Assured that the gun-wielding Scotsman protected his flank, Simon Archer drew the confused King William onto his feet. “Apologies for manhandling you, Your Majesty, but please follow the lovely lady behind you. She will lead you and the queen to safety.” Though it was phrased as a polite request, the timbre of his voice brooked no argument. These two attackers—Ferghus O’Malley and Baroness Conrad—were terrible threats with a legendary history of carnage and horror.
Simon didn’t check to see if, in fact, the lovely lady was present; he knew she would be in the proper place. A tall regal woman with auburn hair was already busy herding bishops and earls and countesses under the shadows of the poet Chaucer in the south transept. She wore a full-length velvet cloak of royal blue trimmed with gold. Despite hurried gestures, her stature and grace depicted breeding and manners.
The king hesitated with fear in his expression. “My niece. I can’t leave—”
Simon turned to the north transept where the king stared. Amidst the frantic mob being manhandled by the annoyed baroness, he noted the small shape of a desperate child nearly lost in the melee. No one paid the young girl any mind. Simon nodded sharply to the worried old man. “I’ll see to her, on my word. You must go quickly, sir, before the baroness can reach you.” Simon signaled toward the woman behind them. “Kate, take His Majesty, would you?”
The auburn-haired woman finished giving an archbishop a shove through the door, sending his high mitre flying, then she put two fingers to her lips and let loose a sharp whistle at the king. She jerked her head at the exit behind her and tossed back her elegant cloak to reveal a calf-length wool skirt and a linen blouse across which was draped a soldier’s bandolier. In place of ammunition, the leather slots held numerous glass vials. From her belt, she pulled a length of metal some two feet long with a curved grip at one end. With a flick of a finger on an unseen switch, two prongs unfolded from one end. It was a strange crossbow. She came toward the king, impatient that he was barely shuffling in her direction.
King William regarded her suspiciously until his eyes widened in recognition. “My word. Katherine Anstruther.” Then he started to turn away. “But I can’t leave that poor girl.”
Kate grabbed the king by the arm and yanked him to the exit. She spared only a brief glance at Simon before giving the king another more gentle shove out. “Simon Archer will fetch your niece. Now come on, a little faster would be better.”
With the king safe, Simon spun to the baroness, watching the stark white of her hair as she came closer through the mob. Finally the last of the stumbling nobility cleared and the strange woman with four arms stood facing Simon twenty yards away. Something moved beside her. One of her metal hands was clamped around the lacy wrist of the small girl Simon had been after.
Princess Victoria, the niece of the king and queen and the heir to the realm.
The baroness lifted the girl, who was barely eleven years old, off the ground like a fresh-bagged quail. “The king left something important behind. Now stand aside or I’ll kill her.”
Simon kept his sword raised but froze in his tracks.
“Run her through!” the young princess shouted, grasping the baroness’s goggles and wrenching them aside.
Simon gave only the barest thought to the bold attack of the little girl before he was on the baroness, the point of his sharp blade aimed at her heart. The half-mechanical woman flinched aside, sweeping up another arm to block the thrust. Gears and pistons in the arm clicked and a series of spinning blades ratcheted out along her forearm. Sparks flew and Simon leaned forward, forcing the deadly appendage back. Princess Victoria yelped in alarm and kicked at her captor, who finally tossed the troublesome princess aside. This freed all the baroness’s limbs to meet Simon.
He fell back now, ducking under her arm with the whirring blades. He instantly returned to the attack. Although he weaved his sword with masterful precision, Simon lamented that he couldn’t speak the power of aether into the blade. His skill allowed him to counter and riposte the swipes from the woman without fear if she had just the one weapon. However, all four of her arms struck at him. Simon almost smiled at the challenge as the steel fists came at him with incredible speed. He parried and ducked and whirled across the floor, trying to pull the baroness away from the winnowing crowd and the small girl, who came forward rather than retreating with the mob. The ring of steel meeting steel echoed through the church.
As he deflected one mechanical arm the bladed limb drove at him from the other side. Simon grabbed it and instinctively whispered a word of power. He was overwhelmed by her strength and the whirring blades surged inches from his face before he realized his idiocy. Only months ago he would have been able to fight back by summoning magic from the aether. With but a thought and a word, he would have had nearly limitless power at his command. No more.
His fingers curled tight and electrical current rippled over his knuckles, fed by a small power source inside his gauntlet. The heat inside the glove increased, but a shower of sparks brought the spinning blades to a whining halt. The baroness screamed as the current coursed along the length of her metal arm and surged into her body. That shock should have dropped a draft horse, but she still moved forward with a face contorted by pain and bloody fury. Her mechanical body was clearly insulated.
One steel arm clamped around Simon’s lower back and locked into place. Then he felt her walking stick pressed flat against his throat. She pressed down into him. He felt the merciless strength of the baroness driving into him, bending him over backward until he feared his spine would snap.
