Dotted here and there across the rough landscape were huge concrete structures: featureless blocks with no windows and only the one door. Surrounded by long walks of barbed wire, interrupted here and there with signs warning of mine-fields. This was where the workers lived when they weren’t working. I knew that, somehow. This was England as a slaughter-house, as concentration camp. The land Merlin Satanspawn had made, in his father’s image. A place of torture and horror and death for the lucky ones. Sinister Albion. The murdered dream of Camelot.
I could see Camelot from where I was. It stood at the top of a hill, not far away, the only castle in this nightmare place. It was all steel walls and thrusting metal turrets, polished and gleaming, with no windows and only the one door. And I had to wonder if it was as much a prison for its inhabitants as any of the concrete workers’ blocks. There was no stone or marble to the castle, nothing so ... soft, or human. I pointed the castle out to Suzie, and she nodded quickly. Her face was as cold and collected as always, but her eyes were fierce and unforgiving.
“You bring me to the nicest places, John,” she said finally.
“I think that’s Camelot,” I said.
“That ugly thing? I’ve had better-looking bowel movements.”
“You see any other castles round here? I told the Door to bring us straight to Excalibur, and this is apparently as close as it could get. And where else would Stark take the sword?”
“I have been in some real shit holes,” said Suzie. “And this is definitely one of them. Let’s get this done, John. I don’t like it here. I think ... it could be bad for the soul. That something in the nature of this place could rub off on us.”
“Sooner we start, sooner we finish,” I said. “Cheer up. I’m sure you’ll get to kill someone worth killing before this is over.”
“Anywhere else, that would be a good thing,” said Suzie. “But here—I think if I start, I might not be able to stop ...” She met my gaze suddenly. “John, whatever happens here, don’t leave me here, not in this place. Dead or alive, promise me you’ll get me home.”
“Dead or alive,” I said. “Nothing is ever going to part us.”
She nodded once, and we set off through the thick mud, towards the castle on the hill.
We made our way slowly across the dark, uneven country-side, our boots sinking deep into the mud with every step. It took all my strength and determination to keep going, hauling one foot out of the clinging mud with brute strength, only to have it sink in deep again with the next step. On and on, ploughing through the mud with stubborn strength, feeling my stamina leached slowly away by the unending effort. Giant bubbles of carrion-thick gas welled up out of the mud, disturbed by our progress, popping fatly on the already foul air. I cursed the mud and the stench and our slow pace until I ran out of breath and needed all I had to keep going. Suzie struggled on beside me, grimly silent. The oppressive heat left me soaked in sweat, and I had to stop now and again to cough ashes out of my throat. And deep down I knew that none of this had happened by chance. This was a world made to make people miserable, just for the fun of it.
The mud was deeper in some places than others, with never any warning, dropping off suddenly under our feet like giant sucking pits, trying to drag us down. Suzie and I looked after each other and fought our way through. The bottom half of my trench coat was soaked in mud and blood and filth, and Suzie’s black leathers didn’t fare much better. I kept hoping I’d get used to the stench and stop smelling it. But somehow it was always there, clogging up my mouth and throat and lungs. My eyes ran constantly with tears, from something in the air; I could feel them cutting slow runnels through the encrusted mud and ashes on my cheeks and mouth.
We’d barely made it half-way to the castle on the hill when we slowly became aware that we weren’t alone. Suzie stopped and looked sharply round. We moved to stand back-to-back, both of us aware of a threat we could sense but not see. The mud stirred slowly, its surface disturbed by living creatures moving underneath it. The mud was deep here, up to my waist, and things circled slowly round us, leaving long, slow trails in their wakes. Human hands and heads bobbed slowly up through the mud’s surface, rotten and corrupt and partially devoured, brought to the surface by what moved below. I still couldn’t see anything, nothing had broken the surface yet, but I could follow their progress through the deep mud. Suzie followed the wakes with her shotgun and pumped shells into position, the sound loud and carrying on the quiet. She tracked one particularly heavy wake, took careful aim directly ahead, and gave the creature both barrels.
