Armoured heroes clash across the centuries! (Swords Versus Tanks Book 1)

by M Harold Page

  #

  Ranulph shook his head, pressed his face against the wet rock — anything to drive off the urge to sleep.

  Fumbling, he buckled Steelcutter over his arming jacket, tucked in the extra length of belt. He checked the weapon was loose in its belt ring. He would cleanse his family home of the grey-liveried soldiers. And he would avenge Albrecht. But how?

  With Clifford as Regent, he could hardly join King Edward's army.

  King Ragnar would help him, but the Rune Isles were a long way off. Any army Ranulph could raise would arrive too late.

  Emperor Sigismund, however, would welcome him. The Earldom of Dacre was hard by the Imperial border, so His Imperial Magnificence would be forced to regard the invaders as a threat and send an army to wipe them out. It would also be an excuse to intervene in Westerland.

  What advice would Ranulph offer? Lay ambushes and make surprise attacks, since they could not rely on the runes alone. He picked up the lantern to take a last look at his armour.

  It had gone.

  He kicked around in the gloom, mail-topped boots ridiculously heavy now only woollen hose covered his legs.

  Nothing.

  The nape of his neck prickled. The rest of the family legend must also be true. How many other dynasties had similar secrets? His shoulders slumped. This kind of magic was not going to defeat the invaders, any more than the runes would. Not unless...

  Banging his head, bumping his knees and elbows, scuffing his bruises, missing his armour every inch of the way, he fought through the fissure. Yes, there was one royal house that had legends of flying ships, hammers that threw lightning, and spears that hit their mark from five miles away, a royal house of which he was an honorary member.

  Ranulph blundered out into the twilit forest at the base of the castle rock. He straightened properly for the first time in what felt like hours. Patches of bare rock shone through the carpet of sodden leaves, but the forest came right to the base of the cliff except where smoke rose from the smashed remains of trees. The air reeked of burnt wood. Even here, the invaders had made themselves felt.

  A horse snorted from the shadows.

  Steelcutter swished out of its belt ring. Ranulph whirled it into a high Roof Guard, ready to defend or strike. The breeze sucked the warmth from his sweat-drenched arming jacket.

  Clifford's voice came out of the gloom. "Swift, Dacre. But can you set aside crossbow bolts?" Somewhere amongst the trees, plate armour clattered, men chuckled and — now no longer held silent — horses whinnied. Crossbowmen in yellow livery rustled out from behind the ancient boles. Dim light glinted on the tips of dozens of bolts, all aimed at Ranulph.

  Ranulph's heart seemed to stop. Where were his people? Even in the poor light, he would have seen their bodies had they been massacred... and Clifford would have already been boasting about it. No, his garrison had got clean away.

  "I had hoped to join up with the men I’d posted to cover any secret exit," continued the duke, conversationally. "They’ve gone — the cowards. However, taking my son’s murderer is some compensation."

  "It was a fair fight, sir, and in truth I take no pride in it. Let me pass, Clifford," said Ranulph. "Unless I fetch more powerful magic from the Rune Isles, there will be no kingdom for you to play with."

  "Listen, Your Grace!" said Clifford. "The necromancer damns himself with his own words. We don’t need heathen magic, just priests with more faith to exorcise these diabolical war wagons."

  Another more youthful voice: "Certainly, We envy Our Uncle's grasp of theology."

  The King! Clifford must have escaped with King Edward and the bulk of his retinue, even as the militiamen and mercenaries were being slaughtered.

  "You make accusations before our monarch," said Ranulph. "Dare you prove them before the God of Battles?"

  Clifford stepped out from behind a tree. Overhead, the clouds shifted. Moonlight picked out Red Unicorns on his yellow tabard and glinted on the steel-plated arm which he had around the young king's slight shoulders. "You have heard of the New War? Nowadays, God judges us according to our captaincy, not our prowess. I have already faced you and won."

  Clifford's armour would be almost as good as the set that Ranulph had just discarded, but the duke was bareheaded at the moment, cropped red hair like dried blood in the moonlight. If he were slain, would his retinue obey the young king? Ranulph gauged the distance, inhaled and —

  "I wonder if your sword throws as well as it cuts?" said Clifford. He shifted slightly, putting one leg behind the young monarch. "Of course, you risk hitting His Grace."

