by Chris Ward
‘You know,’ Carl said, his voice wistful, ‘I used to dream of something like this happening. Going on an adventure and all that. Like in a storybook. Except that now that I am, I’d so much rather be back at home. Doing homework, even.’
Ishael tried to smile. ‘When you dream of adventure, you never see the blood so red,’ he said.
They continued up the hill. Back to the right Carl could see over the perimeter wall of Exeter, see the rows of houses built on a hillside, the spire of the cathedral poking up from among them. He could see the railway line where it passed through the perimeter wall, could even see part of the track on the inside before it disappeared among the houses. He wondered what had happened to the driverless train engine.
They reached the ridge summit. Jess didn’t look up at them as they put their bags down. ‘See anything?’ Ishael asked her.
‘No water,’ she replied.
Ishael cursed. ‘Damn it, there should be a canal passing by somewhere along here. That’s what William said. Carl, please try the radio again.’
Carl began to flick through the frequencies. Then he had a thought. He stood up, scanning the valley below them.
‘What is it?’ Ishael asked.
Carl turned to him. ‘You said it’s a canal, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘And it’s no longer used?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Canals aren’t like rivers, you know. They take maintaining. A continuing water supply, dredging, that kind of thing. If no one uses them, they tend to go to seed.’
‘You mean –’
‘It could be silted up, overgrown. It could be right in front of us but we can’t see it because there’s no water at this end.’
‘William said the canal went right to Exeter.’
‘It probably does. But that doesn’t mean it can be navigated that far by boat.’
Jess stood up. She pointed towards a line of trees. ‘There.’
A thin line of trees arced through the middle of the valley and then swung around the rise below them, angling in the direction of Exeter. They hadn’t noticed because of the rest of the forest in the valley, but now that Jess pointed it out, it was easy to see the slightly darker green of the fast-growing coniferous trees that had been planted along the canal side. Where they could see between them in places, was just a belt of green, like an old forest trail.
‘I thought it was an old railway line,’ she said.
‘Grab your things. We have to go,’ Ishael said. ‘We need to find where the others landed before it gets too dark to see.’
‘The Huntsmen will be on our trail,’ Carl said. ‘Even if we find the others, how are we going to escape?’
Ishael patted him on the shoulder. ‘One problem at a time, please. Come on, let’s go.’
#
‘I thought you said it went right to Exeter.’
Reeder glanced back at Paul as they climbed off the boat. ‘It does. You just can’t go that far by boat. It’s a nice cycle ride, however. In the unlikely event that you happen to have a bicycle.’
For the last mile or so the canal had made a thin course through swampy green water, reeds and other water plants pressing in from either side, leaving only a thin channel in the centre of the canal. Eventually Reeder had docked them at a section of bank he told them he had cleared himself, while up ahead the canal was completely closed off by vegetation.
‘Don’t worry,’ Reeder said, leading them through the woods. ‘You’ll meet with your friends as planned.’
Owen, directly behind him, stopped. He put out a hand and Switch walked into it.
‘Hey, kid, watch out!’
Owen turned to the others. ‘I think we should stop trusting this guy,’ he said. ‘How do we know he’s not been paid off to turn us in?’
Marta sighed. ‘Owen, quit it. We’d either be dead or in a lot of pain by now if it wasn’t for John.’
‘He’s nuts!’
Paul and Switch took one of Owen’s shoulders each. ‘Come on, kid,’ Paul said. ‘We’ll get you some comic books as soon as we can.’
‘Don’t treat me like an idiot. Are we going to walk all the way to Falmouth, wherever the hell that is?’
Reeder turned around. He had a wide smile on his face. ‘He’s a bright one, your brother,’ he said to Paul. ‘Perhaps the rest of you should be less trusting of a kind hand. Something to consider as your journey continues. However, while I might live on a boat, from time to time I need to get around on land. Follow me.’
