Warlords race for power while the final battle looms! (Swords Versus Tanks Book 4)

by M Harold Page

  Tom pointed to a fortress symbol just on the Westerland side of the Psalmist border. "Gorebridge Castle. It’s safe pending a Best Practice Review of Assault Doctrine." He felt his cheeks colour. Now he was giving away military secrets.

  "Ah, but are the Redmains of Gorebridge loyal to my uncle or to me?" Edward rose without using his hands to touch the ground. "No matter. We do not need a ford or a bridge – a boat will do just as well." He swung into the saddle.

  Tom stared up at his new lover. Even in doublet and leg-hugging hose, the blonde king looked as if he belonged on the motorcycle.

  Edward blushed. "What?"

  "I’d love to take you home, Ned," said Tom.

  "To your mother?" asked Edward.

  "No — idiot!" Tom laughed, and it felt good. "Get you your own motorbike. We could hit the Autobahns, drive forever."

  "I shall make that a condition of a general peace," said Edward with false brightness.

  One by one, Tom laid fallen leaves on the book. It took twenty to bury the volume. Then he forced his stiff legs to straighten and climbed on in front of Edward. The King’s arms wrapped around his waist.

  Tom took a moment to savour the bear hug, then lowered his goggles and kicked the engine into life. "To Middleburgh!"

  He’d followed Marcel into the Egality. Now he was following another lover into another cause. He could no more escape his nature than could Edward.

  #

  A day of hard driving later, Tom emptied the spare can. "The countryside seems deserted."

  Edward laughed and pointed. A column of smoke rose from somewhere beyond the horizon. "I thought you‘d noticed the beacons. Apparently our mode of transport causes trepidation."

  Tom carefully strapped the empty back into place – if he was lucky he could find some pure alcohol to fill it. Egality engineering tended to make up for Egality logistical incompetence. "At least we have clear roads."

  They topped a rise. Now a coastal plain stretched out before them. As it met the Ocean of Thule, the strip cultivation gave way to a great city. For an instant Tom imagined they’d slipped back across time and were home. Then he picked out the crenellations and conical tower tops of the city walls.

  As they hurtled across the empty plain, what Tom had taken for arrow loops resolved into full-sized windows. Just the gatehouse alone was as big as Castle Dacre’s keep.

  The drawbridge was raised.

  He came to a stop at 100 metres, well inside bow range, and took off his helmet. "What now?"

  "Don’t worry, if they meant to, they would have started shooting by now." Edward gave him a hug. "You, my love, must do the office of herald."

  Tom had a vision of himself in a silly tabard. He laughed. "What do I say?" he asked, and realised he was whispering. This was like being on stage, though the audience was cringing somewhere behind the battlements.

  "Just announce me," said Edward. "His Majesty, Edward Lowther, the Ninth of that Name, King of Westerland, Duke of Middleburgh in right of his mother."

  Tom swung off the bike, took a deep breath and, in a very loud voice, did as he was asked.

  Ten minutes ticked by on Tom’s wristwatch. The situation, he realised, was outwith the cultural scripts of the Middleburghers.

  "Oh come on!" he called. "If we had come to attack you, don’t you think the two of us would have already started raping and pillaging?"

  "What are you doing?" hissed Edward.

  "My job," replied Tom in a stage whisper. "Sometimes people need a nudge."

  "I do not understand. But I trust you."

  A tonsured head bobbed over the battlements. "Get ye gone, evil warlocks or demons or whatever ye be. In the name of the Holy God of the Elements blight not our land..."

  Tom shook his head. "What the fuck?"

  Edward laughed. "They are exorcising us."

  "At least they’re not shooting."

  "True. It is my turn, I believe." Edward stepped forward and unsheathed Skyblade. He spoke with perfect voice projection, overwhelming the clamour of the priests like a tank unit rolling over insurgent primitives. "Do not try my patience."

  The priest halted.

  "Bring out relics for Us to kiss, and see whether We turn to ashes. And bring out those of Our subjects who will recognise Our face."

  Another tense ten minutes. Finally, the drawbridge dropped and a dozen richly dressed men crossed the moat, trailing a body of men-at-arms. A wiry red-haired man strode in front of the procession, Red Unicorns embroidered on his cloth of gold over-coat, an ornately scabbarded longsword bouncing at his hip.

