Age of Legends

by James Lovegrove

  Dawn light was laminating the horizon as they approached Glastonbury.

  As well as the pantechnicons, there were three other vans in the convoy, and according to Mr LeRoy dozens of other folkloric creatures, as well as eidolons, were converging on Glastonbury. They were drawn, he surmised at one point, by the same force that had controlled the phouka and which was responsible for the initial awakening of the eidolons.

  A little before nine o’clock, still ten miles from Glastonbury, Mr LeRoy passed Ajia the iPad on which he’d been monitoring the news.

  She stared at the BBC clip of Prime Minister Drake, in a convoy of military vehicles, being driven through the gates of his summer retreat, Fairleigh Castle. She counted one armoured car and three Humvees, and calculated that they could be carrying no more than thirty personnel between them. It was impossible to make out, from the brief footage, if they constituted the entirety of the Paladin guard. More might be within the castle grounds. It would be best, she told Mr LeRoy and Reed Fletcher, to assume that their opposition would be greater than thirty.

  “And our precise objective?” she asked, staring at Mr LeRoy.

  Mr LeRoy considered the question. “Perhaps that should remain nebulous until I have consulted with Neve Winterton,” he said. “I have little doubt that she holds the key to our little sortie.”

  “Who is she?” Ajia asked. “I’m guessing she’s one of us.”

  “That she is. A cryogenicist who has become the eidolon of Jack Frost, impish avatar of ice and snow.”

  “Got it.” Ajia peered down at the map spread out over her knees. “How far now?” she asked Fletcher.

  He slowed down and glanced at the map. “A couple of miles. There it is.” He stabbed at the paper with a blunt, dirtied forefinger, indicating a small village outside the town of Glastonbury. “And five miles further on is Fairleigh Castle.”

  They came to the village minutes later, and Fletcher followed signs that read: CRY-ORG 500 YARDS. He turned down a narrow lane and pulled up outside a long, low, ultra-modern building.

  Mr LeRoy frowned across its manicured lawns, frowning.

  At last he said, “She isn’t there.”

  “You can sense that?” Ajia asked.

  He nodded, reached out a hand, and held it over the map. “But she has been, and left not too long ago––and she wasn’t alone. She was with someone. Someone important. An eidolon, maybe. I am still picking up their emanations.”

  “Where did they go?” Fletcher asked.

  Mr LeRoy pointed to a symbol on the map. “Towards that,” he said. “Fairleigh Castle.”

  Fletcher indicated a patch of woodland adjoining the castle grounds. “We head for the wood, take cover, and assess the situation then, okay?”

  He slipped the truck into gear and set off.

  Presently he manoeuvred the pantechnicon along the lane that fringed the woodland then eased it down an even narrower, unmetalled track into the heart of the wood itself. When he could go no further, he braked and Ajia jumped out. The other vehicles in the convoy drew up behind them, their passengers climbing out in ones and two and stretching tired limbs after the long journey.

  They were not the only people to have chosen the forest as an ideal location for the pre-battle gathering. As Mr LeRoy led the way from the track to a clearing, Ajia was aware of shadows between the trees, and caught glimpses of fleeting figures keeping pace.

  Only when they reached the clearing, and Mr LeRoy stood at its centre with Reed Fletcher, Smith, Dustin Wolfson and others, did the elusive figures deign to show themselves. Ajia stared with amazement as at first two or three, then ten and twenty brownies, boggarts, elves and goblins and all manner of other folkloric beings trooped from the greenery and approached Oberon, their leader.

  He greeted them like the monarch he was, with the gravitas of a leader welcoming allies to the cause.

  Daisy Hawthorn nudged Ajia and indicated the gathering. “It’s a small army,” she said in wonder.

  “And we’ll need every one of the critters if we’re to bring down Drake,” Paul Klein said.

  Reed Fletcher took command and organised the troops. He pooled all the weapons at their disposal––a dozen assault rifles, a couple of submachine guns, three pistols and dozens of knives, and distributed them amongst the boggarts, goblins and elves who had shown an aptitude with the weapons in Derbyshire. Then he split the hundred and thirty-five combatants into approximate groups of ten, each with a designated leader and second-in-command. Each leader carried a mobile phone, and would keep in regular contact with Fletcher himself.

