by Leyland, L J
Then, just as I was in the cradling cuddle of a light slumber, an enormous nasal snort would rip sleep from my grasp. After the third time this happened, I lost it. My pillow as my weapon, I battered him. ‘Will. You. Shut. Up!’ Each word accompanied a thwack from my pillow.
‘What are you doing, you mentalist?’ he cried, thrashing around in his covers trying to shield himself from my blows.
‘Teaching you proper sleep etiquette. This’ll teach you to keep me awake.’
We had been forced to share the living room as we thought it would be prudent to let Iris have my bed. Fergus and Mhareen had delivered us back to the houseboat moored off their island in the early hours of the morning. They had offered to come back to Brigadus with us. They said it was because they were worried about us, being young and not knowing how to fight an enemy such as the Metropole. They had experience in this area and would be of great assistance. But I think they wanted to come because they enjoyed a good fight. They relished having the chance to get one over on the Metropole. It was payback for the landmines that had ruined their land and taken so many of their clan. But before we could set sail to Brigadus, I had to first survive this night of living hell.
The commotion had awoken someone in the next room. Matthias stuck his head around the door and took in the scene. I was straddling Grimmy, my knees pinning his arms to his sides, my pillow raised menacingly above his head. There was a beat of silence.
‘Carry on,’ Matthias said and closed the door.
‘Noah! Help me!’ croaked Grimmy.
‘Damn it, what have you called him for, you little informer?’ I spat.
Noah emerged from the door, looking ruffled and adorably sleepy.
‘Maida, put him down, you don’t know where he’s been.’
I reluctantly let my pillow drop but not before whispering menacingly, ‘This isn’t over, snorer.’
Grimmy stuck his tongue out at me and looked smug, which was quickly becoming his default expression.
‘Maida, sleep in here with us tonight.’
I gathered my blankets and pillows and made a nest between Noah and Matthias’s beds. Noah, of course, offered to sleep on the floor but I refused. But as the night wore on, it got colder and I could no longer keep the warmth in my blankets. I quietly slipped into Noah’s bed. His arms automatically welcomed me and his lips found my neck. It was the most tranquil sleep I’d had in weeks.
‘Wakey, wakey, sleepyheads. We’ve come bearing gifts and breakfast.’ Mhareen’s voice drifted through the boat the next morning and I rolled reluctantly from Noah’s arms.
He grunted and tried to pull me back to the warmth of the blankets but then fully awoke and realised that our little haven had been shattered. I wrapped a fur blanket around me and walked barefooted into the main cabin to find Mhareen putting vanilla-coloured buns into the stove to heat up.
Fergus was stirring a giant pewter jug which had steam rising from it.
‘Tea?’ I asked.
‘Ha! No, lass, who do you think we are? Prissy Metropolites? Try this.’
The liquid was thick, lumpy, and sour as though it had sat out for days. My face crumpled with disgust as I forced down an unidentifiable gelatinous lump.
‘Fermented yak’s milk. We get it from the Scandinavians. Delicacy, that is; full of protein. Put hairs on your chest, that will.’
‘And you seriously think that’s something I desire? No offence, Fergus, you may know about stags but you have a lot to learn about women.’
He chuckled.
‘Why are you not wearing your antlers today?’
He looked at the low ceiling of the boat and said lightly, ‘Believe it or not, sometimes they’re a bit impractical.’
‘Really? I hadn’t noticed,’ I teased. ‘Will you still bring them with you? I’d love to see the Mayor’s face when a whole regiment of Highland warriors wearing antlers charge at him. He’ll think he’s gone mad.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ said Fergus, rubbing his hands together.
‘Grub’s up!’ called Mhareen, pulling the buns from the stove. ‘Matthias, please take some of these to the warriors outside. We’ve left them on the boats but they do get grumpy if they are hungry.’
I cobbled together a decent attempt at a dining table, using the map table and a hodgepodge of sofas, rocking chairs, and piles of cushions. It was so good to have the boat full of people and food and laughter. Too often it had been Edie, Aiden, and me, silent through hunger, sitting in near-darkness so as not to burn too much dry wood.
