*
Norman was brought to the gate by the sound of the klaxon like everyone else. He joined the ranks of a growing crowd, aghast, as a ragged group of travellers filed into the courtyard. The sun had barely risen, but there was no mistaking the blood. It lay over everything, every scrap of cloth, every inch of bare skin. Their carts had been purged of goods and loaded up with piles of dead and dying. Their agonised cries filled the air.
Evelyn, Alexander and Lucian raced from the tower. “Mr Rush! What happened?” Alex cried.
A round-shouldered, powerful man stepped forward, visibly shaking, lips trembling. Norman was shocked more by the sight of his fear than the sight of the wounded. Rush had been on the council since its founding with Alexander, representing Southampton. He was a presence to put all others to shame, a commander on par with the messiah himself.
Now he was in tatters, tears streaming down his face. “They came from nowhere. We tried to run, but the way back was blocked. They…they killed…there were over a hundred of us!”
Norman’s stomach turned over. No more than a dozen were still standing.
The crowd rushed forward to help unload the wounded and carry the survivors away for treatment. Norman fought his way through to the spot where Rush had collapsed into Alexander’s arms. He was whimpering. “Portsmouth and Worthing have been hit,” he said. Norman had always known his stare to carry nothing but dignity. Now it was jelly. He shook his head. “There’s nothing left.”
None of them spoke. There was nothing to say.
As the sun rose, more groups arrived. People poured in, desperate for shelter, some unscathed, some not. None had been hit as bad as those from Southampton. Norman couldn’t help but feel they were an example.
Soon the representatives of almost every settlement on the council had arrived. The fact that none of the ambassadors had been harmed, despite reams of fallen aides, friends and family, only fuelled his suspicion. By the time the sun had crested the distant skyscrapers, the courtyard was stained red, and the gates slammed shut a final time. They couldn’t risk waiting any longer for stragglers. The council would convene in the coming hours, and their course of action would be decided.
But Norman was no longer sure there was anything to be done. Until now they had been the dominant power in all the land. In a single morning, they had been reduced to rats in a maze.
THIRD INTERLUDE
James stepped out onto the beach and took a breath of rich sea breeze. He surveyed the rough surf and half-buried remains of old yachts, pale in the early morning light, overturned and pitted below the tide line.
The world was moving on. After eleven years, the things mankind had created before the End were beginning to vanish. People were beginning to call everything before that time the Old World.
Lucian appeared alongside him, only a head taller even after his recent growth spurt. Without a word to one another, they ambled along the beach, stabbing their spears into the sand to give them purchase, watchful of the trees. James smiled. His feet felt sure, and his legs strong. The roll of the surf was music to his ears.
Yet, he was more tired than he would have ever shown, especially with Lucian around. They’d spent the morning hunting without success. He didn’t relish the thought of keeping it up for much longer, but he’d never complain. If they didn’t make a kill, they’d go hungry. The tinned food wasn’t as plentiful as it had once been. Now, it was currency in itself. A tin of mackerel could buy you a sack of coal. For corned beef, you could get enough rags to clothe an entire family.
Food had ceased to become a given. If you couldn’t hunt, gather, or trade by now, you’d starve. And, from what they’d seen on their travels, many had. The unskilled survivors who’d gorged themselves on the Old World’s resources without a thought for how long it would last had followed the rest of humanity into oblivion.
James listened to branches snapping in the forest as the others followed a path parallel to the beach. Sensing that Lucian’s gaze was directed towards the trees, he allowed his eyes to droop for a moment. Walking along with half-closed eyes, it almost felt like sleeping.
“Doesn’t it bother you, kiddo?” Lucian muttered.
James brushed windswept hair from his eyes and frowned at his brother. “What?”
“You have no time to yourself. You were up all night reading again. You’ve been out with us since dawn. Soon as we get back, I’ll bet my dinner that Alex has a class waiting. Then what? More reading?”
“I like to read,” James said, though his gaze fell to the ground. Then he did a double take. “And I can hunt better than the rest of you put together.”
Lucian laughed and ruffled his hair, smearing it back over his eyes. “Of course you can.”
“I can. You’re all too loud. And clumsy.”
Lucian appeared to take offence, but at the same time seemed unable to mount any kind of counterargument, so let it pass. “But you've always got to be doing something,” he said. “If you haven’t got your head in a book then you’re in the classroom, you’re taking care of the birds, you’re milking the cows or you’re out tending the plants.”
“Crops,” James corrected.
