“There is always another way.”
“Another, less effective way, yes. A way that would have ended up with Fletcher, perhaps all of us, dead.” She looked up at him, fighting back the tears. “Fucksake, look what the bastards did back at Summer Land. My friend Maya. All the others. Your friends. Slaughtered.”
“So an eye for an eye. Revenge for revenge’s sake? I always thought the Bible a little suspect there.”
She shook her head. “Not revenge for revenge’s sake, no. This isn’t about revenge. It’s about what’s right, and fair.” She stared down at the swirling water. “Look, I heard what you told us the other day. About the building, the fire. What happened to those people. And I understand you have their deaths on your conscience.”
“You understand nothing, Ajia.”
She sighed, exasperated. “What I don’t understand is, you feel responsible for their deaths, okay? I get that. But when it comes to opposing the people really responsible for what happened––Drake and the government––don’t you see that we have to fight him using his rules? That might be dirty, but it’s necessary.”
“I’ve done with killing,” he said, “with death.”
“But what if it came down to you defending, say, your wife? If someone was threatening her? Or your children? Or yourself, come to that? You’d fight in self-defence, wouldn’t you?”
Smith shifted his gaze away from her, staring into the distance.
She said, “You know what, Smith? I think all this isn’t about the right and wrong of killing. I think, if you can’t even consider using violence in self-defence, then for some twisted reason you hate yourself.”
She wondered if she’d said to much. Feared, paradoxically, that he’d attack her.
He loomed above her, silent and brooding.
Quietly, he said, “The fire was just the end, Ajia. The final straw. Lilliana and me… It was over. She’d met someone, told me she was leaving.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So when the fire happened, it just seemed the right thing to do. Throw myself off the bridge.” He smiled, bitterly. “Couldn’t even do that right, could I?”
She stood up and took his big, calloused hand. “You were saved to do a better thing,” she said. Then smiled. “Come on, let’s get something to eat.”
THEY SAT SIDE by side next to the armoured car and chewed on tasteless, anonymous roots, and slightly more flavoursome berries, slaking their thirst with river water in canteens found in the vehicle.
Later, Smith found camping rolls in the car, and he and Ajia unfurled two of them on the forest floor, in the dappled shade of an elder, and slept. Mr LeRoy elected to remain in the vehicle, settling his bulk on the back seat. Within seconds he was snoring.
Ajia awoke in the early afternoon and went for a pee by the river, then slept again until five. She was awoken, this time, by hunger pangs. She wondered when she had last eaten a really nourishing hot meal.
In the armoured car, Mr LeRoy was weeping.
She slid off the mat and hesitantly approached the vehicle’s open rear door.
Mr LeRoy sat hunched over his map book, his palms pressed flat on the page. His eyes were squeezed shut and his huge frame wobbled with sobs.
She reached out and touched his arm.
“My child,” he exclaimed, dabbing at his eyes, “you apprehend me in a moment of weakness.”
She shuffled onto the back seat and sat beside him.
“I know what it’s like, Mr LeRoy. I told you about my father.”
“I miss Perry so much, and feel such hatred for the people responsible.”
“It’s like a cut,” she said. “A wound. It heals over, gets a bit better in time. But often the pain is still there, and the scar is always there, reminding you.” She shrugged. “But it gets so that you can live with the grief, Mr LeRoy.”
“Ajia, you’re quite the philosopher on the quiet, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what I am,” she said. “An angry girl, wanting what’s right, and wanting to see those responsible pay for their crimes.”
“A woman,” Mr Le Roy smiled. “A woman imbued with pluck. And Puck.”
She stared at him. “So what happens when we find King Arthur? What will he be able to do for us?”
“Rally the forces of good in such a way as I have been signally unable to do, my child.” He shook his head. “But they are just words. I don’t honestly know what he can or will do. I suspect we’ll find out when––if––we locate him.”
“Do you have any idea where…?”
