by A. W. Exley
Seth ground his jaw and gave a terse nod. "Yes, unfortunately. But if it's a trap we would all be enlisted in Millicent's army."
All except for Charlotte. As a survivor of the pandemic, the vermin would show no interest in her. She would be safe inside the carriage as the rest of us were dragged out and torn apart.
I know what instinct told me to do. I had learned to listen to the voice that on occasion pricked my conscience with slow understanding. Not today. Now it was screaming an alarm klaxon that I simply could not ignore. Louise called me to London so she could set a trap to catch me as I returned. How exactly she managed it, we could argue about later. First we needed to get out alive and make it home.
"It's a trap, I cannot dissuade myself of that," I whispered.
"Bain?" Seth turned to his lieutenant. The duke was discarded; we dealt with Captain deMage who had not yet voiced his opinion, but asked his troops first.
"Any loss of life is a tragedy, but the prickle on the back of my neck says trap." He took Charlotte's hand and squeezed.
Seth nodded and his gaze fell to Charlotte. "I have the same reaction. I am sorry, Charlotte. While I pray we are wrong, I also pray there is no one trapped in the cart. Bain, go up front and tell the driver to stoke the engine hot. We want as much power available as possible for when he lets the brakes off. Ella, come with me and let's find out if the army is hiding anything in the cargo carriage that will come in handy."
"And me?" Charlotte asked, a faint quiver in her voice.
"Stay here, safe. You are the only one who can relay tonight's events if Millicent and Louise have set an ambush." Seth rose, stood on the seat and held out a hand to me.
I grabbed my sword from where I had been sitting and slung it over my back. Next Seth legged me up the hatch, and I grabbed cold metal and pulled my body up into the night air. A faint breeze blew against my skin and spoke of winter just around the corner. A shiver ran down my body and I ran my hands up and down my arms to warm me as the other two men climbed up onto the roof.
"Make sure the driver knows what he has to do, then join us at the back to discuss strategy," Seth said.
We walked to the edge of our carriage. A distance of two feet stretched between the passenger carriage and the cargo one.
"Do we jump across?" I asked. As a child I had played crocodiles with Henry. We leapt from one piece of furniture in the parlour to another. If you touched the ground you lost, your life forfeit to the imaginary crocodiles lurking in the carpet.
"Not unless we want to get shot." Amusement coloured Seth's words. He placed his fingers in his mouth and gave a short, sharp whistle.
Metal grated and then the guard appeared on the small platform of the cargo carriage. He looked around and then upward, pointing his rifle at us. "What are you doing up there?"
Seth stood on the very edge of the roof. "There's a cart blocking the track. We suspect it's a trap. Now put that down and let us swing over."
The rifle wavered slightly but didn't drop. "I can't. I have orders that no one is to enter this carriage."
We didn't have all night to discuss whose orders took precedence. "Did you by chance survive the original influenza pandemic?" I asked. There was no need to yell, my voice carried on the night air.
"No. What has that to do with anything?" The rifle dropped and exposed his quizzical expression.
I pointed to the wide expanse around us. "If this is a trap, none of us will live to see the sun rise. Do you want to die here, when we could do something?"
The soldier blew out a sigh and the weapon dropped.
Seth jumped down and then scooted back to make room for me. Soon three of us were crammed in the small space.
"Open the door, private. We are bereft of weapons, and I suspect the army has one in there." Seth pointed to the locked door. "I will absolve you of any blame when I write this up for the War Office."
Ah, magic words those—absolved of blame.
The private pulled a key from his pocket and fitted it into the lock. A dull clang echoed beyond and a panel opened to reveal a combination lock, mounted beside the door. Next he dialled a six digit code and a faint clack came with each correct number. He spun the wheel and the door swung inward.
Two lamps lit the interior of the cargo hold and cast a scant light in the small room. Two identical looking pieces of equipment sat roughly in the middle, one on each side. They vaguely resembled some form of cannon.
