Black Feathers (17 page)

Whoever or whatever had blocked the tunnel had made a good job of it.

The space Gordon had in which to crawl would not have afforded a man passage. Even with his slight build aiding him for once he still got stuck from time to time. His aim was to clear blockages into cracks and crevices to either side of himself. This would save him having to drag debris back out. He tried to work lying on his left side to save his cut thigh from further damage, but it was impossible. After a few seconds or minutes of successfully and painlessly clearing chunks of rubble to either side of his crawlspace, Gordon would catch his right leg on something jagged and cry out..

The roof of the tunnel was never more than a couple of inches above him, causing moments of wild panic which made him want to crawl as fast as he could, without any care for his wound and without going back for his pack and tent. What if the earth above the tunnel shifted somehow and the tunnel’s roof subsided just an inch or so? The bricks might settle down onto his back, not killing him but trapping him belly-down on the sharp-edged rubble and holding him there until he starved, suffocated or went insane. Fear kept him working with a cold efficiency.

The beam of his torch, once bright and crisp against the darkness, had yellowed and dimmed. Its light was oily ochre now and illuminated only the space immediately ahead. There was no end to his labours. The crawlspace just went on and on. As he moved a large nugget of rubble to his left, the torch flickered and went out. He tapped it and then hammered it against his palm. It flickered and died again. Hands shaking, he unscrewed the casing and removed the two batteries. He rubbed them in his hands and blew on them, prayed over them to stay alive just a little longer. He replaced them and the torch beam recovered long enough for him to shift one more obstacle. Then it died for good.

He sighed and laid his head against the broken rocks beneath him. They pushed up hard and cold into his face. There was no way to turn around. He would have to inch backwards, all the way back to the top of the rubble pile where he’d left his gear. Dust from the disturbed rubble got into his mouth, nose and eyes, making him cough and sneeze and send up more particles. Knowing how far he’d come facing the right direction made the mere thought of going backwards exhausting. There was no other option.

He pushed back with both hands, trying to raise his feet over the lumps in their way. Several times he got one foot trapped and had to move forwards to free it before proceeding backwards again. His temples throbbed with heat and pain and he caught the wound in his thigh often. He was weeping uncontrollably by the time he felt the space behind him widen and the coolness of the tunnel air spread up his legs and back. Before he’d had time to change the batteries and tie everything onto his pack, he was shivering, his head aflame but the rest of him encased in aching, gripping ice.

This time he dragged his pack with him, kicking back as much shifted rubble into the space behind him as he could. Knowles had told him to seal the space, but he didn’t have the will to turn around and do it properly. He wasn’t even sure he could make it back to where his batteries had given out.

The new challenge became hauling his backpack and freeing it each time the straps got caught on a protruding piece of mortar or bar of steel. He worked forwards like a fugitive animal now, no longer able to think, merely knowing that his choices had become very simple: keep moving and survive or stop and die. Something was wrong with him, he knew, but he couldn’t allow himself to acknowledge it as anything other than a reason to keep going. He couldn’t let it kill his hope. He had to make it somewhere safe and then he would rest. Stupid and spent with effort, he came to the place where his batteries had run out. He shone his renewed light ahead.

Tears came again.

He had already shifted the final obstacle with the dying of the torch batteries. Beyond, the blackness widened again and the air was cool and dust-free. He crawled onwards and was borne from darkness into darkness once more. Hauling his pack out behind him, he first rose to a crouch and then stood to descend a rubble pile exactly like the one he’d climbed. He could have been going out the way he’d come in – everything felt exactly the same. The rubble ended on flat, bare earth and the tunnel extended away into infinity. None of it mattered. For now his work was done.

At the base of the rubble pile he pitched his tent, forcing the pegs down into the earth without too much difficulty. At least here the surface below him was close to dead flat. He dragged everything inside the tent and unrolled his sleeping bag. Once again, not bothering to take off any of his clothes, he opened the bag, slid in and zipped it up around him. He took a cheese sandwich from the pack, somewhat squashed and battered now but tasting better than any meal he’d ever eaten. He tore into it and drank all his water. There was no way to resist the fire in his dust-lined throat. When he’d chewed down cheese and bread and grit from the rubble, he took his spare clothes out and piled them around himself inside the sleeping bag. He was frozen but his leg and face were roasting.

He lay down and succumbed to blackness.

