The Blizzard

  ***

  Strang’s first steps in two weeks were not as difficult as he had feared. Slow, yes. But the illness which gripped him was beginning to relinquish its hold. With the new plastic band firmly secured to his left wrist and a stout stick in his hand, he dismissed Jack and Sheonagh’s suggestion that they carry him over the first hurdle of the narrow entrance ledge. Instead, leaning on his son’s shoulder he negotiated the rock shelf with relative ease although Sheonagh insisted once more using the rope support.

  Leaving behind almost all the equipment in the cave (“We’ll travel faster. I’ll come back for it,” the mountain woman opined), they started their descent, following the brow of the hill as it sloped towards the valley, where a silver body of water lay resting. Tiny brown birds – ptarmigan, Saira recognised them – shy, nested almost invisible in the boulders while proud red grouse hid in the heather-clad moorland. Their pace was much slower than before.

  Strang hobbled as fast as he could with the support of his son and daughter-in-law. The morning frost had failed to solidify the slope, still slippery with mud, but a series of broken rocks formed a patchy staircase down towards the loch. After half an hour of slow progress they were on an even level and had joined a trail which circumferenced the water.

  The sky was blue smudged by strands of grey. The grass still glazed with frost. The water was still, like a clear mirror, with no animal, no insect, breaking its surface.

  “I remember when there was fish in these waters.” The old woman’s voice came from nowhere. “So much that you barely had to put your nose in the water and one would jump into your mouth.”

  The others said nothing. Sheonagh’s expressions had a way of unnerving them. Her midnight eyes examined the stumbling figure propped by the younger pair. “Do you need to rest?”

  “No, we’ll keep going,” Strang puffed, “I’m fine.”

  It took a further hour to reach the other side of the loch. The pebbled path was solid and fringed with receding frost. Despite his grit, John’s legs were weaker than his resolve. During their rests, their guide would walk ahead, looking this way and that. Her behaviour began to change and she seemed more distracted from their journey.

  Resentful, Jack felt little desire to describe the events which had taken him halfway across the world. Despite his lack of zeal, his father listened with calm contemplation, even as he was told about the wedding night dream, the mysterious book and the strange guide in the form of Zarius.

  “Your friend, he never told you where he came from? Or how he came to find you?”

  “Not exactly,” Jack hesitated, “So, you don’t know him then?”

  “I have no idea who he is. But I’d like to thank him personally though, for helping you.”

  The mystery of Zarius was no closer to being solved. In his heart, Jack had known that even if his father had been able to offer some background to the emissary’s sudden appearance, it would have come nowhere near to explaining the strange events of the last weeks and months.

  After some deliberation, Sheonagh decided the group would travel to the nearest town and travel by rail to the city. From there they could take an airship across the sea. Jack showed them the bracelets acquired in Sanaam and placed the black plastic band on his father’s arm. There was one for each of them. Each of them, apart for Sheonagh.

  Strang edged towards his friend, who stood erect by pebble shore as she scanned the waters.

  “Why don’t you come with us?” he said.

  “No.”

  “I know you are lonely. Come with us.”

  “And where will you go? You do not even know yet. I have lived here all my days. I know every tree, every hill and mountain. This is my land and I have no desire to experience other people’s.”

  He sensed there was something changing behind the impassive dark eyes. It was like watching the sky change, witnessing the movement of clouds in the wind, not knowing whether it would bring clearer skies or rain.

  “Have you never left this country?”

  “No, I have no interest in doing so.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “In the time that we’ve known each other have you ever known me to be afraid? Do you think there is anything in heaven or hell which could make me tremble?”

  “I think you are afraid of change.” Strang gestured around the hills that surrounded them. “Why have you never been anywhere? Look around you, the countryside is changing. Even here the wilderness that you love so much is under attack. New houses, new roads are being built. There are few places where you can be free from other people. But out there, we can take an airship passage to wherever you like. There are new wildernesses, new things to hunt.”

  “I won’t travel… on those things.”

  “Why not?”

  “They are not natural.”

  The response echoed in Strang’s mind, triggering glimpsed memories of traversing snow-lined forest near Sheonagh’s cabin to their cliffside shelter. How had they covered those many miles? He could see feet moving over the ground but they were not his own for he was lying down. She must have carried him all the way – the strength of the woman!

  They resumed their journey, the trail veered away from the head of the lake, slicing the heather-filled gap between two hills and descending further towards a sloping patch of forest. Through the pines, a narrow streak of grey concrete could be seen. It grew closes and more distinct as they picked their way through the needle-covered floor but no cars passed their view. When a few hundred yards from the roadside, Sheonagh ordered them to remain in the trees, following the curve of the road. They travelled in this fashion for another mile.

  Saira and Jack fruitlessly scanning the roadside for signs of a town or village, their weary feet aching as their delicate canvas shoes were now so damaged they did not even pretend to keep out water.

  Suddenly, Sheonagh drew to a stop without warning, arching her back as she tasted the air. Her eyes turned upwards and she stood frozen.

  “Hide!” she hissed as she grabbed Strang by the waist, shunting Jack and Saira flat against a nearby trunk with alarming force.

  A whining sound broke the silence of the woods. At first, the faint tremble seemed no different than the hum of a float car. Jack turned to check the carriageway but Saira’s hand held him tight against the tree. The burring sound was louder. Something was overhead, flying above them. They anxiously studied the gaps in the pine canopy for the cause of the growing commotion.