  Edward’s shoulders slumped.

  "What’s wrong?" asked Tom.

  "It is my uncle, John Clifford, Duke of Highcraig."

  A hundred kilometres’ worth of aches and pains caught up with Tom. He had rescued Edward from death, only to deliver him to a man destined to murder him.

  Edward drew himself up. He jiggled his shoulders the way Marcel used to before a fistfight. Then his right hand dropped to Skyblade’s hilt. "I think I shall simply cut him down out of hand."

  Tom's heart quickened. It was like that time when he and Marcel crept into the ammunition dump. But this was no game. "We’re rather outnumbered, Edward. And everybody seems to be wearing a Red Unicorn – I’m guessing this is a signifier of party allegiance?"

  Edward’s posture shifted subtly. Before the young king could lapse into despair, Tom added, "But a royal court is just a setting for dominance rituals – almost the perfect laboratory."

  "Your pardon?"

  "I mean, stand up to him," said Tom. "You’re the King after all."

  Edward grinned. "You know, I think I shall."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Our greatest synergy is that we elect our own officers.

  — Postmaster General Hamilton, "In praise of the Army of the Egality," (Egality Information Propagation Service, 1932)

  #

  Jasmine leaned on the rail of Airship 02's forward machine gun gantry and raised her goggles.

  Below, in the chequer-patterned Cathedral Square, streams of soldiers trickled between tank carcasses like sand grains blown across an abandoned game of chess. They pooled in the middle around a hacked-up ironclad. Two figures dominated the crowd from the macabre platform: a shambling mountain in combat grey, the other in blue, short and energetic, waving his arms like a squirrel who’d chewed too many coffee beans.

  Jasmine swore. "Postmaster General Hamilton is running against Field Marshal Williams! I should have expected that."

  Lowenstein laughed. "You had other thing on your mind."

  A whistle blew. The engines changed note. The airship wheeled to port, making the gantry creak and sway, and began her corkscrew descent. Below, soldiers abandoned the debate and pointed to the sky. A great murmur rose from the mob, a bass counterpoint to the shrill buzz of the airscrews.

  Now the airship’s nacelle swung west, pointing back over the ruined Cathedral to the Ocean of Thule. Jasmine squinted into clouds. Somewhere out there, the blood-stained Airship 01 limped along on a tank-full of Tolmec alcohol. A thousand miles further off, Wisdom-at-Night ruled her state like a delectable demoness. Jasmine’s tattoo stung and triggered a spike of lust. What were those slender hands doing now? Giving pleasure, plucking still-beating hearts from open ribcages, or both?

  The downwards spiral brought the field-grey mob back into view. Williams was addressing them now, his arms moving up and down like a lethargic fisherman casting a line. At his feet, a knot of Hamilton’s blue-uniformed Security Workers remained impassive, arms ostentatiously folded across their chests.

  Lowenstein touched her shoulder. "Time to warm up for your big chance."

  Jasmine spun to face him. "This is your grand plan?" She’d expected something more devious; perhaps a scheme to put her in charge of field operations, not the entire army. So very many people to get killed. She shook her head. "Even if I could win the election, the Central Committee would never approve."

&nb
sp; Lowenstein’s eyes twinkled behind his goggles. "Approval is not required. The Army of the Egality is out of contact with higher authority. A technical problem."

  Jasmine reeled. She should have realised when the news came over the radio, along with pleas and orders to make all possible speed. The Gate wasn’t broken: Lowenstein had sabotaged it, leaving the army cut off from its supply lines, potentially dooming the people back in the present, but also breaking the political tether to the Central Committee. "You scheming bastard! The first thing I’ll do is have you shot."

  Lowenstein clicked his heels and gave a half bow. "I have the honour to be your scheming bastard." The airship juddered. "And only I can… repair the Gate."

  Jasmine steadied herself on the rail. "That Gate is humanity's only hope against the Aliens."

  Lowenside shook his head. "This expedition is humanity's only hope, and only if it is properly led." He touched her shoulder. "Now, inside if you please. You cannot address the army in sheepskin coveralls."

