Fletcher stared him down. “I was in Helmand, remember? I’ve been on patrols. I know how these things work.”
“Ignore Smith,” Mr LeRoy said. “Go on.”
“They’ll back up the checkpoints with patrols. I reckon that’s what you came across earlier, Ajia. I’ll take you north, for five or six miles, to the old Haxley road. I’ll see you across, dodging the patrols.”
“And then you’ll turn tail,” Smith said.
“And then I’ll have discharged my duty, Smith. Done what I said I’d do. You’ll still have a couple of hours till dawn. My advice is to travel at night, hole up during the day. Find transport of some kind as soon as you can. Which way will you be heading?”
Mr LeRoy said, decisively, “North.”
Ajia looked at him. He sounded certain. She wondered if he’d been consulting his map while she had been out there.
Fletcher went on, “I’ll give you what I can spare in the way of food and water. But that isn’t much.”
Ajia nodded, surprised by his generosity.
They set off.
They travelled by the light of the moon and the stars. The night and the forest seemed magical to Ajia, a city girl born and bred. She wondered if it were the Puck in her, responding to nature.
She scouted ahead, using her speed to dart forward half a mile then zigzag back towards the trio as they made painstakingly slow progress north. Smith and Fletcher were relatively fit, but on his own admission Mr LeRoy was more accustomed to chomping than yomping. Every few hundred yards he demanded they stop so that he could regain his breath. Smith accepted the situation with good grace, but Fletcher was not so tolerant.
At one point, when Ajia returned to the fold to find Mr LeRoy sitting on a fallen trunk mopping his brow, Fletcher was striding back and forth, chuntering. “We need to get a shuffle-on. We’re still an hour from the road. You’ll want at least that long to put as much distance between yourselves and the closest Paladin patrol before sunrise.”
“The way’s clear for another half a mile,” Ajia reported.
“Good,” said Fletcher. “Come on, you two!”
Smith helped a groaning Mr LeRoy to his feet and they struggled on.
For the next half a mile they followed the edge of a low ridge, which Fletcher reported was a deer run. It was concealed to the west by the forest of beech, and to the east by a wild tangle of hawthorn, elder and blackberry brambles.
Ajia sprinted through the forest on a course parallel with the deer run. From time to time she crossed the run, fought her way through the shrubbery, and surveyed the land beyond, just to be thorough. There was neither sight nor sound of Paladin patrols.
At last the deer run petered out into dense woodland, and Ajia re-joined the others. In the splintered moonlight falling through the treetops, she made out Mr LeRoy’s sweating, cherubic face. He smiled at her bravely.
Fletcher said, “We’re about a mile and a half from the road. I suggest you scout ahead, Ajia. Mr LeRoy needs a breather, but we’ll set off again in two minutes.”
“A breather! Never a truer word uttered, my friend,” Mr LeRoy said, sinking into a bed of dried leaf mould at the foot of an oak tree. “But would you be generous and grant me perhaps five minutes?”
“Two and then we’re off!” Fletcher snapped.
Smith sat down beside a panting Mr LeRoy. Fletcher, muttering to himself, strode off a few yards and stared into the darkness.
Ajia set off.
She sprinted, and the world around her decelerated. She recalled the time, just a week ago, when her idea of speed was pumping the pedals as fast as her legs would work as she darted in and out of traffic along the Hammersmith bypass. What had she been travelling then? Twenty miles per hour, thirty at a push?
And now?
Little Maya––and oh, how the mere thought of her was painful!––had timed her at 2.9 seconds over a hundred metres. Sixteen hundred metres in a mile, roughly. So that was, give or take, fifty miles an hour. And that had been a few days ago. She was sure she was getting faster with practice.
She was so absorbed in her thoughts she almost failed to notice the hedge that bounded a main road, and the Paladin patrol just beyond it.
Only the rumbling-slow crackle of a two-way radio alerted her to their presence.
She skidded to a halt, sliding through the undergrowth and fetching up on her backside in the hedge. She lay very still, her pulse pounding, and listened.