  King Edward looked Ranulph in the eye. The young man nodded almost imperceptibly.

  Ranulph shook his head and tossed Steelcutter behind him. It clanged on rock. The blade rang for a few heartbeats, then abruptly went silent.

  "How very realistic of you," said Clifford. "Shackle him."

  A pair of lightly-armed servants scurried out of the trees, heads bobbing as if expecting the crossbowmen to discharge their weapons.

  Ranulph put his hands behind his back and let them lock rune-etched fetters around his wrists.

  Clifford said, "Bring me that sword – Steelsmiter? Meatslicer?" His teeth flashed. "It will make a fine gift for whichever of my bastards I decide to legitimise."

  The skinnier of the two servants cast around at Ranulph's feet. At length he tugged his forelock at Clifford. "Begging your pardon, Milord. But, what sword?"

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A day later, Marcel’s boyfriend, Tom Fenland of the Post Office Integration Service, rolled his motorbike between the trees until the forest village came into sight. Soft sounds drifted up to him; rope and wood creaking, the thock-thock of agricultural flails pounding the husks off the grain, geese fussing, and cattle stomping and lowing.

  Tom watched in silence, fixing the lost world in his head. This was the bit Marcel was… unkeen on. But the whole point of Post Office Integration Workers – as he’d explained between Marcel’s Saumurian curses – was that they should be vulnerable. You couldn’t integrate people at gunpoint, could you?

  He opened the throttle and roared down into the scene.

  The peasants scattered.

  Tom braked by the duck pond and switched off.

  Not a sound came from the cottages. It was as if the modern vehicle had killed the medieval village. Tom swung off his saddle, stowed his helmet and lit a cigarette.

  By noon, the livestock complained in their stalls, and the geese honked and prodded around Tom’s boots.

  An old man edged out from between two hovels, a basket of grain in his hands. Gaze averted, he started to feed the geese.

  "You do the work of a peasant," said Tom, using the medieval pronunciation, but trying to keep the tone casual. "But have the tonsure of a priest."

  The old man chuckled. "Some of these geese are mine." He looked up sharply. "You ride a fairy steed, you breath smoke, but you do not speak like a fairy."

  Tom bit back a laugh. He ground out his tenth cigarette of the day and bowed to the old man. "I am Tom Fenland of the Egality."

  "Father Hengist, Priest of Greendyke."

  "Let me help you, Old Man." Here, now, the term was still a compliment rather than an insult.

  Father Hengist offered the basket. "My nephew?"

  Tom scattered the grain. "The boy keeping watch? Surprised, though unharmed."

  Father Hengist grunted. "Eggs now."

  As Tom helped him, the village came back to life. Well ropes creaked, somebody fed the pigs. People passed Tom’s motorbike without a second glance. It was as if he had been absorbed by one of Rosetta’s historical paintings. He wondered whether the fabulous old artist was safe. During alien raids, she was more likely to reach for her sketchpad than run for cover. The sooner the Egality established the colony the better...

  But time was running on.

  It took a good half hour to assemble to people on the green.

  Tom counted his audience. By the time he reached o
ne hundred and seventy two adults, his breath was steady. He took a last look at his notes.

  "Your feudal overlord has been banished!" he declared. "You are free!" Then he spoke of liberty and equality, and of the Egality… a chance for men and women to be their own masters.

  The peasants muttered. Somebody shouted, "Treason!" Grimy hands clutched stones or raised agricultural implements.

  "Don’t you want to be free?" cried Tom.

  Father Hengist put himself between Tom and the mob. "You mean well, my son. But we are not traitors."

  "What has your feudal overlord done for you?"

  "The Old Earl built that watermill," said Father Hengist.

  "And charges you for its use!"

  Father Hengist scratched his bald patch. "Why else build it?"

  "He hanged those robbers," blurted a girl barely old enough to have breasts. She blushed.

  An older man said, "And he gave me justice."

  "But he taxes you, lives off your labour," said Tom.

