by Chris Ward
We’ve hung them up for you, sir.
He needed to see them for himself before he could confirm that one of them was indeed Jun Matsumoto, as he suspected. He had been waiting so long to see Jun again, and he would make sure Jun stayed awhile before he flew like the rest. He would let Jun watch all his friends die, and then send him back to where he came, via the sheer wall of the bluff.
The eagles could feast on his remains.
Excellent, he messaged the birdman. Keep watch over them. I will be there soon.
The cage was almost ready, and the birdmen were setting up cameras that would capture the drama from several exciting angles. There was a hidden camera inside the cage itself, as well as a microphone to pick up the terror that the captives would be feeling. There really was nothing like a good bit of suffering to capture the public’s imagination.
Kurou lifted his deformed hands and rubbed them together, the dry, brittle skin rustling like feathers.
Soon, soon. So very soon.
Ludvic flinched as the creature poked him in the back with the old metal spear. He bumped forward, into the last of the Japanese tourists in front of him. The old woman didn’t turn around, but she let out a sob that make Ludvic’s heart lurch.
My fault. I should have had more courage.
Up ahead, suspended from a rope and what looked like a few braids made of straw, a large steel cage hung from the underside of the covered gallery at the centre of the catwalk between the two towers. Two birdmen crouched on either side of an open trapdoor in the top, holding the end of a rope ladder down which the tourists were being forced to climb. Three were already inside the cage. As Ludvic waited his turn, he wondered again why he didn’t just make a stand, take on his captors and perhaps give the others a chance to escape. Part of it was the fear of the creature at his back, but worse was the memory of the man who had come to his house to make a preposition. You didn’t mess with someone like that.
I’m going to die, he thought. I’m going to die and I’m just going to let them do it. I’m going to let them put me into that cage where I’ll die.
‘Fight!’ another voice screamed at him. ‘Stand up for yourself!’
Ludvic looked up, and realised that someone was indeed screaming. He turned around, the voice suddenly stronger, and he saw, there, hanging from the battlements of the main keep to the north of the catwalk, two tiny figures. The voices came from there, one a reedy woman’s voice, the other with the harder edge of a man.
He twisted, one hand coming up and knocking the birdman across the side of the face. It shrieked and stumbled sideways, and in an instant Ludvic had used his huge strength to throw it over the side of the catwalk. It wailed as it plummeted into the trees below.
‘Fight or die!’ he shouted at the tourists, hoping his tone would relay the message they might not understand.
The creature had dropped its spear before it fell, and Ludvic hefted it in his hands as others came running from the door to the Queen’s Tower. Down by the cage there was another commotion as one of the tourists struck out at the birdmen waiting there, but as Ludvic heard the sound of tearing flesh followed by a metallic thud he knew the man had lost.
Hollering a war cry, he stood up to meet the oncoming creatures. The first was unarmed and he slammed the spear into its stomach, even as fingers like iron closed over his wrist and snapped it back with the crunch of bones. Ludvic screamed and jerked the impaled birdman over the side of the catwalk, but it took the spear with him. He threw a punch at the next but it walked right through it, absorbing the blow and then knocking him to the ground with one of its own.
In moments their uprising was quashed, and Ludvic, clutching his broken wrist to his chest as blood streamed down the side of his face, was shoved after the others into the cage. Feeling the chill air whistling up through the bars beneath his feet, he sat down in a corner and closed his eyes, hoping to forget the gentle swaying of the cage, or the tiny trees and buildings far below his feet.
Karin looked up as the door opened and a group of birdmen came in. Two of them grabbed her and pulled her to her feet, dragging her back towards the door.
‘Get off me!’ she screamed, managing to get one hand free long enough to rake her nails across the birdman’s face. A heavy blow cuffed her in the side of the face, and then her hands were secured behind her. Behind her, two others had disconnected Ken from the huge speakers and were wheeling his gurney towards the door.