Lucian was uncomfortable with that word. Like the others, he thought that their field was too small to justify using it. Most of the others merely frowned at its usage. Lucian said it was ridiculous. Paul said things far worse, things James wasn’t allowed to hear—Aggie always covered his ears.
But Alex insisted they were raising crops, that their one patch of earth was just the start of something much greater, that one day entire meadows would grow six feet tall with wheat and barley, and they’d be able to feed hundreds of people—maybe a thousand. That was more than enough for James.
“But don’t you want to do other things?” Lucian said.
“What things?”
“I don’t know…kid things. Don’t you want to play?”
James shrugged, frowning. “I play all the time. I love games.”
Lucian scowled. James shrank away instinctively, conscious of his bad temper. “Backgammon Night isn’t playing,” he said.
James shook his head, nonplussed. There was no time for play, no reason for it. Even if he’d wanted to, there was nobody to play with. The nearest people were a few hours’ ride away.
No, play wasn’t for him. His time was for learning, for collecting the Old World’s treasures. For saving the world.
“Don’t you sometimes wish that you didn’t have to do all those things?” Lucian said. “Don’t you wish that you could be free?”
James paused mid-step. His mind had fallen blank. Somewhere, deep down in his gut, anger stirred. “I’m free,” he said. His voice was more high-pitched than he’d intended, but he didn’t care. He was too busy searching Lucian’s face.
Lucian had stopped a few paces ahead. His brow constricted into a deep crease, something he always did when unsettled—James was sure he’d wrinkle early—as though sensing the pain in his voice. “I know,” he said.
“I have a job to do. It’s important.”
“I know, I know, it’s your destiny,” Lucian muttered under his breath, shaking his head.
James felt his face bunch up as the anger in his gut swelled, but it was quickly overshadowed by sadness—not for the insult, but for Lucian’s disbelief. “You don’t think so?” His spear had dropped to his side. “You don’t think I have a destiny? You don’t think… I’m important?”
Lucian’s eyes flickered from anger to soft melancholy, and then a diamond-hard look of wonder. “I hope you are,” he said.
“You do?”
The look of wonder lingered long enough for Lucian to utter, “If anybody’s going to help us—all of us—it’s going to be you.” Then he cleared his throat, shrugging his shoulders with a gruff jerk. “Who cares what I think? It’s your business.”
James smiled. The anger’s spark fizzled, yet the sadness remained. “Then why ask?”
> “I just want to make sure that you’re happy doing…whatever it is you’re doing.”
James thought about all those things over the next few moments: all he did, and all he was meant to do. He could feel it all ahead of him, so close that he was sure he could almost reach out and touch it. “I’m happy,” he said finally.
Lucian nodded, looking away, now ensconced in his gruff exterior. “Fine. Sorry I asked.”
James didn’t miss the flicker lurking behind his eyes, something satisfied, maybe even pleased.
They both turned as a scrabbling issued from the forest, just in time to see Oliver and Alex burst from the trees and sprint along the border between sand and soil, spears held aloft. For a single, dangling second, there was a strained silence. Then, from the forest, came the long and reverberating cry of a stag, followed by an almighty rumble that could only have been made by dozens of hooves.
James watched Alex charge along the beach for a moment, glanced at Lucian, and then gave chase. They passed into the shade thrown down by the canopy and caught up with the others in a few bounding strides.
Alex was swinging his head back and forth, glaring into the trees. He seemed to see things the others could not. They followed his lead, sprinting alongside him until he gave a grunt and veered off from the sand, plummeting back into the forest.
James sprang after him, slipping between the thick brambles without breaking a single twig, leaving the others—heavy-footed and uncoordinated—in his wake. He vaulted deeper into darkness, passing between narrow gaps between trees, bounded shrubbery and rocks without effort, and ducked overhanging branches without a moment’s thought. His footfalls made only the lightest of patters. His breathing was deep, calm and unhurried.
He and Alex had spent countless hours in the wilds, honing their senses. But while Alex had grown sharper—his eyes, especially, had become indispensable during a hunt—James had become something else. Over the years, he had felt himself become at home in the forest, one with it.
The Jungle Bookworm, Paul called him. “Ain’t nothing but a dog that can read, that boy,” he’d once said. “Look at him, he’s more at home swinging from a tree than inside.”
But Alex had shot him down. He’d said that they had to be at home in the libraries as much as in the forests. He’d called it the perfect synergy. James didn’t know what that meant, but was sure it was far removed from Paul’s comments.
The others, meanwhile, were still much the same as they’d been before the End. Large, bulky, clumsy and loud, they crashed through the underbrush and tripped over the simplest of obstacles, swearing and panting.
