The Boy-King’s mind-slaves were pouring out of the houses—tens, no, hundreds of them. And heading north to meet them, a band of twenty of the slaves, carrying Gord and the smith’s two men above their heads.
Gord was shouting insults and curses, and he struggled to free himself. But their numbers were too many, and he was soon swallowed and lost in the crowd.
Martin grabbed tight on his sword, and would have ran forward to meet them, but Menzies pulled him back.
“No, sire. There are too many. We must flee.”
The smith stepped forward. “Flee? While my men are taken by those bastards. Never. I’m with you, sir,” he said to Martin.
But the mind-slaves were still coming out of the houses, and there looked to be several hundred of them now.
“No,” Martin said. “Menzies has it right. We must flee. If the slaves are here, the master must be close. The Duke must know of this place.”
He allowed Menzies to lead him quickly to the horses. The Boy-King’s slaves were already past the church, and heading down the street towards them as they mounted up and rode off southwards for Derby.
Martin had one last look back into the throng of the Boy-King’s slaves, but Gord was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 7
9th NOVEMBER 1745
It is a dream, but it has the nature of reality. Smells, sights and sounds are all sharp, and the air seems to sparkle and dance.
He is running through the night, chasing a red deer stag that flees before him, scared and tired. He knows he can catch it in seconds if he runs slightly faster, but he is enjoying the hunt, and makes it last as long as possible before he leaps on the animal’s flank and brings it to the ground. His mouth fills with blood.
The vision fades, then resolves itself in another time, another place.
He is on a high plateau. Far off to the west high majestic mountains stand out starkly against a blue sky. Ahead of them is a vast, ambling herd of huge animals...great shaggy beasts with massive horned heads. There are tens of thousands of them.
He has a hand in his, a smaller hand. He turns and looks into the eyes of a smiling Mary Campbell. With her free arm she is holding a child at her breast.
Once more darkness comes, and the scene changes.
Martin is beside him, but Sean scarcely recognises him. His hair is long, covering a scar that runs through his scalp and down the side of his head at the nape of his neck. He is gaunt and thin, and a fire burns in his eyes, an angry flame that Sean has never before seen there.
They stand on the shore, watching a boat burn in the stretch of water before them.
“Your time has come, Other,” Martin says, just before he thrusts a stake deep into Sean’s heart. Sean sees his blood cover his friend’s hands, just before his sight goes dim forever.
A voice speaks in the darkness.
“What is seen has come to pass, will come to pass, might come to pass. Empty your soul.”
Sean came awake with a start. He had fallen asleep...that in itself was surprising. He was locked in a cell, in a castle of the Others, with only a bitten man for company—a man who believed that Sean himself was already turned. All of his training, his whole life so far, should have told him to stay awake, stay alert. Yet he had slept.
The other surprise was that sun was pouring into the cell through a tiny gap almost twenty feet above them. He had thought that the room was totally enclosed. The night had been cloudy; otherwise he might have noticed it earlier, and tried to make an escape.
He stood and stretched. His back was stiff and cold and he groaned loudly.
“When was the last time I slept in a real bed?” Sean said to himself. It had been the night before Campbell turned up with his daughter at the gate of Milecastle...only mere days ago, but it felt like years.
“You’d better watch, laddie,” Campbell said as Sean moved. “The sun will be round to you soon enough.”
“It holds no fears for me.” Sean said, and moved so that the light hit him full on the face.
Campbell gasped.
“You do not burn.”
“I told you,” Sean said. “I have not turned.”
“But you have the fangs...I saw them.”
“Aye,” Sean said grimly. “But I told you—I have no thirst. And I have the woodsman’s song in me. How else could I have carried you here?”
“It must be Lennan’s blood in you,” Campbell said. “It is sustaining you.” “Aye,” said Sean. “But will it prevail?”
“I know not. But it might give us time to save my daughter’s soul and stop the ceremony.”
“And how about you, old man,” Sean said. “How goes it?”
“I have not been as fortunate as yourself,” Campbell said. He raised a hand into the ray of light, and left it there until smoke began to rise from his skin and large watery blisters formed.
He dropped his arm and sat back.
“I can feel it inside me,” he said. “Ravenous and dark.”
Fear showed in the Scotsman’s eyes.
“I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold out against it. You will stake me if I turn?”
Sean nodded.
“And I will say the words. But hush. I have the woodsman’s blood in me. If you take some of it, mayhap it will also sustain you?”
The Scotsman shook his head.
“And mayhap it will be too diluted to benefit either of us. We cannot take that chance.”
He scratched at the side of his neck and pulled his vest away to show Sean the wounds.
The bite marks were red and raw, the wound swollen to stand proud of the skin. Thin watery fluid seeped from the twin holes, and the veins around the wound pulsed irregularly.
“I’m too far gone to be helped now,” Campbell said, and Sean had to agree.
“So what can we do?” he asked.
“Can you bring forth the fangs at will?” Campbell said.
Sean tried, and the fangs slid moistly out of his gums. The Scotsman shuffled backwards away from him, then stopped. He let out a hollow laugh.
