An animated scribble filled the sky; all black lines in motion. The arrows whistled down and rattled on the hull. Gaps appeared in the ranks of the Carbineers. The survivors kept coming, leaning forwards now as if trudging into the wind. Another volley and they abruptly turned and routed back the way they had come.
The remaining engine roared and Jasmine's tank thundered into life. She hung up her headset, slid down the ladder and slipped into the forward seat next to Marcel.
"Now what?" he asked.
"Attack!" said Jasmine, taking up the forward machine gun. "Before the footsloggers have another chance to get underfoot."
#
"Kill them all!" bellowed Ranulph.
Along the ramparts, crews strained at their cranks and springalds creaked. Meanwhile, longbows thrummed, adding to the devastation beyond the walls. Ranulph grinned. The Invaders had neither magicians nor priests, just clever engineers whose devices were ultimately as vulnerable as they were ugly.
The nearest ironclad lurched towards the breach. Ranulph had a feeling that neither the rubble causeway, nor the ragged breach would hamper the strange wrap-around wheels. Meanwhile, metal trapdoors opened on the roofs of the two score or so ironclads that had stayed put. Soldiers half-emerged and installed fat looking tubes with fluted bodies. More of their odd rapid-fire guns. However, there was something confident about the way they did it.
Ranulph ordered, "Take cov — "
A hollow rattle drowned out his words.
Orange streaks swept the battlements. A bowman flew off the wall walk. Another crumpled into a pool of his own brains. The nearest springald crew toppled from their machine in a mist of blood, as if assaulted by an invisible Northman. Something smacked Ranulph's shoulder and set him spinning off the battlements.
The roof of a lean-to flew up to smash into his armour. The tiles gave and Ranulph plunged into the gloom. He glimpsed bales of straw. Another impact knocked the wind out of him. He lay still, listening to the clatter of the strange guns. Every so often, a tile shattered on his armour.
How old was I when I last felt this way?
Fourteen? The Winter Tournament. Battered into submission in the final round. Then…
Somebody screamed.
Ranulph’s gauntleted hand closed on Steelcutter. He rolled to his feet and shouldered his way out of what was left of the lean-to, only to skid on blood and stub his toes on a corpse. Half the torso and one arm had gone. Not sliced cleanly. Wrenched off like a chunk of apple. An arrow charm hung round the dead man's neck, its single rune obscured by a splash of blood.
Ranulph frowned. The runes were not going to be enough if the enemy could see where they were shooting and correct their aim. But that was a problem for somebody else, now.
Father Gervaise hunched over to bless the archer’s corpse.
Ranulph took the old priest’s arm. “Get everybody out through the secret passage.”
“But, Milord, Clifford has men patrolling the base of the castle rock.”
Ranulph shook his head. “Clifford’s men will be long gone.” He released the priest. “Go now. I will buy you time from these new enemies.”
The priest nodded. “God go with you,” he said, without making the customary blessing which would have compromised Ranulph’s armour.
Ranulph saluted and turned away. He wove through the dead and dying and took his place just inside the breach.
From beyond the ragged gap came the unearthly squealing and rattling of the war machines.
Ranulph shouldered Steelcutter and settled into a fighting stance. Sword in hand, he waited to face the ironclads.
#
Jasmine's tank howled out of the filled-in moat and breasted the breach. The manoeuvre exposed the lightly armoured belly to the inside of the castle. An Elitist Hunter team would have made short work of them.
Her heart burrowed into her gut leaving her chest to clench around her lungs. Her field of view bumped down and the tank roared forward. She thumbed the trigger, spraying bullets, but there were no live targets in the shady courtyard — just medieval-looking corpses scattered like an explosion in a theatre wardrobe.
The starboard howitzer roared. The gunner’s voice came over the net, “Shit. Missed.”
There was a horrendous clang on the starboard side, then the continuous crash of a track unwrapping itself. Freed of half its load, the surviving engine over-revved. The cabin filled with choking oil smoke. The surviving port track slewed the tank around to the right.
"Armour busters?" said Marcel, working the gear levers.
A glittering figure appeared framed between the twin prows.
