Lucy's Blade

by John Lambshead

  A voice from the past came into William's head. "The keys to power are women and horses and fire and steel, and the strongest of them all are women." His father had been fond of quoting that to his young son. At the time, he had not understood, as women were weak and feeble things. By God, he understood now.

  And so it went on. Lucy parried, thrust, and slashed, running and jumping along the top of the narrow wall. William could discern her strategy. Height protected her from the hawklike talons on the monster's legs but it also restricted her movements. Lucy was dealing out blows but none of them were lethal. Wounds only seemed to anger the monsters.

  The lethal steps continued. Simon remembered Lucy dancing the haute dance at the Tower, the lavolta. Lucy and the demons danced a vicious lavolta, where the slightest misstep could cost her life. The demons only had to get it right once. Lucy had to get it right every time.

  A monster overstretched its head in a lunge at the girl and her blade came up. The feathered serpent was wary of the weapon and jerked its neck back. The blade threat was a ruse. Lucy kicked the serpent under the chin. Unbalanced, it tumbled away from the wall.

  Its partner turned, with an incredulous expression, to watch its compatriot fall. Lucy jumped on top of the wedge-shaped head. She reversed her dagger so it pointed downwards and thrust down, ferociously. The weapon skewered deep between the monster's eyes.

  The beast reared in its death agony. Lucy was thrown violently across the precinct. She landed badly. The girl climbed to her feet slowly. The last serpent raced towards her undeterred by the fate of its colleagues. It hit her in a whirlwind of teeth, claws and taloned feet. Lucy slapped each challenge away with her blade but the girl was almost entirely defensive now. She was visibly faltering.

  William raised his sword high and looped it round his head to attract the men's attention. The demon caught Lucy with a vicious blow that spun her to the ground. Blood splashed across her tunic.

  "England, Elizabeth, and Saint George!" William launched himself across the precinct.

  The demons were terrifying but the Swallows were Elizabeth's sea dogs. They feared nothing that walked the earth or sailed the seas, because they had never met anything more frightening than themselves. As one man, they charged after their captain.

  William heard a few battle cries of "Lucy, Lucy," in amongst the rest. The monster stood over her. Its head whipped from side to side confused by the roar of the charging sailors. Lucy lifted herself on one hand, and in a single fluid motion pushed the glowing dagger deep into the demon's bowels. Then the girl collapsed.

  The demon whistled a fluting wail of anguish. It snapped at the wound. Yellow eyes with vertically slit pupils focussed on Lucy's still form. The demon raised its taloned foot to crush her.

  The sailors hit the beast first, forcing it back. Billmen jabbed at it with the points of their weapons, and made slashing cuts with the bills' cruel hooks. The monster seemed more confused than hurt by the men's attentions. A sailor got too close and was crushed between snapping jaws. He died so fast that he didn't even scream. Then the rest of the sailors swarmed around the beast. Their weapons cut ribbons of flesh off the serpent but it did not seem to notice.

  "It's dragging its left side. Lucy has hurt it. Maybe we can wear it down," said William. A crossbow bolt whipped past him and buried itself in a sailor's chest. Isabella's mercenaries had joined the mayhem.

  At that point the gunner entered the fray. He was no longer a young man and the heavy object at his side slowed him down. He carried a boarding gun, built to his own design by a gunsmith in Plymouth. Five barrels were linked to a single trigger. The gunner himself had loaded each barrel with the finest ground powder and the truest balls.

  He bided his time and then thrust the muzzles of the gun under the chin of the beast as it chopped another sailor in half. He pulled the trigger and the pampered weapon repaid his loving care by firing every barrel. Not a single misfire. Balls smashed through the creature's neck but the real damage was done by the blast. Super-heated air and burning powder melted the demon's flesh like snow in the sun.

  "Guns will stop anything," said the gunner.

  The monster's head dangled off its neck by a strip of flesh. It was in a bad way now, stumbling around while the sailors chopped at it like soldier ants around a scorpion. It still managed to deal the gunner a clout, knocking him down. The boatswain grabbed a halberd from a sailor and hacked repeatedly at the demon's damaged neck, until the flesh parted. It took a little while for the separated bits to accept the fact, but gradually the demon died.