Marta raised an eyebrow at Switch who just shrugged as they followed John Reeder along a thin path cut through the woodland. Owen stood his ground a while, hands on hips, before giving up and following, cursing under his breath. As he dragged his feet along behind the others, Paul turned around. ‘Don’t get left behind,’ he said with a smile.
‘Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.’
‘Don’t worry, you’ll have more chances to be a hero later.’
Owen just wrinkled his nose and shook his head.
#
They were halfway down the hillside when they saw the convoy. A land cruiser followed by two trucks, bumping quickly along a dirt road that swung down through the valley from the north. Full darkness was less than half an hour away, but still the vehicles had no lights on.
‘We run, now!’ Ishael shouted. ‘The Huntsmen are in there!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘As sure as I need to be! Come on!’
Ishael, moving in an awkward, shambling gait that reminded Carl of some of the old men who sat outside the village pub on a Sunday afternoon, led them down towards the woodland and the dried up section of canal. The road ran parallel along the opposite side of the valley. As they reached the trees they heard the sound of the trucks as they passed by, less than three hundred feet away.
‘Pray they’re shut up tight,’ Ishael said. ‘They smell us now, we’re dead.’
Carl glanced back towards Jess. The girl wore her rucksack on her back, the clawboard sticking out the top. In each hand she held a knife.
Through the trees they heard the sound of a vehicle slowing down.
‘Faster!’ Ishael hissed.
They dashed through the trees, trying to follow the course of the dry canal. Ishael went first, Carl behind him, trying to shepherd Jess. The girl seemed intent on being last, or perhaps the first to die should the Huntsmen capture them, Carl thought.
In front of him, Ishael tripped on a root and tumbled to the ground. Carl hauled him up again but Ishael’s injuries were starting to slow him down. As they moved off again, Jess continued to bring up the rear, eyes scanning the forest behind them.
‘Come on . . .’ Carl heard her whisper.
Ishael looked around them. They had moved away from the dry canal because of a thicker area of trees. Now, in the falling darkness, he looked disorientated.
‘Shit, which way were we going?’
Carl pointed. ‘I think it’s back that way.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Wait.’ Carl looked around for a rock. Testing its weight in his hands, he threw it hard up into a tree to their right.
With a collective cry a small flock of roosting birds rose and flew off to their left. Carl pointed in the opposite direction. ‘That way is Exeter. Which means the canal is . . . over there. Come on.’
As they moved Ishael cocked his head at Carl. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Birds never fly towards a settlement,’ Carl said. ‘Just one of the things you learn from spending the majority of your childhood in a forest.’
‘Listen!’ Jess shouted behind them. She pointed forwards. ‘Another truck.’
They squatted down low and listened. She was right. Through the trees they could hear the sound of another vehicle coming towards them.
‘Do we go back?’ Carl asked.
‘No, we’ll be surrounded. We have to try and get around it before it stops and unloads its men.’
They m
oved on through the trees, more cautiously now. After a few seconds Carl realised the ground beneath their feet was getting soggy. They had to be close to the canal again. Maybe here they would find Jess’s friends.
Again they heard the grumble of a truck engine, behind them this time. They quickened their pace through the trees, swatting aside the low hanging branches and leafy foliage that clawed at their faces.
And then Carl bumped into Ishael, who had stopped in front of him. Jess almost ran into them both, looking up just in time to stop herself.
‘What do we do now?’ Carl said.
The woodland had ended. In front of them an open meadow stretched away alongside the clogged waters of the old canal. To their right the valley side rose, with barely a tree for cover. There was nowhere to hide.
‘We don’t have time to wait for dark,’ Ishael said. ‘If they unload the trucks it won’t take the Huntsmen long to find our scent. We have to stay close to the canal. If necessary, we can wade through the reeds to the other side and double back. Come on.’
They jogged down to the canal side and headed along the remains of what had once been a cycling path, the tarmac now cracked and barely visible through the rampant weeds.
‘They still use this for pasture,’ Carl said. ‘Otherwise it would be overgrown.’
