Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2)

by Mark Chadbourn

  Tom joined him soon after, as if he had been waiting for the sounds of stirring. Together they stepped out into the corridor where Melliflor was waiting.

  Veitch had hoped the Queen would have come to see him off, but she was nowhere around. Instead, Melliflor led them to the armoury, a long, lowceilinged chamber where the walls were covered with a variety of bizarre weapons and strangely shaped body armour. Veitch picked up one of the weapons which looked like an axe with a spiked ball hanging from it, but in his hands it felt a different shape completely to how it appeared and he replaced it quickly.

  While Melliflor oversaw, three other members of the guard brought Veitch different pieces of armour. They strapped across his chest a breastplate which shone like silver, but which was covered with an intricate filigree. Shoulder plates were fastened on, and he was given a helmet which vaguely resembled a Roman centurion’s, but was much more ornate. After mulling over the weapons for fifteen minutes he eschewed them all for his own sword and crossbow.

  He had no idea of what the armour was constructed, but it was surprisingly lightweight; he could have walked for miles in it. He didn’t have to, though, for as soon as he was ready Melliflor took him through to an adjoining stable which contained enough horses for a small army.

  “Stolen from our world,” Tom muttered. It allows the lesser members of the Tuatha De Danann to travel quickly when they cross over.”

  “This is no bleedin’ good, I’ve never ridden before,” Veitch moaned.

  “The steed will respond to your every movement. We have adapted it,” Melliflor said ominously.

  Melliflor offered Veitch a handsome white charger, but he didn’t feel comfortable with it. “Too flash,” he grumbled. Instead he chose a nut-brown stallion indistinguishable from many of the others.

  Once he had mounted the steed, Melliflor led it by its reins to a blank stone wall at one end of the stable. He made a strange hand gesture and the wall opened with a deep, rumbling judder. They were high up on a hillside with a vista over Loch Ness. Mist drifted across the water in the post-dawn light. From all around came the sweet aroma of pine trees. Everywhere was still and quiet.

  Veitch turned to view the scene in the stables, but he couldn’t think of anything to say to Tom. Instead, he merely waved; Tom nodded curtly in reply, but there was much hidden in the two gestures. Then Veitch spurred his horse and galloped off into the world.

  The darkness licked at the foot of Mam Tor, an angry sea crashing on the rocks. From his vantage point beneath a burning sun and a brilliant blue sky, Church watched as hopelessness washed over him.

  “They’ll be coming up soon.” Laura’s voice made him start.

  “Best not to think about that.”

  “Sure. Do you want me to help bury your head or can you do it yourself?”

  Church managed a tight smile; he didn’t have much humour left in him. With Ruth’s condition worsening by the day, the strain of their isolation and the constant fear that their hiding place would be discovered at any moment, it was surprising he hadn’t lapsed into permanent silence.

  “No sign of the others yet?” Laura rested on his shoulder and peered out to the horizon. It was a running joke; she asked the same thing every day, knowing the answer.

  “Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.” He tried, but he couldn’t help believing that they wouldn’t be coming back at all. He knew they had long distances to travel, with huge obstacles along the way, but they still seemed to have been gone a long time. Even if they did return, how would they be able to slip past the mass of Fomorii? He had been right the first time: best not to think about it.

  “She’s asking for you.” Laura continued to scan the horizon, as if by doing it everything in the foreground could be forgotten.

  “How is she?”

  “Not talking like she’s pissed up for a change.” Ruth’s lucid moments were increasingly few and far between; at times she ranted and raged in the throes of her delirium so much they thought they would have to restrain her. It always happened at night, in the small hours, snapping them out of sleep and filling them with fear that they were being attacked. Sometimes she would hold conversations with someone neither of them could see; on those occasions they didn’t go to sleep again.

  Church turned despondently to wander back to the house, but he hadn’t gone more than a few steps when Laura grabbed him and gave him a long, romantic kiss. It was an astonishing show of emotion for someone who seemed ever more locked up with each passing day.