A day after surgery, Mordaunt Pike limped into Sickbay 7 of the Ward’s private hospital in Piccadilly looking for Skelton.

The boy’s knife attack had damaged a tendon in the crook of his right groin and, though the surgeon who’d sewn the tendon up and the entry wound closed said he’d make a full recovery, Pike wasn’t so certain. The sinew, which had been so nearly severed, felt badly repaired. Instead of a smooth line of cabling, a lump rose beneath the stitched lips of his wound whenever he moved his right leg. Given time, the surgeon had assured him, he would heal.

Time was what they didn’t have.

He tried to walk normally as he made his way down the lengthy sickbay with beds to left and right. All were filled by Wardsmen injured while quelling riots, searching houses or arresting members of the Green Men. More wounded arrived from around the country all the time. Those who couldn’t make it to London, Birmingham or Manchester died in transit. The Ward’s influence was strongest in the cities. Medical facilities outside of them were basic: clumsy first aid applied in Ward substations like Monmouth.

His and Skelton’s injuries had been swabbed and dressed without much care or ceremony by a junior Wardsman trained in the basics. Then, looking like a pair of hastily bandaged soldiers returning from frontline duty, they’d been driven back to London.

Skelton had muttered and sworn and seethed the whole way.

“The demonic little cretin took my eye, Pike. He
cut out
my eye. I still don’t believe it. The chief says we’re to bring him to HQ. Interview him and put him down with an injection. Quick jab, end of problem. Not a chance of that now, Pike. Not a bloody chance.”

Skelton wept then. Pike hadn’t known which way to look in the back of the Range Rover. He tried to ignore it but Skelton’s hand had clamped around his thigh.

“Don’t you turn away, damn you. Don’t ever do that.” Skelton’s grip tightened. “Look at me, Pike.”

Pike had looked. Tears streamed from Skelton’s remaining eye. Blood and mucus seeped through the bandages covering the space where his left eye had been. The grip on his leg released a little.

“I’m still the same old Skelton, see? A little piece missing but the rest is still me.”

Pike hadn’t been able to speak.

“Pike? I’m no different, honestly.”

Pike had glanced into the front of the car. The driver didn’t seem aware of what was taking place in the back seat.

“OK,” he said.

And Skelton had smiled for the first time since their encounter with Gordon Black earlier that day. The grip had released and Skelton’s claw became a soft, fat hand again, pale and well-manicured. The hand patted Pike’s thigh, stroked it appreciatively before withdrawing. When Pike looked over again, Skelton was asleep, a small smile tickling the corners of his mouth. By the time they’d reached London, Skelton’s sleep had deepened into unconsciousness.

Now, having asked to be notified the moment he woke, Pike still found his pace slowing as he neared Skelton’s bed. Even one-eyed, his partner spotted him before Pike could change course or leave.

“Ah, Pike. You’re looking better. Still limping, though, I see.”

There was no point trying to hide it.

“Surgeon was a butcher.”

“Well, you’ll live. They tell me I will too.”

Skelton’s bandaging was much reduced compared to the half-mummification of his head the Wardsman in Monmouth had wrought upon him. A large white patch of bandage was held in place with strips of translucent tape. Black stitches were visible to either side of the bandage.

“It’s a funny thing, Pike. Even though I can’t see anything from the left side of my face, I feel as though my eye has been widened or opened somehow. It’s like I’m looking into space or something. Very curious sensation.” Skelton looked over at Pike, who had stopped walking in the middle of the sickbay and now stood there like a lost giant. Skelton gestured to a chair at his bedside. “Why don’t you come and sit down here, Pike?”

Pike creaked into action and walked, one leg stiff and straight, to the chair. When he sat, the wounded leg stuck straight out.

“Does that hurt?” enquired Skelton.

“No.”

When Pike didn’t add anything, Skelton asked:

“What’s been happening? Any trace of Satan’s little helper?”

“No sign. Agents searched the fields and woodland all around the house. He vanished.”

“Not possible, Pike.”

“I know that.”

“So he must still be there somewhere. I don’t think he’ll go far, knowing his family is in our hands. We should try to draw him in.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Skelton pulled back the sheets and blankets and hefted his short, stocky legs over the side of the bed. Pike had never seen his feet before. They were very pale, the skin soft and puffy. Skelton’s hand resting on his shoulder for support broke Pike’s gaze. Skelton was standing up now, his fat hairless chest close to Pike’s face. His hospital pyjama top was unbuttoned. He had chubby breasts instead of pectorals and his belly was round, white and smooth. Pike couldn’t stand because Skelton was using him to stay upright – the man was clearly still weak with shock and blood loss. Nor could Pike back away, because his chair was against the sickbay wall. All he could do was remain intimately positioned as Skelton tested his balance.

