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.
I concentrated on the castle, so I wouldn’t have to See any more death, and my Sight stirred my gift, enough to give me a Vision of what was happening, deep inside Castle Camelot. Stark was there, in his armour, talking with Merlin, though I couldn’t hear what they were saying. They seemed to be arguing, which was good news. It implied that Stark had yet to make a deal over Excalibur. I couldn’t See the sword anywhere in the Vision. It might have been that Stark had enough sense not to bring the sword into Merlin’s presence; or it could have been that the sword was still invisible to anyone except its bearer. I felt distinctly jealous. It was my sword, dammit. And then Merlin turned his head abruptly and looked out of the Vision right at me, his blazing eyes widening in recognition. I shut the Vision down immediately, along with my Sight. I’d Seen enough.
I told Suzie about the Vision, and she nodded thoughtfully as we continued up the hill towards Camelot.
“No protections?” she said finally. “No defences at all?”
“Nothing magical,” I said. “But who knows how many more dark knights Merlin has at his command, now that he’s made himself King.”
“And he definitely Saw you, through the Vision? He knows we’re coming?”
“Yes. Which could be a good thing ...”
“Oh, do go on. I can’t wait to hear this one.”
“If he knows we’re coming, it could distract him from making a deal with Stark.”
“That’s what I love about you, John. Always the optimist.”