Scores of brown hands gripped the edge of the platform.
He ducked back into cover, heart pounding. “They’re standing on each other’s shoulders,” he said. “When they stop throwing javelins, Osmund, you go left, I’ll go right.”
“You should stay in cover,” said the Northman.
“Would you like to make me?” said Ranulph.
Osmund grunted. He told off four men to follow Ranulph.
The rain of javelins petered out. A final solitary missile cracked on the slabs, bounced then clattered to a rest.
Ranulph launched himself upright, “Come on!”
Feathered headdresses appeared over the edge, then dozens of Tolmec warriors sprang onto the summit, obsidian headed axes clutched in both hands.
Whirling Steelcutter, Ranulph hurled himself into their midst.
A tattooed warrior saw the incoming blade, blocked with the staff of his weapon.
Ranulph flicked Steelcutter up then down, sheared through the shoulder to the ribs.
A movement flickered to his right.
He pivoted away, whipped Steelcutter back up over his head.
An glass-headed axe swept past.
Before the new enemy could launch the return swing, Ranulph threw in a cut to his arms. The edge glanced off bone, bit flesh. Muscle flapped and glistened.
Ranulph kicked the dying man over the edge.
Around him, Northmen trusted their mail and cut down smaller warriors or simply used their shields to shove them off the platform. However, for every Tolmec they dispatched, two more clambered over the edge.
Ranulph glanced about. One of his men lay unmoving. However, nobody had yet attacked Thorolf’s shieldwall guarding the top of the stairs. Beyond them, Osmund and his Northmen struggled with their own Tolmec assault. Already two men were down.
A warrior slipped past a Northman and came at Ranulph, thrusting his axe like a spear.
Ranulph skipped to the side, flicked Steelcutter into the man’s hands then - with a step - up into his throat. The head spun off, shedding blood and feathers into the cloying air.
Three Tolmecs leapt forward to take his place and Ranulph knew that this wasn’t going to work for much longer. He picked out the double-skull standard rising from the press of warriors on the level below and grinned.
The three Tolmecs edged forward, spreading out. No fools these.
Ranulph threw a straight cut at the middle one, pivoting with the attack so as to put his weight into it. The blade struck the warrior in the forehead, clove the skull to the teeth.
Ranulph flicked Steelcutter free, stepped on the corpse and bounded toward the edge of the platform. “Follow me!”
#
The axe sliced towards Jasmine's naked shoulder.
She flinched away. The tip of the volcanic glass slashed her upper arm. Her own blood splashed the crook of her elbow. Wisdom-at-Night screamed.
The Tolmec brought the axe up in a vicious backswing.
Jasmine jumped out of range. Her back slapped into the wet gun turret. She had no rage left, and now she had no retreat either.
The Tolmec grinned, raised his axe-
-and of its own accord, Jasmine’s left hand shot out and jammed her palm into his elbow. She pivoted forward, tearing her skin free of the Flexiglass, and rammed the dagger into his tattooed belly. Her nostrils filled with the shit-stench of spilled innards. The man screamed in her face. Then the light went from his eyes and he slumped against her, pressing his warm dead flesh to hers.
For the first time Jasmine Klimt — veteran of a hundred engagements – had killed in cold blood.
Another axe whistled through the damp air, and there was no time to think. Jasmine shouldered inside the cut, sliced a throat, stepped over a body, then another, wading further and further into a murderous, bloody calm. Each axe stroke was preordained, each slash and stab of her dagger as inevitable as her love for Ranulph.
She ducked through the hatch and into the blistering gloom of the airship’s hull.
The Tolmecs broke and ran down the steps.
Jasmine followed after. As she reached the catwalk, they rallied and rushed her, two abreast, axe-heads just short of the gasbags.
The calm gave way to a terrible joy. It blazed like a burning fuel dump, but served only to drive the controlled, precise actions of the human killing machine which barely knew its own name.
She went through the Tolmecs like a tank through a car park. Five survived her counter-charge and bolted for the ladder. Three died as she overtook them. A fourth cushioned her jump to the main deck. The fifth just had time to raise his axe before a single swipe of the heavy dagger opened his throat.