The guttural groans of the deer ahead spurred James on. He could hear them struggling to squeeze themselves through the tighter gaps between branches, beating away at the tight-packed foliage blanketing every surface. Slow as the others were, they were all getting closer.
James let his legs navigate for him, taking a backseat and merely enjoying the run, skipping and leaping at leisure beside Alex, keeping pace as a rabbit would with a snail. Testing his agility, he bounced between twisted roots and the trunks of ancient elms.
Then Alex cried, “Through here!”
Ahead, a clearing had appeared in the trees. They wheeled as one and broke out into the open. Unhindered by snagging underbrush, they sprinted through the wild grass, cast into shadow by the surrounding canopy.
On the far side, the deer herd churned to the sound of thunder. The forest beyond was lined by an impenetrable barrier of tangled vines and overlapping tree trunks. Trapped, they kicked and thrashed atop one another, each fighting to gain the herd’s centre, crying out.
The men raised their spears over their shoulders. James saw Lucian do the same, and hurried to follow suit. A moment later they were all rushing towards the whorling vortex of flesh.
The herd fragmented. James blinked as they rushed outwards in all directions, disoriented. It took some moments for him to realise that a few were heading right for him. Before he could react, he was immersed in a sea of fur and hooves. Deafening yelps of fright sounded beside him until a dull hum filled his head.
He yelled, throwing his arms up and crouching low to the ground, spear wedged against the dirt. The herd flowed around him as a river parts around a rock, leaping back the way they’d come, crashing through vines into darkness.
Then they were gone, and James was left gazing about the empty clearing. The grass had been churned into a ragged patch of ploughed mud. Standing in the very centre, the others had trapped what could only have been the alpha male.
The stag was enormous, standing six feet at the shoulder, swinging its antlers in a great arc to thwart their advance. Its breath rushed from its nostrils in great plumes and an angry gurgle escaped its mouth, freezing the hunters in place. Oliver’s spear protruded from its ribcage, imbedded down to the shaft, more than enough to have already doomed the beast.
Their kill was now a given. All that remained to be decided was how long it would take.
As James approached, blood oozed from the stag’s wound, splattering the flattened grass. He looked to the others, trying to gauge their reactions, but their expressions were blank.
“What do we do?” Lucian said.
“It’s going to charge,” Oliver said. “Get back.”
“Just wait,” Alex said. His voice, unlike theirs, was flat, calm.
Oliver and Lucian each took a step back regardless.
In turn, the stag advanced, emboldened.
Alex stood his ground, half crouched. James’s legs itched to turn tail and join the others, but he kept close to his brother’s side, adopting the same stance, watching his every move from the corner of his eye.
The stag’s breath had become ragged, and its rippling shoulders were trembling. Yet still it stamped its hooves deep into the earth, advancing on them, a menacing roar rumbling in its throat.
“Get back, lads,” Oliver warned.
Neither of them moved, though as James glanced between Alex and the snarling beast, the urge to leap back became near unbearable. The baser nooks of his mind stabbed at his nerve, screaming ‘Danger!’, certain that the stag’s display would give way to a charge. It was only through Alex’s cool, motionless stance that James kept his place.
The charge never came. The stag’s breath became ever more ragged, and in a mere handful of moments its antlers had come to a standstill, its eyes drooping. It milled on the spot for a moment, gave a last-ditch buck of its head, and slumped to the ground. There, it seemed to deflate, wheezing as the hunters regrouped and approached.
“Bold,” Oliver said. “Bold, but stupid.” His face creased into a wry smile. “We don’t see enough of that.”
Alex cuffed James on the shoulder. James began laughing as mirth boiled up in his cheeks, stemming from a slab of relief amidst those dark corners that had screamed for him to run. They laughed together, looking down upon the stag as it drew its last breaths, bleeding out into the grass.
“It would’ve been easier to catch a cow,” Lucian said. “They’re dumb and slow. And they’re everywhere.”
Oliver gave a wordless cry. “Oh, my boy, there’s nothing like a good pound of venison! Besides, plenty of people who’ll go hungry tonight would give their left nut to be standing where you are now.”
Lucian’s face was drawn into a dissatisfied grimace. “I prefer beef.”
“Someday soon you’ll learn that it’s always best to be thankful for a meal.” Oliver’s face twitched. “There’s always tomorrow. Lucky for us, we’ll never be low on steak!” He leaned over and made an exact incision across the deer’s throat, quelling its last jerks. He patted its head, one hand laid across its eyes, a slow and steady hushing sound whistling between his teeth.
