The Pack (19 page)

Red Dog gave a leave-it-to-me nod and set to work. He crouched till the skirts of his black coat brushed the ground as he moved. He set his hands to work, each independent of the other, plucking the stones from the earth, one by one, as if they were ripe. Any that refused to come first time broke his rhythm, but spiked his interest. He turned to them his full attention, excavated them with both hands and gave each a respectful nod, before he tossed it onto one of the random cairns forming round the edge of the field.

Each morning he cast his eye over the field and blew on his hands. Still the field challenged him, but he knew there would be only one victor here. Nor was Red Dog unaware of his audience. From the kitchen window, Mr. McLachlan pointed him out again to his wife.

“What a worker that is. I've rarely seen the like.”

And from round the edge of the barn and through its slats, Bradley and the others watched too, as Red Dog dug his hands into the earth to allow him handholds on a rock like a giant submerged egg. After the first two or three days there were no easy ones left. As Red Dog heaved now, they saw the seams of his coat ease apart, as the rock lifted slowly up and up, till eventually it toppled over and its black, earthy back faced the sky, leaving another smooth empty socket in Mr. McLachlan's new field.

But one stone above all proved the greatest test. It sat dead centre of the field and Mr. McLachlan had imagined, when he came to plant the field, that he would have to work around it.

Red Dog threw his coat over the nearest cairn and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He walked over to the stone, still limping slightly, with a fence post resting over his shoulder. He raised it above his head and drove it into the earth. A splinter pierced his palm, but he merely pulled it out and sucked the bleeding away. He muttered at the stone. It was almost as if he were amused by what had happened. But when the fence post broke, his helmet-brow furrowed with thought. He strode off to the barn and, smiling his grimacing smile into the curious shadows, he lifted a crowbar down from the wall.

He spat on his hands and drove the crowbar into the earth beside the giant stone. And that was when the black rains began, with no pitter-patter of warning, but straight and hard. Within seconds they had filled up each of the field's fresh cavities. Red Dog shook his head and turned his back on the stone and pushed down upon the crowbar with all his strength. He was facing the barn, so even through the inky rain Bradley could not miss how he strained, his forehead peeling back till the blind white slits of his eyes stared back at Bradley and every nerve mapped his hairless face, as if some force inside him were trying to escape. The steady hum of his effort became so great, Hunger heard it in the shelter of the barn and padded, whining, backwards and forwards.

As Red Dog's blood vessels pulsed beneath the rods of rain, his head bandage began to unwind and to trail down his back. But he did not stop work then, or when fresh blood bubbled up from the wounds and rivulets of rain and blood poured down his neck, across his shoulders and down the prow of his chest. Once he caught sight of Mr. McLachlan stepping out beyond the shelter of the eaves, but he turned to him the closed helmet of his face and stopped him in his tracks.

Again and again, the beast of a stone lifted and fell. And again and again, Red Dog wiped his hands beneath his armpits and set to work, humming and growling; till, against the dying light, with a bent crowbar, he canceled the stone's dead weight—“Gotcha!”—and rolled it to the side of the field. Mr. McLachlan was there to praise him, to share a joke with him, he thought, about the newly-stopped rain; but Red Dog merely gave him the same nod he had at the beginning of the work, as if it had been nothing, and muttered, “Satisfaction guaranteed.”

“What a worker. I've rarely seen the like.”

“Asks about the children too,” said Mrs. McLachlan. “Did I not tell you the Faith repays its followers?”

For almost two weeks Red Dog became a man of few words as, exhausted, he slept each night on an old sack in the barn, curling into his coat, steam rising from his warming body, his boots still coated in mud. Hunger lay between the Pack and him. No one settled to sleep till they saw Red Dog's body heave with deep even breaths and heard his snores.

Even so, Bradley found himself wondering, could it be possible that Red Dog had not been lying; that he had truly changed?

*   *   *

“Well,” said Bradley, tossing his turnip skin towards Hunger, “we can't live on truck-fall forever. Today, we carry on north.”

Floris looked at Victor nervously. She shook her head vigorously.

“Stay,” said Victor, speaking for her. But there was a gleam in his eyes that said yes.

