Ranulph struggled for the right words.
"Slay John Clifford, Duke of Highcraig…," said Lady Maud. "…and I will fulfil your wildest dreams." She flashed her teeth and whirled off down the passage, bare feet smacking the damp stone. "Better yet, my wildest dreams — I suspect yours are somewhat dull."
Ranulph rattled after her. "I am a knight," he said, "not an assassin, Milady."
"So what of the man who slaughtered your father and brothers?"
The tunnel abruptly narrowed. Armour scraping the stone, Ranulph sidled crab-wise after Lady Maud. "When your father and I next meet, one of us will require pallbearers — or strong-stomached men with spades and sacks."
The redhead stopped and played her lantern over the walls. "Look, the stonework has changed."
It was true. The neat sandstone masonry gave way to massive blocks of granite. "So?"
"These must be the foundations of the Cathedral."
"Ah." A public place would make a better exit than the gates of the Archbishop’s Palace. Only, they would be rather conspicuous. "Does the roof get any lower? It’s hard to crawl in plate armour."
She giggled and darted off. "This way!"
"What enchantments have you actually cast?"
"Just invisibility, really," said Lady Maud. "Plus this dowsing cantrip." She waved the hair-and-straw contrivance. "But..," she continued with alarming enthusiasm. "…the grimoire is crammed with powerful Spells and Conjurings. Demons to invoke. Words of Power. Just give me a few weeks and I shall be Mistress of the Occult."
A hundred paces on, the passage ended in a heavy wooden door. Lady Maud handed Ranulph the lantern. She stooped and drew up her shift, unveiling her endless freckled legs.
"Lady Maud! This is not the time!"
The girl pulled a rusty nail out of the seam and brushed down the skirt. "You have an ungallant mind, Sir. I was merely retrieving my lock pick." She turned and crouched by the keyhole. "Allow me but a few moments."
More thunder, this time louder.
Ranulph shifted his weight from foot to foot. He coughed politely. "Milady. I have some expertise with such things."
"Then you have more subtlety than I expected." She straightened.
Ranulph sized up the door, verified that it did indeed open inward, then took a step back and shoulder-charged it. His armour crashed into the wood and the door thudded down like a drawbridge, setting off a heartbeat echo up and down the corridor.
Lady Maud swore.
Grinning, Ranulph ducked under the lintel and blinked in daylight. They were still underground, but natural light spilled through a massive gash in the domed ceiling. Empty bookshelves lined the walls.
Lady Maud raised her hair-and-straw pendulum. She danced through the rubble and, with a cry of delight, retrieved a small volume. As she worked her way back to Ranulph she said, "Now you will not have to make that voyage to the Rune Isles."
"Your pardon, Milady," said Ranulph. "But you have mastery of but one powerful spell, and have studied one book of magic for but a few months. The Runecasters study an entire tradition from boyhood and attain their full rank only as they reach middle age."
Her shoulders hunched. "Are you saying I'm not good enough?"
"Not good enough yet," said Ranulph, hurriedly.
"That I should wait until middle age, then?" There was an edge in her voice now. "Perhaps my thirtieth year?"
Ranulph held up a gauntleted hand palm out to placate her. "Winter with me in the court of King Ragnar. Give yourself time to learn and practice."
"I do not have much choice, do I?"
"Not if you desire my protection. My obligation to King Edward supersedes the obedience a knight owes a lady."
Determined to change the subject, Ranulph looked up at the obvious escape route. Beyond the jagged gap rose a wall covered in very familiar frescoes of The Final Atonement. "They’ve destroyed the Cathedral," he said.
"Who did this?" she asked.
"The Invaders, of course." Ranulph grabbed a pair of library ladders. "We need something to tie these together." There would be time for shock later.
Lady Maud glanced around. Without a word, she pulled the soiled shift over her head. She shook out her hair, then set about ripping the garment into strips. "Tell me about them," she said, levelly, as if unconcerned that she stood in the centre of the grimy vault like a newly unearthed pagan statue: all smooth white skin dusted with freckles, except for the clump of russet curls —
Ranulph concentrated on tugging off his gauntlets. "They have powerful weapons, but no magic."