‘Where are you taking us?’ she screamed.
The nearest birdman cocked his head, and when she saw the glimmer in his eyes Karin knew that Professor Crow was controlling all of them.
‘Showtime,’ the creature squawked, and Karin didn’t know whether to laugh hysterically or to cry.
The tourists had lapsed into silence. They sat huddled in pairs along the edges of the cage. Ludvic had managed to stop them clumping together at one end to keep the cage balanced, but as the rope creaked and the cage bars trembled, a quiet terror had fallen over them like a funeral veil. There was no way out. They were going to die.
A sound came from above them. A birdman dropped the rope ladder over the side of the catwalk wall and then deftly shimmied down onto the cage top, causing it to shake as his feet landed. There was a collective gasp from the prisoners, then a few mutterings of surprise as two new captives were pushed down the rope ladder and into the cage through the trapdoor the birdman was holding open.
The Japanese seemed interested in the woman. Perhaps in her late thirties, she was strikingly attractive despite the bags under her eyes and the bruises down the side of her face. She was the kind of woman who had perhaps once graced a television screen, or danced upon a stage. He was sure he had seen her somewhere before.
Then the man coming behind her jumped down and sat down across from him. Ludvic’s eyes widened and he couldn’t help but gasp, ‘You! What happened to you?’
Grigore Albescu looked up, and Ludvic started at the look of defeat in the businessman’s eyes. Albescu was a man who didn’t lose; he was a calling card for tough negotiations and mental aptitude, the kind of man whom others talked about with awe, who could silence a packed room with a single half smile.
And here he was, beaten and ragged, his eyes grey and broken, the solid set of his jaw now hanging half open as he breathed in rasping gasps that were almost sobs.
‘I got greedy,’ Grigore said.
The birdmen wheeled Ken back through the castle and carried him up a flight of steps to the gatehouse over the main gates. As instructed, he was placed into a special brace and then suspended from hooks built into the overhanging ceiling so that he hung alongside the huge projector screen. They plugged a power cable into the outlet that had been built into the small electrical interface in his feet, then added a USB chord which fed out to a computer terminal in the gatehouse with a direct link up to Kurou’s central computer. Finally they positioned a microphone beneath his hanging feet and connected it to the speakers, because Kurou preferred an acoustic sound. More dignity, he had told them.
Switching it on, the birdman Burr slowly turned up the volume. A faint sound was coming out, and for a moment he thought there was a faulty cable somewhere. Then, turning back towards the prisoner, he saw Ken was forming silent words with his mouth. Burr turned up the volume to performance level, and the sounds began to distinguish themselves. It was difficult to be sure, but he thought there were two distinct sounds, and they sounded like names:
‘Nozomi … Karin…’
Back in the King’s Tower, Kurou surveyed his arrangements on a series of camera angles cycling through on a monitor screen set up in the corner. Everything was falling into place. He had music and video ready to start, his bargaining tool was complete, and he even had a couple of old friends in attendance, ready to enjoy the show. Everything was going perfectly.
He glanced up at a clock on the wall and saw the minute hand tick over to eleven thirty.
It was time.
He pulled u
p his hood and turned to the web camera. As the birdman standing behind it switched it on, Kurou pulled his computer tablet from his pocket and brought up the virtual piano application that linked to his rather unique musical instrument.
As he began to play a mournful, delicate piece of his own composition, he heard the sound booming out of the speakers over the gate, just as the screen would be switching on to give those in attendance a multi-camera view of what was at stake if they failed to comply.
He couldn’t hear Ken’s screams, but he knew that by the gate, the guitarist would be screaming like he had never screamed before, a hoarse cry of defeat that was bleak enough to darken worlds.
38
Weapons from the wreckage
‘They must have forgotten about us,’ Naotoshi said, holding the girl’s hand as they made their way up through the dark recesses of the castle. ‘We’d have seen someone or one of those things by now for sure.’