  As in Derbyshire, Fletcher suggested that Ajia, after battle commenced, act as a loose cannon. She nodded her agreement, a kitchen knife clutched in one hand and a mobile in the other. The knife had a 20cm serrated blade and was designed for slicing bread or carving meat. It was a far cry from the little paring knife she had first learned to kill with and, for her purposes, a distinct improvement.

  Fletcher drew a rough map in the soil, outlining the castle and the woodland with the point of a twig. “We approach from the east, in the cover of the trees,” he said. “Ajia, once we’re in position, you scout the lie of the land and report back on the position of the Paladins. When we have this information, we plan our next move.”

  “And if Neve Winterton, otherwise known as Jack Frost, is already at the castle?” Wayland Smith asked.

  Mr LeRoy frowned. “In that eventuality,” he said, “it would be impossible to communicate with her until we’ve dealt with the Paladins.”

  “I’ll deal with the feckin’ Paladins single handed, so I will,” Dustin Wolfson said, smacking a huge fist into the palm of his left hand. “Just let me get at the shitehawks!”

  Smiling, Fletcher gave a decisive nod, then looked around at the gathering. “All set, then? If everyone’s ready, let’s move it.”

  He led the way, with Ajia at his side along with Daisy Hawthorn, Smith and Paul Klein. Dustin Wolfson darted ahead, still muttering about the grievous injuries he would inflict on the enemy. Mr LeRoy followed, towering over a host of babbling brownies and boggarts. They kept off the worn pathways through the forest and moved with stealth through the undergrowth. Within minutes Ajia caught sight of the crennellated battlements of the castle’s western tower. A grey stone wall, perhaps ten feet high, surrounded the grounds.

  The Green Woman worked her magic, kneeling at the foot of the wall where a skein of ivy provided ground cover. As Ajia watched, Daisy reached out and the ivy writhed and spread, creeping at speed up the face of the wall. When it reached the top, Fletcher nodded to Ajia and she took off.

  In Puck mode she sprinted at the wall, clung to the ivy and hauled herself up the growth. Clambering up the final yard, she slowed and peered over the wall into the grounds.

  The three Humvees, along with Drake’s limousine and a green Range Rover, were drawn up on the gravel drive before the castle’s porticoed entrance. The armoured car was stationed at the barred gate, two hundred yards to the left of her position. She counted nearly thirty Paladins stationed around two sides of the castle in groups of twos and threes. No doubt there were more on the other side. As well as the Paladins, a dozen uniformed security personnel patrolled the gravelled pathways of the perimeter.

  She clambered down and reported the situation to Fletcher. Beside him, Mr LeRoy sat cross-legged on the ground, bent over the map. He placed his palms over the symbol of the castle, his brow buckled in concentration.

  He looked up. “Neve Winterton is in there,” he said. “I can sense it.”

  “In the castle with Derek Drake?” Paul Klein said. “Why the ruddy hell would she be there?”

  “More to the point, what do we do?” Smith asked.

  “Do?” Wolfson said, his battered face looking incredulous. “I’ll tell ye what we do, we go in there and hammer the shit out of the feckers, that’s what we do!”

  “Admirably put, Dustin,” Reed Fletcher said. “We do what we came here to do.
We attack the Paladins. We stop Derek Drake before he does any more damage, and if that means killing him, then so be it. Agreed?”

  A chorus of assent greeted his question.

  With a bodyguard of two armed boggarts, Daisy Hawthorn moved around the perimeter wall and threw up dense, accelerated growths of icy and other creepers which could be utilised by the invading hordes, positioned at intervals of twenty yards.

  When these were in place, Fletcher ordered each group of ten to take up positions before the makeshift ladders, but halted the army before it set off.

  “One thing. Ajia, did you see if the security personnel were armed?”

  “They didn’t appear to be.”

  He looked around at the gathering. “Then we don’t kill them until they try to kill us, all right? If they do turn out to be armed, don’t hesitate to defend yourselves. Otherwise, incapacitate them.” He hesitated. “Needless to say, no such mercy should be shown to the Paladins.”

