Iron Man and the Knights of the Round Table

Lances proved to only be of use in the initial charge into the city. When the knights skewered everybody who had come to defend the breached city gate, the remaining Vandals spread out and hid. For the rest of the night, the British knights fought the Vandals house to house in the city. The superiority of their plate armor gave them a decided advantage over the Vandals. King Anthony in particular, frightened the Vandals as his armor seemed to be proof against any weapon. Still, King Geiserich managed to catch him by surprise and knock Anthony off of the city walls. When he leapt off of the wall hoping his momentum would aid his attack, he broke his sword on the chest plate of the Iron Man armor. Anthony quickly dispatched the Vandal King after that. By dawn, all of the Vandals in the city were dead.
After spending the morning making preparations, Anthony had all of the people of the city brought into the City market. From a window overlooking the market, Anthony addressed the crowd.
“People of Carthage,” began the King, “I come before you, not as your conqueror, but as your liberator. In recent years, the Vandals had taken away your Roman citizenship, enslaved and persecuted you. Now the Vandals no long hold you in thrall. What will you do with your new found freedom? You have several options. There are still plenty of Vandals left in Africa. After we have left, you may ask the Vandals for forgiveness. Your past experience has show you just how merciful and just the Vandals are. You may decide to rule your selves. Do you have the might and the will to use it to defend yourselves against future invasions? You may decide to turn to Rome for protection. The choice is yours. In a few days, we will leave you and never return. But before we do, the Kingdom of Britain has a gift to you.”
On cue, Sir Marcus pulled the veil off of the pile. Some of the Carthaginians had seen the pile being assembled before the veil was placed, but for most of the crowd, this was a surprise.
“Here are a thousand books in the Latin language do distribute as you see fit” said Anthony. “I feared that literacy may have declined during the years of your captivity, so one hundred of the books are primers to help you learn how to read. Another hundred are bibles. The remaining books are classics of Roman literature. In addition, I have a radio receiver for you. It allows you to hear words and sounds from very far away.”
Marcus began turning the crank so that words began coming out of the box in Britannic.
“The future is yours. This city is yours. Your lives are yours. What you do with them, is up to you.” Said Anthony. He stepped away from the window ad began walking out of the city and back to the beach as Marcus set down the radio and walked away from the pile. Before Anthony could make it out of the city, he passed a house from which the screams of agony rang. He kicked down the door. Within, several of his female warriors and a Carthaginian woman were torturing Sir Agravain who had been stripped naked and tied to a post.
“What’s going on here?” inquired the King.
“Your Majesty,” answered one of the women as she tried and failed to curtsy in her armor. “Last night, we caught Sir Agravain raping this woman.”
“I see” said Anthony. He remembered his own guilt at how he had treated Ellenora. “Don’t kill him or make him unable to fight. Otherwise, carry on.”
With that he walked out and returned to his ship for some much needed rest. He’d been awake for more that twenty-four hours. He passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow. In his dreams, he re-ran the meeting with some of his knights from a few days before.

“I do not think we have any choice” said Anthony. “We are going to have to kill every Vandal we can find.”
“But you can not just kill them all!” protested Galahad. “It is too barbaric!”
“What else can we do?” asked Gawain. “We can not send them back home like we did the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. They have been inside Roman territory for several generations. What if we did try to ship them back to Germania?”
“We do not have room for that many prisoners on our ships” cut in Marcus.
“I was going to say that Attila would just use them to strengthen his own armies” replied Gawain.
“Can we at least spare the women and children?” protested Galahad.
“That seems like the right thing to do” answered Anthony. “I just hope they don’t grow up and seek revenge against us.”
“You know that as soon as we give away radios to outsiders, they will be able to listen in on our naval transmissions?” observed Lancelot.
“This is true” mused Anthony. “The language barrier will help for awhile. Hardly anyone outside of Britain knows how to speak the Britannic language. Still, eventually we will start have to sending messages between ships in code. I guess we had better start developing a code.
And another thing, I’ve over heard some of the men talking about how they were looking forward to the booty they were going to get. There will be no pillaging on this expedition!”
“But sire!” protested Gawain, “The spoils of war are what make war profitable! The men expect to get money and women for their trouble. It is the pay off for pitting your life against another man’s.”
“The point of this expedition is to save civilization, not destroy it!” answered Anthony firmly. “We will not become just another barbarian rabble come to sack Rome. There will be not looting or raping on the expedition! That is Final!”
“It is all very well and good to make such a command “said Gawain. “But in the heat of battle, the men will not be so easy to control.”
“Then we shall have to make that extra effort to keep the men in reign” replied Lancelot. “With a little self discipline, we can control our urges.”
“Absolutely” agreed Galahad.

