A Hard Day's Knight (25 page)

“We do?” I said politely.

“We both know what it is to have an overbearing parent whose very existence overshadows everything we do. You destroyed yours; and I really would like to learn how you did that.”

“How did you know we were coming here?” I said. “Given that even I didn’t know half an hour ago.”

“I know everything I need to know,” said the Prince. “Except for when I don’t. I saw you admiring my horses. Aren’t they wonderful? So much more interesting than the mere beasts of burden they started out as. Now they all contain followers of mine, brought up out of Hell with me, to serve me in this world. I’m pretty sure that possessing horses wasn’t what they had in mind; but I’m not ready to share my glory with anyone. Do you like the black armour my knights wear? My idea, again. Every separate scale contains the imprisoned soul of some innocent slain by the knight. Bound to serve him, forever. Souls are such a marvellous source of power. And so it is my knights are strong and invincible, in such a delightfully ironic way.”

“Does like to talk, doesn’t he?” said Suzie.

“Living armour?” I said, concentrating on the Prince. “Like the Droods?”

“Copy-cats,” the Prince said dismissively.

“Look, what do you want, tomato face?” said Suzie. Her long struggle through the mud and filth had not improved her temper. The company of dark knights stirred dangerously at the open insult.

“Nothing happens here that I don’t know about,” said Prince Gaylord. “Or in the Nightside, for that matter. Hell is as close to the Nightside as it is to Sinister Albion. You should know that, John. The Griffin says ‘hello’ ... And yes, I know the two of you killed my King. Dear little Artur. The King is dead, long live the ... Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? You must accompany me to Camelot, John Taylor and Suzie Shooter. You must come with me to the Court of Camelot, then ... Oh, the things we’ll do ...”

“That’s where we were going anyway,” I said. “But you’re welcome to tag along.”

The dark knights laughed—a jeering, cruel, unpleasant sound.

“No-one ever wants to go to Camelot,” said Prince Gaylord. “Not given what lies in wait there. Not given what happens there. Many go in, but few come out because Camelot is the worst place there is, on this worst of all worlds. But things can change, even here. You shall be my weapons, dear John and Suzie, with which I shall bring down Merlin and take his place. And when I am King, I shall truly make this land Hell on Earth.”

“Who are you?” I said. “What are you, Prince Gaylord the Damned?”

“I am the Devil’s other son, begotten in Hell as my brother Merlin was begotten on Earth. And I am much more my father’s son than he ever was or could be.”

“Then why did he let you come here?” said Suzie.

“He didn’t,” said Prince Gaylord. “He couldn’t keep me out any longer.”

“If your father is the Devil,” said Suzie, “what do you need us for?”

“I don’t,” said Prince Gaylord. “I can take care of my brother. But I want you to remove a certain object, a certain sword that might ... complicate things. I can’t touch it, but you can. You can take it away from my brother and give it to me, to destroy it. Excalibur has no place in this world.”

“And if we choose not to get involved in your family squabble?” I said. “If we take the sword anyway and go home?”

“You have no choice,” said Prince Gaylord. “Excalibur is too powerful a thing to be allowed to run free. You shall go to Camelot on your knees, and in chains, as my slaves. You will do my bidding, John Taylor, or I will make your woman scream in front of you as I take her apart, piece by piece, until you beg to serve me, to save what’s left of her.” He gestured, and one of the dark knights urged his horse forward, a set of spiked chains dangling from one black mailed glove.

“Typical bloody stuck-up aristocrat,” said Suzie.