  Lilith worked frantically to repair Lucy's metabolism. The magical energy leaking from the crystal to help her stabilise the girl and restore her abilities. 'Lucy, can you get up? We have to find, Isabella, before she works more magic.'

  'I feel sick,' thought Lucy. 'How come we're still alive?'

  'Our men deceived you,' thought Lilith. 'Instead of retreating, they charged the last demon. Obviously, you failed to convince them.'

  'How dare they disbelieve me,' thought Lucy, indignantly.

  'You were lying,' Lilith reminded her.

  'That's not the point,' thought Lucy.

  Lilith was losing track of what the point was. 'We have to find Isabella and stop her. She will be by the crystal.'

  Lucy retrieved her blade and climbed to her feet. She came face to face with an Italian mercenary, who thrust his sword at her in reflex.

  "Ragazza da sogno," he said, gallantly, pulling his sword back and kissing the blade, "bella ragazza."

  'What?' thought Lucy, who did not speak Italian.

  'He says that you are his dream girl and very beautiful,' thought Lilith.

  "Galente, senor," she replied, in Spanish.

  The man smiled and blowing her a kiss, disappeared into the fighting. Lucy moved though the battle, which flowed around her. Men turned aside to let her pass.

  Simon found himself duelling with a mercenary demiarmoured in helmet and breastplate. The man thrust at him with a sword. Simon sidestepped deftly and carefully ran the Italian through the throat. All round him men hacked and slashed at each other. The mercenaries were well armed and armoured but the sailors ripped through them.

  A man cut at his head. Simon ducked and slashed back in reflex. He hit something but had no idea what damage, if any, that he had inflicted. The eddies of the fight swirled him away too quickly. Where was Lucy? Simon thought that she had fallen nearby but could not see her. This was the first battle he had ever been in. It was nothing like the classical descriptions of warfare. All was noise and confusion. He had no idea who was winning.

  A huge punch in the back forced him to his knees. Whatever it was had failed to penetrate his armour as he was still alive. Simon forgot all pretence of being a gentleman trained in the higher arts of duelling. He jabbed and slashed at anything that tried to stop him.

  A mercenary stumbled into him. The man thrust at him with short pike. Simon parried the blow. The mercenary drew back for another thrust. A loud clang rang out and the mercenary went down on his knees, losing his helmet. A sailor came out of nowhere and smashed the Italian a second time over the head with a wooden club. The seaman grinned at Simon toothlessly. There was a thud and the sailor slipped forward over his victim silently. A crossbow bolt protruded from his back.

  Lucy spotted Isabella by the crystal outcrop. She threaded her way through the fighting men. Isabella stood in a patch of calm among the battle.

  Isabella chanted something and waved her arms.

  "You look like a demented windmill, madam. Have you no sense of dignity?" asked Lucy.

  "You turn up here in my special place dressed like a sailor's trollop, knock down doors, and start waving a knife around, and you talk to me of dignity?" asked Isabella. "But at least you have brought a ship with you. That will be useful. I had to sink mine when the cowards tried to flee after I went ashore."

  'That was why there was no second attack on the Swallow,' thought Lucy. 'She preferred
to use her power for revenge.'

  "My own commander of mercenaries refused to shoot you down like you deserve," said Isabella, spitefully. "I will deal with him after I have finished you off."

  'She is a vengeful woman,' thought Lilith. 'I doubt she is entirely sane.'

  "Nothing to say, Lady Dennys?" said Isabella. "Last time we met, I said that you had a surplus of energy but you have lost most of it now, haven't you?"

  Isabella made one last pass with her hands. Her body glowed with energy. She spread her arms and a bubble of energy spread out from her pushing the soldiers and sailors. Lucy and the Spanish witch stood inside their own private duelling ground.

  Isabella pulled a sword from a sheath inside her petticoats and assumed a duelling position. The sword glowed silver, static electricity flickering in blue crackles up and down the blade.

