Ruin

by Harry Manners

  *

  Norman’s eyes took some time to adjust to the light of the campfire. Only after minutes of squinting did the silhouettes of three men become visible. Until then, all he had to go by was a ghostly muttering, carried on the wind.

  Camped in the depths of a steep depression, backed against a screening of foliage provided by the boughs of an aged sessile oak, they could only have been seen from above. Unfortunately for them, it was from just such a position that the hunting party from Canterbury now watched them.

  Lucian was still agitated and restless, in constant danger of sending a cascade of pebbles over the edge.

  The others were balanced on their heels, crouched low to the ground, perched like vultures atop the ridge. Their long cloaks hung around their shoulders and pooled on the floor, turning their bodies into only so many amorphous bulges in the dark.

  Norman knew they would be invisible if the men looked up. There wasn’t enough light to reveal their profiles against the sky, for the stars were veiled and the moon had retreated behind a silver spattering of cirrus.

  Through his binoculars, he observed their unsuspecting quarry.

  One of the three men—the youngest, judging by his slimmer, gawkier outline—was tending to the fire. His hunched shoulders and violent stokes suggested that he was irked, perhaps angry.

  The other two argued in hushed voices, gesticulating without pause.

  A few pre-End tin cans lay discarded nearby, their contents warming over the flames. Two rifles were propped up against a nearby rock, their barrels glinting.

  Their attire was ragged and haphazard: overcoats muddied and basted top to tail with grime; footwear that looked to be patchwork-sewn walking boots; and packs that appeared limp and empty, sparse for light travel.

  They had paused often over the last few minutes to look over their shoulders, but the argument the two elders were having had dulled their senses.

  “Who are they?” whispered Richard. He and John had caught up with them after Alexander had delivered his announcement at the cathedral.

  Norman had groaned when they’d materialised from the night at the edge of the city. Neither of them had much in the ways of field experience. The fact that Lucian had, in his haste, neglected to send them packing was just another misgiving to add to the pile.

  Norman shrugged. “They don’t look like any of our people. I haven’t seen them before. Do you recognise them?”

  Richard shook his head.

  “There was nobody from the city out tonight,” Lucian said. “Just Ray.”

  John murmured so close to Norman’s head that he started. “We can’t rule that out,” he said. “They could be lost.” He sighed, brushing his hair back from his portly face, centimetres from Norman’s. “Or they could be emissaries from London. They could have missed us. It’s not hard to walk right past us if you don’t follow the roads properly.”

  All theory, Norman thought, watching him. All classroom wisdom.

  John hadn’t been out of the city—or his classroom, even—for over a year. All he knew came to him from the mouths of others, rather than his own eyes.

  But it seemed that he had been told about the amber halo that lit up the city like a monstrous firefly at night, suspended in the eternal dark of the wilds, courtesy of the streetlights.

  Nobody answered him, but Norman could see exasperation reflected in several pairs of eyes.

  He turned his attention back to the men below. By now they had let their argument rest and retired to the fireside, a sullen silence heavy over their shoulders. The youngest passed each of the other two a bowl. Even up on the ridge, Norman could smell tinned beans.

  He would have known that decades-old stench anywhere. At winter’s peak they’d subsisted almost entirely on the last of the tinned food. Now he feared he’d never clear his nose of it.

  The gawky youth then sat in a heap on the grass, his head dipped.

  “They’re not ours,” Lucian muttered. “Look at them. Their clothes are rags.”

  “That doesn’t mean a thing,” said Norman. “Look at how run down we got at the coast.”

  Lucian was unperturbed. “No, there’s something about them. It’s too much of a coincidence to find them here—right here.”

  John uttered a nasal note of disquiet. “Lucian, don’t—”

  “Be quiet.”

  “But—”

  “I said shut it, DeGray. Save it for the blackboard.”

  John looked to Norman for help, almost as though he expected him to reprimand Lucian for his indecency.

  Norman could only stare back at him, biting back shame, until John’s shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly.

  That hurt worse than the pleading stare—the disappointment. It stung at his flesh.

  Spurred into life, surprised by his own actions, Norman gripped Lucian’s arm. “We’re not killing them,” he said. He wasn’t sure what had awoken in him, but suddenly he felt a force driving him forward, an unseen will, acting through him, one that applied a pressure that wasn’t only physical to Lucian’s arm. He swallowed, and muttered, “We’ll approach on foot.”

  Lucian almost smiled—as though, somewhere deep behind his bloodlust, he was relieved—but then his face twisted into an angry sneer. “By foot? And do what?” he hissed.

  Norman took his pistol from the seat of his trousers and deposited it behind his hip, where it wouldn’t be seen, but could be easily reached. He then lifted his trousers higher and buckled his belt one notch tighter so that his footfalls would be deadened.

  What the hell am I doing? he thought.

  Pushing himself into a crouch, he made for the forest. “We’re just going to have a talk,” he said. “That’s all.”