The English Assassin by Michael Moorcock

tents, and peat or bracken shelters. They were clustered on the tawny hillside which shone like beaten gold as the sunlight struck it. Horses, tracked vehicles, Bofors guns and Banning cannon, as well as cooking and medical equipment, had been scattered apparently at random amongst the other paraphernalia of the camp. Broadswords, dirks and lances glittered beside pyramids of stacked rifles with fixed bayonets. Kilted clansmen sat talking in groups, passing bottles and cigarettes, or else wandered drunkenly about with no apparent purpose. Over this savage encampment fluttered the sinister black banner of Anarchy—Mahon’s adopted standard. Gareth-mac Mahon’s own tent was easily spotted. It was a huge expanse of intricately woven blue, yellow, green and scarlet plaid. The scarlet was predominant. The folds of this great pavilion undulated slightly in a wind which blew through the hills from the west.
    “Break out the flag now, sir?” The smart young second officer saluted Nye and the airship’s captain, a man named Bastable. Bastable looked enquiringly at Nye. Nye nodded. They watched as the white parley flag billowed over the side, suspended from a line attached to the stern of the control gondola.
    “Take her down a couple of degrees, height coxswain,” said Captain Bastable.
    “Two degrees down, sir.”
    The ship dropped lower. Its engines reversed to keep it steady against the wind. As it fell, a number of the savages dived for cover while their braver (or drunker) comrades ran forward waving their broadswords and howling like devils. They calmed down when they recognised the white flag, but they did not sheathe their swords. They watched with glowering suspicion as the ship steadied less than fifteen feet over the Mahon’s own tent. Captain Nye brushed his fine brown moustache with the back of his hand, waited a few moments and then stepped onto the outer gallery and stood with one hand on the rail, the other in a dignified salute of peace, speaking clearly in their own language. “I come to offer peace to the Mahon. To you all.” There was a pause while the savages continued to glower and then the flap of the pavilion was pushed back and a heavy Scotlander emerged. For all his barbaric finery, the Mahon was an impressive man. He was clad in the traditional costume of the hill chieftain: the filibeg kilt, the huge, hairy sporran; the elaborately worked (if rather grubby) lace shirt, the plentitude of little leather straps and buttons and buckles and pins of bronze and silver, the big woollen bonnet secured by a hawk-feather badge; the green coatee with silver epaulettes; the black, buckled shoes; the clan plaid flung over his shoulder—the regalia befitting a great clan leader. All the cloth he wore, save for the coat and shirt, including the decorative tops of his green cross-gartered stockings, was of the same tartan as the tent. Nye recognised it as the red Mahon Fighting sett. The Mahon himself was short and broad-shouldered, with a red, belligerent face. He had a hooked nose, pale, piercing blue eyes and a monstrous grey-streaked red beard. With one hand on the hilt of his heavy, basket-hilted broadsword and the other on his hip he raised his head slowly, calling out in a proud growl.
    “The Mahon acknowledges your truce flag. Do you come to parley?”
    Although the Red Fox revealed nothing, by his expression, Captain Nye was sure he was properly impressed by the aerial frigate. “My government wants to preserve peace, O Mahon,” he said in English. “May I descend to the ground?”
    “If ye wish.” Gareth-mac Mahon replied in the same language.
    At Captain Nye’s request, the rail was broken and a rope ladder rolled through the gap. Nye went down the ladder with as much dignity as was possible until he stood confronting the wily old hill fox. This was a man who had discovered the creed of anarchism while serving as a soldier in the capitals of the civilised world. He had brought the creed back to