Age of Legends

by James Lovegrove

  It was just a pity that the enemy was equipped with equally lethal firepower.

  Already he calculated that he had lost a third of his men––he used the term ‘men’ loosely––and still the Paladins kept coming. Not only were there fifty or more footsoldiers, but they had numerous armoured cars and Humvees in their arsenal too.

  And the machine guns mounted on the armoured cars were making mincemeat of the invading army.

  “Behind ye, man!” The cry came from nearby, more of a bark than anything from a human throat.

  Fletcher whirled in time to see a Paladin raising his rifle. Before he could bring his own gun to bear, something leapt at the soldier. He saw a whirl of flesh and fur, human and hound in a single bizarre entity, with a long, savage jaw, and great loping legs attached to a human torso. Wolfson hit the soldier and sank his teeth into the hapless man’s throat, shaking his head viciously and tearing out the bloody gizzard. Then he dropped the soldier’s corpse, turned on all fours and selected his next victim. He moved like the wind––almost as fast as Ajia, Fletcher thought––and was feeding on the Paladin before the man could react.

  Elsewhere across the lawn, however, things were not going as well. For every Paladin who fell, Fletcher estimated that three invaders met their end.

  He ducked into the cover of a rose arbour and looked across at the entrance of the castle. If he could make his way inside, find and capture Drake, then he might gain the leverage needed to force the Paladins to cease the slaughter.

  But he saw, his heart sinking, that a force of Paladins had perhaps foreseen that very ploy. They had manoeuvred a banqueting table into the foyer of the castle and now it barricaded the entrance. And behind it were stationed six Paladins and a tripod-mounted belt-fed .50-calibre machine gun dealing death from its steaming muzzle.

  Fifty feet to the right of the entrance, he saw Ajia jumping back and forth behind the wholly inadequate cover of a statue of Venus, firing into the mêlée on the lawn before her.

  She was so intent on the battle that she didn’t see what was going on to her right. Under the mullioned windows of the castle, a boggart and a Paladin were slogging it out. The soldier had lost his gun but had drawn a dagger and was slashing at the boggart who was armed with an axe. Fletcher found himself staring, hypnotised by the sight of two crazed killers fighting to the death, trading blows that hacked and sliced into flesh until it seemed impossible that living, breathing beings could survive such bloody depredations.

  Then the Paladin delivered the coup de grâce, plunging his dagger into the stomach of the boggart and wrenching the blade upwards. Fletcher stared, horrified, as the little man’s entrails spilled over the Paladin’s knife-hand in a slick, steaming cataract.

  Then the Paladin looked up, seeking his next victim.

  He saw Ajia and crept along the facade of the castle towards her. And she was still firing at the Paladins on the lawn, oblivious to the approaching danger.

  Fletcher yelled out a warning, his cry lost in the cacophony of the battle. He lofted his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The shot missed the Paladin but shattered the window above the soldier.

  The Paladin ducked, and Fletcher saw with relief that Ajia had seen the movement. She vanished in an instant. One second she was behind the Venus, like its darker twin, and then she was gone. She appeared next as she barrelled into the Paladin, knocking him off his feet and rolling with him through a flowerbed.

  But Ajia had met her match. As they rolled, the Paladin gained the upper hand, pinned her to the ground and raised his dagger.

  Fletcher sprinted from the cover of the arbour, conscious that he might be mown down at any second, and launched himself across the flower bed. He hit the Paladin hard, almost knocking himself unconscious in the process. When he pushed himself to his knees and looked around, he saw Ajia poised to dive at the Paladin. She moved like a striking cobra, sliding the blade of her knife into the soldier’s neck.

  Panting over the spasming body, she nodded at him. “Owe you.”

  He dragged her along the façade to the statue and crouched.

  “It’s a fucking massacre!” he cried above the din of gunfire. “We need to…” He stopped.

  “Need to…?”