“We can't,” said Bradley. “There's no food and there's no reason. The snows have gone. The floods have eased. We must go north.”

Floris cuddled into Victor.

“And it's not safe here anymore,” said Martha. “We can't stay in the barn the whole summer and the Compound patrols will surely spot us if we spend more time outside. We can't go back to the city…”

Victor's eyes widened in alarm.

“… We have no choice but to head north.”

“North,” said Victor.

Floris slowly nodded.

“Good,” said Bradley.

“Wise children. Oh, good and wise children,” said Red Dog.

They agreed that Red Dog could accompany them part of the way—to the last Faith house before the forests began. Mr. McLachlan told of a poor couple there who would welcome the labour.

“Anything,” Red Dog said. “Anything to help.”

Floris and Victor had both needed convincing about this agreement. Martha had had to point out to them all the things Red Dog had done to show how he had changed. There was the work he had done for the McLachlans for a start. And he had gone to the lake and brought them fish, returning cold and damp. He had caught a rat, sniffing around Floris as she slept. His hand had whipped out in the darkness like a snake's head. They had seen him bend at the waist every time Mrs. McLachlan came near and talk about the weather and about how Floris and Victor were growing, what fine young people were Bradley and Martha, but yes, how one worried about what future they could have in these times. Oh, before the Dead Time … And Mrs. McLachlan's face would cloud. They never talked about life before the Dead Time, but people rarely did. Still, she was thankful the children would have some kind of protector with them, for part of the journey at least, as they headed north, where for so long no one had dared to go.

16

REVENGE

Red Dog's tall figure, with its huge boots and short trouser-cuffs, was the last one Sundep McLachlan and his wife had seen as they took the road that led north of the farm before, after a small rise, it dipped from view.

There was a track which ran to the side of the road, though the road itself was markedly narrower now than the one they had taken out of the city. The track was rougher than the road, but there were protective bushes on either side of it, some showing tiny, arrowed leaves.

Spring was in the air and Red Dog felt his time had come.

If he raised himself up fully, he could see Dog Boy in the lead, forging steadily ahead, the bag of food Mrs. McLachlan had given them for the journey bouncing on his back. Victor and Floris came next. Victor leaned towards the ground and every so often reached down to brush the earth with the knuckles of a hand. He tugged at Floris to keep up.

Then came Skreech. Skreech—the cause of all his problems.

Falling away a little behind them, Red Dog could let his lip curl at the thought of her name, as he had not been able to do these past weeks, when “Martha” had to be said so sweetly. For every sweet saying of the name won Bradley over, bit by bit. Any fool could see that.

But his quarrel was not with “Martha”; it was with Skreech. Not for the deception. He had had his suspicions—many girls found it safer to become boy soldiers than to stay with families and watch hunger and despair seize them. Everyone was playing a part to get by.

Red Dog ran the case against Skreech one last time through his mind.

Dog Boy, Victor and Hunger,
his
champion—Red Dog had held them all within his power back then. And he had had the beating of Black Fist—a victory that would have engraved his name in the minds of all throughout the Forbidden Territories and, more importantly, in the Invisible City itself.

Red Dog felt his chest fill with his old power, but it was only the ghostly power of what might have been. It soon passed from him, leaving him shrunken, breathless.

Skreech's treachery had done this to him. Skreech, whom he had taken in as a fearful little boy with a voice like a broken whistle. Given him shelter, food, given him his protection. Trusted him. And how had Skreech repaid him? By abetting his enemies, by setting him on the road to humiliation, to cold, to hunger, to fear.

Fear? Red Dog afraid! Yes, he had been. The great shape of him trying to scurry like a mouse, like a shadow, through the Invisible City with the few necessities he had been able to take with him on his back. Unnatural.

He stretched himself now and felt his shoulders unwrap and his chest open to the future like a bulging wardrobe. As he savored his justified anger, he felt his forehead crease and resettle like a helmet on his head.

