Smith stood up. “This is madness. We don’t stand a chance.”
“What do you suggest we do, Smith?” Fletcher said, quietly. “We’d be foolish to leave along the tracks.”
Smith looked around the gathering. “I could take those who can’t fight into the woods come darkness.”
“And the rest of us,” Fletcher said, nodding to Gregor and Bogdan, “we take up positions outside and lie in wait.”
They spent the rest of the day in frantic preparation. Fletcher took command, marking positions in buildings overlooking the central house: two armed boggarts would lie in wait in the loft of the potting shed, while two others would station themselves in an oak tree at the side of the house. Tonttu and another elf, Parisa, would hide in a tree-house to the west of the nursery, armed with rifles. Ajia would be a free agent, using her speed and her newly acquired expertise with a knife to wreak havoc. Fletcher prevailed upon Mr LeRoy and Daisy––hardly able combatants––to join Smith and two brownies in concealment deep in the woods. They would rendezvous at the rear exit of the nursery at two in the morning.
At eight o’clock they shared a last meal, then Daisy Hawthorn set about simulating a tableau of diners around the table. She set a dozen potted cactus plants on chairs around the table. Then she went from one to the next, touching each plant tenderly with her fingertips and standing back, her motherly face a mask of concentration as the plants, one by one, rapidly grew and miraculously took on the forms of seated human––and other––diners. Later, looking through the window from outside, Ajia was convinced that the room was inhabited, the charade enhanced by gauzy lace curtains, music and candle-light.
At nine o’clock, Wayland Smith led Daisy and two brownies, along with Mr LeRoy, into the woods.
Then Ajia and the others took up their positions in the darkness and settled down to wait.
Chapter 23
MAJOR WYNNE’S HELICOPTER came down on the playing field of the village school requisitioned as the Paladins’ command centre. Twilight was descending on the limestone crags surrounding Dawley. It wasn’t yet ten o’clock, and he was on course to have Ajia Snell, Bron LeRoy and the others rounded up, or killed in short order.
Harriet might for some reason have turned her back on him, but he was determined that Derek Drake would soon be singing his praises.
Lieutenant Noble escorted Wynne through the downdraught of the chopper’s rotor-blades and into the staffroom.
“Just had word from Corporal Evans, sir,” Noble said. “He was on recce. In the woods surrounding Hawthorn Nursery, and he found a Humvee hidden in the undergrowth.”
Wynne could not contain his smile. “So Snell and the others are hiding with Hawthorn.”
“Looks that way, sir. And all reports from locals indicate that the workers employed by Hawthorn are, you know… of folkloric origin.”
Wynne strode across to a map of the area Noble had set up on the wall. It showed an area of woodland and, outlined in red within it, Hawthorn Nursery. Also indicated, in blue marker pen, were two tracks leading into the woods from north and south.
“I have two Humvees with six men aboard each stationed here and here,” Noble pointed to the northern track. “A mile from the nursery itself. I suggest we send in an initial force at midnight, followed by a second thirty minutes later.” He smiled. “A mopping-up operation. All we need to decide is whether we eradicate everyone in there, or…”
On the flight north, Wynne had conveyed the news of the operation to the Prime Minister. Drake had ordered Snell, LeRoy and Fletcher to be taken alive. The others were to be killed in situ.
Wynne relayed the order to his second-in-command.
Noble led the way across to a picture window overlooking the widening valley. Two miles away the ancient woodland was a dark smudge in the gathering darkness, and buried somewhere in its heart was Ajia Snell’s temporary sanctuary.
He would enjoy interrogating the girl. He had, after all, a score to settle. She was responsible for the deaths of five of his men. He would ensure that she suffered.
An underling fixed him a cup of coffee, hot and sweet. At eleven o’clock, with an hour to go before Mission Hawthorn was initiated, he ordered Noble to gather his men in the staffroom for a final briefing.
He gazed at the huge, imposing warriors with a sense of proprietorial pride. These were the cream of the cream, a merciless band of brothers culled from the finest that the SAS, the SBS and other elite commando forces had to offer and honed into a relentless killing machine.
That five Paladins had been brought down by a girl and a bootleg Robin Hood reinforced the fact that their opposition tonight was in no way to be underestimated––and this is what he impressed upon his men now.
“Let me remind you that this will not be the turkey shoot that Summer Land turned out to be,” he said. “They might not be expecting tonight’s attack, but all indications is that they will be armed and prepared to fight. Proceed with extreme caution. We are up against conscienceless killers who will take great delight in inflicting maximum damage. I want these three arrested, if at all feasible.” He indicated images of Ajia Snell, Reed Fletcher and Bron LeRoy on the laptop. “The others are to be liquidated. Any questions?”
There were none.
“Very well, off you go. And good luck.”
He stood with Lieutenant Noble before the picture window and watched the Humvees rumble into life and crawl from the playground.
HE SAT BACK in the armchair, sipped his coffee, and waited.
Midnight came and went.
Lieutenant Noble crouched over a radio on the table in the centre of the room.
