Countdown to Armageddon

by Edward M. Lerner

  A loaf of stonelike bread soared like a volleyball through the briefly open door. It broke in half when it landed; dizzied worms crawled out of the pieces. “How about some decent food in here?” Terrence bellowed in disgust.

  A scream came down the hall as though in answer. The cry trailed off into a gurgle, then stopped. Bootsteps and a dragging sound approached their door. “You want food? I’ll give you fresh meat.” The door opened briefly; this time a man careened through. “Enjoy.”

  They turned over their new cellmate. Harry blanched: The man was dead. Blood bubbled from the jagged slash across his throat.

  Harry fought the nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. This wasn’t the time for weakness. The poor bastard at their feet might just be their ticket out of here.

  But they had to act before rigor mortis set in.

  TOLEDO, 730

  Jabir leaned unhappily against the tree trunk to which he had been bound.

  In accordance with the letter, al-Ghafiqi had commanded all who had accompanied him to stand back one hundred paces from the tree. Now they watched and waited. Many kept watch on the edges of the broad field, not the old cork oak at its center, lest he had been lured out of the city on a ruse.

  At Jabir’s feet, just beyond kicking range, lay the claylike mass from the package. Stiff ropelike objects and other even less familiar items from the box had been assembled according to the letter’s odd instructions. al-Ghafiqi watched and watched; he gradually began to feel foolish. Was he the victim of some strange prank? Who would dare such a . . . ?

  A great roar erupted, loud enough to make fearless warriors clap hands to their ears in pain. The ground beneath his feet shook. Clouds of dust hid the tree that just a moment earlier had been the focus of his attention. Clods of dirt and splinters of wood rained down from the sky.

  He began to understand as a bloody gob of flesh landed at his feet.

  NORTHERN AQUITAINIA, 730

  “Aiiiehhh!” Terrence screeched, his voice clawing its way up the scale. “Help! Save me!”

  Heavy footsteps rushed to their door. The wooden beam that held them in was flung aside. Ahmad, the warrior who had captured them, peered in, scimitar in hand.

  Harry crouched behind wooden boxes, out of sight. The cooling corpse was on the boxes. The slit on his throat grinned like an obscene second mouth.

  Terrence howled, “It’s not dead. It’s not dead. It killed my friend.” He trembled fearfully, sidling toward the warrior, as though for protection.

  Ahmad’s eyes swiveled back and forth between Terrence and the corpse. He stepped closer to prod the cadaver with his blade.

  Harry jabbed the corpse in the thigh with the recharged Leyden jar. The leg kicked.

  Ahmad turned and fled. The jailers who had observed from behind ran after, screaming. The door stayed open.

  Harry and Terrence ran for the stairs that led to the ground level and—if they were very lucky—freedom.

  They were almost to the top of the stairs when someone blocked their path. A scar-faced man with a wicked scimitar in his hand and an even more evil smile. He opened his mouth to speak—

  A crock flung from behind shattered on his head. He went down like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Kitchen slops dribbled down his head and chest.

  A woman dressed in rags motioned them forward. “Come,” she whispered in good Frankish. “But do it quickly.”

  Before they knew what she planned, she took the Saracen’s dagger and slit his throat.

  Harry had spent many a youthful Saturday morning watching old movies. The time had not been wasted. He knew instinctively to scatter the bad guys’ horses.

  On their three stolen mounts, Harry, Terrence, and Bertha got a good head start.

  Unless Bertha knew more woodcraft than the men she had saved, that head start would not be enough. Harry pictured them wandering aimlessly through the woods until caught. The roads were not an option: They dare not risk being seen and turned in. The Aquitainians were clearly cooperating with Faisel.

  The forest was too thick to navigate by the stars—even Terrence could have found the Big Dipper and the North Star. Stopping to feel the trees for moss on their north sides just didn’t seem like a winning strategy.

  Their only plan was to head north, to Francia. They had found Faisel and his private army. Now they needed allies—lots of them—to stop the madman.

  On the first night of their escape, Harry stopped abruptly as they came to a clearing. Necessity was the mother of invention, and they had some serious mothers chasing them. Dropping his reins, he slid to the ground. “I’ve got an idea.”

