by Craig Zerf
Baxter glanced up. ‘Let’s say 230 pounds.’
‘Whatever,’ said Nathaniel. ‘Say what you want.’
Baxter opened a drawer, pulled out a sheath of papers and slid them across the desk. Then he placed the pen on top.
‘Mister Hogan, if you could just answer these simple questions. You have half an hour.’ Baxter turned over a sand timer. ‘Starting from now.’
Nathaniel shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Mister Hogan. Please don’t make unnecessary waves. We have a system and it is working. Please, simply answer the questions and then we will reunite you with your niece and all will be as it should.’
Nathaniel pulled the pile of papers towards him and started reading
‘Which word does not belong? Apple, marmalade, cherry, orange, grape.’
He sighed and began to write.
Before the sand had half drained he had finished and he passed the forms over to Baxter who started to mark them. After a few minutes he glanced up, a frown on his face.
‘Have you taken this test before, mister Hogan?’
Nathaniel shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Wait here, please.’ Baxter stood up, walked across the room and knocked on a door set in the sidewall of the office. Inside someone called for him to open.
He did so and walked in, closing the door behind him.
Nathaniel sat still and waited. Eventually Baxter came out.
‘The senior squire will see you now,’ he said as he held the door open.
Nathaniel stood up and walked over. As he entered the room he was hit by a little body running at full speed.
‘Nate, you’re safe.’
He picked Milly up and held her tight. ‘Hello, sweetness,’ he said. ‘Are you alright?’
She nodded. ‘The bad men took me after they shot you but I bit one and ran away. Then these people found me. They were very nice. They gave me food and porridge with as much sugar as I wanted.’
The marine put Milly down and looked across the room. Sitting behind a large desk was a pale-faced man. A shock of unruly dark hair, penetrating, pale blue eyes, thin long nose and heavy eyebrows. He was wearing a short sleeve shirt and his arms were painfully thin and so pale as to be almost iridescent, the blue of his veins showing clearly through the thin skin. But his force of character was a palpable thing. An aura of command. Power. Absolute belief.
Nathaniel ran his eyes over the rest of the room. A few filing cabinets. A table with a jug of water. Some pot plants. But the walls were covered with weapons. Ancient weapons. Pikes, swords, daggers, longbows, crossbows. And, hanging in pride of place behind the senior squire’s desk, Nathaniel’s axe.
He pointed at it. ‘That’s my axe.’
‘Oh yes,’ said the senior squire. Milly had it with her when we found her.’
Milly nodded. ‘I grabbed it when I ran away. It’s very heavy you know?’
‘Yes,’ said Nathaniel. ‘I know. Well done, Milly.’
‘It’s a remarkable weapon, mister Hogan,’ said the senior squire. ‘Very unusual. Did you know that it harkens from the 8th century? Viking in construction. An extremely rare double head, unlike the usual Viking creations. Never before have I, or any of my colleagues, seen such a weapon in such a perfect condition. It is almost as though it has travelled through time to arrive here, unmarked and unsullied by age. Astonishing.’
‘Yes,’ said Nathaniel. ‘Very. Now could I please have my axe back?’
The senior squire smiled. ‘I think not, mister Hogan. Possession being nine tenths of the law and so on. I have a fascination for ancient weapons, mister Hogan, and that axe is one of my favourites.’ The squire pointed at a seat in front of his desk. ‘Take a seat, mister Hogan. Milly, you sit over there on the sofa.’
Nathaniel sat down, as did Milly.
‘Have you ever taken an IQ test before, mister Hogan?’ Asked the squire.
‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘I thought as much. Your results were very interesting. One might even say, alarming. You IQ shows up as a score of 152. You scored particularly highly on spatial awareness and visualization. Actually, you scored off the chart in both of those disciplines.’
The marine shrugged. ‘So?’
‘So, mister Hogan, it would appear that you are a certified genius. You register in the top one percentile of the world’s most intelligent people. Albert Einstein had an IQ only a few points higher than yours, although, to be fair, it is substantially below mine.’
‘Squire, this means nothing to me. I simply want my axe, my niece and to be left alone to go on my way.’
