Simon Green - The Man with the Golden Torc

There were twenty dragons, and none of them were the graceful, romantic beasts of myth and legend. These were great worms, thirty to forty feet long, with wet, glistening, segmented bodies, and vast membranous bat wings. They forced themselves through the sky by brute effort, ugly and inglorious, their flat faces made up of a ring of dark unblinking eyes surrounding a sucking mouth like a lamprey’s. Astride their thick necks, on ancient saddles upholstered in tanned human skin, sat the elf lords and ladies. Beautiful and magnificent, vicious and vile, human in shape but not in thought, they rode to the slaughter with laughter on their colourless lips, singing ancient hunting songs on the glories of suffering and the kill.

They came straight at me, moving so fast they were over me and then behind me before I even had time to react. They swooped around, the hunting pack in full cry, and the lords and ladies threw lightning bolts at me with their bare hands. The bolts exploded in the road ahead of me, blasting out craters and cracking the surface. I put my foot down and kept going, swerving the car back and forth to avoid the larger holes. The dragons pounded through the air above and beside me, taking their time, enjoying the hunt. Seeing how close they could get to the car, without actually touching it. The continuous explosions of the lightning bolts were deafening, and the flaring lights were bright enough to dazzle me momentarily, even through the armour’s protection. I could hear the Hirondel’s engine straining. I tried to think what I had that could reach the elves and their dragons, safe up in the sky. A lightning bolt hit the bonnet of the Hirondel, blasting all the paint away in a moment, and the car slammed this way and that under the impact, swerving blindly across the lane divider and back again. Only the armoured strength in my hands kept the steering wheel under control, even as the wheel itself crumpled slowly out of shape.

A dragon and its rider came flying straight at me, only a few feet above the road. I wondered at first if he was planning to ram me, but then I saw him fitting an arrow to his bow, and I smiled. An arrow against my armour. Yeah, right. I reached for the switch to activate the electric cannon and blow him out of my way. The elf lord loosed his arrow. And while I was still reaching for the switch, the arrow punched right through my windshield and through my glorious golden armour, and buried itself in my left shoulder. I slammed back in my seat, crying out in shock and pain, and actually let go of the wheel for a moment to grab at the arrow shaft with both hands. It wouldn’t budge. The car skidded across the lanes. I tugged at the arrow again, crying out in agony, but I couldn’t move it. The extra pain cleared my head like a shock of cold water in the face, and I grabbed the steering wheel and brought the Hirondel under control again.

I was panting harshly, and sweat poured down my face under my golden mask. I could feel blood coursing down my arm and chest, under my armour. Every movement, every breath, brought me a new pulse of pain. I gritted my teeth until my jaws ached. I was still in shock, and not just from the pain. My armour was invulnerable. Impregnable. Everyone knew that. The strength of the living armour was the strength of the family. It made our work possible, because none of our enemies could touch us while we wore the living metal. Only, the silver shaft sticking out of my shoulder was a pretty convincing argument to the contrary. Trust the elves to find a way to hurt us. The pain beat in my head, interfering with my thoughts, and it took all my self-control to push it aside and concentrate. There had to be a way out of this. I couldn’t surrender the Soul of Albion. And anyway, I was damned if I’d be beaten by a bunch of snotty, arrogant elves.

I kept driving, foot hard down, blinking sweat out of my eyes. I’d lost all feeling in my left arm, and it hung limply at my side. I studied the arrow shaft protruding from my armoured shoulder. It was a strange silvery metal, glowing faintly. God alone knew from what far dimension the elves had plundered it, desperate to find the one thing that would pierce Drood armour. I looked up and around. The dragons were still keeping up with me, flailing their vast wings into a blur, even though the Hirondel was pushing its top speed. I couldn’t outrun them, couldn’t shake them off. So I stamped both feet down on brake and clutch and brought the car to a screeching halt, leaving long smoking trails of burned rubber behind me. The dragons and their riders swept on, caught off guard, but quickly circled around to come back at me again. Some of them were already stringing arrows to their bows.

I forced the bullet-holed door open and stumbled out of the car, crying out despite myself as every new jolt of movement brought me fresh pain. I strode out into the middle of the road, facing the oncoming dragons, my left arm useless at my side. I could see the elves’ faces now, their cold, cruel smiles. They were laughing at me. I reached through my golden armour with my golden hand and drew the Colt Repeater from its holster. There was blood on it from my shoulder wound, and I shook a few drops off. I aimed the Colt at the nearest dragon rider, and the gun took care of the rest.

The cold lead bullet hit the elf lord right between the eyes and blew the back of his head off. For good measure I shot the dragon in its ugly head too, and it crashed to the motorway in an ungainly sprawl of flapping wings. I shot all the elves and all the dragons, all the vicious lords and vile ladies and their ugly mounts, and they didn’t have the time to fire off a single arrow at me. I just fired the Colt Repeater again and again and again, and the bullets just kept coming, and the gun never missed. A triumph of the Armourer’s art. The dead dragons piled up before me, twitching and shuddering as the last of their unnatural life leaked out of them, and not a single elf escaped my cold anger. God bless you, Uncle Jack.

I sat down carefully on the Hirondel’s bonnet and got my breath back. The arrow in my shoulder still hurt like hell. I had to contact the family. Get them to send a clean-up crew to remove the dragons and elves before Joe Public turned up to see them. And then the Matriarch would have to send a stiff and very formal complaint to the Fae Court, telling them to keep their arrogant noses out of Drood business, or else. It slowly occurred to me that I’d been driving for some time while fighting for my life, and I still hadn’t seen any traffic. Someone had to have arranged for this whole section of the motorway to be sealed off. To close all the exits and shut down all the CCTV coverage would take serious clout. How high up was this traitor in the family, that they could arrange something like this? Yes, I had to get to a safe phone. Tell the family. About the traitor…

My head was actually nodding, my thoughts fading in and out, when the car’s alarms went off again. My head jerked up and I slid off the bonnet and looked around me. A thick fog covered all the motorway behind me, a dirty gray mist that churned and boiled, with nothing natural about it. I climbed back into the driving seat, gritting my teeth against the pain, and then pounded my left arm with my right fist until some sensation returned, so I could slam the car into first gear. I took off again, and out of the mists behind me came the phantom fleet.

My first thought was This isn’t fair. Not after everything I’ve already been through… But I was too tired even to maintain a good sulk, so I just concentrated on building up some speed. My injured arm shrieked at me as I raced through the gears, but that was better than the scary numbness. The pain cleared my head and kept me angry. I was going to have to be sharp, in top form, to take out the phantom fleet.