  “Gather our forces. Make a tactical retreat. There’s a ha-ha behind the castle.” He stared across the lawn to where groups of boggarts and elves had taken cover behind hedges, arbours and outbuildings. “Can you get the word to them? We’ve got to retreat.”

  He stopped again.

  “What?” Ajia cried desperately.

  He stared across the lawn towards the gates of the castle.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus Christ on a broken bicycle,” he said.

  Ajia followed his gaze, and her heart sank.

  MR LEROY PACED back and forth on the far side of the wall. “Oh, but this is unendurable!” he cried.

  “Calm down,” Smith said. “There’s absolutely nothing we can do.” He sat on a mossy log, his hammer gripped in his twitching hand.

  “And that’s the worst of it!” Mr LeRoy wailed. “The thought of my friends over there, dying for our cause…”

  “They wanted it as much as you did,” Smith said.

  “Perhaps you could get through to Reed and ask him how it’s going?”

  The other man looked dubious. “I think he’s got enough on his plate at the moment, Mr LeRoy.”

  “If only I could see how the battle is progressing.”

  Smith considered the ivy clinging to the perimeter wall like a vast green antimacassar. It would hardly take Mr LeRoy’s weight, he was sure, even if the big man had the strength to climb it.

  But further back in the forest was the rusted ladder that had belonged to an old water tower, which Smith had noticed earlier. He vanished into the undergrowth and emerged dragging the ladder in his wake.

  “What on earth…?” Mr LeRoy began.

  Without replying, Smith set to work, looking for all the world like a mad xylophonist tapping away on his instrument as he moved up and down the length of the ladder, striking it here and there with his hammer.

  A minute later the ladder was repaired and reinforced. Now it would take even Mr LeRoy’s considerable weight. Smith leaned it against the ivy and lodged its base in the earth. “Up you go. But be careful when you get to the top. You don’t want to lose your head.”

  “Thank you, my boy.”

  Mr LeRoy placed his foot on the first rung and ascended gingerly. Smith gripped a handful of ivy, kicked his foot into the springy mass, and hauled himself up alongside his friend.

  At the top, they peered over circumspectly.

  Blood, body parts, entrails, and a mass of humanity––and others––fighting it out hand to hand and with guns… It was like a scene from Bosch, only worse. And it was obvious, as the pair stared down on the battle scene, that the Paladins had the upper hand.

  “It’s hopeless,” Mr LeRoy sighed in despair.

  AS PAUL KLEIN and Oleg the boggart led the charge around the castle tower, Daisy Hawthorn fell behind along with her bodyguard, Gregor.

  It would be carnage on the front lawn, and she was armed with nothing more than a kitchen knife. What possible effect might she have on the outcome of the battle? She looked up, seeing an open window on the ground floor of the tower.

  But if she could get into the castle, locate Derek Drake and perhaps, with Gregor’s assistance, incapacitate the Prime Minister…?

  She laid a hand on Gregor’s muscled forearm, indicated the open window, and outlined her plan.

  Gregor made a stirrup of his linked hands, and Daisy stepped into it and hauled herself up and through the window. The boggart followed, scrambling up the wall and tumbling into the room.

  They were in what looked like a storeroom, stacked with shelves of laundry, folded towels and bedsheets. She crept across to the door, opened it a crack and peered out.

  The corridor beyond was deserted.

  Gregor joined her, poked his head
through the opening, then said, “After me.”

  She followed him into the corridor, her heart thumping. At least Gregor was armed; and his presence was reassuring.

  The two of them moved along the corridor, then turned right along another corridor where suits of armour stood sentinel on either side.

  Just as they began to creep carefully along this next passageway, an armed Paladin careered around the far corner.

  Gregor raised his weapon, but too late. The Paladin, hefting a pistol and ready to fire, shot Gregor in the head without a second’s hesitation, then aimed at Daisy.

  “Gregor!” She fell to her knees beside the boggart’s twitching body.

  She looked up. “You…!” she spat.

  “Shut it, bitch. Stand up. Drop the knife and put your hands in the air. Or you’ll join him.”