  Smith stepped forward, clutching his hammer. “I’m coming with you,” he said.

  Fletcher stared at his old friend. “No, you’re not, Smith. You’re staying here with Mr LeRoy. If you join us over there”––Fletcher indicated beyond the wall––“you’d be dead in seconds.”

  “I can’t just stand by.”

  “You can, and will.”

  “Reed’s right,” Ajia said. “You’re needed here, with Mr LeRoy.”

  Smith relented and, reluctantly, agreed to remain on this side of the wall, out of harm’s way, until such a time as Fletcher deemed that safe passage could be negotiated across the grounds and into the castle.

  “And then,” Mr LeRoy said, “I shall personally confront Derek Drake and Major Dominic Wynne. Oh, how I relish the thought.”

  Dustin Wolfson refused to take the submachine gun that Fletcher offered. “And what’ll I be needing that for? I’ve got these, sure enough.” He held up two balled fists the size of cauliflowers. “And I’ve got me rage, what’s more. Oh, and this.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a bottle of Bushmill’s.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure. Stop your worrying, fellah.”

  The centurions made their way around the perimeter and took up positions beneath the improvised ladders of ivy.

  Five minutes later, on Reed Fletcher’s order, the attack commenced.

  Ajia slipped into Puck mode. She climbed up the ivy, jumped from the top of the wall, and landed in a flowerbed. She paused like a sprinter in the blocks and stared across the lawns at the castle. Her precipitate arrival had not been noted by the nearest group of three Paladins who stood a hundred yards away. Gripping the knife in her right hand, she took off towards them.

  They had not expected an assault of any kind, still less from a slip of a thing armed only with a knife. She came to a sudden stop behind the first Paladin, reached up and drew her blade across his throat. The knife grated against something––and it certainly wasn’t flesh and bone. His neck was protected by some kind of flexible Kevlar collar. He turned, crying out in surprise, and in doing so provided Ajia with a perfect target. She stabbed the knife into his face. The blade sliced through his eyeball and deep into his skull. She pulled it out, the serrated edge grating on bone. He fell to the ground, screaming. Ajia whirled, oriented herself, and ran at the second Paladin. As if in slow motion, he was raising his rifle and taking aim at where she had been. His expression of horrified surprise, along with his retarded movements, struck her as comical.

  As she stepped towards him, she saw that he too wore a protective Kevlar collar––and she had time, before she slashed at his face, to wonder if the issuing of these was in direct response to the havoc she had wrought among their number in Derbyshire and Bradford. Well, it would make her job a little more difficult, but not impossible. The Paladin fell with the slow grace of a wilting ballerina, dropping his weapon, and in one flowing movement Ajia snatched it up and squeezed off a round at the third, advancing Paladin.

  She took off, heading for a box hedge that flanked the driveway. From here, crouching, she turned and watched the advance of her army over the perimeter wall and across the immaculate lawns.

  It was like a scene from a film. The oncoming tide of humanity and folkloric beings looked like a cut-price, rag-tag mob of desperate extras, crying out at the top of their voices and shaking their weapons above their heads as they advanced. She saw Reed Fletcher leading the way, his bow and arrows relegated in favour of an assault rifle, followed by a host of boggarts and elves wielding guns, axes, machetes and long knives. Wolfson was in the pack, and as Ajia watched she could have sworn that his image became a blur and that he was bounding along on all fours. Then he was lost to sight among the mêlée as the invaders came from all sides, swarming over the walls and flowing towards the castle in a terrifying phalanx of noise and motion.

  Battle was joined. The Paladins sprinted across the lawn to meet the advancing horde. The long box hedge, where Ajia crouched, divided the opposing armies. She was in prime position to take advantage of the Paladins’ advance. At speed, she ran to the end of the hedge and sprinted in a great loop around the back of the uniformed goons. She counted at least twenty Paladins as she came upon them from the rear. She fired judiciously, aiming at their unprotected legs, and one after the other they fell like bowling pins.

  And then the invading army, led by Fletcher and a host of boggarts, burst through the hedge, yelling and screaming, and fell upon the writhing Paladins, hacking and chopping, beheading and sectioning, with gusto.

