Winter Read online

  But Jack was not so sure where to find his ’sac and stave, which, disobligingly, Judith had dumped some way off. Her dogs and their riders, the Reivers, had worried at them for a time, mock-killing them, until his stave, growing weary with their futile play, hardened its heart, blunted their teeth, whirled about above their heads and thwacked them one by one, the whole lot of them and sent them packing after Judith like the curs they were.

  His stave, taking pity on him, looped itself through the strap of his far-off ’sac and portered it right to his hand and let him heave it on before, rushing high up into the sky, it whirred back down, fearsome of sound, and he caught it in his outstretched hand, blindly, it being too dark to see.

  He set off downslope, happy to be home, there being nowhere else in the world other than Woolstone that came near to having that name and meaning for him. The scarp face was steep and slippery and he tumbled a few times, cracked his head on the road halfway down, swore, somersaulted in the air at the next steep bit, used his stave to break his fall and bring him upright until he arrived by the fence at the foot of the garden of Woolstone House.

  He ducked under it and a short while later reached the safe sanctuary of the henge Arthur had begun to make fifty years before. He had just decided that he might as well sleep right where he was and explore the house and garden in the morning when he realized he was not alone.

  A human was standing in the dark, on round the henge, no more than twenty feet from him. Jack pulled back further into the night-shadow of the tree from which he had nearly emerged before he turned his head to stare. The figure was standing by a tree as he was, for the same reason, which was that trees are safe havens for the wary.

  Jack could smell him, the sharp, acidic scent of garb washed in detergent. A scent, not an odour, but not quite pleasant. Jack relaxed and took in the human’s other scents. Oil, very slight, no more than the wraith of a smell in the air which he recognized. It was waterproofing used on boots.

  The figure moved, very slightly, and Jack was able to see that he had raised a weapon to take aim towards something in the garden. He was looking through what Jack guessed was a night ’scope on the barrel. Whatever he was aiming at was obscured by a tree.

  There was the short phut! of a silencer and moments later a form arced backwards into Jack’s line of sight and fell onto the grass. The weapon had an infra-red beam and this now caught the two eyes of the creature the man had shot. It was a fox and it stared unblinking and unmoving, helpless, its body broken underneath.

  Now, dying, terrified, the fox stared at the human until, slowly, one eye began to dim in the red light, to dim with the coming of death.

  The soldier fired a second time and the fox’s head exploded in the dark, its mass scattering away into the night.

  ‘Bastard,’ said the human.

  Yes, bastard, Jack murmured to himself, disgusted and grieving. But he stilled an impulse to retaliate on behalf of the fox. Rolling his back round the tree trunk and away, his movements slow as a snail’s, retreating inside his own form so there was no lateral or vertical movement away from the shape he already was from the other’s viewpoint. Just a retreat, a diminishing and finally a waiting until the human went back up to the house.

  Jack eased around the trees he knew so well, scenting where he had to, staring where he could. Briefly his body aligned itself with the trees to dexter of the physical entry to the henge, which was formed by two great conifers, from which began the portal ‘dance’, as Arthur and Stort had sometimes called it: the subtle dance by which hydden and humans, if they knew what they were about, could weave the lines of power into a portal and move between the realms. He had not thought to move into the human realm and did not now, but the feeling of being but a few steps of mind and body from his other, bigger self made him feel nostalgic.

  He moved on, spotted several guards and decided to leave further exploration until the next day. He left the garden to sleep in another down the lane. It would be safer there.

  He woke after dawn but before the sunrise, stretching where he lay; listening; feeling the wind and light rain flurry about him while he tried to locate any guards nearby by sound.

  He sat up, drank water, chewed brot and pondered what else he had found out the night before. In addition to the guards he had found some CCTV cameras, which were inadequate to cover such a place. There would be more. And dogs probably, which hydden never like, since they can scent and hear and sense what humans cannot.

