by James Axler
“We can’t stay here forever, Your Highness,” Kane began. “Sooner or later, those folks out there are going to figure where you went and work out a way to open that door. Once that happens...”
Still studying his golden baton in the darkness of the pump room, King Jack nodded sadly. “You’re right,” he said. “Of course you’re right.”
“You said there was someone,” Kane recalled. “Guy by the name of Wertham. Troublemaker, maybe.”
Jack nodded. “It began when I lost my son,” he said. “I became reckless. Part of me sought revenge for what had happened to him.”
“What happened?” Grant asked.
Jack looked up at the two Cerberus warriors for the first time, and they could see the sadness in his eyes. “My son, Neal, was a brave lad,” Jack said. “He had an explorer’s heart—he was like me in that respect. He was born here, in Authentiville, but he craved experience. He wanted to see more than these walls could offer him.
“He wasn’t alone in that, I should add. It’s just...” The old king sighed.
Kane picked up the sentence for him. “Not all of them were your son.”
“Precisely,” Jack said, gravely nodding. “It’s selfish, isn’t it? But I suppose that’s how humans are.
“Like a lot of those born here, my son went on scouting missions as soon as he was old enough,” Jack continued, “returning to the surface to search for lost artifacts from alien visitors. There was a war at that time, an ongoing and bloody conflict over territory and belief. They called it the Crusades, kings and noblemen sending armies across continents to annex lands that held cultural significance for their worldview.”
Kane knew something of the Crusades. They were campaigns during the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries by Europeans, blessed by the Pope, to regain access to the so-called holy places spoken of in the Christian Bible, such as Jerusalem. Great armies of Roman Catholics were combined in this endeavor, from England, France and Germany, motivated by a fear that the Holy Land would become overrun by the enemies of Christianity. The Crusades were characterized by bloody skirmishes, and the campaigns lasted over two hundred years under various rulers with various specific aims. Perhaps the most iconic figures of the age were the armored knights who made up a small proportion of Richard the Lionheart’s army during the Third Crusade in 1189.
Though limited, Kane’s knowledge gave him an indication of how old Jack’s story was, and how long ago it had been since he lost his son. Had Brigid been here, Kane lamented, she would no doubt have had all the facts at hand.
“This war—or wars,” Jack continued, “concerned a number of so-called sacred objects. The true nature of these items was often rather different from the stories told about them—many were legacy items left over from alien incursions onto the planet Earth. The attraction for our scouts was enormous.
“Neal went to join the crusade in a place called Acre, on Haifa Bay,” the king recalled.
Acre, Haifa Bay, August 1191
THE STARMAN’S ARMOR had lost none of its luster, thought James Henry as he watched him stave off another wave of the local militia. The familiar clang of meeting swords echoed through the afternoon stillness, the heat of the day mixing with the heat of battle and turning the city of Acre into a bloody mess of the wounded and the dead. The Lionheart’s forces had finally gained entry into the city for the first time in many months, and here they fought with the local army while women and children cowered behind locked doors.
It had been a year and a half since James had discovered the starman on that portentous night and incorporated him into the pilgrimage. They were the Faithful of Saint Peter and they had traveled far to regain entry to the holy places, an access that had been denied them for so many years by Saladin’s forces. They had come a long way from England’s green fields, and the Germans and the French, too.
Where the starman came from, no one really understood but he had sworn the votus before the king himself and taken the cloth crux to show his allegiance to their righteous cause. In their quieter moments, the starman had admitted he understood little of the army’s godly calling, and had joined them “to experience,” whatever that meant. Whatever it did, the starman fought like a force of nature, his heavy blade whirring in the air like a streak of lightning before hacking into the enemy with deadly precision. The enemy fought like demons, dressed in pretty-colored rags, but rags all the same.
The starman struck another down with his sicklelike sword, slicing the man open from chest to groin in a brutal downward sweep of the heavy blade. Gold-tinted green, the blade, like the man’s armor, showed no signs of wear, despite the battles it had fought, the corpses it had created. The starman turned as the horde of enemies surrounded him, turning his blade in a two-handed grip before driving it through the chest of the bearded figure sneaking up behind him. He struck with a measured patience, his gaze fixed on the distance, shrugging off the blows of his attackers until he could reach and repel them.
James, too, was fighting, using his own sword to meet the curved blade of a lieutenant in Saladin’s army, a man with a bald head and wide streaks of gray in his ringlets of beard. Despite his gray beard, the lieutenant fought with the vigor of a man half his age, parrying every thrust James sent, driving the crusader back toward Acre’s walls. They were inside the city and the sand-colored walls were spattered with red streaks where warriors clashed, turning the place into a bloody painting.
The starman’s blade swung in an arc of gold, slicing two foes in one move, cutting the first clean through the torso before meeting with the hips of his companion. The first slumped to the ground screaming, his body split into two parts, blood painting the area where it fell. The second man, a kerchief over his face and a hood pulled low over his hair, shouted a curse as the sword was pulled from his hip. He buckled to the ground as the damaged leg gave way.
The starman moved on, jabbing behind with his sword’s pommel and striking another foe’s forehead with such force that it left an indentation in the skull.
