A Hard Day's Knight n-11

by Simon R. Green

  They moved off together, cheerfully discussing death and destruction. Kae and I wandered after them.

  “You know,” said Kae, “that is one seriously scary girlfriend you have there.”

  “You have no idea,” I said. “Trust me.”

  Not all that long afterwards, we were all assembled in a massive courtyard the size of two or maybe even three football fields, surrounded by tall stone walls, open to a starless and moonless night sky. I wasn’t sure whether we were outside or not. I wasn’t even sure if we were still in the castle. The knights were readying themselves for war with practiced ease and easy camaraderie. They wore brightly coloured tabards over their armour, with various stylised symbols on their chests and backs to identify which groups they belonged to. Their horses waited patiently, huge muscular brutes, tossing their proud heads and snorting loudly, armoured and caparisoned, with brightly coloured plumes on their foreheads. A small army of grooms bustled round them, fussing over them and seeing to their needs. Armourers moved amongst the knights in much the same way, checking their armour and weapons. Suzie, surprisingly, was enchanted by the huge horses and moved happily amongst them, feeding them bits of carrot and murmuring happy nonsense to them. Girls and their ponies ...

  Kae gave the order to mount up, and the knights were quickly in their saddles. And despite what we’ve all seen in films, they didn’t need little step-ladders, or have to be lowered onto the backs of their horses. The London Knights had spent most of their lives learning how to move easily in their armour. They mounted their horses as though it was something they did every day of their lives, and for all I know, they did. They put on their plumed helmets and immediately became anonymous and coldly intimidating. The horses bore the weight easily. Many of them were stamping their hoofs on the cobbled ground, impatient to be off.

  Suzie and I had been given our own horses, so we wouldn’t be left behind. I’d been assured they were very old, very calm horses, with excellent manners. I got up into the saddle with a little help from a groom who happened to be passing. Suzie vaulted up with more enthusiasm than grace, and looked round her proudly. Kae steered his horse in beside me, on his way to somewhere more important. He was in full armour, and it suited him far more than the grey suit ever had.

  “Try to keep up and don’t get in the way.”

  He was gone before I could come up with a suitably cutting rejoinder. I took the reins in a firm grasp to show the horse I knew what I was doing. He turned his great head all the way round, gave me a long, thoughtful stare, and turned his head away again.

  “You have to let him know who’s in charge,” said Suzie.

  “I think he already knows,” I said.

  Kae brought forward a massive white charger for Arthur, almost half as big again as all the other horses. Arthur smiled and patted the horse on its muzzle, and I swear the horse actually bowed its head to him. Arthur had that effect on everyone. He swung easily up and onto the saddle, took the reins in one mailed hand, and then raised his free hand. Immediately, every sound in the courtyard cut off. Even the horses fell silent.

  “It is time,” said Arthur. “Open the gateway, Kae. We ride to battle.”

  Kae stood up in his stirrups and made a series of quick, abrupt mystical gestures at the far end of the courtyard. He looked every inch the brutal warrior who’d come so close to killing Suzie and me, back in the sixth-century Strangefellows. I trusted Arthur, but I still wasn’t entirely sure about Kae. I’d liked him a lot better when he was pretending to be Sir Gareth. I missed Gareth; I felt I understood him a lot better than I did Kae. But was Sir Gareth a mask worn by Kae; or was it possibly the other way round? I’d find out soon enough. Nothing like going to war to show you who people really are.

  Arthur urged his horse forward, Kae right there at his side. The many ranks of mounted knights moved silently after him; and Suzie and I brought up the rear. Everyone else had disappeared from the courtyard. They’d done everything they could. The only sound was the steady rumble of thunder as hundreds of horses moved across the cobbled ground. A giant doorway stood before us, a simple door-frame some thirty feet tall and twenty wide, full of swirling mists, exactly like the one Prince Gaylord the Damned and his dark knights used, back in Sinister Albion. I think I would have said ... something, but Arthur drew Excalibur from its scabbard, the long blade blazing brightly against the gloom. He urged his horse forward and plunged into the open doorway, and all the army went with him.

