by Paul Kane
As the man came at him again, Robert ducked sideways and picked up a fallen branch. It was almost as tall as he was, and strong with it. He hefted it like a staff, jabbing at the bigger man who kept trying to wave it away.
Robert slammed the staff forward with both hands, but the man grabbed it and pulled. Bringing a knee up, he shoved it into Robert's stomach and flipped him over, losing his cap but gaining the staff. The man grinned.
It was his turn to jab at Robert, who snaked left and right to avoid the blows. Robert dropped and scrabbled around in the foliage. His fingers brushed another branch, not quite as big as the first, but beggars definitely couldn't be choosers. Robert snatched it up and met the man's blows, the stick almost splintering with the force. Wood smacked against wood and, suddenly, Robert spotted his chance. He lowered his weapon and struck the man's knee, causing it to buckle. Then he hooked the bigger staff with his own, flipping it out of his enemy's hands and catching it. Robert dropped the smaller branch and raised the huge staff. He was about to bring it crashing down on the man's head when "Wait! Hold on, I know him."
Mark came rushing out of the undergrowth towards them, hands flailing to stop Robert delivering the final blow.
"I told you to stay hidden back there," Robert said.
"But now I can see his face," Mark continued. "I'd know him anywhere. And those moves."
Robert cocked his head, looking from the boy to the giant. "You know him?"
Mark nodded enthusiastically. The man on the ground, nursing his sore knee, looked just as mystified as Robert.
"Of course. Don't you?"
Robert studied the man's features – the curly hair, the goatee beard – but couldn't recall having ever seen them before.
"That's Jack 'The Hammer' Finlayson," said Mark. "You're Jack 'The Hammer' Finlayson!"
The man looked up at Mark, his eyes warming. "Been a while since anyone called me by that name, kiddo." There was a US accent, but it was blended with English, as if the man had lived on these shores for some time.
"Who?" asked Robert, genuinely confused. In the space of a few moments they'd gone from trying to kill each other to discussing the man's identity.
"What do you mean who? The Jack-Hammer – as in 'he'll hammer all comers into the floor'. Only one of the best wrestlers on the circuit!"
"Wrestler…?" But the more Robert thought about it, the more it made sense. The fighting techniques this Finlayson character had been using were very much in keeping with that particular sport.
"I saw tons of your matches, some on the sports channels, but my Dad used to take me to…" Mark let the sentence fall away, his brow furrowing. It was the first time Robert had heard him mention his parents, let alone his father. For some reason it hurt him just as much as it must have done Mark. The boy caught Robert looking at him and carried on, as if nothing had fazed him. "You should have seen him against Bulldog Bramley at the Sheffield Arena, he tore that guy apart!"
"I always thought that stuff was faked," Robert countered.
The wrestler sneered. "Maybe in some places, but not when I was in the ring. Back then it was about as fake as the little tussle we've just had, fella."
"So you can vouch for him?" Robert asked Mark.
"He signed me an autograph once, on the way back to the dressing rooms. They didn't all do that."
"That doesn't mean a thing these days. Everything's changed." But Robert could see now there was a kindness to Finlayson's face as he smiled at Mark – even though the guy probably didn't remember giving him that signature. Plus which, Robert was starting to get a feeling about him. It was the sort of judgement call he made all the time back when he was a policeman. The kind of instinct that had told him Granger was okay. Realising this, it made him even angrier to think he'd fought Finlayson. "I could have really hurt you – that was a stupid thing to be doing, walking around in here."
"Hey, you started it," Finlayson pointed out. "You were about to ventilate me, pal. Never heard of asking 'who goes there, friend or foe?'"
Robert had to concede, he'd been ready to shoot the man just because he figured it was De Falaise who'd sent him.
"I'm sorry," said Robert quietly. He stuck out his hand and the big man took it. Robert almost went down again when Finlayson used it to pull himself up.
