by Phil Maxey
The woman was shaking her head even before Annabelle finished. “There are no international communications possible. Is there anything else I can help you with? Water? Food? Bedding?”
The disappointment almost overwhelmed her and she started to walk away, when she stopped, quickly jumping back in front of the person behind her. “I was brought here, by soldiers. Are they still here?”
The woman looked confused. “Possibly. I shall try and find out. Return to your tent and if there’s any news someone will tell you.” The woman then looked at the person behind Annabelle.
She turned away. “OK, Merci beaucoup.”
CHAPTER 21
The door to Justin’s lush room opened and a muscular bearded man entered. “A room fit for a king!”
“Who are you?” said Justin.
“You are descended from Uther, no?” said the cyning ignoring Justin’s question.
“Umm . . . I think so.”
The man walked and stood next to Justin, but looked out of the large window to the wintery postcard-like scene outside. He then sighed. “The landscape has changed since my earlier time here. There’s less forests now, but the air—” he unlatched the window and pushed it wide open taking in a lungful of chilled air. Justin shivered a little “—that still smells like my kingdom. Even with all of your technology that has mixed in with it.” The last part Justin wasn’t sure he was meant to reply to, so he just nodded.
“Who—”
The cyning turned and put both of his hands on Justin’s shoulders. “You and I have much to discuss. It’s unfortunate your father could not make the journey back, but alas it was never his fate to be part of larger things.”
“Larger—”
“You have an important role to play, Justin of house Pendragon. You will be one of my knights!”
The idea thrilled and horrified Justin as the same time. When he first got caught up in all the madness weeks earlier, he had a romanticised vision of what a knight was. A hero, someone who would always prevail, but after seeing so much carnage he knew a knight was simply someone who put themselves in harm’s way, and that sometimes didn’t go too well for them.
He gulped. “OK.” He was also confused by who the person was. From all of the monsters he had seen, he presumed those leading the attack on the seven houses would look more . . . evil?
“Good!” said the man, walking to the door, and opening it.
Two nervous-looking women walked in with heaps of cooked meat and fruit on silver platters. There was also a silver goblet full of what looked like wine.
“Eat and drink young Justin, you will need your strength for the training.”
The man went to leave, but stopped, looking back when Justin cleared his throat. “Yes?”
“Who are you?” said Justin.
The cyning smiled. “I’m Arthur Pendragon. You may have heard of me, but there doesn’t seem to be much of my time in your history books.”
Justin nodded, his mind frozen and the bearded man left.
* * * * *
Kat leaned back in the comfy armchair that Justin had sat in a day earlier. The painkillers were doing their thing but she still resisted moving her arm unless she had too.
A vibrant fire was burning just a few feet away from her, and the snow and ice outside seemed like a bad dream.
She looked around at the faces in the room. Darren, Algorine, Vic, Hunt, and Mills.
“So what’s the plan?” said Vic.
“I’m not sure we have one,” said Algorine.
Darren looked at the sergeant suspiciously. “Why are you here? Don’t you have army things to do somewhere?”
Vic looked at Darren but he knew the civilians around him still wondered what his purpose being with them was. “I have a standing order to investigate any possible causes of the storm and the connected phenomena.”
Darren baulked. “You think we’re causing the storm?”
“I think some of you are connected to it, yeah.”
It was more honesty than Kat expected.
Darren went to talk but Kat beat him too it. “You’re right, we are connected to it, but we’re not the cause. We don’t know how the storm is happening, but we think it’s dark magic causing it.”
Mills scoffed and Hunt looked for others to start laughing around him. When they didn’t he looked confused.
“What? Magic?” he said, looking at Vic. “Don’t tell you’re taking any of this nonsense seriously?”
Vic sighed. “You saw what Kat did last night, the power that ring has.”
“Well there was a dragon,” said Mills.
Hunt shook his head. “This is insanity. I’m—” He stopped when he realised Kat and her armchair were floating a few feet off the ground. Not being quite sure of what he was looking at, he knelt, gazing at the space beneath the chair. “What the—”
The chair rested back onto the rug, and Kat’s ring stopped glowing.
“I need to sit down,” said Hunt fumbling for the nearest chair.
“That’s so cool!” said Mills.
Kat smiled awkwardly.
Algorine rolled her eyes. “OK, so now you all have had your minds expanded, I repeat what soldier boy asked, what’s the plan?”
Kat felt the weight of all of them looking at her. Her initial response was to say she hasn’t got any answers, but before the words made it from her brain to her mouth, another feeling came to her. I need to start trusting my instincts.
She sat forward in her chair. “The girl from yesterday?”
“Annabelle?” said Vic.
“Yeah. She has a part to play in all of this, I’m sure of it, I need to talk to her.”
“What about Justin?” said Darren.
Kat looked at Algorine. “Has his father said anything about where he was taken?”
She shook his head. “He’s not saying anything other than he’s important to the cyning and we should let him go.”
“Cyning?” said Kat and Vic at the same time.
“It’s old english, it means ruler or king.”