  And that was how the London Knights went to war with the elves in the Nightside.

  A thousand knights in armour thundered through the streets of the Nightside, leaning out of the saddle to strike at the startled elves, caught by surprise in midslaughter. The doorway had delivered us right into the heart of battle, and the knights rode the elves down, trampling them under their horses’ hoofs. Long swords cut off heads and hacked elves down with vicious speed and accuracy. Some elves turned to fight, but it was already too late for them. The London Knights had come to the Nightside for blood, and the elves didn’t stand a chance.

  Suzie and I were the last through the gateway, which immediately disappeared behind us. It was all I could do to stay on my horse, and Suzie couldn’t free a hand to draw any of her guns. I didn’t feel like I was in charge of anything any more, and that always worries me.

  The Nightside was a mess. Buildings were burning all round us, flames leaping up into the smoke-filled sky. The street was littered with the dead, and the gutters ran thick with blood and gore. The elves had been busy. Bodies had been mutilated and strung up from street-lights by their own intestines. There were neat little piles of hands and feet and hearts. The elves do so love to play. And these were the elves I’d planned to save. The elves I’d found a new home for. Right then, if I could have pressed a button and sent every elf there ever was to Hell, I would have done it.

  We slammed through elves caught off guard in the street, leaving them dead and dying behind us. We pressed on, charging through the streets in an unstoppable tide, carrying all before us. We soon caught up with the real action. People had set up barricades across a main street, improvised from anything handy, including bodies, and had fought the elven forces to a halt. The traffic had disappeared from the roads, moving along hidden by-ways until the fighting was over. There were dead men and dead elves everywhere, and some of them had died with their hands locked around each other’s throats. There was blood and offal and charred corpses, and bodies turned inside out by horrid magics. Both sides looked round startled, as the London Knights came thundering towards them.

  The mounted knights slammed into the massed hordes of the elves before them, throwing them aside and trampling them under hoof. Some elves turned quickly to face the new threat, brandishing all kinds of glowing weapons. They danced and capered amongst the bodies of those they’d slain, mocking the approaching knights, defying them to do anything about all the horrid things they’d done and the worse things they planned to do. They wore strangely designed brass-and-silver armour, crackling with protective spells, and their pale faces were tattooed with hideous designs. They were delighted to be fighting their old enemy Man again. They had forgotten how much they enjoyed killing people and playing their vicious games with them. The knights rode straight at them, roaring war cries booming inside their steel helmets, and the elves darted aside at the last moment, laughing and leaping high into the air, to pull the knights out of their saddles. Elves and knights went blade to blade, both sides eager for blood and honour and the vicious joys of battle.

  The elves threw spells that exploded harmlessly against the knights’ armour. They had their own built-in protections. The elves came howling, bearing strange alien weapons and devices, and wild destructive energies spat and crackled in the air; but still they couldn’t pierce the knights’ armour. So the elves drew their glowing swords and cut and hacked at the knights; and even the most modern armour was sometimes no defence against such ancient weapons.

  The elves
jumped onto the backs of horses, hugged the knights to them, and forced their blades into the gap between helmet and breast-plate. Blood jetted into the night air, the knights fell from their horses, and the elves leapt away, laughing breathlessly. Some of the elves ducked in low, to cut at horses’ throats and legs, and were mostly met with a forceful hoof in the face. These were war-horses, trained for battle.

  From the shadows some elves fired strangely glowing arrows that nothing could stop.

  The knights’ advance was quickly slowed, then halted. And they hacked and cut about them with their great swords and axes, and most of the time even the best elven armour was no match for cold steel, coldly wielded. The knights leaned out from their horses to cut off heads, or arms, or stab a chest or throat in passing; and golden blood spurted out, to hang on the air and run in the gutters along with redder blood. Two elves leapt up and grabbed a horse’s head, forcing it to a halt. The knight leapt out of his saddle, hit the ground running, beheaded one elf, and cut down the other, his blade sinking deep into the elf’s chest. He’d barely pulled his sword free when a dozen other elves came running straight at him. Another knight leapt from his horse to guard his brother’s back, and the two knights stood together and killed every living thing that came at them.