"Thanks," the large man said, brushing himself down and picking up his baseball cap. "Hey, you know, you would've made a pretty decent go of it on the circuit yourself. I'm a bit out of shape, granted, but no one's given me a run for my money like that in quite a while."
Robert was more than flattered by the comment. "If Mark here says you're all right, that's good enough for me." He caught Mark's chest swelling when he said this. "Let's hear your story, Finlayson."
Finlayson had grown up on the rural outskirts of upstate New York. "It was too quiet there for me, man. And the winters were harsh." He explained that his father would make him chop wood for the fire during those snowbound months, something that gave him a taste for exercise and honing his body. "I began weight training before I hit eleven. Not with real weights, you understand – with anything I could get my hands on: engine parts, rocks, the wood I was choppin'. 'Course, I was also growin' some by then. My old Mom, God rest her soul, used to joke that I'd fallen from a beanstalk when I was a baby and her and Pop had adopted me." It had been his father who'd taught him the basics of wrestling, one of the few pastimes they had out in the sticks. "I remember the first time I beat him as well. The look on his face!" Finlayson laughed.
He'd begun to find rural life too stifling and, when he was old enough, Finlayson went in search of the great American dream. He wanted a taste of the bright city lights, so he got a job in a gym, mopping up at first in exchange for the use of their equipment. "All kinds of people would train in there, footballers, boxers, wrestlers. It was those who interested me. I got talkin' to some of them and they suggested I should try out for some of the local matches, maybe even get a manager. I did all right over there, but I was a small fish in a very big pond."
It was on a visit to the UK one summer as part of a tour that he fell in love with the country. "Must have seen most of what there is to see of Britain, but I always loved this part especially. So, I decided to stay. Oh, they tried to get me to go back to the States, but over here I could actually be someone – perhaps not on the scale of those WWE big shots, but in my own way I'd be recognised." Finlayson smiled again at Mark, who grinned back. "I carried on doing the circuits for several years, places like Lincoln, York, Leeds, Doncaster, Manchester, and closer to home in Nottingham and Sheffield, which is I guess where you caught up with me, huh kiddo?"
Mark nodded.
"Quite a few of those matches were televised, as well. I used to send tapes to my Pop. I think he was proud of what I was doing. Towards the end though I began to think: what am I getting in there, getting myself all banged up for? Counting the bruises at weekends, having to visit the doc more and more often. That's when I began to pull back from it all a bit."
"So what were you doing when the virus hit?" asked Robert.
"Working in a gym again, believe it or not. I was teaching classes at a Health and Fitness Centre this time – qualifications in wrestling, no less."
Finlayson told them what had happened when the virus had hit. It was the same old story. The people either clogging the doctors' surgeries or hospitals, taking to their homes, or dropping in the streets. Robert listened, trying not to let his mind go back to his own experiences, trying not to think of Stevie and Joanne. After The Cull, Finlayson, like so many others, had taken off for a quieter spot. "Guess I finally saw the wisdom of getting away from it all like my folks had done, all those years ago. Things were gettin' too, I don't know, out of control in the towns and cities."
"Didn't you have anyone… anybody that you left behind?" asked Robert, then immediately said: "Wait, don't answer that. It's none of my business."
Finlayson didn't seem to mind. "You mean a gal, a family and such? No woman's ever b
een able to pin me down, if you'll pardon the expression. As for family, they were all the way over in the US. Like I say, my Mom died before all this, thank the Lord. My Dad… He wouldn't have made it."
"How do you know?"
"Wrong kinda blood."
They sat in silence for a while then, before Finlayson broke the quiet.
"I sometimes get to thinkin' about what happened over there, what it's like back in the States. You know anything?"
Robert shook his head. "I've been a bit out of touch. You never thought about returning, to see for yourself?"
"It's not my home anymore. This is. Which brings me to why I'm in Sherwood Forest. Word's spreadin' about what's gone on here. Stories about a hooded man helping the communities, about how he took on a bunch of men single-handed at a market and won. About how he gave back food and supplies to those who've been robbed by that son of a bitch holed up at the castle, pardon my p's and q's. I figure that you've got a cause I wouldn't mind fighting for."
