by Dan Davis
He wished, more than he ever had, that he had his bow and two good arrows with him. Looking around for a shard of wood or a stone he could throw he saw a musket laying in the mud just a few steps away and lurched over to grab it up. It was heavy and muddy and difficult to hold on to but he knelt with one foot forward, pulled it into his shoulder and aimed down the barrel at Hopkins. The sight wavered on the man’s back and he wondered if he shouldn’t shoot Stearne instead. But Hopkins had the pistols so Archer aimed carefully and squeezed the muddy trigger.
Weaver was there and she grabbed the top of the musket and bent her tired face down to whisper in his ear.
‘Only one shot in them useless things,’ she said. ‘Follow me.’
With that she turned and staggered toward the two men at the top of the bank. They were still facing away and talking and gesturing at each other. Archer forced himself to his feet and lurched after Weaver who broke into a run and charged up the slope. She was aiming for Stearne, he saw, so Archer knew he’d have to get Hopkins at the same time. He clenched his teeth and charged up alongside Weaver just as they reached two men. At the last moment both men started to turn towards them but Archer just lowered his head and cried out, barging into Hopkins’ back and driving forward with his legs, sending Hopkins flying forward from the top of the bank.
Stearne almost fell but he had hold of Weaver’s left wrist with his metal hand. Weaver cried out in pain, dug her heels into the bank so as to not topple in. Stearne grinned, started to pull himself back. Weaver shouted in a rage and slashed upwards once, twice, three times.
Stearne shouted in fear and fell twisting into a raging torrent of swirling water.
The waters swirled and thundered past their earthen fort, waves frothing and white capped smashed into the sides. Everything inside the camp’s ramparts was under water and filled with floating, swimming soldiers and horses and wagons. Bits of wood and tents covered the surface. Everything was flowing past them, from the north, from the direction of the river. From the rock plinth of the tower clear across the fields to the river the water flowed.
Hopkins and Stearne bobbed up from underneath, gasping and spluttering.
‘Help!’ Hopkins screamed as he thrashed around. ‘Stearne, save me! I cannot swim!’
‘Me neither,’ Stearne shouted back then swallowed a lot of water and splashed his one arm round.
‘They’re going to drown,’ Archer said to Weaver, breathing deeply.
She shrugged. ‘They was going to drown Writer, weren’t they.’
‘True,’ Archer said.
Then he saw Weaver was holding Stearne’s brass arm, the whole thing. The straps at the top were flapping in the wind where she had cut through them with her knife. The arm was bending and the fingers flexed over and over, frantically.
Weaver raised the arm over her head and took a deep breath. ‘Gutted!’ she shouted at them. Archer thought she was going to throw it in but she held on to it.
There was so much debris floating on the surface that they both managed to grab hold of large planks of wood that seemed to be the wreckage of a wagon.
‘Oh, no,’ Weaver said. ‘They’re going to live.’
Hundreds of heads were bobbing in the water and getting washed away towards the south and to the west.
‘How did this happen?’ Weaver asked.
‘Writer did it,’ Archer said, looking to the north. Following the flow of the water back to the river he saw it was pouring through a channel carved through the earth. It was as though the Sweetwater had a new course cut right through the fields and into the army camp.
In the distance, he saw Writer.
With her were Cedd and Bede, too. Writer was sitting on the ground, her head dropped to her chest. Bede and Cedd, it seemed, were looking at him. Cedd raised a hand to the air in greeting. Archer did not wave back.
The river water flowed slower and the waters receded quickly. The soldiers lay spluttering in the sodden earth, helping each other up, coughing and shivering. Many had been washed some distance away and plenty of the soldiers staggered away from the tower southwards back towards Coalschester. There were dozens of riderless horses running that way.
The landship was sunk up to its gunports in mud, the rear end deeper than the front so it jutted up at an angle. Steam sputtered from the chimney pipe at the top. Soldiers were still crawling from the wreckage. It was a threat no longer.
But other soldiers instead came towards them, perhaps a hundred or two hundred were picking up pikes and anything they could use as weapons along the way. They looked angry.
