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There were twenty dragons, and none of them were the graceful, romantic beasts of myth and legend. These were great worms, thirty to forty feet long, with wet, glistening, segmented bodies, and vast membranous bat wings. They forced themselves through the sky by brute effort, ugly and inglorious, their flat faces made up of a ring of dark unblinking eyes surrounding a sucking mouth like a lamprey’s. Astride their thick necks, on ancient saddles upholstered in ta
They came straight at me, moving so fast they were over me and then behind me before I even had time to react. They swooped around, the hunting pack in full cry, and the lords and ladies threw lightning bolts at me with their bare hands. The bolts exploded in the road ahead of me, blasting out craters and cracking the surface. I put my foot down and kept going, swerving the car back and forth to avoid the larger holes. The dragons pounded through the air above and beside me, taking their time, enjoying the hunt. Seeing how close they could get to the car, without actually touching it. The continuous explosions of the lightning bolts were deafening, and the flaring lights were bright enough to dazzle me momentarily, even through the armour’s protection. I could hear the Hirondel’s engine straining. I tried to think what I had that could reach the elves and their dragons, safe up in the sky. A lightning bolt hit the bo
A dragon and its rider came flying straight at me, only a few feet above the road. I wondered at first if he was pla
I was panting harshly, and sweat poured down my face under my golden mask. I could feel blood coursing down my arm and chest, under my armour. Every movement, every breath, brought me a new pulse of pain. I gritted my teeth until my jaws ached. I was still in shock, and not just from the pain. My armour was invulnerable. Impregnable. Everyone knew that. The strength of the living armour was the strength of the family. It made our work possible, because none of our enemies could touch us while we wore the living metal. Only, the silver shaft sticking out of my shoulder was a pretty convincing argument to the contrary. Trust the elves to find a way to hurt us. The pain beat in my head, interfering with my thoughts, and it took all my self-control to push it aside and concentrate. There had to be a way out of this. I couldn’t surrender the Soul of Albion. And anyway, I was damned if I’d be beaten by a bunch of snotty, arrogant elves.
I kept driving, foot hard down, blinking sweat out of my eyes. I’d lost all feeling in my left arm, and it hung limply at my side. I studied the arrow shaft protruding from my armoured shoulder. It was a strange silvery metal, glowing faintly. God alone knew from what far dimension the elves had plundered it, desperate to find the one thing that would pierce Drood armour. I looked up and around. The dragons were still keeping up with me, flailing their vast wings into a blur, even though the Hirondel was pushing its top speed. I couldn’t outrun them, couldn’t shake them off. So I stamped both feet down on brake and clutch and brought the car to a screeching halt, leaving long smoking trails of burned rubber behind me. The dragons and their riders swept on, caught off guard, but quickly circled around to come back at me again. Some of them were already stringing arrows to their bows.
I forced the bullet-holed door open and stumbled out of the car, crying out despite myself as every new jolt of movement brought me fresh pain. I strode out into the middle of the road, facing the oncoming dragons, my left arm useless at my side. I could see the elves’ faces now, their cold, cruel smiles. They were laughing at me. I reached through my golden armour with my golden hand and drew the Colt Repeater from its holster. There was blood on it from my shoulder wound, and I shook a few drops off. I aimed the Colt at the nearest dragon rider, and the gun took care of the rest.
The cold lead bullet hit the elf lord right between the eyes and blew the back of his head off. For good measure I shot the dragon in its ugly head too, and it crashed to the motorway in an ungainly sprawl of flapping wings. I shot all the elves and all the dragons, all the vicious lords and vile ladies and their ugly mounts, and they didn’t have the time to fire off a single arrow at me. I just fired the Colt Repeater again and again and again, and the bullets just kept coming, and the gun never missed. A triumph of the Armourer’s art. The dead dragons piled up before me, twitching and shuddering as the last of their u
I sat down carefully on the Hirondel’s bo
My head was actually nodding, my thoughts fading in and out, when the car’s alarms went off again. My head jerked up and I slid off the bo
My first thought was This isn’t fair. Not after everything I’ve already been through… But I was too tired even to maintain a good sulk, so I just concentrated on building up some speed. My injured arm shrieked at me as I raced through the gears, but that was better than the scary numbness. The pain cleared my head and kept me angry. I was going to have to be sharp, in top form, to take out the phantom fleet.
They swept down the deserted motorway after me, ghosts of crashed vehicles driven and possessed by spirits from the vasty deep. Half-transparent cars and trucks and articulateds, and everything else that ever came to a nasty end on a motorway. Some looked real as real could be, while others were just misty shapes, all of them still bearing the damage and burn marks of their previous ends. Too many to count, they came howling after me in a vicious pack, their ghostly engines supernaturally loud. Black brimstone smoke issued from their exhausts, and hellfire burned around their squealing tires. The phantom fleet, the wild hunt of modern times; hungry for souls.