The Wolf Mile

by C. F. Barrington

  Now the men closest to the tunnel were starting to clap and excited shouts began to roll into the Throne Room. The crowd hummed and surged.

  ‘Hail. The White Warrior lives,’ someone yelled.

  And Calder gasped, her hand coming up to her mouth. For it was true. From the tunnel came Halvar and Punnr.

  XXXII

  Tyler walked sluggishly past the shops of George Street in the dark hours of morning. The first signs of traffic were showing and the earliest office workers were opening up and switching on lights. He was drained to the point of exhaustion and his brain was as torpid as his limbs. He had showered mechanically in the Reception Area and was one of the last to leave through the North West Gate. It was bitterly cold and he clasped his coat around him and wondered why he hadn’t felt the chill during the Raid.

  He didn’t even hear her speak the first time and she had to call again. He looked back to see Lana following him. She approached, watching him uncertainly, trying to read his expression under his hat. ‘Would you like another coffee?’

  He glanced around at the shops. ‘I’m not sure we’ll find one open yet.’

  ‘Are you heading home?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Want company?’

  He looked into her big eyes. ‘Okay.’

  They walked to Learmonth in silence. They didn’t even check behind them, for they were past caring if the Pantheon was watching.

  ‘This is me,’ he said as they reached the corner outside his flat and she glanced around at the dark gardens.

  ‘Nice,’ was all she said.

  The world was waking up as normal. A paperboy was making the early rounds. Fat Mrs Hendrie puffed by on her morning jog and gave Tyler a wave which he returned. Oliver’s light was on, but his curtains drawn. They entered the building and the schnauzer went mad behind the Connaughts’ door.

  ‘Sorry. He spends every waking moment listening for me.’

  At his front door, Tyler ferreted inside a pair of Wellington boots and retrieved a key, then led Lana inside. Food was still discarded by the sink and his duvet scrunched on the sofa. There was a full ashtray on the table and the place smelt, so he pulled back the curtains and threw open a window as the first hints of daylight leaked across the gardens. ‘Make yourself at home. Sorry about the mess. I’ll sort coffee.’

  Lana folded his duvet and perched on the sofa while he busied himself in the kitchen. She took in the almost empty whisky bottle, the photos on the sideboard, the books stacked along the mantelpiece and the sheets of paper scattered around his laptop with notes scrawled across them.

  Day of rest – a blog. Edinburgh Peace and Justice Centre. Edinburgh SDA Church. SDA = Seventh Day Adventists.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said again as he brought her coffee and then tidied up the papers.

  ‘One of the clues?’

  ‘The one we were meant to go for tonight. If I’d managed to solve it, we wouldn’t have needed to follow the Titans.’ He settled into a saggy armchair opposite her and reached for the whisky. ‘But I failed. And now I have two more.’

  ‘Are you expected to solve them alone?’

  ‘It seems that way.’ He took a swig from the bottle and sucked his teeth. ‘The War Council is privy to the clues, but the Horde is no exception to the rule that shit always falls downwards and guess who’s at the bottom?’

  ‘Let me help you.’

  ‘It’s not really permitted.’

  ‘There’s a lot of things that aren’t permitted. It’s not permitted for me to be sitting here.’

  Tyler conceded her point with a shrug. Lana examined his haggard face. His hair was lank. His cheeks had not seen a razor for several days and purple blotches were livid beneath his eyes. ‘Do you often start your day with that stuff?’

  ‘When I’ve spent the entire night risking my life, yes I do.’

  ‘How did you manage to be separated from the rest of the Horde? You. The White Warrior. The one we’re all supposed to be protecting?’

  ‘Bjarke’s men deserted me without the slightest attempt to engage the enemy. Either they’re a bunch of spineless cowards or someone told them to leave me. Whichever way, I don’t trust them an inch.’

  ‘That’s a dangerous accusation. Blood was almost spilt in the Throne Room before your return, probably would have been if we’d still borne arms. How did you get away if they’d deserted you?’