He stared down at the map book. “We have work to do in the north, Ajia. In Derbyshire, then Yorkshire, then the Lake District. We have people to petition, forces to rally.”
“And then?”
“And then we head south,” he said. “Everything tells me that in time we will head south and with our king confront the forces of darkness.” He pressed his palms down against the pages of the map book. “I feel it in the book,” he murmured.
An hour after sunset they left the cover of the forest, Mr LeRoy taking his turn at the wheel and heading north west into Derbyshire.
Chapter 20
“MY MOTHER WAS a wonderful cook,” Ajia said. “Still is, for all I know.”
She lay on the back seat, her head pillowed on the furled-up camping roll. She had slept and awoken to find that three hours had elapsed and that it was now two in the morning. Smith had taken over at the wheel.
Mr LeRoy had starting talking about his favourite meals, no doubt in reaction to the lack of such during the course of the past two days. Ajia’s stomach rumbled as she listened. Then Smith joined in with childhood tales of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with rich oxtail gravy. Ajia had counted with details of her mother’s samosas, tarka dhals and vegetable sabzis. “Oh, I could murder a curry now,” she said. “Sorry, Smith.”
“Apology accepted.”
Mr LeRoy was peering through the side window, examining whatever was reflected in the wing mirror.
They had kept off the main roads and wound their way across country on minor roads and lanes, coming upon next to no traffic.
Ajia made out the dazzle of headlights in the wing mirror. Someone was following.
“I don’t want to sound a note of alarm,” said Mr LeRoy, “but the vehicle behind us has been on our trail for the past half hour.”
“Since the last turning?” Smith sounded worried.
“And before that, yes. But it’s keeping its distance.”
There was no rear window in the armoured car, or Ajia would have squirmed around for a better look. “But if it was the Paladins, or the police… surely they’d stop us, right?”
“You’d think so,” Smith said. “It’s probably nothing to worry about.”
“Perhaps we should go a bit faster?” Ajia suggested. “And if it accelerates as well, we’ll know for sure.”
Mr LeRoy looked across at Smith. “What do you think?”
In reply, Smith put his foot down on the accelerator and the armoured car picked up speed.
Mr LeRoy leaned forward, peeing at the wing mirror. His bulk obscured Ajia’s view of the mirror. “Well? Is it…?”
“I’m afraid it is, my friends. It’s keeping pace.”
“Shit,” Smith said.
“What do we do?” Mr LeRoy sounded more than a little panicked.
Ajia said, “Can you see what kind of vehicle it is?”
Mr LeRoy peered again, muttering to himself. “Confound it, but I can’t make out a thing for the dazzle of its lights.”
Smith consulted the map book. “There’s a turning a mile ahead, and then another minor road off that one. If we take both, and it follows, then we know he means business.”
“And if he does?” Mr LeRoy enquired.
Smith gripped the wheel. “Let’s cross that proverbial when we come to it, okay?”
A mile further on they came to the turning. Smith slowed and swerved the car around the bend. Ajia
leaned between the front seats, peering through the side-window at the wing-mirror.
“Shit.”
The vehicle was still behind them.
The lane narrowed and the vehicle negotiated a series of tight bends which necessitated Smith shifting into lower gear and slowing down.
Mr LeRoy groaned.
“What?” Ajia said, seriously alarmed.
He pointed a trembling finger at the mirror. “It’s one of those great big machines that belong to the Paladins,” he quavered.
“I think Mr LeRoy means a Humvee,” Smith said laconically.
Ajia’s stomach flipped.
“So… what do we do?” Mr LeRoy asked.
Ajia looked at Smith, who gripped the wheel, his lips compressed and his gaze fixed on something dead ahead.
“I think,” he said, “our options are limited. Look.”
He nodded through the windscreen, slowing the vehicle.
The tarmacked lane had turned into a rutted track, which in turn came to an area of wasteland blocked with half a dozen huge boulders, half the size of a family car. A chain-link fence extended away from the opening on both sides.
“Our vehicle is armoured, right?” Ajia said.