Mark must have caught the look of shock on Robert's face, because he added, "You can't be that surprised they've heard of you. There aren't too many people, too many communities left."
"Not only have they heard of you," Finlayson chipped in, "some of 'em want to join you. Not many folk care for a bully. Anyway, I thought to myself, hooded man in Nottingham… in Sherwood… hmm. I'm pretty damned big, maybe I ought to be in the runnin' for one of the starring roles in that flick."
Robert quickly glossed over the obvious reference. "We thought you were one of De Falaise's men. We thought you'd come here to kill me."
"Nope," Finlayson confirmed. "I came to offer my services."
"So why the fight, why creep up on us like this?"
"To show you what I could do. And to see just how good the set up was, if the stories were true about you… Like they say, you never really know a man till you fight him."
"What's that, some kind of mystical thing?"
"Actually, it's from one of them Matrix movies," chuckled Finlayson. "Man, I really miss films, don't you?"
Robert found himself laughing, too. It felt weird, alien even. But good. He stepped forward and offered his hand again; this time in friendship. Finlayson shook it immediately.
"I won't let you down."
"I know," came Robert's reply. He looked at the staff he was holding. "I think you might be needing this. It's more you than me, anyway." He handed Jack the weapon and the man smiled. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Mark grinning wildly. "Right, well, I think we ought to introduce you to a few people."
Robert ushered the big man into the forest and then waited for Mark to fall in behind. If Finlayson was right, if there were enough people like him willing to fight, then maybe things could go their way after all.
And if the struggle against De Falaise could be turned around, well, maybe a few other things could be too.
CHAPTER TWELVE
After a while you grew accustomed to the screams.
De Falaise had learnt this fairly early on in his career. He was damned sure Tanek had as well. In fact, the huge slab of a man in front of him had probably been born with the capacity to shut out the cries of pain. Or was it more than that, was it that sometimes you could grow to actually enjoy hearing them, find them just as pleasing as a Beethoven symphony?
When it came right down to it, this represented everything De Falaise was about. The strong having control over the weak. And he had all of his troops' lives in the palms of his hands, could send for any of them at any time and just pop a bullet into their skull as an example. But there was something infinitely more satisfying about doing it this way. It was the difference between a nuclear explosion destroying a city, killing millions, and a laser cutting out a tumour. Meticulous work. De Falaise had observed Tanek's technique on many occasions. He'd seen Tanek extract information from the most reluctant of sources, men De Falaise thought would never crack. In the end they all did, it was just a matter of pushing the right buttons.
Which brought him back to the screams. Down here, away from prying eyes, and illuminated by a jury-rigged lighting system, Tanek laboured at his work. The subjects this time: two men and a woman. All were hanging in chains. None of them knew each other, but they did have one thing in common. They'd all been turned in for speaking about The Hooded Man: at markets, gatherings in villages, on street corners. De Falaise had his spies, so scared to put a foot wrong they'd rather turn in those who had befriended them than risk being brought down to these caves themselves.
The reports that were filtering back were displeasing. Yes, people were frightened of the Frenchman, as well they should be. A legend was forming around De Falaise, of what he did to anyone who opposed him, what he did under the castle with his prisoners. But the stories of initial attacks on villages by his men had only been rife for a short time. Now other tales were being spread.
These new stories revolved around Henrik and the tank, around Javier's incompetence in the forest (for which he'd not only lost his ear, but his freedom down in these dungeons). This last outrage had made De Falaise so angry that in a fit of rage he'd ordered the statue outside the castle to be torn down…
Word had also spread about the soldiers who'd swapped their allegiance. De Falaise had put paid to any such ideas of resistance amongst his own men quickly enough, by stringing the bodies of the soldiers who had returned with Javier up on posts in the courtyard for all to see. He'd even called a gathering to say a few words about their presence. "This is the price of failure," he'd shouted. "Look upon it, and mark that it is not yourself next time!"