Not an Elitist tank-killer, not a tentacled Alien. Just a knight in picture-book shining armour standing legs braced, sword raised to his shoulder, as if it could actually harm a modern armoured fighting vehicle.
Feeling like a murderer, Jasmine thumbed the trigger. The water-cooled weapon burped. Its ammunition belt became a blur as ten bullets a second blasted through the 7mm barrel. She scrawled a line of death across the primitive warrior.
The knight merely bent his knees, lowering his armoured bulk like an experienced brawler as the tank swung on and he passed out of sight.
Green 01’s starboard prow slammed into the rear of the ramparts. Metal screeched on stone. The tank now sat athwart the breach, port side facing into the enclosure.
"Smith!” ordered Jasmine, “Don't let him get close again."
Smith babbled, “I can’t see anybody, I can’t see anybody!”
Marcel threw the engine into reverse. The tank screamed around, pivoting on its trackless port runner. “Jasmine. Get the fucker!”
Jasmine hunched over her machine gun, saw nothing.
For the second time, the engine howled. The severed port track unwrapped itself.
Somebody — Marcel or the surviving engineer — hit the cut-out.
Jasmine pulled off her headset and said into the silence, "Has to be primitive explosives." She rose and made for the conning tower.
Port Gunner Smith’s howitzer roared. "Eat case shot, Elitist dog-fucker!"
Jasmine settled back into her seat, all tension gone. Case shot at point-blank range. No way the mess of wire and steel balls could miss, no matter how lucky or quick the native.
Cheers filled the cabin.
Something clanged against the hull.
Smith yelped.
Another clang. Then the squeal of tearing metal.
The howitzer boomed again. Smith whimpered and recoiled from his firing saddle to crouch on the deck. Daylight flooded through the gaping hole where the port sponson should have been. The knight's sword flickered into the cabin.
Smith raised an arm in defence.
His right hand thudded to the oily deck. He rolled onto his knees, reached for the lifeless body part, then clutched his stump, spilling blood on his blue Post Office coveralls. "Klimt! This is all your fault!"
The knight stepped out of view. There was a squeal of metal and his sword blade appeared through the side of the hull, passing inches from Jasmine’s nose.
“Fuck in a bucket!” Jasmine grabbed her carbine. She glanced around the cabin: the surviving Engine Specialist appeared to be in shock, the Radio Operator was dead. Only Marcel and the Starboard Gunner were in any state to help Smith.
"Evac Smith through the starboard sponson. I’ll hold off the tin can man." She twisted free of her seat, stepped over the maimed man and jumped out of the tank.
The all-but-severed sponson had swung open like a door. The knight stood near the bows of the tank, stabbing the armoured plate like a magical seamstress.
Jasmine raised her Standard Egality Carbine Mk 22 and shot him in the breastplate. The bullet ricocheted, pinged off Green 01’s armour plates and whined away into the distance.
The knight turned, took a sharp back step and raised his sword. "God's teeth! That smarts!"
"Bastard!" Jasmine flipped her bayonet into "locked" position and advanced over the
rubble.
But the knight now stood well back, sword resting on his armoured shoulder. Dark eyes regarded her from behind the slatted visor.
Jasmine's fingers tightened on her carbine. Her opponent wasn't just big, he was huge. A mountain of a man.
The knight spoke again, his voice hollow behind his visor. "Fight in anger, wake in Hell. Did nobody school you in the Art of Fence, boy?"
Jasmine stared at him. The accent was strange, lending a whiplash to each word, but the knight was definitely speaking her language.
Smith’s whimper echoed from the metal cavern of Green 01. "This is your fault, Klimt."
With a scream, Jasmine lunged for the knight’s armpit where only a patch of steel links covered the gap between steel plates.
He sprang out of the way. The sword crossed his body like a windshield wiper and whistled down at Jasmine's unprotected arms. Time stopped. The sword's perfect edge floated down on her bare wrists and already she grieved for her poor hands-
-a dozen carbines cracked. Sparks blossomed on the knight's breastplate, and he crashed onto his back.
Jasmine stared at her wrists, clenching and unclenching against her weapon.
