Best Laid Plans (53 page)

Starn stroked his moustache and felt his cheeks reddening. ‘You’re relieving me, Emperor?’

‘Not at all. I’m entrusting you with the most crucial role.’

Starn straightened up and saluted, all the while feeling like one of those canaries his father had told him about as a child—the one’s Pop and his colleagues used to carry ahead into the mines to check for poison gas.

‘I’ll go ready the men, then,’ Starn said, bowing and leaving Binizo and the Emperor to decide whose army was going to achieve the greatest glory. Starn dreaded what they’d be like once this was all over, once they had spoils to divide. Hopefully, the Ipsissimus would be as good as his word and the Templum army would just sail back to Aeterna. It didn’t seem likely, though, not if all the things Starn had heard about Nousians
were true. He was dreading telling Mrs Starn about the campaign. He knew only too well what her thoughts would be on an alliance with Aeterna.

‘General.’

Starn stopped, took a deep breath, and wondered what he’d done wrong now.

‘Yes?’ He turned to see Deacon Shader walking towards him. The sandy-haired lad was on his way back to his Order, a group of a dozen or so knights attired in the manner of the Templum Elect.

‘We have your back. No telling what you’ll run into on the other side. I was hoping you’d have a minute to discuss how this is going to work.’

‘Good idea,’ Starn said.
I’m glad someone’s taking this seriously.
‘You have any experience of these portal things?’

‘A little, although maybe not quite the same as this. Tell your men to expect a moment’s disorientation. With any luck we’ll emerge in the open, but just in case we walk straight into conflict, it might be best if they adopt defensive positions.’

‘Thank you, yes, I had already thought of that. We’ll be going in
testudo
. I believe the term’s Aeternam in origin.’

‘Tortoise,’ Shader said. ‘Sounds like a good plan.’

A flare of green drew Starn’s gaze. Shader turned with him. The Dreamer and the boy now stood before a vast disk of swirling green light a hundred yards across. Starn strained his eyes, but could see nothing through the glare.

‘This is it then,’ Shader said. ‘Good luck, General.’

‘Yes,’ Starn said. ‘You too. And, uh, Ain be with you.’ He winced inwardly as he said the words. He was definitely leaving that bit out of the tale he told Mrs Starn.

***

Shader rode Gaston’s mare like a talisman through the portal, Barek on his right and Justin on his left. Elgin was behind with Solomon and Gord, the lads at the rear forming the base of the wedge. Fourteen in all, including Shader. Not nearly enough.

They emerged into chaos—screams from up front, curses, and the sickening reek of decaying flesh. The line of infantry immediately before them was pushed back onto the horses as those up front tried to retreat. Someone was yelling above the din of battle, ‘Press on! Press on!’

Shader looked for Starn, but couldn’t see him in the throng. The ranks up ahead began to buckle, the weight of some unseen enemy forcing them back. ‘Forward! Give no ground!’—It was Starn’s voice, hoarse and insistent. The troops in the rear leaned into their shields in an attempt to drive their unit forward, but the front line sagged and terrible screams rent the air.

‘Sound the charge, Barek,’ Shader said.

As soon as the first trumpet note blasted out, the foot soldiers parted down the centre. Starn was bellowing, ‘Make way, make way!’ and Shader thought he saw the General dragging a blood-soaked comrade to the right. As a channel opened, Shader drew his longsword and charged.

The White Knights stayed with him as he sped along the corridor between the foot men straight towards a surging tide of corpses. He hacked left and right, pulping rotting flesh like ripe fruit. The mare trampled corpses underfoot and carried on into the thick of the putrescence. Cold hands groped at Shader’s boots, but his blade was a whir of flashing steel that bit through flesh, severing limbs. Barek’s horse stumbled and nearly fell, the dead tugging it down into their writhing mass. Shader could do nothing, or else he’d lose momentum as he tore straight through the centre with Justin on his left. He saw flashes of white out of the corner of his eye and risked a glance to see Elgin and Solomon in amongst Barek’s attackers slashing their swords in murderous arcs, their horses kicking out and crushing ancient bones.

Inevitably, the charge faltered before the endless rows of the dead. The ones in front had their backs to Shader as if they engaged another foe, but then they wheeled cumbrously to face him. Gord forced his way alongside and Justin trampled a cadaver to resume his place at Shader’s left. Barek, Solomon, and Elgin had made it, too, and glimpses of white still moved amongst the corpses behind.

‘There are too many,’ Barek said.

Shader stuck his sword through the mouth of a raving zombie. The mare was bucking and whinnying, trying to turn in a futile bid to escape. Elgin made two vicious cuts, felling a couple more corpses, and Solomon ripped a severed hand from his boot and cast it aside.

A great roar went up from the foot soldiers to the rear and rows of undead dropped like scythed wheat.

‘Again!’ bellowed Starn from somewhere in the phalanx.

The wall of shields heaved and swords rose and fell. Within moments, the undead capitulated and the infantry reached the last of Shader’s riders just as a colossal wave of necrotic flesh was about to hit.

The Heavy Foot opened ranks to let the white knights through and then locked shields to meet the onslaught. The undead slammed into them, but the back ranks pushed with their shields and the line held. Shader weaved the mare through the troops with the other knights following. They emerged to the left of the conflict and for the first time, Shader saw the wispy clouds surrounding the summit of the Homestead. Beyond the army of the dead he could see a man in a dark suit behind three unearthly figures with the bodies of men and the heads of animals. Facing them, a long line of cavalry was cantering towards a charge, and in the skies above hundreds of black shapes started to soar down.