  The stars overhead sparkled like diamonds. Locating Polaris, he knelt and poked his ballpoint pen—tipped northward—into the dirt. “Your fire starter,” he demanded of Bertha. She looked confused, but handed over her flint-and-steel set. To Terrence he added in English, “Bear with me. I’m improvising a compass.”

  Harry rapped Bertha’s tool repeatedly against the steel shaft of his half-buried pen. With each blow, some small fraction of the iron atoms in the steel-barreled pen aligned with the Earth’s magnetic field. The result was a weak—but possibly functional—magnet. It would work until jostled roughly, which would undo the fragile alignments.

  Harry pulled a thread out of his handkerchief. He retrieved the pen, tied the fiber around the pen’s middle, and slid the knot back and forth until the pen teetered parallel to the ground. He held his breath as the pen slowly swung toward the North Star.

  It worked.

  He remounted. “Well, what’s everyone waiting for?” He glanced at the dangling pen. “North is thatta way.”

  Bertchramm was leading a patrol when he heard voices. He signaled to the men to scatter among the trees before hiding himself.

  His dog, for inexplicable reasons, did not join him.

  “Lupus,” he hissed. Rather than come, the mastiff bounded into the forest toward the voices. Cursing under his breath, Bertchramm followed warily.

  The dog began to yip. This was strange.

  What Bertchramm saw next made him throw caution to the winds. Bertha, his dead brother’s child. Lupus was leaping with joy at her horse’s feet, practically knocking it over.

  As he approached, Bertha’s condition became evident. Her face was bruised, her hair matted, her clothes filthy tatters. The rags hung on her gaunt frame. His blood boiled as he saw how her garments had been repeatedly ripped and badly repaired. Francisca in hand, he charged.

  Bertha urged her horse forward between Bertchramm and the two strangers. “No! They helped me escape.”

  Bertchramm yanked on the reins to avoid trampling his niece. Tears in his eyes, he dropped the heavy ax and dismounted. When Bertha dismounted, she could barely stand. What she must have been through . . .

  Ignoring the strangers, and his men now arriving in his wake, Bertchramm enfolded Bertha in his arms.

  Voices rose and fell around the fire. Happy voices. Not a few of them drunken voices. The Frankish war party was numerous enough to feel secure in the forest, and they were basking in the afterglow of victory. A group of Saracen raiders had stormed across the Aquitainian border in pursuit of the escapees—

  Straight into an ambush.

  This time it was the raiders who perished to the last man.

  Harry and Terrence raised their cups in yet another toast. Neither could remember how many drinks they had had. If the encampment had had a table, any of the Franks could have drunk them under it.

  Bertchramm would not stop praising them for Bertha’s rescue. That she had as much rescued them seemed not to matter. Almost his first act was to replace their stolen swords with extra weapons carried by the troop.

  They both had had the opportunity to use their new arms, and their painfully won skills, in the grim business of the ambush.

  The revel
ry continued through the night, with only the revelers changing as sentries came on and off duty. The heroes of the day were spared sentry duty—which meant that much more time to be plied with wine.

  And so Harry and Terrence were groggy when Bertchramm finally made his offer. “I am overdue for a meeting with my lord, the major domus. We ride at dawn.

  “Having saved Bertha, you are my friends for life. As enemies of the Saracens, you are friends too of the Franks. Ride with us.”

  “How will Karl welcome us outlanders?” Terrence asked.

  “With the news you bear of the great enemy encampment so near his southern border, I can promise that he will listen to you with great interest.”

  TOLEDO, 730

  A horn rang out in the distant woods; the sound tore al-Ghafiqi from his stunned shock. With shouts and shoves, he quickly organized his escort into a defensive line. Still dazed from what he had just experienced, he had no idea against what he might have to defend. Or whether there was any defense against it.

  His fears proved groundless. Only four horsemen emerged from the woods, their hands empty of weapons. Of recognizable weapons, he corrected himself sternly. Still, let any enemy come close enough to his cold steel and he could give good account of himself.