A footfall set her spinning to face the next enemy.
Just Wisdom-at-Night padding across the hellish deck like a gore splattered demoness.
The emotion came back — not rage, but lust. Skin met skin. They grappled together, kissing , biting, probing.
The radio crackled to life. "Come in Airship One, …Airship Two. …read me? What is… status? Over?"
Jasmine twisted free.
Jasmine staggered to the Main Deck and eased the headset over her sodden hair. "Jasmine Klimt reporting. Reception’s patchy but I read you. One survivor. Running on improvised fuel." Recalling Standard Operating Procedure, she repeated the report.
"Jasmine! Maintain… position my dear. Tell your captors to surrender or die. Repeat…" Even through the radio, Jasmine recognised Lowenstein’s voice. She slumped in the chair. It would be good to put the big knight behind her and get back to normality.
Wisdom-at-Night slid onto Jasmine’s lap. Her flesh was sticky with men’s blood, but her eyes were wide and bright. "What magic is this?"
Jasmine’s hand closed on the grip and she realised what had happened in the last few minutes. The frantic coupling with Wisdom-at-Night was nothing – she’d seen worse after the fall of Bunker 13. Surrounded by death, instinct screamed at you to seize life. But she had killed at least ten men, not in cold blood, but in a sort of slow-burning ecstasy. Was this how it felt to be Sir Ranulph?
"Negative, Lowenstein. Unsafe. I will rendezvous over the ocean.
Jasmine switched off the radio and moved to the pilot’s seat. She fired the self-starters and opened the right throttle wide. The engine rattled in protest at the new fuel, but the airship waltzed around to port.
Hot hands rested on her bare shoulders. "This is more impressive than earlier," said Wisdom-at-Night.
Nodding absently, Jasmine searched the overcast jungle for the city. If there was any moral gap between her and Ranulph, she was damned if she knew what it was. And, if she broke her word, she’d actually be worse than him.
She found the mounds of stone projecting above the jungle canopy and opened the throttle. Engines whining, Airship 01 swept over the jungle. As they approached, she lowered the elevator bucket. With luck she could drag it onto the pyramid top.
"Now you will do the Will of the Dancing Earth Fish," pronounced Wisdom-at-Night.
Jasmine laughed. "Now I’ll rescue the one and only Sir Ranulph Dacre, known to posterity as 'the Last Knight'. Young girl's fantasy lover. Grizzled veteran's one-night stand. Perhaps somebody will write a poem about it…"
CHAPTER TEN
With a roar of, “Dacre!”, Ranulph launched himself into space. He dropped feet-first toward the sea of feathered headdresses on the next tier down.
Men crumpled under him, breaking his fall. He crashed backward onto writhing bodies. His head bumped somebody’s face and he sprawled amid the woven sandals and brown legs.
Ranulph rolled, lashed Steelcutter around so it bit shins and calf muscles. He came to his feet, his blade drawing a whirring spiral of blood.
Around him, mailed warriors dropped into the mob.
The Tolmec warriors recoiled.
Ranulph advanced into them, cutting down, then up in economical strokes that kept Steelcutter close to his body and always in motion, casting blood and body parts over ledge
.
There was no room for the Tolmecs to use their great stone axes. One grabbed his arm. Ranulph smashed his face with the pommel. Others seized his legs. He kicked their faces, stamped on their hands, and moved on, dragging more than one man with him as he carved a path to the enemy standard.
Osmund appeared on his left, striking with his shield’s edge, slashing with his sword, singing as he fought. Another Northman appeared to the right. Then another. Soon Ranulph was the apex of a wedge of mailed warriors.
Together they cleared the ledge in the direction of the double-skull standard.
And the Tolmec standard retreated before their onslaught.
A great roar erupted from the pyramid platform. A shockwave went through the press and Thorolf’s shieldwall ploughed down the stair.
The Tolmecs broke. Some pushed and shoved to get onto the steps. Others clambered or jumped down to the next level. In moments, the ledge was clear except for the dead and dying.
Ranulph waved Steelcutter like a marshal’s baton. “Fall back!”
