Feth...”
She elbowed him. “Don't call me 'Feth', you know I hate that.”
“Shut up,” Kersey said. “What's Knight Syndrome?”
“This,” Fethne indicated Kali and Luned in their armour, swords in hand. “It started just before the Psarrion appeared. Soldiers going nuts and running about in armour, thinking they were knights. There was a whole spate of it.”
“I am a knight,” Luned said, coldly. “And I know you, Whore of Narillion.”
Fethne's mouth gaped in outrage, but the rest of the group sniggered. Even Kali could not suppress a smile. Only Chadwell came to Fethne's defence, squaring up to Luned with his fist beneath her chin.
“Don't talk to her like that!”
Luned grabbed Chadwell's wrist and flipped him neatly off his feet, put her boot on his throat and readied her sword.
“Whoah!” Kali stepped in to halt the death-thrust. “Kick his arse if he insists, but... just whoah, okay?”
Luned lowered her sword and let Chadwell up. He scrambled to his feet, massaging his wrist. “She's nuts! Look at this, she just killed seven guys!”
“Five,” Kali corrected him. “I killed two of them.”
“Did you slice all their frikking heads off too?! Why the hell did she do that?”
“To put them on spikes,” Luned said. “What else would one do?”
The whole group recoiled, staring at her aghast. Only Kali gave no reaction, turning the question over. “We don't have any spikes,” she said at last.
“We'll find some,” Luned said, then pointed to a number of iron poles amid the rubble. “They'll do.”
“They would,” Kali said, “but later, alright? Let's set camp first.”
The ruins had once been a farming complex. Geddes found two rooms intact, and set about building a fire from broken furniture. The others scattered to pick over the rubble for supplies; tinned food often survived buried in the debris. Kali remained outside with Luned, stealing glances at her until she caught the the other knight doing the same. Suddenly embarassed, Kali sat down on a rock and took out her sword to sharpen it.
Luned crouched down beside her, looking out at the dusty horizon. The nuclear glow behind the poisoned clouds had darkened almost to black, gleams and flickers in the smog replacing the light of the stars.
The other knight... it was a strange sensation. The whetstone ceased to scrape on the blade and Kali turned to meet the older woman's stare.
“They rode in on strange machines...” Luned said, indicating the dead Psarrion.
“Bikes.”
“Can we use them?”
The thought had not occurred to Kali at all. “I don't know. It's too dark now.”
“Too dark to burn the bodies, either. We'd be seen for miles.”
“Then we've all night to decide about heads on spikes and what to do with these bikes, if anything at all.”
Luned nodded, her eyes on the horizon once more. “Where are we?” She asked at last.
“VC,” Kali said, then glanced at Luned again and added, “the Vesprier Confederacy. Or at least... that's where this used to be.”
“North of Daricia?”
“Yes. Is that where you're from?”
Luned nodded. After another pause, she said, “You're not how I expected. The Daishen...” suddenly she was on her knees again, staring up at Kali. “There's so much I need to ask you...”
“Luned...”
“Why? What's the reason? What is it that we fight for? Please, the others tried to explain it but none of them knew, they were just repeating what they'd been told you'd said, none of them really knew...”
“What others? Other knights?”
Luned nodded again, urgently. “Please, holy Daishen, tell me...”
Kali lurched to her feet. “I don't know what you're talking about, I think you know more about all this than I ever could!”
“You are the Daishen. If you don't know...” Luned trailed off, staring at Kali as if seeing her properly for the first time, the grey longcoat she wore over her armour, the rifle slung at her back. Luned rose to her feet slowly. “I didn't expect you to be so young. How long have you been the Daishen?”
“Three months.”
“But didn't your predecessor...?”
“I knew her for about an hour. She stumbled off a battlefield, gave me the armour and died in my arms. All I know is what the spirit tells me, and that's not much. When to fight, mainly.”
Luned sat down heavily on the rocks again. “That's the answer, isn't it? The others were right. The quest is all there is, without reason or end.”
Kali wanted to ask what Luned meant, but the spirit of the Old Daishen spoke to her without words, telling her simply that the older woman was right; the quest was the only thing that mattered, without needing to be understood.
“Who are we fighting?” Luned asked at last.
“Well, the Psarrion.”
Luned looked up in alarm. “That was them? I'd never seen them before.”