A mob of grey-uniformed Carbineers jumped off the back of Green 01 and shoved past Jasmine. Bullets rattled on armour plate. Bayonets plunged.
Jasmine opened her mouth to warn them.
Steel blurred. Soldiers screamed. Blood splashed the cobbled courtyard. A pair of legs toppled like skittles to lie beside a still-twitching torso.
From the thrashing mayhem rose the knight, all steel and dripping gore. Three survivors fled.
Then the knight was on her, drops of blood spraying from his spinning blade.
The hours of training with Marcel kicked in. Jasmine pivoted and blocked. The sword jarred into the wooden stock. Gripping firmly, she raised the carbine to eye-level and stabbed hard for the vision slit.
But the knight was no longer there. The sword slashed down at Jasmine's shoulder.
She threw herself out of the way, parrying wildly. Ten centimetres of barrel vanished, along with the bayonet.
The knight crashed into her.
Jasmine staggered, tripped on a corpse, and landed on her back, gasping for breath. She stared up at the mountainous armoured figure. "I guess it had to come sooner or later."
His helm rotated one way then the other – he was shaking his head. "I am done with the killing of boys."
Jasmine rolled, drew her combat dagger… his mailed boot caught the edge of her helmet, strewing stars across her eyes. The cheap chinstrap snapped and her hair spilled free.
"God’s teeth! A lady!"
Jasmine came to her feet. With a snarl, she leapt at the knight.
His sword caught her between the ankles, sending her sprawling. The combat dagger flew off into the rubble.
Wheezing now, she stretched out for the weapon. Her fingers reached no further than a scrap of thick paper, which bore a sketch of a horribly familiar battle scene.
"Albrecht’s Last Stand! How could a native make a copy of… Oh fucking fuck." She sat up and held out the picture for comparison. For a moment, she was sixteen and back in her bedroom... enjoying her favourite art book.
Same shining armour with a black gryphon badge painted on the breastplate. Same sword. Same breathtaking body mass, and all of it reputed to be muscle.
This wasn’t a copy of the famous painting. This was the original – what was the term her artist friend Rosetta used? — cartoon. She could go home and tell her artist friends that Albrecht the Genius hadn’t been exaggerating. "You’re Sir Ranulph Dacre, the Last Knight."
He raised his sword – it had to be Steelcutter… the Steelcutter – in salute. "I am at your service, Milady."
"Jasmine Klimt," she said absently. "Colonel Jasmine Klimt."
"Colonel?" Now he sounded surprised. "Are you of the Imperial Landmarchers? Does the Emperor recruit ladies?"
She shook her head. "The Army of the Egality." For the first time, she noticed the chapel at the other end of the courtyard. It looked very familiar – and so it should. It was the only part of the… modern Castle Dacre to survive unaltered from Sir Ranulph’s time, though of course it was now full of Imperial tombs. She’d once hidden there for hours while her frantic parents searched amongst the cafes and souvenir shops.
"This really isn't an alien planet, is it?" Her family had roots in the Dacre area. Had she killed her own ancestors? She looked at her hands, half expecting them to fade away.
Sir Ranulph made a sweeping gesture with his sword. "You must excuse me, Lady Colonel." He turned on his heel.
"Wait! Where’s the Genius?"
"Who?"
"Albrecht the Genius, your squire."
"Laid out in the chapel. Your cannon slew him." Sir Ranulph wheeled and vanished into the nearest building.
Jasmine was still staring at the sketch when Marcel limped up at the head of a mob of Carbineers and dismounted tank crews. His right knuckle dripped blood, as if he’d recently punched somebody in the teeth.
"Bastard footsloggers chickened out. Some shit about a killer robot." He knelt beside her. "You OK, soldier girl?"
Jasmine nodded dumbly.
"Say…" He reached for the parchment and whistled. "Don't I recognise this guy?"
CHAPTER FOUR
Ranulph's armour scraped against the stone and the walls closed around him like a tomb. Water dripped onto his helmet and trickled off his raised visor. He yawned and let the living rock support him. The tunnel seemed to have shrunk since he and Albrecht sneaked into the castle with a sack of rune-etched springald bolt heads, but in truth any other knight would have sidled through with ease.
