by Will Madden
Heckley glanced at Brum, who lowered his eyes in assent. Heckley beamed.
“Gentlemen and laaaa-diiiies,” said Bubo into the PA, “Equessssstrian SKULL BAAAALL!”
From the roar that went up, you’d assume anybody knew what that meant.
“Mush!” yelled Abhoc, taking off at a gallop. He stood on the saddle, reins in one hand, holding the skull Poor Yorick-style in the other, and bowed to the crowd. Then he leaped up and heaved the skull in a high arc at the peak of his jump. He landed lightly on the horse’s rump and backrolled over the saddle, scissoring its neck.
Heckley snapped the reins. “Ya!” Holding on to his pommel, he dangled off the side of his horse as it wove deftly between the midmorning traffic. Despite the height of the throw and speed of the mount, it didn’t seem he would get there in time.
Like a bomb, his thruster ignited. The sound shattered the windows of nearby vehicles, a ripple of glass shards lacerating everything around it.
The horse covered a lot of ground, but the skull remained a reach. Heckley extended fully for the catch, sacrificing his hold, and sliding from the saddle. He caught the skull lightly and flipped it back to Abhoc, who had already brought his steed galloping back the other way. Heckley’s offhand caught the pommel with the toe of his boot, and he rode hands-free on the side of the horse before pulling himself back into his seat.
Abhoc bowed and stole the applause.
As he did so, the skull was snatched away by Bubo, who, before he could gloat, lost it again to Brum. Brum tossed it to Heckley, who caught it dangling off the front of his horse, holding on to the animal’s neck just with his legs. He pulled himself up by its mane and laid across its back. Strike a pose! Pushing up onto one hand and one foot, he hoisted the skull aloft with his other arm.
“I call this one ‘Oo de lally! Ooh la la,’” he said.
Cheers. Oh, ye gods, cheers!
Abhoc launched himself from his horse’s back. Snatching the skull away from Heckley in flight, he landed across the rump of Bubo’s mount. Grabbing on to Bubo’s head, he used locks of hair to steer—the smaller knight acting indignant and befuddled—and guided the horse back across two lanes of traffic to run side-by-side with his own. For a moment, he stood astride the backs of both animals as their thrusters flared, galloping at ludicrous speed.
“Har-thur! Har-thur! Har-thur!” chanted the crowd, emphasizing the Lord Savior’s correct middle initial.
“Boredom vanquished,” said Abhoc, “I thank God.”
He tossed the skull backhand over some parked cars to Brum, who let it roll across the breadth of his shoulders to his far hand, which seized it to smash a pedestrian behind the ear. When teeth flew out, it was hard to tell from which skull they emerged.
In any case, the skull had been petrified, and the young man collapsed in a dead heap.
Ooooh , said the crowd.
Brum hurled the skull back across the street to the far sidewalk, where Heckley managed to slash a street sweeper, a delivery courier, and a custard vendor before catching it with two fingers in the eye sockets.
“Boink!” he cried, holding it up to be seen.
Ha ha ha ha , said the crowd.
“Do they think those bodies were actors?” asked Abhoc. “Or is everyone deranged? It’s hard to tell in this town.”
“Enough messing around anyway,” said Brum, his mustaches bristling with impatience. “We have a schedule to keep. Time to catch the light rail.”
The Yellow Line followed the meander of the Dodos River downtown toward New Guernsey. The conductor was giving power to the train’s electric motor in fits and starts. The roomy, smoke-free, low-fare cars of the light rail were already such a boon to his passengers, he didn’t want to spoil them by arriving at their destinations too much faster than the motorists and bicyclists scrapping their way through the jams on the street.
Chelsea pulled aside one of the heavy velvet curtains and pressed her face to the window. She knew something was up. Her mother wanted her to believe this was just an ordinary trip to the epigeneticist, but everything felt different. From the way they didn’t listen to the news as they got ready this morning, the way people on the station platform were actually looking at each other—even the way the conductor stamped their tickets as they boarded had something secretive about it!
