Liberty or Death! 3/4

Author’s Note:

Story contains scenes of violence. Reader discretion is advised.

-0-

Smoke swirled around him. Through his gas mask, the world seemed distorted, out of synch. Apart from the world he had known.

Tendrils of it breaking out of the roiling mass of greyish-white before his eyes.

He focused on his breathing. There was no way anyone could know what was coming. No way they could have prepared for it. And if they did? So what.

Fingers clenched and unclenched on his weapon’s shaft. It was what he had always dreamed about, wasn’t it? A moment of glory and heroics of the kind people used to write songs and epic poems about. The Charge of the Light Brigade flew into his head and stuck fast, an arrow quivering in the support structure of his mind.

On one side, someone coughed.

All around him, the creaking of leather and the gentle jingling of metal bespoke the singing of every nerve present. Sweat dripped down his brow, and he itched to open his faceplate to swipe at it. But tension had made his muscles rigid. Waiting for the call like coiled springs.

Distantly, he heard shouting. The muffled blasts of non-lethal grenades trying to disperse the crowd.

Every breath was stale, tasting like plastic and filter. His lungs all but screamed for real, fresh, living air. But the few weeks of training had been enough. Shot at by paintballs, and made to run and jump and shout and ride, it had all come down to this. He thanked whatever or whomever might be listening for those hours he had hated so much when in the heat of them.

“Was there a man dismayed?”

Someone spat, and the world again faded into echoing, empty, waiting.

Out of the fog obscuring everything, a horse screamed. People screamed. Shouts and curses, recognizable only by the hatred in their tone, drifted past him. Distant echoes carried on a wind that called him forward. His heart thundered.

Those sounds could mean only one thing. Soon they would see the flare. Soon they would finally go. Just go. Do something. Attack.

But the poem would not leave him.

“Not though the soldier knew,

Someone had blundered.”

And desperate hope surged up from hidden depths to drown him. Hope that he would make it through the coming storm. Hope that everything had worked properly, and that the lines of redundant defence had been enough. Hope that his training would carry him through. Far from a professional, he dedicated himself to his craft like one.

Beneath him, his horse whickered softly, responding to a similar call from one of the other mounts. Without releasing either the reins of his weapon, he stroked the beast’s neck and whispered calming sounds to it.

There was only hope now. Hope and the waiting. The constant, terrible waiting. And still the poem ran circles in his head. A favourite since childhood, one examined and dissected as he aged, it haunted him now. Ringing in his ears, each word seeming to be in rhythm with his racing heart.

Flashing overhead, something bright, a star gently arcing out of the smoke and sailing overhead, the flare. Before he even knew what he was doing, he raised his lance high and reared his horse up. Behind him, pennants and the flag fluttered in the breeze, their ruffling snaps now audible as a pianissimo orchestra to the bugle’s crescendo.

“Into the valley of death-”

Ringing thunder of steel-shod hooves on pavement drowned the poem, he screamed a battle cry, echoing his comrades. Fear driven out of his head along with knowledge of time and place, his muscles reacted on their own, loosening and bunching as he drove his horse to a dead sprint. Still shouting, following the volunteer bannerman into the wall of smoke.

Nothing existed in the smoke. For the briefest of moments, a frozen second, he wondered if he were already dead. If he would awake in a green field, with the sun on his face. Then Maximus’s comforting words left him, and he was through the smoke.

Lance couched, he targeted one of the still-horsed uniforms.

Exactly as planned, there was chaos.

-0-

Leverage is a beautiful thing.

As the protestor fell away, an imprint of his baton left in the now ruined football helmet, he gloried in the sense of power. They were ants compared to him.

Terrible as the spears had been, they were likewise easy enough to avoid if he paid attention. And that meant he could do damage. No matter how many hours of playing make believe in the woods these ‘people’ had under their belts, they were playing with the big boys now. Another satisfying crack, another enemy pulled back through ranks of armoured protestors that never seemed to thin.

None of it mattered. Up here, he was a god of vengeance and war. And there was nothing that could touch him.

-;-

On foot, a Corporal heard the horn and the thunder of hooves. Tearing his mask away from his face, he poured half a bottle of water across the burning skin before looking around for the sound. It must have been reinforcements, but he thought more horses would only add to the chaos.

Already there wasn’t enough space for them. And it’s not as though police horses were trained to charge spears. If anything, he felt bad for the animals. Unlike the rioters, they hadn’t chosen to be here or to be put in harm’s way. Volunteers were the only ones he was comfortable serving beside.

The stench of death hung in the air. Not yet overpowering, but without the mask he could smell it. Released bowls and blood. The hooves were getting louder, whoever it was coming to relieve them needed to slow down.

Quickly draining the rest of the water and strapping his mask back into place, he rejoined the uniformed ranks. Game’s not over until the last whistle.

-;-

Still up on his horse, caught pulling his spare baton from its sheath on his saddle, the uniform reacted. Deep in his bones, something told him to get out of the way. To hurry his horse back to safety. Sawing at his reins, he tried to turn his mount, tried to steer the frightened and confused beast out of harm’s way.

It hurt his mind, a million stinging needles of certainty that he was in danger – that truth at war with another, deeper truth. He was invincible. A god of vengeance and war. These ‘people’ were weaklings, they could never so much as dream to touch someone as strong and powerful and alpha as him.

But still the fear was there. Leeching into every fiber of his being.

Desperate, he released one booted foot from the stirrup and tried to scramble down. Tried to scramble for safety.

He didn’t make it.

