Not for a sicko.
He was brave, though, and he’d won over half the crowd. He sat there on the white horse in the centre of the arena, unarmed, daring the king’s bodyguard to come for him.
And the Ascot boy was carrying a hefty sword. A great cleaver. He walked his horse towards the sicko, an unreadable expression on his face. If he killed him now Ascot would have surely won.
Ed saw a movement in the crowd. Sophie and her archers were getting ready behind the barriers with their bows. Arno shouted a command and a few of them loosed arrows point-blank at the last of the other sickos.
That just left the young guy on the horse and Sophie’s archers were all now aiming at him. Just to make sure there could be no mistakes, a small group of kids armed with swords and clubs climbed over the barrier and formed up behind the king’s bodyguard.
They were taking no chances.
Golden Boy pulled away from the Maidenhead kid who was helping him, strode across the arena towards the bodyguard and shouted as loudly as he could.
‘Give me your horse.’
The Ascot boy didn’t react in any way. Golden Boy shouted again.
‘I said give me your horse. I order you.’
Golden Boy stood there for a moment longer, frustrated. Then looked round the arena. Some of the crowd started chanting.
‘Kill him – kill him – kill him …’
And the band piped up, blasting out a two-note fanfare in time with the chanting – Blaa-bah … blaa-bah … blaa-bah …
Other kids were trying to shout them down.
‘Let him fight!’
‘Give him a chance!’
The bodyguard raised a palm towards the archers, indicating that they should hold back, and then walked his horse closer to Malik, making no effort to ready his sword. He didn’t look like a boy about to kill someone, though Ed had no doubt that he could easily take the sicko down if he wanted. He’d watched him in action, slaying sickos with a well-rehearsed savagery.
The Ascot boy stopped his horse. Seemed to be studying Malik.
Golden Boy, meanwhile, had run across the grass, grabbed his sword where it had fallen and mounted the Maidenhead horse. Now he came charging back towards Malik. But the Ascot boy shifted his horse slightly and Golden Boy had to veer off to one side.
‘Get out of my way, you retard!’ Golden Boy yelled, cantering at Ascot. Ascot casually punched him in the face, knocking him out of his saddle. For the second time that day Golden Boy hit the ground, this time much harder. He lay there, stunned and amazed, for a couple of seconds then looked over to Arno and the King. Arno was as mystified as anyone. The King was enjoying the show, rolling his head and grinning.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Golden Boy shouted. ‘Are you going to let this happen? What is this?’
Arno shrugged.
Everyone waited to see how it was going to play out.
The hooded boy rode right up to Malik, held out his hand and Malik gripped it.
And then he remembered.
‘Henry?’ he said quietly. And he laughed. He’d never expected to see Henry again. Henry, the damaged kid who’d disappeared in Slough after Andy died. Henry who’d never been quite all there. Looked like he’d finally found his place in the world, here in Ascot.
Maybe there was a place for everybody after all. Maybe there was a place for Malik? If Henry was one of them maybe he could be too.
‘You’re OK?’ he said.
Henry nodded, still blank-faced.
Malik laughed again, dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and began a circuit of the arena. Jumping over fallen bodies, waving to the crowd, taunting them.
Would they dare kill him now?
67
Ella was crying. Whether she was happy or sad she didn’t know. All she knew was that there were tears pouring down her face. She watched as Golden Boy ran over to Arno and the King and started waving his arms about and shouting. Other kids came down and joined them. Arno talked to them for a while as Malik rode round and round. Ella was so proud of him. He was the champion of the races. He was her hero.
Arno lifted up his staff and the crowd quietened down, the band stopped making a noise. Malik stopped in the centre of the arena, next to the Ascot boy.
‘There are some rules at the races,’ Arno shouted. ‘And there is one rule in life and that rule is that all grown-ups must be killed. It’s no different here. OK, so this one has shown he’s smarter than most, but we can’t let him go. Henry, if you don’t want to do it, you have to come away and leave it to someone else.’
