Harvest (37 page)

‘Which they are,’ said Jack.

They debated it more and decided there were too many imponderables for the different risks to be properly assessed.

‘I am tempted to suggest,’ said Blut who, like Arthur, was recovering fast in the fresh air and with good food supplied by the others, ‘that we take the risk and go on the main
line. If we can go straight through . . .’

Barklice shook his head.

‘Not on this line: all trains stop at Coventry except freight trains in the night. Do you know where Quatremayne’s HQ actually is?’

Blut recalled the layout of the maps in the dossier and said, ‘I think there are two junctions near each other which join the mainline to Brum . . .’

Barklice nodded. He knew them well.

‘His HQ is between them,’ said Blut.

‘Must be under the bridge after the station,’ said Barklice confidently. ‘It’s a well-known place. Any train we take will definitely stop in Coventry but the chances of
it choosing to do so right where the General’s sitting having his brew are remote.’

‘In case something like that happens,’ said Jack, turning to Backhaus, ‘we’d better plan now for it.’

They decided that the only ones in their party likely to be recognized were Blut and Arthur. The former hid his spectacles while Arthur hoped that a woolly hat with ear flaps that Recker carried
against the cold might serve as a partial disguise and hide his give-away silvery hair.

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 area 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.