  “What was that for?” he asked, pleasantly surprised.

  “What’s the matter? Can’t I show you I love you?” She had turned and was walking away before he had a chance to grasp what she had said.

  He mulled over it until he was in the house, but the moment he saw Ruth it was driven from his mind. Her skin was like snow, emphasised by the darkness of her hair, which was plastered with sweat to her head. There were purple rings under her eyes and her cheeks had grown increasingly hollow. Beneath the sleeping bag, her belly was hugely swollen. Her appearance was so shocking he had a horrible feeling she was going to die before Balor’s rebirth. A part of himself that he never faced hoped that was the case; then he would be saved from having to make the awful decision to kill her.

  Although he was creeping quietly, she looked up before he had crossed the threshold. “Hi. You’re starting to get a tan.” Her voice was just a rustle.

  “You know how it is. Nothing to do apart from lie by the pool with a good book.” He knelt down next to her to brush a strand of hair from her forehead. When he rested his hand against her cheek, her skin felt like it was burning up.

  She put her hand on top of his and gave it a squeeze. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Sure. I’m doing so much-“

  “I just feel better having you around.” He smiled; her eyes brightened briefly before she was forced to close them; a tear squeezed out and trickled down her cheek.

  “I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all this,” he said gently. “You’ve had the worst of all of us. One bad thing after another.”

  “You know, bad things happen.” She pulled his hand round so she could softly kiss his fingers; her lips were too dry.

  “You don’t have any right to take it so well. You’re giving us all too much to live up to. You git.”

  They laughed together, and the sound of it in that dismal room made Church’s own eyes burn. He blinked them dry. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve known you forever. I know it’s only been a few months since that night under Albert Bridge, but it seems like a lifetime ago.”

  “Maybe we have known each other forever. Maybe it’s that old Pendragon Spirit speaking. Telling you we’ve stood side by side across the centuries.”

  “You’re an old romantic.”

  She tried to laugh again, but it broke up into a hacking cough. When the attack had subsided, her mood had grown forlorn. “I just wish it wasn’t happening here. This house feels bad, sour. I don’t know what happened here, but sometimes I can hear voices whispering to me. The things they say … that Ryan’s going to die … that other terrible things are going to happen-“

  “Hush.”

  “That writing on the wall … Sometimes words seem to leap out at me-“

  He put two fingers on her lips to silence her. Gradually the delirium returned to her eyes as they started to roll upwards. After a moment or two she began to rave, occasionally speaking in tongues, thrashing from side to side. Church sat patiently beside her during the worst of it, then stroked her head until she eventually drifted off to sleep.

  Sometimes Church thought he had never seen a night sky like the one above Mam Tor. Unencumbered by light pollution, benefiting in some indescribable way from the sheer height above sea level, they seemed to be enveloped by the sparkling heavens. If not for their circumstances, it would have been a sublime experience.

  He stood with Laura in his arms, looking up at the celestial vault; for once she had removed her sungla
sses. “We’ve come a long way, despite everything. Pity if it had to end here.”

  “No fat lady singing yet, boy.”

  “No, not yet.” He watched a meteor burn up over their heads, wondering if it were some kind of sign. “Sometimes it’s hard to take a step back and appreciate exactly what we’re doing here. You know, I look at myself, look at you and the others, and all I see is normal people with all the stupid kinds of problems everybody has. And that’s who we are, but at the same time we’re something else as well-the champions of a race, a planet. The living embodiment of the Pendragon Spirit, whatever that might be-“

  “Maybe we’re not special.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe this thing the old git calls the Pendragon Spirit is in everybody. Maybe it’s the spirit of man, or some shit. Listen to me, I sound like some wetbrained New Age idiot. What I’m trying to say is, what if he’s just calling us special to keep us on board. So we think sorting out this whole mess is just down to us.”

  “Or so we dig deep to find the best in us to get the job done.”

  “That too.” She rested her forehead on his shoulder. “That would explain why we all seem like such a bunch of losers. We are a bunch of losers.”

