They were to masquerade as a team of inventory clerks who ‘someone’ up the line had decided would be needed in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Brum. The story was that Backhaus and Recker were their minders, tasked with getting them to Brum in the vanguard of the invasion. The routeing had gone wrong and now the imperative was to get them forward as fast as possible.
It was a dull and tedious kind of cover story, likely to be passed quickly over in the dash and rush of the moment, not least because most Fyrd would have little idea of what ‘inventory’ meant except that it sounded vaguely official and possibly important.
The ruse very soon came in handy.
They took the first chance that came and under-boarded a train heading into Coventry in the hope they could get off it before arriving in the midst of Fyrd activity.
No such luck.
The train pulled into a siding before the city and they glimpsed Fyrd watching closely from the shadows, and stayed right where they were, waiting on Jack’s lead. He had planned for this, guessing that it was likely that the Fyrd were actually expecting arrivals with that train. It creaked to a stop, the carriage they were under shifted back and forth and fell still.
While the others stayed put, Jack lowered himself towards the track, pressed against a hot, oily wheel for cover and craned round to look one way along the train and then the other. He spotted another group of hydden, all civilian, disembarking further along the train before trying to scurry off with their ’sacs and crofting boards before they were seen.
The watching Fyrd were ready for them along the verge and challenged them aggressively before herding them out of sight between a pile of rusting axles and wheels and piles of sleepers.
‘Backhaus,’ he whispered, ‘you know what to do.’
He dropped to the ground, emerged in full view of the Fyrd, gave them a quick, uninterested glance and rapped out an order for his group to disembark.
They did so with an air of confusion added to by Recker, who followed officiously behind, hurrying them straight towards the Fyrd.
‘And where the Mirror do you think you’re going?’ barked one of the Fyrd.
Backhaus did not need to pull rank; he simply looked the part and behaved as if the Fyrd were there to serve him.
‘Wrongly routed, behind schedule, need to make up time,’ he said sharply once he had identified himself. ‘These volunteers do not wish to be seen by locals. We need a train going forward.’
‘We all need that, sir!’ said one of the Fyrd insolently.
Backhaus smiled unpleasantly.
‘Name? Rank? Attachment?’
This last was said threateningly, as if Backhaus, having learnt which group the hapless Fyrd was with, would go at once and report him to his commanding officer.
The Fyrd muttered a few reluctant and indistinct words by way of answer before giving what information they could about other transports.
‘Two goods trains are imminent, sir,’ one of them said, whether to curry favour or get rid of them they were not sure.
As another train raced past without stopping and the civilians who had tried to get away grew restive, Backhaus led his group off.
‘Look lively!’ cried Recker, shoving Barklice onward. ‘And you too, you layabout!’
This to Jack, who allowed himself to be harried along. Soon they were by themselves once more.
A short while later the tracks crossed a conduit, through which a stream ran from scrubland adjacent to human houses and then on past the line towards factories. The odour was malign and when they leaned over to look down they saw why. A hydden corpse projected into the water, his head shot through.
Jack dropped down the bank to have a closer look, putting his hand to his mouth and retching at what he saw. The others joined him, Blut alone unable to see clearly, though he too recoiled from the stench of death.
‘Blut,’ commanded Jack, with no respect for the Emperor’s rank, ‘put on your spectacles and look. The Fyrd of which you are meant to be Supreme Commander did this.’
Blut pulled on his spectacles and peered into the conduit under the tracks. There were fifteen bodies there, both sexes, all ages. Some had been shot with a crossbow bolt to the back of the head. Many had been garrotted.
They turned on Blut, even Jack, as if he had done the deed himself. Blut looked not at them but at the corpses and without a word went among them, not retreating from sight or smell at all. Rather the opposite.
He moved from one to another, pausing at each, shaking his head with unexpected compassion. Recker wanted to respond angrily too, but Backhaus stopped him. Blut was saying more to them through his silence and what he did than any words could, and they could see he was much moved.
‘My Lord Sinistral,’ he said suddenly, ‘would not have sanctioned this and nor have I. My Lord would . . . would . . .’
A wisp of smoke rose from something at the far end of the conduit, where light came in again.
Backhaus came to his side.
‘Here’s something even worse . . .’
They stood by the charred body of a Fyrd officer.
‘He has been torched alive.’
His whole garb had burnt and melded with his contorted body, his curled outstretched hand seeming like an echo of the silent scream on his open mouth, his eyes half open, grey-white.
‘This is the work of Quatremayne’s units,’ said Backhaus.
‘My Lord Sinistral,’ said Blut with terrible purpose, ‘would have decreed that whoever did this should die like this. So now do I make that decree.’
‘There will be more like this,’ said Jack.
Blut wheeled round.
‘And why do you think I resisted my own Chief of Staff? Why do you think he incarcerated me? What do you imagine I think when I see this? I feel shame, I think punishment. I think as my Lord thinks . . .’
‘He is dead,’ said Jack, matter-of-factly.
Blut hesitated and then said, ‘The Emperor is never dead, Jack. Long live the Emperor.’