But if De Falaise was inspiring dread among not only the populace, but his own army, then this man who was following in the footsteps of an old legend was sending out another message. One of hope, of freedom.
And hardly surprising: in the past weeks since De Falaise had lost Savero – another one of his elite – and the goods he was carrying, there had been more attacks, more losses. It was clear that if something wasn't done soon, the tide could very swiftly turn against him.
"I will not lose everything I've worked so hard for," he'd screamed at Tanek, "not because of some half-breed savage with a knife and a bow and arrow!"
It was clear that this man – whose real name De Falaise did not even know – had learned a lot about him, and his plans. De Falaise intended to redress the balance.
Hence these three prisoners had been cherry picked because they were shooting their mouths off about the hooded man. They'd been bundled into the backs of jeeps under armed guard, brought to the castle, and deposited here in one of the dank chambers De Falaise had requisitioned for his needs. Or more specifically for Tanek's.
The girl he'd taken as his plaything would end up in the dungeons soon, too, De Falaise thought to himself. He was growing tired of her. The limp rag doll impression he'd found such a turn on at first was growing wearisome to say the least. While it was true he preferred no resistance, he was not a huge fan of necrophilia, either.
Another scream brought his attention back to the prisoners. Tanek was applying a hot iron to the oldest of the men, rubbing it up and down his thigh. He'd worked his way up the leg and would soon reach a place that would cause the maximum amount of pain. De Falaise had no sympathy for him. It could all end now if the prisoner would only tell them what he knew of the renegade… the renegades, he should say.
For they now knew that the man in the hood was no longer alone, after Javier had spilled his guts about what had happened in the forest. There were at least two trusted aides it would seem.
"A holy man, you say?" De Falaise had questioned, rubbing his chin.
"The… the one from Hope, my Lord," Javier spluttered, the side of his head a mess of dried blood.
De Falaise struck him. "You no longer have the right to call me that!"
"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"
De Falaise had leaned forward. "What was that, I didn't quite catch what you were saying?"
"I said I
'm sorry!" Javier hissed, spittle flying from his mouth. "I was scared…"
"More scared of your 'maker' than you are of me?" De Falaise said. "Why?"
Javier couldn't answer, he just stared at De Falaise.
"Do you not understand, is it not apparent to you? Around here I am God! Your allegiance is to me! It is too late anyway for you to make your peace with whichever deity you choose to believe in. You've travelled too far down another path for that. The holy man lied to you if he was offering you salvation, you stupid turd. But I will keep you alive until you have learned your lesson, Javier. Which starts with telling me more about this Hooded Man's gang."
De Falaise had listened as his former major described a man in a checked shirt who carried a shotgun, someone small he hadn't got much of a look at, and now Granger, the halfwit they'd picked up down in London.
"Ah, yes, him," De Falaise had nodded knowingly. "I thought he might be trouble eventually."
Even including the men he'd commandeered from Savero, the man in the hood couldn't have much of an army… Unless more joined him from the villages.
It was nothing compared to De Falaise's militia, but it was still a worry.
Tanek left the man he was burning and turned his attention to the woman. "Please, I've told you everything I know," she said, sniffing back tears. "He lives in the forest somewhere. I haven't even seen him!"
"No need to cry," De Falaise said softly. "No need at all." A sharp nod of the head and Tanek was reaching for his knife – not the one he usually carried, the soldier's knife. This one was more like a scalpel. He brought the blade up with one hand, cupping the back of the woman's head with the other. His hand was so big it covered almost the whole of her scalp. Then Tanek jammed the blade into her left eye and scooped out the orb. The woman screamed, the cry louder and much more piercing than the man who'd endured the iron.
"You see," commented De Falaise. "No more tears now. Much better."
Tanek flicked the eye from the knife, then made to take out the other one.