He awoke in the arms of Nineve.
“How did you get here!” demanded Anthony sitting up.
“That doesn’t matter” replied Nineve. “You have got a grave problem!”
“What is wrong?” asked Anthony, sensing the fear in her voice.
“Sexual frustration” she replied grasping his member with a delicate touch that caused it to instantly begin swelling. She leaned forward and kissed him passionately.

When they had finished making love Nineve addressed her real concerns.
“You know, you can not just make a proclamation against rape and expect it to be obeyed during a war” began Nineve.
“I am surprised to hear you, of all people, say that” replied Anthony. “You are the one who is such a big advocate of people being allowed to love when, where and with whom they choose. Does not rape constitute a big violation a woman’s right to chose whom she will love?”
“I am not advocating rape” replied Nineve. “I am just pointing out that there is a link between sex and death that can not be denied. Your soldiers have just engaged in a mass killing. They need to have sex now. We must channel their sexual urges into an acceptable direction before something dreadful happens. There has already been one incident.”
“I know. I came across some women who were avenging the deed” replied Anthony. “What do you propose?”
“Beltaine is in a couple of days. That is why I have come” said Nineve. “But we will have a problem because the men will out number the women. I was only able to bring seven Priestesses with me.”
“What about our female warriors” inquired Anthony?
“Most women warriors are young and chaste” said Nineve. “The first pregnancy usually ends a woman’s career as a soldier.”
“I never considered that” mused Anthony. “But since we have begun this voyage, I have seen at least some of the women form attachments with their comrades.”
“We will try to requite as many of them as we can to participate” said Nineve. “Also we plan to invite women from the city to join us. But there will still end up being more men than women.”
“All this talk is getting me hot!” said Anthony as he pulled her closer for a kiss.

The Priestesses were able to talk all fifty of the British woman warriors into attending Beltaine and many of the women of Carthage came too. Some were Prostitutes. Some were thrill seekers. Some were Vandal women who hoped that they might find new husbands. In all, about half of the British army attended and the men out numbered the women two to one. As usual, most of the Christian knights did not attend as they found this custom to be barbaric. When Anthony arrived, he was not too surprised by the faces he saw there. Gwenevere was looking more radiant than usual. Come to think of it. He hadn’t seen much of her or Lancelot in the past few days.
The ceremony went as usual, except this time, the women were picking more than one man to go off into the fields with. As Usual, Nineve chose Anthony. But she also picked Ewain, Pellinore, and Finn. Once they had got some distance from the crowd, she kissed each man passionately, then, pushed him away when his hands began wandering over her body that was clothed only in blue paint. She pressed her back into Anthony’s chest and motioned for the others come closer. She pulled Ewain and Finn to her breasts and they began licking and sucking on her nipples. At the same time, Pellinore started kissing her and caressing her head and she parted her lips so her tongue could dance with his. Anthony had been stroking her side and tummy as his manhood grew and when he reached between her legs and stroked her love button, she moaned with pleasure. She caressed Ewain and Finn as her hands worked their way down to their rock hard members. The two men stood upright as her hands brought them unbelievable pleasure. Gradually she kissed and licked her way down Pellinore’s body until she got to his love flute. She played his flute with great skill as the moans from him gave witness. This position gave Anthony access to her cavern of delight and as he trust into her she gave a muffled moan of pleasure that was echoed by the other three men as her pleasure manifest in her mouth and hands. Pellinore was the first to reach his peak and Nineve stayed on him until he pulled away. She then put her mouth on Finn, who came instantly as did Ewain, all over the back of her head. Her mouth was free as she reached her own climax and loudly moaned with pleasure. Anthony’s moans began as hers were dying out. When he pulled out of her, she turned and kissed him passionately as the other three men wandered away.
“Well that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be” thought Anthony. He could taste the saltiness of Pellinore and Ewain on her tongue but he said nothing to her about it. Instead, he pointed out to her: “You know we still have a problem. After out next battle, it won’t be Beltaine.”
“I have been considering that” said Nineve. “I was surprised at how many of the local women chose to participate tonight. Perhaps you could have a party and invite the locals?”
“Will not you be here to organize it?” asked Anthony.
“No. I must return to Avalon” she replied.
“Stay here with me” said Anthony. “I missed you during the voyage here. Besides, how will you get back?”
She glared at him, then, changed the subject. “I was a little surprised at the names you chose for your ships. . . .The Wasp, the Tigra, the Black Widow?”
“In my time, ships are traditionally considered feminine. So I named them after friends from my own time” Answered Anthony.
They returned to his cabin on the Wasp to sleep. As was her custom, when Anthony awoke, she was gone.

