Reign of Iron (54 page)

The two praetorians went down, one hamstrung and the other to a mighty punch, and the crowd of demons ran after Spring. They were a long way back, but the lead demon was right on her, the horsewoman almost on him.

The Leatherman leapt for Spring. At the same moment the mystery woman threw herself from her horse, a dagger in each hand.

The dagger blades sank to the hilt into the demon’s back. Woman and monster tumbled in a ball of waving limbs. When they came to a stop, the demon had somehow taken a blade from his back and was straddling the woman, dagger held aloft. But Spring had stopped, too. She whirled the hammer in an arc and whacked it into the side of the demon’s head.

The Leatherman fell, the woman leapt up, grabbed the dagger from the demon’s hand, slammed it into his neck and shouted something at Spring.

Spring turned and ran on towards the fort. Or at least towards the backs of the several thousand legionaries attacking it.

Come on, Spring!
thought Lowa. She didn’t know what the girl could achieve, or how she could possibly escape by running into the massed ranks of the enemy, but, even as pain twisted in every part of her and each breath was a tortured trial, she willed her on and implored whatever gods were watching to help her.

Spring reached the back of the tortoise. As far as she could see from left to right were legionaries, all facing away from her with their shields overhead. Nearby was a whizz then a bang followed by screams, as an incendiary bucket landed on the Romans’ shield roof and burning oil seared through the skin of the men below.

She glanced over her shoulder. Leathermen were coming.

There was only one way to go. She leapt like a salmon and vaulted on to one of the back-markers’ raised shield. It tilted horribly, but Spring jumped to the next one and she was away, leaping from shield to shield towards the fort. She could think of nothing but getting to little Dug. It was the same feeling of unshakeable purpose as when she’d killed his father. She had to reach the boy.

A scorpion bolt smashed down in front of her. She dodged a flying head and diverted around the hole left in the shield roof by the mighty barb. An incendiary bucket landed paces away and the shield below her fell away. She crashed down into legionaries. Before any of them had recovered from the surprise of a barbarian woman landing among them, she had scrambled back up onto their shields and was off.

She glanced behind her and saw Leathermen trying to follow across the shields. They were a good way back, and two fell between gaps in the tiny amount of time she was watching. They were much heavier than her. The top of a man-made tortoise, she thought, was one of the few surfaces in the world over which she might be quicker than the Leathermen.

As she approached the fort, arrows rained down around her in a deathly torrent. She reached the base of the Roman ramp. It was nearly completed and legionaries were marching up it, shields aloft. As she began the final sprint up it, an arrow slapped into her left shoulder.

Badgers’ bollocks
, she thought, running on. Her arm fizzed with pain and weirdness and she couldn’t lift it. She sprinted up the slanted shield roof, injured arm flapping at her side. The legionaries at the front were carrying a bizarrely long and narrow wooden screen; Spring thought it must be for protection from arrows but they dropped it as she arrived and she saw that it was a bridge, spanning both of Saran’s walls.

She leapt off the front rank of legionaries’ shields.

Straight into a salvo of British arrows.

They weren’t meant for her, she knew that, but they did the damage all the same. At least two pierced her left arm to add to the one in her shoulder. One was in her right leg, one in her stomach, one through her cheek. Then another one in her stomach. And one in her chest.

She staggered on, across the bridge.

“I’m Spring!” she managed. Defenders grabbed her and pulled her through their ranks, but then they immediately turned to face the foe. Left alone, she was pirouetting, then falling off the other side of the wall. She dropped ten paces and crumpled onto the hard earth of the hillfort floor.

R
agnall pawed at the sword tip protruding from his chest. You didn’t come back from an injury like this, he thought. After all he’d survived – burial in Rome and all Harry the Fister’s tortures, he thought he’d live for ever, but no, here was the sword, stuck in him, killing him. Whose sword was it and how had it got there? Maybe it was a dream? Surely he could not really be …
dying
?

Lying on his side, he could see Felix shouting at a Celerman as the creature pulled an arrow through the druid’s arm. Caesar stood nearby, looking about himself as if seeking an opening. He wasn’t going to find one, guarded by all those Maximen. The general didn’t look as relaxed as normal, but he didn’t look nearly as perturbed as he should have done. He appeared slightly frustrated, like an impatient man scanning a busy street for a friend who’s late.