  "Nobles live well, but submit to God's judgement every time they draw steel," said Father Hengist.

  Tom threw up his hands. What could he say? The peasants didn’t even have words to express their oppression. But, without their help the colony was doomed, and with it any hope of fighting back against the aliens.

  He grimaced and forced himself to say, "If you will not be part of the new realm, then you must leave it."

  The peasants fell silent.

  Father Hengist said, mildly, "If you expel them, they will all starve."

  Tom's stomach lurched. "We just want you to cut wood. We’ll pay in silver. And provide the tools."

  "Of course, lord. But they can’t take money from invaders."

  "We’re not invaders, we're liberators," said Tom. He repeated it in correct antique pronunciation.

  Father Hengist bowed his head. "As you say, lord."

  "But what will we tell Good Sir Ranulph when he returns and defeats the invaders?" cried one of the peasants.

  "He won't return," said Tom.

  A ripple of laughter went through the throng.

  Tom took it for relief until he realised that they were laughing at him. With a shiver, he thought of the the picture — that Albrecht picture; Sir Ranulph fighting Clifford's entire army, the dead piled up around him.

  Tom shook his head. No. The moment tanks rolled through the Gate marked the end of the time when a single man could make a difference. Even Sir Ranulph Dacre could not stop the Egality.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Dog-fucker: (n) One who is proverbially cunning enough to catch a dog, manipulative enough to make it stay still, but in boasting of their achievement, fails to comprehend that a dog is an inappropriate choice of sexual partner.

  — Haraldson’s "Dictionary of Egality Military Slang" Kinghaven (Rhetorical Press, 1924)

  #

  Breath smoking like a shunting engine, Jasmine’s best friend and driver limped across Castle Dacre’s inner courtyard.

  Pocketing her book of Albrecht sketches, she called, “Marcel!”

  They met halfway across the courtyard. “What the hell are you doing here, soldier girl?" he asked.

  Jasmine stifled a yawn — she hadn’t been sleeping well since her clash with Sir Ranulph — and pointed at the keep. Somebody had pinned a Post Office poster to the door: a huge horn-and-horse with the strapline, Delivering Egality to New Communities Across The Universe. She held up her pocketbook. "Albrecht the Genius sketched this place…"

  "I thought we agreed no time-travel crap!"

  Jasmine flushed. "Look at it properly."

  It wasn’t a good reproduction, but even smudged, Albrecht’s woodcut was almost photographic. The ancient stone keep loomed out of the yellowing page as if poised to shrug off the encrustation of later turrets and carved window-surrounds added by each earl of Dacre.

  Jasmine lowered the book. The keep was still there. But now a living sky rushed past its spires. Grey-clad Egalitarians bustled in its shadow, their every movement changing the future.

  She’d felt like this before: waking up late with Rosetta Morris and realising her parents would now discover her double life — respectable debutante by day, bisexual bohemian by night.

  Marcel had hauled her out of the debauched artist’s bed and into a waiting laundry van, then smuggled her home in a linen basket – actions well outside a family butler’s normal duties, even a Saumurian one with a dubious military past. Marcel had always understood, and always come to the rescue. And when she ran off to join the Egality where anything goes, he’d come along to turn her into a proper soldier.

  The blood throbbed in Jasmine’s temples. The tidal wave of cause-and-effect had already started — it just hadn’t reached her yet. "Why don’t you see it?" she asked, inwardly cringing at the pleading note in her voice. She was just too tired to put together a proper argument.

  Marcel swore in at least three languages. "It’s a castle. They all look the same."

  “You sound like my mother. But what about Sir Ranulph?" Jasmine flipped open the black and white plate of The Last Stand. She tapped a numb finger against the image. "I saw him."

  "Or was it King Tristram?" Marcel laughed. He put an arm around her shoulder. "You have a tank brigade to run."

  She shook herself free. "King Tristram’s just a myth."

  "And Sir Ranulph is just a young girl’s fantasy lover..."

  Now Jasmine's cheeks burned.

  "...or why else,” continued Marcel, “did we have to take that bloody picture all the way to Lunenburg?"

  "It was an expensive reproduction. We might have needed the money..."