A ton of fun was out there to be had today, she thought. Every adult knew it. And they wanted to hoard it all for themselves!
A woman with red hair stood as a straphanger in the aisle. She kept fidgeting and looking out the window. Her jaw was clenched and her fingers kept curling into a fist. Something told Chelsea if she had her way, this woman wouldn’t leave a bit of good time for anybody else.
As the light rail turned into the shopping district, she saw people lining the sidewalks and standing in the windows on the upper levels. Then she spotted them: acrobats! Four men with streaming capes, leather pants, and shiny helmets who were popping handstands and turning cartwheels—all atop magical beasts! They knocked packages out of hands and stole food from people dining al fresco. Everyone applauded and cheered.
“Keep your head inside the curtain, Chelsea,” her mother scolded.
But she couldn’t stop looking at the animals. They really were magical, weren’t they? Brightly colored as playroom toys, with steel feet that broke up the ground as they stepped. They had empty bones for heads, and—this was definitely magic—glittery bums that gave off a light of their own!
“I said don’t let them see you!” Her mother was getting very cross.
Oh, Chelsea knew the animals were just tricks of some kind. Like when they implanted a narwhal tooth in the forehead of a goat and called it a unicorn. Just a school project, but it was still exciting, wasn’t it? Life got boring with always the same animals, the same vegetables, the same epigenome. Tedious, she thought primly.
As the train passed, the acrobats put handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths and pulled up alongside them. They started banging on Chelsea’s car with their hands. Two on each side.
“Uh oh!” cried the conductor. Arm shaking, he opened the throttle and pushed the train to more than half the legal limit.
“Look what you did,” said her mother. “If you still think the doctor’s going to make your eyes lilac this morning, you can forget it!”
“But Mom!” said Chelsea, pulling at her mother’s hair.
She smacked the little girl’s hand away. “What do we say, Chelsea? Only very bad people travel by horse.”
“That’s not a horse,” grumbled Chelsea. “It doesn’t even have fangs. It must be some kind of short-necked giraffe.”
“It’s a horse, honey. Those men just file the fangs down.”
Of course, her mother was right. She recognized horses from those famous cave paintings where ancient humans rode saber-toothed tigers into battle, and the horses kicked the tigers to death and ate the men alive.
“But they wear such pretty clothes!” she said.
“They have to because their skin is worse than poison ivy.”
The idea of a pretty animal she couldn’t touch filled Chelsea with moral outrage.
“I don’t even get itchy,” she said.
“You will from horse hair! So don’t even look at them, you’ll only encourage their despicable behavior.”
Chelsea watched how the animal’s muscled bodies moved, how their long faces bobbed as they ran and the tails swished majestically. The sound of their hooves on the asphalt was paradise.
“Mama! I want a horse for my birthday!”
“I said that’s enough! I swear to God, if you are gonna act like this every time the city gets pillaged, next time we take the car.”
“The car smells like cat-butt.”
“You leave your brother alone! Besides, you wouldn’t like horses anyway, they bite and their saliva causes necrosis. That’s when—”
“I know what that is. It means your flesh dies and you turn into a zombie.” The girl crossed he
r arms and pouted. “Mrs. Bowser says scientifically speaking, zombiism is absolute hoo-ha.”
“Chelsea, I am your mother. I decide what’s science in our house! Now, head forward, or there’ll be no leek soup tonight!”
The girl faced the seat in front, defiantly watching the acrobats through the slit of the curtains. As soon as she was sixteen, she would run away from home and join the Mongols. Until then, she’d just have to learn to make her own leek soup. And she’d put in all the gummy worms she wanted!
While her mother was trying to see what was happening on the other side, Chelsea drew back the curtain and waved to the horses and their riders.
Her hand got smacked again.
“I said stop it!”
Ug-ghh! Chelsea hoped when the marauders boarded the train, they’d slit everybody’s throats. That would teach her mother to tell her what to look at.
The Pestilence pulled up alongside the light rail. It’s stylish lines and tidy appearance turned their stomachs. Plus, it didn’t smell like a stable or the tailpipe of a school bus. It hardly smelled like anything.
