So here they all were, camped out with David’s red-blazered guards and John’s unruly scum. Well. In times like this you made an alliance with whoever you could. And right now David was allied with an army of diseased adults and this manky bunch of plebs. None of them were to be trusted. If any of St George’s army came near they had to be threatened away. Using Paul seemed to be the most effective way. He could get inside their brains.
And that was what he was doing now. Directing St George, holding that awful chaotic mass vaguely together. At least that’s what David hoped was happening. It was very frustrating. He couldn’t really see what was going on and he realized with bitterness that he hadn’t properly thought this through.
The thing was he hadn’t thought this far ahead because he hadn’t planned for it to happen this way. His whole idea had been that Jordan Hordern would see that he didn’t have a chance, and simply surrender and hand over power to David. Then David would join his army with Jordan’s and use Paul to defeat St George.
That had been the plan.
Trashed.
Because Jordan bloody Hordern hadn’t bloody surrendered, had he? And now David was stuck here with St George’s army, with no idea what he was going to do next. Already Paul was looking knackered. This was draining all his energy. If he lost the link who knew what would happen? Would St George’s army turn on David? He was ready to make a quick getaway if needed, run back to the museum, leave John and Carl’s mob to fight a rearguard action.
He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He felt reasonably safe here for now. He had his boys and their rifles to protect him.
It was just …
It wasn’t supposed to have ended up like this.
He wasn’t supposed to actually be fighting other kids.
‘I think it’s just about safe.’ Jester was crossing the open area past some concession stands to where David was waiting. Jester had been checking out an old PA tower.
‘We can get up there, I reckon, and have a better idea of what’s going on.’
‘How far up did you go?’ David asked.
‘High enough to make sure it’s safe.’
‘Who’s winning?’
Jester looked at David. ‘Who do you want to win?’
‘Well, I don’t want St George to win obviously,’ said David. ‘Actually what I mean is we can’t let him win. In the end. I want him to do just well enough so that Jordan Hordern has no choice but to make a deal with me. If both sides take enough damage we can go in and clean up. Take over.’
‘Just like that,’ said Jester. David knew he was being sarcastic. He didn’t want to go into this now because it was too complicated.
‘Come along,’ he said. ‘Help me get up there.’
David wasn’t the best climber in the world and Jester was no help. Jester managed to clamber up to a sort of small platform near the top before David was even halfway up. David went huffing and puffing and struggling up behind him, scared that he would slip. How ironic would that be? To get this close to victory only to lose it all by falling off a stupid speaker tower. Once he was up, though, he had a pretty good view of the battlefield. Not that it encouraged him particularly. It was stalemate. St George’s lot were pressed uselessly up against Jordan’s barricades. What kind of a tactic was that?
‘Do you really want to kill all those kids?’ said Jester. ‘Not much point being king of the world if there’s no people in it.’
‘I don’t know what I want,’ said David, somehow finding it easier to talk freely up here, away from everything, floating above the ground. Not part of things any more.
‘Except for them to surrender,’ he went on. ‘And accept my offer. Accept me. But if they don’t then yes, they will all die. That’s their choice.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Jester. ‘You’re not serious. Come on. It’s not too late to stop this.’
David said nothing. He looked out over the fighting down below. He realized he was shaking. There was a tightness in his throat and he felt tears biting to get out. He knew why he felt like this. Because for the first time in his life he wasn’t sure of things any more. He wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing. Until he knew what to do he couldn’t risk speaking and betraying his emotions to Jester.
He studied the battle. Trying to make sense of it. And slowly it became clear what he needed to do. He had to break the stalemate. They had to create a breach. St George should concentrate his forces on the weakest point of the barricades and push his way through, pour in and overwhelm the kids. Yes. A plan. Control. Forget everything else.
‘Where’s the weakest point?’ he said.
‘On which side?’ said Jester.
‘Jordan’s weakest point,’ David snapped. ‘Where is it?’
Jester said nothing for a while as he scanned the defences with a small pair of binoculars.
‘Really?’ he said.
‘Really.’
‘I’d say over there.’ Jester was pointing to the eastern corner of the Serpentine, where a pile of twisted scrap metal and branches, mixed together with bits of corrugated iron sheeting and doors, made a hefty but slightly ramshackle section of the barricade.
‘If St George concentrated his troops down there,’ said Jester, ‘I reckon they could get round the end of the barricade, by the water.’
‘Go and tell him,’ said David. ‘I’m staying up here.’
‘Tell who what?’
‘Tell Paul, of course,’ said David. ‘Tell him our plan.’
‘Your plan,’ said Jester.
‘Don’t pretend you’re not part of this,’ said David. ‘We’re in this together.’
Jester looked at him and David read something in his eyes. Jester was thinking of pushing him off the tower.
David smiled.
‘You don’t have the guts,’ he said.
Jester shook his head, looked away, started to climb down.
David was still smiling. Take control. That was the way to do it. Concentrate on your plan and don’t worry about anything else.
That was the way to be a winner.
And winning was all that ever mattered.