  He hid his ’sac but took his stave and did again what he had done the night before. Four humans outside now, more inside. Eight cameras found so far and probably more among the trees. No dogs.

  The house was a great pile of a building, built around a very ancient structure, a pilgrim hospice, Arthur claimed, whose three remaining arches were internal now. From the outside it was unkempt Victorian, with heavy casement windows on the ground floor and a red-tiled roof, that was always too expensive for the Foales to repair and for Margaret’s parents before that, when the last servant died, who was never replaced. An Edwardian conservatory was added with some legacy money, and a patio and dressed stone steps as well, but these were cracked now and so full of thick invasive weeds that they were unrecoverable.

  At the front, which always felt like the rear to Jack, because the family had spent most of their time in the conservatory and garden, the door and its steps were hemmed in by the lane a few yards away. It was occupied now by a US airbase truck, from which cables ran into the house, the open front door being guarded, the perimeter patrolled.

  The day was dull and wet, which made things easy for Jack. The human hyddening skills were so poor and Jack’s so practised that he barely thought about what he was doing. It was, almost literally, a walk in the park, dancing along with the welcome movement of the shrubbery, sliding with the infinite shift of subtle shadow and exploiting the light between the trees, whose brightness a hydden knew how to use.

  Jack stood studying the different elevations of a house he loved, all the richer in memory for knowing that Margaret and Arthur Foale would never now return. Nor would Katherine and he, probably, not to live. The world had changed and it felt as if time had passed the old place by.

  The rain eased and the wind freshened and he heard the sound of the Chimes, the strange shards of crystal and glass that hung in their tens and maybe hundreds in the shrubbery down by the tree henge. It was there that Arthur used to sit and watch his tomatoes grow, as he liked to put it.

  ‘Should be in the kitchen garden!’ Margaret used to complain.

  But Arthur ignored that, sitting with a drink, enjoying the sharp smell of the leaves and ripening fruit, popping them into his mouth and, for the short period she was young enough, into Judith’s too. The Chimes never stopped making their sound, whether loud, or soft, and they did so now. There was a wealth of meaning in the music they made and now . . . Jack stilled, heart racing. Now they were sounding a warning, an urgent one.

  He retreated into the kitchen garden and from there to the shrubberies, the Chimes nearby to his right, the dead fox’s congealed and shattered body obscene upon the lawn. He moved on by it, his sense of outrage at such gratuitous destructiveness still strong, and went on past the henge to the area of copse beyond.

  He saw something more.

  It was a muntjac, unnaturally curled up on the edge of the lawn. Its odour was of death but not yet decay. He went closer and saw that its legs were tangled in the fine, nearly invisible mesh of a net. There was no damage to its body and where its brown-grey fur poked through the net the breeze caught it and it trembled as if alive.

  Jack felt his stave tremble in his right hand too, a warning that something was wrong. He froze and began easing himself into deep shadow.

  Phut!

  The soft sound came from the shadow of the nearest tree and as he heard it his stave shot away from him. Only as he felt himself struggle and fall did he realize he had triggered a new trap meant for an animal. It enclose
d him at once, sticky and elastic, tightening as he struggled.

  He stilled, his face into the ground and his vision confined to just a close-up, angled view of it. Then he caught the same odour of waterproofing on leather as he had the night before. Stupid. A booted foot, a hand and a human voice.

  ‘What the hell are you?’

  He felt himself bodily picked up, the world swinging round, and then he heard a shout.

  ‘Shit,’ said the man.

  Jack felt himself tossed into the darkness of the undergrowth and heard the man say, ‘Later!’

  He lay still and immobile, knowing without trying that there was no way he was going to be able to free himself and that in this situation his stave was not going to be able to help except as back-up if he could find his way out of the mess into which he had got himself. He swore, unreservedly, inside his head, words of the kind he would not dream of speaking aloud.

  Eventually he did say something, though it was mumbled, since his face was flattened by the netting, just like the rest of him.

