And that was how the London Knights went to war with the elves in the Nightside.
A thousand knights in armour thundered through the streets of the Nightside, leaning out of the saddle to strike at the startled elves, caught by surprise in midslaughter. The doorway had delivered us right into the heart of battle, and the knights rode the elves down, trampling them under their horses’ hoofs. Long swords cut off heads and hacked elves down with vicious speed and accuracy. Some elves turned to fight, but it was already too late for them. The London Knights had come to the Nightside for blood, and the elves didn’t stand a chance.
Suzie and I were the last through the gateway, which immediately disappeared behind us. It was all I could do to stay on my horse, and Suzie couldn’t free a hand to draw any of her guns. I didn’t feel like I was in charge of anything any more, and that always worries me.
The Nightside was a mess. Buildings were burning all round us, flames leaping up into the smoke-filled sky. The street was littered with the dead, and the gutters ran thick with blood and gore. The elves had been busy. Bodies had been mutilated and strung up from street-lights by their own intestines. There were neat little piles of hands and feet and hearts. The elves do so love to play. And these were the elves I’d planned to save. The elves I’d found a new home for. Right then, if I could have pressed a button and sent every elf there ever was to Hell, I would have done it.
We slammed through elves caught off guard in the street, leaving them dead and dying behind us. We pressed on, charging through the streets in an unstoppable tide, carrying all before us. We soon caught up with the real action. People had set up barricades across a main street, improvised from anything handy, including bodies, and had fought the elven forces to a halt. The traffic had disappeared from the roads, moving along hidden by-ways until the fighting was over. There were dead men and dead elves everywhere, and some of them had died with their hands locked around each other’s throats. There was blood and offal and charred corpses, and bodies turned inside out by horrid magics. Both sides looked round startled, as the London Knights came thundering towards them.
The mounted knights slammed into the massed hordes of the elves before them, throwing them aside and trampling them under hoof. Some elves turned quickly to face the new threat, brandishing all kinds of glowing weapons. They danced and capered amongst the bodies of those they’d slain, mocking the approaching knights, defying them to do anything about all the horrid things they’d done and the worse things they planned to do. They wore strangely designed brass-and-silver armour, crackling with protective spells, and their pale faces were tattooed with hideous designs. They were delighted to be fighting their old enemy Man again. They had forgotten how much they enjoyed killing people and playing their vicious games with them. The knights rode straight at them, roaring war cries booming inside their steel helmets, and the elves darted aside at the last moment, laughing and leaping high into the air, to pull the knights out of their saddles. Elves and knights went blade to blade, both sides eager for blood and honour and the vicious joys of battle.
The elves threw spells that exploded harmlessly against the knights’ armour. They had their own built-in protections. The elves came howling, bearing strange alien weapons and devices, and wild destructive energies spat and crackled in the air; but still they couldn’t pierce the knights’ armour. So the elves drew their glowing swords and cut and hacked at the knights; and even the most modern armour was sometimes no defence against such ancient weapons.
The elves jumped onto the backs of horses, hugged the knights to them, and forced their blades into the gap between helmet and breast-plate. Blood jetted into the night air, the knights fell from their horses, and the elves leapt away, laughing breathlessly. Some of the elves ducked in low, to cut at horses’ throats and legs, and were mostly met with a forceful hoof in the face. These were war-horses, trained for battle.
From the shadows some elves fired strangely glowing arrows that nothing could stop.
The knights’ advance was quickly slowed, then halted. And they hacked and cut about them with their great swords and axes, and most of the time even the best elven armour was no match for cold steel, coldly wielded. The knights leaned out from their horses to cut off heads, or arms, or stab a chest or throat in passing; and golden blood spurted out, to hang on the air and run in the gutters along with redder blood. Two elves leapt up and grabbed a horse’s head, forcing it to a halt. The knight leapt out of his saddle, hit the ground running, beheaded one elf, and cut down the other, his blade sinking deep into the elf’s chest. He’d barely pulled his sword free when a dozen other elves came running straight at him. Another knight leapt from his horse to guard his brother’s back, and the two knights stood together and killed every living thing that came at them.
Some knights had other weapons. Strange magical and scientific devices I didn’t even recognise. The London Knights were traditionalists in everything that mattered, but they were right up to date and beyond when it came to weapons.
The elven forces began to fall back, slowly at first, then they broke apart under the impact of the knights, and fled through the Nightside streets. And the London Knights went after them. A great cheer went up from the Nightsider barricades, and King Arthur briefly saluted them with Excalibur before returning to the fight. His armour was dripping with golden blood, and the sword blazed brightly against the night.
The elves hadn’t expected such opposition. And they hadn’t expected to die so easily at the hands of men.
Suzie let her horse have its head while she used her shotgun. The horse didn’t seem to mind the noise of the gun at all. Suzie picked off elves as she saw them, dealing with targets the knights ahead had missed. Her blessed and cursed ammo blasted right through the elves’ armour, and when it didn’t, she blew their heads right off. When she finally ran out of shells for the shotgun, she slipped it back into its holster and tossed grenades and incendiaries round where they’d do the most good. Many an elf who’d thought himself hidden in the shadows went flying suddenly through the air with body parts missing, and often on fire. And when she ran out of explosives, Suzie drew the two heavy pistols from her hips and carried on taking care of business. She looked calm and relaxed, cool and easy, in her element and loving every moment of it.
I kept close to her, watching her back, using my gifts to find elves who’d hidden themselves a little more thoroughly than the others. Even the best elf glamour is no match for my gift. I only had to point out a particularly dark shadow where there shouldn’t be one, and Suzie would open fire; and something dead would fall out onto the street. We’ve always worked well together. I’ve never thought of myself as a fighter, and now that Excalibur was no longer on my back, urging me on, I was quite happy to leave the real fighting to the knights. I’d seen enough violence and had enough blood on my hands.
And, of course, while I was busy brooding about that and feeling sorry for myself, an elf came running up on my blind side, leapt onto the back of my horse, grabbed me from behind with one arm, and set a knife at my throat. The horse started to rear, upset by the unexpected new weight, and I yanked harshly on the reins to hold him still. The edge of the blade gently parted the skin above my Adam’s apple, and I could feel a slow runnel of blood trickling down my throat. The elf giggled in my ear.
Suzie saw what was happening and spun her horse round to face me, one pistol already targeting the elf.
“I don’t think so!” the elf said cheerfully. “One wrong move, and I will cut your lover’s throat! I know the infamous John Taylor when I set eyes upon him, and I know a way out of this trap when I see it. You shall be my passport out of here, John Taylor; and your woman shall be my guide.”