She opened fire on the approaching knight, giving him both barrels full in the helmet. The blast smashed the helmet and the head inside it right off, and the headless body slowly toppled backwards off his horse, his arms still failing as blood jetted from the ragged neck aperture. The horse reared up, menacing Suzie with its great cloven hoofs, and Suzie gave it both barrels in its exposed belly. The horse screamed shrilly, in an almost human voice, and crashed to the ground, blood and entrails spilling out of the massive hole in its guts. Suzie turned on the other knights, and picked them off one by one, shooting them right out of their saddles and bringing down their demon horses. Some tried to get to me, and Suzie shot them methodically in the back. I don’t know whether it was the blessed or the cursed armour that did the trick; but their armour was no protection against a Nightside shotgun. Soon the ground was covered in headless knights and thrashing horses as fresh blood soaked into the dusty earth. Suzie moved unhurriedly amongst the bodies, finishing off anything that didn’t look dead enough. Stopping now and again to reload the shotgun from the bandoliers that crossed her chest.

I had my own problems. Prince Gaylord screamed with fury inside his seamless crimson helmet as the first knight died and urged his demon horse forward to ride me down. I backed quickly away, thinking hard. None of my usual bag of tricks would work against the Devil’s other son. Given time, I might have been able to put something together, but he was right on top of me. I couldn’t throw pepper in his face, or take bullets out of his sword, or play games with his head. The only actual weapon I had on me was a small ceremonial silver dagger that someone had given me in part payment for an old fee. I only used it for carving magical graffiti into the walls of places I didn’t approve of. But after that business with the werewolves the other day, I did find the time to have the silver dagger officially blessed: by the Rogue Vicar Tamsin MacReady, and the Lord of Thorns himself ... and those were pretty heavy-duty blessings.

So when Prince Gaylord’s demon horse reared up over me, cloven hoofs pounding on the air over my head, instead of continuing to back away, as expected, I stepped forward, darted to one side, and sliced the demon horse along its ribs with the point of my silver dagger to see what would happen. The horse screamed like a fire siren, and sulphur-yellow flames burst out, all down the long cut. The horse’s hoofs slammed to the ground again, its legs almost buckling from the shock of actually being hurt, so I moved quickly in and jammed the dagger into the horse’s bulging eye. I forced it in, all the way to the hilt, ignoring the acidic jelly that splashed over my hand. The horse howled and shook its head savagely at the new pain. I jerked the dagger out and fell back, so that the stream of yellow flames bursting out of the eye socket missed me by inches.

Prince Gaylord was thrown from his saddle, as his horse crashed to the ground and lay still. He landed on his feet, almost elegantly, and laughed unpleasantly inside his sealed helmet. The Prince advanced on me, long butcher’s blade of a sword in hand, clearly expecting me to give ground. But I’d had enough for one day. I stood there, silver dagger in hand, and waited for him to come to me.

Prince Gaylord slowed his advance at the last moment, mistaking my bad temper for confidence. If there’d been anywhere to run, I’d have been half-way there already; but as it was ... Besides, I couldn’t leave Suzie. So I stood my ground, waited until Prince Gaylord was towering over me, then feinted one way and dived to the other. I knew his heavy armour couldn’t match me for speed and manoeuvrability; thus while he was still reacting to my first move, I was inside his guard, and slamming the silver dagger into his side. Doubly blessed, the leaf-shaped silver blade punched right through his blood-red armour, and Prince Gaylord screamed inside his helmet. He tried to strike at me with his sword, but I ducked the blow easily and yanked the dagger out of his ribs. He screamed again, as crimson fire shot out of his side, like a gas jet under pressure. He clapped one red metal hand over the wound to try to smother the flame, but it shot past his fingers. And while the Prince was busy doing that, I got behind him, jumped on his back, and stabbed the silver dagger right through his featureless metal face, right where the eyes should have been. His scream became a series of horrible noises, and he staggered back and forth. I jerked the dagger free and jumped down again. More flames blasted out of the hole in the front of his helmet.

But while I was preoccupied, his demon horse had been hauling itself along the bloody ground, leaving a long trail of guts behind it. It rose up suddenly, bared its huge pointed teeth, and lunged forward. I spun round and slammed the silver dagger into its one remaining eye. I jammed it in with both hands this time, hot viscous fluids spilling over my bare fingers, but the horse went down and stayed down.