Wynne always felt a soporific sense of lassitude in these situations. There had been times when, as a grunt on the ground, he’d been on the sharp end of similar missions. He’d distinguished himself over the course of a dozen years, and a hundred bloody sorties, and now he was reaping the reward.
He was expecting word from the ground any second now: Mission accomplished. Snell and cohorts arrested. All others dead.
Twelve-thirty came and went.
He rose from his chair and stared through the window. He could see very little past his own tall reflection. Somewhere out there, in the depths of the forest, slaughter was being committed.
He would relish inspecting the bloody aftermath.
Chapter 24
AJIA CROUCHED BEHIND a water butt across the cobbled yard from the house, ready to make her move. Earlier, a couple of boggarts had dismantled the blockade further along the track to encourage the Paladins to use that means of access. Not that they would, Reed Fletcher had warned the assembled fighters earlier. It was his guess that Drake’s men would proceed only so far in military vehicles, then continue on foot through the woods. One thing he was certain of, though: some of their number would make a beeline for the illuminated house, while others hung back.
“I’ll take out the Paladins who approach the house,” Fletcher had said. “Then I’ll leave my position and move to the potting shed. We don’t know how many of the bastards they’re sending in. Ajia, that’ll be your job. Scout the area and report back to me.”
Now she looked at the luminous dial of her watch in the light of the moon. 11.45. She set off.
She’d blackened her face with charcoal from the open fire and donned black gloves. Daisy had given her a navy blue anorak with a hood. In the darkness of the forest, she would be almost invisible.
However, the same darkness that was her ally would also be her enemy. The ground underfoot was uneven. She’d be risking her neck if she attempted to traverse the terrain in Puck mode. She would proceed through the woods with caution.
As she stepped through the forest towards the front entrance, she couldn’t help thinking back to the Paladin attack on Summer Land. Their determination and ruthlessness, their unthinking butchery of innocents. That was the type of people she would be fighting tonight: conscienceless killers following orders from an elected politician
little better than a dictator. She thought of Major Wynne, and how he’d put a bullet through Perry’s head as a matter of course, almost without thinking about what he was doing. She wondered if the bastard would be leading tonight’s operation. Oh, how she hoped he would be.
She gripped the knife in her right hand.
She came to the timber crosspieces of the barricade piled beside the track at the entrance and crouched next to a pile of tyres. The night was silent, still. There was no sign of the Paladins.
She listened intently, but there was no sound of engine noise from far or near.
She stepped onto the track and sprinted, heading towards the lane a mile away. Fifteen seconds later she approached the T-junction and slowed. She looked right and left. A half-moon and a scatter of stars illuminated the silent, patched macadam lane.
No Paladins.
She looked at her watch. 11.55.
The rear entrance?
She sprinted back to the dismantled barricade, then slowed as she made her way back through the wood to the nursery and the track beyond. She sprinted again, luxuriating in the feeling of her limbs stretching, her lungs expanding as she covered hundreds of yards in seconds.
A sound came to her, slurred by her accelerated progress along the track. She ducked into the undergrowth to her right.
The sound assumed its normal pitch: a vehicle’s grinding engine. More than one vehicle, in fact. Two, three?
She peered along the track. In the distance, the glow of approaching headlights showed.
She swallowed, feeling suddenly sick.
Seconds later two armoured cars trundled into view.
Just two?
They could each hold no more than half a dozen Paladins. Was this the extent of their attacking force? If so, they were guilty of seriously underestimating the opposition awaiting them.
When the first of the vehicles was still a hundred yards away, Ajia stepped onto the track and sprinted back to the nursery, feeling vulnerable despite knowing that her speed and the darkness rendered her invisible.
Seconds later she arrived at the looming oak tree where Reed Fletcher was concealed.
“Reed!” she hissed.
He dropped from a branch, startling her.
“Two armoured cars, coming in from the north.” She indicated along the lane.
“Nothing to the south?”
“Not that I saw.”
“Tell the others,” he said, and hauled himself back up into the branches.
She sprinted across the cobbled yard to the potting shed and relayed the message to the waiting boggarts, then crossed to the tree beside the house and found the elves. Tonttu stared down at her with big eyes as she spoke, an assault rifle clutched to his thin chest.
The yard before the house was illuminated by motion-sensitive lights, and the same went for the area behind the house. Whichever approach the Paladins chose, they would be lit up like sitting ducks.
She crossed the cobbles again, heading for the rear track. She heard music and voices issuing from the illuminated dining room. Daisy had switched on two radios before leaving, one tuned to a music station, the other to Radio Four.
The lights went out behind her.
She sprinted down the track until she made out the diffuse glow of the armoured cars’ headlights, which suddenly cut out. Seconds later, the protracted slur of their engines ceased too.
They were coming in on foot.
She made out two Humvees, one behind the other. Their doors were opening in slow motion. She slowed and slipped into the cover of the forest beside the track, her pulse thumping.
Six armed and helmeted Paladins climbed from the leading vehicle, and the same number from the second. An officer spoke briefly to the group.
