Free Reign of Iron by Angus Watson

told her.
    Spring was half listening to yet another explanation of Ootipeat or Tengoterry history with personal side stories and wishing that the entirety of both tribes were mutes, when she heard distant shouts and screams.
    “Shhhh!” she said to the bore. He looked offended but paused his droning.
    “Quiet!” she said to the others.
    “You be quiet,” said Chamanca, but she did shut up and listen for a while, then said, “What is it?”
    “The Germans are under attack, from the east,” said Spring.
    “Nonsense. I cannot hear … oh … actually…”
    “Unchain us,” Atlas said to the leader of the guards, a small man in new-looking leathers with black, neatly combed hair and a patch of square moustache trimmed to sit under his nose like a tar spill from his nostrils.
    “No. Maybe,” said the guard leader, looking about as if he’d just been told that there was a semi-concealed bear somewhere in the square. “Wait until I have assessed the threat. Follow me!” he cried to the other guards and ran off in the direction of the fighting. The others followed.
    The noise of the battle approached rapidly, growing louder. It was a strange sort of battle sound. Usually you heard shouting, the clanging of iron on iron, the thumping of iron on wood and some screaming. This one was almost all screaming. There was a sound of metal on metal, but it didn’t sound like swords striking other swords or shields, more like cartloads of iron tools being pulled at speed across rough ground. The strangest thing about the noise was that Spring was sure that she’d heard it before … What was it? It was frustrating that they couldn’t see past the high tents that surrounded them.
    Chamanca and Atlas strained at the chains, to no avail. They looked about for someone to help, but everyone had either fled or run to join the fighting.
    “There’s something wrong with this attack,” said Chamanca.
    “Indeed,” said Atlas. “It’s coming far too quickly and there’s too much screaming. And what, by Sobek, is that other noise? It sounds like Tadman running in giant’s armour when he fought Dug.”
    “Yes. That’s it!” said Spring, the relief of remembering massively outweighed by what it might mean. “But more than one of him – many more.”
    Atlas nodded.
    Thinking that an army of armoured Tadmans might at any moment burst into the clearing made Spring feel sick and light-headed. It was becoming increasingly important that they get free of these chains. She looked for something that Atlas or Chamanca might have missed, but saw nothing.
    A German tribesman sprinted into the square and carried on through, throwing his sword aside without checking his stride. Chamanca called to him but he didn’t respond. More German soldiers ran headlong into the clearing and out the other side, then more and more, until dozens were streaming through. Atlas managed to grab a passing woman.
    “What’s happening?”
    Her eyes were huge, the pupils flying around and bouncing off the sides. “Let me go, let me go!”
    Atlas slapped her. “What is happening?”
    “Devils! Gods! I saw Makka himself! Killing everyone! Everyone! Please, please let me go!”
    “You will undo our chains.”
    “I will, I will, I promise, the moment you let me go.”
    Atlas let her go. She ran. Atlas shook his head, then put the chain over his shoulder and heaved like the hero from a bard’s tale. The muscles in his arms pulsed, his jerkin stretched across his huge back, his tartan trousers strained to contain his bulging thighs. But the chain held.
    Many of the Germans streaming through the clearing now were bloodied. Some stumbled and regained their footing, some fell and stayed down. The screaming came ever closer. Something caught Spring’s eye. It was a person, flying through the air over the tents from the west. He landed with a cracking thud. Two more, a woman and a child, followed in similar trajectories. The woman landed hard, lifted her head and