“That’s why it’s called an armoured car,” Smith responded.
“Right, so if the goons in the Humvee decide to open fire, you’ll be safe?”
“I can tell you’ve led a sheltered existence,” Smith said. “If they open up with everything they’ve got, they’ll be sluicing out our minced remains with a high pressure hose.”
“Ho-kay,” Ajia said, thinking fast. “Right, Smith––turn us so that my side of the car is furthest away from the Humvee, okay?”
“What––?” Smith began.
“Just do it!” Ajia yelled.
Smith did it, slewing the car before they reached the boulders.
“But what are you going to do?” Mr LeRoy whimpered.
“This,” Ajia said, cracking the door just wide enough for her to slip out. She hit the ground and sprinted towards the Humvee which had come to a halt behind them.
With the track hidden from the glare of the moon by overhanging trees, she was a high-speed blur impossible to track. She reached the Humvee in less than a second, slowed and moved behind the vehicle’s camouflage-patterned bulk. She rounded it and paused on the driver’s side.
Just as soon as the driver made a move, she’d be on him. She slipped her knife from her trainer bottoms in preparation.
And if the Paladins elected to open fire on the armoured car, and ask questions later?
She swore. In her haste to do something, be active, she’d not considered that eventuality.
The seconds ticked by and the bastards in the Humvee sat tight.
Come on… Move!
As a minute passed, she feared that Mr LeRoy might do something rash. She was sure that if he showed himself, then the Paladins would have no compunction about shooting him dead.
So why haven’t they opened fire already?
She crouched at the rear corner of the vehicle, tensed for action and very aware of her heartbeat thumping in her ears.
Somewhere far off, an owl hooted, its call plaintive and haunting in the pre-dawn silence.
Climb down from the fucking vehicle and show yourselves!
The hilt of the knife felt slippery in her grip, as if her palm was already coated in life blood.
Sweat, she told herself. Just sweat.
She was as nervous as hell, and every passing second seemed like an eternity.
When the impasse finally ended, she nearly jumped out of her skin. The driver opened his door with a report like the crack of a rifle. A boot emerged and he kicked the heavy, armour-plated door further open.
As the figure jumped down, Ajia leapt.
And tripped on a rock and went sprawling, the knife slipping from her grip. On hands and knees she cast about for the knife.
Alerted, the driver turned to her, then raised his weapon and took aim. On all fours, defenceless and cursing her stupidity, Ajia looked up.
“Christ on a stick!” she exclaimed.
The familiar figure stepped forward, smiling at her. “What you doing down there, Ajia? Praying?” he asked, lowering his bow and arrow.
She leapt to her feet, beset by conflicting emotions. Shame at having been caught out. Relief that the cocky figure before her wasn’t some Paladin but none other than Reed Fletcher. Anger that the bastard had given her such a fright.
“Reed!” she cried, embracing him. Then she stepped back and slapped his face.
“What the…?” he said, touching his cheek.
“That’s for frightening the holy fuck out of us, Reed. What the hell were you playing at?”
“Nice,” Fletcher said. “And there I was, expecting a hero’s welcome.”
“A hero? Last I remember, you turned tail and fucked off like a frightened rabbit.”
He stared at her, and at least had the humility to look shame-faced. “Well, I was stunned, wasn’t I? I’d just been shot. Wasn’t thinking straight.”
“What happened?”
Fletcher hesitated. “Had second thoughts. Saw you through the hedge, drive off in that.” He pointed across to the armoured car. “And you didn’t even think to take the Paladins’ weapons, or check them for money. No, just nab the car and skedaddle without a strategic thought for what you might need. No sodding planning ahead. Typical of a bunch of amateurs! So…”
He reached back into the Humvee and pulled out three short-barrelled assault rifles, one of which he tossed to Ajia.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked, holding the weapon gingerly.
“Use it as a golf club. Make it the centrepiece of a flower display. Or maybe, I dunno, shoot it at someone attacking you.”
“How?”