  ‘Stupid!’ he mumbled. ‘Very, very, stupid!’

  He heard a clatter and that, at least, offered a measure of reassurance. His stave had reacted faster than he had, twisted free of the net and had fled to the darkness of the trees. It now lay where it fell, its ancient carvings catching the light of day, and later that of night, awaiting a command from its master.

  Only later did Jack roll over, which was all he could do, catch the glimmer of his waiting stave, and whisper, ‘Help!’

  The word tumbled through the vegetation, found the stave, made its way into its dark, reflective carvings, where it reverberated softly.

  ‘Help!’ said Jack again, more loudly this time. ‘Help!’

  The stave heard it, considered it and transformed it in its ancient depths to something new, something urgent. Dark and desperate shards of light appeared, multiplying all the time until they sped out in their thousands, spiralling forth like a vast flock of starlings through the tree canopy above and out into the Hyddenworld beyond.

  23

  ON TO STANTON DREW

  It was very obvious to Katherine and the others as they followed the Poldyfolk up Brent Knoll to rescue their brethren atop the hill, that they had no clear plan of action, knowledge of tactics or any conception that in Slaeke Sinistral and Niklas Blut they had among their number two of the foremost exponents of modern Imperial warfare.

  Seeing which, and aware of the chaos that was likely to ensue following the unruly charge up the Knoll towards the humans laying siege to it, Katherine made sure that the elderly Sinistral was well protected and far from the action.

  The truth was that the threat to the Bilgesnipe on the Knoll was more imagined than real. When the Poldyfolk charged the scattering of ill-disciplined humans they upped and fled around the sides of the Knoll and thence towards the distant shoreline to the west. There was a token resistance and a noisy, flamboyant second charge. A few minor injuries were sustained on both sides, Arnold was conspicuous by the lead he gave the others and his dreamygirl by the oaths she hurled after the fugitive humans.

  ‘There is no need for us to linger,’ said Barklice, ‘and I have no intention of climbing this steep hill for a Bilgesnipe celebration that is likely to go on for several days!’

  That much agreed, and Arnold left behind to cement his relationship with his future in-laws ahead of a spousal that must surely take place in Brum in the near future, they determined to journey on that same day, using one of the many abandoned army vehicles they found to do so.

  They were happy to let Katherine drive and she to drive them, at least initially for that day and the next.

  But it was not long before she needed a rest and decided that someone else could help with the driving.

  ‘My Lord Blut,’ said Katherine very suddenly and rather formally, ‘I think it’s time you learned to drive.’

  ‘Me?’ he replied, visibly alarmed. ‘But I have never touched a human machine in my life nor ever desired to! Especially one which moves!’

  But no wonder Katherine was tired. Their progress up the motorway had been slow, principally because Katherine had to pick her way through innumerable abandoned vehicles. It had been cautious too, for there was much evidence of violence and brutality on the road and not far off it, and the first sightings of humans in daylight.

  From the way these people wandered unseeing in nearby urban gardens and along railway lines, or squatted by fences in lanes, it was plain that they posed no great threat to a moving vehicle. Indeed, more often than not the sight and sound of their approach sent these vagrants scurrying away to hide themselves.

  It was now a frightened, beaten kind of human world they were travelling into, and the motorway, raised above the landscape or separated by barriers, embankments, concrete bridges and high fences, gave them a welcome feeling of security.

  ‘How far before the next exit, Terce?’

  She had thought at first that Blut would be the best of them at navigating with the road atlas they found in the vehicle, but his sight was against it. He could see the road ahead clearly enough, and read the signs, but close map work needed him to remove his spectacles and then to adjust his eyes to the small print. Added to which, his spatial awareness was not good.

  But Terce, whose sight was perfect and who was used to reading musical notation at the same time as following his Kappelmeister’s conducting, took to navigation easily. Or rather, enjoyed sitting in the front seat, with Blut next to him, pointing out such features and names of places as the atlas showed and their view allowed.