‘We should leave,’ Weaver said. ‘Now.’
‘Can’t,’ Archer said. ‘We need tools to free Burp.’
‘Can’t fight,’ Weaver said.
‘Nope,’ Archer said.
‘What’s that noise?’ Weaver asked.
He heard it too. Singing. Coming from the west, along the road to Bures.
Then he saw them, heading across the fields. Vale folk. Hundreds and hundreds of Vale folk. Many had linked arms and marched abreast so there was a wide front. They were singing songs as if they were on the way to the Vale Fair but many were carrying weapons like axes or clubs. Some rode horses. Two tiny children rode an ox, led by their mother. Men, women and children marching to the tower and to the soldiers who had invaded their lands.
Archer watched in disbelief as the soldiers dropped their weapons and first in ones and twos and then all at once fled south up the hill and onwards through the burned forest toward Coalschester with their friends. Soldiers at the edge of the camp who were too hurt to run started surrendering themselves to the Vale folk.
Weaver found enough strength to lower the earth on one side and the three of them dragged Burp out of their fort.
Some of the Vale folk who were approaching were on horseback and a small group broke off and cantered through the shallow water and mud right toward them.
Archer saw with surprise that his mother and father were among them, as was his brother Edmund and his sister Willow. They rode up, along with a few of the Guildsmen from Bures and Winstanley was there too. It was all too much to take in as they shot question after happy question at him, fussing over his wounds. He could not even understand, let alone provide answers. But he had a question of his own. ‘Why have they all come?’ he asked.
Winstanley laughed. ‘It was your speech,’ he said. ‘Took them a little while for it to sink in but they realised you were right. And your message spread to the other villages and then they gathered to fight, or at least to stand together.’ Winstanley laughed. ‘But it seems as though you had already won.’
Archer shook his head. ‘Writer that did this,’ he managed to say.
‘Here she comes now,’ Winstanley said, nodding to the north. ‘With good old Cedd. And that must be Bede, I take it?’
Cedd was smiling. Bede looked haggard and exhausted and ancient.
The people around him cheered but Archer could tell something was wrong. Writer’s face was deathly pale and frozen in a blank stare.
Cedd waved.
Archer bent to the ground and snatched up another discarded musket, pulled back the hammer, pointed it at Cedd’s chest and pulled the trigger.
In Troubled Waters
Writer had used everything she had to divert the Sweetwater into the army camp. As soon as Bede had cut a deep, wide channel from the river through the earth with his magic, she had pulled the water into it and kept it flowing as fast as she could. It had smashed the army but the effort had left her exhausted. She sat shivering on the raised ground next to the now-empty channel.
Bede, too, was shattered. After he had restored the Sweetwater to its course he stood swaying with his eyes glazed over.
‘Did we do it?’ she muttered to Cedd.
Cedd smiled. ‘You did, dear girl, you did.’ He was staring out at the tower and the army camp below it. ‘You destroyed them. That landship is useless now. Most of the remaining soldiers appear to be ru
nning. And all their gunpowder will be wet anyway so if they rally and return to the field there’s nothing they can do to stop us.’
Writer looked up at Bede. ‘He looks like he has stopped himself.’
‘He will recover from his exertions in time,’ Cedd said, airily. ‘As will you. I’ll get him in his tower and he will regain strength enough to protect the Vale once more. Then we shall be safe to continue with our plans. England burns. And England needs us.’ He had a mad look in his eye.
Writer took a deep, shaky breath. ‘I am going to find my friends,’ she said. ‘Then I am going home to my mother and father.’
Cedd laughed. ‘Oh no, my dear. You will do nothing of the sort.’
Writer struggled to her feet. ‘You do not have the power to...’
Cedd stepped forward and struck her in the chest with the flat of his palm. It felt like being struck with a hammer and she fell to the ground, unable to breathe.