If the soldiers had heard her, they gave no sign. A Paladin was still on the radio, perhaps ten yards away. “A-okay that,” she heard.
Very carefully, Ajia untangled herself from the tenacious grip of a blackberry frond and moved, doubled-up, along the hedge until she came to a mildewed timber gate. She slid herself through a gap in the crossbars and peered around the hedge.
A Humvee stood twenty yards further up the lane. And they were certainly making a production of the roadblock, with flashing lights, a number of armed militia, and a portable boom to deter any adventurous wrongdoer.
She wondered how far away the next roadblock might be. She could go and recce, but what if Mr LeRoy and the others arrived here before she got back? The wisest course of action would be to go back and report the situation. She could always look for the next roadblock then.
She trod carefully back into the forest, loath to sprint so close to the hedge lest the sound alerted the goons. Well into the muffling woods, she kicked off.
She came across the labouring trio just twenty seconds later.
“Roadblock up ahead,” she reported. “Some Paladins and a Humvee, twenty yards to the left of a gate.”
Mr LeRoy looked agitated. “What do we do?”
Reed said, “Avoid the bastards. This way.”
He veered right and led the way through the dappled woodland. Ajia and the others followed. She took Mr LeRoy’s hand as he stumbled.
Ajia could have reached the road in a matter of seconds, but it took them ten long, slogging minutes battling through undergrowth before they reached the hedge.
Reed pushed his way through. Ajia followed. They stood on a high bank above a bend in the lane, the tarmac rendered pewter in the moonlight. She had a clear view of the lane to the left and right for a hundred yards, and there was no sign of the Paladins.
“Cross here,” Reed said. “Get the others.”
She hesitated. “Reed. You sure you won’t come with us?”
“On Bron’s fool’s errand to defeat the massed forces of Derek Drake?” His voice was almost a sneer. “I know when I’m defeated, girl. I’ve done my bit. Get Smith and LeRoy.”
She hesitated once more, staring at the man as he looked up and down the lane. Then she pushed through the hedge and found Mr LeRoy and Smith squatting in the shadows.
“Follow me,” she whispered, and led them through the gap in the hawthorn to where Fletcher was waiting.
“I’ll go first,” Fletcher whispered. “I’ll have a better view along the lane on the other side. Wait till I give the signal, then cross together, okay?”
He slid down the bank to the lane.
Looking back on the next minute or so, Ajia realised that it was sheer bad luck that accounted for why Fletcher never made it to the other side of the lane.
She heard the rumble of an approaching vehicle and called out.
The armoured slowed and appeared round the bend just as Fletcher slithered down the grassy banking and crouched in the lane.
He was caught in the headlights, frozen like a mesmerised rabbit.
“Halt!”
The Paladin was already out of the armoured car and advancing up the lane towards Fletcher, who turned and attempted to scramble up the incline.
“Back!” Ajia hissed, pushing Smith and Mr LeRoy through the gap in the hedge.
She turned, hoping to see Fletcher in close pursuit.
The Paladin pulled something from a side-holster and fired.
There was a faint electric crackle. Behind h
er, Fletcher groaned and rolled down the incline, stunned. The goon approached his prostrate form and unhooked the wires of his stun-gun from Fletcher’s torso before returning the stun-gun to its holster. A second Paladin left the armoured car and joined him.
Ajia crouched in the hedge and watched them, her heart thumping wildly. The first goon reached out a foot and turned Fletcher over onto his back.
“What the fuck?” he said, bending down to pick up the bow that had fallen from Fletcher’s grip. “Regular little Robin Hood we got ourselves here, sir.”
The other grunted. “You might have spoken no truer word all day, Corporal.”
The officer activated a lapel mic and spoke into it.
He nodded to his underling. “Right, let’s get this tosser in the locker.”
Fletcher moaned, coming to his senses. He tried to push himself upright on his elbows, but the corporal gave him a swift, deterrent kick in the ribs. “Oh, no, you don’t, sonny boy.”
He unshouldered his rifle, stood off a yard, and gestured at Fletcher with its barrel. “On your feet, hands in the air.”