Behind the general were Lowa, Chamanca and Atlas on their crosses. Well, that was one consolation, thought Ragnall. He remembered what Felix had said about crucifixion, how it was a horrible death that could last for days. He tried to wish that Lowa‘s agony would last for an entire moon, but then he found he didn’t really want it to.

And then he heard his mother calling. It was time to go home.

The arrows rained down on Spring. “Stop shooting,” Lowa tried to shout at the fort’s defenders, but it came out only as a croak. She tried to pull at the enormous iron nails pinning her hands, but she could hardly move her fingers, let alone shift the bolts.

On the fort wall, Spring was hit. She carried on, one arm lolling, running up the tortoise to the top of the fort wall. The bridge went down, Spring leapt and Lowa couldn’t see her any more.

The five Leathermen who’d followed her across the shields reached the ramp but ignored it and leapt straight up the walls. Three of them were taken down by Maidunite arrows, but two landed successfully and sliced their way through defenders.

“C
ome on, it’s not that bad, up you get,” said Dug.

Not that bad?
thought Spring,
I’ve got a hundred arrows in me. You wouldn’t get up.

“Possibly not, but I always was lazy and you’re not me. You have to get up.”

Oh badgers’
bellends
, thought Spring as she pushed herself up agonisingly onto all fours, was today never going to end?

She stood. Colour had gone. The world was a slow-churning whirl of shadowy shapes melding together and drifting apart. Clarity returned for an instant and she saw a hut. Well, a hut wasn’t much use. What was Dug’s point? Where was she meant to go? The hut dissolved, the swirl returned and she staggered.

“Hurry up, they’re coming!” said Dug.

You hurry up.

She tried to walk, but her arrow-stuck leg buckled and she fell, face whumping on the hard earth, arrows driving deeper and twisting into her ruined body. No, no, no. She was done, she wasn’t going anywhere.

She heard a toddler’s shout. She’d forgotten the name of the woman who looked after the child. It was one of her dad’s old girlfriends. She remembered.

“Keelin!” she called weakly. She pushed herself up on one arm and saw a Leatherman run through the fort, looking about himself, not seeing her.

Idiot
, she thought.

Then he spotted her.

Ah
. She looked about for Dug, but he’d gone.

The Leatherman sprinted at her, shouting and beckoning to somebody else – another Leatherman, Spring guessed.

“Spring!” It was Keelin, holding little Dug.

“Put Dug down,” Spring managed. Keelin raised an eyebrow and clutched the boy closer. Spring couldn’t blame her. She probably wouldn’t have handed a toddler to a dying, blood-soaked woman with loads of potentially hazardous arrows sticking out of her either. “
Do it!
” she shouted.

Dug screamed angrily, holding one arm out to Spring and scrabbling with the other arm and both feet to free himself from his nanny’s grasp. “Well, if that’s what you want—” said Keelin, plonking Dug on to the ground. Keelin was yanked aside by a Leatherman as Spring took the boy in her arms.

Time stopped.

Little Dug smiled. Big Dug looked out of his eyes. The child glowed, Spring’s arrows dissolved and her flesh healed as she floated up from the ground, Dug smiling in her arms. A Leatherman leapt up at her. So. Slowly.

Clasping Dug in one arm she pointed a hand at the demon. The creature dissolved into a cloud of dust and fell to the ground like beautiful rain.

The fort all around – the huts, blacksmiths, food stores and the walls themselves – was aglow with great golden light. Spring realised it was coming from her and the child. A second Leatherman was running across the fort as if he were hip deep in the thickest mud. She pointed at him. His head spun round and popped off in a geyser of blood. She rose on up. The Maidunite defenders turned to look at her, shielding their eyes. The legionaries under their shields pressed on up the ramp, oblivious. Spring pointed her finger and they tumbled backwards.

She saw the crosses on the hill. She could see them in detail, as if she were only ten paces away. Atlas, Chamanca, Felix and everyone else were staring open-mouthed as she rose. Unflappable Caesar was looking mildly confused, as if she were nothing more than a much larger pigeon than you’d usually expect to see. Ragnall was dead.

