Bloodtide

by Melvin Burgess

  Within a year of Dag’s death, the fighting had returned home to where it had started over a hundred years before, when the government forces abandoned the cities: no-one’s land. The old monsters – the Pig, the spider-woman, the birds – had long ago been dealt with. This time, no-one’s land would find its owner. Human and halfman fought side by side, and London responded as it had done the last time the halfmen threatened, by retreating behind the Wall. The troops fled into their stronghold, the gate was bricked up, the fortifications strengthened. Inside, the population waited in terror to see what the monsters would do next. And outside, on the churned-up earth of no-one’s land, halfman and human made their camp under the banner of the Volsons.

  Conor now had all his troops concentrated into one small area. Signy’s information was helpful, but no longer decisive now that he was no longer on the attack. He had enough ammunition to keep him going for years, if need be. Siggy was conscious that Conor might still have deadly poisons and bacteriological weapons in his arsenal and feared that he might use them even to the extent of destroying the population of the city: Signy hinted as much, and Conor had proved careless of the lives of his own people before now. What use would all this war be to Siggy then, if there were no people left for him to liberate and to rule?

  So here, for a while, Siggy halted, and determined to bring Conor to his knees at the very end by siege.

  For two long, still years the war was frozen. Nothing came in or out of the once great city. London was big, the population had shrunk over the decades and the people had for a long time been experts at pushing the land to produce food. Even so, as the weeks passed into months and the months gathered towards the end of the first year, starvation began to bite. The pigeons that used to flock around the derelict buildings disappeared from the sky. Cats and dogs, then mice and rats disappeared from the streets. Another few months and the ribby torsos of starving men, women and children began to appear, walking like zombies from place to place in the vain hope that they might stumble by chance on something to eat.

  The population starved, but what of the troops? It was to be expected that they would get the best of what supplies there were, but as the second year drew on it was strange how well-fed and healthy the soldiers still were. Rumours began to spread. There were reports of ever-increasing sacrifices to the AlFather. These days, it was said, the bodies did not hang for long, and all that was buried in the end were the bones.

  Conor had found the final and most literal way of devouring his own people. Starvation would not bite close to his heart until every last soul in London had been used up to feed his armies. It was clear that the siege was not going to work. As the second year of starvation drew to a close, the order to attack was expected daily.

  31

  signy

  Conor is asleep, snuffling in the half darkness in front of me. He seems to be trembling, or is it me? For the thousandth time he’s at my mercy, but now at last, he’s in danger. It’s just a question of when.

  Tonight, darling? Conor – wake up! Wake up, my dear, and tell me you love me. Perhaps you’re about to die.

  I take a step across the thick carpet, warm on the concrete floor which is heated from beneath. Conor stirs and speaks, but I can’t make out his dreamtalk. Shall I kill him tonight? But let’s see what it has in its pocketsies first.

  I’m back in the water tower. This is where Conor wants us to spend our final hours. He’s had it taken down and rebuilt down here months ago, in the rock under the Estate. A sentimental gesture. It’s where we made love when I first came here. It’s where our child was born. Conor is so romantic.

  One week ago the first shells began punching holes in the Wall. Siggy grew tired of waiting when he realised there will be no such thing as starvation for us or for our soldiers. What does he expect? If he can have animals as his comrades, we can have human meat on our table. War is war, comrade brother. But he grew tired of our tricks and now we’re overrun. Their troops are everywhere. I saw it. They have television! Ragnor has lifted the blockers over London, the satellites are back in action. Siggy and the halfmen broadcast their success all over the world. We watched with all the other admiring horders, how the great general Siggy Volson drove in honour through the streets of London. Liberator! Conqueror! Man of Peace!

  Of course the television never mentioned me. I am the little wife of the big tyrant. Pity me or hate me, but do not admire the little wife. Yet right up to a few months ago I could have made this whole war swing the other way!

  Too late now. Conor’s side – or is it my side? – will never rule again. The Volsons are back in charge. But don’t forget this, don’t forget this ever – I am a Volson too.

  I take another few steps. No danger of the floorboards creaking here, where everything is five metres’ thick rock on all sides. No wind sighing in the eaves, no frost on the glass, although it’s winter above. Our windows here look out into the blind stone, but we have a view even so. Conor had men take pictures from the water tower windows before it got taken down. He had the pictures blown up and pasted on the appropriate windows, so that from each window we can see what we would have seen. That’s the kind of thing he occupies himself with these days. He leaves it up to me to co-ordinate the defeat.

  I think what Conor cannot bear is not defeat: it was the crowds that finally broke him. That’s when the trembling began, the old-man shaking of his limbs and his little noddy head on his little sticky neck – when he saw our people on the television cheering and yelling, throwing handfuls of coloured paper and rice and flowers at the great Volson returning, as if Siggy was some sort of bride. Rice! After starving them almost to death, he gives them rice to throw away. I didn’t say a word, but I looked out of the sides of my eyes at the tears trickling down Conor’s face and yes, yes, it almost broke my heart to see him like that. The way his people turned on him! As soon as they saw that the fight was lost, the whole of London turned against him like one man. He’d led them for so long, taken them out of the city, conquered the halfmen, taken town after town, city after city – even made camp in sight of Ragnor. It was for their glory as well as his. I remember how there were postcards and posters made for each city we conquered. People collected them. It was their victory too! It wasn’t just the priests and the commanders and the rich, either. The raggediest little beggars, the whores and the pimps, even the thieves who had to hang for Odin, they were all as proud as if they were the ones who had led the army of London so far.