  'Oh dear,' thought Lilith. 'We are rather power-drained, Lucy. This might be a problem. I shouldn't energise your body again so soon.'

  'Really!' thought Lucy. 'Shall I ask her for an adjournment? I suggest you do something rapidly, demon, as that bitch means to skewer us.'

  Lilith pumped power back into the girl.

  Isabella made a straight thrust at Lucy's chest. The girl parried it and stepped back to maintain distance. Isabella continued to attack, testing the girl's defence with high, low, left, and right lunges. Lucy was forced back. The girl could not get close enough to counterattack. As soon as she closed, Isabella cut at her, forcing her to parry and back away. Lucy was soon panting hard and the energy running through her body began to flicker.

  Isabella grinned. "What, no merry quip or little homily, Lady Dennys? I think that you are just a frightened little girl who now realises that she was acting above her station."

  'You need to finish this quickly, Lucy. We are running out of power,' Lilith said.

  'What do you suggest, demon? That sword completely outreaches my dagger.' Lucy parried another lunge. 'All right, I have a cunning plan, God help me.'

  Isabella made a couple of halfhearted cuts to the girl's head. Lucy knocked them away with her blade. Then, Isabella lunged straight for Lucy's neck; this was a serious attack and the witch was fully committed. Lucy turned, deflecting the sword fractionally with her blade so that it missed her by inches. Then she stepped in towards Isabella, continuing the spin until her dagger struck at Isabella's side. The blade touched the glowing shield that surrounded Isabella—and it erupted in a flash of energy.

  On paper, the battle between the soldiers and the sailors was a foregone conclusion. Men who were disciplined, experienced, heavily armed and clad in demiarmour, outnumbered the Swallows. The sailors wore no armour and carried a variety of weapons, some quite primitive in function. And yet, it was the mercenaries who gave ground before the ferocity of the sailors. It was the mercenaries who were clubbed, stabbed, and cut. It was the mercenaries who fell and died. The Swallows showed why Elizabeth's sea dogs were the terror of the northern ocean.

  The cry went up, "Cediamo," and "Arresti il combattimento."

  None of this meant much to the English who continued to attack the soldiers until the mercenary officer yelled in English, "Quarter. We yield. We ask quarter."

  The officer stood in front of William holding out his sword hilt. A battle-mad sailor tried to run the officer through but William pushed the man away.

  "Cease fighting. Give them quarter," yelled William.

  A sailor ignored his captain and cut the throat of a wounded mercenary.

  "Boatswain! Hang the next man who disobeys my order. I'll have some discipline out of these whoresons." William would do it too, and they knew it.

  William took the sword from the Italian officer but he offered it back, hilt first. "I accept your surrender, sir, but you fought well. Please retain your weapon."

  The man would need his sword to maintain authority amongst his own soldiers. It was in William's interests for the officer to keep the surrendered mercenaries in line.

  The man bowed. "And to whom do I have the honour of addressing, sir?"

  "I am Captain William Hawkins of the Swallow. The Swallow is part of the battle fleet of John Hawkins, my cousin."

  The Italian officer cheered up. To surrender to an unknown heretic pirate would have been a disgrace that might have been the end of the mercenary's career. But William was a cousin of Admiral Hawkins, which therefore made him a relative of the great Francis Drake himself. To have crossed swords with a cousin of El Draco and lived, even if you did have to surrender to him, was positively career enhancing.

  "Tell me something, sir," said William. "Why did you prevent your men shooting at our champion, the Lady Dennys? I saw you countermand the Lady Isabella's order."

  The officer turned his mouth down in elaborate distaste. "My men and I signed up for Spanish service to get rich, serve God, and kill heretics." At this point the officer made a small shrug of apology to William. The captain waved a hand to show that he understood, as one professional to another.

  "We gave no oaths to serve alongside demons or to shoot girls in the back," continued the officer.

  "Whatever your motives, sir, you bought quarter for your men with that act of chivalry."

  "And where is the maid?" asked the mercenary.

  Oh God, thought William, where is she?