Standing there, naked in a circle while she enjoyed the eyes of men roaming over her body as she waited for the Beltaine rite to begin, Gwenevere thought to her self:
“And to think that I almost didn’t come here to tonight. Lancelot has been such a tiger lately! Even since we got to Carthage, we’ve hardly been out of bed! Still, it’s been a year since I’ve had anyone else, and that Witch, Nineve was persuasive in her arguments. I just hope this year’s lover doesn’t get humiliated by Lancelot like the others. It’s supposed to be a sacred rite, dammit! Why can’t Lancelot respect that? I wish he would come to these instead of hiding out in that church. So . . . who will I chose? Oh look, the King is staring at my breasts again! I would love to do him but he has made it plain that he is not interested in me. Perhaps the problem I’ve had in the past was caused by choosing peers of Lancelot. Maybe if I pick young men . . . unimportant men . . .men whose names I don’t even know. There’s a handsome lad! Oh, and there’s another! And another!”
When the Dance began, Gwenevere picked a total of five young men to perform the Great Rite with. Unlike Nineve, she made them each wait their turn for her and when she crawled into bead with Lancelot the next morning she was quite sore.

Standing watch at the city gates of Hippo Regius, Klauseric noticed someone in the distance running toward the city. It was nearly dawn, so visibility was good. As the stranger got closer, Klauseric observed that the runner was a Vandal and not one of the locals.
“Halt! Who are you?” demanded Klauseric, pointing his spear at the stranger.
“Th- There’re killing everybody!” gasped the runner.
“Who is killing everybody?” asked the guard. “Slow down. Who are you? Why are you here?”
“I . . . I am Helmut of Carthage” the runner began. “I’ve run all the way from there. You’ve got to help! A strange army has invaded our city and is killing everybody. The slaughter is unimaginable!”
“I’d better report this to my superiors” replied the guard.
Helmut told his tale several times as he was passed up the chain of command to Ludvich, Lord of the City.
“How many were they?” asked Ludvich. “How were they armed?”
“There had to be at least a hundred of them” answered Helmut. “I didn’t see them until they had breached the city. They had plates of armor covering their whole bodies and were armed with long swords. They went house to house killing everybody.”
“We’ll have to stop them before they get here” said Ludvich. “Send out the call! Every able bodied man with a mount is to assemble at the city gates. We’re going to war!”

Anthony’s next target was Hippo Regius. Since the city was relatively close to Carthage and his army was better at fighting on horseback in open terrain rather than amphibious landings, he decided to lead his army over land and have the Navy follow them along the shore. Anthony was surprised at how fertile this section of Africa was. In his own time, it had been mostly dessert. But now, it grew the wheat on which Rome relied for food. The journey was uneventful until the British suddenly found them selves surrounded with the enemy both behind and before them.