For there had been no end to his humiliations these past weeks. He had had to become not only Red Dog of the soft voice, but of the open face, of the bright comment also. He had found lifting rocks was preferable to spending any more time than he had to like that; and he would rather lift rocks from a hundred fields than taste again the milky skin of that old woman's cheek as he had kissed her goodbye. He could feel his lips pucker with distaste. Enough!

Skreech had been false from the start and now Skreech—he, she or it—would pay the price.

Oh, but he was a clever old dog still. He had been slowing the pace for a mile or so and Skreech, aware of linking the line of them, had fallen back from Dog Boy and the others. The dog, Hunger, was nowhere to be seen. The first step north and it had vanished. Red Dog feared he might laugh at the beauty of it all and pressed his hand briefly to his mouth.

Of course, he had noticed for some time that Hunger did not stick as closely to Dog Boy as once he had. The dog seemed to take as much notice of Skreech as of Dog Boy these days. And whenever they were outside, the dog would run over the slightest hill, out of sight. Sometimes, it would bring back a rabbit. Dog? It was more of a wolf really. Wild. That's how it had become his champion; it had a viciousness no other dog could match. But, hah, today was when it had chosen to leave them for good, to sup its own freedom.

Red Dog felt his luck was returning; marvelled that he had been able to add patience to all his other virtues.

Not till today had he found Skreech on his own—always Dog Boy or the old farmer had been around him. But now—
thar she blows!
Red Dog felt a little skip come into his step.

Skreech turned and the skip became an ungainly hobble.

“Keep up,” said Skreech. Skreech, ordering Red Dog!

“My knee, my knee's still not right.”

Skreech looked up ahead. No one in sight.

“Come on.”

Red Dog hirpled till Skreech was within reach. He felt himself flush with pleasure.

*   *   *

Martha saw Red Dog's lips part. He seemed to be making the sound “S-S-S-S-S” for a long time, his teeth bared, his eyes glinting, the helmet of his forehead closed. But it can only have been for the time it took his hand to travel in an arc across his body, bruising the spring air, before it landed across the side of Martha's head and knocked her off the path between two bushes.

“S-S-Skreech!”

Red Dog had her pinioned. She felt as if she were in a dog kennel as Red Dog's chest and the sides of his coat screened the light from her.

“Oh, Skreech, how I've waited for this.” He slapped her again. Lightly. Playfully.

“Get off me, Red Dog.” Martha wanted to shout, but her chest felt crushed. Her breath was being squeezed from her bit by bit. Red Dog saw the panic in her face.

“Oh, you did the wrong thing, little Skreech, when you betrayed Red Dog. Remember,
once crossed
 … But now is Red Dog's revenge. For you're coming back with me. You were the cause of my fall, but now you will be my redemption. I'm taking you back to the Invisible City. The Mount will be happy to have you back. Red Dog shall be redeemed.”

“I'm … never…”

“Oh, never is such a long time and frankly I don't have time to spare. So save your breath. I can't go back alone, surely you see that. You've got to come and whether I deliver you dead or alive, you'll be a good example for others.”

“I said … I'm…”

“Oh Skreech,” said Red Dog and his hand reached for a calming rock he had carried for just such an eventuality in his coat's deep pocket.

It was Red Dog's very bad luck that it was his right hand that closed around the rock, because it was from his defenceless right-hand side that Hunger came.

Martha would remember Red Dog's hand instinctively lifting, taking the coat's side with it. She would also recall, below the lifting coat flap, glimpsing Hunger in the air. She had not been able to see the start of his leap, so ever after she would remember, along with Hunger's other attributes, his ability to fly.

Whether Hunger knocked Red Dog clean off Martha or whether Red Dog rolled away from the violence of Hunger's assault, Red Dog found himself on his knees, his right ear torn and bleeding, as Hunger tore at the forearms of the coat he held up to protect his face.

The second Red Dog had left her chest, Martha let out a full cry: “Bradley!”

They surrounded him now—Bradley, Martha, Victor and Hunger. Floris glared at him from behind one of the bushes. In response to Red Dog's begging, Bradley had signalled Hunger back. But not before he had spread his jaws around Red Dog's face and drawn two neat rows of bleeding beads. Now Hunger paced behind him, like a boxer waiting to see if his opponent would beat the count.