Dark Age

by Robert T. Bradley

  Despair tore at Baxter’s being, inside him a heat replaced it, quick to turn his emotions molten. Every organ pulsed so rapidly they changed function, and frothed a black liquid hate burning into his soul. Those things had come for his family, for their secrets, from the city. Baxter twisted his hands into fists. It was time to leave.

  CHAPTER 5

  The locator pulsed in Alfred’s hand like a child’s unanswerable question. He tucked it inside the sleeve of his coat, which shielded the nickel casing from the Gaol wind kicking down from the northern mountains.

  He walked for another day and stopped only for natural springs, filling his leather skins and weeping his blisters. The sunset along the western pass opened the valley of the Twin Tors, and with breath-taking beauty Cliffenfort sat between them. Opium carried on a breeze from the valley, he tried to ignore it but after a moment his mind buckled, Alfred locked on to the streaming wind and inhaled. Rose water mixed with sugar and two drops of opium oil; Beatrice’s perfume. He felt her touch in the stream of air; it wrapped around his cheek to the back of his head and kissed the goose bumps on his neck. Alfred never wished for much past silence from the world now, for it to leave him alone. The man’s face had not left his mind, the one who tore everything apart, even steel, even them.

  Alfred scaled down the Tor and walked through a wide patch of land, his feet crunched dried dead crop of what must have once belonged to a farm, until eventually the ground evened out and the patchy network of feebly placed stone tiles of a makeshift road returned.

  From this distance the outpost Cliffenfort looked abandoned. Its high wall and large manor jutted above the stone slabs, but it showed no sign of movement, no lights lit the house, no windows open, not even a bird singing a welcome to the twilight. The village had a spire cut from local clay stone, but this spire wasn’t white. Blood of people refusing the strict words of the holy Mother had washed and seeped into the compact clay, and the stains turned it pink, brown and red. Tough to part with five hundred carrots when all you’re getting in return is two turnips and bird meat pies. Still, it was better than having a stone spike cut into your flesh, ripping open your intestines as you watch ravens make a meal of your digested breakfast, Alfred thought. He shuddered at the punishments the Moorlanders gave their criminals. How can ideas hailed the purest also be such evil? It was a conundrum and even with Alfred’s mind he didn’t understand. Instead, he nestled the lower half of his head into the collar of his coat.

  As he got close to the main gate, men appeared behind it in silhouette. Some climbed ladders, lighting lanterns, while others beat carpets out of doorways. It occurred to him there were no children, nor any women between the open gates. High on the guard tower, a stocky fellow tracked Alfred’s steps.

  ‘Be on your way traveller, no camps to be found here,’ he said.

  Alfred hadn’t intended to camp there, so he raised his human arm in Britannia thanks and kept his mouth shut in the way the Cliffenfort lot liked it. The less questions from lone travellers meant the less requests.

  Three hills lay ahead, the tallest in the centre cut out of the ground as though rock had once been liquid, bubbled out and frozen solid. He remembered his chief of the Ark Royal sat on deck between shifts, sketching the rolling landscape below. After a badly beaten five rounds of backgammon, the Chief had run out of tin and wagered his drawing. Alfred won it and he celebrated not in a boast, but by finally hanging one of his exceptional drawings in the engineering room rather than the young lad stuffing them under his bunk. The chief was a shy fellow, but Alfred knew the gesture built the lad’s confidence.

  Shaking away the memory, Alfred studied the rockface ahead. A black crack in the side of the steepest slope filled him with relief. The locator pulse had dwindled but the needle had fixed in a position. It quivered in a confident way like a child pointing in eagerness at a sweet shop, only this needle pointed at a cave, a dark rock-framed cave and its black aperture.

  The task, Alfred thought, was simple, run in, find the pile, extract the stones, apply the winder, and blast out of this terrible place faster than septicaemia but darkness shrouded the cave’s interior and a cold chill blew out from it. He tried to think back to when he was last here, was he as apprehensive then? The moors were supposed to make a man harden, make a man forget everything including how to fear. He moved the locator into his clockwork hand and gripped the hilt of his pistol with the other. Slowly he entered the crack. A rat ran out. He froze, thankful it didn’t come near him. He stumbled over the uneven ground, stepped in a puddle which instantly wet his foot inside his shoe. The cave sloped and soon enough he was in total darkness.