North Africa had a long tradition of supplying cavalry for the Roman army. When the Vandals came, they readily continued this tradition. The army of Hippo Regius consisted entirely of mounted men. Most were on horseback, but a few were on camels. Lord Ludvich was contemplating his unknown enemy when one of his scouts rode up.
“My lord, I’ve spotted the enemy” began Yageric. “They’re on the coast to the North of here. They appear to be sticking close to the beach. I estimate that there are about five hundred of them. It’s true, they’re covered head to toe in armored plates. But they appear to be armed with spears, not swords.”
“Then we have a chance!” exclaimed Ludvich. “Hienrich! Take half the men and come up behind them. I will lead the other half and come at them from the front. Between us, we will crush them!”

“Sire!” exclaimed Sir Percy pointing to the Vandals in front of and behind them. “We are surrounded!”
“Do not worry about the ones behind us” assured Anthony. “Just charge at the enemy before us. Charge!”
As they closed with the enemy, Anthony noticed that most of them had spears that they carried overhand for throwing as the passed their target. Each half of the Vandal army appeared almost as large as the British. As they met, the Vandals were skewered on the British lances. Fully a third of them died in that first assault.
“Behind us!” called Lancelot.
Anthony looked back to see that the second group had almost caught up with them. Because they were almost completely unarmored, the Vandals had a decided advantage in speed.
“Turn back!” he shouted as he wheeled his horse around to face the other direction. As he abruptly wheeled around, King Anthony fell off his horse.
“Dammit!” he swore, “guess I should have spent more time learning to ride these things.” As Anthony got to his feet, he saw that the knights had barely turned around before the Vandals were upon them.
Once again, many of the Vandals were skewered on the British lances. But without the advantage of inertia, (The British charge had not yet built up any momentum) quite a few knights were knocked off their horses when their lances hit the oncoming enemy. After that, the battle became a chaotic mix of Vandals and Britons attempting to ride around in the mass of men and horses and hack each other. Anthony spotted Galahad on the ground clumsily trying to rise in his bulky armor while avoiding the hooves that were trampling all around him. Anthony hacked his way over to Galahad sticking his sword deeply into the chest of one barbarian on his right while the one on the left tried to do the same to him. The vandal’s sword didn’t even pierce his armor and as he pulled Chronos out of one foe, he stuck it in the other. Then, he had to push Gawain’s horse out of the way. As he did so, Gawain asked:
“Sire, why do you not call the ships and have them fire on the enemy?”
Anthony roughly pulled Galahad to his feet then turned to Gawain and replied:
“Our cannons are not accurate enough to target individuals. If they fire on them, they also fire on us.”
Anthony continued to work his way through the battle, concentrating his efforts on helping his fallen knights to their feet. As he did so, he got a call from the Wasp:
“Wasp calling King Anthony. Wasp calling the King.”
“This is King Anthony” he replied as he turned his attention to the short wave radio built into his helmet. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Your Highness, request permission to fire on the enemy” said the Wasp’s radioman.
“Permission denied” answered Anthony gruffly. “If you fire on them, you will hit us. Take up a position west of the battle and shoot any of the Vandals who try to escape by that route. Tigra, take up a similar position east of the battle. All other ships, maintain your current position, adjacent to us.”

