The Ghost Roads (Ring of Five) (14 page)

As the first one turned slowly, it rolled to port. The troops on board could not keep their feet. They fell to one side, and their weight made the boat list to port. The rail was driven underwater and the list increased. Officers tried to drive the troops back to the other side, but there was too much confusion, too much fear. Water poured into the ship. Panicked Cherbs were flinging themselves into the water. In one last attempt to rescue his ship, the captain tried to turn back to starboard. It was fatal. His companion ship had slewed starboard at the same time. The bow of the first pierced the side of the second with a noise of rending metal and a great wail from the passengers. One boat turned on her side. The other, in what felt like seconds, turned perpendicular in the water, her bow pointed to the terrible raging storm; then she slipped quietly beneath the waves and was gone.

The water was filled with struggling Cherbs. Rufus Ness’s face was contorted with fury. From the shore cries reached them across the waves.

“Sir,” one of the Cherbs on board shouted, “we can save some of them! Let us get closer!”

“Save them!” Ness sneered. “After what they have just done?”

“Sir,” an older Cherb said, “it will take years to train soldiers again. These are our finest.”

“Were our finest,” Ness said, having to shout to make himself heard above the noise of the storm, the thunder that split the heavens, the cries of the drowning. “If we get in close they will all try to get on board. They’ll capsize this ship too!”

“Then call the Seraphim,” the younger Cherb insisted, “so they can be plucked from the water. We have fought and died for you for many years—do something for us now. My brother is among the drowning!”

The young Cherb made to grab for the wheel. It was all Ness needed. A pistol appeared in his hand and he shot the Cherb. The older sailor grabbed a heavy wrench and swung it at Ness, striking him on the shoulder. Ness grunted with pain and fired at the sailor. The bullet glanced harmlessly off the binnacle. The sailors saw the row and came running to the aid of their colleague while Ness’s men rallied around him.

The fight raged as the cries of the Cherbs in the water started to die away. Starling pushed Vandra into a rope locker and grabbed Toxique, having to pry his hands away from the rail. The sounds of fighting, the grunts and cries, echoed from the deck, which pitched wildly as it drifted with no one at the controls. A body tumbled to the deck in front of them. Vandra gazed in horror at the blood-soaked corpse. Toxique turned away with a choking noise.

“What’s going on?” Vandra asked. “What happened?”

“Treachery, I fear,” Starling said. “Ness said that he
was told the weather would be good. It’s not hard to tell when a storm is coming up the sound. There’s a Cherb weather station forty miles away for that very purpose. No. Someone knew that storm was coming but chose to tell Ness that the weather would be fine. I don’t like Cherbs, but I wouldn’t wish what just happened on them.”

“I saw it coming,” Toxique said, “blood and water. I saw the sea boiling with bodies.”

“But what could you have done?” Vandra said. “We need to get out of here.”

A machine gun had clattered to the deck beside the dead Cherb. Starling hooked it with her foot and drew it toward them. The sounds of battle had died down, but the boat was still tossing wildly. The screams of the Cherbs had faded into the distance.

“We could be drifting anywhere,” Starling said. “We’ll have to take a chance.” She rose to a crouch, rolled across the deck and landed on her feet, the gun at the ready.

“No sign of life,” she called softly.

“They can’t have killed everyone,” Vandra said.

“They’re Cherbs, remember?” Starling replied, moving stealthily across the deck. Vandra glanced over the side. They had drifted far across the sound. She could hear the boom of surf and see the lights of Tarnstone not far away.

Starling, Vandra and Toxique climbed the steps to the bridge. The metalwork was slick with blood underfoot. When they got to the bridge, Vandra looked for signs of
life, but there were none among the bodies nearest to her. Then there was a roar as the engine turned over but did not fire. The starter motor went again. Starling moved stealthily toward the binnacle. Ness was standing beside it, using it for support as he tried to start the engine. His uniform was covered in blood. One hand held his side, and blood welled through his fingers. He was muttering as he worked the starter.

“The weather was fine.… I saw the reports.… Calm seas … clear skies … The reports … Longford brought them to me himself.…”

“Turn around very slowly,” Starling said, her gun trained on Ness. She gave a short laugh when he flinched at the sound of her voice.

“Longford gave you the weather reports, did he?” she said. “Do you trust him? Are the reports accurate? Or did he switch them?”

“We are allies,” Ness said.

“You are also spies, like me,” Starling said. “Our trade is treachery, and this stinks to me. Do you think Longford would give you the wrong weather report by accident? Ambrose Longford plays a long game.”

Ness waved his free hand toward the empty sound as if an invasion fleet still sailed it.

“But our army …,” he said.

“Not
our
army,” she said “
your
army. Did the thought never cross your mind that you might dispense with Longford? Take the whole thing for yourself?”

A greedy expression flickered across his bloodstained face.

“Maybe he was thinking the same way,” Starling said. “Step away from the engines.”

“Stop right there!” Starling whirled around. They had forgotten about Toxique. He stepped past them, and with a speed and dexterity Vandra had not suspected he possessed, he was behind Ness, one arm around his neck, the other drawn back behind the Cherb’s neck as if he were about to release a bowstring.

“One blow between the second and third vertebrae and it’s all over,” Toxique said musingly.

“Toxique! What are you doing?” Vandra looked at him in amazement.

“You pick up a few things when you’re raised by assassins,” Toxique said.

“Yes, but you …” Vandra trailed off.

“Don’t have it in me, isn’t that what you were going to say?”

“There is a difference between an assassin’s craft and murder,” Starling said.

“Rufus Ness is responsible for the deaths of thousands,” Toxique said.

“Perhaps. But it is not your responsibility to decide his fate, any more than it was his to determine the life and death of those thousands.”