  ‘I wasn’t meant to. My destiny was to die tonight when I had a Titan blade at my throat. She could have ended all Valhalla’s attempts at the Assets with one stroke, but she didn’t. She released me.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘No.’ Lana stayed silent. He was on the cusp of telling her more and she knew better than to push. He dragged his eyes from the mantelpiece and looked intently at her. ‘But I have this voice in my head that won’t stop telling me it all has something to do with Morgan.’

  ‘Have you found out anything else since we last spoke?’

  ‘Halvar thinks she’s alive, but he can’t say for sure. All I know is that it’s now ten months since I last saw her, so something serious must have happened.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tyler. Do you have other family?’

  He shook his head. ‘Never knew my father. My mother’s dead. It was just the two of us, and I thought we were doing okay. She used to be out most nights and I sort of guessed what she was doing, but we were okay. At least until the final months.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I think something – or someone – was really scaring her. But I’m probably only saying that now with the benefit of hindsight. I never saw her disappearance coming. Not in a million years. Just blew me away.’ He drained the whisky bottle. ‘So when I suddenly got a chance to join the Pantheon, I thought it was the golden opportunity to find her.’ He laughed hollowly. ‘Now look at me. She’s buggered off and I’m the bloody White Warrior of Valhalla being hunted by every Titan in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Not by one, from what you’ve just been saying.’

  Her comment made him lapse into silence. He toyed with the empty bottle and then stood. ‘Do you want some proper breakfast?’

  ‘That would be nice.’

  He walked to the kitchen again. ‘Just toast, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Perfect.’ She followed him and leaned on the work surface as he busied himself. ‘I had a daughter,’ she said quietly and he stopped to look at her. ‘Amelia.’

  ‘That’s a lovely name.’

  ‘She was the most perfect, beautiful bundle. She gave a crazy and intense new meaning to my life.’ She picked at her lip and Tyler could see her fingers were shaking. ‘She was born with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Her bone marrow was making too many immature lymphocytes. By two she was getting fevers and she would bruise at the slightest touch. But she was always happy. Always laughing.’

  Tyler buttered the toast and pushed a plate towards her. ‘Then, I think, she started to suffer more pain. She cried so much, yet it was always softly. Just her tears and the tortuous expression on her face. The doctors said it was her joints. Gradually she lost her appetite. That’s when they started with the lumbar punctures. Oh Tyler, she submitted to all those tests with such grace for someone so young.’

  She stared at him and he could see the pools in her eyes, so he moved awkwardly to hold her, but she brushed him away and forced herself to stay strong. ‘I’m sorry.’ She rubbed her eyes and took the toast back to the sofa. ‘I didn’t mean to get emotional. You don’t need to hear all this.’

  He seated himself silently across from her and waited for her to compose herself. ‘She endured so much during those eight months after it was first diagnosed. And she did it with such dignity. Such… serenity. She left me just before her third birthday. Two years, eleven months and fourteen days.’

  Lana bit into her toast and chewed, staring at the floor.

  ‘What of her father?’ Tyler asked. She blinked up at him and he immediately recanted. ‘Sorry. That wa
s crass of me.’

  They lapsed into silence for a few minutes and then Tyler asked, ‘Is Amelia why you’re here? In the Pantheon?’

  ‘You mean the reason I’m always so angry?’

  Tyler held up his hands in defence. ‘I didn’t say that.’

  She relented. ‘Yes. Of course it is. One of the Pantheon’s smart-arse research team will have gone – hey, look at her; the university dropout with a major chip on her shoulder, the loner with no family to speak of, the former national youth athlete, the girl kick-boxing her way through her grief, the woman defined by tragedy. Bingo, they’ll have said, we’ll have her. Send Radspakr and his Venarii party.’

  She stopped, realising she had been talking too frantically, and went back to her cold toast. Tyler watched her. ‘Thank you for the trust you’ve placed in me, Lana,’ he said, echoing her words in Jenners, but she didn’t respond.

  Tyler must have dozed off, for he woke to a knock at the door and the sound of Lana clearing up his kitchen.

  ‘Did they mind us not solving the riddle?’ asked Oliver when he answered. The boy was about to depart for school and Tyler could hear Mrs Muir preparing to leave in the flat opposite.

