Questors

by Joan Lennon

  ‘Bryn!? Do you realize – if we’d done what the paper said, if we’d come here “immediately”, we’d have walked straight into that. Straight into the middle of a battlefield, with no weapons and no equipment and no warning and no clue…’ Her voice quivered and stopped.

  Cam gave her an encouraging shove with its shoulder. ‘Lucky for us we didn’t, then, wasn’t it!’ it said.

  ‘The message was meant to get us killed,’ Madlen insisted.

  Bryn looked up, red-faced from bending over. ‘We’re going. Get ready.’

  ‘Going? Where?’

  He stood up and stamped, settling his feet in the boots. ‘To the Castle. We’re not going to find out anything here.’

  Cam gaped. ‘You want us to go out there!? With that lot!?’

  ‘The fighting’s moving away. And it can’t be far off time for it to be over for the day anyway.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Nine to five, is it?’ Cam scoffed.

  Bryn nodded, and Cam looked confused.

  ‘Go downstairs.’ He didn’t want to talk – that much was clear from his voice. The others exchanged uncertain looks and went.

  As they headed for the door, Bryn stopped to tip some discarded clothes back into the chest. He followed the others. At the top step, he turned to close the door.

  When he turned back, everything had changed.

  29

  War on Kir

  ‘War’s over, soldier.’

  Bryn felt his blood jerk in his veins. The man in the room below was a complete stranger, but the cocked crossbow he held so casually in his hands needed no introduction. He must have been sitting silently out of sight, waiting for them to come down. It wasn’t as if they’d been particularly quiet. Suddenly Bryn could hear his pack-master’s voice.

  Real war is real. It isn’t a game. There’s no ‘den’ and no ‘time out’. Take it seriously and you may die. Don’t take it seriously and you will die. It’s as simple as that.

  How could he have been so stupid? Of course there would be stragglers. Or maybe this one had dropped behind deliberately, in the hope of picking off strays from the other Side or one or two of the walking wounded. He groaned out loud. The stranger’s eyes flicked up at him for the briefest second and then returned to their original focus.

  Madlen.

  With a lurch in perspective, Bryn realized what the stranger was seeing. Madlen, frozen on the stairs, would seem as tall as a man. She was dressed as a man, her girl’s hair hidden under that hat. He and Cam were small. They looked like children. But to someone who didn’t know her, Madlen looked like an adult male.

  In the ghastly slow motion of nightmare he saw the tip of the crossbow rising and the stranger’s eyes narrow as he took aim at Madlen’s heart.

  Move! Shout! Stop him! Bryn’s brain screamed at him. I’m trying! I’m trying! he screamed back.

  With a supreme effort, Bryn managed to stumble down a step and croak, ‘Nnnno –’

  – just as the outside door slammed open. The stranger swung round, automatically releasing the crossbow bolt, which lodged itself solidly in the doorframe a few centimetres from the head of another soldier.

  ‘Cripes, Sarge!’ the man shrieked. ‘What’d I do?!’

  The crossbowman swore with a creativity that made everyone blink. He continued to curse for some time, but eventually wound down enough to ask, ‘Well? What do you want?’ The soldier, still cowering by the open door, drew himself up nervously and saluted.

  ‘Came to tell you the time, sir,’ he barked, paradestyle, at attention and staring straight ahead. ‘Like you told me to tell you, sir. Almost Bells, sir.’

  A clanging sound drifting in from outside interrupted him.

  ‘Er…’ The soldier’s voice wavered a bit. ‘Not exactly almost any more. Sir.’

  For a long moment, the ringing continued and even grew louder. The noise would carry many kilometres on the cold, clear air. The crossbowman stared at the floor.

  Finally, the clanging died away. Without a flicker of a smile, the crossbowman looked up at Madlen on the stairs.

  ‘Saved by the Bell,’ he said and walked across the room and out of the door. The unfortunate subordinate scurried away at his heels, closing the door carefully behind them.

  There was a moment of shocked silence.

  ‘Bryn?’ quavered Cam, but he shook his head. He looked as if he were about to be sick.

  ‘We’ve got to go now,’ he said in a strange voice. ‘Up to the Castle. Before it gets dark.’