Noah knocked on Iris’s door and said, ‘Auntie, I hope you slept well. Breakfast is ready. Mhareen has made rolls and Fergus has made … well … something. Anyway, come out and join us. We need to talk about what you told me yesterday.’
The door slowly creaked open. Huge eyes peeked out of the gloom inside. It was like a nocturnal creature was emerging. Long fingers curled around the door.
‘Morning, Iris,’ I said gently.
The door opened further and she stepped out cautiously. I led her to a seat. Fergus made a beeline for her, holding aloft his jug full of phlegm-drink but I stopped him and said, ‘Perhaps just water for Iris.’
He nodded dejectedly but recovered when he locked his target onto Grimmy, pouring nearly a full half-pint of the stuff for him. I placed a wooden jug of water in front of Iris and poured her a cup. She sipped it suspiciously.
Matthias came back inside looking windswept.
‘There are dozens of them!’
Mhareen laughed. ‘Well of course there is! You can’t expect to start a rebellion without any rebels! Trust me; we’ve fought the Metropole before. We know that they have strength in weapons that can only be matched by strength of character and strength of numbers. We need them all.’
‘Speaking of the Metropole …’ said Noah. Everyone turned to look at him. ‘Iris told me something yesterday about the Metropole which I think is very important. Auntie?’ he prompted. Iris’s eyes widened and she shook her head slowly. Her dreadlocks wiggled like snakes.
‘It’s OK,’ Noah soothed, ‘just tell them what you told me.’
She shook her head more violently this time and slapped Noah’s hand away. ‘Drown them all, all gone. It’s coming. It’s back again,’ she muttered.
‘Perhaps I can tell them?’ asked Noah. She didn’t reply but Noah took this as a sign of assent. ‘We all know that the Flood was not an accident. It was caused by the Metropole so that they could get to the gas and oil under the Arctic ice. We know from Iris’s tapes that they seeded clouds with some sort of chemical to melt the ice. But Iris filmed more than that. She filmed meetings the Mayor had with some Metropolites about what they had to do after the Flood. You see, the Metropole’s plan was in two stages. Iris heard them discussing the two separate stages and they said there was no point carrying out one without the other. The first stage was the Flood. We know that they successfully completed that stage, over thirty years ago. Easy. But stage two was trickier. Stage two was the extraction of oil and gas from under the ground. Iris filmed them for weeks discussing that. They were flummoxed as to how to get at the oil and gas.’
‘But why? Surely they just drill down to the seabed?’ I asked.
‘The oil and gas under the Arctic aren’t easy to get to. It’s not pure like it is elsewhere. You can’t just drill down and it will spurt up. The gas and oil is all intermingled with the rock. Therefore they had to find a new method of extraction. A way that would separate the rock from the gas and oil. One of the Metropolites’ scientists came to visit the Mayor and said that they were working on a new method of extraction. Iris filmed their discussion. The scientist said that the method would be perfected and ready to use within a few years but that it was potentially very dangerous so they would need to test it before it was put to use in the Arctic. Couldn’t have all that precious oil and gas go up in smoke if the method went wrong after all. So, guess where they tested it?’
‘Brigadu
s,’ I said, already knowing that, of course, we’d be the test dummies for the Metropole. It’s not as though the Metropole cared about killing us off so why not try out their experiments on us at the same time? Win-win.
Noah nodded. ‘Correct. The Mayor did a secret deal with the Metropole to let them test out these new methods of extraction on the almost empty gas reserves under the ground of Brigadus before they melted the Arctic. I mean, what would be the point of carrying out the Flood if the oil and gas could not be extracted? So they tried out the method. The new method they used was called “deep mantle fracking”.’
‘I don’t speak science geek,’ said Matthias. ‘Can you explain what “deep mantle frackle-whatever” is, please?’
‘Fracking means fracturing the rock so that the oil and gas can be separated from it; basically giving it a big shock so that the oil and gas can be dislodged. Only this time, the fracturing needed to go really deep, deeper than they had ever gone before. The land needed to be broken from deep, deep down.’
‘Doesn’t that make the ground unstable?’ I asked.