The squire pointed to one of the weapons hanging on the wall. ‘Do you know what that is, mister Hogan?’
Nathaniel glanced over and nodded. ‘English longbow. Six foot long, constructed from the heartwood of the Yew tree, capable of firing a three foot arrow under some one hundred and ten pounds of draw weight.’
The squire clapped. ‘Delightful. You know your weapons, marine. Well done.’
He stood up, walked across the room and picked a different weapon off the wall. Then he sat down again. ‘And what is this?’ He asked Nathaniel.
‘Medieval windlass crossbow. An inelegant weapon. Clumsy.’
The squire nodded. ‘True. But, you see, mister Hogan. It is actually the more beautiful of the two weapons. The longbow is aesthetically pleasing. Deadly in the hands of a highly skilled operator. Someone who has literally been bred to the task over a lifetime of training. Someone much like you, master sergeant. Whereas the crossbow…well, suffice to say that you can teach anyone to use a crossbow in a day. Three days tops. What elegance, what beauty in design. Such simplicity.’
The squire cranked the cross bow and slotted a bolt in.
‘So, mister Hogan, I feel that you would be a very positive addition to our team. I would like to offer you a position. Sergeant at arms in charge of campus security. You see, mister Hogan, I have plans. This brave new world of ours is probably the best thing that could have happened to humanity. Every few millennia someone, or something, needs to press the reset button. Dinosaurs went their way and now the humanity of old must go theirs. We have a clean slate. With judicious selection and careful planning we can build a world that is populated by the worthy. The laudable. Achievers as opposed to spongers. Intellectual, noetic, rational people instead of uncultivated, lowbrow philistines.’
‘Basically, stuff the stupid?’
The squire shook his head. ‘No, that’s not what I said. I said, to use the vernacular, stuff the unworthy.’
‘And who decides who is unworthy?’ Asked Nathaniel.
The squire raised an eyebrow. ‘Why, the worthy, of course.’
‘And who would decide who was worthy?’
The squire smiled, his eyes lit up and a glimmer of madness flickered through them. ‘I would, mister Hogan. I would.’
‘Thought so,’ said Nathaniel. Then he turned to Milly.
‘Milly, sweetheart, do me a favor. Go outside and tell Baxter that the squire and I are having a private chat. Tell him that we are not to be disturbed. Then wait for me. Okay?’
Milly nodded. ‘Okay.’ She stood up off the sofa, walked to the door and left, closing it behind her.
‘What was that about?’ Asked the senior squire.
Hogan stood up. ‘Where are Katie and Richmond?’
‘Mister Hogan, that’s none of your business.’
‘I’m making it my business. Where are they?’
‘They’re safe.’
‘Where?’
‘Somewhere outside the perimeter. They were expelled late yesterday. They have been shunned.’
‘Shunned?’ Asked Nathaniel. ‘You can’t arbitrarily shun people because they disagree with you, you jerk off. Who do you think you are, the church of scientology, an Anabaptist priest? A bloody rabbi?’
The squire stood up and pointed the loaded crossbow at the marine. ‘I am who I am, mister Hogan, and
I recommend that you remember that.’
‘You better put that thing down, boy,’ growled Nathaniel. ‘Before I take that bolt and ram it into your eye.’
The air around the marine shimmered slightly as the heat poured off him in waves, his adrenalin flow increasing at an exponential rate, his heart revving up to over three hundred beats a minute.
‘And exactly how would you manage that, mister Hogan?’
‘Easily, boy,’ Hogan snapped his fingers. ‘Like that. So put it down, give me my axe and then Milly and I will be on our way.’
The squire laughed. ‘No. I think that we shall keep Milly. She passed all of the tests with flying colors. A very bright young girl. You, however, mister Hogan, I deem to be unworthy. Goodbye.’
The senior squire pulled the trigger. The arms of the crossbow sprang forward and launched the foot long steel bolt directly at Nathaniel’s chest, traveling at around 190 feet per second.
But to Nathaniel’s mega-enhanced senses it looked as though it was spiraling lazily through the air. A dragonfly. Or perhaps a bumblebee.
The marine sprang forward, plucked the bolt out of the air with his right hand, jumped the desk and landed in front of the squire. With his left hand he snatched the crossbow from his grasp, grabbed him by the neck and lifted him up against the wall.