Then: ‘Come, gentlemen, let us get ourselves to Brum, let us make sure we live to fight this kind of savagery. Let us do what My Lord Sinistral would have done.’
He was not impressive of stature, nor of appearance. Yet just then the glass orbs of his spectacles caught daylight and shone it around that place of death like sun and stars and moon, and with it his spirit shone too, his words as well.
‘They will not be forgotten and they will be avenged. That is the simple wyrd of it. We will avenge them. That is our wyrd now.’
Simple words spoken powerfully.
It was extraordinary.
He was the Emperor.
‘Don’t underestimate Niklas Blut, Jack,’ murmured Arthur as they retraced their steps and continued on their way.
‘But wasn’t the hydden he served so long a tyrant?’
‘Sinistral? Was he?’ said Arthur ambiguously, as if he knew more than he was able to say just then. ‘I am not so sure what that word means any more. One thing is certain. If Quatremayne succeeds in taking Brum and consolidates his power, he most certainly will be a tyrant in the worst sense of the word. The cruelty we have just seen is, I am sure, but a small sample of what he has done already and a signal of what he might do in the future.’
It was two more hours and early in the afternoon before another train arrived and they were able to under-board. But Barklice’s nightmare came true and it stopped yards from Coventry’s main station. They had reached the area of junctions and the bridge near where Quatremayne had his HQ. To the casual eye it looked deserted and not at all the scene of the busy activity which a military rendezvous is normally subject to. But there were humans doing repairs on the line and a large signal box set in the midst of the tracks and the Fyrd were lying low.
Backhaus had removed insignia from one of the bodies and given himself a more senior rank, though not so senior that he ought to be known to any other officers they met. The main Fyrd activity was in an are
a of former coal yards on the west side of the tracks and it was here that the trains were stopping before signals ahead. Quatremayne’s bridge was down the line and in sight but only just.
Various parties of Fyrd and civilians went back and forth, some near, some far. Jack’s party kept themselves to one side, sitting in a neat and orderly way with an air of expectation, as if they thought something was going to happen soon that would mean they would move on.
A couple of Fyrd nodded in their direction, and an officer ambled over to pass the time of day, but Backhaus and Recker gave them all short shrift, looking impatient, as if others had let them down. Once only did they catch sight of anyone who seemed important and that was further down the track, on the same side, when a tall well-uniformed officer surrounded by aides briefly showed himself.
‘Quatremayne?’ asked Jack urgently.
Arthur wasn’t sure.
Blut momentarily pulled on his spectacles, had a look, and put them away again.
‘Not Quatremayne,’ he said.
The officers moved away.
‘We’re running out of time,’ said Barklice, ‘but there’s not much we can do except wait and hope.’
What they were doing was waiting for a train that looked bound for Brum whose stop position, combined with an absence of anyone nearby, might offer them a chance of going undercroft. They had found a cache of crofting boards and had placed them nearby. Two trains arrived that might have been suitable and they saw no one entrain or disembark. Both were examined underneath by a Fyrd whose job, it seemed, was to check for anything untoward, but he did his work cursorily as if he thought it impossible that anyone would try so foolish a thing.
But for Jack, it was getting Arthur under the train quickly that presented the greater problem, for that was the moment they were most likely to be stopped and checked.
‘When we go, we go fast,’ he said, ‘so I’ll pair up with Arthur myself and make sure he does what he has to . . . As for you, Blut . . .’
‘As for me,’ said Blut, ‘I am fitter and more agile than you might think. It will help if, just for the time of boarding, I put my spectacles on, otherwise things will be blurry and difficult in the shadows beneath.’
A suitable train rolled in slowly an hour later. It was old rolling stock, a powerful diesel pulling a combination of freight trucks and empty passenger compartments.
‘Perfect,’ pronounced Barklice as it eased to a creaking stop. ‘When we board follow me. We’ll take the filthiest, the one Fyrd won’t want to travel under.’
The nearest Fyrd glanced at it, the one doing the checking came forward briefly onto the track and then was either distracted or grew bored and retreated once more, and the engine began rumbling again.
They broke cover in pairs, Barklice with Blut at the rear, Jack and Arthur next, and Backhaus and Recker last, ambling to the train side at their ease, with the intention of keeping others away if need be.
The Fyrd emerged again and stared in their direction.
Backhaus gave no more than an unfriendly nod and slight movement of the hand which said no more than you’re doing your job, I’m doing mine . . .
The train began to move and he and Recker ducked between the wheels, positioned their boards as it began accelerating and pulled themselves aboard.
But the acceleration was misleading, suggesting as it did that the train was going to run right on through the complex of points in Coventry and out the other side on a clear and direct run Brumwards.
Not so.
It began to slow; it finally stopped. Jack dropped down to check where they were and saw a red signal changing back to green and hopped aboard again.
Whatever the cause, it was the beginning of a start–stop progress through miles of sidings and detours, some of the stops so sudden that they were sometimes nearly thrown off their perches.
Yet every time they were able to disembark briefly and check progress, they were further down line and nearer to getting clear of the Coventry conurbation. Better still, they ran into no more Fyrd at all.