-0-

Bones crunched as uniforms flew off their horses and crashed to ground, limp forms rolling into their comrades’ legs. The cavalryman thundered past a now riderless horse, its uniform sent flying with a look of terror in his eyes, through the explosion of wooden splinters from his shattered lance, and drew his mace. Everywhere, people shouted. People screamed. And people died.

Hefting his mace, he aimed his charge just behind the thickest knots of uniforms, where formations straggled and there was more space to gallop. Beneath him, his horse’s flanks worked like bellows as the well-trained animal charged forward. A thousand practice tilts leading to this one moment.

Bodies fell away as people threw themselves from the horses’ path. Limbs broke and people screamed as lances, blunted ones like his own or sharpened ones struck home and sometimes stuck fast.

More uniforms fell away beneath him. Crushed under the hooves of his comrades as they followed in his wake. Falling under the punishing arc of his mace. The bugle was still calling, a steady rhythm driving them on. To his left, barely seen as enemy action tore his attention in a thousand directions, the friendly shield wall held. They had been pushed steadily back, leaving uniformed and non-uniformed bodies in their wake. Exactly as planned.

Smoke grenades flew overhead. Landing before his horse’s still thundering hooves, he knew that more would also be flying behind him. Blocking sight down the street down which he and his squadron had first appeared, and down the one he now approached. A perfect cover for the next charge.

Drawing rein as he passed through the smoke, he alighted from his horse and pulled it out of the road. A large barrel had been set up and the horse drank greedily. Well-trained or not, charging into a horde of fascist uniforms would be enough to rattle even the best trained animals.

“Here,” shouted a protestor hidden here, throwing another lance at him and a second to the Hussar close behind him.

Wings arcing up over her shoulders like an eagle in a dive and armour no longer gleaming, she looked like something out of history. A warrior emerged from the pages of a book, which was to be expected. Other locations in the city saw uniforms striking against re-enactors in union blue, trying to show the uniforms what side they were fighting for by flying and dying under Old Glory.

The cavalryman spat out a mouthful of water from his bottle before drinking deeply himself. It was almost funny thinking that the uniforms still had enough humanity in them to have their minds changed. Every. Single. One. Knew what they were doing and gleefully set to it. The more people they were able to hurt, the better those uniforms would sleep at night. Or so the anonymity of the uniform allowed him to believe.

As the last of the charge appeared through the smoke, the bugle sounded again. The same, repeating sound that would draw the eye of every uniform after their tails. They would be sweating, hunkered down behind their shields and trying to get rifles and shotguns aimed down the street. A few shots even echoed after them, wild things fired much too high as the uniforms would have imagined their assailants still on horseback.

Gunshots, especially as they grew still-more frantic, ripped through the smoke and encouraged the few stragglers to hurry into the relative shelter of surrounding cars and businesses. Then the sound of screams rose to a fever pitch. A few terrible seconds passed and the next squadron erupted from the smoke, careening off down the street and not looking back. It was important that they keep running.

Attention would now be split, and the uniforms along the skirmish line desperately trying to fight a battle on three fronts. But anyone trying to escape the shield wall itself would have to content with a spear or pilum in their back.

Exactly as the fascists deserved.

Red flag waving over his head and scarlet dripping from the length of his Crimean War sabre, a final horseman plunged past where the cavalryman waited. A horn, distinct from the cavalry bugle sounded, a bellow of fury following close on its heels as friendly infantry surged forward. More screams, more gunshots. But very few of them streaked down this side street. Very few eyes were likely waiting for another charge.

If they were lucky, he swung himself into his saddle and gripped the new lance thankful for the gauntlets encasing his sweat-slicked fingers, then all attention would be on the skirmish line. Inside his closed helm, his breath sounded like it belonged to someone else. If they were lucky, using his knees he directed his mount back into line, then a repeat of the Massacre was not going to happen.

And still in mind, “Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well.”

“Liberty or death!” the bannerman cried, spurring his horse forward as a flare tore through the smoke.

“LIBERTY OR DEATH,” howled the rest of the squadron, plunging into the smoke after him.

Emerging from the smoke, the cavalryman saw the uniforms in near-total chaos. For the second time in short order, the line of friendly infantry had fallen back so that the entire killing field before him was awash in uniforms. At least, the only things still standing were all in drab olive and green.

Arrows, spears, and crumpled pilum lay scattered on the ground, where they were not stuck out of red flowers in uniforms. Police horses milled around, turning and fleeing at the rising thunder of the charge. More chaos as the one tonne animals crashed through re-constituting ranks and clusters of wounded.

Leaving his lance quivering in the chest of a uniform unhorsed by the impact, the cavalryman drew his mace again and laid about him. Drawing blood and smashing helmets, leaving screaming heaps of uniforms in his wake. Bones crunched under hooves as bodies rose up between iron shoe and asphalt. Uniforms screamed. And horses screamed.

From the corner of one eye, the cavalryman saw a horse go down, its rider fiddling with something as the ground rushed up to meet him and uniformed hands clawed at his replica uniform. They wrenched away the sabre he had already dropped.

The cavalryman heard his comrade’s grenade go off. Heard the screams of the wounded who had unhorsed him. But saw nothing of it.

He was through the storm again, laying low against his mount’s neck and urging it forward. His role was done. Drones that had managed to evade their deterrents already streamed live footage around the world, into the hands of regular people, and onto the screens of uniforms with medals. The dead lay thickly, and there was only one course left follow the plan.

Retreat.

But neither side could be the first to flee. He ran, cantering to a pre-determined location, desperate to get away from the carnage that might follow. If the Massacre had been any indication, then the only way to survive and fight another day, was now to run.

-0-

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four