"Lord High Commander Hedgehog!" yelled Richards, leaping off the thog. He bounded up the low steps to the howdah, and was promptly accosted by two burly hedgehogs.
"Who are you?" growled one.
"Some kind of assassin," said the other. Blades scraped as they drew out their daggers.
"I have urgent news for the Lord High Commander," insisted Richards.
"No one allowed up here but general staff," yelled the hedgehog over the noise of an exploding shell. "Push off!"
"Let him through, let him through," said the diffident voice of Hedgehog. "I will see him." The bodyguards stepped aside, and Richards was afforded a view of the Lord High Commander. His visor was up, since he had been conferring with his aides, and as Richards approached he snapped shut an elegant telescope. "Well?" said Hedgehog. "What is it, human? Speak, then be gone."
"The weasels, the weasels have turned!"
"I see," said Hedgehog, his voice several degrees cooler. "They are rolling up the right flank?"
"Right now."
"No doubt you think I should act. But I won't," said Lord High Commander Hedgehog. "The weasels, you see, work for me."
"Ah."
"'Ah' indeed. Those short-sighted fools in Pylon City could not see the advantage to be had from forming an alliance with Penumbra. Though we argued the case with them, they would not favour the idea. Penumbra was more than happy to entertain our unilateral offer. The Pylonites will die. Our aeons-long struggle with Pylon City will be over, and the Magic Wood will survive the Great Terror, forever free of the tyranny of men and their machines!"
"That's cold," said Richards. "Your people are dying in droves."
"Rather unfortunate, that. Still, means there won't be much opposition when I take over the Wood, will there? With Lord Penumbra's blessing, of course."
"You stupid rodent," said Richards. "He's tricked you into fighting his war for him."
Hedgehog smiled. "I have never lost a battle. As long as there has been an army of the Magic Wood there has been a Lord High Commander Hedgehog, and as long as that has been so, there have been no defeats. This battle tortoise, Roger, he was my father's mount, before that my grandfather's, my great great-grandfather's. He has never witnessed a battle in which he was not upon the winning side. How else do you think he can remain so phlegmatic, eh? I have two hundred years of victory at my back and you, some man, tell me I am wrong? Pfah! Let the whole of the Earth thunder to the tramping of iron-shod paws, for I will rule it all!" Hedgehog cackled maniacally. Two hedgehogs stepped forward. "Now I'm going to kill you. Make him kneel." The hedgehogs forced Richards down. The Lord High Commander stepped forward and loomed over Richards. "Any last words?" He unhitched his lightning-pistol.
"I'm not going to beg," said Richards.
"I am not so crass as to expect begging!" scoffed the hedgehog. "I was rather hoping for some brave witticism. Stiff upper lip and all, wot? Pity."
"You're making a terrible mistake."
"Yes, yes," said the hedgehog. "Goodbye."
Richards stared down the crystal at the end of the gun.
"Balls," he said, and screwed his eyes tight. No shot came. Roger let out a croak of fear like tearing paper and reared up. There was a sound of the snapping of chain and the wrenching of metal. The howdah broke into pieces as it came free of Roger's shell, scattering hedgehogs and pitching Richards to the blackened ground. He rolled to avoid the tortoise's foot as Roger ran at some speed away from the source of his horror, squashing two of Hedgehog's bodyguards flat and leaving them oozing in the dust. The rest of Hedgehog's guard picked themselves up, faltered and followed the tortoise.
Richards looked behind him, and his own heart froze. Over the prone body of Lord High Commander Hedgehog was Lord Penumbra.
Penumbra sat atop a beast that was half-horse, half-dragon. It pawed at the earth with clawed hoofs. Its skin was a coat of scales, its face a snarl of night-black violence, its eyes those of a cat, its tail a serpent's head. It radiated a deep chill, pinning Richards' breath to the air in clouds of frost. Black vapours curled around it, stealing the light away. Penumbra himself was nebulous and black, his form clad in shadow and armour of jet.
The battlefield grew quiet, sound stymied in Penumbra's presence. The sky roiled with the storm of the world-death.
"Hedgehog!" rang out a sepulchral voice. "Hedgehog! I come with your reward! Rule in my name! Death shall be thy kingdom!"
Richards could not look directly at Penumbra, try as he might. His bright darkness blinded him.
"N-no, my lord!" said Hedgehog. "We have an arrangement!" He shook. No longer the proud warlord, he was now just a big fat rodent in a complicated tin suit.
"Death!" bellowed Penumbra. His mount reared, its whinnying the end of flowers. "Death! Low field-beast, you would seek to deal with me? Where is your honour, where is your side of the bargain? Where is Queen Isabella?" He roared, a long sound of discordant ferocity. "Fool!"
"No, no!" squealed Hedgehog, falling to his knees. "Please! I looked, I tried!"
Penumbra drew a pillar of black flame as he would a sword. His arm extended, distorted like a shadow, the weapon stretching impossibly towards the hedgehog. A shaft of blackness struck out from it, piercing Hedgehog's chest.
Hedgehog ceased to be. Shadow became light and light shadow. He became a negative of sooty grains. Hedgehog dissipated, pulled into the sword, his thin scream remaining in the air, the scream all small animals make in pain, nothing more.
Richards felt his stomach turn to water as Penumbra's faceplate swivelled toward him. "And now you. You and your ilk are a blight on this land."
The shadow-blade extended out, its tip burning Richards with its cold. As it came, reality warped around it, and Richards was struck by a thought. Well, two thoughts.
The first was that reality was warping around the blade, turning glassy and spinning off sub-universes that popped like soap bubbles on the charred grass.
Secondly, Richards could not hear k52's Gridsignature at all.
His eyes narrowed.
Something came swiftly from the left. There was a roar, the sound of metal hitting metal. The ground heaved. Richards' chest went tight as Tarquin turned to stone. He fell up into the air, and came back down. He found himself lying in a smoking crater, soil pattering off him. His vision swam. An iron monster reached down with long claws to pluck the last of his life from him.
That was all his facsimiled mind could take.
CHAPTER 15
A squeaking accompanied by a grinding penetrated the fog in Richards' mind. He decided he found it annoying, but his irritation was quickly forgotten as sensation returned to him. He hurt all over. His arm was a mass of painful throbbing. He lay there, not daring to move, eyes shut until a jolt through whatever he lay on brought more pain and caused them to jump open.
He pulled himself onto his elbows and tried not to whimper.
He was on a pump wagon. Bear stood at one end of the mechanism, methodically pushing it up and down with one paw, struggling out of his armour as he did so.
"He's awake," said Tarquin.
"You're back!" shouted Bear, his voice muffled by the armour. He wrenched it over his head, and tossed it overboard. "Damn uncomfortable that was. Who ever heard of a bear in armour? Ridiculous. But I'm keeping these." He held up a paw encased in a heavy gauntlet. There was a rasp of metal, and four blades popped out of the back of it. "Good, eh?" said Bear. "They're a lot sharper than my own, and now I need never worry about breaking a nail in a fight."