But time ticked on, they were tired and aching, a late afternoon gloom was setting in.
‘If there was an obvious better alternative,’ said Barklice at one stop where they were able to gather briefly to stretch and drink some water, ‘I would suggest it. Sometimes all we can do is stick with what we have and hope . . .’
The train began creaking and they were up and off once more, this time accelerating to a decent speed, the changing points and jolts diminishing as the train returned to better lines.
Then the familiar screech of brakes, the jolting and the now-too-familiar halt.
But this time something new and ominous.
The light was bad, the stench of diesel thick, the sound of voices near.
Jack lowered himself cautiously and looked about.
They were in a deep cutting, its walls made of brick stained black and inset with support arches. Some of them extended back into tunnels. The train juddered forward and then back then forward again. Jack saw lights in the tunnels, figures moving, activity – Fyrd.
Fyrd crunched along the line towards them, Jack heaved himself back up, heart beating.
The Fyrd on the track reached the point where Blut lay in the undercarriage, pausing while others hurried to catch them up.
Someone said, ‘Not that one, looks too damn dirty, try this one!’
Thank the Mirror for Barklice, thought Jack.
The Fyrd grouped and then continued on down line and they heard the clatter of boards as they too took their positions undercroft.
Silence but for the hum of the train.
A group of Fyrd emerged from through the arch where the activity was.
A voice, commanding.
Others, laughing in obsequious union.
‘That’s Quatremayne,’ Blut murmured.
Jack risked lowering himself a mite to catch a glimpse and reposition his stave lest it was needed. At the very least, if a fight ensued he could attack and perhaps kill the one who mattered most.
Blut had described the General earlier and his depiction had been good.
The Chief of Staff was tall, silver-haired, commanding, and a flash of light in his face from a lantern showed cold eyes, a thin mouth and austere cheeks.
‘Keep that light out of my eyes, fool!’ he said, striking someone to his side.
Jack, who had closed his eyes as the beam travelled round, still had his night vision.
Quatremayne had briefly lost his and stared in Jack’s direction but did not see him.
It was enough.
Jack felt he had finally engaged the enemy.
The train eased forward; someone ran out with a leather messenger pouch.
‘Where are they? Which carriage?’ he said.
Maybe someone gave him the wrong direction, maybe an unclear one, but he ran forward between the now slowly turning wheels to give the pouch to one of the Fyrd under the train and found himself staring straight into the eyes of Blut, his spectacles still on.
Barklice, too far to reach, said, ‘Here!’
The confused Fyrd turned, moving along the track with the train, uncertain what to do with the pouch. Jack, further along, saw it, but the train was gathering speed and he could only issue a command.
‘Hold him. Hold him fast!’
‘Here!’ shouted Barklice again.
‘I . . .’ began the bewildered Fyrd as he tried the dangerous business of keeping up with a moving train. ‘You . . .’
If they had doubted Blut’s resolution or fitness they did not doubt it more.
He grabbed the Fyrd from behind, turned and tumbled him backwards and . . . held on.
The Fyrd slipped between the wheels and under the train, tried to free himself but his legs were pulled from under him.
‘Help!’
‘Let him go,’ shouted Jack.
Blut did so.
The Fyrd dropped to the track, bounced and was caught by the train
and rolled along before it carried on and he bounced away behind them, screaming.
A thud, silence, and the body, or bits of it, bounced horribly away in the dark, under the next carriage.
Then another scream, as the body hit one of the Fyrd undercroft who, dislodged, reached up for the helping hand of another and dislodged him too.
A melee of bodies turning, twisting, shouting, clinging hopelessly on under the moving train, wheels running over arms and legs, bodies fragmented; three Fyrd gone.
The train stopped once more, this time in near-darkness.
Jack’s group knew to stay silent.
The remaining Fyrd dropped down to the track, in shock at what had happened. Jack followed in the darkness, not ready to risk his group being discovered then or later, and Backhaus followed him.
There were four other Fyrd there, sitting ducks to Jack’s stave one way and Backhaus’s another. Thud, thud, thud . . .
A grunt from Jack as he made the final hit.
‘Bastards,’ said Recker pulling them unconscious under the train and laying them on the line.
The train moved forward and the wheels destroyed the Fyrd.
It was ugly, horrible.
But it was war and the lessons they were learning were bitter ones.
35
ENTWINED
Bedwyn Stort returned to the problem of the Embroidery the moment Jack set off on his rescue mission. He had begun to feel that the inanimate and strangely elusive artefact was a being in its own right, as alive as himself or Cluckett, and that it wanted to tell him how to find the gem of Autumn but didn’t know how.
He paced about his laboratory, muttering and glowering at the Embroidery, holding it up, putting it down, squinting and peering at it and even creeping up on it in the dark and turning on a flashlight as if hoping thereby to catch it out and make it reveal its secret.
None of it worked.
He felt himself sliding towards desperation. Samhain was but three weeks away, when he had to deliver up to the Shield Maiden the gem he felt he was as yet nowhere near finding. Failure would bring disaster.
All that was certain about the Embroidery was its uncertainty: its imagery of location and character never stayed the same.