Briefly he showed Ajia how to hold the rifle, how to toggle the cross-bolt safety on and off, how to select between semiautomatic and fully automatic fire, and how to replace an empty magazine.
“If the average British army recruit can handle one of these things, you shouldn’t have any problem,” he said. “It’s not rocket science.”
Next he produced a holdall. “Food,” he said. “I thought Mr LeRoy wouldn’t be happy with the forage grub I gave you.”
Ajia shook her head in wonder and kicked the front tyre of the Humvee. “And this?”
“After you left, I came to my senses and had second thoughts. Took the guns from the blokes you so ably knocked off and made my way along the lane to the checkpoint. In the end, I used this”––he patted his bow, now slung over his shoulder––“to despatch the Paladins. Just to show that, for all their high-tech kit, they had nothing over Robin Hood.”
Ajia laughed, suddenly a little giddy with relief.
“You mad arsehole,” she said. “Come and say hi to the others.”
Mr LeRoy squeezed himself from the front of the armoured car and stared in frank disbelief at Fletcher, then laughed and approached him with open arms.
Smith’s reaction, Ajia noted, was more muted: he gave Fletcher a cold stare, gave the assault rifles an even colder stare, then turned and strode away from the armoured car.
“But how on earth did you find us?” Mr LeRoy asked.
“Wasn’t hard,” Fletcher said. “I saw you with that map book of yours the other day, tracing a course into the Peaks. And you took the lane I mentioned as soon as you vamoosed. All I had to do was follow the same route, hole up during the day in case the Paladins were following, then set off again come nightfall. Not exactly difficult. Oh, and I thought you’d appreciate this. Dropped into a Co-Op on the way and stocked up provisions, using spondulicks looted from the Paladins.”
He hefted the full hold-all at Mr LeRoy, who caught it with a quizzical expression, which turned to one of epicurean delight when he unzipped the bag and beheld its contents.
“Why,” he breathed, “food…”
Half a dozen pork pies.
A dozen assorted pre-made sandwiches. Three huge Victoria sponges and six bottles of beer. “That should keep us going for a little while,” Fletcher said.
“My boy,” Mr LeRoy said, near to tears. “A feast beyond my wildest dreams.”
Smith stamped towards them. “If you’ve quite finished,” he began, “there’s the little matter of reaching our destination before dawn.”
Ajia looked at Fletcher, wincing in anticipation of his possible reaction. To his credit, Fletcher refrained from answering Smith with the put-down she’d expected.
Instead he nodded. “You’re right. We should be heading off. Drive the car into the undergrowth, one of you. We’ll continue in the Humvee. It’s armed to the teeth, and I stocked up with spare canisters of diesel on the way.”
Smith drove the armoured car into the dense woodland to the right of the lane, ramming it into the undergrowth until the vehicle was lost to sight.
He came back and made a point of saying he’d be happier travelling into the troop-carrier section of the Humvee. Mr LeRoy, Ajia and Fletcher occupied the cab, with Fletcher at the wheel. The rifles lay at their feet.
They headed west as dawn washed the sky at their backs.
Chapter 21
MAJOR WYNNE DROVE up to the imposing facade of Charrington Grange, slipped from behind the wheel and marched up to the front door.
He wasn’t looking forward to what he had to tell Drake this morning. He had delayed breaking the news for over a day, but Drake would soon be asking for a progress report and would be suspicious if Wynne prevaricated any longer. For the duration of the drive from Swindon, he had been contemplating the best way to tell the Prime Minister that his elite Paladin forces had been unable to contain Ajia Snell, Bron LeRoy, and Reed Fletcher in Sherwood Forest. Worse, that the trio has somehow not only broken the cordon around the area but had inflicted significant losses on his forces.
Drake would be incandescent.
He found the Prime Minister and Harriet breakfasting in the conservatory.
He cleared his throat and stepped towards the table. To his consternation, Harriet looked away and pointedly busied herself with pouring tea into her china cup.
Age of Legends Page 23