  At that moment, a flash of light lit up the precinct and knocked the Italian over. "What in the name of the seven seas?" said William. He ran towards the explosion. Lucy was facedown on the ground. William knelt beside her and checked her neck. He couldn't find a pulse, nor did she seem to be breathing. "Come on, Lucy. Breathe for me." He tried the trick of blowing into her mouth but this time she didn't respond. He held her, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  "William," said Simon, putting his hand on the captain's shoulder.

  "She's dead, Simon," said William.

  There was a cough. Isabella was on her knees, head bent forward. A discarded sword lay in front of her. William gently put Lucy down, picked up the weapon, and held it against Isabella's neck.

  "You evil papist witch. You finally got her. You waited until she was exhausted from killing four demons and then you murdered her." William drew the sword back. This was how they had executed Ann Boleyn.

  Simon went to intervene but Gwilym grabbed him. "Let the captain finish it. If Hawkins doesn't kill her, I will."

  William hesitated, sword back ready to strike. He had killed many times in battle and had once hung a sailor but he had never killed a woman before. Then he had a thought.

  "Lilith! Lilith can take Lucy to a safe place and shut her body down. That's what she did in the River Crouch. Lilith needed air to bring her back to life." William dropped the sword and cradled Lucy's body. "What do you need, Lilith? It's not air is it? What do you need this time to bring her back? Show me a sign."

  Lucy still held her dagger gripped in her hand. It began to glow, just like it had in the river estuary. "The blade," said William. "Lucy's blade is the key. What do I do with it, Lilith?" The light from the dagger dimmed and went out. "What do I do, Lilith?" pleaded William.

  "Lilith can't have enough power to keep the blade glowing," said Simon.

  "Power! That's it, Lilith is out of power!" William said. "Where can we get power for a demon?"

  The crystal rocks thrust from the ground nearby. William pointed. "There! There is a source of great power."

  William carried Lucy reverently over to the rock formation. He put his large hand tightly around her small one, the one that gripped John Dee's dagger. Then he thrust the blade hard into the crystal and the world turned blue-white. A flash seared his eyes. He had the brief impression of falling until something hit him so hard on the chest that he couldn't breath. Then the blackness came.

  The sun seared William's eyes, making him shut them tighter. The light levels lowered again as something shaded him so he opened his eyes again. William took a little time to focus on Lucy's face.

  "What happened?" he asked. He
noticed that his voice was croaking.

  Lucy pointed to where crystal shards littered the ground. "You destroyed it when you thrust my blade in, releasing its energy. Lilith used the power to rebuild me, but you must have guessed she would do that. The flash of power hit you hard. You have been in a swoon for some little time."

  "Where is Isabella? I still have business with her." William's voice hardened.

  "Isabella was older than she appeared, William—much, much older." Lucy said. "The crystal was a fountain of youth, of sorts, and Isabella had clearly taken of it. When you destroyed the crystal, she reverted to her true age. She did not survive the conversion." Lucy shuddered.

  William sat up; the movement making his head spin, causing Lucy to steady him. There was something missing. "Lucy, where's the city?"

  "It's gone," she said. "The jungle has disappeared as well. Bimini is just another uninhabited Bahaman island. We are back here in the real world. We can go home, to England."

  William opened his mouth to ask another question but she touched his lips.

  "Shush," she said, pushing him flat on his back. "You need nurturing and I propose to start now."

  She lowered her face to his and kissed him. She kissed him and kissed him and kissed him.

  Act 22

  Endings And Beginnings

  The Master of Constructs minutely adjusted the rotation of a black hole. It hardly needed adjusting as the measured error was close to the tolerances of his equipment. However, it gave him something to do. They had expected the Traveller back within one or two thousand revolutions of the construct. After ten thousand revolutions without word, the project began to be wound down. After twenty thousand, only a skeleton staff remained.

  An Engineer approached him and opened communication using the frequency of respectful address to a superior. "How long will you continue to oversee the operation personally, Master? The probability of a successful recovery has dropped to seven point nine five percent. We can watch for you."