“An Other that can walk in the sun...there’s a secret we cannot let them have.”
“I am not an Other,” Sean said, almost shouting.
“Quiet, laddie,” Campbell said. “For we may want them to think that you are Other.”
“You have an idea?” Sean asked.
“Aye. Sit with me. We must prepare for the coming of night. It might be our last.”
“First I want to try the walls,” Sean said. “We might be able to climb out.”
Campbell laughed again, but it was hollow and without emotion.
“And why would I want to do that?” he said. “The sun is shining. Others cannot abide the sun.”
He put his arm out again, and once more thin wisps of smoke started to rise from his skin.
“Stop it, man,” Sean said, and dragged him away from the sunlight before turning back to look at the walls.
There were some possible footholds, and he started to climb. Three times he tried, and each time he reached the same spot, about eight feet off the floor. The gap in the ceiling was too far away, too far out of reach.
“You said last night that you had a weapon?” Sean asked Campbell as he dropped to the floor beside him. “I hope you were not bluffing, for I have none…not even a single bulb.”
“I have this...my Skein Dhu,” Campbell said, taking a nine-inch long dagger from inside his long woollen sock. “It is not silver, and it is not a sword, but it might prove useful.”
Sean nodded. He sat on the cold stone floor and listened as Campbell outlined his plan.
The day passed slowly, and they could do little else but watch the sun move across their cell walls and wait for the coming of the dark.
Martin led his small band back into Derby just as the light was starting to fade from the sky.
Megan was waiting for them just inside the West Gate. She smiled at first, but then she looked closer at the group of men, a
nd at the empty horses. Heavy tears sprang in her eyes and she screamed, a loud wail of loss and sorrow.
Menzies dismounted and ran across the courtyard towards her.
“I’m sorry, Megan,” he said. “I—”
But she didn’t stop to listen. She turned away from him, and fled into the streets of the city.
“I’ll go to Fitz. I was in command...it was my doing,” Martin said.
“No, sire,” Menzies said heavily. “It is my duty. He is an old friend, and it will be hard for him to take.”
As he took his leave the doctor suddenly looked old, for the first time since they had met Fitz in the inn at Far Sawrey.
“Toby. Take charge of the horses,” Martin said, and dismounted.
He was pleased to note that Fitzsimmons had been busy. Eight large butts of bulb-soaked water stood around the yard, a pair of bellows beside each. Large cauldrons of oil bubbled above well- stoked braziers, and there were bags of silver shot hung on posts studded around the courtyard.
He needed to send a message to the Duke, and was about to shout for Gord when it hit him…Gord was no longer there. He had to stifle a sob of his own.
Hillman’s sons, Harold and Edward, were standing at the edge of the yard, looking at their feet. It was obvious that they wanted to talk to Martin, but neither had the courage to approach him.
He motioned for them to come over.
They saluted him with bad imitations of military precision, and Martin forced himself not to smile. “We want to take the Protector’s shilling,” they said, almost in unison.
“But you are too young. Much too young,” Martin replied. “You cannot yet be thirteen.”
“Thirteen years and three months,” Harold said. “And I have already killed an Other. I threw a bucket of bulb over one last night.”
“As did I,” Edward said. “After the bastards killed our Father.”
There were no tears in the boys’ eyes, only rage and determination. As one who had so recently been bereft himself, he could not refuse these two proud youths.
“Very well,” he said. “You shall be my messengers. I need a message taken to the Duke.”
Five minutes later the boys were on their way to the North Wall. He had let both of them go—they would have fought too fiercely for the privilege otherwise.
Martin headed for the wall, where Barclay was waiting for him. The old man was holding the dogs on leashes. They wagged their tails excitedly, and made to jump at Martin, but the old man held them back.
“Down.” he said, and the dogs quickly lay down quietly at his feet.
“Like a pair of raw recruits,” he said. “They need strict training.”
He looked Martin in the eye.
“I heard about Rollo,” he said. “I am sorry.”
Martin merely nodded.
“Are the men provisioned? Is the wall secure?” he asked.
Barclay had just started telling Martin about the state of the watch when a cry went out from above the West Gate.
“Somebody’s coming! Two men on foot!”
Martin peered out into the rapidly fading light. It was Gord...and with him one of the other two lost men.
“Open the gate!” Barclay shouted, but Martin countermanded him.
“No! Leave it closed for now!” he ordered.
He waited until the figures were almost at the gate before calling down.
“Gord? Are you yet man and only man?”
The big man looked up at him, his face grim. Martin noticed that he did not open his mouth very far when he spoke. “What is this foolery, man? Let us in. We have ran like demons from hell were after us all afternoon.”
“And how came it that you escaped from that mob?” Martin said. “There were more than two hundred of them.”
“Aye. And we killed near on twenty afore we escaped. We lost the other man...but we might have prevailed if you hadn’t abandoned us. Now let us in. It is getting dark, and I’d rather be on your side of the wall when the Boy-King comes.”
Martin bent and took a bulb from the bucket at his feet. He tossed it down and Gord caught it, throwing it from hand to hand as if he was performing a juggler’s trick.