“Could that old man we keep seeing be this cyning?” said Darren.
Algorine snorted. “Goran? Hardly, he’s a powerful magi, but nothing more. No, there’s another player on the board, one we haven’t seen yet.”
“I wonder if Gus and Miss Toper know any of this.”
“Hey, can you communicate with them again, like how you did at the Glastonbury sanctuary?” said Darren.
“Sanctuary?” said Hunt.
Kat looked at the three soldiers. “There’s a lot I need to bring you up to speed on, you better all take a seat.”
The three soldiers listened to the stories from the past few weeks with intermittent gasps and rubbing of chins. By the end Chip and Darren had finished off a packet of cheesy biscuits.
“I don’t expect you to believe everything I have just told you, but—”
“You can teleport? Like in the Sci-Fi shows?” said Mills.
“Yes . . . umm I think, I don’t know how it works to be honest.”
Vic was looking at the ring on Kat’s hand. “And it’s all from that magical ring?”
“Before you get any ideas, the ring chooses who to bestow its full power on,” said Algorine.
Vic smiled. “It’s not like that, I’m just saying, it needs to be protected if it’s that powerful. By rights it belongs to the government.”
Algorine scoffed. “You’re welcome to try taking it from her.”
Kat smirked. “We’ve got no time for this. We need to make a plan. They know where we are now, who’s to say they won’t come back with the dragon again or a—” She faltered trying to think of a word for a group of dragons. “—Well, a lot more.”
“Dragons are extremely rare in this realm. There’s my sisters and then maybe a few more in the bowels of the earth, but that’s all.”
“I think that makes me feel better, but I’m not sure,” said Hunt.
“OK, so we can’t st
ay here. Where we will be safe from these other houses as you say?” said Vic.
“Glastonbury,” said Kat and Darren at the same time.
“So that’s where we go.”
“Although we still have to find a way to stop Jax from getting in,” said Darren.
“One problem at a time,” said Algorine.
“I want to go to the camp at Rochester and talk to the girl.”
Vic looked at Mills. “The APC still’s running, right? We just can’t use the main gun?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“Get her ready, we’re moving out within the hour.” Vic looked back at the others. “It’s touch and go whether we make it to the west country before nightfall. We can’t spend long in the camp.”
Kat nodded. “Before we leave I’m going to try and contact the others I told you about and we need to decide what we’re going to do with Justin’s father.”
“Isn’t this his house?” said Darren.
“Yeah.”
“Then why not just leave him here.”
CHAPTER 22
After a failed attempt to contact Gus, Miss Toper, or Sparrow they all gathered up their supplies into their backpacks and wrapped themselves well in winter clothes.
While everyone else was finding a spot inside the APC, Kat and Algorine stood opposite Nathan Pendridge who was still tied to a chair in the large kitchen.
“You and your Fae friend going to finish me off, eh? Well I don’t care. My son is where he needs to be.”
Algorine pulled a dagger from its sheath on her back and walked towards him. He leaned back a little in his chair, while she walked to within inches of him and then leaned down grabbing his hands. She then cut the plastic cable they were using to keep his hands bound and did the same for what was around his ankles.
“We’re not like the kind that you came from. You’re free,” said Kat turning away from him.
“And where are you going? You think you can ‘rescue’ him! You people still don’t know what you’re up against do you.”
“We’ll pass on your best wishes to your son when we find him,” said Algorine following Kat out of the door.
Soon they were inside the military vehicle and on the snow-caked roads to the camp. The APC was still functioning well, despite its strangely bent gun turret.
An hour later as they came over a small hill on the motorway, the thousands of white tents that made up the Rochester camp came into view.
“Come and take a look,” said Vic to Kat sitting below him. He ducked back inside and Kat stood and looked out at the kind of sight she had only seen before on news broadcasts about far-off places. Smoke rose from a number of tents, while a large parking area housed hundreds of vehicles, some of which were military. She suddenly felt she was part of a disaster movie.
Soon they were pulling onto a narrower road and through some gates, with a large wooden sign announcing where they were. A number of trucks ahead of them were offloading supplies onto wagons pulled by horses, while tired and anxious looking people wearing what amounted to rags milled about.
The APC shuddered to a halt and the rear hatch opened.
“Me and Kat will go looking for this girl. You wait here,” said Vic emphasising the last part to Darren and Algorine. “We shouldn’t be long.” He then looked at Mills in the driver’s position. “Find fuel and get us filled up.”
He, Kat with Chip, and the other two soldiers got out and trekked away through the mud. Algorine started to get up.
“What are you doing?” said Darren.
“We have a long journey ahead of us, I’m stretching my legs.”
“But he said . . .” Darren sighed. She was already gone.
A number of soldiers saluted Vic as he passed them by. Kat got the impression that they did so even if they didn’t have too. After a slog up a soggy path, they got to a large single-storey building. Vic and Kat with Chip walked past a long queue, into the building and then into a small but busy office. Kat and Chip waited outside the door.
“Didn’t expect to see you back here so soon,” said a middle-aged man wearing glasses to Vic.
