‘Miss Hepworth told Katya she wanted a closer look at von Grolman’s place. Your Miss Delroy joined her at that moment and–’ He looked at both of them carefully. ‘They appeared to argue, according to Katya.’
‘Argue?’ George said. ‘Caroline and Sophie? What about?’
‘Katya did not hear every word, but there was much pointing in the direction of the factory. And Miss Delroy was concerned about a relative.’
Aubrey and George exchanged looks. George, to Aubrey’s eyes, looked as close to frantic as he’d ever seen.
‘Do not worry about them,’ von Stralick said. ‘They appeared to reach some compromise, for they did go off together.’
George frowned. ‘We are going after them, aren’t we, old man?’
‘Straight away,’ Aubrey said. ‘Hugo?’
Von Stralick rubbed his chin. ‘I cannot. We have our work to do. The residue we’ve found will need much spellcraft, apparently.’ He coughed discreetly into his hand. ‘We will be here, when you return.’
Aubrey silently thanked von Stralick for not using ‘if’. ‘George? Ten minutes to get a few things ready?’
‘I’ll be ready in five.’
It was Katya who guided them through the forest, but Aubrey was aware of other presences nearby. Nothing magical, just good scouting, only revealing themselves in a few half-glimpses of figures darting from tree to tree.
The hundred yards or so of woods surrounding the factory was uncomfortable work: belly crawling through a mess of ivy, bracken and clumps of bushes that were unidentifiable despite being proudly and defiantly prickly. These were the fringe dwellers of the vegetative world, the ones that would slink out of a line-up, unrecognised, with the witness behind the glass saying, ‘Sorry, officer, but they all look the same to me.’
Katya led them to a place that she was sure – from some arcane sort of woodcraft, Aubrey assumed – was the launching place for Caroline and Sophie’s assault on the factory. She waved away their thanks and said they could thank her by killing many, many Holmlanders – something which made Aubrey most ambivalent – before fading away with her colleagues.
From the edge of the undergrowth, they looked across fifty yards of cleared area to the chain link fence. Although it was at the rear of the property, half a mile or more from the main road, the fence was in good repair. The barbed wire on top looked formidably new and sharp.
They’d approached the south side of the facility. In the early morning light, the complex was all clangour and activity. None of the soldiers Aubrey saw moving between buildings was tarrying, and he wondered if one of them was Théo. They moved on the trot or better, while lorries both heavy and light tore along with no regard for the soldiers, who appeared accustomed to leaping aside at their approach.
The main road ran past the western end of the complex, and a fortified gatehouse guarded the approach to the original building. Some distance behind the old buildings was an open expanse, with a large squat construction on the south side. Bundles of cables ran from this building to the others, looping from strategically placed poles. Aubrey tentatively marked the squat building as the location of an electricity generator.
North of the open expanse was a cluster of buildings, the centre of most of the activity and the source of most of the smoke and steam. These buildings were new and Aubrey guessed they were the heart of the manufacturing. If golems were being manufactured they would probably be stored in the huge warehouse building that bulked large behind the factories. If he could judge distances properly, the warehouse was also the receiving and dispatch end of the railway spur. Beyond it, and overtopping it, were huge black heaps of coal, one after the other, stretching the entire length of the far side of the immense structure.
Abutting the eastern edge of the open area were buildings that could only be huts for the soldiers. They stretched off in rows to the back of the property. If they were needed to house all of the soldiers, it gave Aubrey pause. This was a substantial military investment.
He rolled onto one elbow and, while he was stowing his field glasses, he studied George, who continued to observe through his own binoculars.
‘Right, George,’ he said. ‘Before we get going, I think we need to clear up something.’
‘We do? What is it, old man?
‘What’s wrong with you, George?’
‘Wrong?’ George answered without lowering his binoculars.
‘Ever since we discovered Sophie had gone, your face has been so long you’ve had trouble not tripping on it. You’ve been sighing like a traction engine. If you looked any more like a consumptive poet you’d have to join their union.’
George lowered his field glasses. ‘Hello, Mr Pot, I’m Mr Kettle. What colour are we?’
‘You may have a point. But you must admit that I’ve some practice in this, while it may – dare I suggest it – be a novelty for you.’
George frowned. ‘Maybe.’
‘So what’s causing it? Sophie hasn’t run off. She’s just over there. Somewhere. Behind barbed wire and in the middle of an enemy military industrial complex, admittedly, but she’s not lost to you.’
George chewed this over. ‘That’s assuming, of course, that her intentions were honourable in the first place.’
Aubrey had to work this one through for a while then he stared at George, incredulous. ‘You think that Sophie was just using you to get to her brother.’