  “Doing the best we can. And doing a damn good job-“

  “So far. But if we’ve not got any special dispensation, the chances of us fucking up are even greater. We’ve got through on a wing and a prayer and too much confidence. But sooner or later the blind, stupid luck is going to run out.”

  Church thought about this while he continued to watch the stars. Then: “I might have agreed with you a few weeks back, when we first met each other. But in all the shit we’ve waded through, everybody has shown a real goodness at the heart of them. There isn’t anybody else I’d want around me at this time and there isn’t anybody else I think could do a better job-“

  “You don’t know the thoughts in my head-“

  “I can guess at them.”

  “No, you can’t. There are sick, twisted things crawling around up there. Take Little Miss Goody-Shoes back there. Sometimes I wish she’d hurry up and die so she wouldn’t carry on getting between me and you. I know it’s a nasty, evil little part of me and I hate myself for it. But I still do it.”

  “She doesn’t get between us.”

  “You’re too stupid to see it. She loves you and I think you love her, and if there wasn’t a constant state of crisis you’d recognise that.”

  Her words sparked rampant, brilliant bursts in his mind, but they were all too fleeting to get a handle on. He pulled back slightly so he could try to read her; she half-turned her head away. “You’re a good person, Laura.”

  “You’re a good liar.”

  “You’ve got an answer for everything.”

  “If I had, I wouldn’t be feeling like my brains were leaking out of my ears. Too much thinking isn’t good for anyone.”

  “Look-“

  She slammed her hand on his mouth. “Don’t say anything. It’ll sort itself out one way or the other.” He didn’t like the look that crossed her face when she said that.

  He hated to think anything unpleasant of her, so instead he kissed her. At first she seemed to be resisting him, but then she gave in, and for the briefest instant everything seemed in perfect harmony.

  But then an unseasonally cold wind came whipping across the tor and buffeted them. Church broke off the kiss, shivering. Away in the west, billowing clouds were sweeping towards them at an unnatural rate. Lightning flashed within them, illuminating the underside of the roiling mass; one bolt burst out in a jagged streak to the ground. But they were not storm clouds, and there was no thunder.

  The wind grew stronger as the clouds neared until it was lashing their hair, then threatening to throw them to the ground.

  “What’s going on?” Laura said. “Is this it?”

  The clouds came down until they were rolling across the ground, and at that point Church realised there was a figure among them. At first it was just a silhouette almost lost beneath the shrouding mist, but then it came closer to the fore and Church realised who it was, and what was happening.

  “Get back to the house.” The snap in his voice stifled any questions instantly. Laura took one more glance at the clouds, then ran for the cottage. Halfway across the turf she realised Church wasn’t behind her, but when she looked back he waved frantically for her to continue.

  Then the wind did knock him to his knees and as he tried to scramble to his feet again, it hit him with all the force of a rampaging bull. He rolled over and it kept him rolling, driving him towards the jagged cliff edge and the precipitous drop to the rocks far below. Desperately he tried to dig his fingers in the grass, but they were torn out immediately; his bones cracked on stones, his face was dragged across the rough ground until it burned and bled.

  The cliff rushed towards him. He had a fleeting vision of his broken, bloody body smashed at the foot of the tor and then the wind eased off just as he was half-hanging over the edge. He sucked in a deep breath, shaking with shock, tried to scramble back using his heels for purchase, but another gust came and pinned him on the cusp between life and death.

  He had to calm himself, order his thoughts; it was his only chance. The gulf beneath him tugged at his hair, made his head spin.

  Niamh hovered in front of him a foot above the ground, wrapped in the clouds of her discontent. He barely recognised her. The beautiful face was lost; instead, it rippled and twisted, unable to settle in a vision his mind could comprehend; her fury and dismay had reduced her to her primal form.

  “Betrayal!” The word seemed to come from all around them, not spoken by any human voice, filled with strange vibrations that reverberated in the pit of his stomach.

