TimeBomb: The TimeBomb Trilogy: Book 1 (34 page)

There was another pistol shot behind him, then another. Then there was a fourth, which meant the soldiers were firing back. But the shots were almost drowned out by the onset of a series of oddly harmonic crashes from somewhere above them, in the hall itself. It sounded like some kind of barrage, and it went on and on, shaking the floor and sprinkling the Clubmen with dust as they filed out of the tunnel into the undercroft chamber. Kaz was hugely relieved when Thomas burst out of the tunnel after them and gave him a look that told Kaz exactly how close his escape had been. Together he and Thomas put their shoulders to the door and forced it closed, even as a ball-shaped bullet sang through the narrowing gap, barely missing them. Unfortunately once the door was closed there was no way to lock it, so Thomas grabbed two of the youngest men and got them to sit with their backs to the door. Two others stood above them, pushing the door closed.

‘That should hold them,’ he said, a moment before the strange percussions from above ended. Both Kaz and Thomas immediately put their fingers to their lips and signalled for all the men to keep as quiet as they could. The men all stood silently, faces white, and waited to follow their lead. Kaz took point and crept down the corridor towards the door from which the light streamed. As he got closer he could hear voices inside, arguing. He made out Jana’s voice, to his great relief, and Sweetclover’s. There was a third person as well; a woman who he assumed must be Quil. There was also a soft voice singing; he thought it was Dora but couldn’t be sure.

Kaz approached the door and lay down on the ground, poking his head around the edge so he could see what was happening. Jana was arguing heatedly with a woman in a strange white mask and a not very convincing wig; Quil. Sweetclover was standing behind Quil, holding a knife. Kaz craned farther and managed to see Dora cradling an older woman’s head in her lap against the far wall. He felt a jolt of alarm at this, thinking the woman was dead, but after a moment he saw the soft rise and fall of her chest and realised she was asleep. This must be Dora’s mother, he reasoned. He pushed himself back, rose to his knees and turned to Thomas.

‘She’s in there,’ he said. ‘Against the wall to the right as you enter, holding her mother, I think, who looks like she’s asleep. We’ve got two hostiles I can see. Lord Sweetclover is inside on the left; he’s got a knife. In front of him is his wife, who I don’t think is armed. They’re talking to Jana, who is arguing with them, like normal.’ It was almost a relief to know that, even now, Jana was arguing with someone.

He could see, over Thomas’ shoulder and through the throng of Pendarn men, the four boys pushing hard against the door. The soldiers must have reached it. He didn’t know how long it would be until they managed to force their way inside, so time was of the essence.

‘I’ll take Dora and Sarah,’ said Thomas. ‘Can you handle Sweetclover?’

Kaz sheathed his sword, pulled out his pistol and cocked it. ‘Oh yes,’ he replied, smiling grimly. ‘On three. One. Two. Three.’

Thomas and Kaz burst through the door side by side, the older man breaking right, Kaz running left, pistol raised. The men of Pendarn streamed in behind them, yelling and shouting and waving their sticks, clubs, swords and axes.

Things happened so fast that Kaz acted purely on instinct. As he crossed the threshold and ran towards where Sweetclover had been standing he saw Quil leaning in towards Jana with a knife in her hand. He spun in mid-run, trying a fast course correction, but he was too late. He saw the knife plunge into Jana’s chest even as Quil’s mask turned towards him to see what the commotion was. Crying out in alarm, Kaz raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. To his amazement, his aim was true. Quil staggered sideways, taking the knife with her, a splash of blood arcing from her shoulder even as Jana fell backwards, arms outstretched, collapsing to the floor.

Regaining his balance, Kaz ran to Jana, only vaguely conscious of what else was occurring in the room. She was lying on her back, blood bubbling up through her lips and nose, a red stain spreading across the tatty old baker’s shirt she still wore. She looked up at him, but her eyes were blank, distant, as if she were looking straight through him. He dropped his sword and pistol, hooked his hands under her armpits, and began to drag her towards the room where he had touched, so disastrously, the bedridden patient. Jana screamed, her eyes rolled back in her head and she went limp. He felt a rush of fear at the thought that she was dead, but carried on dragging her, pursuing the half-formed thought that maybe there was some medical implement in there which could save her, something from the future that could make it all better.