"What is it?" I asked. I didn't have a boy's keen knowledge of everything military.
"Minenwerfer," Seth murmured, as he approached one of the weapons.
"Minenwerfer?" It sounded German and still didn't enlighten me. Did that mean cannon? As long as we could blow up any approaching vermin, I didn't care what language its name originated in.
"Mine launcher. Germans used them during the Great War. Horrid things, they could launch mortars far more accurately than our long range artillery. Could make a real mess of bunkers." Seth ran a hand over the short squat barrel.
I was right, it would blow stuff up. "Man is ever ingenious at devising ways to destroy each other."
"The short barrel and muzzle-loading design made them far lighter than horse drawn artillery." Seth bent low, peering at the mechanism.
The private stood between the two weapons. "These have been modified for the Grim War. The army has been running trials out in Cornwall."
"What do they shoot?" Seth looked up.
"Incendiary devices." The private pointed to metal lockers against the far wall.
They didn't just blow stuff up, they set fire to it at the same time.
Seth let out a low whistle. "How do we get them out?"
The private gestured to a flywheel either side of the door. "The sides drop down and they move out on a short track. They are specially designed to be mobile for field trials."
A thump came from outside the door and then Lieutenant Bain's face appeared. "Driver has his orders, and Miss Jeffrey's instinct was right. Shapes are moving out there heading for us, from both sides."
"How many?" I asked.
The worry lines deepened on his forehead. "Too many to count." He moved further into the carriage and a flash of joy ran over his face. He clapped his hands together. "Minenwerfer. Just what we need."
"Ella, head back up to the engine and protect the driver. His carriage is open and we need him. We'll get these beauties exposed and primed and give us enough cover until the driver builds up maximum steam." Seth reached for me and planted a firm kiss on my lips.
I hoped the captain didn't seal all his orders with a kiss.
I left the men, jumped back across to the passenger carriage, and walked along to the engine. I looked out over the fields and watched the grass undulate. There was no hope of making out shapes, but the movement reminded me of watching the swell of an ocean wave as it headed toward shore. Was this what Louise meant, the incoming wave of Millicent's power that would sweep over us all and drown us?
I tried to judge the speed of the approaching surge. The advantages of vermin were their inability to die and sheer numbers, not speed. But this wave would still crash into us within a few minutes. A cold sweat prickled my skin. There were so many, rolling toward us from both sides. A thousand? Perhaps more. We were armed with two swords, some rifles and two minenwerfer. We might need a miracle to survive this night.
I jumped down into the engine. The driver glanced at me, then continued his work. He shovelled coal into the open hatch in front. Flames claimed each load and the heat rolling from it caused sweat to bead on his forehead. Then he tapped his gauges and peered over his shoulder. "Another two minutes for her to have a full head of steam."
I glanced to the south, the wave rolled closer. "We might not have two minutes."
I wanted to know what the men were up to but could see nothing from the engine. Then a high-pitched whine cut through the night. I winced and looked up. An arc of bright colour shot from the cargo unit, as though a falling star fle
w in reverse back toward the sky. Then it dropped, plunging straight into the ocean flowing toward us. A dull boom rocked the ground and vibrated up through the engine. Fire burst a hundred feet into the night sky, lighting up the water that surrounded us. Objects the size of fish flung upward to then rain back down on those below.
"Oh, God," the driver whispered.
The burst of light from the exploding mortar revealed the grisly scene that surrounded us. Thousands of them walked, shuffled, or crawled over the grass. Moving inexorably toward us. We were a tiny raft in a cruel ocean that would soon rend us apart.
Another metallic cry was followed by another explosion on the northern side of the train. Bright sparks lit the sky and rained down on the seething mass of bodies beyond.
"We need to go," I said to the driver. There were too many out there to number. What we needed was several of Churchill's modified tanks to pour fire over all the vermin. Why couldn't the army have had one of those stuffed in the back of the train?