"Hence the voyage to the Rune Isles?" she said. "You think King Ragnar will help?"
He nodded. "He is my blood brother."
"So tell me more of these Invaders."
"They’re led by an Amazon named Jasmine." Ranulph had a fleeting vision of dark hair spilling over grey livery. "She seemed human enough."
Lady Maud handed him the strips of fabric. The movement made her… joggle. "An Amazon? How very intriguing."
"Yes." Ranulph dropped to his haunches and dragged one ladder over the end of the other. "Might I be so bold as to request an invisibility charm?"
"Of course! But the price will be a lock of hair." Steelcutter’s companion dagger made short work of his overgrown fringe. Lady Maud bustled off in the direction of the empty bookshelf.
As he worked to bind the ladders into one, Ranulph did his best not to steal more than the occasional glance at the naked girl. It was hard to tell whether she was mad, or merely bad. He grinned to himself. She was certainly magnificent.
There was a disembodied giggle.
He yelped and straightened.
Maud materialised in front of him, long fingers clutching a crude doll — just a candle stub with shards of wood for limbs, plus strands of his hair pinned to the top by splinters. "A perfect likeness."
"Albrecht couldn’t have done better," said Ranulph. He frowned.
Lady Maud gave him a puzzled look. "Now I need a dark spot." Limbs folding on themselves like a great pale-skinned spider, she squatted and pushed the doll under the lowest bookshelf. "Now manikin that is Sir Ranulph, you are hidden from all sight. No eye shall see you, no shadow shall you cast." She smiled up at him expectantly.
Ranulph looked at his hands. Still there. "Is that it?"
"That’s just the talisman. The invisibility doesn’t last forever, so we shall wait before invoking it." She laughed. "Don’t look so surprised, Sir Ranulph. A lady is also capable of stratagems."
Ranulph made a half bow to hide his smile. In truth it was not the strategy, but the coherence of her thoughts that had surprised him.
He donned his gauntlets then heaved the jury-rigged ladder upright. It thumped into place on the rim of the breach. "Wait until I reach the top, Milady."
"In this I shall obey you, Sir." She laughed. "A knight in armour can be heavy – so I have heard."
Ranulph vaulted up the last section as he’d been trained... The wrecked cathedral reeked of over-cooked meat. The old and the very young, and the vulnerable womenfolk, had taken refuge in the House of God.
"Do I smell food?" asked Lady Maud as she emerged from the hole. "I could eat an entire roast boar… Dear God. That’s why the magic started working. The Cathedral has been desecrated."
Ranulph fought down the nausea. "I did my vigil in this place. Vowed to defend the weak..."
In the distance, harness clattered and men cheered. Like at a tournament, but grimmer. Ranulph recalled Cathedral Square. The paving stones would leave half the horses lame, but it was on the road to the Royal Castle, and just the place for a boot-to-boot cavalry charge.
Lady Maud made a coughing choking sound. The bravado seemed to slough away. "All these bodies...!" The last came out muffled, as if her hand was over her mouth.
Ranulph stepped sharply sideways. He did not want to die in soiled harness — bad enough that he was unconfessed. "This is where I must leave you, Milady," he said. He paced down the
length of the nave, stepping over fallen beams and smouldering corpses.
Maud swallowed. "What about the Rune Isles?"
Ranulph didn’t answer. He stepped over the charred stub of the porch screen and unbarred the door. The Royal Army waited at the foot of the Great Steps. Perhaps five hundred knights and men-at-arms jostled for a position in the front rank, shrouded by steaming horse-breath.
Something shiny whistled down from overhead. With a great report, one of the inns fronting the square exploded, scattering wood and plaster over the chequer-patterned paving.
Ranulph traced the petard back to its source – a great black monstrosity hovering over Cathedral Square like the bastard offspring of a seal and a crossbow bolt. He shrugged. This was not a time for wonder. It was enough that the collective mass of rune-etched armour had the power to set aside the air vessel’s weapons.
Trumpets sounded and, at the head of the army, the Royal Standard unfurled. Ranulph stretched his fingers until his gauntlet plates locked. Without looking over his shoulder, he said, "Milady, forgive me." He drew Steelcutter. "Tell who asks that I went with my honour intact."