Ajia jumped in alarm as Mr LeRoy clutched her elbow. “What’s happening?” he hissed.
She raised a finger to her lips, then turned back towards the lane. Already she had drawn her knife, knowing exactly what she was about to do.
As Fletcher climbed to his feet and stood swaying with his arms in the air, Ajia launched herself down the bank and into the lane.
The corporal didn’t stand a chance. Ajia’s speed mesmerised even Fletcher as she hit the tarmac, crossed the intervening five yards with the speed of a bullet, and slit the goon’s throat with a quick backhand slash.
He sank to his knees in slow motion, arterial blood a frozen fan in the moonlight. Before the officer could react, Ajia crossed to him and slipped the blade of the knife into his lower abdomen, ripping upwards. His death cry was eerie and protracted as she ran back to Fletcher.
She stopped dead before him, gripping the bloody knife.
Behind her, the corporal hit the ground suddenly, followed a split second later by the officer.
For my father…
“Christ almighty,” Fletcher breathed, staring from her to the corpses in the moonlit lane.
Arm in arm, Smith and Mr LeRoy slithered down the banking. Smith stared at the bodies and the blood––and then at the knife in Ajia’s hand.
“What now?” He sounded sick.
Fletcher said, “If I were you, I’d take the armoured car. There’s a turning up the lane on the left, heading away from the forest.”
Ajia stared at him. “You’re coming with us, Reed.” It was not so much a question as a command.
“What the hell makes you think––?”
“I saved your fucking life there!”
“Then we’re quits, remember? I saved yours too.”
“But Sherwood Forest isn’t safe for you any more. I’ve just killed two Paladins. The others will want payback, and they’ll turn the place upside down to get it.”
“I’ll manage. I’m no slouch when it comes to looking after myself.” Fletcher turned and approached the bank.
She took a step forward. “Reed, we…”
“Let him go,” Smith said, quietly. “We don’t need him.”
“But…”
“Smith is right,” Mr LeRoy put in, “we don’t.”
Ajia watched Fletcher scramble up the bank without a backward glance. A second later he vanished through the hedge.
She turned to Smith. “Can you drive that thing?”
He nodded, and they hurried up the lane towards the vehicle.
Smith took a minute to familiarise himself with the controls while Mr LeRoy sat in the back, exhorting them to make haste. Ajia sat beside Smith, staring at the dark shapes of the corpses in the lane, too stunned to speak.
She was still gripping the knife, the Paladins’ blood sticky on her fingers.
The armoured car roared into life, and Smith performed an almost perfect three-point turn and accelerated along the lane.
“There!” Mr LeRoy called out, pointing to a turning on the left.
Smith took it, and Ajia sat back, feeling an almost childlike sense of relief as they motored away from the scene of the… crime? Revenge, more like.
She found her voice. “The Paladin officer. He reported finding Reed. The other patrol will be suspicious when they don’t turn up.”
Mr LeRoy said, “How long before dawn?”
“Two hours,” Smith said. “We’ll abandon the vehicle before then and continue on foot. We should make good progress.” He turned and stared at Ajia, and she didn’t like the look in his eyes.
“Should I have left Reed to be taken and interrogated?” she asked. “Probably tortured and killed? How long before he broke, and told them where we were?” She shook her head, angered. “I had to do it.”
Smith looked away, and Ajia wiped her bloody hand on her tracksuit bottoms.
The armoured car raced on into the night.
Chapter 19
AJIA WOKE WITH a jolt to find Mr LeRoy and Smith arguing. Whether it was the sound of their voices that had woken her, or the fact that the car had come to a stop and with it the comforting, lulling motion, she was unable to say.
They were parked on a rutted track, with the first light of dawn glimmering through the foliage.
“We need to ditch the car and continue on foot,” Smith was saying.
“But I fear that would be a grave mistake, my boy,” Mr LeRoy countered.
Smith gripped the wheel. “A mistake? It’d be a greater mistake to continue in this damned thing and have the authorities trace us. They’ll be looking out for a stolen armoured car, you know?”