Once the body was still, they set to work.
“Looks like we’re eating tonight, lads,” Oliver cried, swinging a freshly butchered leg over his shoulder.
They returned home in the early afternoon, laden with meat, paradi
ng towards the front door, expecting to be greeted as heroes. Instead, they received an earful of a bone-shaking scream. James surged forth with the rest of them, but even his sprightly legs couldn’t keep up with Alexander’s headlong charge. He crashed through the door behind the others, spear raised, dumping the meat upon the doorstep.
When he laid eyes on the living room, he froze. The others had done just the same. Together, they took a unanimous step back. Lucian faltered to the side and leaned over in his bloodstained coat, retching at the sight of what lay before them.
“Contractions star’ed this mornin’,” Agatha said from the depths of the room. “Gettin’ to being fully dilated.” Her hair, greying at the temples, had been thrown into a gnarled thatch. “Coulda used you earlier!”
Helen Creek screeched without pause, beet-red and gasping, spread-eagled atop a thick carpet of sweat-soaked blankets. Her dress had been hiked up around her midriff, revealing the tight-stretched skin of her swollen abdomen and the horrors between her thighs. Beside her, Hector sat erect and ashen-faced, grimacing as Helen crushed his hand in an iron grip.
James groaned as his gaze settled upon the blankets and recognised his own bed sheets. Judging by the similar grunts passing the others’ lips, they were seeing much the same. They remained frozen in the hallway for some time, blood dripping from their shoulders.
James wanted to turn away, to back out the door and escape, but his feet seemed cemented to the floor. He looked to Alex, hoping for guidance, and was unsettled to see him white-lipped, his eyes darting back and forth.
“I think you’d best take your brother outside,” he murmured to Lucian.
“We’ll need towels,” Oliver said. “And water, hot water—I think.” He paused. “Why do we need hot water?” he breathed, his lazy eye bulging.
“We’ll figure something out,” Alex said, piling the meat onto a tarpaulin in the hall.
Lucian took James by the hand and guided him towards the door. As they reached the threshold, James heard Oliver murmur, “I hope Agatha knows what she’s doing.”
“So do I,” Alex replied.
Then the two of them were out in the dank afternoon air, and Helen’s screams became muffled.
James tried to clear his throat, but the lump forming there refused to shift, and his knees thrummed with nervous energy. The fresh memory of the awed silence that had fallen over the others kept his mouth dry and his pulse racing.
He’d heard about birth, read about it, wondered about it—sometimes it seemed that all grown-ups spoke about was having babies—but never seen it. It seemed almost otherworldly, akin to reincarnation and the afterlife; something mentioned daily at the breakfast table, but never fully explained.
Lucian was pale. He looked no more at ease than James felt himself. “What happens now?” he grumbled.
James shrugged. He set off around the side of the house.
Patience. Alex’s voice echoed in his mind from countless classroom lectures. Patience is key. Bide your time, and the answers will come.
Fine, James thought. I’ll wait, and the answers will come—come shooting out of Mrs Creek.
He skirted the rear side wall and reached the fence leading to their crop field. He could hear Lucian’s footfalls close behind, but didn’t slow down. He was too busy trying to suppress the images his imagination was conjuring: gory flashes of what might be going on inside.
Without thinking, he made his way to the flimsy cage of scavenged timber that lay nestled near the chimney, crossed by rows of twisted wire such that it formed a coop. He flipped the latch and placed his head at the lip of the entrance, staring into the gloom. His nostrils were filled by the aroma of droppings. Cooing and fluttering emanated from within.
In an instant, the images of blood and guts flickering behind his eyes dissipated. He could almost forget about the others, for they seemed as far away and distant as the crumbling cities upon the horizon. That was how it always was when he came out here. He smiled, and coaxed his friends into view. “Hello,” he said, helpless to keep a broad smile from stretching across his cheeks.
The birds hopped from the shadows one by one. Half a dozen pigeons, plump and well kept, wheeled and followed his guiding hand, pecking at his fingertips.
He reached into a small tin beside the cage and brought out a handful of seed. They set to it greedily, pecking away and jostling each other for room. James let them gorge themselves for a few moments, then withdrew his hand. When he’d been younger, he’d overfed them—he hadn’t been able to help himself. Now they were always looking for their next meal. “Eat it all and you’ll get too fat,” he warned. “Then what good will you be?”
Lucian was standing beside him, looking at the birds with an expression of distant disgust, though James suspected that the brunt of it was being held back out of politeness. “Why do you keep them?” he said, frowning. He backed away with an irked cry when one of the pigeons took flight and darted away behind the chimney.