“But they're everywhere, they invaded the planet. They bombed every city from orbit, sent in thousands of troops... how can you not know about them?”
“Oh I've heard about them, just the same as I've heard about you; from stories. When did all this happen?”
“Less than a year ago. This,” she indicated the wasteland, “this is what their bombardment did. VC didn't used to look like this. Here.” She knelt in the dust and dug down a few inches, revealing the black loam gleaming with crystal fragments. “This used to be the Onyx Plain. It was beautiful. At sunrise, the whole landscape shone like a field of glass flowers... Then the Psarrion filled the sky with ash from burning cities. We haven't seen the sun since they came.”
“I wondered why it was so cold.”
Kali shrugged. “Let's get back to the fire.”
“And to your friends.”
“They're not really. Just Geddes, I knew him as a kid. The others... we all just ended up together, on the run from the Psarrion, from the gangs in the city...”
“But you're the Daishen. Why should you run?”
“Because my friends do? I'd have helped you sooner, but they were too afraid. Even Geddes and Kersey wouldn't come until they saw you were putting up a good fight.”
“I died in one battle and woke up in another,” Luned shrugged. “One minute I was fighting Dacoits, the next, Psarrion. One of the Dacoits stabbed me in the throat, I remember that, then there was a bright light and...” she looked around again at the ruins and the desolate landscape beyond. “I died. I actually died, I remember it now...”
“Did you say Dacoits? Like on TV?”
Luned frowned as if she had never heard of television. Kali's only comprehension of the word 'Dacoit' came from weekend cartoons; black-clad shadow warriors.
“Come on,” she said. “Let's see what's to eat.”
One by one, the group dropped off to sleep, Kersey first, then Ferneval. Fethne nuzzled Chadwell wordlessly, then withdrew to another section of the ruins, taking her backpack with her. Chadwell sat where he was for a minute, glanced up at Kali and Geddes as if ashamed, then went after Fethne.
“You know who she is?” Luned said, eventually.
Kali shook her head. Geddes just sat, contemplating the tip of his cigarette, listening.
“She's one of us,” Luned said, with a nod at Kali. “Like you, like me. From another time.”
“What?” Geddes said, meeting Luned's eyes at last. “What the hell?”
“Geddes...” Kali began, but Luned softly interjected, “Let him ask. I'll answer as best I can.”
“Alright.” Geddes threw the stub of his cigarette into the fire and lit another. “What crazy shit are you on, sister?”
“Does Fethne have tattoos, Geddes?” Luned asked, levelly. “On her back, her thighs?”
Geddes flinched, glanced guiltily at Kali. “Yes.”
Kali was about to ask how Luned had known, but then the Old Daishen spoke to her, told her
Fethne indeed had tatoos. “A dragon,” she said aloud, “on her back. And a tiger on her thigh. Among others. Am I right, Geddes?”
“How did you...?” He began, then angrily, “Oh come on, don't tell me you've slept with her too!”
“No. And you know for a fact that Luned hasn't.”
“Well she's never met Fethne or any of us before!”
“But I have,” Luned said. “I've met Fethne. In my own time. Several hundred years ago.”
“Chadwell was right, you're nuts!”
“When the Psarrion attacked, knights assembled to give battle. First in ones and twos, then a whole army. Where did they come from? Did a thousand men and women all go mad and steal armour from museums? The knight who gave Kali her armour, where did she come from? From the past, Geddes.”
“It's insane.”
“Is it? You think the Psarrion are aliens. How if I told you that the Psarrion were in my time too? That's where they come from, Geddes. Not from some distant planet; from another time.”
Geddes clawed one hand down his face, then looked through his fingers at Kali. “Don't tell me you're buying this?”
“You saw the way she fought today. She didn't pick up that sword yesterday. Look at her armour; it's a perfect fit. Look at what she knows; about Fethne, about me.”
“Oh, what about you? She knows the same old story you heard once as a kid...”
“Where did I get the armour, Geddes? I didn't find it. The red knight gave it to me.”
“Crap. I'm sorry, Kali, I've heard it before, but it's crap, come on...”
Both of them froze when Luned levelled her sword at Geddes across the fire.
“You will not disrespect the Daishen. She is the red knight, the holy warrior.”
“Like you, eh?”
“No. I'm just a knight. She is a