‘Are you scared?’ the little girl asked, and Naotoshi marveled at how unafraid she sounded. ‘I mean, they’ll kill us if they catch us, won’t they?’
Naotoshi nodded. ‘I’m afraid for you. I’m an old man now, I’ve had my time. If I die it doesn’t really matter much. But you … you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.’
‘Everyone says that. Teachers, my parents….’
‘Because it’s true.’
‘I’m already seven. That’s old.’
‘Slow down a bit, would you?’ Naotoshi gasped as they started up another set of steps. ‘When you times seven by ten you get close to my age. I bet I’m ten times as tired as you too.’
‘No you’re not, you’re just pretending.’
He smiled. ‘I wish I was.’
They walked in silence for a while. Soon the corridors began to lighten and appear more modern and maintained, the dark, dank dungeon levels left far below them. Naotoshi urged the girl to slow down and be more careful, as it was more likely they’d run into someone or something up here where the corridors were more used. Even so, Naotoshi was happy to see real lights, paintings on the walls, and even carpets underfoot.
His thoughts began to turn to how they might fight these creatures if they encountered them. He was under no illusions that he had got lucky before, but now he was unarmed with only his old, misfiring brain to help him keep a seven-year-old child safe.
But this was a castle, wasn’t it? And Heigel Castle had once been the home of the regional lord. Naotoshi thought back to his guide leaflets and the TV shows he had watched about the place. He had spent so much time obsessing over the castle that he had memorised every room by heart, yet here he was, inside, acting like they were running through a maze.
Think, Naotoshi. Concentrate. Where are we, and where do we need to be?
He reached out and grabbed the girl’s shoulder, pulling her to a stop. ‘This way,’ he said, turning towards a corridor heading left. ‘We have to go this way.’
‘Why?’
‘We’re about to fight a battle,’ he said with a grim smile. ‘And to do that we need to arm ourselves.’
‘What with?’
‘Whatever we can find.’
He led her down the corridor, past several closed doors, counting them under his breath until he reached a set of large mahogany double doors at the end. On days open to the public the doors would have stood wide and a guard would have been standing beside them, ready to answer any questions or show customers to specific items of interest. Naotoshi could only hope that the doors hadn’t been locked.
To his surprise, not only were they unlocked, but the room was far from the bastion of ancient tranquility he had expected.
‘Huh. I guess they had the same idea,’ he said, surveying a sea of smashed glass cases with the ancient weapons they had once housed tossed haphazardly across the floor.
‘Wow.’
‘Stay here,’ Naotoshi said, taking a few tentative steps forward, nudging large, jagged spikes of glass out of the way.
The birdmen had pillaged the cabinets of many priceless antique weapons, but they had left a lot of others behind. Naotoshi tentatively pulled a broadsword out of the wreckage, but it was so heavy he could barely lift the tip off the ground. Frustrated, he threw it back down.
He cycled through a succession of swords, maces and clubs, but nothing felt right. Then, near the far side of the room he came to a heap of long-range weapons.
He picked up a longbow, the bow looming at least a foot over his head, but the brittle string snapped the first time he tried to draw it. Frowning, he tossed it away, and was thinking to try one of the lighter rapiers that were halfway back across the room when something silver caught his eye.
He nudged the fallen top of a cabinet aside and lifted the object, hefting it in his hands. The wooden body was about the length of his forearm. The pointed head and spring action were metal, silver-coated. Immediately it felt right. He took a quarrel from a little ammunition cradle in the back, slotted it into the spring action, and cranked a handle on the side. A happy little whir came from the wooden box, and Naotoshi gave a satisfied nod.
‘A crossbow,’ he muttered. ‘Of all the things.’
Nozomi screamed, and Naotoshi spun around, pulling the weapon up. A birdman had appeared in the doorway. Dropping into a crouch, it advanced towards the girl.