And Lowa?

Lowa was smiling.

Chamanca was not enjoying her crucifixion – it was tiresomely painful – so she was pleased with the diversion of watching Spring run across the Roman army. She didn’t see the point of it, but it was amusing. Then a light rose from the fort, brighter than the sun but somehow recognisably Spring, holding baby Dug. Lowa was smiling. Did she understand what was happening? Atlas didn’t, his mouth was uncharacteristically agape, but Chamanca bet if they got out of this he’d swear he’d been fully aware at every moment.

Spring pointed at Lowa. A beam of light burst from above the fort and shot into the queen’s chest. Her head bucked then slumped forward, as if she were dead.

The iron nails holding her wrists and ankles melted, folded back in on themselves and flowed along Lowa’s limbs, torso and head. Soon Lowa was coated in iron. Lowa
was
iron.

The iron queen fell from the cross and landed squarely. Everybody stood back and watched as she walked over and picked up her bow and quiver from where she’d placed them in front of Caesar. The metal flowed from her skin and coated the weapons.

Chamanca looked back to Spring as a bolt of light hit her, square in the chest. She was blinded for an instant, then she could see more clearly than ever before. The pain disappeared immediately. She felt the nails melt and flow out to cover her and seep into her, with a power a thousand times more powerful than blood.

She heard Felix scream, “Get them!” as she dropped to the ground. Atlas landed at the same time, also iron-coated.

Oh yes
, she thought.
Come and get us
.

Atlas ran for his axe. He saw an Ironman almost on Lowa, now glacially slow compared to the queen’s magical speed. Lowa strung her iron bow in a trice, calmly nocked an iron arrow on the iron string, drew and shot. The missile hit the Ironman square in the sternum and went through him, drawing his armour with it. His chest collapsed inwards and exploded out of his back, showering the surrounding land and legionaries with guts, chunks of bone and shards of iron.

Atlas picked up his axe as an Ironman swung a sword at him. Iron raced along the wooden shaft of the axe as it became part of his metal being. He dodged the sword blow easily and swung his axe back-handed. The blade struck the thick metal on the Ironman’s hip, sliced on upwards as if the demon were made of rotten wood, and out of the armoured shoulder. The monster fell away, stomach and chest opened and gore flopping out.

A second iron giant was coming at him but an iron arrow from Lowa blew him apart. Atlas looked for another to kill.

Chamanca screamed with joy as she picked up her ball-mace and short sword. Iron filled her weapons. It was more power than she’d felt before, more than she’d imagined possible. This was the strength of the very land – of the rock that lay beneath it all – flowing through her veins.

She looked around. Lowa and Atlas were slaughtering the Ironmen. The seven remaining Leathermen, however, were guarding Felix. She smiled and sashayed towards them. By Fenn, she thought, she must look amazing.

The Leathermen came at her.

She slipped clear of the first demon’s sword lunge and swung her ball-mace so fast and hard into the back of his neck that it came out of the front, exploding vertebrae, voice box, trachea, veins and arteries from his throat.

Two more advanced, blades flashing. She could see their moves. She
knew
their moves as if they’d been discussing them for weeks and were now running through the steps in slow motion for the fiftieth time. She jinked to avoid their stabs, tossed her weapons into the air, grabbed the demons by their sword hands, snapped their wrists and pushed their own blades up, through their stomachs and into their hearts. She pushed them away, stepped back and caught her falling mace and sword.

“Ha!” she shouted.

Three down, four more to go. Oh yes, she thought, running, leaping and spinning into them.

Lowa levelled her bow at the last Ironman, but saw Atlas running at him and held back. The Kushite leapt and brought his axe down two-handed into the base of the giant’s neck, slicing through metal and man to his waist. The monster’s chest and stomach sprang open, blood and guts sloshed out and he fell.

Chamanca was finishing off the last Leatherman. She’d dropped her weapons and was punching him repeatedly in the chest as he staggered back. The leather body armour was holding under the Iberian’s iron-fisted onslaught, but Lowa could hear the ribs crunching and heart and lungs squelching as her punches destroyed them.