The rest of the room was a blur to him. He’d gone through so much since he’d last been here, had been so determined to get back here and rescue the girls. And he’d done it. Despite the odds being so stacked against him, he’d actually fought his way back across time and space only to arrive literally a second too late.

Thomas broke right as he and Kaz pushed through the doorway into a chamber full of wonders.

Kaz had warned him about the strange things they would see when they fought their way into Sweetclover Hall – impossible illuminations, pictures that floated in the air, weapons that shot streams of fire. But although he registered the presence of these things, he barely acknowledged them. His focus was entirely upon his wife and daughter, upon whom he’d set eyes the moment he stepped through the door. Dora was sitting on the floor with her back to the wall; Sarah lay beside her, her head in her daughter’s lap, asleep. Dora was stroking Sarah’s hair and singing softly to her. Thomas knew something was terribly wrong, for even as he ran to them, Dora did not look up. Nor did she look up when a shot rang out behind him, or when the men of Pendarn streamed, yelling and shooting, into the room. Even as Thomas knelt beside her, took her face in his hands and raised it so he could look into her eyes, he already knew on some level that she would stare straight through him as if he were a ghost. There was an absence behind her eyes that made his heart ache. Could she have been taken from him so soon after her return? Could fate really be so cruel?

‘Dora,’ he said. ‘Dora, it is I, your father.’

‘Hello, Father,’ said Dora in a dull voice.

‘Is your mother ill?’

Dora nodded. ‘Yes, but she’s asleep now. Quil will fix her later.’

‘Who is Quil, Dora?’

‘Lady Sweetclover. Her.’ She flicked her eyes over his shoulder and Thomas turned to see a woman in a white stone mask running towards a door on the opposite side of the chamber. Her right arm hung limp at her side, blood trickling down from a wound in her shoulder. Beyond her Thomas registered Kaz, dragging someone towards the same door. Lord Sweetclover was running after his wife, pursued by a group of three Pendarn men. The rest were standing, dumbstruck, staring at the strange floating pictures and the impossible globes of white fire that hung on the walls and illuminated the chamber.

Thomas saw no immediate danger and turned back to Dora. ‘Has she bewitched your mother, is that your meaning?’

‘She killed James, but she can lift the spell on Mother with a special thing called a machine.’ Dora leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially in his ear, ‘It’s from the future.’

Thomas did not have time to respond, for there was a huge blast from the corridor outside followed by screams of agony, cries of attack, and the sound of running feet. He rose and turned to face the door as a group of soldiers burst into the room. Had it not been for the strangeness of the chamber, they would have fallen upon the Pendarn Clubmen and slaughtered them in an instant. But the lights and pictures caused them to falter for a moment and the Clubmen, who had already got over their initial surprise, charged into the fray without hesitation, swinging clubs, swords and axes with deadly effect. Thomas ran to join them, but a soldier stood between him and the melee, sword drawn. He lunged forward but Thomas managed to swing his cudgel and bat the sword away so he could bend down and charge into the man, his shoulder catching him in the midriff. Thomas used his momentum to lift the man up and then slam him down to the floor on his back with all the force he could muster.

As the man fell he brought his leg up and kicked Thomas firmly in the crotch. The pain caused Thomas to lose his footing and the two men tumbled to the floor together, both momentarily winded by their separate injuries.

The chamber was filled with the sounds of battle. Crashes and thumps, cries, yells, screams; the occasional shot; the repetitive clang of swords as they parried and lunged.

Thomas felt the soldier heave him upwards and roll him off. Trying to ignore his pain, Thomas blindly reached around for any sort of weapon and, against all hope, his hand found the hilt of the sword the soldier had dropped. Rolling backwards, Thomas got to his feet and crouched down, holding the sword out in front of him. It was not much of a weapon in his hands – he had never fought with a sword in his life – but something about the heft and the length of cold steel made him feel safer. The soldier with whom he had tussled had also found his feet, and had grabbed a sword from the body of a fallen comrade. He once more lunged towards Thomas, who reacted without thinking, parrying the blow more by luck than judgement, knowing that he was now in a fight for his life – a fight he was almost certain to lose.