He was breathing heavily by the time they reached the top. Five Northmen had fallen in the melee. His little warband now numbered seventeen mailed warriors.
The Northmen passed around a jug of local beer they’d found somewhere. Ranulph took a mouthful then and clambered back up onto the altar.
The Tolmecs were rallying on the lower tiers but showed no signs of advancing.
Thorolf ordered the men to gather up those spent javelins that still had their tips then heaved himself up to stand next to Ranulph. He removed his helmet to reveal hair sodden with sweat. “They will wait us out.” He spat. “Cowards.”
Ranulph shook his head. “It is what I would do. Why waste men?”
“Why indeed?” said Thorolf. “There is no food. Soon there will be no beer. Will Jasmine truly return for us?”
Ranulph scanned the landscape. There, low over the lush green forest like a black moon, the airship sailed toward them. The giant bucket swung beneath it just as it had at Bloodaxe Keep. “She’s coming,” said Ranulph.
A roar went up from the Tolmecs.
“They’ve seen her,” said Thorolf. “So much for a siege. What will they do, Lord?”
Ranulph chewed his lip. “They are out of javelins. They’ll try to force their way up the steps.
Sure enough, the Tolmecs formed a tight packed column, ten men abreast, axes held like short spears. Its head snaked purposefully toward them. The double-skulled standard, meanwhile, remained safely at the base of the pyramid.
“You were right, Lord,” said Thorolf, his voice betraying a hint of admiration.
Ranulph flinched from the trust and missed Albrecht. He laughed. “Better if I had been wrong.” He raised his voice. “Block the stair with corpses. Quick!”
The Vikings lumbered drunkenly into action. The heat and battle fatigue had caught up with them. Jasmine was coming back, but it would be too late. God had shown His Will and it was left to Ranulph to make a good end and perhaps — God willing — save at least a few of his men.
Albrecht’s voice came to him, “You Great Oaf! I know that look!”
“Do you have a plan, Lord?” asked Thorolf.
“Five men with me to cast the javelins,” said Ranulph. “The rest to the hold the steps.”
#
Jasmine brought the airship around into the prevailing wind so that it swooped over the city toward the great stair.
Feathered headdresses covered the side of the pyramid so that it looked like a freshly garlanded grave. Jasmine winced and wondered just how many human beings had met a screaming death on its exquisitely carved altars.
"Those are followers of the War God." Wisdom-at-Night spat onto the Flexiglass. "Kill them all," she said matter-of-factly. "And I shall reward you with a hundred trained handmaidens, cut so that they can think only of your pleasure."
Jasmine hunched over her controls, away from the touch of the priestess.
As they grew closer, she saw that a column of Tolmecs were trying to overwhelm the shieldwall by sheer weight of numbers. They just had to hold long enough for her to place the bucket on the pyramid top. But where was Ranulph?
Jasmine’s heart leapt into her throat. She strained to pick him out in the melee, then found him off to the side, big and visible in his blood-spattered white shirt. He and a handful of barbarians threw spear after spear into the Tolmec column, but without much visible effect.
Everything was down to the dozen mail-coated Northmen at the top of the steps. Towering above the diminutive Tolmec warriors, they kept back the human tide with cold steel. Bodies rained over the edge of the stairs, and yet the Tolmecs came on.
A chill went down Jasmine’s spine. Was this how the battle for Bunker 13 would have looked to an outsider? Both sides magnificent for their bravery: the Egality pushing on regardless of the butcher’s bill, racing to neutralise the Death Rockets; and the outnumbered Elitists making them pay for each metre, selling their own lives dearly?
“Interesting,” remarked Wisdom-at-Night. She pointed.
“Oh fuck. You crazy fucker.”
Ranulph was climbing down over the edge of the platform. He hung by his hands, then dropped the last few feet.
“He’s going to throw his life away on a single-handed flank attack,” said Jasmine. She jerked at the throttle, as if that would give more life to the engines.
Ranulph, a towering figure even at this distance, bounded across empty fourth tier of the pyramid and, ignoring the column, started slithering over the edge to drop onto the next tier and the next. He could only be heading for the double-skulled standard that rose from the thousands of Tolmecs gather around the base of the pyramid.
