Nightside 11 - A Hard Days Knight

been disturbed in more or less straight lines, tracks rather than roads. The air was hot and sweltering, difficult and unpleasant to breathe. Thick with the stench of burning meat, it coated the inside of my mouth with grease and ashes.
    Dotted here and there across the rough landscape were huge concrete structures: featureless blocks with no windows and only the one door. Surrounded by long walks of barbed wire, interrupted here and there with signs warning of mine-fields. This was where the workers lived when they weren’t working. I knew that, somehow. This was England as a slaughter-house, as concentration camp. The land Merlin Satanspawn had made, in his father’s image. A place of torture and horror and death for the lucky ones. Sinister Albion. The murdered dream of Camelot.
    I could see Camelot from where I was. It stood at the top of a hill, not far away, the only castle in this nightmare place. It was all steel walls and thrusting metal turrets, polished and gleaming, with no windows and only the one door. And I had to wonder if it was as much a prison for its inhabitants as any of the concrete workers’ blocks. There was no stone or marble to the castle, nothing so ... soft, or human. I pointed the castle out to Suzie, and she nodded quickly. Her face was as cold and collected as always, but her eyes were fierce and unforgiving.
    “You bring me to the nicest places, John,” she said finally.
    “I think that’s Camelot,” I said.
    “That ugly thing? I’ve had better-looking bowel movements.”
    “You see any other castles round here? I told the Door to bring us straight to Excalibur, and this is apparently as close as it could get. And where else would Stark take the sword?”
    “I have been in some real shit holes,” said Suzie. “And this is definitely one of them. Let’s get this done, John. I don’t like it here. I think ... it could be bad for the soul. That something in the nature of this place could rub off on us.”
    “Sooner we start, sooner we finish,” I said. “Cheer up. I’m sure you’ll get to kill someone worth killing before this is over.”
    “Anywhere else, that would be a good thing,” said Suzie. “But here—I think if I start, I might not be able to stop ...” She met my gaze suddenly. “John, whatever happens here, don’t leave me here, not in this place. Dead or alive, promise me you’ll get me home.”
    “Dead or alive,” I said. “Nothing is ever going to part us.”
    She nodded once, and we set off through the thick mud, towards the castle on the hill.

    We made our way slowly across the dark, uneven country-side, our boots sinking deep into the mud with every step. It took all my strength and determination to keep going, hauling one foot out of the clinging mud with brute strength, only to have it sink in deep again with the next step. On and on, ploughing through the mud with stubborn strength, feeling my stamina leached slowly away by the unending effort. Giant bubbles of carrion-thick gas welled up out of the mud, disturbed by our progress, popping fatly on the already foul air. I cursed the mud and the stench and our slow pace until I ran out of breath and needed all I had to keep going. Suzie struggled on beside me, grimly silent. The oppressive heat left me soaked in sweat, and I had to stop now and again to cough ashes out of my throat. And deep down I knew that none of this had happened by chance. This was a world made to make people miserable, just for the fun of it.
    The mud was deeper in some places than others, with never any warning, dropping off suddenly under our feet like giant sucking pits, trying to drag us down. Suzie and I looked after each other and fought our way through. The bottom half of my trench coat was soaked in mud and blood and filth, and Suzie’s black leathers didn’t fare much better. I kept hoping I’d get used to the stench and stop smelling it. But somehow it was always there, clogging up my mouth and throat and lungs. My eyes ran constantly with tears, from something in the air; I could feel them cutting slow runnels through the encrusted mud and ashes on my cheeks and mouth.
    We’d barely made it half-way to the castle on the hill when we slowly became aware that we weren’t alone. Suzie stopped and looked sharply round. We moved to stand back-to-back, both of us aware of a threat we could sense but not see. The mud stirred slowly, its surface disturbed by living creatures moving underneath it. The mud was