‘Squire,’ he said. ‘You have been deemed unworthy.’
And he slammed the steel bolt into the squire’s right eye.
The strike was so powerful that the bolt penetrated the skull and drove itself two inches into the masonry behind it. Nathaniel turned, walked across the room and took his axe down. Behind him the body of the squire hung on the wall like some obscene work of art.
Then marine opened the door, exited and closed it behind him.
‘Baxter,’ he said to the receptionist. ‘The senior squire is not to be disturbed under any circumstances. He has a lot on his mind right now and needs to think.’
He picked Milly up and put her on his shoulders. ‘Come on, Milly. Let’s be on our way.’
They left the campus via the main gates, picked up Nathaniel’s shotgun and ammo from the hedge and headed north once more.
Chapter 14
Jarvis Baker sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He had just finished his breakfast, a bowl of acorn gruel with dried fish.
He stood up and donned his stiff leather jerkin and pulled on his new riding boots, both of these items were goblin-made and courtesy of the Fair-Folk. He and three of his friends had been issued them when they had joined up with the Cornwall First Horse Regiment the week before. He tied his yellow silk scarf around his neck to complete the uniform. Red scarves donated private. Yellow were corporals and blue were sergeants. He glanced at himself in the mirror and smiled.
He was a cavalryman. And an officer. Jarvis had never excelled at school either in the classroom or on the sports field, but he had always been an adequate horse rider. Now he was in a position of power. A position of responsibility. Whilst people like Jake Pardon who had been the school rugby captain, and Mildred Stannard who had been the brightest in the school, were both fishermen and fish gutters. There would be no cushy city job for Mildred, no professional sports job for Jake.
But for Jarvis, the world was his oyster and he had already begun to dine on its heady delights.
Jarvis’s father came stomping down the stairs into the living room. He looked at the nineteen-year-old boy and sneered.
‘Off to play soldiers, boy?’
Jarvis ignored him.
‘Talking to you, boy.’
‘No you’re not, father,’ said Jarvis. ‘You’re just causing trouble. Leave it out, okay?’
‘Those things. Those pig-men and their hoity-toity masters, them ain’t your friends, boy. Trust me on this.’
‘Dad, we were starving before they came. Gangs of vagrants were roaming the land. Society was breaking down. Now we are safe. We eat. We live.’
‘Aye,’ nodded Jarvis’s father. ‘We live. As long as we behave, we live. They’re asking for female volunteers now. To clean and sew and cook for them. Servants. Servants to the hoity-toities and their pig-men.’
‘I know,’ said Jarvis. ‘I’ve told Doris to try out.’
Jarvis’s father slammed his fist down on the dining table. ‘No!’ He shouted. ‘No daughter of mine will be seen dead in that camp. Who knows what could happen. Pig-men and goblins and monsters. And the pretty masters. I don’t trust them.’
‘She’s sixteen, father. She can do what she wants.’
‘No. My house, my rules. I can’t stop you becoming a lackey to them but I can stop Doris and I will.’
Jarvis opened the front door. ‘You are pathetic, father. Pathetic.’
The young man slammed the door behind him.
The father stood still for a while and then his face crumpled in anguish. ‘Yes, my boy,’ he whispered. ‘I am pathetic. But I’m right. There is something wrong here, I just don’t know what it is.’
Outside Jarvis greeted two of his friends who had joined him for the walk to the stables. Benny and Gavin were similar to Jarvis. Less than adequate students and general all round non-achievers. Not layabouts, as such, merely incompetent. Loners through their inability to attract friends as opposed to by choice.
But now they all had friends. They were part of the elite. The Cornwall first horse. Brothers in arms. They walked through the Orc built stockade and to the stables. Waiting for them was Sergeant Snark, a goblin who was nominally in charge of the first horse, even though he himself could not go near any of the horses without risk of serious injury. He was more a planner and a quartermaster than a field commander. But, as the first horse was not, strictly speaking, a combat regiment, that didn’t matter. As long as they listened to orders and had all of the equipment that they needed, then everything was good. They delivered messages, scouted out the land and carried urgent supplies.