  Some knights had other weapons. Strange magical and scientific devices I didn’t even recognise. The London Knights were traditionalists in everything that mattered, but they were right up to date and beyond when it came to weapons.

  The elven forces began to fall back, slowly at first, then they broke apart under the impact of the knights, and fled through the Nightside streets. And the London Knights went after them. A great cheer went up from the Nightsider barricades, and King Arthur briefly saluted them with Excalibur before returning to the fight. His armour was dripping with golden blood, and the sword blazed brightly against the night.

  The elves hadn’t expected such opposition. And they hadn’t expected to die so easily at the hands of men.

  Suzie let her horse have its head while she used her shotgun. The horse didn’t seem to mind the noise of the gun at all. Suzie picked off elves as she saw them, dealing with targets the knights ahead had missed. Her blessed and cursed ammo blasted right through the elves’ armour, and when it didn’t, she blew their heads right off. When she finally ran out of shells for the shotgun, she slipped it back into its holster and tossed grenades and incendiaries round where they’d do the most good. Many an elf who’d thought himself hidden in the shadows went flying suddenly through the air with body parts missing, and often on fire. And when she ran out of explosives, Suzie drew the two heavy pistols from her hips and carried on taking care of business. She looked calm and relaxed, cool and easy, in her element and loving every moment of it.

  I kept close to her, watching her back, using my gifts to find elves who’d hidden themselves a little more thoroughly than the others. Even the best elf glamour is no match for my gift. I only had to point out a particularly dark shadow where there shouldn’t be one, and Suzie would open fire; and something dead would fall out onto the street. We’ve always worked well together. I’ve never thought of myself as a fighter, and now that Excalibur was no longer on my back, urging me on, I was quite happy to leave the real fighting to the knights. I’d seen enough violence and had enough blood on my hands.

  And, of course, while I was busy brooding about that and feeling sorry for myself, an elf came running up on my blind side, leapt onto the back of my horse, grabbed me from behind with one arm, and set a knife at my throat. The horse started to rear, upset by the unexpected new weight, and I yanked harshly on the reins to hold him still. The edge of the blade gently parted the skin above my Adam’s apple, and I could feel a slow runnel of blood trickling down my throat. The elf giggled in my ear.

  Suzie saw what was happening and spun her horse round to face me, one pistol already targeting the elf.

  “I don’t think so!” the elf said cheerfully. “One wrong move, and I will cut your lover’s throat! I know the infamous John Taylor when I set eyes upon him, and I know a way out of this trap when I see it. You shall be my passport out of here, John Taylor; and your woman shall be my guide.”

  “Hell with that,” said Suzie, and shot him between the eyes.

  The elf’s head snapped back, golden blood seeming to hang on the air for a moment before he fell backwards off my horse. Some of the blood spattered my neck and the back of my head. I quickly put my hand to my throat, but it was still intact, apart from the one slight cut. The horse stood calmly, waiting patiently to be told what to do next. I looked back into the street, where the elf lay very still with half his head missing. What was left of his face looked surprised. I looked at Suzie.

  “You could have negotiated with him!”

  “No, I couldn’t,” said Suzie. “I don’t do negotiation.”

  “You might have missed!”

  “You know me better than that.”

  And, of course, I did. She didn’t ask me how I felt because she was confident in her abilities and confident that I was, too. And if I told her how upset I was, at having to be rescued, she genuinely wouldn’t have understood. But I really was mad as hell. I’d allowed myself to be shoved to one side, intimidated by King Arthur and the London Knights, and in my home-town, too. I felt a distinct need to do something, to show all of these big armoured alpha males that this was my territory, and I could do things here that all of them put together couldn’t even dream of. I’d seen too many deaths, from the Nightside to Sinister Albion and back again, and I’d had enough. I might not be a warrior knight or a legendary King, but I was still John Taylor. I concentrated and raised my gift, and it only took me a moment to find King Arthur and Kae, riding with their knights, still driving the elves before them.