In Lancelot’s mind, the battle was not going well. Even though they were much better armored than the Vandals, even though their stirrups kept them from being knocked of their horses as easily, fighting in this close press took away the advantages of fighting on horseback. He had managed to work his way to the edge of the battle, so he resolved to do something about it.
“Knights of Britain, follow me!” he bellowed as he rode away from the battle. About twenty of the knights managed to get free and followed him. As they turned to charge back into the battle, Lancelot noticed that a larger group of Vandals had the same idea and had also pulled back from the main battle. Lancelot chose them as his target.
“Charge!” he shouted as he galloped toward them. His group hit the enemy to devastating effect. Twenty of the Vandals had died in one pass. The survivors turned tail and ran from both the main battle to the West of them and from Lancelot’s group. Lancelot gave chase, but with their heavier armor, the Britons had no hope of catching up with the nearly unarmored Vandals. Sudden great booming sounds erupted from the Tigra followed by splashes as the cannonballs hit the water off shore from the small group of barbarians. The cannons didn’t have the range to hit shore from this far out and the ships couldn’t get close enough to the coast to pull off an effective shore bombardment without running aground. But neither the Britons nor the Vandals knew this. Their horses squealed in terror and they wheeled around came back towards Lancelot’s group with their swords drawn.
“They are coming back for more!” shouted Lancelot, lowering his lance again. “Let us give them another taste of British might!” This time, as the two groups clashed, the Vandals were totally eradicated. As he turned back towards the main battle, Lancelot saw that the Vandals had been routed. Some fled to the West until the Wasp’s guns began shooting at them, then they turned to the South and fled into the interior of the land. Some fled to the East until they spotted Lancelot’s group, then they too, turned south. The remaining barbarians went south without trying to go along the beach first. Lancelot road back to the main body of the Knights and said:
“We have them on the run! After them! For Anthony and Britain!”
As they pursued the Vandals a small group would turn and charge them, only to die on the points of the British lances. This happened three times before the Vandals began splitting up and going off in separate directions.
“Halt!” called Lancelot. “Break off pursuit!”
“No!” countered Gawain. “We have them on the run, let us finish them!”
“Listen Sir Knight” said Lancelot, pulling his horse alongside of Gawain’s. “They are too far ahead of us and getting further away each minute. They are just too fast. Besides, we don’t know this terrain. They do. They may be leading us into a trap. Our Priority is Hippo Regius”
“I am Minister of War, not you!” yelled Gawain. “Do not tell my army what to do!” Gawain frowned as he looked at the Vandals scattering in all directions and realized that Lancelot was right. He growled with frustration, then turned his horse around and commanded:
“Back to the beach!”
By the time they had returned, the King had called for boats to carry the wounded back to the ships and helped up everyone who had fallen but was otherwise unharmed.

When the Britons approached the gates of the city of Hippo Regius, a battle was already in progress. As they approached the city the gates opened for them, revealing the identity of the combatants. The Vandals who remained in the city were fighting a pitched battle with the Roman inhabitants of the city. The Hippo Regians had not yet become assimilated into Vandal Society, so like the Carthaginians, it was easy to tell them from the Vandals because they didn’t grow their beards or dress as the Vandals did. Once the Britons joined the battle, it only took a few hours to kill the remaining Vandals within the city walls. When Anthony inquired as to what had started the insurrection No one knew how it had started, but everyone seemed to know why.
“A few hours after Lord Ludvich had left the city along with most of his men, a runner from Carthage arrived telling tales the great liberating army that had appeared from nowhere and only attacked our overlords. We wanted some of this freedom for our selves.”
“And you shall have it” assured Anthony. “Unfortunately, we don’t have as many gifts to give you as we did in Carthage, just a radio and a handful of books. But our ships will be back in the future to sell you more.
Let’s celebrate your new found freedom. We are not here to loot, pillage, and rape the city. Any of the wealth of the city belongs to the people of the city. But we are having a party to celebrate our victory. Why don’t you invite your local prostitutes to attend?”
Anthony winked at the Regian. First he saw fear in the eyes of the local, then he saw that fear change to understanding and then to relief and delight. The Britons weren’t going to rape the women of Hippo Regius but they were asking for volunteers to entertain the troops.
Finding such volunteers did not prove to be a problem as all of the professional women and quite a few amateurs and vandal women attended the party out of a mixture of gratitude and curiosity. A good time was had by all. It puzzled Anthony that most of the Christian Knights had no objections to attending the party, with a few exceptions like Galahad, Lancelot, Gwenevere, Marcus and Lydia.