"Just a moment! Sir Best Knight in the West. I shall not permit you to just throw off a heroic phrase then stride off to certain death."
Ranulph found himself turning back.
The naked redhead leaned forward and kissed him. "I have no glove or scarf to give you as a token, but you are my knight." She pulled down his visor. "You have rescued me twice. Go with my blessings."
"Twice?" Ranulph’s words rang in his ears.
Her wide green eyes bored through his helmet sights. "I remember the first time, even if you do not."
Ranulph’s heart skipped a beat. The same eyes had flashed at him as a ten-year-old girl tore free of her would-be rapists. And, it was that musical scream which had drawn him out of the tavern in the first place. "God’s Teeth! It was you. Where was your escort…?"
"I could have been anybody — a commoner’s daughter, even. But you went for the Redmains like a wild boar through a drunken hunting party."
"With about as much fortune." Ranulph grimaced. He’d regained consciousness in St Ignatius’s Infirmary, aching skull reverberating to his father’s angry words. He grimaced. There was no way he could have known he was fighting the Redmains until the instant before he drove his pommel into Sir Henry’s face.
"You have my favour. Now, avenge the innocents."
Ranulph nodded and turned away. It didn’t matter that she was a sorceress, a harlot, and the daughter of his enemy. She was who she was — as perfect as a finely balanced sword.
Across Cathedral Square, a row of houses collapsed. Ironclad war engines jostled out of the dust. With a certainty born of a decade of soldiering, Ranulph knew that Kinghaven would fall, and with it the Kingdom of Westerland.
A destrier – a full-sized warhorse – shied across his path. The saddle was empty, the heraldic horsecloth splattered with blood. More weapons than just petards were at work.
Ranulph took a running jump and vaulted into the saddle one-handed. He fought his mail-topped boots into the stirrups, which were set far too high for him, and brought the beast's head around. It flicked its ears back and bolted. Ranulph found himself hurtling through the ranks, ramming everybody out of his way until there was nothing between him and the enemy war engines but the empty chequerboard of Cathedral Square.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jasmine peered through the forward vision port and saw nothing but sunlit plaster dust. She toggled her headset. "Halt. Tanks, count off please."
She held her breath, expecting Williams or Hamilton to come on the radio to order her arrest. Instead, one by one, the tanks acknowledged her. There’d been no more casualties since the ambush. "Urban warfare’s a lot easier when you can treat the buildings as terrain."
Beside her in the driver’s chair, Mary Schumacher giggled nervously. The engineer was obviously unused to driving in any sort of combat situation. Jasmine fought down her resentment. It wasn’t the girl’s fault that they’d had to leave Marcel – Marcel’s body — in the warehouse along with the other corpses.
"Airship One, this is the Post Office Experimental Tank Brigade. Please confirm our position."
"Roger that. You are on the edge of Cath… the big square. Enemy heavy cavalry massed directly ahead. Boy! Are they fucked!"
Jasmine grimaced. The airships had only just been assembled. The crew obviously had no idea about the Anomaly.
The dust settled, unveiling the front of Kinghaven Cathedral. Even without their famous clocks, the massive double towers were instantly familiar. Jasmine shook her head. Didn’t anybody recognise the place?
A silvery mass coalesced into a formation of mounted knights. The low-flying airship peppered them with tracer bullets. Seemingly unconcerned, the knights advanced across the wide black-and-white rectangles of Cathedral Square. The armoured warhorses broke into a trot.
"Stay buttoned. Save the howitzers for point-blank range. Aimed shots only. Fire when you have a target." She toggled SEND again. "And stay put." It was almost impossible to aim properly on the move.
Machine guns opened up. Bullets splashed the enemy front, throwing men back in their saddles, driving horses into each other so that they went down in a muddle of hooves.
A single knight cantered ahead of the others, his undersized steed making him look like a living chess piece as he crossed the chequered square. Except that the horse wasn’t undersized; the knight was a giant.
Sir Ranulph Dacre. Not the tragic hero from Rosetta’s paintings and Jasmine’s erotic daydreams. Just a proto-Elitist soldier who’d devoted his life to killing.