“Chew that, and we will allow you entry,” Martin said.
“You would test me?” Gord asked, and snorted. “I fear that you and I can no longer be friends.”
“I also have that fear,” Martin said. “Eat it.”
Gord shrugged, and seemed to place the bulb in his mouth and chew. He made a swallowing motion, and smiled up at Martin.
“Now can I come in?”
At the same instant that Martin remembered the big man’s ability with conjuring tricks, the oak doors swung open.
“Gord. Is it really you?” he heard Megan say.
There was a hollow laugh, filled with darkness and evil.
“Mother,” a gravelly voice replied.
The Others came for Sean and Campbell just after sunset. The men were dragged up out of the cell by strong cold arms and had their hands tied behind their backs.
They were led, first into a wide courtyard, and then up a steep flight of steps to the higher levels of the castle. A full moon hung above them, lighting both their way and the landscape around them.
Sean hadn’t realised how high they had climbed the night before. The land lay stretched around them, as if they flew as high as an eagle.
Away to the north there was a wide stretch of water, silver in the moonlight, and beyond that a long range of higher, darker hills.
To the east the ramshackle town fell away from the castle down a long narrow causeway that was lit down its whole length by tall torches. They burned with a flaring red brilliance that sent a red glow into the sky. Others lined the top end of the street as they had the night before.
There was a smell in the air, a heavy, greasy smell that Sean realised was coming from the tall candles...and he almost gagged as understanding came: the candles were tallow, made from human fat.
The esplanade of the castle was also lit with more of the tall candles in a long avenue up its centre and into the castle proper. It looked like preparations had been made for a procession.
Sean and Campbell were led to the highest point of the castle. A small, squat building stood on the skyline. Once upon a time a cross had stood proudly at the apex, but now there was only a broken stub. A human head, long since dead and now only dried skin and bleached bone, had been stuck on the broken end.
The building looked black against the skyline, but as they got closer it became apparent it was also stained a deep blood red. Sean and Campbell were led inside the building. The interior was as red as the outside. Two tall candles lit the far end, and it took several seconds for Sean’s eyes to adapt. The candles stood on tall wooden poles, and the light from them cast long shadows over the chapel floor.
The room was little more than a square box, stone below, wood above. The high arched ceiling looked like an upturned boat. Where the wood and stone were hidden, the walls were hung in heavy red velvet drapes.
There was an altar at the far end, and Mary Campbell lay on it. She was naked, and she looked as if she was in a stupor, her eyes staring straight at the roof. The bulge of her pregnancy was only just noticeable on the sweep of her belly.
William of Rennes stood at her head. He was dressed in the same long cowled robe he had worn the night before, and his eyes shone almost black in the reflected light. He held the chalice in his hands, the head they called Baphomet staring up at him.
And the figure at Mary’s feet, the one that caught Sean’s attention, was the one who had stolen her out of Milecastle—its former Constable, William Barnstable.
“Ah, the family is here,” the tall knight said. “We can begin.”
Martin turned to look down into the courtyard, just as Megan screamed...a high shriek that was quickly silenced.
Gord strode across the courtyard and kicked over the tall barrels of the bulb-saturated water. He turned and s
miled back up at Martin, showing his new fangs. Still watching Martin, he retrieved a burning log from the nearest brazier, went to the largest cannon, and lit the fuse.
“No!” Martin shouted, and jumped from the wall into the courtyard.
The cannon went off, and Martin’s ears rang. The thick oak doors of the West Gate blew apart, sending lethal splinters flying through the night. Martin was thrown to the ground, dazed by the force of the blast. He shouted again, but couldn’t hear himself.
“Men of the Watch...to me! To me!”
The Other who had come through the gate with Rollo kicked over the cauldrons of oil, and Rollo continued to topple the water butts before the pair of them made for the horses.
The beasts shied away from them, but Rollo stroked them and sang to them, and the two Others were soon mounted. Martin tried to rise, but his head was spinning and he couldn’t get his balance. He only just managed to roll aside as Rollo’s horse galloped past him. Six inches closer and Martin’s head would have been caved in.
Rollo yelled a cry of triumph as he rode out into the night, and from nearby the dark army yelled in response.
Shots rang out, and Martin heard Barclay call.
“Here they come!”
Martin finally found he was able to push himself upright. His head still rang, but he no longer felt like throwing up. It was only then that he noticed Megan’s prone body. She was still breathing, but she was unconscious, a bruise already spreading under her jaw. He checked her quickly, but there were no bites.
Another volley of shots rang out, and Martin looked out into the night. The dark army were less than a hundred yards away...and the gate had been blown wide open.
“Bring them over here,” the knight said.
The two Others who had brought them out of the cell pushed Sean and Campbell towards the altar. Sean saw Campbell let the dagger slip down his sleeve from where he’d had it hidden and, out of the Others line of sight, begin to cut at the robes binding his wrists.
“You have been given access to this ceremony to bear witness,” the knight said. “A new heir for the King will be turned this night, and you two who have been close to him will be his first, and most loyal, subjects.”
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