Brum banged on the side of the car. “In the name of King Harthur, I order you to stop this train!”
The light rail coasted almost to a stop. Then sped up and coasted again. Then sped up. Like some stupid kid playing with a remote control model. But mostly speeding up.
“They can’t hear us, Lord Brum,” said Abhoc behind him. “Sound-proof construction. The devil’s work!”
“Shoulder your lances,” said Brum into his radio mouthpiece. “Time to take this abomination down.”
“I can hear you just fine, Lord Brum,” said Heckley from the other side of the car. “This damn light rail hardly makes any noise.”
Abhoc pulled the handkerchief from his face.
“It don’t even cough up smoke. It’s like they are begging us to rob this train.”
Brum sneered. “Clean and efficient public transit will be their downfall,” he said with satisfaction.
The esteemed knights and peers of the realm each took a meter length baton from their saddle pouches. At the touch of a button, it telescoped out to three times the length with a reinforced point. They grasped the handles firmly in gloved hands.
“On my mark!” Brum cried.
“Hurry, we are almost at the station.”
Up ahead the knights could see Metro workers lining the platform, ready to give the riders a stern scolding as soon as the train pulled in. Nobody on earth could natter about regulations like a DMT worker. And they were liable to issue a fine if you mouthed back!
Each rider stationed himself beside one of the wheels. The conductor, with fear in his eyes, opened the throttle until the train was going full speed. (Some of the time, anyways.)
“Steady,” cried Brum. “Now!”
The knights jammed their baton in front of each of the train’s wheels. The screech was horrible. The titanium rods devoured the aluminum wheels and the aluminum rails, reducing them to warped cogs and metal spaghetti. Sparks flew everywhere as the train slowed to a stop.
“Hail Harthur!” they cried in triumph.
The knights tethered their horses to the car and engaged the parking breaks. They removed their riding cloaks, folded them neatly, and laid them on the saddles. Bare-chested and smelling pleasantly of a horse musk, they boarded the train.
Heckley entered first, smiling broadly under his fu manchu. “You gentlefolks weren’t gonna skip our stop were you?” he said.
“Sweet Jesus,” someone cried, holding their nose. “Did something die in here?”
“If you play your cards right,” said Abhoc cheerfully, entering from the other side.
“Bleep bloot ter-tweet!” said Bubo, his face unreadable.
The little tech knight had been doing this ever since that altercation a month ago. Abhoc couldn’t decide what this was about, but after today’s pillage, he’d decide upon the correct degree of beating to administer Bubo.
Brum was walking from passenger to passenger, bending from his towering height to sniff about their heads and shoulders, his mustaches close enough to brush the skin. Some people gasped as if he had bitten them. After a moment, Brum would grunt and move onto the next.
“As Lord Jesus spake unto Gwenevere,” Abhoc said, rubbing his hands together, “give unto Lancelot what is Lancelot’s, but also pay also your damn tithe onto me.”
Heckley looked to Brum for a cue, but the giant knight was too absorbed with his huffing to give a damn.
“Don’t mind that idgit,” Heckley said, “he’s just kidding, folks. We’re not here to rob you, but to impart gentlefolkly instruction in all matters chivalrous. For instance.” The knight glanced about. “Mm. You there! Why haven’t you given that young lady your seat?”
Heckley pointed to a woman with red hair. The offending man wore some kind of brown bowler with a turquoise band. It was crocheted.
Abhoc pressed a hand cannon against the man’s forehead. The weapon’s mouth looked big enough to fire shot puts, and it was old as shit. “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded,” he said sheepishly.
Nevertheless, he lit a match and held it close to the fuse. “Still, I’m going to ask you to hold still as this burns down.”
“Chivalry is just patriarchy by another means,” said the man in the crochet bowler.
Abhoc smiled sadly. “It could be Buick Skylark-y, but you’re gonna do it today.”
The man stood up angrily. “You just destroyed the rails, what good is a seat anyhow?”
Abhoc pistol-whipped him across the head. Blood spurted from above the brow as the man collapsed into the aisle. The hat rolled away across the floor of the car. It looked even more bullshit with no head in it.
