Shadow Reaper

Shadowreaper ‘And I looked up and saw a black horse, and its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand’ Revelation 6:5-6 Chapter 1 Lionel Arcaster knew he was dying, he’d been dying for years of course, but deep down he knew this winter would be the finish of him. What the alcohol and the cigarettes had started years before the unremitting hard winter would finish. He didn’t care much anyway, stumbling between day care centres, homeless shelters and patches of waste ground where others like himself were drawn together for company wasn’t what he called living. Sometimes Lionel could dimly remember his family, a different existence, but mostly he tried not to, his time taken up with finding the means to get his next few cans or bottle of cider. Today was a special treat, he’d managed to get his hands on a whole bottle of whiskey, and he was damned if he was going to share it with anybody, so he had

headed through the cold misty February rain, away from the underpasses and alleyways where he usually spent his time and towards the bit of ground where the old gas works used to stand. The site was mostly leveled, with the odd workman’s hut and dilapidated Portacabin dotted around a wilderness of brambles and scrubby grassland. Rusty fences with faded keep out signs enclosed the area, but time and vandalism had made it easy to get in. Lionel liked easy these days, since his receint regular bouts of bronchitis, it was all he could do to cover a few hundred yards of flat ground at a time without being forced to stop, wracked by coughing. Today he made his way through a large gap in the fence and headed towards one of his favourite spots, somewhere where he could sit comfortably upright out of the wind and rain, and drink undisturbed until he fell asleep. Tucked up tight to the side of an old shed was the hulk of an old white Transit van, streaked with corrosion and

dirt, its wheel-less axles blocked clear of the encroaching nettles. This was Lionel’s personal den, and he guarded it as jealously as he could manage in his state, screaming and swearing at any kids who came near it while he was in residence. The bulky layers of clothing he wore made it difficult, but he slowly climbed into the driver’s seat of the vehicle then relaxed after the effort, retrieving his bottle of spirit from the depths of his coat and appreciatively downing a deep slug. He had a good view of the site from the cab, sometimes watched the kestrel that hunted over the scrub running down to the river, seeing her hover, pasted to the gray sky before plummeting down to end the life of some hapless mouse or rat, but not today. Today the weather was too cold and wet even for a bird of prey to be out and about. Someone was about though, because as he was about to take another drink he caught a movement over to his left where the ground fell away towards the new industrial estate and

the main road. He squinted through one of the clearer areas of the crazed windscreen and saw to his surprise several shapes moving across the scrub. His counting was not as good as it once was, but there seemed to be seven or eight men coming in a ragged line in his direction. They moved carefully, stopping every few paces to look around, keeping their profiles low, each separated by fifteen or twenty feet from the next. ‘S’the bleedin army...’ Lional wheezed to himself, taking a drink and settling himself deeper into his seat. ‘Woz the bleedin army doin’ere? This’s my place.’ The men came on in a careful halting way through the late afternoon rain until Lionel could clearly see that they certainly weren’t any normal kind of soldiers. They had no uniforms, but all seemed to be dressed in dark clothing. One wore a workman’s donkey jacket, another an ankle length leather coat, another wore a grubby bikers jacket.

The man in the leather trench coat was a little ahead of the others and he seemed to be carrying a rifle, and now that Lionel looked carefully he could see that several of the others carried weapons too. One seemed to be armed with some sort of a sword, another with a baseball bat, and the one at the end of the line that would swing nearest to Lional’s vantage point was clearly carrying a crossbow. It came like a flash of light into the old man’s drink fuddled mind that perhaps it might not be good to be found by these armed strangers. He was about to try and escape the old van and melt away before they got to him, when the crossbow man turned, straightened and very deliberately shot one of his companions, who jerked and dropped without a sound. The men stopped for several seconds staring at each other and their fallen comrade, the shooter having dropped the bow as if it was red hot. Then all hell broke loose. The trench-coated man barked an order bringing the rifle up to his shoulder and aiming at something out of sight

behind the portacabins to Lionel’s right. There was a strangely subdued crack from the weapon and almost the same instant the horses came into view. Now the old man was absolutely convinced he was hallucinating. Two horsemen broke cover from behind the tumbledown buildings together, their mounts at a flat out canter and headed straight at the men. The closest rider to him appeared to be an older man, perhaps fifty, but with long hair streaming out behind him as he rode. The other rider who was a horse length ahead of her companion was much younger, wearing a short red lancer jacket, her hair long too, whipping back from her face. Her right arm was raised and pointed forward, something glittering and metallic in her grip. There was perhaps only fifty yards between where the horses appeared and the men stood and the two charging animals covered it in seconds. The trench coated man seemed to be struggling to reload his weapon as the leading horse thundered past him, its red jacketed rider leaning low

out of the saddle, striking at the man on foot with whatever was in her hand. The Trench-coated man spun with a shrill scream and toppled like a felled tree. The male rider had peeled away from the other and was bearing down on the three furthest men. One inexplicably seemed to be pounding his head with balled fists and stumbling in circles, the other was trying to bring some form of weapon. There was a flat crack and the horse was on the man with the raised weapon and he disappeared under its hooves, to be spat out behind its pounding hind legs like a rag doll. Now well past the remaining men, the red jacketed rider spun her big grey animal around, kicking it hard back towards her adversaries. The nearest man on foot stood still to meet her, a long sword held ready to strike over his shoulder. Again the rider leaned low out from her mount, and as she passed there was metallic ring.