Prince Gaylord staggered this way and that, flames shooting from two great holes in his armour. I circled him silently, looking for another opening. He was howling constantly inside his sealed helmet, words and sounds that made no sense at all. He’d thrown aside his sword and acquired from somewhere a massive double-headed battle-axe. Blood dripped steadily from both blades, and hissed and spat when it hit the ground. Prince Gaylord surged forward inhumanly quickly and swung the axe round in a vicious arc that would have cut me in two if I’d still been standing in the same place ... But armour exaggerates every move, making it easy to anticipate, and I started moving almost the moment he did. The axe hissed through the air where I’d been standing, and buried itself deep in the ground. And while the Prince stooped over it, trying to pull it back out again through brute force, I stepped in and slammed the silver dagger into his blood-red neck and jerked it all the way across the metal throat, opening up a long, jagged rent, and flames roared out.

I quickly retreated as Prince Gaylord flailed wildly about with his arms. He screamed again, the volume rising and rising, the sound of it increasingly inhuman. And while he was doing that, Suzie stepped up behind him and let him have both barrels in the back of his head at point-blank range. The whole helmet exploded, and I ducked out of the way as fragments of crimson metal flew on the air. I stood ready to go again, the silver dagger in my hand; but the whole front of the helmet was gone, a great jet of crimson flames shooting out of it. Prince Gaylord was still screaming, but the sound seemed to come from further and further away, until suddenly it was gone. The flames snapped off from all the openings we’d made, and the armour fell forward, hit the ground, and shattered into a thousand pieces.

It was all very quiet. I nodded my thanks to Suzie and put the dagger away. Suzie put her gun away and looked round at all the death and destruction she’d wrought with a quiet air of satisfaction. Dead horses, looking much more like horses now that their possessors were gone; and dead knights in armour, many of them headless. When Suzie finds something that works, she tends to stick with it. I breathed deeply, trying to get my heart rate back to something like normal. I’m really not one for the old hand-to-hand combat thing, especially against heavily armed and armoured demon knights out of Hell. Suzie came over and looked down at the scattered pieces of Prince Gaylord’s armour.

“Sent him home with his tail between his legs,” she said. “Probably to tell his daddy we were mean to him.”

“I think the armour was the only thing that could keep him here,” I said. I looked at Suzie. “I could have taken him. I had a plan.”

“What were you going to do, whittle him to death? I keep telling you, John, you need to invest in some serious weaponry.”

“Don’t need them,” I said. “I have you.”

“Of course you do,” said Suzie. “Always and forever.”

We started up the path to the castle, leaving all the mess behind. My heartbeat was almost back to normal, and my hands had very nearly stopped shaking. Suzie pretended not to notice. She seemed perfectly fine and was actually whistling something she clearly thought was a tune. The path made its way round and round the hill, rising slowly upwards. I kept a careful eye on the castle above us. It felt like it was looking back at me, daring me to approach any closer. After a while, I gave in to temptation and raised my Sight, just enough to give me a clear view of what lay ahead, in case there were any hidden defences or booby-traps I ought to know about. I had to limit my Sight; I didn’t think I could bear to See this land too closely, for too long.

I checked the path ahead but couldn’t See any traps or protections, as though the castle believed no-one in this land could present any threat, any more. All I could See were ghosts, armies of them, filling up the country-side for as far as I could See. All round the hill, angry and desolate faces stared up at Camelot, howling silently. I saw ghostly elves, proud and disdainful even in death, and hundreds of other magical creatures, standing still and silent in ghostly ranks—all wiped out by Merlin. Because he wanted to be the only magical thing in the land. I could See dead dragons, deep in the ground, and the ragged remains of slaughtered elementals, drifting on the sky above. So much death and suffering, so much sorrow, all because of one man.

One anti-Christ down, one to go.