‘You are exhausted,’ Cedd said, calmly. ‘What you just did was as great a feat of magic as I have ever seen, or even heard of. Frankly, I am amazed you are conscious. I have heard of alchemists being torn apart by channelling too much power but not you. But do not delude yourself into thinking you have strength enough to fight. And especially not to fight me, of all people. I am a thousand years old, my dear girl. Do you know how many men have tried to kill me? How many warriors, soldiers, champions and alchemists have died by my hand?’
I trusted you! she wanted to say but she could not take a breath. How dare you?
In the background, she thought she could hear people singing. A great many people. It was probably her mind playing tricks because she was suffocating and panicking. She forced her mind to be calm. You are just winded, she told herself, a breath will come.
‘And now you shall see what power truly means.’ Cedd clicked his fingers at her. ‘Stand. Breathe.’
She felt herself compelled to obey. She slowly climbed to her feet and was finally able to suck in a desperate breath. All she wanted was to attack Cedd or run to her friends but her limbs would not obey.
‘There,’ Cedd said. ‘True power lies in making others do your bidding. Now, follow me. We must likewise bind your friends to me now while they are still weak.’ Cedd strode off toward the ruined camp and she found her legs lifting and stepping after him. ‘Come, Bede,’ Cedd shouted over his shoulder. Bede lurched along beside Writer looking like he was walking in his sleep.
Cedd had tricked her. He had deceived her utterly, again and again. The man had lied about everything. And she had fallen for it.
‘Look at these fools,’ Cedd said as they walked along the edge of the muddy channel.
Writer was allowed enough movement to look where Cedd was pointing and she saw hundreds of people. They were coming across the fields in a wide line, filling the fields from the river almost to the hills. There seemed to be hundreds of them, if not thousands. Some of them were singing. Some looked angry, or grim, others were grinning and pointing at the wreckage of the army camp. They were close and getting closer all the time.
Cedd glanced over his shoulder. ‘Look at them, Bede; they’ve come to protect themselves.’
Bede grunted. ‘My people,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ve trained them well.’
Writer wanted to scream. They’re not your people! They hate you. You did not train them at all; they are doing this in spite of you. But she could make no sound.
They climbed the rampart and saw clearly into the sodden disaster that had been the camp.
‘There they are,’ Cedd said. Near the middle of the camp, by a three-sided earth enclosure, was Archer. He was surrounded by a small group of people and a few horses. Weaver was with him, as was Keeper and Burp, bound by chains. The dragon was motionless and for a moment she feared him dead but then his tail twitched and steam poured from his muzzle. ‘All of them, and the dragon here together, what did I tell you?’ Cedd said to Bede. ‘Shame some of your Vale folk have made it to them first.’
Bede snorted. ‘Only a few peasants. We’ll destroy them.’
‘Yes we will,’ Cedd said and strode down into the camp. She could do nothing but follow as Cedd and Bede and her walked right up to Archer and the others and she wanted to cry out, to warn them but she could not make a sound.
All she could do was watch as Cedd stood in the mud smiling at Archer.
And she saw Archer stoop to pick up one of the many muskets lying in the mud, cock it and point it at Cedd.
That Cromwell Bloke
He pulled the trigger. The hammer clamped forward and the flint smashed down onto the pan.
It did not fire.
Of course, he thought, gunpowder must be dry to set on fire. What a fool he was.
At the click of the hammer, Cedd’s look of fear turned into one of triumph and his hand shot up toward Archer and Cedd flicked his fingers in a complex dancing pattern. The horses bolted in all directions, hooves throwing clods of clay. Winstanley, Archer’s father and his mother, his brother and sister and the Guildsmen all fell to their knees in the mud and stayed there, frozen in place.
‘Good,’ Cedd said to Archer. ‘Now let us away from here before the rest of the Vale folk swarm us, shall we?’ Cedd said. He spoke lightly, as if he had not a care but his eyes darted nervously to the approaching crowd. Some of them were pointing, no doubt a few recognised Bede and Archer hoped they would hurry and help.
‘We’re not going with you,’ Archer said. ‘You two are free to go. But you leave Writer here.’
Bede and Cedd laughed. ‘There’s nothing any of you children can do to stop us,’ Cedd said, and glanced at the crowd again.