‘A pity it isn’t,’ Ishael said. ‘It would make tracking us just that little bit harder.’
Carl glanced back at Jess, but the girl had vanished. He looked around. ‘Ishael! Where is she?’
The other man pushed through the weeds into the meadow. He squinted into the gloom. ‘Over there! Good God, what’s she doing?’
Jess stood in the middle of the field, a knife in each hand, facing back towards the forest.
‘Jess!’ Carl shouted, but the girl didn’t answer.
‘It’s suicide!’ Ishael said. ‘They will kill her!’
‘She thinks she has nothing left to live for,’ Carl said. ‘What do we do?’
‘We can’t just let her give her life away. Come on!’
They hurried through the grass towards her. Carl got there first, Ishael some way behind. Carl grabbed Jess’s arm. ‘No!’ he shouted, trying to twist her around. ‘They will kill you if you stay! They don’t want us alive!’
‘They killed my mother . . . my father . . . Simon . . . it’s their turn to die.’
Carl glanced at Ishael. The other man nodded.
Taking one arm each, they began to drag Jess backwards towards the canal.
They had gone only a few feet when lights appeared through the trees back in the direction they had come from. A vehicle was making its way slowly through the undergrowth, the headlights on full beam now. They heard the sound of spinning wheels, the groan of a powerful engine hauling it through the soggy earth, guiding it between the trees.
‘Look, up there! It’s the others!’ Carl pointed. The land cruiser and the two other trucks were carefully negotiating a dirt path down into the meadow. They too had their lights on now. There was no more need for surprise now that their prey was surrounded. If the Huntsmen really were in that truck, then Carl, Ishael and Jess had no chance of escape.
‘Take out your guns,’ Jess said. ‘We stand and fight.’
‘We’ll be cut down!’
‘There’s nowhere left to run. Better to die with their blood on our hands.’
Carl glanced at Ishael, and saw the defeat in his face. Jess wanted to go out with a fight, but Carl knew the beating Ishael had taken had left scars more than skin deep. He had found out first hand just how ruthless the government could be. If the DCA took them alive, death might prove a mercy.
‘We might take a couple of them with us,’ Ishael said reluctantly, but if it comes to it turn the guns on yourselves. Don’t let them capture you.’
Carl wanted to cry, but knew it would solve nothing. Less than two days ago he’d been a happy-go-lucky country boy playing the forest, shooting at signs and birds with his catapult –
‘Wait!’ he said. ‘Lower your guns. Save the bullets.’ He pulled the catapult out of his bag. ‘With this I can take out their headlights, and they won’t hear a thing. Now run at them! Angle right, back towards the canal!’
‘We’ll be cut down!’
‘What choice do we have?’
Ishael dragged Jess as Carl loaded the catapult with a rock he found in the grass at his feet. If he could take out the headlights, maybe the dark would give them enough cover to get back into the woods.
The closest vehicle – the land cruiser – closed to fifty, forty, thirty feet. Carl lifted the catapult and took aim.
Ishael put an arm on his shoulder. ‘Not the light, you’ll never break it. Aim for the windscreen. It will surprise them more.’
Carl nodded. The truck closed to twenty feet and began to slow down. He closed one eye, aimed, and fired.
The rock struck the windscreen and Carl heard a loud crack. The vehicle jerked to one side, the lights swinging away from them, momentarily leaving them in darkness.
‘Now, the canal. Go!’ Ishael shouted as the truck started to come back around. Its lights swept in a wide arc towards them. Carl saw the cover of the reeds just fifty feet in front of him, but there was something there, something standing in front of the canal, waiting –
Jess slumped to her knees, just as the truck’s lights came around to light up the field around them. Ishael turned to help her up, but she hadn’t fallen. She’d seen the robed figure standing by the canal, waiting for them. Shock had felled her, the fight draining away.
Carl lifted the catapult, feeling utterly pathetic now. It was useless against the Huntsman, but the gun was in his bag; he would never get to it in time.