There were just over sixty of them already and every day more volunteered for service. They stood in military rows outside the stables and waited for Snark to address them. He climbed onto a wooden platform so that all could see him. In his right hand he held a sword. Almost three foot long with a large guard. Its broad blade was slightly curved and it looked clumsy and ill balanced. A blade for hacking and hewing as opposed to delicate swordsmanship. In his other hand he held a lance. Basically a six foot long stick with a steel point attached to the end.
‘Cavaliers,’ he said. ‘Commander Ammon has deemed it necessary for you to carry weapons. Every man shall be issued with a sword and a lance. This is a great honor and shows our commander’s depth of trust and love for the humans. Long may he live.’ Sergeant Snark held the lance high and shouted the Fair-Folk battle cry ‘Kamateh!’
The humans joined in.
‘Kamateh! Kamateh!’
More goblins came from around the back of the stables carrying swords and lances that they issued to the cheering humans.
Jarvis accepted his sword and lance with a salute. But, as he strapped the blade on, he felt ill at ease. Because he knew that these weapons had not been given to them in order to be used on Orcs or goblins. No, these weapons were for raiders. Or dissenters. Or for whomever the commander said they were for.
They were perfect killing tools. Perfect, that is, for killing humans.
He decided that, when he got home, he would tell Doris to think for a while before volunteering to serve the Fair-Folk.
Just for a while.
Simply to be safe.
Chapter 15
‘You stop right there, boy,’ said the old lady. Her shotgun pointing unwaveringly at Nathaniel’s chest. ‘Heard you coming from a mile off. You walks like some sort of hephalump or sumting.’
The marine smiled and put down the sack that he was carrying over his shoulder. ‘I be’s quite ef me wah be, gramma. I was warning yuh wid me noises. I means nuh harm and I come inna peace.’
The old lady burst out laughing. ‘Yuh
are a naughty mon,’ she said. ‘And yuh speak di patois.’
‘My name is Nathaniel Hogan. Master sergeant, United Sates Marine Corps. This here is my niece, Milly.’
The old lady stared at the two of them for a while and then lowered the shotgun. ‘She ain’t your neice, dat for sure. But she look happy and well cared for, so dat good enough fo me.’ She turned and called out. ‘Adalyn, Janeka. Come outta da bushes and greets this nice mon.’
Two teenage girls emerged from the hedgerow. They were late teens, similar enough to be sisters. Long braided hair, tall. Slim but still buxom enough for their figures to be apparent through the bulky jackets they were wearing. Both carried shotguns. Single barrel twelve bores.
They approached the marine and held their hands out.
‘Adalyn,’ said the slightly taller one.
Nathaniel shook her hand. Her grip was strong, firm and dry.
The other girl proffered her hand.
‘Janeka,’ she said. Her grip was softer and she held on for a heartbeat longer than Adalyn. Her gaze was more direct and her lips tilted in a slight smile that seemed to be a permanent feature.
Then the two of them introduced themselves to Milly who immediately started to tell them a long rambling story about where they had been and what had happened. The story jumped around so outrageously that it was impossible to follow. But the girls listened anyway and ooh’ed and ah’ed when they felt it to be appropriate.
Meanwhile, the old lady took Nathaniel aside and, it was only when the marine stood close to her that he noticed her size. She was at least six foot tall and broad to go with it. Her features, although old, were still fine and her laugh lines showed a character capable of warmth and humor.
‘My name be Gramma Higgins.’ She put her hand out to shake. It felt like a rubber glove filled with sticks and pebbles. Strong and callused. ‘These girlies be my nieces.’
‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Gramma. So where are you girls from?’
‘Just outside Birmingham. Our boys, dat be me nephews, three of them, they be in Afghanistan. Me daughter, she be in London looking for work when they electrics go out. The girls’ father, him be a useless son of a bitch and he long gone. There be no food where we was so we took to the countryside. Bin survivin’ on bugs and crickets and birdies and the like. If I eat another burdock root I’m gonna be sick. You know, before this I was a fine figure of a woman. Now I just all faded away and crinkle-skin from lack of food. Mind you, those two girlies done lost a couple hundred pounds between them and they look, ooee, so fine.’