Taking the remaining Vandal Cities of Tripolis and Caesarea proved to be of little challenge to the Britons and soon they were on their way to Rome. They were only a few days away when a loud boom echoed from the Shulkie followed by billowing smoke. Neither the sound nor the smoke resembled the products of cannon fire and Anthony was immediately on the radio trying to ascertain the cause.
“King Anthony calling Shulkie, report”
“Cough cough!” came the reply
“Shulkie report!” demanded Anthony. “Hey! Pilot, pull over by the Shulkie! We have got to find out what is going on over then.”
By the time the Wasp had pulled alongside of the Shulkie, the crisis was much less dire aboard the freighter.
“What seems to be the problem here?” said Anthony to the Shulkie’s engineer as they descended down into the engine room.
“I’m not sure, your majesty” replied Llewellyn. “I think it’s the engine.”
“Of course it is the engine!” said Anthony in exasperation. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been time to really train people in the principles of mechanics. It had been a strain to get the ships built and teach people how to operate them. It wasn’t the engineer’s fault that he had never seen, much less fixed a broken steam engine before. Examining the Shulkie’s engine, Anthony quickly spotted the problem.
“Here it is” he said, pointing to the back side of the cylinder. “There is a large crack in the cylinder. It will have to be replaced. Damn!”
“How do we do that, sir?” asked Llewellyn
“We do not” replied Anthony, wishing he had a better command of the Britannic language. “There was not time to make any spare parts. Especially not major components like this. I wanted the fleet to be as large as possible so I used all available parts in the ships. This ship will never make it to Constantinople.”
Tuning his back on the engine, Anthony strode up the stairs to the deck and turned on his helmet radio.
“King Anthony to Firebird, Come in Firebird.”
“Firebird here” answered Lancelot.
“Good, you are at the radio” said Anthony “I am going to need you to pull along side the Shulkie and moor the two ships together. You are going to have to tow her. Once we get underway, you and Sir Marcus are going to have to trade ships. Leave all of the cargo that is not specifically Roman on board. Your personal belongings and everything else will have to come over here.”

“But why do we get the broken ship?” protested Gwenevere. “It’s not fair!”
“Be reasonable, my love” said Lancelot. “We only need to make it to Rome. The others have a lot further to go.”
“I think he did this on purpose just to slight us. First I’m not good enough to be his Queen, then, he plans to strand us in some foreign city, now he sticks us with the broken ship!” screamed Gwenevere.
“Please, my love, lower your voice. The others will hear” Asked Lancelot, drawing closer.
“I will not lower my voice!” said Gwenevere in his face raising the volume of her tirade. “I’ll yell as loud as . . . mmmh!”
Lancelot kissed her passionately and she felt herself relax and the tingling in her loins started humming. Lancelot always knew how to silence her. Fighting would have to wait for later. Before they had finished her cries of ecstasy proved to be even louder than anything she might have screamed in anger.

The arrived to find the city of Rome on full alert as they approached. From the deck of the Wasp, Anthony looked through his spyglass at the Roman soldiers arranged all along the shore and on top of the city walls.
“It looks like they are expecting an invasion” observed Anthony. “Let us do this as we planned. All ships, Full stop.”
Once the fleet had come to a full stop and dropped anchor, the landing party got in the small boat and rowed to shore. The Romans let them come ashore unmolested, but when Anthony started to climb out of the boat and onto the dock a Roman soldier called out:
“That’s far enough! Who are you? What do you want?”
“I am Anthony, King of the Britons. I come in peace to speak with your Emperor.” While he spoke, Lancelot and Marcus helped their wives out of the boat.
“He’s not here” replied the soldier looking at the strange quintet. The men were wearing the best armor he’s ever seen, but its’ style was totally alien to him. They were wore swords on their belts but carried no shields. The women, however, were dressed in gowns that looked to be of fine quality, even if their cut was unfamiliar. The large amount of jewelry confirmed his suspicion that this group was barbarian royalty of some sort.
“Well then, Can I speak to who ever in is charge here” asked Anthony.
The Roman turned to the soldier next to him and said:
“Go tell the Tribune what has happened. Ask him what our orders are.”
“Yes Centurion” replied his subordinate before heading for the city gate.