I lashed about with spiked golden fists, and bones broke and shattered under my armoured strength. I punched in heads, punched out hearts, grabbed arms and shoulders and crushed them with my terrible hands, and not one of the blood-red men cried out, or made a single sound of pain or shock. I hit them hard, sending them flying this way and that, but they just kept coming, pressing silently forward, trying to overwhelm me and drag me down through sheer force and weight of numbers. I couldn’t seem to hurt or damage any of them, no matter how hard I tried. I knocked them down and they just got up again. I broke them, and they put themselves back together. They swarmed all over me, hitting me from every direction at once, clinging heavily to my arms and legs.
It was like fighting in some awful nightmare, where nothing you do seems to have any effect and there’s no end to the silent, faceless enemy.
I grabbed hold of the ones clinging to me, pulled them loose one at a time, and threw them away. They slammed into tables and chairs and partitions, but they always got up again. I grabbed one, picked him up bodily by the ankles and used him as a flail, swinging him round and round, smashing into the others. I had some vague idea his body might be able to affect those like him. But although I heard his bones break, and theirs, as I used him as a living club . . . when I finally dropped him to the floor neither he nor his targets had any problem putting themselves back together again.
I took hold of a red-masked face with both golden hands, and ripped the head right off. No blood erupted from the ragged neck, and the fierce eyes behind the mask still glared at me mockingly. I threw the head away, and its body went lurching after it, arms outstretched. I felt like laughing hysterically. You can’t see things like that, such brutal disregard and contempt for all natural laws, without losing some self-control. But when in doubt . . . If your tactics aren’t working, change your tactics.
The Sarjeant-at-Arms taught me that.
So I grabbed hold of the nearest blood-red man, and hurled him at the nearest window. The thick glass shattered and the body went flailing through, into the cold outdoors, to be left behind as the train roared on. One less enemy to fight . . . is one less enemy to fight. Freezing-cold air blasted in through the shattered wooden frame, so cold I could feel some of it even through my armour. Interestingly, I could see breath steaming on the carriage air, seeping out from behind the blood-red masks. Which suggested my attackers were still sort of human after all. I grabbed another one and threw him out the window too.
The blood-red men pressed forward, and I struck them down, hauled them off me, and threw them out the broken window. I whittled the crowd down to less than a dozen, and suddenly a whole new crowd of blood-red men came charging through the open doorway, as though summoned by some unheard call. More and more of them, forcing their way into the restaurant car, squeezing through the narrow doorway, determined to get at me. All of them dressed in the same crimson leathers and full face masks, all of them looking exactly the same and packed full of the same endless energy. They never said a word and they never made a sound. I counted thirty of them before I lost track, with still more crowding in through the doorway.
All the time I was fighting I could hear Molly behind me, chanting Words of Power. Her magics spat and crackled on the air as they fought to get some hold on the blood-red men’s impervious bodies. Half a dozen of them suddenly burst into flames. They didn’t seem to care, and it didn’t slow their attack. Their burning leathers gave off an awful stench, but the jumping flames didn’t seem to affect the flesh beneath. The blood-red men fought on, even as they burned, their flames setting light to tables and chairs and hanging curtains as the train’s motion sent them lurching this way and that. Soon both sides of the carriage were on fire at that end, flames leaping up eagerly. A dark smoke drifted down the carriage, whipped up by the cold air still blasting in through the smashed window.
The blood-red men kept pressing forward, through the smoke and flames, while more and more of them plunged through the open doorway.
I kept hitting them, and they kept getting up again. I hit them with punches that would have demolished a house, but the damage just wouldn’t take. They were all superhumanly strong, and inhumanly resistant to punishment. If I hadn’t had my armour, they would have taken me down easily; as it was, all it could do was keep me in the game. They weren’t strong enough to hurt me through my armour, but the sheer overpowering weight of their numbers drove me back, step by step. All the way down the restaurant car, with Molly forced to back up behind me, still lobbing the odd nasty spell over my shoulder, like occult grenades. They didn’t do any lasting damage, but they did slow the enemy down. The blood-red men never said a word as they pressed forward, their unblinking gaze fixed always on me.
I kept grabbing individual attackers when I could, and throwing them out the window, but they were arriving faster than I could get rid of them. I hauled a table out of its setting and forced it into place across the aisle before me, then followed it with several more. Trying to set up a barricade. The blood-red men set their hands on the tables and tore the heavy wood apart like it was paper. They threw the pieces aside and came after me again. And I was getting tired. The armour makes me strong and fast, but it still relies on me to operate it. I grabbed hold of the nearest blood-red man and tried to tear his scarlet mask away, so I could see the face beneath. But there was no gap between mask and skin, as though they were sealed or fused together.
“Rip the mask off!” Molly yelled behind me.
“I don’t think it is a mask,” I said. “I think . . . it’s his face.”
“Rip it off anyway!”
And then we were interrupted by the sound of approaching feet behind us. I threw the blood-red man away and glanced quickly back over my shoulder, just in time to see a dozen or so train security guards come running in through the rear door. They wore the same black uniforms, but this time they were armed with all kinds of heavy-duty weaponry. Molly and I jumped back out of the way, to opposite sides of the aisle, and the security men opened up with everything they had, shooting at everyone in front of them.
They advanced steadily, blasting away at the blood-red men . . . who just stood their ground, soaking up the bullets as though they were nothing. They didn’t flinch and they didn’t blink, and they didn’t fall back one single step. The noise of so many guns firing at once was deafening in the enclosed space. An occasional stray bullet hit my armour, which obligingly swallowed it up. I glanced across at Molly, but she was already hiding under a table. The security guards kept on firing, yelling half-incoherent obscenities at each other in military Russian, their eyes wide and shocked at what they were seeing.
Chests and heads exploded under the impact of heavy ammunition, only to repair themselves in moments, like film running backwards. And step by step, the blood-red men forced themselves forward, into the heat of the attack, against the terrible pressure of massed gunfire, until they were close enough to lay hands on the security guards. They tore the men apart, limb from limb, ripping off heads with horrid ease and throwing them away. The guards died quickly, smoking guns falling uselessly from their dead hands. The blood-red men didn’t even bother to pick them up. Blood sprayed up to stain the carriage ceiling, then fell back in heavy crimson drops. More blood splashed across the fixtures and fittings, and ran in thick rivulets along the polished wooden floor. Until nothing was left of the security guards but a bloody mess in the aisle that the blood-red men kicked their way through as they came on.