“What are you doing, sir?” he asked eventually.

“Leaving,” said Skelton. “Get my uniform, will you, Pike?”

“It’s only been a day. You should rest more.”

“If I rest, those Monmouth idiots are going to let the boy get away. We have to get back there and find him. Get him quick and finish him at leisure.”

Pike noticed a slight bobbing and swinging in the crotch of Skelton’s pyjama bottoms.

“Come on, Pike! Get my clothes and let’s go.”

Pike rose very slowly from his chair until he once again dwarfed the man beside him. Nevertheless, he felt himself very small in the man’s shadow.

Gordon feels a searing in his thigh, as though the lips of his wound are being prised open with glowing irons. Lava erupts from within and spills over his leg and groin, spreading the fire. Burning rivulets of this ichor spread radiant orange veins up over his belly and chest, finally setting his head aflame. Through all of this, he sleeps, his body too spent to respond.

The rest of Gordon’s awareness is imprisoned in dreams.

He is beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, looking back at the world in its protective bubble. All is silent and peaceful. Re-entry is pure white heat and then he is diving towards the body of the world, seeing the shapes of the continents at first and then recognising countries. Weather systems become visible and grow and he descends through layers of cloud until he can see Europe. But his destination is his own country, Britain.

From this height, the land of his birth is still tranquil but as he nears its surface, when individual fields and roads and built-up areas come into view, he begins to see signs of turmoil. In many places smoke rises, obscuring the view of the fires creating it. The cars on the roads have stopped moving. Instead he can see lines of people, miles long, snaking between the stalled vehicles. The roads themselves are cracked and, in some places, buckled and broken. In towns and cities, piles of rubble mark the places where buildings have collapsed. There are rifts in the earth where the green of fields is divided by black chasms. Some of them extend across entire counties. People, animals, cars and even entire homes have fallen into these new cracks in the world. Those who are not fleeing the cataclysms are at war. Men and women dressed in brown, green and black clash with cohorts of troops in grey. The grey troops are organised and fight in tight units. Their opponents, some kind of rebel army, are outnumbered and fight using hit-and-run tactics. Many of them fall as the grey troops advance across the country. Everywhere the bodies of the dead rot where they fell, food for the land and its creatures, carrion for the crows which populate every scene of chaos and conflict.

He sees the smoking ruins of his own home and the destruction of what was once his family smallholding. Even the garden wall and the green door with its rusty hinges have been knocked down. The trees in the orchard and the huge horse chestnut which had stood near the back terrace, even these have been cut down, and they smoulder now beside the wreckage of Hamblaen House, the house where he was born.

The wind sweeps him on a meandering course around counties and towns he has never seen before. And yet, aspects of each place strike a note of resonance in his heart. These are places where important things have happened to him, and yet he can’t remember what they are. Finally, the winds take him south. A great reluctance rises within him.

He tries to resist but the wind is too strong. He comes to a hill where there was once a small forest. Now, all that remains of the trees is ebony stumps. At the crest of the hill, one tree remains, its trunk is contorted and squat, its boughs bunched and twisted. Its outer branches, every one charred to black bone, rise in supplication towards the unanswering sky.

The wind sets Gordon down at the very front of the tree. Behind it, the sun is setting. Against its dying fire, in the highest of the blackened branches, are three watchful crows. At the bottom of the hill, a great crowd of people is gathering. The crows call out to Gordon and he knows he has been here a thousand times before.

The earth is shaking. His body is being moved. Something takes hold of him. Gordon is unable to struggle against it. The shaking gets worse.

Someone whispers:

“Can you hear me? Tell me your name.”

He tries to answer but his mouth won’t work. He is being pulled now and he tries to resist, but his body won’t respond. He tries to reach for the knife in his pocket but his body is as good as dead. He feels himself hoisted up and over a large shoulder. The movement reawakens the pain in his cut and he cries out, hearing the weakness of his own shout as it echoes in darkness. Somewhere there is light. Long before he reaches it, he loses consciousness again.