Another lunge, this time avoided by a quick step sideways. A swipe at his head, which he ducked away from. Thomas had no skill with which to attack; his defence consisted entirely of agility and luck, and the look of determination on the soldier’s face told Thomas he should expect no mercy. He backed away another step, then another, always scarcely avoiding the razor-sharp blade, until his back was literally against the wall. The soldier smiled grimly, nodded once, as if mocking his imminently dead opponent, and raised his sword to deliver the killing blow.

At which moment Dora stepped in front of Thomas.

‘No,’ he said, reaching for Dora’s shoulders so he could throw her to one side, away from the blade.

‘Hello, James,’ said Dora. ‘I thought you were dead.’

‘And I you, sister,’ replied the soldier.

Thomas was frozen in place, surprise stealing the very breath from his lungs. He looked over Dora’s shoulder at the face of the man with whom he had only moments ago been fighting to the death. Underneath the grime and the beard, through the changes that the years had wrought, he found the face of his only living son.

‘James?’ he whispered, feeling the same hollow ache of confusion and love that had overwhelmed him in the church earlier that day when he had held Dora for the first time in five years. This was his boy. His beautiful boy, grown to a man.

‘I can’t let you hurt Father, not like you tried to hurt me,’ said Dora, her voice level and unemotional.

‘He fights to protect a man who stands in opposition to Parliament,’ spat James, his voice dripping with hatred. ‘He worships at a church bedecked with idolatry. He consorts with the witch who created the magics you see all around us. It is my duty to God and man.’

‘You do not understand what is happening here, James,’ replied Dora. ‘These events are not as you perceive them to be. You must put up your sword—’

Dora never got to finish her sentence, for James bellowed in fury, levelled his blade and ran forward, the tip raised above Dora’s shoulder, aimed at Thomas’ throat.

Thomas cried out, raised his own blade to try parrying the lunge, but he knew, even in the instant he lifted his arm, that he could not do it. He began to move sideways, trying to dodge the blow, but in this he knew he would be too slow. Then Thomas stopped dead; the blade came to rest on Dora’s shoulder, the point steady and firm, an inch from Thomas’ windpipe. Thomas stared over his daughter into the eyes of his beloved boy as they widened and changed from anger to puzzlement. James looked down, and Thomas followed his gaze to see that Dora was holding a sword of her own.

‘Oh no …’ he gasped.

‘I won’t let you hurt Father,’ said Dora again.

James’ sword slipped off Dora’s shoulder and clattered to the floor. Thomas stepped forward and put his hands on Dora’s waist, gently pulling her backwards, away from her brother. As he did so, he saw the sword that Dora held slipping from James’ side, red with fresh blood. Once the blade came free, Dora’s arm dropped to her side, but she still held the hilt tightly as the point hit the stone floor and the blood ran down the blade to collect in a small puddle by her feet.

Thomas stepped past her and reached out to take James’ hands, grasping them tightly. James’ legs went out from under him and he toppled forward into Thomas’ arms. He took the weight but stumbled backwards and ended up sitting against the wall with James sprawled across him. He found himself cradling his son’s head in his lap, much as Dora had cradled Sarah’s only moments before. He could think of nothing to say. He opened his mouth three or four times, each time trying to find some words to express his love and forgiveness for his dying child, but nothing would come. There were no words adequate to the task. So he stroked James’ hair as his son’s breath came in shallower and shallower gasps. He cried over him, and soothed him, and took what solace he could in the calmness of his son’s gaze, robbed of all hatred and anger by the certain knowledge of imminent death.

He was dimly aware of Dora sitting beside him, taking her mother’s head back into her lap. And together they sat, father and daughter, holding the people they loved, singing lullabies to calm them, a tiny acre of peace in a world of war.

For the first time in seven years, the Predennick family was reunited.

Kaz dragged Jana through the door into the sickroom moments before Quil reached them. He could see that his shot had damaged her right shoulder, but she still held the knife tightly in her left hand and she brandished it menacingly as she advanced. Kaz put Jana’s head down on the floor and stood, drawing his sword.

‘Mine is bigger than yours,’ he said as they stood facing each other, Jana lying unconscious between them.