  This is John Taylor. Having found them, it was the easiest thing in the world to put my voice in their heads. Round up the remaining elves and return to me. There’s been enough killing. I have something more constructive in mind.

  I shut down my gift and waited. Suzie steered her horse in beside mine and waited patiently with me. She always assumed I knew what I was doing, and I loved her for that. I’ve never had the heart to disillusion her. Mostly I make this shit up as I go along. I hadn’t known I could make direct mental contact with people just by finding them. But then, I’d never tried before. Never been this angry, before. King Arthur and Kae came riding back to join me. They’d left the knights behind. Presumably because they didn’t want them to see me yelling at their King. Golden blood had soaked their tabards, and more ran down their armour. They seemed well pleased with themselves. King Arthur reined his horse in before me and studied me with cool, thoughtful eyes.

  “You don’t have to shout, Mr. Taylor.”

  “And you do not give orders to your King,” said Kae, reining in beside Arthur. Suzie studied him coldly, both her pistols in her hands.

  “You’re the King of England,” I said to Arthur. “But this is the Nightside; and we do things differently here. I brought you here to put an end to the slaughter, not start one of your own. These elves are broken; there’s no excuse to hunt them through the streets like vermin.”

  “They’re elves,” said Kae.

  “And we are supposed to be saving them,” said Arthur. “My knights are now containing them, as you suggested, Mr. Taylor. You are right. I’d forgotten how much the joy of battle can take a man over. But what are we to do with these captured elves, Mr. Taylor?”

  “Kill them all,” said Kae. “Send a message to whoever sent them.”

  “Hush, Kae,” said Arthur. “Mr. Taylor?”

  “Watch,” I said. “And learn.”

  I raised my gift again, and it rose blazing to the surface immediately, driven by the anger that still burned in me. My inner eye opened wide, travelling across all Space and Time in a moment, and I found Queen Mab in her Unseelie Court, in the Sundered Lands. In the Nightside, everywhere is as close as anywhere else; but even so, I was
quietly impressed with myself that I’d been able to find and reach her so easily. Maybe I should get mad more often. I looked upon Queen Mab, sitting on her Ivory Throne, and used my gift to find a connection between the Nightside and the Sundered Lands.

  A great opening appeared, hanging in mid air, and shimmering light from the elven Court spilled out into the night. I could see right into Caer Dhu, the last great Castle of Faerie, taken with them when the elves walked sideways from the sun and left the Earth behind. Queen Mab sat bolt upright on her Throne, set on a raised dais before a massive Court full of elves. She looked out at me, through the opening I’d made, surprise and outrage in her unearthly pale face.

  Queen Mab was greater in size and scale than any other elf. Ten feet tall, supernaturally slender, and glamorous, naked save for blue-daubed sigils glowing fiercely on her pearlescent skin. She was beautiful beyond bearing, terrible beyond any hope of mercy, alien, inhuman. Her ears were pointed, her eyes were pure gold without a trace of pupil, and her mouth was a deep crimson; the red of heart’s blood, red as sin itself. Queen Mab was a first-generation elf, impossibly ancient and magnificent, and it showed.

  She leaned forward on her Ivory Throne to fix me with her unblinking gaze. “What poor damned mortal dares disturb me in my Court?”

  “That would be me,” I said cheerfully. “John Taylor of the Nightside, not in any way at your service. Ah, I see you’ve heard of me. That saves time. And here with me is the returned King Arthur, of Camelot. He calls you to parley with Oberon and Titania, that we might avert the coming civil war between the elves, and to discuss something more ... interesting.”

  Queen Mab looked past me at Arthur. He nodded courteously to her, and she actually bowed her head to him.

  “Arthur,” she said. “It has been a while, has it not? You haven’t changed.”

  “Neither have you,” Arthur said gallantly.

  Mab made no comment, still studying Arthur’s face. “So, it seems I am not the only one to return to trouble this world again. If things had gone differently, if we had wed, what a world we might have fashioned together. But there was Tam, my lovely Tam, and nothing was ever the same again, after that.”