The blast was shockingly loud but almost immediately drowned out by a vicious, angry screaming, as something large and twisted thrashed back and forth just under the surface. Blood spurted up through the mud, which flew spattering in all directions. Something that might have been a clawed hand briefly showed itself, and a set of massive snapping jaws, then they were gone again. Suzie aimed and fired a second time, and the screams shut off abruptly. The thrashing grew still, and the mud settled down again. A great pool of blood spread across the surface of the mud, but there was no sign of the creature itself. Slowly, the other wakes moved away from us, heading off into the mud. Suzie sniffed loudly, and we set off towards the castle again. Suzie has always favoured the direct approach to dealing with problems.
We moved on, ploughing stubbornly through the rotten and corrupt land, heading for two ranks of trees that formed a corridor, leading out of the mud and towards the base of the hill. I was really tired now, fighting the growing ache in my legs and back with every movement, breathing through gritted teeth to try to keep the falling ashes out of my mouth. As we drew closer to the trees, I slowly realised none of them had any leaves. The branches were twisted and gnarled and completely bare. The bark was a dull matte black, split here and there by some internal pressure, with thick red blood leaking out—as though the tree roots had spent so long in this corrupt ground that the trees no longer had sap in them, only blood. And perhaps no longer had any use for leaves in this world that knew nothing of sunlight.
The mud grew steadily more shallow as Suzie and I approached the corridor of trees, and we finally hauled ourselves out onto something very like proper ground. It was hard and flat and deeply cracked, almost volcanic. It felt good to have solid ground under my feet again, and I walked up and down a while for the pleasure of it. Then I spent some time slapping the hell out of my trench coat, trying to dislodge the caked-on filth; but it clung like tar, and I really didn’t want to try to prise it away with my bare hands. I finally gave it up as a job for later, and, hopefully, somebody else. Suzie, typically, hadn’t even bothered. She was looking thoughtfully about her, shotgun held at the ready. I followed her gaze, and quickly made out a whole bunch of creatures lurking in the shadows of the trees. Whatever they were, none of them wanted to get too close to us. They watched silently as Suzie and I moved cautiously through the corridor of trees. A few emerged from the shadows long enough to snarl briefly at us and retreat. They were cowed and broken things, with no spirit. What little I could make out of their forms looked rotten, decaying, malformed. Carrion feeders, not predators.
“First trees we’ve seen,” I said, just to be saying something. “Wonder what happened to the great forests here?”
“Cut down, set fire to,” said Suzie, sweeping her gun slowly back and forth before her. “Probably for the fun of it.”
“You know, you can be really depressing sometimes, Suzie.”
“Just trying to fit in.”
We came at last to the foot of the hill and stopped to lean on each other for a moment, to get our breath back before we tackled the hill. The dusty grey surface had given way to the first real road we’d seen, a dull yellow clay, winding round the hill on its way up to the castle. It wasn’t a yellow brick road, and that that certainly wasn’t an Emerald City, but it would do.
A bare wooden door-frame stood at the side of the road, containing no door, merely thick swirling mists that only existed inside the door-frame. Stra
nge lights came and went in the depths of that thick, churning fog. Flames flickered sullenly all round the wooden door-frame, burning and blackening the wood without consuming it. The fires could have been burning for hours or days or even years. The longer I looked into the churning mists, the more convinced I became there was someone or something in there, looking back at me. And then I heard the sound of horses’ hoofs, drawing steadily nearer, and I backed quickly away from the door-frame. Suzie moved in beside me, covering the mists with her shotgun. The sound of hoofs grew louder, and a whole company of knights in dark armour came thundering out of the mists, right at us. Suzie threw herself one way, and I went the other, as horse after horse emerged from the mists to form a barricade blocking the road up the hill.
The horses were huge: great black beasts snorting and stamping in the ash-filled air. And on their backs, knights in the same black armour that Artur had worn. Armour made of black scales that hissed and seethed and slid slowly over each other. The dark knights carried huge oversized swords and battle-axes, some so large they had to be strapped to the sides of their horses. Their breast-plates bore ancient satanic symbols, burned right into the armour, and they all carried heavy oblong shields, each marked with the sign of the inverted cross.