‘Nah...’Lionel

said

‘Nah

this

ain’t

‘appening...they’re fighting’ wiv bloody swords.’ The other rider seemed to be in difficulties, his horse was trotting in a large semicircle back towards the men on foot, but he was doubled over the animal’s neck, head drooping and seemed in danger of falling from the saddle. The rider on the gray once again wheeled her horse around, not breaking stride in her turn as she cut down the man who had wielded the crossbow. As she turned the other rider lost his battle with gravity and slipped from the saddle, his mount coming to a confused halt, four of the remaining five men on foot immediately converging on him at a run. The girl on the gray screamed something as she saw what was about to happen, her horse exploding forward. The swordsman had again turned to face her, putting himself between her and the other rider. She tried to turn aside but the man on the ground hurled himself up dragging, her from the animals back both crashing to the ground in a tangle of

limbs. The red jacketed girl was first on her feet first, grabbing something from the ground and sprinting towards her companion. The bigger heavier man had gone down harder and took seconds more to get to his feet and limp after her.The older long haired man was on his feet by the time the four reached him, though he looked unsteady, something that Lionel took to be another sword gripped in his left hand. There was a distant crash of steel on steel as the first of the men on foot reached him then it all seemed to be milling bodies as the girl arrived too. There were faint shouts and screams and almost immediately one of the dark clothed men broke from the group running headlong straight for Lionel’s vantage point. The rider less grey that had been trotting towards the mêlée immediately swung towards the running man and almost nonchalantly struck to canter, its neck curved and chin tucked under.

The fleeing man looked over his shoulder and screamed something incomprehensible, lengthening his stride with legs pumping like pistons he ran straight towards the old Transit van almost as if he could see Lionel and hoped for some help or shelter. There was less than fifty feet separating the fleeing man from him and runner had one last chance to look back at his onrushing fate when the Grey caught him. Lionel’s old and over stretched heart nearly gave up the ghost at what happened next. One moment the big horse was cantering in an easy semi circle that brought it behind the desperately fleeing man, the next there was a shimmer of light as if the whole world had blinked and the grey’s lowered head sported what looked to the old man to be at least three feet of wickedly spiked horn. Lionel saw the dark dressed man’s mouth a perfect circle of shock, his eyes wide open and unbelieving as a foot of ebony black erupted from his chest and he was propelled into the air, following an arc straight through the van’s windscreen.

Alice North stood looking down at Hudson’s crumpled body for several minutes wondering if she would cry. Then when it was obvious that she wouldn’t, she swore, wiped the 1796 pattern cavalry sabre on her jodhpurs leaving a smear of red and looked around her. The surviving Hunters had melted away, leaving their fallen and hers on the weed choked earth. Siren, her Karkadann, grazed as if nothing had happened over by some outbuildings while Damascus Hudson’s animal stood close by, giving low wickers of grief and distractedly pawing the ground. ‘There now boy...’ She said quietly. ‘Neither of you are as young as you were...You did your best.’ She looked at Hudson again and muttered ‘You bloody old fool.’ One by one she examined the bodies of the four fallen Hunters that she could see. The closest to her was the

one who had finished Hudson. Not that he was likely to have survived for long anyway after shotgun blast he had taken before he fell. She prodded the youth with the tip of her weapon. There was no reaction. He was probably no older than her seventeen or eighteen at most, his shock of blond hair matted with blood. Close by the youth, was the man who had wielded the broadsword and dragged her from Siren’s saddle. He lay spread-eagled, the whole front of his black parka awash with gore. He was, she thought, as dead as a fence post. Alice checked his pockets. As usual, no identification, just a packet of cigarettes, a lighter, a pound or so in change and a front door key. She threw the change and key into the mud, and wiping the blood from the packet lit a cigarette. The Hunter that Damascus had trampled was a mess and she balked at rifling his pockets. She walked on towards where Siren grazed, briefly investigating the Hunter

shot by his own comrade and the trench coated man. They were both lifeless too. ‘There were eight’ she said aloud. Three had run like hell after she dispatched the blonde and parka man. Four were plainly not going anywhere ever again, leaving one. There was a noise and Alice swung around to face the old man who had just climbed with difficulty out of the abandoned van behind her, crystals of shattered auto glass and blood sparkling on his old black duffle coat. ‘D-don’t hurt me luv...’ His voice was barely a croak. ‘I never saw you...I never saw nuffin.’ He gave a deep rattling cough that shook his whole body. Alice looked at the whiskey bottle gripped in the tramp’s hand, then across at the feet that protruded incongruously from the vans front window. Blowing a jet of smoke between her teeth she stubbed out the cigarette butt with her boot heel and sighed. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve already

got too much cleaning up to do without topping a pickled old goat like you as well.’ There was a long pause. ‘I didn’t see nuffin...’ the old man said with a little more pride and confidence in his voice ‘...especially if I have some more of this...’ He raised the bottle slightly and smiled a hopeful toothless grin, ‘...no wassernames...no uni-bloodycorns...eh?’