A hollow boom echoed down the passage: blasting powder. The enemy had found the tunnel entrance. Ranulph was still half-an-hour ahead, but they would have fresh troops, whilst he was shivering with fatigue. It was time to get moving.
He heaved himself back from the narrow spot, jammed Steelcutter's crossguard into a niche and used it as a hook for the lantern. He sighed. The last time he passed through the tunnel, he had been unarmoured, with two fleet-footed foresters carrying his panoply between them.
He wriggled his fingers until his perfectly articulated gauntlets dropped off, then unbuckled his helmet. That was the easy part. The remaining fastenings really required a squire.
Something banged, setting off a clatter of echoes. Ranulph cocked his head. A gun, this time. The Invaders must be shooting at shadows, and making slow progress for it.
He drew his dagger. Squinting in the bad light, he cut the waxed cord points on his elbow cops and let the shell guards clang to the rock. Next came his vambraces, pauldrons, upper cannons and cuirass – that meant poking around blind under his arm until he managed to saw through the straps. His mail skirt joined the pile of steel. Bending while the water dripped onto the back of his neck, he peeled away his greaves like a fishwife shelling a shrimp.
The leg armour splashed into a puddle. Ranulph frowned and rubbed his eyes. Magic protection or not, this was not how you treated a good set of plate. He should lay it out the way he and Albrecht had found it.
He propped himself against the wall to rest, just for a moment… had that been just one month ago…?
Exhaustion weighed down Ranulph’s eyelids and he dreamed…
#
Ranulph swore and clutched his toe. "God's teeth! It's the foot tourney tomorrow. I'll be limping."
Laughing, Albrecht lit the candles and there it was; sword and armour arranged on the rush mats like a knightly effigy. "The Good Lord knows how, but it's sized for you, Sir Ranulph. Look at the articulation! Some rich... very rich lady overestimates the price of your virtue. I wonder if she has an equally rich husband whose tastes lie elsewhere?"
The armour was fashionably crinkled and spired as if newly delivered from the Rune Isles etching houses, but Ranulph knew it of old. He screwed up his face, trying to squeeze the beer from his head. "Hand me t
he damn sword."
"Milord is drunk again, I think." Albrecht scooped up the weapon and, with a flourish, handed it over. "Well balanced. I am in love on your behalf."
Ranulph rested the sword tip on the floor. The pommel came to his armpit. A greatsword then, like his own but with an S-shaped crossguard. "It was my father's."
"The man who thinks that real swords are all one-handed?" Albrecht sniggered. “He has that joke about swords and penis size.”
“Had. Had that joke.” Ranulph glowered at him. Didn’t his friend understand? "This is Steelcutter."
"As you wish, Great and Noble Knight. Perhaps he left it out in the rain and it grew by a foot or so."
"Mine now." Just like the armour, just like the Earldom of Dacre. There could be no triumphant homecoming. No reconciliation. Ranulph's eyes prickled and the room blurred.
Albrecht bustled over to the fire and, tucking his hair back, squatted to coax the embers into a blaze. "It's cold tonight. I'll lie close beside you for warmth, if I may?" he said without looking up. "They say winter will come early. No more tournaments until the Winterfest, eh? Do you think we'll get an invite to Kinghaven this year, now your kin and Clifford's have signed an accord, I mean? I'd like to sketch the Cathedral. They say St Ignatius built it by prayer alone — "
"I learnt the invocations, but never believed the family legend. Father did not try to convince me. With three elder brothers, what was the point."
"What? The title?"
"God's teeth, squire! Listen." He lowered his voice. "The armour. The sword. The Dacre Wargear. Some ancient magic reshapes it and delivers it to each new Lord of Dacre."
"But... you're fourth in line. Dear God!"
"My father. My brothers. All dead. Dead and unavenged."
The dream twisted.
Blocks of stone tumbled through the ceiling. The side of Albrecht's head crumpled like a rotten apple. His lips worked, dripping blood as they formed the words, "Avenge me!"
And Ranulph was back in his castle, standing over his friend's body. "I will," he said. "On my honour, I will."
Armoured heroes clash across the centuries! (Swords Versus Tanks Book 1) Page 4
