The Pack (8 page)

“Why stay then?”

“You stupid, are you? What else is there to do?”

“I mean, what's in it for you?”

“My life. That's what's in it for me. I do what Red Dog says and I get food, I get shelter. He looks out for me—and for the rest, I take my chance with everyone else.”

“What kind of chance?”

“You heard him. The chance of being chosen.”

“I don't follow.”

“No, you don't follow nothing, seems to me, or you'd've stayed where you were.”

“Not a choice.”

“Pah. Chance of being chosen to go to the Invisible City.”

“What happens there?”

“You saying you've never heard the stories?”

“No, never.”

“Well, it's a place called The Mount they send you. They've got lots of children there, ones they picked up when they cleared up the Invisible City after the Dead Time. But still they need more. That's what Red Dog provides, a fresh batch…”

He stopped briefly and, not for the first time, glanced across nervously at the door into the great hall.

“No, no point in making friends here. When they go, they never get out. That I do know.”

“What do they do with them there?”

“Does it matter? None of us thinks about it much and we don't feel anything when someone's chosen, 'cos you know it could be you next time. Except it's not going to be me, it's going to be you. That's the only way you'll see Floris again.”

“Did you see her before they took her?”

“Yes. She was exhausted, but still crying and kicking. ‘They'll come for me,' she was shouting. ‘They'll come for me.' Red Dog loves these empty threats.”

“Well, we did.”

“Big deal. Look where it's got you.”

“It's not over yet.”

“Oh, but it is. Your dog dies today and you'll go to The Mount soon enough.”

“And Victor?”

“Oh yes, I was forgetting about him. Well, he's no good to The Mount, they're only interested in healthy types there, and soon Red Dog will get bored with him. I reckon they'll just turn him loose like a wounded bird. See how long they last in this territory…”

Bradley was silent for a while, as Skreech turned and turned his cane.

“What does Red Dog get out of it?”

“Out of what?” The edge had returned to his voice.

“Out of the arrangement with The Mount.”

“What the other warlords get. He gets to trade with the Invisible City. He gets this territory to call his own, as long as he patrols it and keeps unwanted people out of the Invisible City.”

“Like who?”

“Like you, me, homeless, parentless us.”

“You don't have to be here,” said Bradley, slowly and deliberately.

“Shut up, just shut up!” Skreech was on his feet, his stick rattling along the bars of the cage. Hunger leaped up, snarling, throwing himself against the bars, till Bradley pulled him down.

“It's all right, Hunger,” Bradley whispered to him. “It's all right.”

Victor too was up, agitatedly going from one side of his cage to the other, his head rocking from side to side, till Bradley called out, “Victor, Victor, it's OK, it's OK. Be still.”

The three of them lay back down, but Hunger and Victor continued to sift the air, their eyes alert. How long they stayed like that—minutes or hours—Bradley couldn't be sure. While he drifted off to sleep, they remained locked in a timeless immobility.

Bradley only wakened when there were heavy footsteps and the door was flung open.

*   *   *

The room soon filled with the boy soldiers. Then, with accompanying clapping, stamping and whooping, and bursting from a red pinafore dress, Red Dog entered, behind him the weasel.

Beside the weasel ambled the tawny mass of Red Dog's champion, its shoulder muscles rippling as it walked. It didn't stand quite as tall as Hunger, but, like a burst sofa, it made up for that in breadth. Its head was almost square, half of one of its ears had been ripped off in some previous encounter. A scar ran across one eye. This was a trained, experienced fighter, but Bradley noted that, even as it walked, it panted. If Hunger were fit … Yet Bradley couldn't know how much yesterday's struggles had taken out of him. Certainly, if that brute got its jaws fastened round Hunger's throat, the fight would be over.

“Good morning, my hearties. Oh, I always loved the pirates. They were the very best stories, don't you think? Oh, don't you, don't you? Answer me!”

This was spoken—shouted—at one child in particular—one with a pale face crossed by a flop of hair.

“Yes, Red Dog, the best.”

“Oh, good, good, but Red Dog … Red Dog's noticed you. He
knows
you now.”