"Too bad, big guy, I’m grown up now," mouthed Jasmine as she swung the forward machine gun to bear. She toggled SEND. "Take out that point man." Her own weapon spat.
Sir Ranulph’s unarmoured horse disintegrated in a jumble of blood and bone. Somehow, he landed on his feet, but the concentrated hail of bullets knocked him onto his back. The ranks of knightly cavalry rippled over him and picked up pace.
Jasmine gauged their speed and, at the last possible moment, ordered "Full ahead! Ram the bastards. Charge! Charge!"
Beside her, Mary whooped and opened both throttles.
A wave of steel and pretty fabric broke against the Experimental Tank Brigade. Knights appeared in Jasmine’s vision port, only to vanish beneath the hull of the tank.
The starboard howitzer boomed. Something clanged on the roof of the tank. Her surviving gunner cursed. "Can’t see the fucker. Must be on the other side."
Ahead, a knight on an armoured horse rode at them, lance lowered. Jasmine’s bullets bounced off the horse’s steel carapace.
More clanging on the roof. Now daylight shone into the cabin.
"Run him down!" Jasmine slipped out of her seat, grabbed her reloaded Stormgun, hefted the bandoleer over her shoulder and made for the conning tower.
The tank went over a bump. Mary exclaimed, "Hurrah!"
Jasmine waited for another clang, then eased open the hatch.
A mounted knight kept pace with her tank. He swung his axe, slashing the armour plating. Evidently, he was too stupid to aim for the tracks.
Jasmine hooked her Stormgun's bayonet lug into the rim of the hatch and squeezed the trigger. The tank's metalwork took the recoil. The knight's head jerked back then flopped from left to right as the horse carried off the body.
Jasmine's lips quirked. The armour might be bullet proof, but the force from the bullet had to go somewhere.
A smog of exhaust fumes and horse breath now shrouded Cathedral Square. Ironclads and knights wheeled and manoeuvred, sparks flying off armour, weapons belching flame. There were no more orders to give — it was down to individual tank commanders and their crews.
Jasmine shouldered the Stormgun. Nearby, Tank Ochre 07 burned. As she watched, a dismounted knight swung a poleaxe and took off a howitzer barrel like a farmer gelding a pig.
She toggled her he
adset. "Hard to port!" She tried the AA Gun, but the range was too short for the tracer to do anything but draw streaks on her retina, and the 10mm rounds merely chipped the maimed tank’s grey paint.
Mary Schumacher, however, didn’t miss.
As her vehicle bumped over the body, Jasmine spotted Sir Ranulph, ringed by wrecked tanks, striding towards yet another armour-plated victim.
Jasmine brought the machine gun to bear, then decided to save her ammunition. This was a job for the Stormgun. There was no obvious path through the mechanical carnage. She’d have to go on foot. She plucked a shell from the bandoleer and thumbed it into the three-round magazine hidden in the stock.
"Halt. I’m dismounting. Follow up and give me cover if you can."
Jasmine clambered out of the conning tower and down across the beak. With a wave at Mary's vision slit, she jumped to the paving, and started towards her prey.
She found Sir Ranulph breasting a stream of bullets as a tank bore down on him. He sidestepped and raised his sword.
The port howitzer vomited flame.
But he’d already sprung out of the way. He lopped off the barrel and, with a flourish, sank his sword into the sponson.
Jasmine raised the Stormgun then grimaced. Not close enough yet. She glanced around then — still braced — edged forward.
The tank commander popped up from the conning tower. He opened up with the AA gun but the bullets merely kicked puffs of powdered stone from the black paving slabs.
Jasmine yelled, “Aim properly you fucker!”
Sir Ranulph coolly pivoted in and sliced through the port track.
The chain of metal plates flopped onto the flagstones and the tank spun.
Now the tank commander ducked behind his machine gun and — at last — aimed down the sights. A bullet whanged into Sir Ranulph's breastplate. He shook his head, as if stunned. Then a mounted knight hurtled past, lance couched, and the tank commander vanished.
Another mounted knight clattered up, a Red Unicorn pennon fluttering from his lance. The weapon dipped at Sir Ranulph’s broad back.
Armoured heroes clash across the centuries! (Swords Versus Tanks Book 1) Page 11