They heard the audio click of a loudspeaker switch on behind them. ‘Stay where you are! Do not move!’
The two trucks came to a halt behind the land cruiser. Glancing up, Carl saw the Huntsman still standing by the canal. Beneath the cowl he could see only a black pit of darkness. The creature started to walk towards them, robe wrapped around its body like some ancient druid. Carl felt his blood run cold.
Behind them, Carl heard the sound of the truck door slam.
‘Well, well, it’s a surprise to see you again,’ a man’s voice said.
Carl saw Ishael flinch slightly as he looked up. ‘Take me, let the others go,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll tell you anything you want to know.’
‘Hmm. Bargaining. Well, considering that we have all three of you already, what makes you think I would consider your offer?’ the man said, smiling. ‘Don’t worry. You won’t die until we have your friends. You are meeting them here, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know –’
‘Oh, we do. We intercepted your radio transmissions.’
‘You bastard.’
The man gestured at the DCA agents pooling behind him. ‘Secure them, get them into the truck. We’ll take cover until the others get here. You, get away. Dreggo?’
Carl saw the Huntsman by the canal had come closer, it’s cowl hung low. He could hear the rough breathing as though it were hurt or out of breath. Ishael had told him how these creatures were unstable, how they could tear you apart in a second regardless of their orders.
‘Dreggo?’ the man shouted back at the trucks. ‘Get out here and call it off!’
Ishael put a protective arm around the shivering, trembling Jess, while Carl squatted down beside them. His heart thundered in his chest.
Then the Huntsman by the canal roared, and the cloak fell away. The ear splitting sound of machinegun fire filled the meadow, and for a second before the headlights were shot out of the land cruiser and the two trucks Carl saw two men where the Huntsman should have been, one standing tall, another squatted down. A third dashed out from behind them to where Jess, Carl and Ishael had ducked down.
But it wasn’t a man at all. ‘Hurry!’ the girl hissed as the two men sprayed the trucks with bullets.
‘Marta?’ Jess stammered, surprised, the first
real emotion Carl had heard in Jess’s voice since Simon had died.
The girl called Marta led them down the slope towards the canal. Behind them the sound of breaking glass and tearing metal filled the air for long seconds. Then the gunfire abruptly stopped and Carl heard running feet behind him, beyond it the shouts of the Department of Civil Affairs men trying to reorganise themselves. One shout hung above all others: ‘Release the Huntsmen!’
Ahead of them, beyond the reeds more headlights flicked on, and an engine burst into life.
‘Quickly!’ Marta shouted. ‘Get into the back!’
Carl saw a Land Rover, not unlike one his father’s friend Lionel Barnes owned, but one that had clearly been tampered with to make it even better equipped to handle the rough terrain. The chassis had been jacked up, the wheels enlarged.
A young boy waiting in the open back helped to pull him up alongside the others. As the smaller of the two men vaulted over the side, Marta, the girl Carl now realised was the leader of the Tube Riders, punched the metal back of the cab and shouted, ‘Reeder, go!’
The Land Rover bumped off down a thin lane that ran along the top of the old canal, shielded from sight by a thin, reed-filled channel alongside the meadow which they had come from. A moment later it bumped up over the old edge of the canal and began to thread its way through the trees, following an old road or trail. Within a few minutes they were out of the wood and on the gravelly remains of a proper road, the Land Rover’s headlights on dip but given additional shielding with metal flaps that hung over the lights, making them harder to spot from a distance.
Carl looked around the open back of the Land Rover as it bumped along. Two men in their early twenties and a young boy sat with their backs against the cab. Marta had got into the front.
One of the men was round-faced, prematurely balding and a little overweight. He wore spectacles and gave Carl a warm, fatherly smile. The other was wiry thin with a pinched, ratty face and short-cropped hair. This one appeared to be winking at Carl. The boy was thinner but clearly resembled the bigger of the two men, although he had a lot more hair. All of them, he noticed, were avoiding looking at Jess.