  Numbed, Daisy climbed to her feet and raised her arms above her head.

  “That way,” he said, indicating a nearby oak door. “It just so happens we’ve got a couple more of you troublemakers stowed right here. You can join them.” He stepped back so that Daisy could pass, keeping his pistol trained on her head all the while.

  She walked towards the door.

  “Knock and open it an inch,” the Paladin ordered.

  She did so. The Paladin called out over Daisy’s shoulder, “Another one, sir.” And to Daisy, “In you go.”

  She pushed open the door and stepped into the room.

  The first figure she saw was a tall, dark-haired Paladin armed with a snub-nosed machine gun.

  Two other people occupied the room, a man and a young woman seated side by side on the floor opposite the Paladin.

  Daisy stared. She didn’t recognise the raven-haired woman, but the grey-haired old man…

  Edward Winterton? The politician?

  But she recalled reading news reports of Winterton’s mysterious disappearance months ago.

  The Paladin guarding the pair barked an order, “Over there. Against the wall, with the others.”

  The pretty young woman smiled at her, reassuringly, as Daisy stepped across the room and lowered herself against the wall.

  “And don’t make a single move or you’re dead.” The Paladin glanced at his colleague. “How’s it going out there?”

  “Almost over, Captain. The twats didn’t stand a chance.”

  “I want the ringleaders rounded up. As for the rest, make sure there are no survivors.”

  “Very good, sir.” The Paladin withdrew and closed the door behind him.

  Daisy closed her eyes. Over the past few days she had come to know, and love, many of the brownies, elves and boggarts that constituted Mr LeRoy’s army.

  And they had gone into the battle with such confidence…

  The girl reached out, slowly, found Daisy’s hand and squeezed.

  The Paladin seated himself in an armchair, keeping his machine gun trained on them. “So you must be, if I’m not mistaken, Daisy Hawthorn. I’ve heard a lot about you, and what you did in Derbyshire. And I’m not talking about what you grew in your nursery. You’ll pay for your crimes, Hawthorn, when all the mess out there is cleared up.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Ah. Fighting spirit. That’s what I like to hear. Unlike the cowering silence from these two,” he finished contemptuously.

  Edward Winterton said, “I’d rather not waste words on scum like you, Captain. As I said earlier, I want to speak to Drake.”

  Behind the seated captain, the window was open a crack. Daisy saw a shoot of ivy, with a single leaf blowing in the summer breeze.

  “And when I read of your disappearance,” the Paladin said, “I thought I’d heard the last from you.”

  “I’m so sorry to disappoint,” Winterton replied with faux chivalry.

  Daisy, plunged into despair at Gregor’s death and her capture, was too stunned to realistically think that she could do anything about her current situation.

  But she could try.

  She stared at the ivy shoot and willed it with all her might.

  Nothing happened.

  She concentrated harder as the captain and the politician traded barbed insults. The leaf fluttered. Or was it just the breeze from outside that provided its motive force? She felt a familiar power flow from her, cross the room, and invest the living plant with energy and locomotion.

  There. That was more like it. She had lost focus, through fear. Now she had regained it.

  The ivy shoot wound its way over the pitted stone embrasure, soon joined by others stalks and fronds. Under the Green Woman’s subliminal prompting, they braided themselves, three separate strands weaving into one thicker, tenacious braid.

  Little by little, it crept towards the chair in which the Paladin sat.

  The pressure of the young woman’s hand intensified.

  Daisy sensed, from how Winterton was maintaining his badinage with the Paladin, that he had seen the eerie creep of the plant, too, and was buying time.

  “What I’d like to know,” said the Paladin, “is where you’ve been holed up for the past six months, and just what the hell your little game is, coming here and demanding to see the Prime Minister.” He gesture to the front lawn and the battle still raging there.

  “Perhaps, if you live long enough, you might find out.”

  Daisy felt herself trembling as she fought to maintain her hold over the ivy. Not only did she have to invest the plant with energy, which sapped her own strength, but she had to direct the shoot, too. She felt as if she might collapse with nervous exhaustion at any second.

