Saga Of The European King

General Majesty had scoured the tundra-infested lands of the North for eighteen months straight in search of of a replacement Army that would rally under the King's banner and strike at the frozen heart of Winter itself. He had not been very successful. Just under two hundred men – most of them old or slightly crippled – now followed his standard. He had found them scattered around in remote little fishing communities where the fish had dried up, in dusty old taverns kept afloat on tall tales, in unhappy homes where a life and possible death fighting in a foreign land is preferable to another day with that accursed harpy. But, try as he might, there were simply not enough young and able-bodied men to go around. There was a very good reason for this.

Mechanicus was struggling, too. His once-vast Engineering Corps stood at little more than a dozen men and three glitchy robotic replicas of the King that he had excavated from the ruins of the old Fort Majesty. And so the construction on the new, improved Fort Majesty was going slow. All they'd got done by that point was to build various scaffolding and ingenious mechanisms that would serve to speed up the later stages of the construction, should they ever reach them. They didn't amount to much on their own. They were all sleeping in a tent and there was only one toilet. Mechanicus could have built a hundred toilets if he had wanted to, of course, but he had stuff to do. Everyone just had to make do. Suffice to say, it didn't look like they'd have Fort Majesty fully staffed and fully operational by the time the King caught up with them chronologically.

“You've got to tell him,” said Mechanicus over a breakfast of twigs and sulphur with General Majesty in the Command Ditch. “We can't disappoint the King. I wouldn't be able to bare the look on his sweet face if he were to arrive and see -” he moved his head in the direction of the ruined fort and the group of elderly men digging holes in the frost in the courtyard because they had nothing else to do. General Majesty hung his head and chewed his twigs.
“The scouts return at dawn tomorrow. If the situation here is the same by Europe herself, then I shall tell the King what was become of us.” Mechanicus put a hand on General Majesty's shoulder and lent in close, so close that General Majesty could smell the sulphur on his breath.
“Do not trust a false hope, Brian.” Mechanicus whispered. He did not the old men digging their holes to hear. General Majesty's face sprang up at him and glared right into his cybernetic eye, which shone green in surprise.
“I know that you know,” he growled. “Don't think for a second that I've forgotten that this is all history to you.” Mechanicus is from the future, everyone, in case -you've- forgotten. There are a lot of characters in this Saga and they've all got their own thing going on, so don't feel bad if you sometimes lose track of who's who and what's what. Anyway, Mechanicus had concealed that little biographical fact from everyone for the longest time but, hey, it's not as if something like that isn't going to affect storyline sooner or later, right? Anyway, it all came out in Chapter 56 if you feel like checking it out. Everyone was pretty much okay with Mechanicus' futuristic-positive status for a while but lately, with all the bleakness around, General Majesty had developed a bit of a chip on his majestic shoulder about it. It had affected their friendship. So Mechanicus swore an oath to never reveal any plot points to anyone ever, not even if it was really important. The problems and bleakness they were facing out there in the Chillinous Plains had come to no surprise to him. He hadn't thought they'd occur so early in the chronology, but then the records from his own time weren't perfect. Time travellers were scared of this particular period of history because they didn't want to say or do something stupid, even by accident and have the King maybe see it and think that they weren't cool. Future-people are pretty hung up on that sort of thing. But anyway, Mechanicus said no more to General Majesty on the matter and they waited till morning and for the scouts to come back. When they did, they breathlessly reported that there wasn't a town in Northen Europe unmarred by the Civil War. General Majesty dismissed the scouts and facepalmed. Mechanicus said nothing. He merely waited politely while General Majesty got out the Magic Telephone and dialled the King's extension. But his finger hovered over the 'Call' lever just long enough for him to shoot a meaningful glance at Mechanicus and for a curt, loud cough to sound out from above the Command Ditch. There were some more glances between them and more than one raised eyebrow. General Majesty poked his head up out of the ditch. What he saw was an outlandish hat perched upon a magnificently charming smile. The smile doffed the hat and gently said,
“Hiya folks. Friends call me the Angel Cowboy. I was just passing on down the road – thought maybe you'd like a little helping hand with your construction project I see here.”

General Majesty's finger hovered.

End Of Chapter 87