James shooed the rest into the sky before they could besiege his hand in search of more seed. They followed the first bird, wheeling together and disappearing around the smoking chimneystack. “They’re clever,” he said.
As he spoke, one of the birds fluttered back into sight and alighted upon the roof of the cage, staring at James’s hand, as though hoping to be rewarded for its persistence.
“They don’t look very smart,” Lucian said. The wrinkle between his eyebrows had deepened into a defined crease, and his lip had curled upwards.
James smiled and stroked the bird’s head. “They’re very smart. They were used to carry messages, Before. During the Great War they took mail across whole countries.”
“Which war was that?”
James glanced over his shoulder, frowning. “The First World War.”
Lucian merely blinked. His face was blank.
James shrugged. Sometimes he forgot how little Lucian—or even the other grown-ups—actually knew of the Old World they were trying to save.
“How do you know that they’ll come back?”
“I don’t. But they always do.”
“How do they find their cage? There’s so much land, and it all looks the same. Don’t they get lost?”
James shook his head. “They just know.” He picked a stray feather from the coup’s doorway, twisting it in his hands. “I’m going to use them to send messages too, one day.”
Lucian nodded, but James could sense unease in the way he angled his head to the side. “Is everything you do for this Great Destiny?” he said.
James dropped the feather and turned to face him. His heart sank as he realised that, even after their talk on the beach, Lucian still didn’t believe. “It’s my job,” he said. “I have to do all I can—have to be all I can—for everyone.”
“Without any time for yourself? What kind of life is that?”
He held a frustrated retort back with some difficulty. “There are more important things,” he said eventually.
“And you’re happy to do it? Really happy to give it all up?”
James forced a smile onto his lips, but he spoke with a heavy heart. “Yes.”
Lucian nodded once more, but James still saw doubt festering behind his gaze. He would never understand.
Sometime later, the house had grown quiet, and Alex appeared from around its side. His sleeves had been rolled up to the shoulder, and his arms were slicked with something James didn’t dare guess at. He paused, locked his sights upon them, and let out a shuddering sigh.
James stammered, “W-What is it?”
Alex’s tired face broke into a gentle grin. “You have a new brother,” he said. He beckoned, leading the way back to the house, which was now deathly silent.
They were led into the living room, where the others stood in a perfect circle around Helen’s grey, exhausted form. They were all whispering to one another, uttering wordless noises of wonderment, enraptured. They parted as James approached, waving him closer.
&nbs
p; James looked down on Helen, who lay grey-lipped and sallow-skinned amidst the sodden blankets, and caught sight of the tiny bundle swaddled in her arms. He craned his neck as the Creeks cried and laughed, their faces nuzzled together. Their eyes, swimming with tears, were locked on the tiny pink body between the sheets.
James could only blink as numbness stole along his limbs, and he struggled to take in the new presence, which had been nonexistent only a minute ago.
Then a thump sent them all turning to see Paul in the doorway, hands pressed against either side of the frame, his eyes bloodshot and his face haggard. A near-empty bottle of scotch hung in his grasp. He hiccoughed, staring at the bundle of blankets unsteadily. His eyes softened, then flickered. A long silence stretched out between him and the group, until eventually he grunted. “Devil’s work,” he slurred. “D-Devil…devil’s work.”
A moment of tense silence followed before the others whirled back to the Creeks and resumed in their cooing with renewed enthusiasm, turning their backs on him. Not even Agatha spared him this time, leaning over the pink bundle and blowing raspberries right along with them.
James was the last to turn away. As he did so, he caught the glance Paul cast in his direction: subtle and fleeting, yet narrow, intense and deeply unsettling. Though he wasn’t quite sure why, his guts twisted with a sudden, raw pang of fear. By the time the sensation had registered and he had turned back to the doorway, Paul had disappeared.
He blinked, unsure of what to make of it, but his attention was soon drawn back to the pink bundle in Helen’s arms, and Paul slipped from his mind. Uttering meaningless noises as much as the others, he crouched down beside the Creeks and peered at the newborn baby, grinning helplessly. From a mass of rouge folds of puppy fat, pudgy hands and jerking feet, a pair of watchful brown eyes stared up at him. New eyes, fresh eyes, those of a new brother. “What’s his name?” he asked.
Helen, her face aglow with adoration, smiled. “Norman,” she said. “His name is Norman.”
XXIII
Norman grunted as he opened his eyes. Blinding sunlight bombarded his retinas. His hands rushed to his face as he hauled himself to a seated position, gasping at the pain that erupted in his chest.