57
He was a thousand-feet tall. He was St George, the mighty leader of a great army. His own army. The British army. The greatest army in the world. They’d conquered half the globe. Beaten Napoleon and Hitler and the other one … the other man … Someone else. What was his name? Sauron? Wasn’t important. But he was St George. A crusader. God had talked to him and given him a holy mission.
That’s what had happened.
Yes.
That’s what had happened.
The voice from outer space. It had told him to go to war. Helped him marshal his troops, line them up and send them in to fight. His brain had woken. Everything was so clear and bright. The world was his. All the ragged threads were pulling into shape, coming into place, his whole army like a single giant arrow, aimed at the enemy.
Now God was telling him where to send his troops. The weak point. And he would send them. Send them to glory. He was Churchill and Wellington and King Arthur and all the other great leaders. He looked around for a lieutenant. There was one, the broken shaft of an arrow sticking out of his chest.
St George focused on him and sent him over to the left, to the corner of the lake, taking his veterans with him. Hardened fighters with strong minds. They could push their way through the barricades and slaughter the enemy. The forces of evil. The devil’s horde. The army of demons, disguised as children.
St George grinned. His brain was working well. He could win this. He’d been saving his best troops and now was the time to send them in to fight. You could forget the other ones. Rubbish. They were weak and stupid. Cannon fodder.
Now! He sent out the call. His lieutenant was roaring, with the taste of triumph in his gob.
Now!
Go to it …
58
Maxie was at the front, thrusting her spear over and over into the s
hapeless mass of sickos. Occasionally one of them grabbed the shaft and held fast, but Blue was working alongside her, ready with his own spear, and he’d stab at them until they let go. It was exhausting work and Maxie was relieved when she heard the trumpet blast that meant it was time for her unit to drop back and let another unit have a go.
She moved away, legs like concrete, watching the fresh bunch of kids move in to take her place on the frontline. She looked along the barricades. The kids manning them seemed pitifully few, spread out thinly along the fighting platforms. For a few blessed minutes it wasn’t her problem, though. She and Blue wandered down to the Serpentine where some youngers were waiting with bottles of water. Jordan had thought of everything – except how to win this thing. Nothing seemed to have changed. It felt like there were as many of St George’s army out there as when they’d started. They were just going to keep on pushing until they forced their way through the barricades or were able to climb over the top.
She and Blue flopped on to the grass. Looked at each other. Too tired to say anything. Too scared to admit that this was hopeless. Wishing the day would end.
Maxie closed her eyes. So tired she instantly fell asleep.
A second? Half a second? A microsecond? However long it was, it wasn’t enough, because the next thing she knew she was jolting awake, her neck hurting with the spasm. And then there was screaming off to the right. Kids running in fear and panic across the encampment.
‘What is it?’ she said, struggling to her feet.
Jordan’s trumpeters were blaring out new commands. What did they mean? Her brain had slowed. She couldn’t remember the signals. And then she heard someone shouting the one thing she’d been dreading.
‘They’ve breached the wall!’
‘Come on,’ Blue yelled.
Maxie left her spear where it was, sticking in the ground, and drew out her katana. Better for hand-to-hand. And she ran after Blue, suddenly flooded with energy. They raced over to where the action was. A whole section of the barricades had been pushed in at the corner of the lake and sickos were flooding through the gap. Many, many more of them than those that came through in Jordan’s controlled releases.
She and Blue started roaring commands, pulling kids off other parts of the defences, getting those that were resting back on to their feet. They formed their own unit into the tight fighting formation they’d practised so often. Pressing together and protecting the fighter to their left, moving forward slowly but steadily. They had to contain the sickos where they were and not let them spread out, and they had to close the breach.
Grown-ups were pouring in, though, like water through a burst dam. Maxie’s unit pushed into them and soon there was a desperate bloody fight on. It started well, the unit was holding, pressing the sickos back to the waterside, but the more they pressed in one section, the more the sickos burst out in another. There were just too many of them. Maxie was aware of Ollie’s unit off to her left, moving in with spare crowd-control barriers. Using them like bulldozers to force the sickos back. And then she wasn’t aware of anything except the mass of bodies in front of her.
It was dirty, close-up fighting. The kids hacked and cut and pummelled and stabbed and shoved. The sickos in return fought savagely, clawing at the kids. Those that were armed steamed in, arms pumping, their crude weapons rising and falling. Maxie saw kids going down all around her.
This could break their defence – and the more kids that were drawn here, the more vulnerable the barricades were becoming. She dropped back and glanced over. In several places she could already see sickos getting over the top of the barricades.
She screamed her anger, ran back in and lashed out at the knot of sickos directly in front of her, ramming her katana into a mother’s mouth, pulling it back, aiming at a father’s gut. Slashing across the neck of another. She formed up with Blue and one of Jordan’s kids. A big guy who was working hard with a heavy sword. Heavy enough to split a father’s skull and spill his brains on to the blood-wet grass.
He grunted as he swung again, cutting into another father’s upper arm. And then a mother rushed at them and Maxie thrust her katana into her chest.