Archer looked at Weaver and Keeper and was shocked to see that they too were frozen with the same blank expression that Writer had. Burp was tightly bound and muzzled.
Cedd was right; they were not capable of fighting two powerful alchemists. And yet Cedd seemed afraid of the crowd of Vale folk. Probably Cedd could not freeze all of them and Bede looked dazed so Archer thought he could keep Cedd talking until the Vale folk could save drive them away.
‘There’s something you missed that will be your undoing,’ Archer said. He didn’t know what he was saying; he was just saying anything to keep Cedd talking.
‘If there was something you could do to stop us,’ Cedd said. ‘You would have done it already.’ Cedd stared at him for a moment before smiling himself. ‘You impudent twerp. You’re trying to delay me. We are leaving, now.’ Cedd grabbed Writer’s arm, so hard it made her wince.
Archer wanted his bow so he could put Cedd down but instead he shook his head. ‘What about Burp?’ Archer asked. ‘We did all this to save him. We’re not leaving him here.’
Bede and Cedd exchanged a look. ‘Can you free him?’ Cedd asked.
‘Not quickly enough,’ Bede mumbled, looking at the crowd who had started shouting Bede’s name in fury and were surging forward.
‘You may be immune to my spell but come with us or I shall...’ Cedd broke off and looked up over Archer’s shoulder, away to the south up the hills towards the blackened path where the soldiers had burned and chopped their way through the Moon Forest. Archer feared a trick but he risked looking back himself.
Soldiers. Many more soldiers were streaming through the Moon Forest. The first few hundred men were riding down the hills toward them. Some of them wore shining metal breastplates and others long colourful coats. The horses they rode glinted as they cantered down the hill. Behind the horses marched row upon row of foot soldiers in smart, red uniforms. And from amongst the trees crawled two enormous landships belching smoke from their chimneys.
‘Cromwell,’ Cedd said, suddenly looking afraid.
Archer grinned.
‘Why would he ever come here?’ Bede said.
‘He has heard your defences have fallen,’ Cedd said. ‘Word has reached from his agents about our young friends. No doubt he is come to add them to his collection in the Tower of London.’ Cedd started to drag Writer aw
ay. She still had that blank look on her face but her eyes displayed anguish and they pleaded with Archer. ‘Come, my old friend, it is time we departed.’
‘My tower,’ Bede wailed. ‘If we can get just the dragon inside then I can...’
‘No,’ Cedd said, looking between the army horsemen and the Vale folk who were nearly upon them. ‘The Vale has fallen. We must go to the King. Use this girl to win the war for him. He will be forever...’
‘Grrrrarrr!’ Archer used what little strength he had left to charge forward and run headlong into Cedd, head-butting his chest and bouncing off on his backside. Cedd slipped backwards into the mud but he pulled Writer down with him. Bede made a grab for Writer and he too fell with a splat, dropping his Wicungboc.
Cedd and Bede writhed and slipped in the mud, Bede grabbing up his book. But Writer climbed to one knee. She was caked in mud from her blonde hair to her boots and she smiled at him.
‘Archer,’ she said, almost laughing. She was free from Cedd’s spell.
Cedd and Bede reached up and both clamped a hand down on each of Writer’s shoulders. The moment their hands slapped on her, all three of them vanished.
They were gone.
‘Writer,’ Archer cried and staggered forward, lifting his knees high to lurch through the mud. ‘Writer!’ Perhaps they had turned invisible, he thought, and looked for foot prints being made. But there were none.
He sank once more to his knees. His head lolled on his chest.
Weaver was there with him. ‘We’ll get her back’ she said, patting him awkwardly on the shoulder. ‘But you got to speak to these new posh folk now, I reckon. That Cromwell bloke’s coming.’
She dragged him to his feet and he turned round.
The Vale folk had stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of the dozens of horsemen riding through the ruined camp and the hundreds of fresh soldiers marching in formation from the hill above. The horses picked their way through the detritus and stopped before Archer.
One of them spurred his own horse forward a few more steps right in front of them.