  The four riders drew near. One of the four drew ahead of his fellows. Smaller than the rest, he was nonetheless clearly the leader. He had eyes that looked right through a man. “I would speak to al-Ghafiqi. Alone.”

  “Say what you want, here. I have no secrets from my officers.”

  “But Salah-ad-Din has many secrets.”

  Hands flew to sword hilts at the name; al-Ghafiqi was not alone in his anger. Still, this was intriguing. He would not have the marauder dead before better understanding these events. He shouted to his men to hold fast.

  “A wise leader,” Salah-ad-Din said. “Had I meant any harm to you and your men, I need only to have failed to mention how far back you should stand from Jabir. Or directed you to assemble my gift within your office.”

  There was no denying the truth of those statements. He and his officers would all be dead if such had been Salah-ad-Din’s intent. al-Ghafiqi pointed to a spot away from the raider’s men and his own. “There.” He cantered his Arabian stallion forward without awaiting an answer.

  The leaders spoke earnestly for several minutes, with Salah-ad-Din doing most of the talking. al-Ghafiqi’s anger and worry dissolved, much as they had during the midday prayers. And for the same reason—certainty filled him Allah would bring victory over the enemy.

  For his new ally possessed an irresistible new weapon. “My power makes what you have just seen seem no more than a man breaking wind in a sirocco.” He referred to the great desert sandstorms that blew for days, that stripped flesh from bone. The image made al-Ghafiqi’s skin crawl.

  But this awesome might would be used in Allah’s name, against Allah’s enemies. And Salah-ad-Din had more than his great weapon—he had a fiendish plan for its use.

  At last, al-Ghafiqi could contain his soaring spirits no longer. He shouted out his feelings, to this warrior, to his men, to the sky.

  “As Allah is my witness, we shall not fail. Against the two of us, the Firanji do not stand a chance.”

  PART III

  Only our concept of time makes it possible for us to speak of a Day of Judgment by that name; in reality, it is a summary court in perpetual session.

  —Franz Kafka

  ON THE FRANCIA/SAXONY BORDER, 730

  Karl, Pepin’s son, was a vigorous man in his early forties: for him the prime of his life. In these rough and perilous times, lesser men—if they survived—were old and wizened. Only Karl’s hair, shot through with streaks of gray, gave any suggestion of his age.

  The major domus shunned court dress, favoring plain linen breeches and tunic, and a simple fur jerkin beneath his cape. Only his jewel-encrusted belt and scabbard hinted at wealth and power. The famous ring of Arnulf glittered on one hand; the other bore his own seal ring.

  The Frankish leader projected an aura, a presence, the like of which Harry had never known. Karl’s gaze was intense, focused, penetrating.

  Right now, that stare was aimed straight at Harry, and he found it most unsettling.

  Karl had listened intently to news of the permanent Saracen base in Aquitania. Then, the strangers’ information absorbed, he seemed ready to set it aside. The pagan Saxons and Frisians massing to the north and northwest of the kingdom were more pressing concerns. Aquitania, the major domus had declared, must wait.

  That tepid reaction was exactly what Harry and Terrence had feared. Reluctantly, Harry had then described a great weapon possessed by the Saracens, a weapon that made the Moslems, indeed, the bigger threat. This explanation had been met with skepticism.

  Harry’s only option had been the double-edged sword of a demonstration. A successful exhibition might convince Karl to pay more attention to the Saracens. Would a too-compelling demo lead to accommodation with the coming invaders?

  Karl turned to look at the campfire at the center of the snow-covered clearing. “We would be more comfortable beside that blaze.” It sounded more like an order than an observation.

  Harry followed Karl’s gaze toward the fire. Crackling flames leapt and danced around a large crockery container. Was it Harry’s imagination, or had the vessel begun to wobble? The water inside the sealed pot had started to boil. It was going to work, but they had to stay back for their own safety.

  Terrence had suggested that Harry whip up some gunpowder. That would have been easy enough to do—which was precisely the problem. Gunpowder, if invented centuries too early, could not be uninvented. With explosives, the Franks would alter history just as radically, if perhaps not as dramatically, as whatever Faisel planned.

