Simon Green - A Hard Day's Knight

“Only we have the right to Excalibur!” roared a knight in full armour.

“Merlin is a louse!”

“Will somebody please shut him up!”

Then they all fell on each other, the whole crowd fighting for the right to be heard, the right to bear Excalibur, and the right to smite the unbeliever, knock him down, and trample him underfoot. Swords were brandished, magics were unleashed, and punches were thrown when only close quarters would do. There was also a fair amount of gunfire, from the non-traditionalists and those only in it for the money. The crowd had become a mob, surging dangerously back and forth at the bottom of my property. The most enthusiastic groups quickly wiped each other out, and there was then a general tapering off of violence as calmer and more moderate voices made themselves heard, urging that they all work together to take Excalibur from me, by force if necessary. A few self-appointed spokesmen (there are always a few), came right to the edge of my non-lawn and shouted their demands at me. Well, demand, really. They wanted me to hand over Excalibur. Right now. Please.

I shook my head; and before I could even begin to explain why, the whole crowd went apeshit all over again. They surged forward into my garden. Or non-lawn. Or whatever else you wanted to call it. I always thought of it as my first line of defence.

One of the first things Suzie and I did when we moved in was dig up the flower garden at the front of the house and lay down a whole mess of land mines. To keep out the uninvited and ruin an investigative journalist’s day. There was a series of loud explosions as the first wave of the crowd hit the first wave of mines, and bits and pieces of people went flying in all directions. Blood splashed everywhere, and black smoke billowed across the property. There were a few brief screams, but that was mostly from those in the second wave, being forced onwards by those behind. The crowd pressed on, and that was when the invisible floating curses kicked in. There was a flare-up of fierce thaumatic energies, and when the black smoke had cleared, the first few waves of intruders had been replaced by a whole bunch of rather resentful-looking frogs. I’ve always been a traditionalist in these matters.

Besides: the shop had had a sale on.

“We did put up warnings,” I said to Suzie. “Didn’t we?”

“I am almost sure I meant to,” said Suzie. “Can I start shooting people yet?”

“They seem to be taking themselves out of the game quite thoroughly,” I said. “Oh look, here comes another wave.”

Having used up most of the nuns and the Vikings, the braver and more sensible elements of the crowd were pressing forward, slowly and cautiously and very light-footedly. Most of them were shouting something, if only to keep their spirits up. There were still quite a lot of them.

“John Taylor is the rightful ruler of the Nightside! Excalibur is his! Bow down to King John!”

“Taylor’s possession of the noble blade Excalibur is blasphemy! Seize the blade from him, that it might be held in trust for King Arthur! Only we know the way to Avalon!”

“Excalibur belongs to us! Arthur belongs to us! It is prophesised! Kill the unbelievers!”

“Merlin is a louse!”

“Why aren’t you dead yet?”

The general advance sort of broke down and went sideways then, as the various elements in the crowd turned on each other, fighting tooth and nail over who represented whom. There was much bandying of Arthur’s name, and indeed which King Arthur was the most historical, or accurate, or even most representative. Arguments quickly degenerated into insults, then to hand-to-hand combat. The crowd surged this way and that, churning up the blood-soaked mud of what had once been my garden. I encouraged the general antagonism along with helpful comments like Are You Really Going to Let Him Talk to You Like That? and Look Out! He’s Sneaking Up Behind You!

I do love a good debate.

When the slaughter finally died down, there was a hell of a lot less of the crowd than there used to be, but the survivors were the really dangerous and determined ones. They studied Suzie and me thoughtfully and plotted together on how best to take Excalibur from me now and worry about what to do with it afterwards. And while I was considering what to do about that, another branch of the crowd, the really quiet and sneaky ones, attacked my house from the rear. And ran straight into the waiting nasty and really very efficient security devices Suzie and I had set up there, right after we finished with the garden. Invisible floating mines, shaped curses, poisoned-shrapnel hedges, and a whole bunch of Suzie’s finest incendiaries.

Suzie and I take our privacy very seriously.

A series of explosions filled the night, accompanied by bright flashes of light, sudden flurries of blood, a whole bunch of suddenly cut-off screams, and, finally, a severed head that came flying over the roof like a football. Everyone in the crowd stopped what they were doing to watch the head sail through the air, then they all scattered with some really quite girlish screams as the head finally plummeted down into their midst. People can get freaked out by the strangest things. I looked over what was left of my non-lawn and shook my head sadly.

“This ... is going to take a lot of tidying up.”

“We’ll have to get a man in,” said Suzie.

“I had hoped the crowd was going to wipe itself out,” I said, “but a discouragingly large number have survived. Somehow.”

“I think we’re going to have to talk to them,” said Suzie.

“Oh God, has it come to that? Oh well, if we must.”

I strode down the garden to confront the crowd, with Suzie striding ominously along at my side. The thinned-out crowd immediately stopped arguing and threatening each other and moved instinctively to stand closer together. Suzie has that effect on people. There was a brief period of them all trying to hide behind each other, then they turned every weapon they had on Suzie and me. I made a point of walking quite casually, as though I didn’t have a care in the world. I didn’t need to look round to know that Suzie was carrying her double-barrelled, pump-action shotgun at the ready, in a really quite distressingly casual manner. Those at the front of the crowd tried edging backwards, but those behind them were having none of it. And that was when some poor damned fools decided to launch a surprise attack from above, presumably in the hope that we might be caught off guard.

An armoured knight came swooping down on a huge winged horse, waving a massive glowing sword. Suzie shot him right out of the saddle, and the horse kept on going, disappearing into the night. A distressingly hairy bat-winged harpy plummeted down towards me, her clawed feet thrust out before her. I waited until the very last minute, then grabbed both her ankles, swung her round, and slammed her face-first into the ground. All the fight went out of her as she lay trembling and shuddering in the churned-up mud, struggling to get some breath back into her lungs. I put her out of her misery with a good solid kick to the head. Never let it be said I don’t know how to treat a lady. The harpy decided to have a little nap, and I looked round for someone else to vent a little spleen on.

(A part of me was already considering the fact that I never used to be that fast, and that efficient, in a fight. In fact, I usually avoid the hand-to-hand stuff because I’m crap at it. I had to wonder whether just owning the mighty Excalibur was ... upgrading me.)

A pack of futuristic knights in space-age armour appeared suddenly over the roof, borne aloft on anti-grav backpack units. They assumed a very professional-looking formation and came swooping down with glowing energy blades held out before them. Suzie took up a comfortable stance and shot them out of the sky, one after the other. Her specially adapted ammunition blew great holes through the space-age armour and punched right through their steel helms. The futuristic knights blew apart like so many clay pigeons. Suzie didn’t miss one. Dead knights drifted slowly away across the night sky, impelled on by their sputtering anti-grav units. Some bodies had heads; some didn’t.