And at their head, on the biggest, blackest horse of all, a knight in blood-red armour. His crimson helmet bore a pair of stylised horns but no slit for eyes and mouth—just a blank expanse of gleaming metal. The whole of the knight’s armour seemed fused together, made and forged all of one piece, so that even when the great joints moved, there was never any trace of an opening. The armour was a single sealed unit, with no way in or out. Designed, perhaps, to keep something inside from getting out.
I knew who this was, who it had to be. Prince Gaylord the Damned, Nuncio to the Court of Camelot. I wondered if he knew his King was dead. Or, indeed, who had killed him.
Prince Gaylord urged his huge black horse forward until it stopped right in front of me. Suzie was quickly there at my side again, shotgun at the ready. The Prince in scarlet ignored her, the featureless helmet fixed on me. I still hadn’t figured out what I was going to say or do, so I made a point of ignoring him and being only interested in his horse. There was something definitely wrong about it.
The horse’s body was strangely asymmetrical, everything out of shape and out of balance, and its long head was almost a caricature of what a horse’s head should be. Its eyes bulged like a frog’s, and its wide, grinning mouth showed pointed teeth. Thin wisps of smoke curled up from its flared nostrils. And when I looked down, I saw the horse had cloven hoofs, with smoke rising from the ground they trod. A very disturbing horse—if it was a horse.
“I am Prince Gaylord,” the blood-red knight said finally, his voice echoing inside his crimson helmet. It was a smug and very self-satisfied voice, with a hint of mocking evil. As though he had done terrible things and enjoyed every minute of it but didn’t like to boast about it. Effortlessly scary, because it came so naturally. “Welcome ... to Sinister Albion.”
“Ask him if he’s got a small companion called Tattoo,” said Suzie. She sniggered loudly as I shook my head. Her sense of humour emerges at the strangest times.
“You’ll have to excuse Suzie,” I explained, “because she’ll shoot you if you don’t. I am ...”
“Oh, I know who you are, Lilith’s son,” said Prince Gaylord. “I’ve been looking forward to this little chat. We have so much in common.”
“We do?” I said politely.
“We both know what it is to have an overbearing parent whose very existence overshadows everything we do. You destroyed yours; and I really would like to learn how you did that.”
“How did you know we were coming here?” I said. “Given that even I didn’t know half an hour ago.”
“I know everything I need to know,” said the Prince. “Except for when I don’t. I saw you admiring my horses. Aren’t they wonderful? So much more interesting than the mere beasts of burden they started out as. Now they all contain followers of mine, brought up out of Hell with me, to serve me in this world. I’m pretty sure that possessing horses wasn’t what they had in mind; but I’m not ready to share my glory with anyone. Do you like the black armour my knights wear? My idea, again. Every separate scale contains the imprisoned soul of some innocent slain by the knight. Bound to serve him, forever. Souls are such a marvellous source of power. And so it is my knights are strong and invincible, in such a delightfully ironic way.”
“Does like to talk, doesn’t he?” said Suzie.
“Living armour?” I said, concentrating on the Prince. “Like the Droods?”
“Copy-cats,” the Prince said dismissively.
“Look, what do you want, tomato face?” said Suzie. Her long struggle through the mud and filth had not improved her temper. The company of dark knights stirred dangerously at the open insult.
“Nothing happens here that I don’t know about,” said Prince Gaylord. “Or in the Nightside, for that matter. Hell is as close to the Nightside as it is to Sinister Albion. You should know that, John. The Griffin says ‘hello’ ... And yes, I know the two of you killed my King. Dear little Artur. The King is dead, long live the ... Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? You must accompany me to Camelot, John Taylor and Suzie Shooter. You must come with me to the Court of Camelot, then ... Oh, the things we’ll do ...”
“That’s where we were going anyway,” I said. “But you’re welcome to tag along.”
The dark knights laughed—a jeering, cruel, unpleasant sound.
