Hidden in the trees surrounding the camp, the Chieftain watched as the great doors that had once been disguised as a helicopter landing pad slowly opened, the movement shuddering and juddering as if the hinges were rusted and almost jammed with soil and debris. The movement looked as if it might stop at any moment as some essential moving part seized up, but somehow, impossibly, it didn't stop. The doors, dead for centuries, continued to open, slowly and hesitantly, like the twin lids of a coffin gaping wide to allow a rotting corpse, summoned by the spells of a necromancer, to rise to a horrid kind of new life to the horror and terror of the surrounding villagers.

And something was indeed rising from under the doors. Round, like a head, but composed of triangles of glittering metal shining in the light of the moon and the stars. Unlike the doors it rose smoothly and efficiently, the machinery lifting it perfectly preserved by the airtight cocoon in which it had lain protected from the passing of the centuries. Around it, soldiers and workmen cowered in terror, screaming prayers to VIX, begging their God for protection from this unknown horror rising into their world. They had no way of knowing that even their god had reason to fear this apparition, this forgotten relic from a bygone age created by the same people who had created VIX Himself.

The Chieftain watched the transmitter rise and it remembered the instructions it had been given by Randall, its new master. It barked orders to the orcs under its command and they moved, slowly and stealthily, to surround the camp. The perimeter of soldiers was in a shambles as they either turned to gawp at the spectacle or just fled, dropping their poleaxes and running in superstitious terror. That meant that there was no organised defence to oppose the orcs. When the order came to begin their attack it would be a slaughter.

At the same time, in space, satellite zero three, was also watching the transmitter being deployed, visible by its infra-red emissions even through the wedding marquee that still covered it. It also picked up the signal when Gorsty Common began transmitting to anything that might be in the sky above it. Satellite zero three wasn't sophisticated enough to have a CRES code so yama666 had no effect on it. It's job was to attack any human settlement that the machines decided was dangerous. If a local genius somehow discovered the recipe for gunpowder or how to build a steam engine, the sapient machines would tell satellite zero three to destroy the village in which he lived, killing the genius himself as well as anyone else he might have passed on his knowledge to.

The machines were aware that there might still be twenty first century machines hidden deep underground, though, their control computers waiting for certain conditions to be met before coming back to life. Missile silos and cyber warfare installations designed to sit out the third world war so that their creators would be able to fight the fourth world war when it came, even if the creators themselves had been thrown back to the stone age by the weapons of their enemies. If such machines existed and somehow became activated, there might not be time for satellite zero three or any of its siblings to seek permission to open fire on the ancient weapon before it deployed its deadly payload.

As Randall had feared, therefore, satellite zero three had been programmed to act on its own initiative if it saw such a machine coming to life, and that was what it saw now. Thrusters fired, therefore, moving the satellite to a new orbit that would take it directly above Gorsty Common a few minutes later. Zero three was armed with a dozen tungsten rods thirty centimetres wide and six metres long, three of which had already been used since it had last been re-armed. Each rod, weighing more than ten tonnes, had a blunt nose and stabilising fins at its rear end. They carried no explosives, they didn't need to. Their impact with the ground, travelling ten times faster than the speed of sound, was all it would take to create an explosive force equal to the detonation of ten tons of TNT. Even back in the twenty first century, no defence had been possible against it. Once a target on the ground had been marked for destruction, nothing could save it.

When satellite Zero Three reached the right point in its orbit, a small rocket motor pushed the tungsten rod away from its launching cradle, away into space. Then it began to fall. Nothing could stop it now. It carried no abort mechanism, no engines to re-direct it to a different target. Gorsty Common was already as good as destroyed. Within ten minutes there would be nothing left of it but a hole in the ground.

At the same time, in a higher orbit, another satellite circled. Similar to satellite zero three but bigger in every dimension. It was a city killer, armed with tungsten rods ten times longer, ten times wider and a thousand times as massive. As chaos began to erupt between the sapient machines of the solar system, the city killer received a command to destroy the city of Elmton and it made preparations to obey.

It would take longer than Zero Three to attack its designated target, hours instead of minutes, but the process was already beginning as thrusters fired to move it into a new orbit that would take it over northern Saxony...