  "...so you hung it over your bed." Marcel held up his hand. "You’re all grown up now."

  Jasmine looked around the courtyard. The bodies had gone, but dark patches stained the cobbles. "Marcel – we’ve killed people’s ancestors. Suppose it wasn’t just you and Tom, with me as the gooseberry? Suppose I had a partner? Only now, he or she hasn’t – won’t – be born. Suppose Tom’s next?"

  "Suppose, suppose!" Marcel pursed his lips and, shedding his Saumurian accent, did an impression of her grandmother’s quaver, "You read too many Futurist Romances my girl. So very unladylike. Upon my soul, you shall never find a respectable husband."

  Jasmine laughed. Marcel was rescuing her after all. "OK. OK. You win. I’ll — "

  " — get some bloody sleep. Yes?" completed Marcel. “But first, you need to deal with Smith. He’s after your job.”

  “What? Smith should still be in the infirmary,” said Jasmine.

  Marcel shrugged. “You know how you transferred him to the support battalion? Well, he just managed to get himself elected as its major. Waved his stump around a lot, I believe.”

  “Fuck. I never liked Major Littlewood, but…” Jasmine scuffed her boot on the cobbles. “OK. So Smith…”

  “Major Smith,” put in Marcel.

  “…so Major Smith can get support people to vote for him. But the real soldiers won’t elect the little dog-fucker as brigade colonel."

  Marcel just looked at her.

  Jasmine shrugged. "The three combat battalions will vote for me.”

  “Will they?” asked Marcel. “Most of the lower ranks are just out of basic training and scared out of their minds.”

  “OK. OK.” Jasmine held up her hands. “I’ll go and mingle with the newbies. Do the grizzled-veteran-you-can-trust act.”

  “And no time travel crap?” prompted Marcel.

  “I promise.”

  “You had me worried.” Marcel grinned.

  The main door of the keep swung open. Officers filed down the outside stair, pulling shut their blue coats and hugging themselves against the cold. Some of them huddled or squatted between the buttresses. Urine steamed — General Hamilton’s Post Office Coordination and Consciousness Raising meetings were notoriously long and the nice new latrine block had been installed far away in the outer ward.

  "Thank God we're barred
from these things!" said Jasmine. Troops on secondment to the Experimental Tank Brigade weren't welcome.

  "Too bloody right – Tom!"

  Motorcycle jacket buttoned to the collar against the cold, Marcel’s boyfriend descended the keep steps in the middle of a dozen fellow Integration Workers. Jasmine smiled and wondered what the peasants made of this handsome young man riding his iron steed.

  Then Marcel loped away, leaving her alone with the nightmare.

  Jasmine shivered. If she called out, would he hear? Had the changes to history already reduced her to a mere shade?

  Tom greeted Marcel with a kiss. Hand-in-hand they hurried off through the gatehouse into the outer ward. Tom's motorcycle roared then dwindled away into the distance beyond the walls.

  Jasmine knew she should take Marcel’s advice. And she would.

  Once she’d done what she came to do.

  She leaned in a doorway trying to look inconspicuous while Post Office people trickled out of the courtyard. Finally, when she was alone with the ancient keep and ready to give up, a white-haired man in a leather trench coat strode down the steps.

  Jasmine gritted her teeth. Lowenstein, the Elitist war criminal. She had spent days and lives trying to kill this monster. Now he was “rehabilitated” and acting as the top Post Office scientist.

  Rapping the cobbles with his steel-tipped cane, the scientist strolled across the courtyard and vanished through a door in the base of the ramparts.

  Sleep could wait. Jasmine stumbled after him.

  She found herself at the top of the cliff. The castle rock had to be at least three hundred metres higher than the surrounding hills. The eastern half of Sir Ranulph’s domain lay before her like a relief model.

  Jasmine just stared.

  The last time she’d seen this view, she’d had to squint through a pall of smoke to make out the mine heads, factories, and red-brick houses. Now, instead, waves of sheep-flecked crags rolled off eastward to break on the distant White Mountains – the border with the Empire. Sturdy homesteads and squat tower-houses nestled in the troughs, sheep pens and shepherds huts cast long shadows from the caps.