The silence was so stony Aubrey could have used it to pave half a dozen streets. ‘You can see how one could come to that conclusion,’ George finally said. ‘She was trapped on the border, no way to get to her brother, and we lob into the area. Now, I’m not saying that she latched onto me with a plan immediately in mind, but when we started talking about heading across the border, she made sure of coming along.’
‘By ... being nice to you?’ Aubrey ventured.
‘If you’re insinuating anything, old man, I’d be very careful if I were you.’
‘George, you know I’m not. And I’m convinced you’re not thinking clearly.’ He paused. ‘May I speak frankly?’
‘If you must.’ George’s face was bleak.
‘Well, if I’m speaking frankly, I need to tell you that Sophie Delroy is wonderful, and she is obviously, evidently and wholly enamoured of you. As she should be.’
‘Really?’
‘George, you fathead, of course she is.’
‘She’s not just using me?’ George looked away for a moment. ‘I couldn’t stand that. She’s ... special.’
Aubrey had never heard George talk like this. He liked girls. All girls. Lots of girls. He always had the highest opinion of them. Apparently, though, there was something special about Sophie.
‘George, you can grump about thinking the worst, or you can have faith in someone you appear to admire so much.’
George lay the binoculars on the ground. Carefully, he picked a blade of grass and ran it through his fingers. ‘Don’t you have doubts, old man?’
‘Doubts? Not many people don’t have doubts. The trick is not to listen to them.’
‘All right.’ George threw the blade of grass over his shoulder. ‘Let’s make a pact.’ He stood and brushed himself off, then he stuck out his hand. ‘Let’s promise each other not to listen to those doubts.’
Aubrey climbed to his feet, took his friend’s hand and shook. ‘Not unless they’re reasonable doubts.’
George growled. ‘Aubrey.’
‘Right. Sorry. I mean: let’s do the best we possibly can for those around us.’
‘A noble aim. Now, how do we get into that place?’
Aubrey had been wondering if a night approach may be best, but he was sure the light towers situated at the corners and halfway along the boundaries would have powerful beams and equally powerful machine guns.
Think, Aubrey, think.
Standard tactics came to him – a diversion, tunnelling, fence breaching – but he had a suspicion that this place might be well prepared for such app
roaches.
He lay on the leaf-covered dirt again, the better to steady his field glasses. They were the best the Department could supply, by the hands of the renowned Crouch Bros. The lenses were each hand ground and the brothers Crouch had moved with the times, incorporating some neat stabilising spells in the frame of binoculars, so Aubrey had a firm, steady range of view. This allowed him to see the double box arrangement atop the nearest corner of the fence, attached to the guard tower legs, about twenty feet.
‘I thought so,’ he muttered. He lowered the field glasses.
‘So did I,’ George responded, shaking his head.
Aubrey stared. ‘You what?’
‘I thought so too, old man.’ George paused a moment and seemed to enjoy Aubrey’s puzzlement. ‘You see, old man, I like to keep you on your toes. Sometimes, when I’m supposed to give a compliant “What did you think?” response, I prefer to throw in a googly.’
Aubrey couldn’t help but smile a little. George gave every appearance of being a solid, unsurprising sort of chap, but Aubrey knew from experience that this was far from the truth. His still waters ran deep indeed, and his mind worked in quick and sometimes capricious ways – and he had recovered some of his equanimity.
Aubrey was lucky to have him as a friend.
‘Thanks, George. I fell for it completely.’
‘Excellent. Now, what were you saying?’
‘This facility is even more important than we suspected. It’s guarded.’
‘I can see that, old man. Those big towers do stand out.’ George shrugged, a tricky job when lying on one’s stomach. ‘You know, you’re going to have to work harder in the “startling revelation” area. Good build-up, but a bit of a letdown afterwards, rather. I was getting all tense and now I’m left flat as a pancake.’
‘That’s not what I mean. Under the towers and–’ He picked up the field glasses again and scanned the rear fence. ‘About halfway along. Magical detection devices.’ He adjusted the focus, very slightly. The devices looked larger than usual. ‘And I think they’re not just for physical intrusion, they’re also capable of detecting magic.’
Aubrey chewed his lip. If this was the case, the devices must be extremely sophisticated. They had to be capable of filtering out authorised magic, otherwise whatever was going on inside the buildings would be setting them off all the time. And such differentiating was an advance indeed, as he’d seen nothing like this in Albion.
‘Aubrey,’ George said, interrupting his thoughts. ‘How did Sophie and Caroline get inside the place?’
‘Dr Tremaine’s imprint is all over this factory. He’s in there somewhere.’