  Harry well remembered the swordsmith in Metz. It took no great feat of imagination to picture that craftsman fashioning a catapult-deliverable bomb or a primitive cannon. No, gunpowder must stay unknown a while longer. His demo would be effective without any direct military application.

  “Just a moment longer, my lord.” Indeed, the crockery was rocking vigorously as the water inside seethed. Steam pressure was building within the inch-thick baked clay. Feeling silly even as he did it, Harry crossed his fingers. The demonstration would be much more dramatic if the plug he had fastened with home-brewed glue did not give way before the pottery did.

  Boom.

  Potsherds spanged everywhere. A jagged bit of crockery whistled past Harry and embedded itself in a tree. Flaming brands lay all about, scattered by the boiler explosion.

  Warriors scattered almost as quickly as the clay shrapnel; not so Karl, who tugged thoughtfully at his moustache. “Interesting. You say this Salah-ad-Din has a more dangerous device?” A newfound respect had entered his voice. Whether the respect was for Harry or Salah-ad-Din was unclear.

  “Yes, my lord. Much more dangerous. Fortunately, he has but one such weapon, and it cannot be replaced.” Harry lied with, he hoped, great sincerity about an extremely rare material formed only when ball lightning engulfed an emerald during an eclipse. It was a metaphoric truth about plutonium’s rarity, more comprehensible than the literal truth. This was a civilization that had only recently discovered the sundial. “We must find a way to prevent the bomb’s use. It would be best if we could somehow seize and destroy it.”

  Karl laughed disdainfully at the sheepish-looking men now beginning to filter back from among the surrounding trees. “I am convinced.”

  From the narrowing of Karl’s eyes, Harry suspected that the Frank was mostly convinced that he should seize the weapon for his own use.

  THE PYRENEES, 732

  The forces of God flowed through the mountain pass, as irresistible as the tide, as uncountable as the stars in the night sky. Well-trained battle mounts trotted forward almost silently. Behind the horsemen came hundreds of wag
ons. The vehicles groaned from the weight of supplies that they carried. Soon enough, much of the food would be gone, and they would instead be filled with plunder. The wagons would not long be needed for food, since the Bedouin and Berber warriors would stay on as an army of conquest.

  al-Ghafiqi and Salah-ad-Din sat side by side on their fine Arabian stallions. From their vantage point at the crest of the pass, they watched in pride and awe as the panoply of their forces rode by. Each squad shouted to God’s glory as it rode by: “Allah akbar.” God, indeed, is very great.

  Downhill to the north lay the territory of their ally, Count Odo of Aquitania.

  The count was about to receive a big surprise.

  REIMS, 732

  Terrence was in rare form tonight. The courtiers at the royal palace beat the tables with their golden flagons, demanding more of the saga of Berto Crusoe, the shipwrecked sailor, and his slave Freitag. Unseen womenfolk listened just as eagerly around a corner in the hallway, giggles revealing their presence. Some bold one among them called out for more, only to initiate shushing noises and nervous laughter.

  That rare moment of female bravado reminded Terrence of Bertha. Two years of medieval life had given him a whole new view on women’s rights.

  He no longer told fables for a living. His tour of Francia was an enlistment drive; stories gathered an audience so that recruiting could begin. Karl could not justify calling in more of the feudal levies until open hostilities began.

  Terrence hoped that his adventure tales were also subliminal lures to join the fight. He looked to this evening’s host for guidance. Theodoric, the fourth king to bear that name, and the most recent of a long-lived dynasty, nodded regally: Proceed.

  The king’s flowing beard was decidedly un-Frankish. Instead of Frankish linen or wool, the monarch wore silks imported from Constantinople, with gold thread decorating his sleeves. Rings adorned every finger, a large golden brooch fastened his cloak, and a diadem graced his long and narrow head. His palace brimmed with what this era considered luxuries: rugs, tapestries, ivory plaques, great bronze bowls and glassware from the Mediterranean. While he and his courtiers frolicked, his major domus and the real men of Francia guarded the kingdom.