The spear throwers seemed to wake up to what was happening and began clambering down after him. They were far too late.
As she watched, Ranulph landed bent legged on the ground at the base of the pyramid. He straightened then — is if it were a perfectly normal thing to do — raised his sword and charged straight into the army of axe-wielders.
“Shit! He’s repeating Castle Dacre.”
And Ranulph hewed a path through the Tolmecs.
Seen from a safe distance, it was almost like watching a combat surgeon at work. His sword whipped out in economical movements, preserving the space around him.
Jasmine caught an echo of the dark joy and bit her lip. Part of her yearned to deal death at the giant knight's side.
But they were almost in range for aimed fire, and Jasmine had more effective weapons than blades.
Jasmine eased the joystick forward, making the airship swoop towards the mayhem. She turned to the priestess. "Take my place and hold the stick like this… Just keep the ship level… Little movements… Bright girl."
She sprinted the length of the main deck, hauled herself aloft, and headed for the forward gantry. The bodies had gone — tumbled off during manoeuvres — but her bare feet found the aluminium mesh tacky with blood.
Jasmine slid into the seat, checked the ammunition and swung the barrels around to bear on the pyramid.
One of the engines coughed and burped; unhappy with the alcohol fuel. The airship juddered but kept gliding forward toward the pyramid, which swelled to fill her field of view.
Ranulph was alive, but for how long?
Jasmine hunched over her guns. Any moment now…
#
A glass-headed axe whistled down at Ranulph's face. He sidestepped into the path of a second weapon, sliced the wielder’s wrists, and, in the same movement, whirled Steelcutter over and down to sever the arms of the first warrior.
It was like fighting Psalmist flailmen. They couldn’t hurt him unless they could reach him, and they couldn’t reach him as long as he kept his greatsword in motion....
...but Ranulph was tiring.
“You Great Oaf!” cried Albrecht’s ghost. “You could have let the barbarians do the fighting.”
“Not my way,” grunted Ranulph. Hilt high to cover his hea
d, he whirled Steelcutter back around in a great Traverse Strike. Weapons clanged on his blade, or slammed into the crossguard. Heads and arms flew. Throats sprayed a red mist.
With a bellow of “Odin!” a knot of Northmen crashed into the melee to his right. The five mailed warriors had finally caught up.
“Fools like you!” commented Albrecht.
Ranulph backed toward his men — just three of them now — and they formed a loose square. Nobody came near Ranulph, but to the left and right blades sliced and a rampart of twitching corpses rose around them.
The Tolmecs fell back. The double-skull standard was still out of reach, safe behind a wall of bodies.
A hush descended on the battle. Nobody spoke. There was only the eerie sound of the survivors of the last clash breathing heavily, the rustle of thousands of feathers, and the whine of Jasmine’s approaching airship. At least she would live to tell the tale of his final deed of arms.
Ranulph took his left hand off Steelcutter to mop his brow. It came back bloody. He glanced up at the platform. The shieldwall seemed thinner but it still held. Perhaps the standoff would buy them breathing space to escape on the airship.
“There are worse ends,” declared Osmund, behind Ranulph. “I will toast you in Valhalla.”
Ranulph grinned. A decent God would have a raucous spot in Heaven reserved for pagan warriors with such prowess. His right ankle twinged. He shook it out and made circles with his foot. So much to do, so many plans. A kingdom to save, a princess to champion, but it was all to end here. Without turning his head, Ranulph said, “Osmund, shall we rush their chief?”
“Aye,” said Osmund. “An even better end. We’ll form a wedge, you guard our backs.”
The other two survivors grunted agreement.
Ranulph frowned. His place was at the front, but his arms were tiring and an armoured three-man wedge might just be able to shove a path through to the enemy captain. Ranulph spoke evenly so as not to give the Tolmecs warning. “Let us get our breath back. In a moment I shall count to three — then we attack.”
Somebody amongst the Tolmecs barked orders. The front ranks stiffened, raised their axes. The perfect moment had passed.
Pyramid of Blood (Swords Versus Tanks Book 3) Page 7