☆☆☆

Randall and his four companions climbed back up the elevator shaft, Randall in the lead. As he climbed, almost feverish with anxiety, his hands sweaty on the slippery handholds, he held an impassioned mental debate with himself.

If I jump on the fastest horse, he thought, I can be back in Elmton in two hours. Well before midnight, but then what? Maisey might be anywhere in the city. Dolly would already have checked all the obvious places. Eddie's shack, where he lived with his parents and sister. The stables, the hay barn and the feed storage shed. She would have asked Eddie's family for any other places he might have taken her, and they had all failed to pan out as well.

Maisie's father had evidently been of no use. He had probably fobbed off Dolly's frantic appeals for help, thinking that his daughter was simply getting wild oats sewn in her and a good thing too. The sooner Eddie knocked her up, the sooner he would have to make an honest girl of her, at the point of a spear if necessary, and then she'd be his problem. The father might have wondered momentarily why Dolly was so upset by Maisie's disappearance, but had probably put it down to 'her emotional female brain' or something like that.

Maybe young Eddie had finished with Maisie for the evening and taken her back to the Interesting Weasel but it seemed clear to Randall that Maisie had disappeared because she didn't want to go with Dolly to some health resort in another city. That meant she wouldn't go anywhere she could be found until she was sure Dolly had left without her.

So finding Maisie was hopeless. What options did that leave? Well, he could just forget her. Let the little twit get blasted to oblivion along with the rest of the city. Why should he care? He would have to pretend to look for her, of course, to keep Dolly happy, while in reality keeping well clear of the city and making sure that Dolly stayed away as well. If the city was destroyed, Dolly would very likely guess that Randall's activities at Gorsty Commom had triggered it and she might very well blame him for Maisie's death, but he would deal with that when it happened. If the worst came to the worst, he could just dump her and make a new life for himself without her. Plenty more fish in the sea.

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Something powerful inside him rebelled at the idea. The idea of harm coming to Dolly and Maisey was almost physically distressing to him. His whole body shivered with nervous energy as his bloodstream was flooded with adrenalin, his ancient cave man reflexes preparing him to fight a sabre toothed tiger to defend the people he cared about. As he climbed, he remembered how Maisie had looked the day the orcs had broken into the city, the way she had thrown herself at the creature that had tried to enter the Intereating Weasel. He remembered her savage cry of rage, the way her pretty, freckled face had twisted into a snarl of fury. The way her tangly red hair had flown around her head as she thrust with her simple wooden spear, defiant even in the face of certain death. She'd been magnificent in that moment. She had been glorious! So glorious that Randall, the calculating coward, had been moved to an almost certainly suicidal attack against the same orc in a desperate attempt to save her.

The memory was replaced by that of Maisey learning to play the balichord. The way she'd turned her head to glance back at him, a broad grin spreading wide across her face as her slender, suntanned fingers continued to tap away at the keys. He remembered how a brief but intense fury had come upon him when Dolly had told him, almost in passing, about how she'd fought off a drunkard who'd tried to rape her. Maisey had to he safe! She had to be! He would do whatever it took to protect her. Anything at all!

Was it certain that the machines would destroy Elmton? He'd wanted Dolly and Maisey out of the city just in case, but what we're the chances that the city was actually in any danger? He tried to persuade himself that they wouldn't, they they weren't capable of such a monstrous act of brutality, but then he remembered that they'd recently sent an army of orcs to massacre the entire population on the city. Yes, they absolutely were capable of such an act, he realised. They didn't think of it as an act of brutality. To them, it was an act of kindness. They were doing what they thought was best for mankind as a whole. To them, the destruction of an entire city was no different than the pruning of a diseased branch from a tree you cared about. They would destroy Elmton just in case he had given them scientific knowledge.

So Elmton was doomed. Was there anything he could do to save it save it? Suppose he surrendered himself to the machines. Would that ensure the safety of the city? No, he told himself. It wouldn't. They would still worry that he might have given the people of Elmton knowledge of forbidden technologies, and since they had no way of knowing who he had talked to, they would have to kill everyone. No, surrendering himself wouldn't save them, he told himself. If it would have, then of course he would have given himself up to the priests. He would have done it in a heartbeat! But it wouldn't, and he was ashamed of the sense of relief that gave him.