She watched as the first six touched gauntleted fists, two of them butting body armour in a sickening show of macho bravado. She heard grunts, something like a war-chant, as they set off towards the nursery. The second group held back.
Two Paladins remained on the track, another two veered into the forest to their right, and the remaining pair moved through the trees to the left.
Ajia took off again, sprinting back to the nursery.
“Twelve,” she reported to Fletcher, “coming in two groups of six. The first lot are on their way, two on the track, the others in the woods.”
She relayed the same information to the others, then sprinted back across the cobbles and ducked behind the water butt. Seconds later the motion-sensitive light cut out, plunging the forecourt into darkness.
She felt very vulnerable when not in motion, and worked to convince herself that she was well hidden here. She would play it by ear, allow the shootout to commence and then play the free agent, mopping up whichever stragglers remained and ensuring that not one single Paladin got out alive.
The first two soldiers emerged from the shadows, crouched and moving slowly towards the house. The motion lights kicked in, flooding the courtyard with silvery illumination. The pair froze comically. They waited five long seconds, then crept towards the house where to all intents and purposes a rather noisy party was in progress.
They reached the house and hunkered down to either side of the front door. One Paladin gestured towards the lighted window, and the other nodded and pulled something from the chest pocket of his flak-jacket.
A grenade?
Crouching, he duck-walked along the front of the house towards the window, paused and drew back his right hand.
It was his last conscious movement.
Ajia heard something, a low twang from the direction of the oak tree, and the Paladin with the grenade keeled over, the quarrel of an arrow emerging from his neck.
The motion light cut out and Ajia heard the second Paladin curse. He moved. The light flashed on again, illuminating him starkly as he crossed to his fallen colleague. He reached out, touched the arrow, then turned quickly in the direction from which the arrow must have come.
She heard nothing this time but the soldier’s startled grunt as an arrow squelched through his eyeball and buried itself deep in his brain.
The light went out, obscuring the scene of silent carnage.
Two down, ten to go.
She took off. She reasoned that others must be planning to enter the house from the rear. She sprinted along the facade and turned the corner––barrelling straight into the solidity of a fourteen-stone Paladin. He went sprawling backwards, Ajia on top of him. Before he could react, she raised her knife and slashed it across his exposed throat. He grunted, gasped, and then the only sound was the gushing of his hot blood as it pumped out across the back of her hand.
Crouching, Ajia looked up and scanned the rear yard.
She took off like a sprinter from the blocks and crossed to the cover of a hedge.
A second later a Paladin emerged from the cover of the woods ten yards to her right, hurrying across to his fallen comrade. He was activating his lapel mic when Ajia ran up behind him and slashed her knife across his Achilles tendon. He fell with a cry, and she drove the blade into his abdomen below the protection of his body armour.
Four down, eight to go.
She took his ankles, dragged the body into the cover of the woods––no mean feat, with equipment and body armour adding to his already considerable bulk––then returned for the other Paladin. She was hauling the corpse into the trees when a cacophony of sustained gunfire filled the night.
She abandoned the body and sprinted around the house.
She paused and peered around the corner.
She feared seeing Fletcher or the others lying at the foot of the oak, shot dead. The gunfire had ceased. The forecourt was in darkness. As she moved cautiously around the corner, the lights came on to reveal the bodies of two Paladins sprawled on the cobbles. One had an arrow projecting from his temple; the other was headless.
Six down, six to go.
Ajia sprinted across to the oak and hissed.
Fletcher hung from the bough with one arm, for
all the world like a sloth. “I got one with an arrow,” he reported, “but the other opened up on the tree. So Bogdan here let him have it. You?”
She indicated the pair before the house. “And I accounted for another two around the back. The other six’ll be alerted now.”
“They might assume the firing came from their own.”
“I’ll try to find them.”
Fletcher hauled himself back up into the leaf cover and Ajia took off.
She sprinted along the track, within seconds coming across two Paladins moving cautiously in the margin of the forest towards the nursery. The remaining four, she presumed, would be somewhere deeper in the woods to either side.
She sprinted around the pair, then stopped and turned. She had misjudged her speed and overshot the Paladins by twenty yards. She followed them cautiously, crouching.
Take the one on the right, first, as he was lagging slightly behind the other.
She sprinted.
She slashed across the back of his knee, and when he fell backwards, squealing, she plunged the knife through his Adam’s apple. Then she was up and away at speed, the Paladin’s blood a slow-motion crimson gusher pumping into the ground.
The other had turned to stare in alarm. Ajia ran at him and slashed his neck.
Eight down, four to go.
She didn’t hang about. The other four might be close by, somewhere in the cover of the forest.
She raced back to the nursery and awaited their arrival, squatting beside the water butt and breathing hard.
The motion-sensitive light went out, plunging the area into darkness. After its dazzle, Ajia found herself blinded. It was some seconds before her vision adjusted and she made out the cobbled courtyard in the moonlight.
All was still, quiet.
She savoured the respite. She was high and adrenalised, but she needed to calm herself, regain her breath and think things through. Everything had gone well, so far, but she wasn’t going to allow herself to become over-confident. That way lay disaster.
Age of Legends Page 26