He’d been laid flat on a bench. It was warm to the touch despite being in the shade, hinting that he had been upon it for some time. Yet he had no memory of lying down—nor, for that matter, anything after guiding Allie towards the tower.
She stood over him now, with Richard close behind. They wore identical expressions of worry and confusion.
“Are you alright?” Richard said.
Norman shook his head, leaning forwards as the world swirled, off-kilter. His chest was throbbing with a vigour that he hadn’t endured since Jason had first stomped down on him. “What happened?” he muttered.
Horses were snuffling nearby. The smell of hay and manure was thick in the air. He guessed that they were somewhere near the stables. As his vision stopped swirling, he glimpsed the tower directly above him. The gate was off to the right, looking bare and lifeless without the compliment of night guards patrolling its catwalks.
“We were going for breakfast,” Allie said. “You fainted.”
Richard crouched down beside Norman and held up his index finger, moving it first left, and then right.
Norman found himself instinctively tracking it with his eyes, frowning as he did so. “Stop that.”
“I’m checking for head injury. I’ve seen Heather do it.”
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Not really.”
Norman brushed his hand away. “I’m fine.”
He struggled to his feet, blinking to clear his vision, which had begun swimming again. He held out his hand to keep Allison from taking hold of him, shaking his head. “I’m fine.”
The courtyard below the gate was filling at a steady trickle as men dressed in dark combat gear emerged from the tower: the security detail from New Canterbury, most of the night guards, and a few who had been part of the convoy. Alexander, Lucian and Marek stood waiting before the gate, giving orders and distributing weapons. Above them, Evelyn watched with narrowed eyes along her crooked nose, perched like a crow atop the catwalk. Behind her, John DeGray studied the wall’s defences with detached intrigue, ignoring the proceedings, looking oddly bare without Richard by his side.
The rickety stables rattled as a procession of mounts were led out to be saddled.
“You’re not fine,” Allison said firmly, laying a hand on Norman’s shoulder despite his protests. “You need to stop moving around. You might be hurt bad. You need a doctor.”
Richard clicked his tongue. “Abernathy’s been treating famine victims north of here the last few weeks. Nobody knows when he’ll be back. The best they have here is Anderson, but I wouldn’t trust him to fall out of a boat and into water.”
“Heather’s been teaching him, hasn’t she?”
“When she’s here during the summer. But he’s a ways from being up to scratch.”
Allison seethed. “They must have a doctor here. They must have something.”
Richard nodded. “Abernathy was Clara Fields’s other disciple. He’s as good as they come. But he’s AWOL.”
“Anderson will just have to do.”
Norman uttered a wordless yell, holding up his hand to silence them. “Stop it!”
They froze midsentence, bemused, and looked at him.
“What’s wrong?” Allison said.
“I’ll be just grand, thank you.” Norman tried to ignore how slurred his voice had become, ripping himself from Allie’s grip and stalking away from the bench. “I don’t need you”—he stumbled and had to grab the reins of a passing mount to steady himself—“mollycoddling me all day.”
“You’ve been struggling to even walk since you got up,” Allison said. “Maybe Heather was wrong. Maybe you should’ve stayed home. It looks like you’re getting worse.”
“She said that…I’ll be fine as long as I…rest up,” he wheezed. He locked his gaze on Alexander. The distance between them seemed enormous, but he ploughed on nonetheless, determined to reach him. “When are they leaving?”
“Now,” Allison said uncertainly.
“They were going to leave me behind?”
“They want to get home by midday. Norman, sit down…”
They were going to leave him. Just like Lucian had left him yesterday, just brushed him off.
Was this how it was going to be from now on? After being prodded like a circus animal for so many years, trussed up with responsibility and duty, was he to be left by the wayside, injured, impotent, and useless?
He took a few more steps, almost fell, then cried out and gasped. He needed to chew up some white willow, but couldn’t remember where he’d left the bag—or whether he’d already done so.
A few heads turned towards him, owl-eyed and concerned.
But he let loose a guttural groan and staggered onwards, waving people aside as he went. Men twice his size shrank back, bending into polite bows, uttering words of salutation. He ignored the absurd sight of their deference. His chest was white-hot, blinding, nauseating.
“Oh, Norman, don’t,” Allison moaned.
He carried on regardless, heading for Alexander. Overwhelming fury boiled in his guts, powered by an acute sense of betrayal as he powered towards the gathering. He knew his mind was scrabbling for purchase—that reason was failing him—but he was powerless to stop himself casting the last man between him and Alexander aside, and growling into his mentor’s face, “I’m going with you.”