Perhaps he could bargain with the machines. Offer to call off his infected machines, tell them to stop spreading yama666 if they agreed to spare the city. They could work something out, come to a compromise arrangement in which mankind and the machines would share the solar system, but to do that he first had to be able to speak to them. The Gorsty Common transmitter was out of the question. It was probably being targeted by space weapons even as they climbed. That was why they were hurrying to leave the place.

He thought of the Chieftain whose orcs must be preparing to attack the camp by now. The Chieftain could pass on his offer to the machines... No, he couldn't transmit far enough. If Randall wanted to talk to the machines then he had to go into the city, to one of the churches with its powerful transmitters. He would have to present himself to a priest...

His mind recoiled in fear from that confrontation. They had real reason to hate him now and, for all he knew, they might be as strong and dangerous as the movie monsters they so closely resembled. The terminators. For now, just get away from Gorsty Common before the wrath of VIX falls upon it, he told himself. Don't think any further ahead for now in case his fear of what was to come froze his mind, left him incapable of the calm judgement he would need just to survive the next few minutes.

After what seemed an eternity, he reached the top of the elevator shaft and pulled himself up onto the wet grass. There was a commotion going on as he reached a hand down to help Dolly follow him out. People were milling about, arguing and praying, still terrified and confused by the deployment of the transmitter. A Baron came running over, brandishing a knife at him. "Is this your doing?" he demanded. "Are you responsible for that sinful abomination..."

Randall simply pushed his way past him, dragging Dolly by the hand, ignoring Emily as she pulled herself up out of the elevator shaft behind them. There were horses tethered to stakes hammered into the ground a short distance away, rolling their eyes in fear and trying to pull away, disturbed and terrified by the fear they sensed in their human masters. Randall ran straight to the largest and strongest looking of them. He jumped onto its bare back, untied the tether from around its neck and helped Dolly to climb up behind him, all the while glancing up into the sky as if he'd be able to see the machine weapon that must surely, by now, be on its way down.

It wasn't until he'd kicked the beast into a gallop out of the camp that he realised just how difficult and dangerous bareback riding was. He didn't dare take the time to find a saddle, though. Every second might be vital! He just hung on as best he could, therefore, Dolly's arms almost painfully tight around his waist as the horse jumped and leaped under him, threatening to throw him off with every bound.

As they passed the place where the perimeter of soldiers had once been Randall had a brief glimpse of large, hairy shapes creeping furtively through the grass. Orcs, preparing to attack. One of them rose up directly in his path, its halberd poised to pierce his horse's heart, but a barking order came from somewhere nearby. The Chieftain telling the orc to let him go. The orc ducked to the side and the horse thundered past, kicking up clumps of cloddy grass with every kick of its iron-shod hooves.

Then they were out of the encampment, tearing through the farm gate and out on the dirt road that led twenty miles back to Elmton. He let the horse have its head for another mile, far enough to hopefully get out of the blast range when Gorsty Common was destroyed. Then he pulled back on the horse's neck to slow it to a stop.

"Get off," he said to Dolly, twisting around on the horse's back to face her.

"What? Why?"

"I'm going back to Elmton to get Maisey..."

"I know, and I'm coming with you."

"No you're not. Too dangerous. Go to Meldy Fair. I'll meet you there."

He felt Dolly's arms tightening around his waist in fear. "So you think it was assassins that got Maisey..."

"If I thought she was dead there'd be no point risking my life going back there, but they may be holding her prisoner, to act as leverage. Do as we say if you want to see her again." He hadn't given any thought to what lie he'd tell to explain his actions, but the words came to him with all the clarity of divine inspiration. "I'm going to offer to leave Elmton and never come back. If I do that, maybe they'll let her go."

"I'm still coming with you..."

"No you're not!" He gave her a push and she tumbled out of the saddle to land heavily on the muddy ground. Randall paused only long enough to make sure she wasn't badly hurt, then kicked the horse back into a gallop before she could recover. Behind him was one target marked for destruction by the machines but another, larger target lay ahead of him. No less doomed, but if there were true gods that governed the affairs of men and if they were feeling merciful, he might have time to get there and save the young girl who'd captured his heart...