  The others didn’t argue.

  There was no one in the farmyard, but on the road beyond travellers were beginning to appear. The three crossed the churned-up yard, Cam and Madlen peering about nervously, Bryn head down, and joined them.

  They started off up the valley. The traffic thickened as two lines of soldiers, moving in opposite directions, began to filter on to the road’s easier surface from the fields around. Each line ignored the other completely. Transport trucks now rumbled by between them, turning the snow into a muddy sludge. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing, and everyone was doing it with the utmost dreariness.

  Cam and Madlen waited for Bryn to start filling them in, but he just kept walking, head down, shoulders slumped.

  Finally, Madlen couldn’t stand it any more.

  ‘Bryn,’ she said, and then louder, ‘Bryn!’

  He looked at her, eyes dull.

  ‘You’ve got to talk to us – we haven’t a clue here!’

  He nodded, and kept walking.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I’ll… try.’

  Cam leapt in with questions.

  ‘So, what was that stuff with the bell? Why did the man stop trying to kill us? I mean, he just let us go! Why? It doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘And him trying to kill us in the first place does make sense?!’ shrilled Madlen.

  Bryn checked that no one was in earshot. ‘Look, he didn’t know it was you. I mean, he didn’t know you were a girl – he thought you were a man…

  Madlen started to look huffy.

  ‘Thanks a lot!’ she muttered.

  ‘No, it’s not like that! He wasn’t expecting a girl and there you were, in men’s clothes and that big hat and no hair showing… Anyway, that’s not really the point.’ He stopped and pulled off his own hat, running his hand roughly through his hair. ‘The point is, we landed in a DBZ and, since he didn’t recognize you as one of his Side, it was fair to assume you were on the other Side and then, of course, he left it too late, didn’t he, and it was Bells, so that was that…’

  Bryn ground to a halt. The others blinked and tried to look intelligent.

  ‘DBZ?’ ventured Cam.

  ‘Designated Battle Zone,’ said Bryn.

  ‘Bells?’ asked Madlen.

  ‘They ring this big bell so that everybody knows it’s the end of the BD and it’s time to stop fighting.’

  ‘And a BD is, um…?’

  ‘Battle Day. If he’d killed you after Bells, there’d have been a huge fine. His Side would lose points big time.’

  Cam turned to Madlen.

  ‘Not to mention the inconvenience to you,’ it added, but Madlen didn’t respond. She was staring at a man lying against a stone wall a little further along the road.

  He was dead.

  Neither Cam nor Madlen had ever seen a corpse before. The man was on the ground, leaning against the wall, his legs sprawled out untidily before him. He had his hands clutched tight over his stomach, his head thrown back, his face twisted in pain and at the same time utterly empty.

  Whoever said that death was like sleep hadn’t had this in mind.

  Bryn had walked on. He was acting as if the man weren’t there. He was acting as if they weren’t there. They had to bustle to catch up with him.

  ‘Bryn – didn’t you see? Back there – there’s a body back there! Shouldn’t we –?’

  But Bryn interrupted her.

  ‘They’ll collect it.’

  ‘B
ut…’

  ‘I said, they’ll collect it!’

  ‘HEY!’

  The three jumped and swung round to see that one of the transport trucks had stopped. A young man with a clipboard and his arm in a sling leaned out from the back and was calling to them.

  ‘There’s room. Get in!’

  Madlen and Cam turned uncertainly to Bryn, but he was just standing there, stone still, with a strange expression on his face.

  The young man called again, beginning to sound impatient.

  ‘I said, there’s room. But if you want to walk to the Castle

  ‘Well, I don’t want to walk if I don’t have to.’ Madlen headed for the truck.

  Cam hesitated, then shrugged and gave Bryn a shove in the right direction.

  As soon as they were in the back, the young man pulled down the canvas flap and yelled to the driver. The truck started up at once. Then he slumped down in a spare space and apparently fell asleep).

  In the dimness, they could see the truck was full of weary soldiers, huddled in on themselves and paying no attention to the late arrivals.

  Under cover of the noise from the engine, Cam spoke to Bryn.

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong now?’

  Bryn shook his head.

  ‘He didn’t know me,’ he said. ‘He looked right at me and he didn’t know me.’