Alex blinked, his eyebrows raised. “It’s a big risk going at all, Norman. We have to ride hard, and stop for nothing if we’re going to break through their lines. If you fall…”
Norman raised a pointed finger, teeth bared. His arm swung wildly, wavering at least a foot from where he had intended. “You can’t leave me. Not now.”
Allison came rushing through the crowd. “He j
ust passed out,” she cried. “He’s in no state to go anywhere.”
Norman snarled over his shoulder, “I have to go. I have to. You’re not leaving me here.”
“Norman, you’re in pain. You’re not seeing things clearly,” Alexander said. Worry plastered his face. “Nobody’s leaving you behind.”
Norman cut across him, spittle flying from his lips. “I’m going with you and you’re not going to stop me!” He tore the reins of the nearest mount from its master’s hands, gripped the saddle, and made to leap upon the stirrups.
They caught him just in time. He was manhandled back to the ground by half a dozen pairs of hands. A small part of his mind took note that Allison had been the first to leap, the one to stop him truly hurting himself.
Alexander stood over him, his eyes sorrowful and his lips drawn into a tight white line. He reached down and rested a hand on Norman’s shoulder.
Norman tried to shrug him off, whimpered, and then slumped, eyes weeping and jaw clenching. His cheeks glowed red-hot, for the pain had peaked, the fog was clearing, and acute embarrassment was coursing his veins. “You can’t do this to me,” he muttered. “After all you’ve told me, after all you’ve demanded of me. It’s not fair.”
Deep silence erupted in the courtyard. Around them, Norman sensed expectant eyes darting between him and Alexander—between the great messiah and his destined successor—frightened and confused.
Alexander squeezed his shoulder, his eyes on the crowd, wary, and stepped back. “We’ll be back,” he whispered. “I promise.” He turned away, leaving Norman slouched, alone.
Soon after, the klaxon sounded and the gate squealed open. Norman stared at the ground, his head swimming. It was only after the sound of clattering hooves kicked up that he was spurred forth a final time. “Why would you leave us—your friends, your family—to chase a group of thugs?” he cried at Lucian’s retreating back. His voice shook. “What’s wrong with you—with the both of you?” He rounded on Alexander. “I deserve to know. You’ll tell me, or I’ll find out. Somehow I’ll find out. Someday soon, you’ll tell me just what the hell happened!”
Neither of them looked back, yet he thought he saw them stiffen upon their saddles. Then they were racing away along the street to the sound of thundering hooves, turned the corner, and were gone from sight.
Marek led the remainder in their wake. The courtyard emptied within the minute, and the klaxon rang out once more, again followed by the gate’s squeal.
Norman stared at where they’d been moments before, open-mouthed. It took him some time to notice Allison’s hand clasped around his wrist.
“Come on,” she said, “let’s get you something to eat. You need to get your strength back.”
“You don’t want to go with them,” Richard said. “They’ll be searching the city all day. You can’t be doing with that kind of thing. Sit this one out, huh? You need to rest up.”
Norman ignored them both, turning back towards the stables. Despite the steady pulse of the mass of nerve endings that his chest had become, he marched from the courtyard at a dogged pace. They shadowed him silently from then on, saying nothing, but remaining by his side nonetheless. He didn’t know where he was going. Didn’t care. He just had to get away.
Allison’s hand was still clutched around his wrist. “Are you going to be alright?” she said.
Norman felt a pang of shame wash over him. “Yes,” he said, “I’ll be fine.”
Her silence indicated that she wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t contradict him. Richard also seemed to take the message, and remained silent.
Despite Norman’s efforts to appear calm, a nigh-unstoppable bubble of all-out panic was rising in his gut. He knew that the pain was addling his mind, but could do nothing to stop it. In moments it would spill over, and he would lose control.
He turned to them both as his throat began to close. “Would you mind bringing breakfast here?” he said. He forced a smile to his lips, barely stifling a scream of hysteria. “You’re right: I just need to get my strength back. But I don’t know if I can manage the stairs right now.”
Their eyes softened; his shame deepened. “Of course,” Allison said gently, patting his arm and leading Richard away at great speed. She glanced back sometime later, her eyes warm, yet forlorn.
Norman remained still—though his muscles were breaking out in spasms—until they were out of sight, maintaining the impression of awaiting their return. It was only after they’d passed into the tower lobby that he collapsed against the stable wall, tearing at his shirt, rubbing his chest with desperate jerks. The burning was fierce, enough to knock the wind from his lungs. “I’m fine,” he wheezed.