  And now a rabble of beasts come through the city gates and they cheer them. What pride they have now!

  Well, what did my dear expect? He failed. Conor has been driven back into his own dirt. Believe me, if he had taken Ragnor, if he’d ruled the world, they wouldn’t have deserted him, they’d have loved him for it. Like my father, Conor aimed too high. But that wasn’t his fatal weakness. He had another weakness that my father never had: his love for me.

  Siggy is billeted outside the walls of the Estate. In the next few days, they’ll launch their final attack. He’ll be the king of London; Conor will be dead. And I – what will I be? Alive or dead? Who will decide my fate for me this time?

  I see so many jailers and so many jails in my life. So many men shaping me. My father, who made me marry for his sake. Conor, who locked me up with his heart as well as with his keys. What about Odin and his games? So, who’s next? Roll up, give me a try. Which king wants me? Odin? Am I to die? Or King Siggy? Oh, sorry, I forgot… it seems he’s going to change his name. Siggy doesn’t sound right for royalty. Sigmund is his name from now on. King Sigmund… much better.

  I brought all this about. They could never have conquered us without my help. I worked tirelessly for the Volsons, but at the end it seems that only a man can be a Volson. I’ve done this, all of it! And now I have to watch him take the crown, the credit and the power.

  Not much chance of ruling from behind Siggy’s throne.

  Why him and not me? No, don’t tell me, I know the ans
wer to that one. I’ve heard it already. Odin gave him the knife, Odin chose him to rule. Well, I say kingship is won, not given. And besides, who says Odin did any such a thing? Didn’t he embrace me too? And what chance was I given to pull the knife out? Of course, only the men were given a chance. We poor girls and women had to sit and watch. The knife worked for Siggy, but maybe it will work for me too.

  I could be the one. The knife could have been mine. Perhaps it even should have been mine.

  Sssh…! Conor stirs in his sleep, muttering under his breath. Don’t wake, my darling – don’t you dare. Why bother waking up when you’re already as good as dead? Within a day or two. Perhaps within hours. Perhaps it’ll even be in minutes, if things work out the way I want.

  But first, the knife.

  It’s been a long time since Conor wore it at his side. It’s too valuable. In any case, he could never cut more than cheese with it. If he used it on anything tougher it had to be cut out. He keeps it locked away, like the ogre did with his heart: inside a box, under a floor, inside a house, inside a mountain. There is a safe made of titanium half a metre thick set into the floor of this very room. Only he has the key. I can talk Conor into anything, but he will not tell me where that key is. And here’s a strange thing; even Cherry hasn’t been able to tell me where he hides that key. You see how secretive my husband is. He won’t even allow a cat to see what he does with the key.

  I creep towards him. Every night I get up and steal around the apartment looking for it. I search all corners, in all drawers. I lift up the chairs and feel inside the covers. I stick a sharply pointed little knife into the joints in the woodwork, looking for a hollow. He never leaves these few rooms, it must be here somewhere. I need that key. Oh, Conor, it keeps you alive, because the second I have it I’ll kill you!

  Next door, I can hear a low, persistent growling. Cherry is anxious, poor dear. She doesn’t approve. Odin’s knife is not something you play games with. See what’s happened to Conor for his effrontery in taking it from its rightful owner! My fate is sewn up, although she won’t tell me what it is. Odin has made his mind up. Cherry says, what is to be is to be, even the gods can’t change it. But I’ll change what is to be, and stop me if you can! Yes, Cherry, this is blasphemy. If I can find the knife I shall stick it into Conor sleeping there, and I’ll stick it in you and in Siggy too, if that’s what it costs. Poor Cherry, I’ve left her behind. She mews and cries but look! I already have cloths and bowls ready to sop up Conor’s blood. Do you think I can’t kill Siggy, who I haven’t seen for years, when I can do this to my Conor?

  Dear Conor. When you die there’ll be a hole inside me but not where my heart is – that went long ago. Hush! I pull the sheet away but his skin is bare; no key there. Here are his clothes in a heap by the side of the bed. I reach down and lift the trousers up and give them a gentle shake and I hear – yes! – the rattle of keys.

  So close! I put my hand in the pocket and take out a bunch of keys, but even as I see them I know already that the one I want isn’t here. I know the lock on that safe too well. None of these will fit. Well, I hardly expected it to be so easy.

  I take up his shoes and bend the soles. Has he tucked the key in there? In the leather sides? I take a small, thin, sharp knife out of my dress and slip the blade between the layers of the sole, feeling for the scratch of metal. Occupied with my task, I forget for a second where I am, and that’s why it makes me jump and gasp when I look down and see him lying there, eyes open, watching me.