  She was allowing herself to think that they might, just might, have a rout on their hands, when something alerted her. She turned in time to see an armoured car round the end of the castle and accelerate across the lawn towards her. Seeing the futility of attempting to ward it off with the assault rifle, she ran towards the castle’s facade and concealed herself behind the statue of a naked Venus. From this vantage point she looked out across the lawn and attempted to work out her next line of attack.

  She had been correct in her earlier circumspection about the number of Paladins at the castle. She had counted around thirty entering the grounds, but evidently there were more in situ. Now they showed themselves, perhaps fifty black uniformed goons sprinting from a building adjacent to the castle and fanning out across the lawn.

  Ajia took aim and picked them off one by one, reluctant to betray her position by spraying the phalanx with a sustained bout of gunfire.

  Three more armoured cars sped around the side of the castle and careered towards the enemy, firing as they went.

  So far, she thought, it had been a rout.

  But the tide was turning.

  Boggarts, elves and brownies fell, blown apart by gunfire. She searched desperately for Fletcher in the chaos, but such was the confusion on the lawn––with Paladin footsoldiers mixing it with the invaders in hand to hand combat––that she found it impossible to make out individuals.

  She contented herself with picking off the Paladins one by one.

  DAISY HAWTHORN, ACCOMPANIED by a bodyguard of two loyal boggarts, Gregor and Oleg, dropped from the wall at the rear of the castle and was startled to encounter not the chaos of battle she anticipated but a scene of serene quietude. A meadow stretched towards the back of the castle for perhaps half a mile, with the line of a ha-ha diving it from sloping lawns. The panorama appeared idyllic, a typical English summer’s day, with a couple of jersey cows steadily cropping the meadow and the song of a skylark filling the air.

  Then the firing began. It came as a distant crackle, muffled by the bulk of the castle itself, and ceased as abruptly as it began.

  Then it started up again, sustained this time, and Daisy felt sick as she imagined the consequences for her newfound friends.

  She saw movement a mile away, on the far side of the castle grounds: four armoured cars disappearing from view as they made their way around a corner tower.

  “This way!” Gregor cried, sprinting in a crouch
towards the ha-ha.

  Daisy took off after him, looking this way and that for the security guards Ajia had warned them about. The way ahead appeared clear.

  They made the cover of the ha-ha and crouched, Daisy’s heart thumping madly.

  As they stared over the lip of the grassy ditch, a guard rushed from an annexe building abutting the castle, saw them and approached warily.

  “Hey, you!” he began, drawing a pistol from inside his jacket.

  Beside her, Oleg leapt up, aimed his gun and fired.

  Daisy closed her eyes, but not fast enough.

  The security guard disintegrated in a hail of bullets.

  She saw movement to their right, and then to their left, and in panic she feared that the gunfire had alerted the Paladins. She laughed with relief when she saw knots of elves and boggarts swarm across the meadow and join her.

  The diminutive Paul Klein slumped against the wall beside her, panting. He clutched a pistol in his right hand and a wicked-looking kitchen knife in his left.

  “We… jumped right on top… of a couple of guards,” he panted, drawing a breath between words. “And fuck what Reed said about leniency. The bastards were armed.”

  The boggart beside Klein grinned. “So we butchered ’em.”

  Daisy nodded, grimacing. It might not be pleasant, but what had to be done, had to be done.

  “So, what now?” she said, looking around. Perhaps thirty assorted folkloric beings waited in the cover of the ha-ha.

  Paul Klein took command, relishing his role. “We advance,” he said, looking for support from the boggarts. “The main battle’s on the far side of the castle, and the bastards have armoured cars and fuck-knows what else.”

  He passed Daisy his kitchen knife, and she took it reluctantly.

  “Let’s go!” he said.

  The army swarmed up and over the ha-ha, and the Green Woman took a grip on her fear and followed.

  REED FLETCHER SQUEEZED off a round into the head of an advancing Paladin and looked around for his next victim. He would, all things considered, have rather conducted the fight with his bow and arrow, but needs must. And he had to admit that though his weapon of choice might not have been this Glock killing machine, it was shockingly effective.