strategies, and laughed to see men die. He wore the Diadem of Chaos, and ill luck walked with him, touching all he passed.

  Some weapons clattered unmanned through the press of bodies, obeying the Faerie will to destruction in their own, private rages. The Howling Tide swayed this way and that, trampling soldiers underfoot, and could not be stopped. The Shatterer of Dreams could not be looked upon, and destroyed hope and faith wherever its burning gaze fell. Warriors lost all they had believed in, and ran sobbing from the field. The Spirit Thief ripped the senses out of soldiers, and left them giggling and shrieking. And everywhere the Warriors fell their bodies were seized and borne back to the Cauldron of the Night, from which they emerged as hollow-eyed undead, to fight on in the service of Faerie. Soldiers screamed as they went down beneath the weapons of their friends, seeing in their empty gaze their own inevitable fate.

  There were thousands of Warriors and thousands of elves, but the soldiers died so easily, and the Faerie did not die. But still the battle raged this way and that as first one side and then the other seized the advantage. The Warriors produced their own sorcerer priests, to turn aside the magics and enchantments of the Faerie. They tore the possessing spirits out of the undead, so that they fell lifeless once again, and threw the magic weapons into confusion, so that they struck at friend and foe alike.

  Grenade and mortar attacks scattered the elves and kept them from advancing.

  Neither side cared about the destruction they wrought upon the town, or the townspeople who died, caught up in the furious engagements. A creature of howling winds stalked through the streets, so cold it froze all it touched or looked upon. The Warriors retaliated by dynamiting buildings so that they fell on the elves, burying them alive. The Warriors and the elves fought on, blind to everything but the dark joys of battle, until finally, by some unspoken agreement, they disengaged and fell back, retreating to their separate grounds, to nurse their wounds and plan anew.

  A slow silence fell across what remained of Shadows Fall, and the smoke and the flames rose up everywhere.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Interlude

  Night.

  The town was quiet, tending its wounds. Both sides had fallen back from battle, having encountered unexpected casualties, and for the moment were content to dig in and get their breath back before the next assault. The soldiers and the defenders had left the streets, and the dragons and helicopters had left the skies, leaving behind a wounded, fragile silence. No one and nothing moved in the empty streets, the only sound the quiet crackle of flames in smouldering buildings. Their dim crimson glow showed fitfully against the night, like so many guttering candles. Like a city in Hell. Somewhere in the night a door was banging over and over, with no one to shut it. The gusting wind tossed a scrap of paper down the street, till it wrapped itself around an unmoving outstretched leg. There were bodies lying everywhere in the street outside the house where Sean Morrison was hiding. They lay still and broken, in pools of drying blood, as though the battle had moved on and forgotten them. Morrison kept expecting someone to show up and take the bodies away, but no one did.

  He sat in a chair by a window on the ground floor of a house that had been shelled, staring out into the night. The upper floor had been devastated by the explosions, and there were sudden ticking and groaning noises from the ground floor ceiling as the wreckage above constantly changed position, as though trying to find one that was comfortable. By some miracle the fire had failed to take hold, and the ground floor was almost untouched, if you ignored the cracked and broken windows. The heating and the light were both out, but the room was full of moonlight, reflecting off the ice covering the canal that ran by the side of the house. Morrison sat watching the deserted street through a cracked window, looking for some sign of James Hart. He’d been gone almost two hours, and there was no sign of him or the help he’d promised to bring back.

  It was cold in the room, and getting colder. Morrison could see his breath steaming on the air before him. He pulled his blanket more tightly about him, but it didn’t help much. He’d found the blankets on the next floor; one of the few things that had been worth salvaging. He was beginning to wish he’d looked a little harder, but the upper floor had groaned ominously with every step he took, and he hadn’t felt like pushing his luck. He looked across the room at Suzanne Dubois and Polly Cousins, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted on the single wide couch. They were curled together under the rest of the blankets, sharing their warmth. Their sleep was deep but fitful, as though disturbed by dreams. They’d both shown surprising reserves of strength and calm since they dug their way out from what remained of the Cavern club, and Morrison envied them that, but in the end sleep had taken them but rejected him. So he sat watch alone, as usual. The two women had drawn strength and comfort from each other, but in a way that excluded him. He didn’t think it was deliberate. It was just that they were old and close friends, and he’d never really been close to anyone. He
’d always gone his own way, and sometimes that meant leaving people behind and going on alone.

  Only this time he’d been left alone. Suzanne and Polly had escaped into sleep, so it was up to him to stand guard. He didn’t want to sleep anyway. After spending so long trapped in the darkness under the Cavern wreckage, he didn’t think he’d ever want to sleep again. The moonlight in the room was a comfort to him, calm and consistent, bright and shimmering on every edge and angle. In a strange way it was almost like being underwater, too far away to be touched by anything on the surface. One of the women murmured in her sleep, and he got up from the chair and went over to the couch to make sure everything was all right. Polly’s face was as quiet and empty as a child’s, but Suzanne was frowning in her sleep, as though she disapproved of her dreams. A stray curl of hair had fallen across her face, and Morrison gently brushed it back out of the way. Suzanne murmured something and sank deeper into sleep with a sigh.

  Morrison crouched down beside her, thinking unfamiliar thoughts. He’d always liked Suzanne; given a little encouragement he might even have loved her. But it had never happened. She was always busy caring for someone else, for one of her stray ducks or walking wounded, and he always had another song to sing and a glass to drain, and usually both. And now it was too late. Things had changed, the world had moved on, and if he did what he was planning to do, he’d never have the chance to find out whether he might have loved her.

  He got up and went back to his chair by the window. He felt tired and drained and just a little old. No longer young, anyway. He’d lost track of how long he’d been in Shadows Fall, particularly when he spent so much time with the Faerie, but it had to be quite a few years since he’d died so young in Paris, and become a legend. The legend hadn’t lasted long; only a few years later the same people who’d encouraged him to live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse had found some other legend to believe in. And he ended up in Shadows Fall. He smiled slightly, remembering the life he’d led. The songs, the poetry, the drink and drugs and eager women, but always the music. He hadn’t treated his friends particularly well, but he’d left them a few songs that mattered.