The Ascot boy, Henry, shook his head.
‘Henry, your King commands it. That thing must die.’
Ella realized she was running, around the barrier to the King. She grabbed Arno’s sleeve and pulled it, bringing his staff down. He looked a little bit surprised and a little bit angry.
Ella turned to face the kids in the seats.
‘He’s not a thing,’ she shouted. ‘And he’s not a grown-up. He’s my friend. He’s a boy like you. You just never bothered to find out. He’s one of us. You have to believe me. He’s just a boy. Just a boy.’
Arno leant over and talked quietly to her.
‘Go back to your seat, little girl,’ he said. ‘I’m in charge here. I have to do this, OK?’
‘No … no … You don’t …’ Ella was crying again. She thought she was going to choke on her tears.
‘Holy crap,’ said Lewis, rising from his seat. He shook Ed’s shoulder. ‘It’s her, Ed. It’s Ella.’
‘What? You’re joking.’
‘Straight up. That little girl down there is Ella. We’ve found her, man.’
Ed stood now and made his way down to Arno with Lewis and Ebenezer. Arno raised his staff again just as they got there.
‘Wait!’ Ed shouted. ‘I think we should listen to what the girl’s got to say.’
Ella was staring at him with her mouth open. Lewis and Ebenezer went to her. Ed left them to it. They crouched down by the startled girl, jabbering away, trying to explain what was going on. She threw her arms round Ebenezer’s neck and hugged him tight. Ed was aware of everything slipping into chaos. Kids were getting out of their seats. Guards were stepping over the barrier and moving in on the grungy guy. Ella was babbling on about him being her friend. It seemed really important to her.
‘With me,’ Ed commanded and Lewis came over to him. Ebenezer scooped Ella up and followed. As Ed entered the arena, he spotted Sophie with her archers, ready to shoot.
‘Put your weapons down!’ he shouted.
She looked confused. Nobody knew what to do.
‘You remember Ella?’ Lewis called over to her. ‘This is her, right? This is who we been searching for.’
‘Oh my God.’ Sophie now climbed the barrier with some of her archers and they joined Ed in the middle of the arena. Ella was still rabbiting on and Ebenezer and Lewis were trying to make sense of it. Ed saw Arno look really furious for the first time as control was slipping through his fingers. Ed had to find a way to sort this without Arno losing face. The races were important.
The grungy guy on the horse was the key to this. Ed started walking towards him. Could he really be only a boy as Ella was claiming? Up close he looked even worse. His face had been torn apart; one eye was red and blind. The other eye seemed to be weeping, but was staring at Ed with a look of intense intelligence. And Ed felt like it was looking at him from out of his past. As Ed got to the horse, the guy suddenly slipped out of his saddle and grabbed him. For a second Ed thought he was attacking him, and then he realized the guy was sobbing. Ed relaxed. The guy whispered one word in his ear.
‘Ed …’
Ed was more astonished than ever. It was a voice from a million years ago. Cracked and croaky, but unmistakably the same voice. The voice of a dead person.
And then the dead person let him go and got back on his horse and rode over to Arno and the King.
‘My name is Malik,’ he said, loud e
nough so that all could hear, and then he went on, his voice growing in strength and clarity as it got louder and louder. ‘I am fifteen years old. I went to Rowhurst School in Kent and I grew up in Slough. I am a boy. I am one of you. This is how I look and you are all just going to have to get used to it.’
He rode back into the middle of the arena, raised his arms and yelled at the watching kids.
‘I am a boy, all right? And I am never going to forget it again.’
There was silence for a moment; everyone was still. And then a girl threw down a doll, someone else threw a teddy, then a baseball cap came spinning down, and the air was filled with toys and clothes.
Ed was surprised to find tears running down his face. He was doing something he hadn’t done for almost a year.
He was crying.
He pulled his baggy white Ascot T-shirt off.
‘Put this on,’ he said to Malik, and Malik understood. He slipped the T-shirt over his head. Ed and Kyle hoisted Malik up on to their shoulders.