  ‘No, we got it sorted laddie. Thanks for all your efforts. But now I’ve got two more riddles.’

  ‘Two more?’

  ‘They’re the last ones, I promise. Do you want to see them?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Oliver followed him into the lounge, but stopped when he saw Lana behind the work surface in the open-plan kitchen. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Lana.’

  ‘Hi,’ he mumbled shyly.

  ‘Oliver’s my neighbour,’ Tyler explained. ‘He’s been helping me with my clues. Look at this one.’ Tyler pointed to a sheet of paper on which he had been writing.

  Oliver tore his eyes from Lana and came over to read the words. ‘Throttled by gunpowder in the old Kirk. You will find me where the lion’s mouth drips.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s the important one, the one we really need to find. Along with the earlier one we still can’t solve about the day of rest. Then there’s this other one as well.’ Tyler started writing beneath the first clue.

  Once again Oliver read aloud. ‘I am first and last of the seven, though there lie fourteen leagues between. You will find me on the fifth of the disgraceful twelve. What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, but we know the answer was on the top of Calton Hill below the National Monument of Scotland. You know the one I mean? With the columns?’

  ‘Yes,’ the boy nodded seriously. ‘The Parthenon. It was supposed to be Scotland’s monument to the fallen of the Napoleonic Wars, but funds ran out and it never got finished, so now it’s known as Scotland’s Disgrace. There are twelve columns, so I’m guessing your solution was by the fifth column.’

  Lana came over. ‘That’s impressive.’

  ‘It was the Distance Asset,’ Tyler said without thinking and Oliver scrunched up his nose in puzzlement.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Oh, sorry lad, I never told you about the four Assets. Each location has something important for the Valhalla Horde.’ Lana looked sharply at him. ‘Don’t worry, Oliver knows about my little nights out. So the first one at Nor’ Loch was Supplies and this one on Calton Hill was Distance. The remaining two are Time and Field. It’s too complicated to explain it further. Here,’ he gave the sheet to Oliver. ‘Do you think you might be able to make some sense of these?’

  ‘Comprehension at school this morning. They won’t notice if I’m concentrating on something much more interesting.’ Oliver turned back to Lana and stared at her. ‘Are you one of them as well?’

  Lana glanced at Tyler, who inclined his head in the affirmative, and she nodded to the boy.

  ‘Wow,’ he said in hushed tones, not taking his eyes from her.

  Lana brought the subject back to the matter in hand. ‘Has it occurred to you that the Assets might be part of the solution?’

  ‘How so?’ Tyler asked.

  ‘Well, I’m guessing Nor’ Loch was once full of water, which is an essential supply for any armed force. And the distance clue says something about fourteen leagues. Just a thought.’

  Man and boy looked at each other.

  When Oliver had gone, Lana finished the dishes and came back to Tyler who had lost himself in the clues. ‘I ought to be going.’

  ‘Sure. Do you have work?’

  ‘I threw in the towel last week.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘The Pantheon pays twice as well and requires a lot in return.’

  Tyler pondered this. ‘I don’t blame you. It does sort of make sense.’ He led her to the door. ‘Watch out for the schnauzer.’

  She hesitated and then leaned in and gave him a peck on the cheek.

  Bjarke was the last to shower in the Reception Area closest to East Gate and was alone pulling on his jeans, ready to emerge back into Edinburgh daylight, when Radspakr stole into the room. A fog hung in the air, scented by shower gel and deodorant. Radspakr sat on one of the benches, still dressed in his gown, while a bare-chested Bjarke pummelled his hair with a towel.

  ‘What happened?’ Radspakr asked.

  ‘It was going just as we planned and the son of a whore should have been bled dry.’

  ‘So I ask you again, what happened?’

  ‘As agreed, the Shieldmen left him in the loving arms of the Sacred Band, so your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps there’s more to this piss-stained whelp than I thought.’

  Radspakr looked at the swirling tattoos that ran across Bjarke’s chest and throat. ‘We can’t rely on the Titans anymore. They seem incapable of killing our White Warrior even when we present him to them.’

  ‘So give me his real identity and address and I’ll pay him a visit.’