He’d been abandoned. After being hounded for so long to be somebody he wasn’t, somebody he would never be, he’d been discarded at the first sign of weakness.
They’d told him every day since the cradle to believe it was his destiny to lead, to continue the elders’ work, to lead them all back into the light when the time was right.
But now he saw that he was but a pawn. In the end, they’d all been ready to cast him aside at a moment’s notice.
“I'm fine…,” he muttered, sliding down the wall until he sat on the grass, wreathed in shadow. “I’m fine. I’m fine…”
XXIV
Robert crouched low to the ground. A bead of sweat hung from his chin, trembling in the breeze. Further rivulets ran the height of his face, following the contours of frown lines and crow’s-feet.
He studied the ground, adding minute detail to the mental map of the hillside forming in his mind’s eye, taking note of the tiniest landmarks, picking out every bent blade of grass, every broken twig.
The relative cool of the morning was being replaced by humid gales, which caressed the hillside as the sky grew paler. He sensed stifling heat building behind the horizon. Intuition and experience told him that, once the sun had risen in earnest, it would be unbearable in the open.
He would have to move fast. He couldn’t afford to miss a sign because of heat fatigue.
At the sound of snuffling, he stood and turned. Canterbury was spread out below. The brilliant white spires of the cathedral undulated behind building heat waves, cast alight in the early dawn light by mobile floodlights—the only lights they’d managed to get going before sunrise.
From here, he could see a few dozen people working away in the fields, tiny ant-like figures scrabbling amidst a sea of youthful wheat stalks. Only those few had dared brave the streets; the rest had barricaded themselves in their homes, joined a guard patrol, or taken flight to the cathedral.
A few metres away, Sarah sat astride her elderly, anserine chestnut mare—the smallest of the Friesian crop in the city’s stables, the only mount she’d ever been able to ride with confidence—which looked very much like a Shetland pony beside Robert’s mount. Due to his size, he rode one of their precious Shire horses: an obsidian stallion named Zodiac, nineteen hands tall, birthed by his father’s hand, a trusted friend since childhood.
Robert kept one eye on her, ready to take her reins at any moment. She’d been unsteady since leaving the stables, and had almost fallen several times. If the horse gathered any momentum up here then the pair of them would go hurtling down the hillside.
It detracted only slightly from his level of concentration, but he feared it might be just enough to make him miss that all-important shred of evidence.
Yet she had insisted. Her bout of rage the night before hadn’t dissipated as he’d hoped. After over an hour of fretting and agonising, she had agreed to let him leave the house—so long as she went with him.
There hadn’t been time to argue it out. He couldn’t leave her feeling abandoned and terrified, yet he had to get to the hills. Against his better judgement, he’d relented.
He scratched the back of his head and peered into the depths of the forest at the hill’s summit. His line of sight beyond the tree line was blocked by a thick scree
ning of boughs and branches, beyond which anybody could stand and study them with ease.
Unnerved, trying to ignore the flesh crawling on the back of his neck, he turned his attention back towards the ground. The soil had been moved recently. The disturbance was subtle, scattered, almost undetectable even to his eyes—but it was there.
“Have you found something?” Sarah said.
Robert glanced at her over his shoulder. “I’m not sure.” He stood, dusting his knees, and headed back towards Zodiac. Once there, making sure that Sarah’s gaze was directed towards the city, he raised a duffel bag from the mount’s thigh, revealing the long barrel of a high-calibre rifle—a deadly talisman that warded away some of the prickling upon his neck.
But his talisman hadn’t come direct from the lock-up. It had come from under his bed.
According to one of their few enforced laws, nobody was allowed to keep a personal firearm. He himself had suggested it in the first place. In times gone by, he would have put his instincts aside to make a good example.
But Sarah had changed that.
After Norman had been attacked, he’d taken it from the armoury. It had taken a great deal of care to ensure that its absence went unnoticed. Each weapon was engraved with a registration number, and a log was made of acquisitions and returns. Fixing the numbers had been difficult, and only possible because of the increased threat level.
At the time he’d felt as though he was crossing a line—going back on everything he’d worked for over the years—but now he was certain that he’d been wise to do it.
He rested the duffel bag back against Zodiac’s leg. “Has anybody been up here recently? Travellers from away? Foraging parties? Kids playing?”
“No,” Sarah said. Her eyes were still on the city. “I don’t think so.”
Robert looked upon the tree line once more as he saddled up, keeping a hand near the duffel bag, ready. “Okay,” he said, “let’s go.”