“I am well aware of that possibility,” Mr LeRoy said. “But I am not suggesting we continue in broad daylight; that would be foolish. I suggest we rest during the day, get all the sleep we can, and continue during the hours of darkness.”
“And risk being apprehended?”
Mr LeRoy shrugged his meaty shoulders. “We will take the back roads and lanes. How many Paladin patrols do you fear we’ll come across in rural Derbyshire? We run just as great a risk if we proceed on foot––three disparate souls, ill-equipped for walking in the middle of nowhere. Now that would be a recipe for disaster.”
Ajia cleared her throat. “Can I say something?”
Mr LeRoy beamed at her. “Why, of course.”
Smith remained staring straight ahead.
“First off, where exactly are we heading, Mr LeRoy?”
“A village called Dawley, on the edge of the Peak District, Derbyshire.”
“And where are we now?”
Mr LeRoy rummaged around on the back seat and produced a tattered, spiral-bound map book. He passed it to her, open to the page showing the National Park as a big splotch of green.
His sausage-like finger indicated the village of Dawley. “And Smith estimates that we are here, perhaps thirty miles away.”
She regarded the king of the fairies. “And what––or rather who––is at Dawley?”
“An old acquaintance. I think she will be a worthy addition to our cause. If, that is, we can recruit her.”
Ajia studied the map. “Thirty miles is a long way to walk.”
“And time is of the essence, my girl.”
“All the more reason,” Smith put in, “to set off on foot now, walk through the day and arrive at nightfall.”
“Walk thirty miles,” Mr LeRoy said, aghast, “without having hardly a wink of sleep, and on a practically empty stomach?”
Ajia looked at Smith, who avoided her gaze. “I agree with Mr LeRoy,” she said. “We might as well rest today and set off again tonight. We can ditch the car when we get to Dawley, okay?” She waited. “I said okay, Smith?”
“It would appear I’m outvoted,” he muttered.
“Excellent!” Mr LeRoy declared. “Now, perhaps it would be wise to drive a little further into the forest,
and then we can eat. We don’t want to be obvious to the prying eyes of passers-by, do we?”
With ill grace Smith did as instructed, accelerating the armoured car along the track then veering and ramming it into the thick cover of ferns and brambles. He forced the driver’s door open and, instead of waiting for Mr LeRoy to dole out the meagre provisions donated by Fletcher, he jumped from the car and stomped off through the wood.
“I wonder if I should go and talk to him?” Ajia said.
“I doubt it would do any good, my child,” Mr LeRoy said. “In modern parlance, Wayland Smith is conflicted.”
“You mean, he’s pissed off at what I did back there?”
“You put it with characteristic succinctness. Our quest is deeply troubling to Smith. He can see our motives, and to a certain extent applaud them––he, after all, has been affected by the execrable Drake just as much as you and me––but our methods disturb him.”
“I’ll go and have a chat,” she said, opening the door.
“You wouldn’t care to eat, first?” he asked, opening the hessian bag and frowning at the dubious feast of dried roots and berries within.
“I’m so tired I feel nauseous,” she said. “I couldn’t eat a thing.”
She slipped from the car and pushed her way through the foliage until she found where Smith had gone before her. She followed his trail through the trampled undergrowth and heard the stream before she saw it, a plashing murmur in the dawn quiet. Seconds later dancing glints of silver showed through the vegetation.
She emerged on the bank and saw Smith a little further downstream, crouching and splashing his face with water.
She looked down at her hands.
She washed off the blood in the icy cold water, then examined the result. Most of the blood was gone, but a little remained, ingrained in the lines of her palms. She reached into the water, took a handful of grit from the riverbed, and vigorously rubbed her hands together.
That did the trick. Clean.
“You might be able to wash the blood from your hands,” Smith said, “but not from your conscience.”
She looked up. Smith towered over her. She went back to washing her hands, needlessly now. “I know you have a thing about violence, okay? And I respect that you want nothing to do with it. But I’m different. Sometimes you’re pushed to it, right?”
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