  So when Katherine asked him about the next exit his reply was prompt.

  ‘Half a mile,’ he said, ‘and I believe I can already see the sign with three white lines which is indicative of the approach of an exit.’

  ‘Where does it go to?’

  ‘Bath,’ sang out Barklice, whose methods of route-finding were entirely different and more intuitive than humans ones.

  ‘That’s right,’ concurred Terce.

  Katherine’s earlier request that Blut might drive had pricked the bubble of easy comfort and complacency that had overtaken the group for the past hour and a half. Within a few minutes of climbing aboard another vehicle they seemed to have forgotten the hardships and realities of pedestrian travel and begun to believe that all they had to do was to sit back and idly watch the road go by. Then, without further effort or thought, they would soon be safely back in Brum.

  As they approached the first exit warning Katherine slowed right down. The road was a mess of crashed vehicles and the barriers along the central reservation had been flattened.

  Katherine was suddenly forced to brake sharply. Two hundred yards ahead the motorway was blocked by two trucks on their sides and burnt-out vehicles in front. It looked like some kind of deliberate barrier. They had stopped just before the stippled line marking the start of the slip road off the motorway.

  A human appeared ahead, next to the roadblock, staring and apparently surprised.

  ‘He was not expecting us,’ said Blut.

  Another human appeared and they saw that both were armed.

  There being no possibility of speeding past them, and since turning round was difficult with so many obstructions on the road, Katherine eased the vehicle to the left to the beginning of the slip road. It went gently upward, towards some kind of roundabout, built above the motorway to feed traffic to either side of it.

  She stopped again.

  ‘Is it blocked as well?’ she asked urgently.

  Terce, who had a better view, shook his head.

  ‘One of the lanes is clear,’ he said, ‘but I think I can see another human.’

  Katherine strained up to get a better view, looked towards the barrier again and said decisively, ‘It’s a trap! Hold tight!’

  She crashed the gears into reverse, peered into the side mirror, and accelerated backwards. They hit vehicles, shots were fired, the noise was deafening, the joltin
g sudden and violent. Then, on her right-hand side, the central reservation opened up where the metal barriers had been smashed.

  She pushed the gear into first, turned the wheel, revved the engine and drove the vehicle bumpety bump over the remnants of the barrier and right across the two lanes to the far side of the motorway. She accelerated forward, forced a crashed vehicle out of the way and drove up the other slip road, the one intended for vehicles coming down from the roundabout above.

  Up it they went, the road that side unobstructed but for a solitary human guard, who ran out and then dived sideways to avoid being hit. At the top Katherine turned right into what would normally have been oncoming traffic and jolted away down the road to Bath, finally regaining the correct side of the road a few hundred yards later.

  Soon the houses gave way to countryside, Katherine slowed, breathing heavily, and they trundled along at a slower pace once more.

  Then, the strangest of things, a snow-white bird, starling-like, fluttered against the windscreen, its black shining eyes briefly peering in before it recovered itself, ducked and weaved away ahead of them and was joined by a few others which twisted and turned together before disappearing west into the mottled grey sky.

  Katherine was so shaken by this, for reasons she could not understand, that she stopped the vehicle the moment they next crested a hill, to give themselves a view in all directions and herself a break.

  ‘Do you know where the nearest henge is to where we now are?’ she asked Barklice. ‘I mean, is it close, because for some reason I feel it might be.’

  She barely gave him time to think before adding impatiently, ‘Well?’

  This might normally have seemed a very odd thing to ask but ever since she began driving that day, perhaps even before, Katherine had been restless and slightly irritable. She had kept glancing from one side of the road to the other as if on the lookout for something specific; she ignored questions; and, as now, having asked one of her own, she expected an instant reply.

  Stort, who had been somnolent, stirred and peered expectantly at Barklice and raised his eyebrows. Barklice looked at him, nodding slightly.