Noah looked meaningfully at me and Mhareen gasped.
‘The earthquakes! Before the Flood there were earth tremors in Britannia. The news told us that it was the Earth going mad. I mean, because of the change in climate we had already had tornadoes, typhoons, droughts … we just thought the earthquakes were another natural catastrophe we would have to deal with.’
‘No. It was the fracking. Iris filmed the Metropolites at the Mayor’s Complex during the earthquake. They were ecstatic. Their method worked. Sure, it caused earthquakes, flattened some houses and killed a few people, it even caused an almighty crack down the middle of the Mayoral Complex’s deer park but the Metropolites thought that was a fair price to pay for oil and gas. I think it’s safe to say that they’ve been using fracking in the Arctic for years, and up until recently, it served them well. But now …’ He trailed off and took a sip of water from the jug in front of Iris.
‘Fergus, what were you saying to Maida about the northern traders increasingly hearing noises and feeling tremors from the North?’
Fergus’s face turned pale as though a sudden realisation had dawned on him. ‘They … they say they hear rumblings, explosions, and feel tremors. They say they are getting louder and more frequent.’
Noah nodded. ‘Well, it’s been nearly thirty years since the Flood. The oil and gas reserves must be getting pretty low up there. It must be getting harder to get the reserves out. They must have to go deeper and deeper, using stronger explosions. Fracturing the earth deeper under the sea. Very unstable, I should imagine … very dangerous …’
I slowly put down my bread roll as I realised his implication. Unstable ground being smashed to pieces deep below the sea in the Arctic. Increasing tremors and explosions as they tried to dislodge the last stubborn traces of oil and gas from its hiding place. ‘Noah, this fracking – it’s causing the seabed to be unstable? Like underwater landslides or earthquakes? Well … what … what does that mean? What’s going to happen?’ I asked.
Before he could answer, Iris dived across the table and grabbed the jug of water. She splashed it across the table with a cackle. The water spread across the surface quickly, in a wave that drowned the rolls and swept cutlery onto the floor. ‘All gone again,’ she said.
There was a horrible silence. Then the storm broke.
‘Oh Christ, oh Christ, not again, not again!’ wailed Grimmy, dancing from foot to foot in panic.
Mhareen yelled hysterically at Iris, calling her a witch and an evil-doer. Iris threw water in the air and screeched nonsensically about death and drowning and tidal waves. Fergus huffed and puffed, shouting, ‘I will not have this,’ at Noah, wagging his fat finger.
Matthias and I remained in our seats, dumbstruck as the hysteria unfolded in front of us. I thought they were supposed to be the adults and yet here we were, composed as saints, whilst they acted out a mass tantrum.
Noah struggled to get a handle on the situation. The adults had quite simply gone crazy and there was nothing we could do about it. ‘Quiet down,’ he said, calmly. ‘I said, shut up and listen. Auntie, sit down. Mhareen, shut it. Grimmy, get a grip. You’re behaving like lunatics. How is this panicking helping anyone? Look, it’s a dangerous situation but nothing is set in stone. If they stop the fracking now, this might be avoided. But we need to get back to Brigadus now and let the townsfolk know immediately. Maybe the Mayor doesn’t even know how close the Metropole is to bringing disaster down on us but we need to get back, interrupt the coronation ceremony and let the world know.’
‘What will happen to Brigadus if a big earthquake happens? If a wave comes?’ I asked Noah.
‘It might not come,’ he replied.
I was starting to become infected by the hysteria. It was like a fish hook in my lip and I was being reeled irresistibly closer to the panic. I was teetering on the edge and it would be so easy to just let go.
‘Noah, we’re low lying. We’re already waterlogged; the marshes … all the townsfolk live on the marshes. There’s no high ground, apart from the Mayoral Complex and his estate but he’s not going to let people take shelter in there, is he?’ My voice had risen an octave.
‘It won’t come to that. Don’t you go crazy on me as well. I need my Maida now; the Maida that doesn’t panic, the Maida that’s brave.’