Louise's trap was sprung. If there had been any people in the overturned cart, they were beyond our help now.
The driver nodded. He shared my desire to get far away from the Downs. He glanced at his gauges and valves, muttering under his breath. He pointed to a brass lever by the boiler. "Sound the whistle so the lads know we're moving off."
I grabbed the warm metal and pushed the lever to one side. The whistle blew above us. The screech matched a high-pitched cry from another two mortars lobbed into the never ending sea. More vermin were torn into pieces and scattered back over their comrades.
Meanwhile the driver released the engine brakes. With his left hand he reached out to two brass horizontal levers and swung them from right to left. A slight movement registered through my feet. Like a horse that let the rider know it is ready to jump straight into canter, the engine signalled to the driver it was ready to respond.
Next the driver grasped the long throttle lever at face height. He yanked it back toward him. "Supposed to let it ease along the track slow, you don't want the wheels to slip on the track, but we'll have to risk it tonight."
Instead of easing back on the throttle as the engine rolled forward, he kept it open. Mortars continued to rain from the cargo carriage. Fiery projectiles lit up the night and illuminated the horror creeping ever closer. They were less than fifty feet away, and we had mere seconds before they reached us. They had sufficient numbers to push us off the tracks and over on our side.
Why were trains so slow? My mare would have been flat out galloping by now, leaving the vermin in our dust. The wonderful motorcycle would have spun gravel and hurtled away. I was trapped in an enormous metal turtle that crawled down the track. I wanted to kick it in the flank to hurry up, or could I throw more coal on?
"She's faster than she looks and picking up speed. You just can't feel it." The driver said, throwing glances out the open sides at the mass of undead reaching for us.
The mortars decimated their ranks. Nearly twenty of them at a time were thrown into the air and torn apart from each explosion. Fire leapt from one to another as a new wave took hold, coating each vermin and flowing to the next. But still they continued on. Death did not stop them. Mangled limbs carried out without the rest of the body. Fingers acted as spider legs, dragging arms behind them. Torsos rolled. Legs wriggled and hopped even as they burned and withered into embers.
Up ahead, the dark shape of the overturned cart grew closer and closer.
"Does this have a cattle guard?" Far too late to ask, but it would decide how cleanly the engine moved through the obstacle.
"Yes." The driver set his gaze straight ahead as we bore down on the cart.
The obstruction was large, like the enormous carts used to bring in the hay and usually hauled by at least six draft horses. Tipped on its side, the cart completely blocked the track. There were no horses in sight. The vermin had either dragged it in place, or the horses had bolted when the cart flipped and broke the traces that attached collar to cart.
A canvas covered the back of the cart. The wind caught the edge and it curled and flapped. A shaft of moonlight caught a pale limb within, fingers reached and wrapped around the edge to haul a person up.
I'm sorry, I mouthed as the engine collided with the cart. Instinctively I ducked, as though I expected something to fly through the open window. The emerging body flew over the top of us and landed with a thud on the passenger carriage.
"Don't stop!" I said to the driver. "I'll take care of it."
Then I climbed out the back and jumped over the gap.
19
Charlotte
All alone
* * *
They left me all alone. In the dark. For what could I do to help in our current predicament? I could have walked down the track to investigate, but what if it was a ruse and I was taken hostage? Then my friends would risk their lives to free me. I had no skill with a weapon and therefore no value to add in any fight.
Louise's words echoed in my mind—fat, useless cow.
I wasn't fat. I had curves. Once, when I had said I couldn't eat a piece of cake because I was watching my waistline, David had whispered that he thought me voluptuous. He said that word with such a hungry look in his eyes, as though I was a piece of cake, and it quite stole the air from my lungs.
I would never be tall and slim. Nature had made that determination before I was born. But my work in the garden at the manse had made me fitter. My body was stronger and for once, I was comfortable in my skin.