‘Ascot!’ Ed yelled. ‘Ascot win!’
CLOSING
68
There were thirteen children gathered in Arno’s meeting room inside the stadium: Ed, Kyle, Malik, the Golden Twins, Josa and Kenton, the leaders from Sandhurst, Maidenhead and Bracknell, plus Arno Fletcher, the Mad King and his bodyguard, Henry.
On the way in Arno had taken Ed aside.
‘I’m letting you do this because we have a weird situation on our hands,’ he’d said. ‘You’ve seen what the races do. You’ve seen how important they are. If they fall apart we go back to the bad times. You turned it all upside down. The kids are still arguing out there.’
‘They’ll be talking about what happened here today for months,’ Ed protested. ‘For years. That’s a good thing, Arno. Your races will be legendary.’
‘I have rules, though, Ed. First among them was that Ascot was never, ever going to win. That way I could never be accused of cheating or fixing anything. If the King and I lose our authority the races won’t work.’
‘Let me say my piece,’ Ed had pleaded. ‘If I can pull this off nobody’s gonna worry about any of this. All the attention will be on me. The heat’ll be off you. OK? You trust me?’
‘Not really, no. Not after today.’
‘Christ’s sake, Arno. I had no idea any of that was going to happen.’
‘Whatever. We’ve got to clear the air. So I’ll let you say your piece. But it better be good.’
Ed waited for the other kids to settle down around a large conference table. He was reminded of the last time he’d tried to make a rousing speech back at the museum. He just hoped this wasn’t going to be a repeat of that embarrassment.
‘So what’s this all about?’ Golden Boy asked, his voice cold and businesslike.
Ed took a deep breath. ‘Ascot won the races,’ he said.
‘That’s debatable,’ said Golden Boy.
‘So we get to choose our prize.’
‘Go on then,’ said the Sandhurst leader, Dara. He at least knew Ed a little from their crazy get-together the other night. ‘Let’s hear it.’
‘It’s simple.’ Ed smiled at them. ‘I want you lot.’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Golden Girl.
‘Why don’t you all shut up and let funny-face finish?’ said Josa. ‘Then we can get to the party.’
‘It’s like this.’ Ed looked round at their faces. He had their attention, which was a start. ‘You all saw the sickos the other night,’ he said. ‘The night of the blood-red moon, a wave of them passing through.’
There were mumbled yeses from around the table.
‘They were headed for London,’ Ed went on.
‘How do you know that?’ asked Dara.
‘I just do, OK?’
‘We’re from London,’ said Kyle. ‘We’ve seen what’s going on. There’s a bare massive army of sickos building up there.’
‘So what?’ said the Bracknell boy. ‘That’s not really our problem, is it?’
‘It is, though,’ Ed insisted. ‘If we allow them to get strong, to build an army, they’ll wipe us out. All of us. This is our one chance to end it for all time. If we got our own army together we could slaughter every last one of them. I’ve seen what you lot are capable of. I saw your best fighters in action today and it was awesome. All I want from you, my prize as the winner, is that you bring your best fighters with me into London, your horses, your vehicles, your weapons, and we take the fight to the enemy. We’ll make the races real. We’ll defeat the sickos for real. We will win this!’
Ed stopped. Held his breath. The faces round the table were giving nothing away.
There was a long silence.
And then Josa stood up.
‘I’m in,’ she said.
Dara shook his head. ‘I’m not letting you have all the fun,’ he said, and he, too, stood up.
Ed let out his breath.
Perhaps his plan had worked.
69
The journey back to The Beeches seemed to take no time at all, and, no matter how much he told himself not to worry until he got there, Ed had to admit he was nervous about what they’d find. When the sickos had gone on their stampede the other night, had they got inside? The place was pretty well protected, so it was possible that if they’d come through this way they would have just gone round the walls.