  ‘Who? The guy with the clipboard?’

  Bryn nodded miserably.

  ‘Well? Why should he know you? Who is he?’

  Bryn’s voice wobbled slightly.

  ‘He’s Nick – my best friend.’

  ‘Really?!’ Cam’s voice rose involuntarily, and Bryn immediately put a hand on its sleeve in warning.

  ‘Not a good place to talk,’ he muttered. ‘Keep your head down until I can figure this out.’

  Cam looked at him. He seemed older and more worn. He seemed like the soldiers around them. It turned to Madlen, but she had her eyes shut, as if she were pretending to be someplace else. Cam slumped back on the hard bench, gnawing its lip, and waited for the trip to end.

  *

  A long time later, Bryn suddenly straightened up.

  ‘Listen,’ he said.

  The muddy lurching and slurping of the truck had changed.

  ‘Cobbles. We must be getting to the Castle.’

  The soldiers shifted, trying to unstiffen after the long ride, and Nick with the clipboard woke up. The truck stopped.

  ‘We’re here,’ he said, flipping back the heavy canvas flap. ‘Fun’s over for today.’

  Grumbling, everyone piled out into the courtyard of the Castle. The sky was fully dark now and the snow that had started to fall was lit in swirls and flurries by harsh electric spotlights from the walls. The place was packed with people, milling about in the cold. Nobody seemed to be paying them any special attention, but Cam and Madlen felt conspicuous – everything was so strange. Everyone must be able to tell they didn’t belong. And they didn’t know what Bryn was thinking. He was giving no clues.

  ‘Wait here a second,’ he muttered, and pushed off through the crowd.

  There was a sullen air to the place. Maybe it was just the end of a long, cold day. Maybe people just wanted it to be done, and were thinking about food and dry socks, and that was why they seemed not to want to meet each other’s eyes. Maybe. But it didn’t feel like that. And there was something else…

  ‘Have you noticed,’ whispered Cam, ‘how everybody’s sort of… green?’

  ‘What?’ said Madlen. ‘Who?’

  Cam shrugged. ‘Well, maybe not green, but greenish. Sort of yellowy-whitey-greenish. Like they’re all ever so slightly motion sick?’

  ‘You’re crazy’ Madlen said automatically, but then, as she looked more closely at the crowding Kirians, she added, ‘Or maybe you’re not…’

  At that moment, they saw Bryn shouldering his way back to them. He looked tired, and tense, and troubled, but the colour of his skin was undeniably different. He looked basically healthy; the others looked as if they had been ill for a long, long time.

  ‘Stick close,’ he grunted, and they didn’t argue.

  Once inside the building, they joined a general shuffle towards the faint whiff of cooking. It was enough to start the Questors salivating. So when Bryn abruptly pulled them out of the crowd and into a dingy, dim side corridor, the other two were not best pleased.

  ‘Bryn!’

  ‘I’m hungry!’

  But Bryn only tapped his nose knowingly.

  ‘Trust your clever brother, little ones,’ he said. ‘This is a short cut. Unless you want to spend the next hour queuing? Hmmm? I thought not.’

  He had just turned back, an irritatingly smug expression on his face, when a figure loomed suddenly in front of them, blocking their path. It grabbed Bryn by the coat, picked him up effortlessly and slammed him into the wall.

  30

  Welcome Home

  The man’s white hair and wrinkled face didn’t seem to bear any relation to his strength. He shook Bryn a few times for good measure, like a dog worrying a rat, and then dropped him in a heap on the stone floor.

  ‘Right, boy’ he growled. ‘Just what do you think you’re playing at?’

  Bryn gargled nervously.

  ‘Um, I’m not… um, you…’

  The Steward kicked him.

  ‘Don’t lie. Do you think I don’t know every boy who’s ever passed through my hands? I’m the Steward. I know everything.’

  There was the sound of someone approaching down the hall. The old man frowned.

  ‘Can’t talk here,’ he muttered. ‘Come with me.’

  He set off quickly in the other direction, not bothering to check that they were coming with him.

  They came.

  He led the way up a flight of stairs, along corridors, down other stairs, around corners, until…

  ‘In here,’ he said, pushing open a door.