The enemy were swarming on the starman, babbling over and over in their own tongue, “The hunter in gold! The hunter in gold!”
Nearby, other Europeans had entered the city. The army was made up of soldiers and knights, and waves of them had fallen to the enemy’s arrows while others were even now being beaten back by sword and mace.
The local soldiers came at the Europeans with all manner of weapons, holding the line as the intruders tried to move forward.
Something had been set alight close to the city gates, producing a line of flames across the street like a barricade. Knights and horses charged on, while soldiers tried to smother the flames with blankets.
James Henry pivoted on his left foot, shifting his weight and bringing himself back, causing his attacker to overreach. The Muslim lunged with his blade, driving it past Henry and almost tripping over his own feet as the weapon struck the wall.
Henry stepped into the space left by his enemy’s feeble attack, stabbing his own blade forward in a horizontal thrust that split the man’s torso between his ribs. The local staggered back, his body cinched to the end of the holy knight’s blade, and James watched grimly as blood bubbled between the man’s yellowed teeth. Then he drew his sword from the man, kicking out with one armored leg to force the enemy away. The Muslim soldier fell back, collapsing to the dusty ground, free hand gripped around his ruined chest as his blood flowed across the soil.
From behind him, Henry heard a yelp of surprise, and he turned immediately, trusting the fallen Muslim to die. What he saw chilled his heart. The starman was caught up in what appeared to be a fishing net, and when Henry scanned above him he saw men and women on the roofs of the buildings, smiling grimly at their catch. The net was weighted at its edges. Two of their own number were caught in the net, as well, one man half sticking out from the side closest to James, arms and h
ead beyond the reach of the weave, the heavy netting having forced him to the ground.
The starman was on his knees, unable to hold himself upright beneath the weight of the net. His golden armor shone through the holes in the net, glowing like a pillar of angelic fire.
“He’s down!” Henry cried, scanning for his compatriots where they fought in the city streets. “The starman’s down!” He ran even as he shouted the words, scrambling across a road decorated with a half-dozen corpses, his sword trailing low to his body.
Three locals turned to face James, blocking his path with weapons at the ready. Two of the locals held curved scimitars while a third had some kind of twin-headed axe, its head better suited to cutting firewood than doing battle. All three men were dressed in dark colors, two blue and the third in robes of green and black.
Without slowing, James Henry brought his sword up in a punishing arc, hacking through the jaw of the axe-wielder. The man’s face erupted in a fracture of blood, teeth flying in all directions and he stumbled back.
Henry leaped over the falling figure, bringing his broadsword around to face his next target, the scimitar man dressed in green and black. Curved blade clashed with straight as the two met, the local spitting some curse in his own tongue at the Englishman. Henry said nothing, shoving with all his might against his foe’s curved scimitar and forcing him to give ground.
The other guard—the one in indigo robes—saw his chance and leaped at Henry as he clashed with his ally. The first blow struck James Henry across the left shoulder and his armor gave off a shower of brilliant sparks.
Henry grunted with annoyance, his own attack marginalized as he was forced to give ground. His sword was still locked with the first man’s scimitar, so he stepped back, hooking his sword with a flourish that wrong-footed and disarmed his foe.
The weaponless figure staggered, shouting something at the crusader and reaching into his billowing green robes to produce a short dirk whose razor-sharp blade glinted in the sunlight.
James Henry spun, whipping his sword up to meet with another man’s scimitar as it hooked through the air for his head. He met the blade low on his own, deflecting the strike with a blow so powerful that both men felt it shake their bones.
The other came at him with the dirk, and Henry lashed at him with his free hand, weakening the power he could give to his sword strikes for a moment as he backhanded the man. The fool went down in a billowing flurry of green-and-black robes like the unlatching of a mainsail.
Henry’s allies were appearing now, two armored knights along with several modestly dressed footmen. Several swarmed onto the fallen figure with the dirk, driving him back to the ground before he could stand, beating at him with fists, feet and blades.
“Our...star,” James Henry instructed as he fenced away another low swipe from the scimitar. The words came hard, breathless. He could only hope that his meaning was clear.
Then the scimitar clanged against Henry’s armor, high on the shoulder, and he felt a bite at his neck. His dark-clad foe was sneering as he stepped back, eyes fixed on the foreigner invader’s throat.
In that moment, everything seemed to stop. Even the sounds of battle became distant. Henry stopped, too, feeling for his neck with his open palm. It was wet with sweat, the same way it always was in this abominable climate. But when he pulled his hand away he saw the redness on it, and when he turned he saw the same red running down his armored sleeve in a double line.
The man with the scimitar barreled at Henry again, knocking into him with his head held low to his shoulders and throwing the two of them back. Henry slammed against the ground with his attacker atop him, felt the weight slip from his hand as he let go of his sword.
Above him, the local devil held his curved blade aloft and shouted something in his own language before bringing the blade back down in a cruel arc. Henry turned away from the blade as it came down at his head, and in that moment he saw the starman had been lifted in the netting, up off the street. Still in the netting, he hung a few feet from the lip of the rooftop along with one of the enemy, his golden armor shining brightly within those crisscrossed lines, his trapped foe dead. He looked like a snared angel.