His bandaged hands were soft as he cupped my face. He tilted my chin and kissed the end of my nose lightly. ‘We’ll get through this together. Remember what I said? I’ll never let you stand alone. You don’t need to be frightened when I’m next to you.’
‘I’m frightened because you’re next to me. Whatever happens to me will happen to you, too.’ I couldn’t bear the thought of it.
Matthias cleared his throat and stood up. ‘If what Noah says is true, there’s no time to waste. We need to set sail now. Fergus, Mhareen, go and tell your warriors to get ready to sail in fifteen minutes. Iris will stay here with us. We have the maps so we’ll lead at the front. Fergus and Mhareen can follow. The other warrior boats can follow them. If we leave now, we could be back by the early hours of tomorrow morning. The wind is good so our sails should be full. We should aim to get there whilst it’s still dark so we can’t be spotted. The fishermen of Brigadus and the Parrot patrols start early so we need to be there before 6am.’
‘And then what?’ I interrupted.
Matthias’s eyes narrowed as he looked at me. To me, it seemed dangerous to launch into a plan without having thought a few steps ahead. It was the first rule of carrying out an attack – don’t make the plan up on the hoof, unless you’re forced to.
‘Sorry? What do you mean by “and then what?”’ Matthias had adopted the dangerously brittle tone that he reserved for those who he considered particularly moronic.
‘It’s not a difficult question. I asked “and then what?” What do we do after that? We can’t just leave four Highland boats in full view of the Parrots. And what about the warriors? They’ll need somewhere to sleep.’
‘The mansion!’ said Noah. ‘We have dozens of bedrooms that are just sitting empty and we could use the ballroom as our war-office.’
‘Really? You’re sure your grandparents will be OK harbouring nearly fifty Highlanders?’
‘Yes … well no, but it’s the only way. It’ll have to be our headquarters whilst we plan what to do next. It makes sense. We can’t all gather on your houseboat, can we? It’s too small. Therefore my grandparents will have to put up or shut up.’
His expression was grimly determined and I could sense a change in him. I had only ever heard him talk about his grandparents with deference. It was his standard line that they were essentially good but misguided. But I could tell by his expression that something in his attitude towards them had changed. There was an intense dislike there now. A sort of revulsion crossed his face when he thought of them. I wondered whether his feelings had changed after our discussion about why his grandmother gave me th
e golden gun.
‘Sorted,’ said Matthias with a grin. ‘We’ll moor up by Maida’s jetty. No-one goes there. And then we’ll walk through the marshes to Noah’s mansion. We’ll gather intelligence and make a plan from there.’
The next fifteen minutes were chaotic. Mhareen and I practically broke our backs heaving barrels of water and crates of food on board. The men held court at the prow of the boat, launching into pompous and self-important expositions about currents, tides, and wind speed. As if any of them had a clue what they were talking about! Honestly, they were acting as though it was a gathering of the bloody Gods rather than chat about how to go south quickest.
Iris had taken to following Grimmy around like a witch’s familiar. She crept after him whilst he was helping the warriors to load their weapons, cooing predictions about his downfall. ‘Water and ice and all things nice,’ she sang softly into his ear.
I’ve never seen him move so quickly, scuttling away from her as though she had set fire to his rat tail. ‘Bloody keep her away from me,’ he pleaded. ‘I’ll do anything. Just keep her away. She gives me the creeps.’
I sniggered. ‘Now you know how we all feel when you’re around.’
But pity eventually got the better of me and I gave Iris a job packing up the breakfast things. She did a terrible job, smashing plates and throwing water onto the stove but at least it gave Grimmy a brief respite.
Matthias came into the kitchen and plonked himself heavily on the rocking chair.
‘Finished with the meeting of the minds?’ I asked.
He caught my sarcastic expression and smiled. ‘Yes. We would’ve asked you to join us but you know your sense of direction is terrible.’
‘Yes, and my muscles are so well developed that you instantly thought, “Hmm, I know, we’ll ask her to do the manual labour instead”?’
He gave my scrawny biceps a squeeze. ‘But you fit the part of minion so well.’ His smirk split his face in two. I bit back my usual desire to lash out either verbally or physically and adopted a look of composed serenity.