  ‘Too risky, Jarl. It would raise too many questions.’

  ‘It’s easy to make it look like an accident.’

  Radspakr considered. ‘No. Not yet. I might return to your idea as a last resort. Meantime, we have two further Raids during which anything can happen.’

  Bjarke pulled on a smart black shirt and buttoned the cuffs. ‘You have a plan?’

  ‘Confusing things, battles. People can lose their bearings. Make mistakes. End up skewering someone they did not mean to.’

  Bjarke grinned. ‘I’ll have my Shieldmen prepare the skewers.’

  ‘No, not them. They are too important. If the Vigiles saw anything untoward, your Shieldmen would be hauled in front of one of Atilius’ tribunals and then have their skulls crushed until their brains came out their ears. No, I’m thinking more about your initiates in Hammer Regiment. What are their names?’

  ‘You mean the new Thegns. Ulf, Erland and Havaldr.’

  ‘Precisely. I watched the footage of their antics during the Sine Missione and could see they have no love for Punnr and his crowd. That one Ulf would slip a knife between his own mother’s ribs if he thought it would benefit him. Can they be trusted?’

  ‘All my Hammer Regiment can be trusted. They live in fear of me.’

  ‘Good. And the brats are expendable if anything goes wrong. Have them admitted to the Bodyguard.’ Radspakr rose. ‘You will brief them before the next Raid.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Do not mention my involvement. They need know nothing except that the White Warrior must not return or they will answer for it with their own lives.’

  Radspakr left and Bjarke brushed his hair, pulled on a smart, fitted jacket and strode out into a sunlit city.

  XXXIII

  Oliver was trying to maintain an aura of mystery, but the grin that split his face from ear to ear undermined him. It was two days since they had last spoken and he had been working relentlessly on the riddles.

  ‘I’m guessing it’s good news,’ Tyler said, sitting in his armchair with a cigarette between his fingers.

  ‘You could say that. You really owe me.’

  Tyler chuckled. ‘Hark a
t him.’

  ‘I think my prize should be a tour of the Valhalla underground tunnels!’

  ‘That’s impossible, Oliver. You know that.’

  The lad’s grin faded. He was perched on the sofa opposite, his iPad in hand, but now he stared sulkily at nothing.

  Tyler started again with a softer tone. ‘But what about a virtual tour? When there’s time – and your mum is happy for you to come over for an hour – I’ll draw tunnels for you on a map and show you where the main rooms are and tell you all about them. Is that a good compromise? Please Oliver, I still need your help.’

  ‘Okay.’ Mind made up, the boy brightened. ‘It’s a deal. So do you want to hear what I’ve worked out?’

  ‘Of course, partner.’

  ‘Your friend was correct about the four Assets. They are all key to the solutions. Is she your new girlfriend?’

  ‘No. But she’s important to me. So it’s also important to me that you like her.’

  ‘And she’s a Valhalla warrior like you?’

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘Then I like her. The first clue was the witch swimming tests in Nor’ Loch and it was for the Supplies Asset which includes water. We know that. The third clue was for Calton Hill and was the Distance Asset. It’s not important now, but – I am first and last of the seven, though there lie fourteen leagues between – is a reference to Edinburgh supposedly being built on seven hills, like Rome. Once I knew to focus on distance, I soon found there’s a Seven Hills race each year, which starts and finishes on Calton Hill and which measures fourteen miles – fourteen point three, to be exact.’

  ‘Nice one.’

  ‘You said the other two Assets were Time and Field. I wish you had told me that earlier, because now it all comes together. I went back to the clue we couldn’t work out. Hark! It is the day of rest and all is at peace. You will find me beside the carts. Now I searched on “time Edinburgh” and got nothing. Then I tried “clocks Edinburgh”. Mostly this just gave me shops and antiques, but then I saw something a bit different. The One o’clock Gun at the Castle. As most visitors know, at precisely that time each afternoon an L118 Light Gun is fired from the Castle ramparts as part of a tradition dating back to the 1860s when it was a signal for ships on the Forth, especially in foggy conditions. And get this, the only day it doesn’t fire is a Sunday.’