  ‘Not there, princess,’ he whispers, and closes his eyes.

  It makes me stiffen in fear. See, I’m still afraid of him! He can still make me tremble, although he’s lost everything, even his wits.

  How much does he really know?

  I turn to glance at the other room where Cherry is hiding. I hear her stalking out of the room in human form again. She won’t be surprised. The ways of the gods, Cherry says, are not to be foiled.

  I slip my dress off over my head and creep in next to Conor, who is now pretending to be asleep. I cuddle up close, nudge him with my belly. He curls towards me and puts his arm over my shoulders. See, the loving couple.

  And so we are, so we are. Until one of us kills the other.

  32

  There was a way in. There’s always a way in when there’s someone on the inside willing to open the door.

  Siggy waited until he got the all-clear from Signy before launching the final attack on the Estate itself. He wanted to be sure there were no uncontainable weapons ready to go off, but it wasn’t just that. He was mindful of his public duties – conquest at any cost – but he did not forget the private ones too: murdering Conor and rescuing his sister. Somehow, he still considered that she needed to be rescued. These two things he wanted for himself and Styr in person. He had to be sure he knew where to find them before he gave the final orders of the war.

  When he gave those orders a hail of shells and missiles tore the sky to rags and hit the Estate in a concentration such as even Europe had never seen before. It was a fire storm; the air itself began to burn. In such a man-made catastrophe there could be no survivors. It didn’t just destroy life, it left no trace of it behind. When the troops came in afterwards, they found a hard layer of muddy glass on the ground where the buildings had melted. Then they had to use still more shells to blast the meltrock away before they could find the entrances to the system of bunkers below ground where the fire had been unable to penetrate. This was where Conor made his last stand.

  The bunkers were built in the bedrock, a labyrinth of tunnels, rooms, underground buildings and escape passages. They could survive a nuclear explosion had such devices been available any more. The whole thing was booby-trapped and guarded by layer after layer of the blue uniformed bodyguard, like a computer game made flesh. Conor and his Queen could be anywhere inside and to search for them could have been a long and deadly game, perhaps an impossible one to accomplish. Except, of course, that Siggy had a map.

  He waited to hear the first missiles howling overhead before he entered the bunkers. It was a matter of honour to see the beginning of the attack, but Siggy could hardly wait. He wanted the knife once again at his side or, even better, at Conor’s throat, while the bombs were still sounding above ground. He could hear it, almost – certainly feel it, calling to him with its silent voice through all the rock and darkness beneath the ground, where it had been hidden for so long.

  The entrance began in the cellar of a small, derelict terraced house in Hamilton Road, a couple of miles away from Conor’s HQ. By the time the red bricks of the Estate were powder and the stones melting in the heat, Siggy and his men were already two hundred metres underground, creeping along the narrow passage like rats. Above them they could hear distant gentle thuds, and when they put their hands to the rough stone around them they could feel a vibration – all the evidence there was of the holocaust above their heads. This passage would lead them directly into Conor’s living quarters, below the guard, below the booby traps, below everything. Once again, Signy had come up with the goods. Siggy was to be given all his wishes on a plate, but he wasn’t feeling all that glad.

  The tunnel was tight, narrow and damp, and Siggy was sick with fear. Sick, partly because he was always terrified before every mission, and this was the first one he had been on personally for six years, since the Wallace operation. A general doesn’t risk his own skin. This was the culmination of so much. Conor was a bogeyman in his eyes too. Then there was Signy. His beloved sister. He knew she was mad, but he didn’t realise that he was scared of her too. He trusted her. Hadn’t she always delivered to him whatever she promised?

  Whose side could she possibly be on if not his own?

  33

  siggy

  I wasn’t just feeling sick. I had a migraine, a fever and the squits. I had to keep hanging behind and squirting yellow stink on the stones. Some soldier! Some king. It’d been years since I’d done anything like this. I was cursing myself, wishing I�
�d let Styr do it on his own. I mean, maybe it was no worse than it always had been, but I used to be used to being afraid, you know? And now I was just so scared. I could see Styr looking at me every time I stopped.

  ‘Maybe you should go back,’ he teased. I didn’t even smile. The passageway was getting narrower and narrower, I was feeling claustrophobic and I was thinking to myself, if the gods want me to do this sort of thing, why don’t they make me enjoy it? Look at Styr, he was practically having a tea party. It just wasn’t fair.

  I don’t know how far we got. There weren’t many landmarks at that point, but we must have been quite a way into the main part of the bunker because we could hear Conor’s troops. They were in different tunnels, of course, but ours ran pretty close to some of theirs, and you could hear them quite clearly. At least once, they must have been just a metre or so away. You could hear their voices and their kit banging on the walls as they ran along.

  All of which meant we had to be dead quiet ourselves in case they heard us. Actually, they probably wouldn’t have known who we were even if they had; as far as they were concerned our boys were all coming down from the top. But even so, we were on our own, miles from any support, behind enemy lines. Even though we knew our tunnel didn’t meet up with theirs until right at the end, just the thought kept us on tip-toes.