The boy gulped and everyone else seemed to become even more buoyant.

“But-but-but,” Red Dog machine-gunned round the whole company, “that might not be the way of it, because you know, you just know how much Red Dog loves numbers—how much he adores the number … eighteen. Oh, six times three—lovely! Oh, two times nine—glory! Now where do I begin?”

The boys began to shuffle.

“No one move,” screamed Red Dog and pointed to the flop-haired boy. “Here, I'm going to begin here. A one and a two and a three and a four…”

Rooted to the spot, once ten had been passed, the next group of boys fidgeted and silently pleaded.

“… and a … sixteen … and a … seventeen … and a … ay … ay … eighteen!”

Number eighteen boy yelped.

“Fix him as a possible too, Laugh-tenant,” said Red Dog, visibly tiring of that game, before he remembered another.

“Now,” he said, turning to the cage, “now to business. Oh, I love the early morning—the sunlight, the birds singing, joy in the heart.”

The closest boys all tried to put “joy in the heart” expressions on.

“This now,” he said, pointing to the burst sofa, “is Tender. Hunger—Tender. But I want you to meet him up real close. Key!”

The weasel handed him the key.

“Now you,” he said to Bradley, “out.”

Bradley took Hunger's ears in his hands to look him eye to eye. “Keep moving, keep away from the jaws. If not, you're done for.”

This is my fight now,
said Hunger.

“Out now!” Red Dog bellowed. “Now, let's shake things up a bit here.”

Bradley stood outside, children once more fastened to him, as the weasel rattled a stick up and down the bars. Bradley would have wanted Hunger to keep his strength, but Hunger's rage and hatred were so great, he threw himself, biting and snarling, against the bars.

“That's more like it, that's much more like it,” said Red Dog and pushed Tender hard up against the bars.

Tender realized that the only thing between the bars and him walking out of there to a celebratory meat bone was that black dog that seemed to hate him so much. Tender began to feel the same hatred, opening his huge jaws, angling his head to try to take a lump out of Hunger when he was up close.

“Good,” said Red Dog. “Good. Very, very, very good. I think we're ready to rumble.” He signalled to the weasel, the door was opened and Tender, with his ambling gait, ran into the cage.

It was then that Hunger's appetite for the fight seemed to desert him. Whenever Tender came for him, he found space. Tender only had one move and he knew he could wait for it to bear blood. It was just a matter of time. Red Dog, ooh-ing and ah-ing, his nose almost to the bars, shared Tender's optimism.

Still, Tender's panting had become more noticeable, as he turned and turned again, tracking Hunger's flowing movement round the very rim of the cage. Every so often Tender hurled himself at the spot where his opponent should have been, only to ring against the bars. A couple of times his jaws clamped around Hunger's coat, leaving him with a mouthful of hair. This encouraged him; surely, just a question of time.

Hunger appeared to be tiring. More and more frequently, Tender was launching these nearly-there attacks. Red Dog cheered. The boy soldiers cheered. To see his champion victorious again would make Red Dog happy; possibly make him overlook the few small things that could lead someone to The Mount—wipe the slate clean.

But they were all watching a different fight to the one Bradley saw. In his, a slow, old fighter was being suckered into close exchanges by a faster opponent. At first, up close, Hunger could get a sense of Tender's mass, a feel for his mobility. Later, a counterattack could be launched. And that was the way of it, when Tender lunged in one more time, his jaws closing—oh, so close—on Hunger's rump. Red Dog's face cracked open with anticipation. But before he could cheer, Hunger had spun around and snapped twice—two rapier bites—across Tender's head.

Only scalp wounds, yet blood poured down Tender's forehead, blinding him as, enraged and panting, he set off in pursuit again. But the noise of the crowd dulled his hearing, as the smell of his own blood veiled his sense of smell. His jaws hanging open, he felt as if he were chasing a ghost.

Now Hunger could attack relentlessly. Still careful to avoid the killer jaws—nothing now would be sweeter to Tender than to lock his jaws on Hunger's neck—he made darting runs at Tender, each time drawing blood—from a shoulder, from a back leg, from Tender's one good ear.