Naotoshi depressed the trigger before he could even think to aim. A sharp hiss came from the crossbow and the birdman staggered, the quarrel embedded in its chest. Naotoshi started to wind the loading mechanism back, but suddenly the Medieval limitations of the weapon seemed so obvious. He’d never finish reloading in time. He tucked the crossbow under his arm and started back across the room, even as the birdman staggered and fell against a half-destroyed cabinet, causing the rest of it to collapse.
‘Get back, Nozomi!’ Naotoshi cried, but the girl wasn’t listening. Naotoshi stared as she ran over to the birdman and pulled her own weapon up in front of her. There was a sound like a bottle of pop opening, and then the creature was engulfed in foam from the fire extinguisher she held. As it writhed in front of her, Naotoshi got to her side and pulled a double-edged axe from the floor, only for the birdman to gasp and go still.
Noatoshi tossed the axe aside and turned to the girl. She was staring at the birdman with the fire extinguisher hung at her side, a blank expression on her face that made Naotoshi shiver. Evil children were common in Japanese horror movies. Naotoshi hated to think it, but Nozomi could have stepped right out of the screen, rather like Sadako had in Ringu. She hadn’t just been defending herself; she had wanted the creature to die.
‘What happened?’ he asked, dragging her out of the room as quickly as he could, in case the birdman exploded like the others had.
‘He couldn’t breathe,’ she said. ‘He suffocated.’
‘How did you know it would do that?’
She held up the fire extinguisher. It was only a small one but it looked so large in her tiny hands, like a bomb held by a baby.
‘We’re taught not to mess around with them in school. They’re dangerous.’
Naotoshi nodded. ‘I can see that.’ So are you, he wanted to add, but didn’t. Something about the girl had got his nerves running like electric, and he felt an uncommon urge to get away from her. He’d spent his life hunting monsters, but when he found them staring out of human eyes it was more terrifying than any creature out of a cave or a forest or a lake could ever be.
‘What’s that?’ the girl said, pointing at the crossbow under his arm, and for a moment a smile creased her lips, and the devilish hatred was gone. Naotoshi shook his head, wondering what was happening to him. She was just a seven-year-old girl. The real monster was lying dead in the room behind them.
‘It’s a crossbow,’ he said. ‘If we’re hunting birds we need something to shoot them with.’
Nozomi gave a dark smile. ‘Sounds good. Let’s go hunting.’
Before he could say another word, she gripped his hand and pulled him towar
ds the nearest staircase.
39
The assembled receive a warning
Viola Gertualu, anchorwoman with Romanian cable TV channel Southern News, turned and pointed with her free hand towards Heigel Castle standing behind her. She wiped a strand of wind-whipped hair out of her eyes, took a deep breath and said, ‘Are we ready?’
‘In five,’ said Mark Nostock, her British-born producer. ‘Counting down … five, four, three, two, one … we’re live.’
‘This is Viola Gertualu with Southern News outside Heigel Castle, where we have a rather unique hostage situation. Just hours have passed since television broadcasts were interrupted by an unnamed man with a rather unique demand.’
She turned back towards the castle and pointed at the huge projector screen hanging down over the portcullis. Police tape had restricted access to the causeway, and despite the best efforts of some reporters to get over it and film exclusive footage from closer up, the stringbean police force had managed to keep them out.
‘It is just after eleven thirty a.m., and we have been told that the captor’s demands must be met by twelve noon otherwise his hostages will be killed. It appears there is one hostage suspended from the front gate. If there are others we do not currently—’
Ooooommmmm … ooommmm …. oooooooommmmmmm….
Viola clamped her hands over her ears. ‘Holy shit, what’s that?’
‘Cut!’ Mark shouted, but he was also crouching down, holding his own hands over his ears. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll edit that out. What is that?’
Viola turned back to the castle. The projector screen had lit up to reveal a man in a hood, his face in shadow. He was standing by a window with a view of the Carpathians beyond his shoulder.