  Finally the suggestion of a dark curve came into view, rotating so fast it seemed only half there. They could then see the metal carriage underneath, like a black flying beetle with protruding, spindly legs. Jack realised the hazy circle above the capsule was a single, whirring slice of metal. “A gyrocopter! But… they stopped making them decades ago??”

  The beetle churned the air for long seconds, lingered as if looking for something. The figures below dared not to move an inch. Slowly, the aircraft roared onwards, following the road to the west. Jack and Saira sighed in relief and started to move once more but Sheonagh angrily motioned for them to be still. They remained hidden in the trees for four minutes, five, six.

  Eventually, the wiry figure crawled from under the fallen tree where she had lay hidden with the frail Strang.

  “Must hurry. It will be back again in another couple of hours. They have been scanning the area for the last five days. They must know we are here.”

  “You knew they were looking for us?!”

  “Yes,” the hollow voice replied

  “Why didn’t you say anything, Sheonagh? You could have at least warned us?”

  “Would have hindered you. Made you frightened, more likely to fall or make a mistake.”

  “How do they know we’re here?”

  “How did you get to the hills?” she answered their question with one of her own.

  “We took a train and then a taxicar t
o Ben Wyvis.”

  “Then train guard told them. Or the carriage driver. Maybe both. Mister Strang is being hunted by someone who is particularly persistent and thorough. They will not give up until they have done what they mean to do.”

  Saira found Sheonagh’s admiring tone towards their hunters disturbing but was more troubled by the aircraft. She too had recognised the helicopter from a visit to a London museum - but production had been halted decades ago after oil started to run out. Along with jetplanes, it was just not viable to operate them anymore. Electric batteries could not power an aircraft – everyone knew that. The weak charge they carried was barely enough to power a float and needed to be refuelled from the hydro network every day – and even these had a fraction of the power or speed of a horse. How had someone managed to get enough liquid fuel for this vessel? The black metal trim of the vessel looked sleek and new and there were no signs of rust on its body.

  Strang must have seen the consternation on her face for he spoke.

  “Hydro. It was powered by a hydro engine.”

  “But they can’t make engines that small. Don’t you need vast amounts of water just to get a small current?”

  “They managed to get the generators small enough to fit onto cargo vessels. Now they are even smaller. It’s the latest thing we were working on before I- … left the company. What myself and Brown fell out over, in a sense, among other things.”

  “Then all the things that we used to have – planes, space rockets even – we’ll be able to run them again.”

  “Yes and it means Hydra will have the monopoly on all those things - even worse than the one we - they have on power stations.”

  “Dad,” the word felt unusual in Jack’s mouth when delivered without malice, “how exactly did this new thing have anything to do with why you left.”

  His father began to speak but a wheezing cough welled up in his lungs. He struggled to clear it while his family looked on uncomfortably, powerless to help. Recovering, he started to speak but Sheonagh held up her hand for silence.

  “Nearly there,” she pointed to the brow of a hill where the road rose then disappeared. Beyond it a cluster of streets, buildings made from thick cut slabs of grey stone, could be seen.

  It took only a few minutes to reach the verges. The sensation of walking on concrete again was strange to Jack. How wonderfully solid the ground was. No longer had he to battle with the reluctant mud to make his next step.

  Spurred on by the thought of food and dry feet, the party forged onward, passing the metal sign welcoming them to the town. If the strange appearance of this party, their ragged clothes and mud-soaked faces had attracted the interest of the locals, then they had the good sense to hide it as the four marched into the town. They could see the rail line cutting through the cobbled streets. A parade of shops – a tempting selection of tearooms and bakeries – caught Jack’s eye.

  But Sheonagh intervened. Ignoring their protests, she marched them to the station.

  “Not safe here. The sooner you are on the train, the better.”

  “Twenty past,” said Saira after inspecting the board. “There’s one in twelve minutes. It will take us directly to Edinburgh.”

  The family collapsed on a bench facing the tracks. Not Sheonagh, who continued to stand.

  “You’ll be safe enough from here,” the finality of her tone alerted Jack and Saira, who had not been privy to the earlier conversation with Strang, to her intentions. “Need to keep a low profile. New clothes when you get to the city but spend no more time than you need to. I’d keep moving for the next year if I were you, maybe the next two. If you manage to avoid them you might survive for another five or six years.”

  “Sheonagh –” Strang did not know what to say.

  “S’alright. I didn’t have to help you. But then you didn’t ask me for anything, so that makes us even.”

  “Will you not come with us? If those men are as serious as you say, they’ll come looking for you as well.”

  The older woman snorted. “Let them. I’d like to have a crack at them again. This is my land, no-one will drive me off it.”

  A distant rattle became the thunder of metal wheels grinding the track. If Saira had not known better she would have said Sheonagh’s shoulders shuddered as the roaring engine closed in on the station. She knew no fear of danger or death but something about the train with its coaches, its clanking cog wheels, the crackle and hiss of the electric cables overhead – unsettled her greatly.

  As the father boarded the carriage, Sheonagh grabbed Jack’s arm and held it. “You’ve seen him haven’t you boy? That savage. I can tell that you have – you have his smell on your clothes. Let me tell you now – whatever he has promised you, whatever help he appears to have offered – he can’t be trusted.”

  But before he could respond, she had pulled away and moved to the edge of the platform, standing erect and proud as ever.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE