Simon Green - From Hell with love

I'd only seen one, once before, in the hand of my late Uncle James. He'd had a gun made by his brother, the Armourer, a gun specially designed to fire strange matter bullets. The only kind that could pierce Drood armour. The Armourer swore he'd made only one, and had it destroyed, but I'd been told a lot of things that had turned out not to be true after all.

All around me Droods fell, spurting blood and screaming for help that never came. The rest of us were far too busy just trying to stay alive. I glared about me, not knowing what to do for the best. The Accelerated Men with the new guns were pouring through gaps they'd opened up in our ranks, and it wouldn't be long before they reached the golden wall, and forced entry into the Hall…

I reached out to make contact with Ethel. "You have to do something! Those guns are using strange matter!"

I know! said Ethel. It's my strange matter! Those guns are tearing it from me, by brute force!

"What? How is that even possible?"

I don't know! It shouldn't be possible! And Eddie-some of those bastards have taken enough to make blades out of strange matter!

The Armourer and the Sarjeant-at-Arms were working together to target the invaders with the strange matter guns, taking them out as fast as they could identify them. Through the dimensional door came the next wave of Accelerated Men, brandishing swords and axes of glowing strange matter. The Droods swiftly reorganised, urged on by the Sarjeant-at-Arms, as the last of the enemy with the new guns crashed to the ground, or exploded messily as their Kirlian aura was ripped away. The Droods moved steadily forward to meet the Accelerated Men, with glowing golden swords protruding from their armoured hands.

Droods and supermen slammed together, and fought fiercely under the early morning sky. Duels broke out, with both parties moving at incredible speed. Golden blades crashed together, and both sides stamped back and forth on the muddy, bloody ground. The Droods quickly took the upper hand, because they were experienced in the use of sword and axe, and the Accelerated Men weren't. Superhuman strength and speed is no match for experience and training. The invaders had skill, and the raging fury of the Drug, but the Droods were fighting to protect their family.

And that made all the difference.

Men with glowing axes came running out of the thinning mists towards me. I had time to remember the strange matter arrow that had pierced my armour, fired by an elven lord, and just how much that had hurt… but that just made me angrier. I smiled a death's-head grin inside my mask, and went to meet the enemy with long glowing blades protruded from my hands. I'd seen too many Droods die. First the Matriarch, and then my Molly, and now… I wanted to hurt the enemy, and kill them, and make them pay and pay and pay…

As I was moving forward, a pair of gryphons appeared out of nowhere, hit an Accelerated Man from both sides at once, and then hauled him down. They tore him to pieces, and then ate the pieces. They could do that, because they could see a short distance into the future, and see where the Accelerated Men were going to be. From the blood that streaked their flanks and dripped from their muzzles, they'd been doing this for some time. The sight disturbed me. I was used to seeing the gryphons as ugly, playful creatures. It had been so long since anyone had dared launch an attack on the Hall itself, I'd forgotten the gryphons were part of our defences.

Drood reinforcements arrived, swooping down from above on all kinds of flying machines. A semitransparent flying saucer swept silently overhead, strafing the approaching intruders with blazing guns, blowing great bloody holes in the ranks of the enemy. Young men on autogyros flew jerkily back and forth above the battle, dropping homemade incendiaries. Fires burst out all over the lawns, and blazing Accelerated Men ran madly back and forth as the flames consumed them. Young women on winged unicorns soared gracefully in the sky, dropping shrapnel grenades. The shrapnel couldn't pierce Drood armour, but it cut through the running enemy like razored winds. One Accelerated Man shot a hang glider out of midair. The Drood pilot cut himself free, aimed carefully, and dropped out of the sky onto the Accelerated Man like a living bomb. He hit the intruder perfectly, and drove him into the ground like a nail into wood. After a moment, the Drood climbed out of the hole and moved away, shaking bloody mush from his golden armour.

Everywhere, Droods were fighting savagely, stopping the advance of the Accelerated men and even driving them back, for all their superhuman strength and speed. The strange matter guns might have made a difference, if the Armourer and Sarjeant-at-Arms hadn't made a point of targeting their owners and blowing them away. And while the strange matter blades could cut through Drood armour, mostly they never got the chance.

I went to meet the Accelerated Men with glowing axes, and cut them down, blood flying on the air as my blades gutted them, sliced throats, and cut off heads. I was tired and I was slowing, but I was still death on two legs, a Drood in his armour, and all the awful pains in my back and arms, all the heaving lungs and bone-deep weariness would not stop me. I killed everyone who stood before me, and felt nothing, nothing at all, save a cold focused determination.

I was glad Molly wasn't there, to see me like that. Reduced, to that.

I stopped, for a moment, to get my breath, and looked around me. The lawns were soaked with blood and gore, and churned up into crimson mud. It squelched under the heavy feet that trod it, and was littered with piled-up bodies for as far as the eye could see. The Accelerated Men had come in their thousands, and they had died in their thousands, and the only compassion I had was for the Droods lying dead alongside them. I looked back and forth, and it seemed to me that the number of Accelerated Men was quite definitely dropping.

There were hundreds of them now, rather than thousands, reduced to small groups surrounded by cold and murderous Droods. None of the Accelerated Men had got past the golden wall. I looked at the dimensional door, and my heart rose as I realised no more of the intruders were coming through. They'd finally run out of warm bodies to dose with the Drug and throw? at us. I made contact with the Sarjeant-at-Arms, via Ethel and our torcs.

"Sarjeant; any chance we could get some of our people through that dimensional door, before they shut it down? See who or what is on the other side?"

"Excellent idea, Edwin," said the Sarjeant's calm, unhurried voice. "But I can't spare anyone. The Hall must be defended. The family must come first. Feel free to jump through and take a look for yourself, if you can get close enough."

I strode forward, through the scattering Accelerated Men, cutting down anyone stupid enough to come within reach. One threw himself at me, screaming hysterically, trying to pry open my golden armour with his superhuman strength. His hands scrabbled uselessly against the gold, his finger bones breaking, and in the end I just threw him aside. He hit the ground hard, his back snapping, and just lay there, crying. I should have stopped long enough to give him the coup de grace, but I had more important things on my mind. Later in the day, that lack of basic mercy would upset me. But not then.

I was only a dozen feet short of the great glowing circle when the enemy decided on one last desperate, despicable tactic. A final wave of Accelerated Men burst through the dimensional door, carrying large reinforced pouches strapped to their chests of backs. They ran at the Hall with the best speed their superhuman strength could provide. Something about those pouches bothered me, and I reached out lazily, putting out a straight golden arm in the path of one of the runners. He slammed right into it, and my golden arm did not budge one inch. It whipped the runner off his feet and put him on his back in a moment, his chest caved in. He looked up at me with a shocked, surprised face, fighting for breath, and actually struggled up onto his feet again as I closed in. I punched him in the chest as hard as I could, and blood shot from his mouth as my fist emerged from his back. I pulled my hand out, and he collapsed immediately, as though that was all that had been holding him up.