Maybe this was going to be one of those days when everything went well.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
It had certainly started well. A convoy of vehicles and horses had left Ascot. Kids from Slough and Sandhurst, Bracknell and Windsor. Sophie and her archers from Ascot. Only Maidenhead had turned Ed down.
The sun was shining and they hadn’t spotted a single living sicko since they’d left Ascot. Not even a sentinel. You could almost imagine it was over and the sickos had all gone or died.
Now that would be a good day. If all went well, if there were enough of them, then maybe that day would come.
Ed had spent a lot of the previous night catching up with Malik. Still couldn’t quite believe that he was alive and they’d met up again after all this time. At first Ed had been scared that Malik would hate him for abandoning him back at Rowhurst, but there had been none of that. Malik had said he understood; that as far as Ed knew Malik had been killed. So Malik had told his story and Ed in turn had told him what had happened to all their friends, the sad list of death and horror and madness. There was still a lot of catching up to do. But there would be time. Ed really hoped there would be time.
The one thing Ed was still finding hard was his old schoolfriend’s voice coming out of that face. One more thing he was just going to have to get used to. His own injuries seemed trivial compared with Malik’s. The two of them were sitting in the back of the Chrysler with Ella, who seemed to have an incredibly strong bond with Malik. Kyle and Lewis were up front. Brooke and Ebenezer in the middle seats. Everyone talking. Excited. Nervous.
When they got to The Beeches driveway, Ed told Lewis to stop and he got out. The rest of the convoy stopped behind them, spread out all down the road. Ed walked over to the lead Sandhurst vehicle, a battered old pick-up truck with about fifteen kids crammed in the back.
Ed indicated for the driver to wind his window down. ‘You lot all stay out here, we’ll go on in. We won’t be long. But if we all rock up together they’ll be seriously freaked out.’
‘No worries,’ said Dara. ‘I’ll tell the others. See you soon.’
Ed got back in the Chrysler and they turned into the driveway. Everything looked fine. There were some signs of disruption, what you might find after a storm, leaves and branches strewn about the place. So it was possible that the sickos had come through.
Wait and see, Ed. Wait and see. Could just be the wind.
They pulled up on the parking area in front of the house and Ed cautiously got out, remembering the last time they’d arrived here with an unwelcome hitchhiker on the roof. He superstitiously checked the roo
f rack, although he knew it was stupid. There was nothing up there.
‘Well?’ Lewis had got out and was staring at the house, checking the windows. There didn’t seem to be any signs of damage. No broken glass, or splintered wood. Ed looked at the garden wall. It was surely too high for any sickos to climb.
‘Let’s not stand around here all day, yeah?’ said Brooke. ‘We need to keep moving. Let’s knock.’
Lewis shuffled over, trousers hanging down, scratching his head. He swung the big doorknocker three, four times.
They waited.
Lewis knocked again.
‘What if they’ve gone?’ said Ebenezer. ‘Tried to excape the grown-ups, or something?’
‘Where would they go?’ Ed asked. ‘A bunch of old people. Half of them demented.’
He went back over to the car. Leant in the door. Malik and Ella were the only two who hadn’t got out.
‘You want to stay there or come inside?’ he asked. Malik looked to Ella, the two of them inseparable.
‘As long as they’re not mean to Malik,’ said Ella.
‘They won’t be. They’re good people.’ Ed could hear Lewis and the others banging on the door and calling up at the windows. ‘If they can accept Trinity without a blink they’ll accept Malik.’
‘I just want to get back to the museum and see Sam,’ said Ella.
‘We will do. We have to pick up Trinity then we’ll go. The cars, the faster vehicles, can go on ahead. The rest of the kids can catch us up. We’ll be an hour on the road at the most.’
‘We’ll get out,’ said Ella, undoing her seat belt.
Brooke came back over from the house, smiled at Ella. Her face changed when she smiled, which wasn’t that often. The scar on her forehead almost disappeared and she looked younger and more carefree.
She put an arm round Ella and squeezed her.
The Hunted (The Enemy Book 6) (Enemy 6) Page 33