  Jasmine followed him back into the warm dope-stench of the hull, then down the companion ladder into the Bridge. She gave up fighting the rotation and sat on the deck.

  As she wriggled out of the flight suit, she looked around. It was like being on the set of a training film. Clean-uniformed crew operated undamaged instruments under an intact canvas ceiling, with no bloodstains on the decking or bulkheads, no Northmen, and no Sir Ranulph, either.

  She peeled off the flying helmet and Lowenstein sauntered over. He tapped the deck with his cane, seemingly unperturbed by the centrifugal force. "Excellent! Your forehead has not yet healed. A pity you do not have more wounds to display to the mob." He held out his hand.

  Jasmine considered kicking his legs out from under him, but instead just growled, "Bastard," and pulled herself up.

  The pilot cut the engines. Lines whirred out of the hull. The compressors howled. Airship 02 lurched, and bumped the ground. The gangplank dropped, letting in the roar of the crowd.

  Lowenstein handed the Stormgun to Jasmine.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  "You must seem every inch a soldier."

  "There’s a round in the chamber."

  "Really?" He put his palm on the small of Jasmine’s back and propelled her down the steps. She paused on the aluminium threshold.

  Thousands of soldiers stared up at her. Condensed breath shrouded their faces like musket smoke in an old war painting. Here and there, taut mooring lines angled out from the crowd like the pikes of Imperial Landmarchers in old illustrations. She looked over their heads to where Williams and Hamilton regarded her from the top of their wrecked tank. The nearside howitzer had been neutered – she had a flash of Sir Ranulph slicing through the thick steel barrel and felt the now-familiar jumble of lust and guilt.

  As she slung the Stormgun over her shoulder, she asked, "Are you coming with me?"

  "A hero walks alone," said Lowenstein, with the solemnity of somebody quoting great literature.

  "Crap," she muttered. "Sir Ranulph always had a squire." Until we killed him. Unless the expedition succeeded, the Army of the Egality would be no more than a gang of imperialist murderers.

  Field Marshal Williams smiled and beckoned. She waved back. "Silly sod thinks I’ve come to endorse him." She took a deep breath and plunged down the lattice-work steps into the steaming sea of bodies.

  The soldiers parted around her. A shrill voice chanted her name. Jasmine glimpsed a flushed face with a red circle on one cheek: Mary Schumacher, her driver during the last part of the Battle… Liberation of Kinghaven.. but now in the uniform of a motorcycle dispatch rider. Others joined in, until the cold air pulsed with the two syllables. There was, however, no sign of Tom.

  Over on the roof of the tank, Field Marshal Williams’s smile faded. He turned to the side and gave an order.

  Jasmine could tell he had realised he was in trouble. She doubled her pace, but a broad-shouldered Carbineer blocked her way. He grabbed her right arm and shouted, "You are under arrest for Dereliction of Duty!"

  Jasmine put her left hand over his and twisted her hips, making the Stormgun bump against her spine.

  The movement threw the man over her outstretched leg. He crashed into the boots of the nearest soldiers and lay still.

  Jasmine stared down at him. What am I doing? He’s one of ours.

  A female Carbineer threw a punch.

  Jasmine blocked with her left and lashed out with her right. Her knuckles blazed and the woman went down.

  Carbines appeared, bayonets flashed in the winter sun. The crowd recoiled, leaving Jasmine facing a dozen Carbineers drawn up in a line. Her eyes narrowed. Not random opponents, then, but a proper arrest squad.

  The Field Marshal’s voice cut through the nervous muttering. "Stay back, my friends. Let the sturdy Carbineers deal with the renegade."

  Blue-uniformed men pushed through the mob behind Williams’s squad and drew their Regulation Sidearms.

  Jasmine tensed her trigger finger. If she unslung the Stormgun, she might get off a shot at Hamilton before they killed her. It would be a better way to die than in the cells of the Post Office Department of Human Sorting. The snag was, lots of innocents would get caught in the crossfire.

  The Security Workers shoved their pistols into the backs of the infantry squad. Carbines clattered on the white paving-stones. One went off and cracked out a bullet at ankle height. Somewhere in the mob, a man screamed.

  Postmaster General Hamilton bounced to the edge of the platform and declaimed, "As always, the ethically sound Post Office Security Workers ensure electoral propriety!"

