Extreme Historical Revisionism

A four-legged leviathan thunders towards the infidel castle, fuming with black smoke and ringing like a gong as cannonballs bounce from its metal hide. Mailed men-at-arms follow in its wake. Canvas dirigibles lumber overhead, to pour sand and boiling oil down upon the defenders. 

The machines are gifts from the future, as are the enemy’s guns.

One of the Travelers stands beside me now (as others stand on the castle walls, no doubt, no doubt), hands clenched at his sides. 

“They’ve reached back this far,” he mutters, as a dirigible falls from the sky in flames. “We’ll have to go further, maybe strengthen the Sassanians. Nip this in the bud.”

The tone sounds blasphemous and I open my mouth to object, but no sound comes out. We’ve become puppets, playthings of the future, and our present their battleground.