“You’ll become just like him just the same,” Vandra said. “You’re not a killer, Toxique. You know that!”

“I don’t really, you know,” he said with a cracked laugh. He drew his hand back, but just as he launched the killer blow, the keep of the boat grated on shingle. He was thrown sideways. The blow glanced off Ness’s skull. Ness
swung back hard, so hard that Toxique was knocked off the bridge and over the rail into the water below.

“He can’t swim!” Vandra cried. Without hesitation she disappeared over the rail. Seconds later they heard her faint cry from the water.

“Help!”

“Are you going to help her?” Ness smiled grimly at Starling. “Do you have it in you to put a bullet in me first?”

“I want you before the Higher Court for your crimes, Ness.”

“But you can’t do that without abandoning your friends to their fate.”

“Go back and tend to your dead, Ness,” Starling said, “and have a chat about the weather with Longford.”

Ness’s cruel smile turned to a snarl. Catlike, Starling vaulted over the thwart and into the sea. Ness turned back to the engine as the boat grounded once more. This time the engine caught. Wincing in pain, he put the boat into gear. Slowly, then picking up speed, the smuggler’s boat became part of the storm.

The water wasn’t deep, but Toxique was groggy, washing back and forth in the surf, and it was all Vandra could do to hold on to him and not to be carried out to sea. Starling grabbed him too, and together, they got him onto the shore.

Toxique was merely stunned, and after a few minutes he was able to sit up. Vandra looked out to sea as she tried to catch her breath. To her amazement, through
the spume, she saw a chain of tiny lights reaching across the sound.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Not all of the Cherbs were drowned, it would seem,” Starling said. “Some of them have found their way onto the railway viaduct. They are showing lights, hoping that someone will rescue them.”

“I wouldn’t bet on Ness doing it,” Vandra said.

“No,” Starling agreed. Toxique got shakily to his feet and looked at them guiltily.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t know what happened to me.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Starling didn’t even look at him. “It comes with the spy job. Nothing’s ever cut and dried. Most of the time you don’t get to choose between good and bad, you just get to choose between something bad and something even worse. You did well.”

Vandra couldn’t resist a small smile as she saw Toxique’s cheeks flush. Starling didn’t normally praise anyone.

“Let’s go,” Starling said, “it’s not much good to escape Rufus Ness and then freeze to death.”

They walked along the shore until they came to a fuel depot. There were oil tankers parked up. Starling managed to find a jeep. Remembering a class with Brunholm, Vandra hot-wired it in seconds. They drove back toward Wilsons, weary in body and spirit. On the Tarnstone wharf side they saw flames rising into the night sky.

“The people of Tarnstone have been itching for a
fight,” Starling said. “Those Cherbs left on the wharf can expect no quarter.”

As they trundled up the Wilsons driveway, another exhausted expedition was arriving from the air. Gabriel lowered Pearl onto the roof of the apothecary. Les landed Dixie beside her and hurried off to find Jamshid.

As if he had always known the group were going to be there, Devoy walked unhurriedly across the roof. He peered over the parapet at the sound of an engine.

“I can tell there are many stories tonight. Cries across water, wings that have ceased beating, the ravens in mourning … but come, who can tell me where the Fifth is? Where is Danny?”

They turned their faces away. Danny was lost. Devoy registered their silence.

“Sometimes, my friends, I think other powers run our lives, and what we decide or do not decide counts for naught. But I can do one thing that matters. Hot tea and muffins wait in the library of the third landing, where I will hear your stories, for it would seem that though much wrong has been done tonight, much good may also have come to pass.”

THE GHOST ROADS

D
anny woke to the smell of frying bacon and sunshine through the window of the caravan.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” a mocking voice said. “If you want to be a traveler, you’ll have to get up earlier than this.”

Danny staggered out of bed to see Beth at work in front of an enormous frying pan.

“Go and wash,” Nana said, sitting quietly in front of her large television. Beth handed him a towel and soap. He opened the door and stepped out into a clear, cold morning. He walked across the campsite and noticed an odd thing: the other travelers ignored him, even the children, but he felt as if he was being ignored in a
pleasant
way, if that was possible. He stood at the pump washing while men and women passed only feet away. A grubby
toddler steered a toy truck carefully around his feet, then drove on. The same thing happened on the way back to the caravan.

When he shut the door behind him, Nana saw his puzzled look.

“What is it?”

“Everyone’s ignoring me, but it’s not like they’re angry at me or anything. It’s just that I’m not there to them.”

“It’s our way,” Nana said. “They are not seeing you. So if it comes to pass that the police seek you and ask of them, did you see this person, they can answer honestly that they have not.”

Danny thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. The travelers had a roundabout way of thinking about things, but he wasn’t going to start judging them. Besides, an enormous plate of sausages, eggs, fried bread, bacon and hot buttered toast had appeared on the table.

“Tuck in,” Nana said. For ten minutes there was silence as Danny ate. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten proper food, and he felt his mind clear as his body was nourished. As he and Beth ate, Nana moved around them, taking down fragile ornaments and wrapping them, tidying away glassware. So absorbed was he in eating that he didn’t realize what was going on. By the time he had finished, half the caravan had been packed away.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“We have to go on the road,” Nana said. “We are a peril to the rest of the family while you are with us. Besides, we are too close to Kilrootford. The police will come back. Police always do.”

“That’s not fair to you,” Danny said. “I can find my own way.”

“Can you really?” Nana said. “Do you know the ghost roads?”

Danny shook his head. He was about to argue more when he saw an image of Kilrootford on television. He grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. The image changed to a courthouse, a prison van screeching to a halt and the door opening. A woman was led out between rows of hard-faced police.