***

Albert searched every pocket of his suit as the black shapes swooped.
Bugger all!
No poisons, no darts. He felt like an unprepared rookie. Damn that little runt Shadrak. He should have allowed more time. A box of explosives was one thing, but for Albert, who was always so meticulous in his preparations, it was a one-shot wonder.

His fingers closed around his cheese-cutter. Fat lot of good it would do, but he readied it just the same. If nothing else, it had the familiarity of an old friend.

The hybrids paid no heed to the plummeting demons. All their focus was on the charge of the skeletal horses that was gathering speed with a cacophonous pounding of hooves on rock. Thindamura hopped from foot to foot; Baru growled and beat his chest, and Mamba thumped his fists together, his snake eyes glaring and venomous.

Albert rolled out of the way of a diving woman with bat’s wings. He caught a glimpse of sickle-shaped eyes and fangs like daggers. He hit the ground and came up, wrapping the cheese-cutter around the creature’s throat and pulling. He expected the others to crash into him at any moment, but he meant to take at least one of them with him.

Lightning arced through the sky and flesh smouldered. As the demon thrashed out its last, Albert saw dozens more plunging to their deaths, trailing wisps of smoke. The others banked up and then swooped below the ridge of the mountain.

Just before the horses collided with the hybrids, Albert ran like the clappers, seeking the cover of rocks near the edge. A huge battle was raging back the way they’d come, the legions of undead fiercely engaged by heavily armoured foot soldiers. He glimpsed a cluster of white-garbed knights skirting the edge of the melee, their leader in a broad-brimmed hat and long coat.

Albert skidded to a halt and flung himself behind a boulder, his eyes flicking all around in case the demons returned.

As the death-knights impacted with Mamba and Baru, toad-headed Thindamura bounded high into the air and came down upon a rider. With preternatural swiftness, he twisted the knight’s head off and tossed it aside. He sprang onto the next horse and did the same to its rider.

Impossibly, Baru and Mamba met the charge with great clubbing sweeps of their arms and remained upright as the first horses disintegrated with the force of the collision. It was as if the hybrids were rooted to the rock of the Homestead; as if they were rock themselves. The riders encircled them—there must have been one…maybe two hundred—and began baiting the hybrids with bristling blades. Mamba and Baru fought back to back. The crocodile-man’s jaws tore through helms whilst his fists pounded skeletal horses to dust. Mamba unleashed gouts of venom that ate through armour and bone like acid.

A sword pierced Baru’s side, but he roared and crushed the rider’s helm with a sledgehammer blow. Another blade took him in the hamstring and he went down on one knee, twisted, and ripped off the horse’s head with his jaws. Thindamura dived from horse to horse, wreaking havoc. His tongue whipped out dragging a rider from the saddle and then he somersaulted to avoid a scything blow that would have decapitated him.

A hoof took Baru in the head and he swatted the horse aside. Another blade lanced into his shoulder and he fell. Mamba stepped over him belching venom and clubbing riders and horses with bleeding fists.

Baru forced himself upright, hopping on his good leg, and Thindamura vaulted a horse to stand with his brothers.

The knights drew back, and for a moment Albert thought the hybrids might prevail. But then he saw what was happening. The bones of the fallen were scuttling across the ground searching out their other members. With the patience of the dead, the knights waited for their colleagues to re-form.

Albert had seen enough. There was nothing he could do, and he couldn’t say he even cared. This wasn’t his fight, and his debt to Shadrak was more than repaid. As he slunk towards the edge of the tabletop mountain, he saw the man in the long coat charge to the aid of the hybrids with a handful of white knights in tow.

Good luck, my dears,
Albert thought, as he started to climb down.

He could see the black demons spiralling away to the east, regrouping and preparing for another pass. At least they weren’t in his way.

He found some good handholds and clambered down to a broad ledge that tapered at one end and wound around the top of the Homestead. He took a step towards the edge—and hit his head. He fell on his backside, more stunned than hurt. There was nothing there! How could he have—?

And then he realized. It had to be the plane ship.

***

Rhiannon stepped away from Huntsman as lightning danced around his skin. The Dreamer’s hair stood on end like a crown of thorns as he discharged another bolt of sizzling energy into the sky. More black shapes fell smoking to the ground. The rest of the winged women rose higher and then swooped beyond the edges of the Homestead.

She strained to see Shader or Barek through the confusion of the battle. Swords rose and fell, blood spurted, and screams tore through the air. She saw the odd flash of white, the shimmer of steel, but could no longer tell if Shader was alive or dead. She saw no sign of Barek either, nor even Justin Salace.

General Starn’s infantry had forced an opening, and the rest of the combined forces spilled through the portal. General Binizo relayed orders through trumpets and drums, the Templum troops seeking order amidst the chaos. Hagalle rode a black destrier among his own soldiers, sword raised, yelling commands. Imperial archers formed disciplined lines and covered the skies, but so far the winged women stayed beyond their range.

Sammy held the portal open by himself, green light flaring from his fingertips. The last few soldiers stepped through and Sammy sagged, dropping his arms. The portal contracted, but just before it vanished a scruffy hunchback lumbered through flicking holy water from an aspergillum over the troops. He carried a bucket in his other hand, presumably containing water for his sprinkler.

Rhiannon caught Sammy before he fell, cradled him in her lap. The boy was ashen, a cold sweat beading his skin.

‘You did it Sammy. You held the portal by yourself.’ Pride swelled in the pit of her stomach. She gazed with raw affection at his begrimed face, stroking his matted hair, and losing all sense of the battle that surrounded them.

‘Ranny,’ he said. It was the first real acknowledgement he’d given her, the first indication that maybe he wasn’t lost to her entirely. Rhiannon’s eyes misted over.

‘Yes, Sammy.’
My sweet, sweet Sammy.
‘It’s me.’