  “I didn’t-“

  “You gave me your word! You promised me your love solely! You lied! Untrustworthy, like all Frail Creatures!” A gust pushed him another inch over the drop. His fingers ached from clinging on to the rock lip.

  “I’m sorry!” He had to raise his voice to be heard above the wind that was rushing all around the tor.

  “No more lies!” Her voice exploded with the fury of a breaking storm, but at the centre of it Church could hear her heartache.

  “I’m sorry!” he shouted again. This time she seemed to hear him, for there was a faint lull. He seized the opportunity. “I was stupid … confused-“

  The wind hit him hard; he moved another inch. One more and he wouldn’t be able to stop himself falling. His fingers felt like they were breaking from clutching on; the panic in his throat made it difficult to catch his breath.

  “Lies.” Her voice sounded less frenzied, more openly emotional, more humanity creeping into it. Church forced his head up so he could see. Her face had settled back into the features he knew, but they were broken with hurt. At that moment his heart went out to her and he was consumed with guilt at how he had disregarded her feelings. “We Golden Ones live our lives in the extremes of passion. We feel too strongly. You cannot even begin to understand the slightest working of our hearts and minds!”

  The clouds continued to churn behind her, occasionally lifting her a few more inches higher before she settled down at the same level. Church wanted to say something to calm her, but he didn’t have any grounds to defend himself and he was afraid he would only make it worse.

  She floated closer to him, almost to the lip of the edge, so he could see her face without straining. Her pain had now turned to a cold, hard anger; he feared for his life once again. “My people always said nothing good could ever come of an affair with a Fragile Creature, and it appears they were correct. I have watched you too long from afar, Jack Churchill, and I have allowed my judgement to be swayed by what I saw.”

  The gale began to press on his chest; he could feel himself sliding. In that moment, thoughts went rushing through Church’s head and he was surprised to realise he was less scared for himself than angry that he had once again allowed his emoti
ons to ruin everything; if he died, every hope would die with him.

  Before he could say anything the wind retracted and Niamh began to drift away, her face still cold and hard. “Our agreement is broken.” Church followed her pointing finger towards the dark horizon; there, golden light flashed ominously. “The Good Son will soon be paying you a visit.”

  And with that, the clouds folded around her so she was completely lost to him, and the whole mass moved quickly back over the landscape until it disappeared beyond the summit of the tor.

  Church scrambled back. When he was lying on solid ground, he gulped in mouthfuls of air and felt his pumping heart slowly return to normal. As he dragged himself to his feet, Laura ran from the house.

  “You really know how to fuck women up, don’t you?” she said breathlessly.

  He could barely hear her. His attention was drawn to the occasional bursts of light in the distance and the engulfing darkness closer to home.

  “I’ve done it again,” he said quietly.

  “What?”

  “Screwed everything up.” He couldn’t even bring himself to tell her that a near-hopeless situation had suddenly become much worse. With his head bowed, he turned and trudged back to the house.

  Veitch spent the first two days roaming through the heavily wooded slopes which enclosed the loch. It was a place like none he had experienced before, enveloped in its own strange, eerie atmosphere; purple hillsides cloaked in mist just beyond the tree boundary, outcroppings of orange, brown and black rocks, ancient trees, gnarled and twisted and scarred with green lichen that showed their great age, and over all the constant, soothing sound of the waves lapping against the pink shale and pebbles at the water’s edge. The way the pines clustered so deeply to the shore on the south bank made him feel penned in, and there was an unshakeable sense that he was being watched from somewhere in their depths. But there was also a deep serenity, almost mystical in its intensity, with the birdsong hanging melodically in the air. At times the water was as still as glass, reflecting the verdant landscape and clear blue skies so perfectly he felt he could dive in and walk among the cool glades. At other times storms sprang from nowhere, sweeping up odd, eddying waves that crashed against the steep banks. Fog came and went among the trees, like ghosts, and at night, beneath a shimmering moon and diamond stars the valley was filled with the pregnant hush that came before a conversation.