“I’m looking for the girl we brought in yesterday, Annabelle Dulake.”
The man nodded then typed away at a keyboard. “Dulake . . . yup got her. Unusual name that. She’s in unit 1103.”
“Great. Do you think I could use that satellite phone you got there? I’ll only be a few minutes.”
The bespectacled man smiled and handed him the large block-like device with a large antenna. Within a few seconds he was dialling a home in the state of Illinois, USA.
Kat smiled awkwardly at the people waiting their turn in the queue. Most didn’t return the smile, but instead looked at her with disdain. A young boy pointed at Chip and managed to escape his mother’s clutches, running up to the dog.
“Hello, what’s his name?” said the boy.
“Chip.”
The boy looked bemused. “Like the food?”
The boy’s mother ran up to her son, then began to pull him back. “I’m sorry, we recently lost our dog, he looked a lot like yours.”
Kat smiled and nodded and then a thought entered her mind which she instantly wanted to ignore. Words started coming from her mouth, despite the sadness that came with them.
“Hey, umm excuse me?” She ran after the woman and her son.
“Yes?”
“Actually . . .” She took a deep breath. “I found him, he’s not mine either. Would—”
“Can I have him?” The boy almost left the ground with excitement, looking at Chip and then back to his mother.
“I . . . err . . .”
“Please mum?”
“I don’t know Tom, it means we will have less food, we can’t expect more because we have a dog . . .”
Tom was already hugging Chip, who was loving the attention.
The woman looked at Kat. “Are you sure?”
Kat swallowed. “Umm yeah, I can’t really . . . well I’m just a visitor here, I can’t keep a dog with me.” She handed Chip’s leash to the grinning boy.
“Thank you . . .” said the woman looking somewhat confused at Kat.
Kat watched the mother, son, and their new pet walking away, while tears welled up in her eyes. She shook her head. Don’t be silly, he wasn’t even mine. If he’s with me he’s going to get hurt.
Kat peered around the office door. Vic was smiling and talking to someone who he referred to as ‘champ.’ When he hung up, she stepped away.
Vic thanked the man and left the office. “Where’s your dog?”
“He wasn’t mine . . .”
“OK. Anyway, I’ve found something.”
Soon they were soon back outside trying to ascertain which rows tallied with which numbers.
“This way,” said Vic walking quickly down a mud and ice raked path. It wasn’t long before they were standing outside an innocuous tent.
Vic went to shout out, when the front flap pulled back and Algorine came out of the tent talking in French to someone behind her.
Vic’s head shook slightly. “I told you to stay in the APC!”
“Yeah, but I don’t do what others tell me.” She went to ask Kat where her dog was, but on seeing her watery eyes thought better of it.
Annabelle followed Algorine out looking a bit bewildered.
Kat didn’t know what to say.
“I’ll start then. So yeah, she’s descended from house Lancelot. She didn’t know of course, but I filled her in,” said Algorine.
“You just dumped the whole magical world thing on her? How did you even find her?” said Kat.
Annabelle ignored the strangely dressed woman and the young girl and stood closer to Vic. “Please, can you help me connect to my parents, in Paris?”
“Umm—”
“You’re French?” said Kat.
Annabelle ignored her as well and continued with her pleading to the soldier. “In the house at the hill, they said no communicatio
n was possible to France?”
Vic looked at Kat who was studying the girl in front of her. She was sure she was the same girl from her dream.
“She needs to come with us,” said Kat to Vic.
Annabelle’s head whipped round to face her. “Quelle?”
“What do you want me to do? We can’t force her to go anywhere!” said Vic.
“Look, I know this sounds all very strange, but I think it’s important that you go with me and my friends. You will be safe,” said Kat to Annabelle.
Annabelle looked confused, then looked back at Vic. “You want me to go with you? Why?”
“I can’t explain right now, but there’s strange things happening, and we think you are involved somehow, and that you are not safe if you stay here,” replied Vic.
Annabelle looked pensive before replying. “More of those things will come here? The dead people?”
Vic hesitated.
“Yes! Bad things will come here, we need to go,” said Kat.
Annabelle nodded. “OK, I will go with you. And you can help me contact my parents yes? And find my grandparents?”
“Sure,” said Vic knowing that probably wasn’t possible, but right now his eye was on the position of the sun in the watery sky, and he wanted to be on the road to the west.
The French girl briefly went back into the tent and picked up a backpack, which she put her small gas-powered stove inside of as well as the food rations she had been given. She also picked up one of the large gallon bottles of water, which she had to carry separately.
As they walked away back to the APC she kept close to Vic, ignoring Kat’s glances.
CHAPTER 23
For the first few hours not much conversation passed between anyone’s lips inside the metal cage. The motorway was mostly clear because it was the main thoroughfare around the south of London for supply runs and they were able to avoid stopping for most of the way.
When they switched to the M3 motorway the sun was close to the horizon and the temperature was dropping fast. Vic ducked backside briefly to make sure he was even more well wrapped up.