Simon Green - Property of a Lady Faire

“I won’t leave you, Eddie.”

“You have to.”

“You can’t make me!”

“You don’t understand, Molly! If they take you, they’ll make you one of them! Wrap you up in their Hell armour, make you False too!”

“You go down, I go down with you,” said Molly. “Fighting to my last breath. Because I wouldn’t want to live without you anyway.”

She couldn’t see me smile behind my mask, so I nodded fondly to her.

“Together forever, my love,” I said.

“Forever and a day,” said Molly. “Now go kill those sons of bitches.”

“Love to,” I said.

I pulled the golden sword back inside my hand, strode over to the side of the street, and plucked the nearest street lamp out of the ground by its electrical roots. There was a shower of sparks as I hefted the long metal weight easily in my hands. And then I charged straight at the False Knights, using all the power of my armoured legs to close the gap between us in a few moments. I was in and among their front ranks before they even had time to react. Everyone always forgets that Drood armour is fast, as well as strong.

I swung the long steel lamp with all my strength, picking Knights up and throwing them this way and that. Their armour dented under the impact, but wouldn’t crack or break. More pressed forward, but I kept the lamp post swinging, and they couldn’t get past it. I slammed it into chests and heads, swept armoured legs out from under them, smashed them down, and swept them away. False Knights flew through the air, hit the ground, and rolled, then got up to come at me again. I couldn’t hurt them. The bitter yellow armour protected them, just like mine protected me.

I threw the street lamp into the mass of them, and grew my golden sword again. I swung it with both hands, striking down on the bitter yellow armour with all my strength, and the strange matter blade cut deep. It sliced through their armour and out again, sheared clean through shoulders to cut off arms, and decapitated bitter yellow helms, but not one drop of blood flowed. And still the Knights pressed forward. I had to cut off their heads to stop them, one at a time, and as more and more of them crowded in around me, it got harder and harder to find the room to swing my sword.

They hit me again and again, with their swords and axes and huge brutal fists. Their blades couldn’t penetrate my armour, but they were all so inhumanly strong that the sheer impact got through. Their attacks drove me this way and that, back and forth across the street, even as I fought them, and I cried out inside my mask as the blows hurt me, again and again. I hacked about me with my sword, doing what damage I could, overwhelmed by the crush of bodies.

I stabbed one False Knight right through his mask, my sword punching through his metal face and out the back of his helm, and even though the Knight fell, it didn’t make a sound and there was no blood. I began to wonder if there was anyone, or anything, left alive inside the bitter yellow armour. I yanked the sword out, back-punching a Knight behind me with my spiked elbow, and kicked the legs out of another Knight in front of me. This opened up a little room, and I swung my sword in short, vicious arcs, going for their throats. A metal fist slammed into the side of my head with incredible force, and the pain was so bad it blinded me. My legs buckled, but I wouldn’t let myself fall. I swung my sword relentlessly, panting harshly, until my vision cleared. My arms and back ached from the sheer effort of fighting, and for a moment all I could see were the faceless masks all around me, and the swords and axes rising and falling, trying to find a weak spot in my armour, or in me. As they beat me to death by inches.

I saw an opening, threw myself through it, and ran down the street, away from the overpowering numbers.

When I thought I’d opened up enough space, I lurched to a halt and turned to face them again. The False Knights were coming after me, taking their time. Savouring the moment. They knew I had nowhere to go. I glanced across at Molly. She hadn’t moved from where I’d left her, leaning on a street lamp, holding herself up with the last of her strength. She looked almost as bad as I felt, but she smiled steadily back at me. Waiting to see what I would do next, because she had faith in me.

“Get ready to run,” I said breathlessly. “I’ve got an idea, but if it doesn’t pan out . . . I’ve got nothing else.”

“Wait!” said Molly. “I’ve had an idea! What about the Merlin Glass?”

I looked at her stupidly, fighting to concentrate. My head ached like hell.

“What about the Glass?”

“Can’t you use it, to send the False Knights away? Send them somewhere they couldn’t survive?”

“That is a really good idea,” I said. “Better than mine. I’ll send the bastards to the Moon. One at a time, if I have to.”

But when I passed my hand through my armoured side, the Merlin Glass wouldn’t come out. The hand mirror jerked this way and that, avoiding my grasping fingers. As though . . . as though it was afraid of the False Knights. I swore briefly, and took my hand out.

“When this is over,” I told it harshly, “we are going to have a serious discussion about which one of us is in charge here.”

The False Knights were almost upon me. I put my hand back through my side, and drew my Colt Repeater from its hidden holster. The gun the Armourer gave me long ago. A very special gun, the Colt Repeater teleported ammo straight into the chambers so it could never run out, and I didn’t even need to aim it exactly. The gun never missed. This was my original idea. My golden blade had pierced the False Knights’ armour, so clearly strange matter trumped bitter yellow. If I surrounded every bullet I fired in golden armour, and punched a hole through their heads as I had with my sword . . . they should fall. I grinned coldly behind my mask, and aimed my Colt Repeater at the nearest Knight.

I shot it through its featureless face. The bitter yellow helm snapped back, and the False Knight crashed to the ground and didn’t move again. The other Knights paused for a moment, as though they couldn’t quite believe what had happened, and then they came on again. I shot them all down, one by one. Aiming and firing as quickly as I could, till my hand ached, picking off target after target. They didn’t even try to defend themselves with different tactics, because they didn’t understand what was happening. They couldn’t understand what was killing them. They’d never seen a gun before. By the time they started to get the idea, I’d already thinned the ranks out so much it didn’t matter. I shot them down without mercy or hesitation, because it was necessary. Not one of them got close to me. I backed away, step by step, still firing as the last of them tried to rush me, until the very last False Knight fell dead at my feet.

I laughed, shakily, at the piled-up bodies cluttering the street. “You really shouldn’t have come here. Things have changed since your time. We’re much better killers now.”

They hadn’t even tried to run. They knew they had nowhere to go. So they had just kept coming, kept trying to kill me. They were a lot like Droods, in their way.

I put the Colt Repeater away. My arm ached, and my hand shook as I held it out before me. The golden strange matter I’d used to coat my bullets ripped itself out of the fallen Knights, and shot back through the air into my waiting hand, melding back into the armour it had come from. I wasn’t going to leave it lying around for MI 13 to pick up.

I armoured down, and almost collapsed without the armour to support me. I swayed on my feet and Molly was quickly there to hold me, and hold me up. I leaned heavily on her, and she made a soft angry sound as she saw how bad a beating I’d taken.