“No-one ever wants to go to Camelot,” said Prince Gaylord. “Not given what lies in wait there. Not given what happens there. Many go in, but few come out because Camelot is the worst place there is, on this worst of all worlds. But things can change, even here. You shall be my weapons, dear John and Suzie, with which I shall bring down Merlin and take his place. And when I am King, I shall truly make this land Hell on Earth.”
“Who are you?” I said. “What are you, Prince Gaylord the Damned?”
“I am the Devil’s other son, begotten in Hell as my brother Merlin was begotten on Earth. And I am much more my father’s son than he ever was or could be.”
“Then why did he let you come here?” said Suzie.
“He didn’t,” said Prince Gaylord. “He couldn’t keep me out any longer.”
“If your father is the Devil,” said Suzie, “what do you need us for?”
“I don’t,” said Prince Gaylord. “I can take care of my brother. But I want you to remove a certain object, a certain sword that might ... complicate things. I can’t touch it, but you can. You can take it away from my brother and give it to me, to destroy it. Excalibur has no place in this world.”
“And if we choose not to get involved in your family squabble?” I said. “If we take the sword anyway and go home?”
“You have no choice,” said Prince Gaylord. “Excalibur is too powerful a thing to be allowed to run free. You shall go to Camelot on your knees, and in chains, as my slaves. You will do my bidding, John Taylor, or I will make your woman scream in front of you as I take her apart, piece by piece, until you beg to serve me, to save what’s left of her.” He gestured, and one of the dark knights urged his horse forward, a set of spiked chains dangling from one black mailed glove.
“Typical bloody stuck-up aristocrat,” said Suzie.
She opened fire on the approaching knight, giving him both barrels full in the helmet. The blast smashed the helmet and the head inside it right off, and the headless body slowly toppled backwards off his horse, his arms still failing as blood jetted from the ragged neck aperture. The horse reared up, menacing Suzie with its great cloven hoofs, and Suzie gave it both barrels in its exposed belly. The horse screamed shrilly, in an almost human voice, and crashed to the ground, blood and entrails spilling out of the massive hole in its guts. Suzie turned on the other knights, and picked them off one by one, shooting them right out of their saddles and bringing down their demo
n horses. Some tried to get to me, and Suzie shot them methodically in the back. I don’t know whether it was the blessed or the cursed armour that did the trick; but their armour was no protection against a Nightside shotgun. Soon the ground was covered in headless knights and thrashing horses as fresh blood soaked into the dusty earth. Suzie moved unhurriedly amongst the bodies, finishing off anything that didn’t look dead enough. Stopping now and again to reload the shotgun from the bandoliers that crossed her chest.
I had my own problems. Prince Gaylord screamed with fury inside his seamless crimson helmet as the first knight died and urged his demon horse forward to ride me down. I backed quickly away, thinking hard. None of my usual bag of tricks would work against the Devil’s other son. Given time, I might have been able to put something together, but he was right on top of me. I couldn’t throw pepper in his face, or take bullets out of his sword, or play games with his head. The only actual weapon I had on me was a small ceremonial silver dagger that someone had given me in part payment for an old fee. I only used it for carving magical graffiti into the walls of places I didn’t approve of. But after that business with the werewolves the other day, I did find the time to have the silver dagger officially blessed: by the Rogue Vicar Tamsin MacReady, and the Lord of Thorns himself ... and those were pretty heavy-duty blessings.
So when Prince Gaylord’s demon horse reared up over me, cloven hoofs pounding on the air over my head, instead of continuing to back away, as expected, I stepped forward, darted to one side, and sliced the demon horse along its ribs with the point of my silver dagger to see what would happen. The horse screamed like a fire siren, and sulphur-yellow flames burst out, all down the long cut. The horse’s hoofs slammed to the ground again, its legs almost buckling from the shock of actually being hurt, so I moved quickly in and jammed the dagger into the horse’s bulging eye. I forced it in, all the way to the hilt, ignoring the acidic jelly that splashed over my hand. The horse howled and shook its head savagely at the new pain. I jerked the dagger out and fell back, so that the stream of yellow flames bursting out of the eye socket missed me by inches.