  With no clear exit, drips disorientated and merged into a sound, a chaotic song, high levels mixed with low levels. He clenched his hand over his ears, covering the left with a fleshy seal but the right hand’s metal gaps allowed the madness to seep in. ‘Shut up!’ He felt a dip, a slope, tripped, fell and tumbled down it, landing in a heap. The ground was solid, and his knees found holes to rest themselves in; he closed his eyes and for a moment he felt comfortable. A sticky cold liquid squelched between his human fingers. It had a fresh stickiness like blood, his blood. On his mechanical arm a servo sparked and lit up the cave, revealing its size around him. Alfred stood, tore a section of sleeve, found a dry patch and held it to the spark. It lit up quickly and illuminated the cave. He tied the fabric around his metal hand and held it out in front of him.

  Cobwebs covered the cave. Through the haze of the thick silk was a pile of rocks, the exact pile he’d been searching for. Between the pile and Alfred, the cobwebs blocked the path with opaque thickness. Some of them were tired-looking silks which had collected all types of dirt and cave fodder. Large stones, fist size, had somehow caught themselves in the older thicker fog like mesh. Alfred contemplated the mass of the spider long enough to realise he had little time to waste on such thoughts, and searched the remaining web. But in the centre, blocking his path, were solid, fresh webs, still wet, they glinted in the flames’ light, with sparkling dew-covered bugs running up and down the webs lines.

  A hole in the corner by the cave wall offered the less messy route to the rocks, and Alfred took it. As he crouched down and crawled through the tiny gap, he noticed the cut on his hand under the flame’s light. Blood had run down to his wrist like a network wires and dripped into one of the cave puddles, leaving a smoke red pattern in the muddy water. The cave walls poured with what resembled a thick oil, which also soaked into the puddles. Without looking, his knee sploshed into a warm pool, the insides felt like a soft velvet, and it moved. Alfred sprang up into the cobwebs. The coat of the web’s silk smothered the flame, and the light vanished. Alfred stopped still, and peeled the web from his face and eyes. The drips sounded further away, replaced by larger stamps into the cave puddles. He could feel a presence; close, like something had woke up to find an intruder in its home and made every effort to let the intruder know it wasn’t there. A warmer draft licked at Alfred’s cut, and it stung. Something stalked him, and he suddenly felt uninvited.

  Alfred edged back a couple of silent, slow, steady steps, and stopped. He slashed the idea against his fears, he couldn’t run now. He raised his arm; the spark inside the servos had dwindled to a dull flicker. He applied the cotton fabric and shuffled it between his fingers until he found what must have been a dry spot. The presence grew closer. It was next to him, assessing him. ‘Can’t can, can can’t?’ it said in a strange leathery voice. Alfred lit up the sleeve and held it to the beasts’ direction. Several eyes surrounded by thick hair flinched back from Alfred’s flames. The thing hissed at him. Alfred dived through the webs in leaps, then turned and flashed the fire back. A spider the size of a baby’s pram stood wide, taking wheezed breaths sounding like out of tune whistles. Fear engulfed Alfred. He stumbled down to the rocks, knocked a few off the pile. ‘Get away! You foul thing.’

  The spider, half scared, half intrigued, answered in a questioning hiss between its fangs, ‘
Can, can, can’t can?’

  Alfred removed his gun, pointed it and fired. The clip clicked, the trigger stuck and nothing happened. He bashed the pistol on a rock, cleared away more smaller rocks. The clockwork bike gleamed under the reflection. He knocked a few more off the top. There it was.

  ‘Can’t, can?’

  Alfred spun and flashed the dwindling flame back at the spider, stealing more time as he straddled the bike, applied the winder and released the seal.

