“We can’t leave,” I said. “We can’t let False Knights run loose in the world. We have to hold them here, keep them focused on us, keep any of them from escaping until my family gets here. If the Knights scatter, it could take the Droods generations to hunt them all down. And God knows how many people would die. The Knights need blood and death and suffering, to survive. And a company of False Knights could wipe out the entire population of this city in under an hour. I don’t even want to think how powerful that much blood and slaughter would make them . . . They were created to be an answer to the Droods. A final answer. And even our own history books say they came pretty damned close.”
“So!” Molly said brightly. “How did your family defeat a whole army of False Knights, back in the day?”
“The book didn’t say.”
“Terrific . . .”
“I’ve always supposed we used one of the Forbidden Weapons, from the Armageddon Codex,” I said. “The kind we’re only supposed to use when reality itself is under threat. They never get discussed in the history books, because we’re not supposed to have them.”
“And they’re a very long way away,” said Molly.
“And we couldn’t use them anyway, without the supernatural fallout killing off most of the city,” I said.
“Then think of something else!” said Molly. “Because I am getting seriously spooked just looking at those things! How are the two of us supposed to stop a whole army of Drood equivalents? I mean, I’m good, but I’m not that good. I’m not sure anyone is . . . Don’t ever tell your family I said that.”
“We can do this,” I said. “We have to do this. We have to keep them occupied, keep them all here. Until someone arrives to save us.”
“You really think we can take them?”
“You want the truth, or a comforting lie?”
“What do you think?”
“Yes, I think we can beat them,” I said.
“Then so do I!” said Molly.
We nodded to each other, and then walked steadily down the street, side by side, to where the False Knights stood waiting, their faceless gaze still fixed on us. They probably hadn’t thought the first thing they’d see in their new Time would be a Drood in his armour. Just as well; it was the only thing that would have held them here. The only thing in the world they had good reason to be afraid of. While the only thing I had on my side . . . was that they had experience of only the old Drood armour. They knew nothing of the strange matter armour Ethel had given my family. With its far greater properties.
MI 13 officers finally drove their remaining men out from behind the barricades and down the street to reinforce the False Knights. Or at least to observe what was happening. The moment they drew level, the False Knights turned on them and butchered them all. Swords and axes flared dully in the grey light, and blood splashed everywhere as severed limbs and heads flew through the air. The False Knights cut the soldiers down with ease, bitter yellow blades shearing clean through Kevlar armour without even slowing. The few rounds the soldiers got off ricocheted harmlessly from the Knights’ armour. It was all over in a few moments, the False Knights moving inhumanly fast, with appalling grace and precision. Spurting blood splashed across the bitter yellow armour, which soaked it up immediately, leaving not a drop behind. Some of the Knights picked up pieces of dripping flesh and wiped their metal helms with it.
As though they were thirsty.
And just like that, it was over. Mutilated bodies, and pieces of bodies, were kicked carelessly to the sides of the road, and the False Knights resumed their ranks and looked at me and at Molly again. As though daring us to do something, anything, about the awful thing they’d just done.
“Why did they do that?” said Molly. “Why kill the soldiers when they were on the Knights’ side?”
“No one is on the False Knights’ side,” I said. “That’s the point.”
The Knights held their gleaming swords and axes at the ready, and not one drop of blood fell from the heavy blades. The bitter yellow armour had soaked it all up. The Knights had had their first taste of their new world, and they liked it. I made myself move forward, and Molly was immediately there beside me. That helped. I was facing one of my family’s oldest and darkest nightmares, and I’m not sure I could have done it on my own.
One of the False Knights stepped forward out of the front rank. His metal boots slammed down hard as he came to meet me, and the ground cracked beneath his every step, as though he was too heavy, too real, for this world. He carried a long sword, with a hilt long enough for him to use both hands. I concentrated on my armour, and forced a change on it. Heavy collars rose up to protect my head and shoulders, while vicious spikes protruded from my elbows and knees. I even raised spikes on the knuckles of my golden gloves. The False Knight stopped and looked at me. He hadn’t been expecting that. Droods hadn’t been able to change their armour the last time he’d met them. For the first time he realised he wasn’t facing the kind of Drood he knew. I grinned behind my featureless mask. They might be an army, and they might be clad in armour out of Hell itself. But they’d never met a Drood like me.
I gestured for Molly to hold her ground, and she stopped, reluctantly, glaring fiercely at the watching Knights. I grew a long golden sword out of my right glove. It shone with a bright, healthy light. I nodded to the False Knight, and he nodded to me, challenge given and accepted. And then we ran forward, charging straight at each other. We slammed together in the middle of the street, our swords rising and falling. And my strange matter sword sheared right through his bitter yellow blade. The end fell away, clattering on the ground, and as the False Knight hesitated, caught off guard, I brought my sword swinging round in a viciously fast arc . . . and cut off his head. The bitter yellow helm fell to the ground, and rolled away. The headless body fell stiffly backwards, like a felled tree. It clanged hollowly as it hit the ground, and not a drop of blood came out of it.
I turned to face the waiting ranks of False Knights, and laughed at them. The simple, unintimidated sound seemed to fill the empty street. Molly whooped loudly, and punched the air with her fist. And the whole army of False Knights came striding down the street, right at me, and Molly, to do together what one Knight had so signally failed to do. The ground shook and trembled under their weight, and the very air seemed to curdle around them, as though their presence alone was enough to poison the world.
Molly danced forward to face them, smiling unpleasantly. She raised both arms in the stance of summoning, and chanted a series of harsh ugly Words. A great raging wind blew up out of nowhere, and swept down the street to hit the Knights head-on. The wind overturned parked cars and sent them tumbling, and blew everything else around like leaves, but it didn’t even slow the False Knights.
Molly cut off the wind the moment she realised it wasn’t working. She summoned up fireballs and threw them at the Knights, fires hot enough to shimmer the air and melt everything in the mortal world . . . but the flames just splashed harmlessly against the bitter yellow armour, and fell away, and the Knights kept on coming. Molly lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, and hit the first rank with her strongest transformation spell. The air between them crackled with violent magical energies, but nothing in the spell could touch the False Knights in their armour.
Molly scowled fiercely, concentrating on one Knight right in front of her. She raised a hand, and then clenched it, hard. And the False Knight broke step, shuddering to a halt as his bitter yellow armour cracked and crinkled all around him. It scrunched up like tin foil, crushing the man within, collapsing in upon itself. The False Knight staggered, waved his arms wildly, and then fell to the ground as his armour closed in around him, crushing and compressing him, until there was just a crumpled ball of bitter yellow metal in the street.