‘There!’ Blue was pointing to where a father seemed to be leading the attack. He had an arrow in his chest, but it didn’t seem to be affecting him at all. In fact, it looked old and grubby, like it had been there for some time. He was better armed than the sickos around him, with a machete in each hand. He was whirling them around, cutting any kids who got near.
Maxie wondered if she could get close to him and take him out, whether it would make a difference, but she had to forget about that for the moment as a surge of new arrivals came through the gap and he was hidden from her.
The day darkened and she looked up to see the sun obscured by a cloud, and she was surprised to see how low it was in the sky. Had they really been at this all day? It would be dark before long. And what then? Would the sickos just keep on coming?
Jordan’s troops had to rest. Without sleep, they’d be useless.
‘Get on it, Maxie!’ Blue was laying into a group of sickos.
‘Sorry.’ Maxie raised her sword and slashed it down diagonally across the chest of a particularly ugly father with growths the size of tennis balls on his naked skin. The sickos were pressing harder and the kids were having to fight back with all their strength. Maxie’s leather jacket was splashed and greasy with blood. She wondered if she’d ever get it clean. Wondered if she’d live long enough to try.
‘Push them back,’ she yelled and her section barged forward, and then everything changed. It was like a ripple passed through the ranks of the grown-ups. They’d been fighting as a single beast, purposeful and organized, and now suddenly all order fell away.
She saw the father with the twin machetes looking confused, alone, the horrible arrow in his chest rising and falling with his breathing.
‘With me!’ she yelled. Blue joined her and Jordan’s guy with the heavy sword. Breaking ranks, but desperate to do something. Something that counted. Something that hurt the sicko army.
‘That one!’ she screamed. ‘Get that one. Ignore the rest.’
The father was aware of them coming. He focused on them, the machetes slicing through the air. Blue made a feint to distract him, while Maxie lunged, but a lucky swing from one of the machetes – the guy wasn’t even looking at her – knocked the katana from her hand and sent it flying away. She was unarmed. Now Jordan’s guy went in. Maxie didn’t know his name. Wanted to thank him. But, as the boy charged, the father slipped and dodged the blade and the boy was off balance, trying to bring his heavy sword back round.
Too late. The father cut him once, twice, both blades thwacking into the boy’s neck. He gasped and fell. Breathed out one last time and was still.
Maxie never would know his name.
Blue was in now, trying to stab the father with his spear. With fierce luck, though, the father was still unhurt. His lips were shrivelled, his yellow teeth exposed so that it looked like he was smiling.
Maxie grabbed the boy’s sword. It was closer than hers. It seemed to weigh a ton, but she saw that Blue was in trouble. The father whirling at him and unstoppable.
Unstoppable?
No. Maxie brought the sword crashing down. It cut through the father’s right shoulder, his arm spinning off with a machete still clutched in its hand. He turned, that death’s-head grin still on his face, and again Maxie brought the sword down on to him, severing his other arm. Blue stepped in from behind and skewered him. It was over. The father fell face first into the churned-up mud, driving the rest of the arrow right through his body. He gurgled in a puddle of blood. Bubbles burst the surface, swelled and popped. And then there were no more bubbles.
Maxie felt a tiny stab of hope. Like light coming through the crack under a door. All around her the sickos were fighting each other now, ignoring the kids, and she saw that it wasn’t just the ones who’d broken through. The whole army had collapsed into a seething m
ass of violence.
The sickos were tearing each other apart.
Fresh energy filled the kids; they swept over the disorganized sickos, driving them back, striking them down, closing the gap. Making the barricades safe.
What had happened?
Maxie saw a knot of kids close to the LookOut compound, Ollie with them, his red hair standing out like a beacon. She went over.
At the centre of the knot were Fish-Face, the Green Man and Skinner, eyes closed, arms linked. Skinner’s mouth wide as if he was silently shouting.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked Ollie.
‘They’re messing with their minds,’ said Ollie, and he smiled.
59
It was as if a shockwave had passed through St George’s army, and David’s head was suddenly filled with a screaming white noise, all his thoughts obliterated. He clung on to the strut of the speaker tower. Saw that the grown-ups below had lost all sense of order and purpose. They’d broken into mad, scrabbling groups, fighting amongst themselves, clawing and biting and thrashing each other with their crude weapons.
This was a disaster. As soon as the pain had passed, he started to climb down. Somehow he made it safely, his head still throbbing and ringing, and he struggled over to where Paul was clutching his head. Jester was with him, looking worried.
‘What’s happening?’
Paul said nothing. David shook Jester.
‘Jester? What’s happening?’
Jester shook his head. He couldn’t speak. Now David shook Paul.
‘What have you done?’
‘It’s not me – it’s not me,’ said Paul. He looked in pain. ‘Something happened. Voices in my head. Like a jamming signal …’
‘We need to think,’ said David. ‘We need a plan.’
‘I can’t think,’ Jester growled, his hands furiously rubbing his temples.
‘We must!’ David shouted. ‘We need a new plan. We need to stop this fight and get the children to do what we want. Help me, Jester.’