A moment later, the knife hit James Henry in the forehead and his vision fractured into a wall of red and black. He would not be going home, would not see England’s green fields ever again, and that was something that, had he lived, he would always have regretted.
* * *
SALADIN’S ENEMIES HAD respect enough to consider him a military mastermind, despite their different beliefs. Whether that was true or not, Saladin could not say. But he was smart enough to appreciate that he had surrounded himself with fanatics, and fanatics tended toward narrow-mindedness.
“We have a chance to kill the hunter in gold, their false savior,” one of said fanatics told Saladin as the sultan sat in his planning room with his generals, pouring over a map of Haifa Bay.
The map was scored with marks where strategies had been proposed and discarded. The foreign armies had been knocking at their door for close to two years, and Saladin was beginning to wonder if redrawing the map would be easier than losing yet more of his troops to the knights who led their charges. Frankly, it was getting hard to tell which side had the most fanatics.
Saladin’s fanatic, a soldier charged with guarding Acre, was dressed in loose brown robes wrapped in layers around his body, with a kerchief that could be pulled up over his mouth and nostrils should the wind pick up and throw sand in the air. “The one who wears armor made of purest sunlight,” the fanatic said with typical wide-eyed excitement. He smelled of sweat, even from here, bringing the reek of a soldier’s existence into these perfumed quarters where incense had been so carefully employed to mask the stink.
Saladin, middle-aged and feeling the weight of years and rich food, repressed a sigh and repeated what the lackey had said in a tone of disdain. “‘Armor of purest sunlight’?” He stroked thoughtfully at his long, thick beard. The beard seemed to be more gray each time he looked in a mirror; so much so, he wondered if he should invest some of the wealth that being sultan of Egypt and Syria had granted him in a better class of mirror. “You make it sound as though this warrior was being bathed in the light of Allah himself.”
“He fought as though he was,” the lackey said, spitting on the floor to emphasize his point. “Killed fourteen of my men, two of my own brothers.”
Saladin didn’t bother to repress his sigh that time. He appreciated that these fanatics could get so very worked up, but it was beyond the pale when they started to be unhygienic merely to add emphasis to a statement. Where had all that started, anyway?
“We stopped him,” the fanatic continued without noticing his commander’s disgust. “Netted him like a fish. He struggles but he cannot get free.”
“And does this glorious sun-clad warrior have a name?” Saladin asked.
“Better than that,” the fanatic said, his smile revealing crooked front teeth, one of which was missing entirely. “He has a grave waiting. By your command, of course.”
Saladin rolled his eyes, repressing a sigh. “Of course.”
* * *
SALADIN TOOK NO pleasure in overseeing the execution of the man in the golden armor. The captive looked young, and he was handsome in his way, with sun-bronzed skin and a chestnut beard. But his skin and his beard and his armor were all marred with blood, and there was a black stain across the fantastic armor where it had been burned.
However, it was his eyes that drew Saladin’s attention. They were like an animal’s eyes now, the wild look of someone who was losing more blood than a man could endure. He was tied by the wrists to a post in the courtyard, and he had been forced—or perhaps had chosen—to stand as the sun set over the walls of the fort.
Saladin stood close and pitched his voice at a low level. “What did they do to you?”
he asked with genuine concern.
“Everything,” the prisoner replied. He spoke with an accent, though he had mastered their tongue. “They’re afraid of me.”
“Yes,” Saladin agreed. “Already you have become a figure of mythology—the hunter in gold.”
The enemy looked at Saladin with fierce defiance in his eyes. “You’re making a huge miscalculation,” he said. “If you kill me—if you are able—more will come, and they will wipe you from the face of the earth.”
Feet together, Saladin bowed respectfully to the hunter in gold, little more than the slightest nod of his turbaned head. “I have heard such threats before,” he said, “and have no doubt I shall hear them again. If I do not—if you are right—then perhaps we shall meet again on another battlefield and laugh at how foolish I must have seemed at this moment to you.”
The hunter in gold looked defiant. “Perhaps.”
“You have suffered enough,” Saladin told him. “Death is never kind, but it can be quick. I will insist upon that.”
“You will try,” the starman said. “But your men will fail. They cannot remove my armor. It’s genetically tuned to my skin, there’s no way for you to release me from it.”
Wearily, Saladin shook his head. “Then you make it hard on yourself,” he said regretfully. “Tell me, hunter in gold—what do your people call you?”
“Some call me starman,” the prisoner replied. “My father named me Neal.”
Saying nothing, Saladin bowed respectfully before turning away from the prisoner. What he told his lieutenants and what they chose to do, with the eyes of the fanatics watching, were two different things. But war makes monsters of the most humble of men sometimes.
Authentiville, Cosmic Rift
“WHEN NEAL’S REPORTS ceased entirely, I took a scouting party planet-side. When we found him, my son was in pieces,” King Jack finished sorrowfully. “Unable to remove his armor, those animals had starved him and let him die under the heat of the sun. They had pulled apart his dried body using horses, one tied to each limb while his body was nailed to the spot.”