  A pause for comprehension, then a ragged cheer.

  The diminutive Postmaster General opened his arms wide. Juddering like a crow on barbed wire, he ordered, "Clear a path! Facilitate the candidacy of this Hero of the People!"

  Jasmine blinked. The Stormgun seemed heavy on her shoulder. Hamilton and Lowenstein had fixed her up.

  General Hamilton stooped. "Come on Jasmine!" he coaxed. "Don’t disenfranchise yourself through underestimation of your own capabilities! False modesty is an Elitist affectation!"

  Jasmine forced herself into motion. Eyes fixed on a sword-gash in the tank’s armour plating, she marched the last ten paces. As she clambered up the vehicle’s bows, Hamilton held out his hand. Careful not to trip on the rivets, she let him usher her to stand next to the scowling Williams.

  The crowd rippled in all directions like a water-logged shell crater in a thunderstorm, arms waving, people jumping, heads bobbing. Hamilton raised his hand and there was silence.

  Jasmine grimaced and tried not to look at her boots. How could she have even considered debating with him? He would have annihilated her.

  General Hamilton jabbed a finger at Field Marshal Williams. "He removed her from the facilitation of Operational Group One!"

  Mutterings of agreement.

  "Dispatched her on a suicide mission with our chief gate scientist!"

  Cries of "Shame!"

  "And when – against all expectations – she returned to us?" He folded his arms. "Well, those near the front saw what transpired." The little man spun on the spot and strutted up the hull as if the increasingly purple-faced Williams was just another written-off tank component. "Is this how we treat our role-models?"

  The crowd roared, "No!"

  "Is this how we defeated the Elitists?"

  Another, "No!"

  Jasmine fought for breath. It wasn’t the words, she decided. It was the way Hamilton charged each with some urgent, special meaning discerned only by his all-powerful intellect. How the hell was she going to follow this?

  "How many of you lost friends to Williams’s manifest incompetence? Where in the tactical handbook does it recommend unsupported tanks in an urban combat theatre?" Hamilton ran out of hull, and bounded back to Jasmine. He pointed past her at Williams. "Shall we be led by a man who ignored the Anomaly like a child hiding under the bed in burning house?"

  "No!"
>
  "Then let us hear from somebody who truly understands how to make war, and who has faced the Anomaly and survived!" Hamilton produced a stopwatch from his jacket and held it up with a flourish. "Your have five minutes, Klimt."

  She leaned closer and hissed, "What the fuck do I say?"

  He looked up at her appraisingly, then smiled brightly. "The truth should suffice this time."

  Jasmine made to step forward.

  Hamilton caught her wrist and made a circular gesture. "Do remember to address the entire electorate – we are – ha-ha – ‘in the round’."

  Jasmine nodded and vaulted onto the tank's conning tower. She stomped her feet on the familiar lid of the armour plated shoebox, took a deep breath and spoke in what she was not supposed to call her command voice: "We’re all equal." The crowd cheered. She waited until they nudged themselves into silence, and remembering Hamilton's advice turned to face a different portion of the crowd. "But we’re not all equally... effective at everything." Then she started on the hard truths.

  The words fell out like spent shell cases. As she paced around the edge of the tank’s hull, the Security Workers cheered during her every pause, as if following a script. The younger recruits in grey uniforms, and some of the older soldiers seemed to go from doubt to outrage. However, the mature faces in the crowd – be honest, the Veterans – shushed their neighbours and listened.

  "Your time has expired!" Hamilton led her off the hull to sit on the armoured beak between the twin prows. A Security Worker produced a flask of steaming coffee. Shaking with cold and exhaustion, Jasmine waited while the army divided, shuffling to the Cathedral side of the square to support Williams, and into the shadow of the mauled warehouses to support her. A couple of hundred Security Workers loitered by the tank. They waited until the very last moment before rushing to join Jasmine’s supporters.

  The coffee flask was empty by the time the returning officers completed their count. Hamilton smiled and shook her hand. "Victory is yours, Field Marshal."

  Jasmine’s shoulders relaxed. She allowed herself a grim sense of satisfaction. The politics were over. Now she could get on with the actual fighting.