  The room was warm and welcoming, with a good fire and plain but pleasant furnishings. And there was someone there before them, unfolding himself from one of the chairs.

  ‘Bryn? Is it really you?!’ It was Nick, the soldier with the sling. He was frowning at first, uncertain – and then his big open face broke into an enormous smirk. ‘It is! It’s you! You little toerag – you haven’t grown a bit!’

  ‘You have,’ said Bryn, grinning wildly. ‘I bet they could use you to dust ceilings with your head!’

  ‘Go and find them some food, Nick, and yourself. You can do the reunion later.’ The Steward turned to the three. ‘You lot stay here – I have a few things to see to. When I get back, we’ll talk.’

  He left.

  Nick sidled up to Bryn and whispered loudly, ‘Listen… Bryn… I was just wondering… does all this have anything to do with that… that thing you used to do –?’ And he made a scribbly gesture with his hand.

  Bryn swallowed and shook his head. ‘No, of course not. I grew out of that ages ago.’

  Nick shut one eye and tapped the side of his nose wisely. ‘Good idea,’ he murmured. ‘I was sure you would.’

  He nodded in a friendly way to Madlen and Cam and followed the Steward out of the room, presumably in the direction of the kitchens.

  There was a moment’s pause in which Bryn stared with hot eyes at the wall. Then, so suddenly the other two jumped, he exploded in a suppressed sort of way.

  ‘I hope you’re satisfied,’ he grated between clenched teeth. ‘Now you know. This is me. In my World. Makes sense of a lot of things, I don’t doubt.’

  ‘What are you on about?’ said Madlen, frowning.

  ‘What am I on about?! I’m on about me!’

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ said Cam.

  Bryn snorted. ‘What’s wrong with me! Just look at me!’

  He swung round to face them and spread his arms out with a pathetic melodrama. ‘Can you honestly say you see standing before you the makings of a two-metre fighting machine that can draw a 400-kilo crossbow with his teeth and bounce r
ocks off his chest?’

  Cam started to open its mouth, but Bryn answered his own question.

  ‘No, of course you can’t. If I make it to the Third Reserve Battalion in Charge of Cowering in the Cellars, it’ll be a miracle. They probably wouldn’t want me, though. I’d probably screw up their Cowardice Average.’

  Cam and Madlen had never seen Bryn in such a state.

  ‘But you’re still grow –’ began Madlen.

  ‘We like you the way you a –’ protested Cam at the same time.

  They both stopped and grinned awkwardly.

  Bryn collapsed into a chair, groaned, and buried his face in his hands.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said, sounding muffled. ‘I’ve finished.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Sorry.’

  Cautiously, Madlen went over to him and gave his shoulder a pat. Nothing happened, so she patted again.

  ‘It’s what Nick said about your drawing, isn’t it,’ said Cam suddenly.

  Bryn nodded, still not looking up.

  ‘Is it really so bad?’ Madlen asked carefully. ‘I know they don’t like arty stuff back on Trentor, but what’s the story here? There are pictures, paintings and stuff in the Castle – I saw them!’

  ‘Oh, art’s OK,’ answered Bryn bitterly. ‘No, it’s better than just OK. It’s very valued. But it’s a girl thing. Boys wouldn’t even consider it.’

  He heaved a great sigh.

  ‘I could get away with it, maybe,’ he said sadly, ‘if I were huge. If I were huge and courageous and could do all the warrior stuff, people might be prepared to let it pass as, like, a quirk. But… this is me we’re talking about. You’ve seen how I am – at the farmhouse, and with the zombies, and, and, all the time – I’m scared. I’ve been scared my whole life.’ He swallowed hard. ‘I’m a coward. There’s no getting around it.’

  ‘Rubbish –’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud –’

  The door opened and the Steward came in. He looked at the three of them for a moment, and they instinctively felt guilty, as if he’d caught them out in something. Then he grunted and poked the fire.

  ‘Nick not back yet?’ he said.

  They shook their heads dumbly.

  ‘Good lad, Nick,’ he went on. ‘Heart bigger than his head, of course. He won’t have really cottoned on to the reason you’re still such a runt… Bruce?’