I knelt on the leather seat and pressed my hands to the glass, peering into the dark. I could discern nothing in the night-time landscape. Clouds obscured the moon and the stars offered little light.
A clomp came from above as Ella and the duke walked between the engine in front and the metal box behind. What were they doing? I wished I had some ability to aid the fight. Not just tonight, but the larger war. How horrible if I could only sit and watch as my friends were slain. How long would I wait for rescue? Would some rescuer find me alone, surrounded by bodies?
There was perhaps a skill I could learn, or a power I could grasp, if only I knew how. The blood of Anne Oakley flowed in my veins just the same as it did in both Elizabeth and Louise. Witches worked against the people of our country, and I would be a force for good to oppose them. But how did one become a witch? Was it a natural skill, like those who could sit at a piano and play without being taught? Or perhaps it was a learned thing and I would have to send away for a course of instruction.
No. The power was within me, waiting, it flowed through my veins and only needed to be summoned. My instinct knew what my conscious mind couldn't grasp. A part of me slumbered much like Millicent, waiting to be awoken. My mother named me Charlotte, but Father contributed my middle name—Aurora. His early death left me with only tiny snippets of memory. Like worn scraps of fabric, I clutched at what I could remember and held them close.
He called me his Sleeping Beauty. His Rory.
The time had come for Rory to awaken and to claim her power.
A flare lit the sky and pulled me from the depths of my mind to events outside. Finally, they must be signalling for help. Not that there would be anyone roaming the Downs. The flare arched toward the field and for a brief moment it disappeared. I wondered if it had gone out. Then the explosion rocked the carriage. I jerked away from the glass as sparks of red, orange and white shot out from where the flare had landed.
Except it wasn't a flare. Flames leapt into the sky and illuminated a scattering of dark shapes. My mind struggled to make sense of what I saw. Then horrible awareness slammed into me. I closed my eyes and bit back a sob. My teeth dug into the back of my hand.
Pieces of people rained down through the flames. No, not people. Turned. Another explosion created another bonfire and the scene outside revealed itself. Hundreds, if not thousands, of them converged on the train.
My last thread of sisterly affection for Louise stretched thin and then snapped. How could she have
arranged this, to kill everyone in such a terrifying way?
Perhaps knowing we stood on opposite sides of a vast chasm gave birth to the spark within me. Or it might have been understanding my past, finding myself, and being content with my path. Whatever it was, as I watched the mortars rain down on our enemy outside the window, an ember glowed in my gut. One that radiated power and flowed through my veins like fine brandy.
The legion of Turned seemed so close. Against the unnatural light of burning pillars, I could make out faces and clothing. Each mortar destroyed more of them and created small burning parcels that were tossed through the air. Then, the carriage swayed as the engine rolled down the tracks. At last! We were on the move.
A thump above my head reminded me of Ella. I needed to do something, anything, rather than sitting useless in the carriage. I stood on the table and pushed the hatch outward. Someone lay slumped on the roof of the carriage. It looked wrong to be Ella, and dressed in trousers and a torn jacket with dull, dark hair.
"Hello?" I said to the shape.
Fingers walked toward me first, the movement of the arm extending over the roof pulled its torso around. Empty eye sockets gazed at me and the exposed bone of the jaw hung down, useless. Within its mouth, a dry tongue flopped back and forth like a fish out of water. A faint moan and gurgle came from its ruined throat.
"Careful, Charlotte," Ella called. She walked along the roof, one careful step at a time, keeping her balance on the moving train.
Sadness for the creature welled up inside me. "I am quite safe, both from it and in my secure posy here. It's you I'm worried about."
Different emotions assaulted me simultaneously. A protective instinct reached out to ensure my step-sister remained safe and unharmed. Pity for the poor thing, used against its will, flowed through me. Emotion swirled and mingled, fed by the new ember deep within.
A book opened in my mind. A page fell open and words glowed. As I grasped hold of the feelings inside me, I channelled them all into whispering what was written, "I release you."