  The sound of the engine’s whirl filled the cave. The spider flinched but stood fast, its hairy legs twitched in the excitement a predator gets when matched with a defensive prey. Alfred hit the switch and rocketed into the spider. The beast’s bloated body exploded around the metal bike, coating it in a thick oil. The bike scuffled one way then the next, its speed erratic as it headed toward the cave’s aperture. Alfred and the bike sprung out on to the moorland fell, dodged a tree then another. He found the dirt road, skidded, and the bike fell flat to a stop. He shook off the oil goo and guts. Alfred applied his facemask, cleaned out the large eyehole lenses and secured his belongings. He pressed the pre-winder again, it rattled to a hiss, and air escaped; then the motor erupted. The engine hummed a chrome-filled tune under his aching groin. He lifted his head, facing the plain. There it was, the faint sound of metal grinding against itself. The smog of Machine City rode on the wind, carrying a scent of dry roasted life. He applied his goggles, switched the ignition, and rocketed down from the hill.

  II

  The stable smouldered as Baxter threw another pail of water over the remaining flames. The smoke and heat kept pushing him back. His eager legs, they convulsed with the want to run in, engage whatever strength he had to find his uncle, the burns he’d get would be worth it, he thought. ‘Once more!’ He covered himself in water, wrapped another wet blanket over his head, took a breath and charged in.

  Pillars lay scattered with piles of collapsed stone all smouldering, cooking in the heat. ‘Uncle Nicholas!’ He looked under the first pile, kicked the rocks clear, nothing; the second pile – he kicked them, just ash. It filled the air and blocked his view of the corner, but he heard a series of loud cracks under the rubble. He ran over, worked at each rock, feeling the heat – he had to fight it, his uncle would do it for him, he was more certain of it than anything else. ‘Nicholas!’ A mouthful of smoke entered his lungs, like metal spikes they stabbed the inside of his body, stinging repeatedly at his lungs. There was something under those rocks, he kicked the rest of them off, a burnt bone, flesh and a limb. He kicked the other bricks to one side, more flesh, charred and black. The shape of a horse’s head outlined through the smoke. It was Globe’s corpse, charcoaled, blistered and burning. He ran out of the stables and back up to his room tossing off the heated rags around his head. He opened draws and flung out clothes to his bed.

  ‘where is it – here it is.’ He removed a leather satchel from deep in his cabinet and stuffed the clothes, shirts, long johns, socks and pants into the bag and sealed it. Outside his window he noticed a crowd of villagers gathered around Tabitha’s house. He looked at his bag then back at the window and decided to go to her.

  III

  Baxter sat in Tabitha Parkin’s kitchen as each villager came in one by one laying a flower and their respects at the side of his body. Tabitha stood over her father’s corpse, caressing her hand across the sheet covering him. Her expressions were those of a person wrestling with feelings, strong feelings. Baxter had seen it before in both his father and his uncle, but mostly his father. He’d often say one thing but stood there silent, his mouth trembling like it was the last dam to break in an over-flooded river, but it never broke. His father would say something else, unrelated and meaningless, then he’d vanish.

  Tabitha drew the sheet covering her father’s face, back to the neckline. Harry Parkin’s moustache and temple had speckles of grey. Baxter had never noticed those hairs before, and wondered if this was the closest he ever got to the man.

  ‘Open your eyes, father,’ she whispered, ‘and wake me from this nightmare.’

  Baxter got up and placed his hand upon hers. It felt weak with a distant trembling. ‘I’m responsible,’ he said.

  ‘What? No, Bax, this isn’t your fault. How can it be?’ She turned her hand over and held his softly.

  ‘A man came from the city, looking for my family.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘A day before the attack. He wanted help and said someone, an old enemy of my fathers had captured his daughter. And my family had the power to help him.’ Baxter loosened his hand from her grip, but she didn’t and let her arm stretch. Eventually she gave in, and he walked over to the sink and poured them both glasses of water. ‘I heard him say to uncle Nicholas, they have powerful friends. The man knew about my family, knew their secrets. He said the brotherhood hadn’t forgotten them.’

  ‘Secrets? Impossible. And the brotherhood?’ she said.