“Surrender!” Simon croaked with a ludicrous confidence he didn’t feel.
The baroness smiled at him, enjoying the pain she brought and the flash of worry that crossed his features. She licked her lips with pleasure.
Simon reached up and clutched the walking stick with his metal gauntlet. He stared directly into her goggle eyes as he twisted his arm and snapped the stick. He was a bit surprised it was just a simple walking stick, a mere affectation. But the action caused the baroness to look at her shattered accouterment with both rage and confusion. The pressure against his backbone slackened slightly.
Simon took advantage of the brief delay in her murderous attack and immediately fell back, bringing her down with him. His legs jammed into her stomach and leveraged her into the air, stunned at the difficulty of such a feat without magic to fuel his strength. With a shriek of alarm, she made to grasp at him, but he gave her no opportunity, slamming her into the high altar. The impact rang throughout the church.
She took a deep breath, seemingly stunned by the unexpected resistance, and eyed Simon warily as she pressed a small device on her belt. There was an inhuman roar from the north transept. When it was echoed by a child’s scream, Simon smashed his steel fist into the baroness’s face. Her head slammed into marble and she slumped against the altar. He left her there and ran toward the scream.
Princess Victoria stood facing a massive manlike shape crowding the doorway of the north transept. The hulking thing dwarfed the girl like an Alp towering over a tiny chalet. The brute was huge and muscular, hunching forward and pounding the floor with bulging arms. Its head turned and a great toothy mouth opened in a snarl. Small sharp eyes peered angrily from under a heavy brow. It was a huge ape.
The monstrous gorilla shouldered its way through the small door, breaking the frame with sheer will and muscle as it fought to answer its mistress’s call. Once inside, it rested its bulk on steel knuckles. Its spine was exposed and bristled with wires and metal rods, making it a literal silverback.
“Run, Your Highness!” Simon shouted as he raced toward her and the monster. The child backed away.
The great ape came at Simon like an avalanche, scattering chairs in its wake. The man leapt to the side and, as the beast’s momentum took it past him, his arm fell like a piston on the back of its wired skull. His gauntlet crackled and arcs of electricity scurried like spiders from his hand to its metallic silver back.
The ape crashed heavily to the stone floor in a heap, sparking and twitching.
Victoria had paused in her flight to stop at the edge of the choir to watch Simon’s confrontation with the gorilla. She instinctively reached up to Simon, who gathered the young child into his arms on the run. He sprinted past the dais, sparing a glance at the baroness, who was beginning to struggle to her feet. Simon wanted to get the girl into trustworthy hands.
A column of blistering flame rose before them. Simon covered Victoria. The copper-headed Ferghus glared at them from the nave, his fiery hand feeding the flames that blocked their way.
“This line ends here!” Ferghus laughed. “If I can’t have the king, I’ll take the wee one.”
“We’re not done!” came Malcolm’s ragged voice as he kicked his way free of a barricade of smoldering chairs beneath the burning choir screen. He aimed his heavy pistols.
Fire shot out of Ferghus’s gesturing hand to form a barrier between him and Scotsman. The bullets never reached him but melted into slag and went astray.
“Bloody hell!” Malcolm cursed.
“Malcolm, get out of the way!” shouted a woman’s voice from the tiers of graceful arches above. A pert figure aimed a long tube at the Irishman amidst the flames.
Malcolm MacFarlane dove between the empty pews as the woman fired a canister. Ferghus flared again, renewing the wall of flame around him. The canister struck the barrier and exploded. The concussion blasted Ferghus off his feet.
Young Victoria looked up at Simon. “He breathes fire like a dragon.”
With the princess still in his arms, Simon ran past the guttering fire column into the south transept. “Have no fear. We’ve slain many.”
Victoria’s eyes widened farther when Simon deposited her in front of a young girl not much older than the princess herself, slender and dressed in a simple white shift. The blond-haired girl was staring angrily into the church as if straining to join the fight herself. “Mr. Simon, the lady with the arms is up. Do you want me to—”
“I’ll see to it, thank you, Charlotte.” Simon coolly took up his sword and started toward the Kaliesque woman whose form wavered beyond the flames. She had seized hold of the legendary chair of King Edward. “That won’t do.” He nodded knowingly to himself and called back to Charlotte over his shoulder, “Take Princess Victoria to Kate.”
Charlotte gasped at the princess and attempted a panicked curtsy. “Your Majesty!”
Victoria kept her eyes locked on Simon as he charged back into the fiery maw. “Who is he? Who are you all?”
Charlotte was already pulling the princess out the door, away from the blistering heat of the flames. “His name is Simon Archer. I’m Charlotte. We fight monsters.”
Table of Contents
By Clay Griffith and Susan Griffith
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Excerpt from The Conquering Dark
Chapter 1
The Undying Legion Page 29