“I said it wasn’t loaded,” Abhoc explained to the passengers, “I didn’t say it wasn’t heavy.”
“Go ahead, ma’am,” said Heckley to the woman with red hair. “Courtesy to damsels in distress, always.”
“I’m not—”
Abhoc shot her a dirty look. “Going to complain? Damn right, you’re not.”
Something crashed onto the roof of the train. Almost politely.
“It’s him,” Bubo whispered.
Everyone listened. Tap tap. From where the sound originated, thin tendrils of electricity crackled along the ceiling to the corners of the car.
“Short swords, men,” said Brum. “It’ll be tight quarters up there.”
Abhoc dumped the hand cannon into a little girl’s lap. “Shoot somebody for us, would you? We haven’t got time.”
“I thought it wasn’t loaded,” the girl asked.
“Shoot your mom, then,” said Heckley. “She looks loaded to me.”
The knights exited on both ends of the car. The doors clattered shut behind them.
The passengers were left alone in the car. The battered man lay unattended on the ground, bleeding badly from the head. Everybody stared at everybody.
The girl’s mother whispered in her ear. “Honey, if you are going to shoot anybody, do it quickly. We are getting off.”
“But Moooom, it’s the Purple Onion,” the girl cried, pointing to the roof. “You can tell ‘cause he’s wearing slippers.”
“Chelsea! How do you know what slippers sound like atop a train?”
“Well, he’s not wearing boots.”
“Billions of non-boot wearing people on the planet and you can tell which one is up there?”
Behind the girl, a man giggled to himself. “Based on that step,” he said, “I’ve narrowed it down to the Purple Onion or Cher, and I happen to know Cher is playing Vegas.”
The girl’s mom glared at that asshole. “Come along, Chelsea. Shoot this schlump with the overbite, and let’s get out of here.”
“Momma, it’s heavy!”
“And you didn’t want your physique augmented!” said the mom. “I don’t understand why even we go to the epigeneticist if you are just going to be a weakling.”
More footsteps now up on th
e roof. These were definitely the heavy riding boots of the Pestilence. The passengers listened. For a long time, nothing. Everybody up there must have been talking it over reasonably.
The man on the floor continued to bleed.
The red-haired woman let out a shriek. Mascara was running down her face like she’d been crying for days. “Today someone’s gonna learn something about who’s a damsel in distress!” She snatched the hand cannon from Chelsea and headed for the exit.
“It’s not loaded!” three or four voices called in unison.
She grit her teeth. “It goddamn will be when I get through with him.”
The cold-cocked man began to stir. “Wait, what?” he said.
The knights exited the car, two to the front, two to the rear. They found a set of handrails that ran up to the roof. Beside them, a gold plaque read, “Made possible by a grant from the Dodoville Council for Cinematic Violence.”
The four peers scrambled up and pulled themselves nimbly onto the roof.
There he stood, like a thistle-clad god. His form-fitting onesie outlined a lean physique while a snug cowl covered his hair and ears. On the purple field of his chest, a white insignia depicted either a mountain, a flower, a cloud, a potato, or none of the above. A yellow belt buckled around his waist, and with a firm hold on the insulated grip, yellow gloves commanded a slender quarterstaff with electrified ends. Beneath his shadowy brow, a breathing mask shielded his mouth and nose.
This faceguard made a distinctly vegetal impression. Yam? Kohlrabi? A turnip perhaps.
“Good day, sirs,” he said. His voice had a computerized softness, like Siri’s little brother. “I am the Violet Storm.”
He twirled the quarterstaff over his head, which crackled with yellow tendrils of electricity.
“We know who you are, Onion,” said Brum. “We don’t read the newspapers, but we do watch YouTube. And let us warn you: unlike the Archivists, we have better defenses than the people’s superstitions. We Peers of the Realm are elitely trained in equestriatics, pole armisthetics, holy hand grenadiering, axemandering, swordnetics, and tripping. Plus there’s four of us, so en fucking garde!”