  Tabitha’s mother sobbed with a relative in the lounge, but both peered in though the cracked doorway. Tabitha shut the door. ‘Your uncle’s a member of the brotherhood?’ she whispered. ‘He’d be a Terr–’

  ‘No, my uncle is no such thing. He was a boxer back at the city. Besides, the man said they hadn’t forgotten him or father. I think whomever attacked the village wanted him dead. Father left to stop them, I’m sure of it. I overheard them before he left. My uncle was saying about the others and a man he had to stop.’

  ‘Stop?’ Tabitha’s chin trembled. ‘I thought your family were farmers. The Brotherhood murder people.’

  ‘They came for him.’

  ‘For your uncle?’

  ‘Maybe, but certainly for that man. They must have been chasing him.’ Baxter took a mouthful of his water.

  ‘Why attack everyone?’ Tabitha asked. ‘My father, he had no part in any of this.’

  ‘I don’t know, but I have to find out what’s happened. If my father has left to stop them, he’ll need my help.’

  ‘I think before you do anything you need to have some food and get your head down.’

  ‘I can’t sleep. I need to leave, at once.’ Baxter downed the water.

  ‘None of what you’ve said makes any of this your fault – you must understand, Baxter–’

  ‘My father.’ Baxter’s body twitched. Tabitha noticed and gave him a look of discomfort. ‘I need to find my father, I don’t know what I did wrong. He always made me feel like I’d done something wrong, like everything was my fault, that our life wasn’t his, I felt it every day. And now he’s left without me, without my uncle, his only brother, he’s left him and now he’s dead, and it’s, it’s all my fault Tabs–’ She went to grab him, but Baxter deflected her arms. ‘No, I need to be a man. Like them. Will you help me, Tabs?’

  She didn’t answer him at first, simply stared with her red sore eyes at him. She finally closed them and said, ‘How can I? I can’t just leave my mother here alone with the twins and whatever’s left of our lives.’

  Baxter tapped his fingers on the table. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘I must go on my own then; there’s nothing for me here, not now.’

  ‘I’m sorry Baxter. Our families – they’re equally as dear to both of us. How about you stay here with mother and me, she’ll appreciate it. We can help run your farm and maybe you–’

  ‘What farm? All our animals are dead. I have to leave, I have to find him.’

  Her eyes tracked his movements. He brushed past her for the door.

  She blocked his exit. ‘Where are you going to start–’

  ‘The city,’ he snapped, wiping his face. ‘it’ll be where he’s headed.’

  ‘My mother needs me here, Bax; I can’t go with you, now he’s…’

  ‘I need to leave, tonight,’ he said.

  They held a long pause. He looked at her, smiled, and purposefully opened his eyes wider.

  ‘I’m not coming.’ Her declaration jarred with doubt.

  ‘I need you, Tabitha, more than I’ve ever
needed anyone.’ He grabbed her, squeezing both arms in an assured grip hard enough to spell out his determination. ‘I don’t know the city.’

  ‘What makes you think I do?’

  ‘You told me, your father used to take you.’

  ‘Once.’ She broke away from his grip. ‘We only visited a Middle district, and I don’t even remember the name of it.’

  ‘I can’t go there alone. You’re resourceful, and a lot smarter than me; I need to find out why those things were here and what they wanted – why they did all of this.’

  ‘I can’t. I’m sorry, Baxter. I can’t leave my family now Father’s gone.’

  Baxter looked up at the ceiling, ‘You understand your father was murdered?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, returning to her father’s cold body on the table.

  ‘I can offer you vengeance for his death.’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t, Baxter. How many more times? My family need me here.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like the Parkin way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she cried.

  ‘You told me, your father – back when he was an airman, he had saved the man on the clock tower.’

  ‘Once an airman, always an airman. Hey, Dad?’ The words tumbled out of her mouth.

  Baxter’s expression revolved to one of tenacity. ‘Let’s find the people who did this and kill them.’

  ‘Kill them?’ she said. ‘I’ve never killed anything in my life.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Baxter.

  She leapt at him; Baxter caught her. He went to say something.

  She stopped him. ‘Just hold me.’ She wept.

  IV

  Men from the village carried Harry Parkin’s body to the square. The corpses of parents lay wrapped in white sheets, orphaned children stood over them drifting like clouds, waiting to wake up from a nightmare.