  The ivy crept, inch by slow inch, along the back of the armchair towards the Paladin’s head.

  Then down the back of the chair…

  Towards the captain’s shoulder…

  Touching his right epaulette…

  Hesitating…

  Inching along, very slowly, towards his exposed neck.

  The Paladin started, twitched, then exclaimed and made to brush the intruding vine from his shoulder.

  The brief distraction was enough.

  Edward Winterton leapt. For a big, burly man well past the first flush of youth, he moved with surprising alacrity. He dived at the captain, punched him in the face, then tore the machine gun from his grip.

  All this took place in a second or two while Daisy looked on in shock. Then the young woman was on her feet, reaching out and touching the struggling Paladin on the shoulder.

  Instantly he ceased moving and slumped. As Daisy stared, incredulous, the man grew deathly pale and his entire body seemed to stiffen.

  The girl glanced at Daisy. “No, I don’t begin to understand it, either.” She nodded towards Edward Winterton, who had snatched up the Paladin’s machine gun and was moving towards the door. “He said he’d explain everything, when all this is over.”

  Daisy pointed to the Paladin. “What on earth did you do to him?”

  “He’s frozen stiff,” she said. “Neve Winterton, by the way.”

  “Daisy Hawthorn. Mr LeRoy refers to me as the Green Woman. And you are clearly the one he calls Jack Frost.”

  “Funny, that’s the second time someone’s used that name for me. I suppose it makes a kind of sense. Although perhaps, all things considered, it should be Jackie Frost instead. Who is Mr LeRoy?”

  “You’ll be meeting him soon enough, I’m sure.”

  They joined Edward Winterton at the door.

  “What now?” Daisy asked.

  “Now,” the man said, opening the door an inch and peering out, “we find Derek Drake. He has his study on the top floor of the west tower. This way.”

  They crept from the room and along the corridor.

  AJIA STARED AT the castle gate in horror.

  “No!”

  Until now she had refused to accept that they were fighting a lost cause, even if the odds were stacked against the invading army. But with the sudden arrival of half a dozen Humvees to relieve the Paladins within the castle grounds, perhaps defeat––or at least an
ignominious retreat––was inevitable.

  She turned to Fletcher “What do we do?”

  He just stared at the thundering Humvees trundling through the gates. He appeared, for once, bereft of strategy.

  “Reed?” she said.

  He shook himself. “We retreat,” he said, “before we’re wiped out.”

  Ajia took in the sporadic battle still raging on the lawn. Groups of boggarts and elves had armed themselves with the weapons of their fallen enemy and had taken refuge behind the scant cover of box hedges, ornamental walls and outbuildings. From these vantage points they attempted to pick off the Paladins still standing––perhaps twenty-five soldiers in all––who likewise were making the best of meagre cover.

  She saw movement to her right, at the far end of the castle’s facade. A mob of boggarts rounded the corner, yelling like a Viking horde. Some brandished guns, but most were armed with knives and the occasional sword. They were, she thought as she watched their foolhardy advance on the rearguard of the Paladins, a pathetic sight.

  But they had the element of surprise and managed to mow down half a dozen Paladins before the survivors turned and sprayed the advancing phalanx with gunfire. She watched boggart and elves fall as they ran, blown apart and reduced to so much steaming, bloody offal. Among their number was Paul Klein, and when he saw his compatriots to his right and left being torn apart, he vanished…

  Or rather shrank.

  Ajia stared at where he had been, then saw a mouse-like figure scurrying across the lawn. He reached the first Paladin, who was spraying the boggarts with bullets. Ajia stared, incredulous, as Wee Paul in an attack both suicidal and martially effective assumed his normal height between the legs of the Paladin with his sword up-thrust. The blade ripped into the soldier’s nether regions, effectively splitting him in two. The cloven corpse slithered to the ground, dousing Wee Paul in a shower of blood, innards and excrement.