Tender stood now, drenched in blood, disheartened, in the centre of the cage, as Hunger, knowing that his work was done, circled him, emitting small, victorious growls.

“Ohhh,” groaned Red Dog, “it's done, it's done. Someone pull that beast out.”

A pole was thrust against Hunger to hold him off, as the door was opened and Tender called out. Gratefully, Tender turned his back on Hunger and, trailing blood, left the cage.

“Take him away,” said Red Dog, sounding both disappointed and disgusted. Then he immediately brightened. “Because, because, ladies and gentlemen, Red Dog, the only one—
once met, never forgotten; once crossed, better you were never begotten
—Red Dog has a new champion: Hunger, the black wolf!”

The children cheered, as they knew to do, and Bradley caught a glimpse of Skreech. A smile flickered on his lips, a real smile that vanished when Bradley mouthed at him, “Hunger, my friend.”

Unable to see, but only to hear the cheering and the growling, the fight had been a draining experience for Victor. He sat in his rags, scratching himself.

“Victor,” Bradley shouted. “Hunger won!”

“What's that to do with you,
Dog Boy?
” said Red Dog. “Hunger's
my
champion now.”

And as night came on, Bradley could hear the boy soldiers chanting still—“Hung-ger! Hung-ger! Hung-ger!”—even as tiredness flooded him and he sank into the deepest of sleeps.

9

SOMETHING ROTTEN

Bradley is in the kitchen. It is one of the places he is not allowed, but he loves the way the light slants in from the high windows across the scarred wooden table and the way the dented copper pots hanging from the wall resemble a kitchen armoury. Besides, Margaret is here.

She is leaning into the deep white sink and holding a sieve of strawberries under a twist of water.

“Beats me why you're not supposed to be here,” she says. “Vince and your father were never out of here as boys.”

“Really?” says Bradley.

“Lord, yes. And half the time I was the one back then wanting rid of them. “Look,” I'd say, “I've got too much work to do to have you pair fighting around me all day.””

“Fighting?” says Bradley.

“Like dogs over a bone.” She gives the sieve a good shake and tips the strawberries into a white bowl. She brings it to the table. “Here, have one of these, but for heaven's sake, watch your shirt and don't tell a soul. They're probably counted.” She smiles conspiratorially as they both bite into the sweetness.

“Why did they fight?” asks Bradley.

“Oh, you ask me! Brothers, that's why they fought. And different as chalk and cheese. Your father was the elder and his mother's favourite, no doubting that. Not that she didn't love your uncle Vince, but, well, your father was a born adventurer from the time he could walk. He was the first to climb the great oak, the first to build the bridge across the gorge—how he ever did that, I'll never fathom—and the first to glide from the castle walls. Like an albatross he looked, his bedsheets pinned to the strawberry frames. At ten he went into business for the first time, marketing a range of soft drinks made from fruits from the estate. When people began to complain that they tasted vile and stained their lips and tongues, he remarketed them as dyes.
Salesman?
” Margaret smiles. “I tell you, he could make you think Monday was Friday.”

“And Uncle Vince?”

“How could Vince compete? At every stage, your father had him beaten and Vince never had the imagination to discover things for himself. He seemed to be like a rabbit caught in headlights. He went one way, then another, but couldn't escape the glare of your father's successes—or even his wonderful failures. And the trouble was, neither could their mother. Charmed, she was. Absolutely charmed. I saw it coming, mind. I saw no good would come of it. Even when I'd say to her, ‘Look what Vince has made today, a papier-mâché volcano,' she couldn't help remembering your father's volcano, brought for her birthday into the grand hall when the lights were out and erupting into all the colors of the rainbow. Aye, and filling the room with the smell of rotten eggs too! And I'm thinking now, that's the smell of jealousy—rotten eggs—and believe me, it's as foul a smell as you can imagine. Was it any wonder there were no tears of sympathy from his brother when your father lost his sight with that Vesuvius? Or tears at his funeral, you may have noticed—”