George winced. ‘You told Caroline that Dr Tremaine was in there? That’d explain why she was so keen to get in.’
‘I’ve put her in harm’s way,’ Aubrey said. It pained him.
‘Don’t think like that, old man. Caroline wouldn’t like it. Suggests she’s helpless, in more ways than one.’ George pointed. ‘More important than worrying over that is the question of how Sophie and Caroline got in to the place.’
‘I hope Sophie didn’t try any magical means.’ In fact, Aubrey was reasonably sure she hadn’t. He hadn’t heard any alarms and the factory didn’t show any signs of a place that had recently been magically breached.
George thumped the ground in front of him. ‘We should have asked Katya.’
A voice came from nowhere. ‘They went through the front gate.’
If Aubrey had been standing, he would have given the world high jump record a distinct nudge. Katya insinuated herself out of a dense tangle of shrubbery with nary a rustle, emphasising to him what a city fellow he was. She crawled close to them. ‘They went in the front gate.’
‘Just like that?’ George said. ‘Bold as brass?’
‘They joined the soldiers who came this morning. Sophie performed some magic and they were in.’
‘Magic?’ Aubrey was startled. She must have used something extremely passive. He was already thinking of the possibilities. Some sort of passive concealment magic was most likely. Or a semblance spell? He needed to know more about Sophie’s capabilities.
Katya brought them to the spot where lorries full of soldiers ground their way around a bend and up a slight rise before reaching the factory gates. The lorries slowed here, she explained, and Caroline and Sophie had slipped themselves into the rear of the last in a column of three.
‘We can do that,’ Aubrey said and he was confident he could, especially since their effort in slipping into the fortress at Divodorum had required the same sort of disguising magic. It was good, sound special unit magic.
‘I will wait,’ Katya said as they took up a vantage point behind some thickly growing hazels, ‘and report back to von Stralick and Zelinka.’
‘I’d appreciate that,’ Aubrey said, and he felt a flutter in his stomach. At least someone should know where they’d gone.
George took some time checking his revolver. Aubrey, feeling a little foolish, followed suit. He’d been prepared to leave the firearm behind, never having felt totally comfortable with it, but George had insisted on his bringing it.
It wasn’t long before the noise of an overladen lorry came toward them. ‘Two only,’ Katya told them after disappearing for a moment. ‘Go to the last.’
‘Ready?’ Aubrey said to George.
‘As rain.’
‘What?’
‘Let’s go.’
George scrambled through the brush, nearly leaving Aubrey behind – because Aubrey hadn’t yet cast the disguising spell. ‘George!’ he called, but the roar of the lorries drowned out his voice. A mixed blessing, for it hadn’t alerted any soldiers, but George was ploughing through the brush, heedless of his lack of disguise. Aubrey rushed his spell as fast as he could, then put his head down and had to hurry to follow. Branches slashed at him, twigs plucked at his jacket, then he was through.
The rear of the lorry was canvas-covered. The back opened onto darkness and it was pulling away from them up the slight hill. George dug in, sprinting. An unfamiliar George, now looking remarkably like a Holmlander infantryman in full kit – navy blue jacket, cap, trousers, heavy boots. Aubrey’s legs went slightly rubbery with the casting of the spell as if he’d already completed a nippy mile-and-a-half cross country. He had a moment of horror when he thought he wasn’t going to make it.
The lorry lurched over a bump, just as George reached the backboard and hauled himself inside. Immediately, he leaned out and stretched his hand.
Aubrey gritted his teeth and found some strength. He pushed himself forward, feeling that awful moment when his stride was about to go to pieces. He was convinced he’d lose all momentum – just as George clasped his outstretched hand.
For an instant, Aubrey’s feet left the ground and he was suspended in mid-air, most precariously, then George dragged him into the rear of the lorry where he lay on his back, panting.
While he regained his breath, he congratulated himself on how convincing his disguising spell was. His clumsy arrival hadn’t caused any consternation. None of the dozen or so figures in the dimness under the canvas had moved. No-one questioned him, no bayonets were brandished in his face, no coarse laughter chaffed at him. All they had to do now was to sit tight and the lorry would take them right through the gates and into the factory. Their uniforms were perfect, just like the other soldiers who were quietly sitting in the back of the lorry, right down to the clumsy bandage wrapped around Aubrey’s arm. Their faces were composites, blended versions of the features around them, fitting in neatly.
He began to feel extremely uneasy. ‘What’s going on here?’ he muttered to George, who helped him to a spare space on one of the benches on either side.
George leaned close and Aubrey saw that he had a bandage on his head, under his awkwardly sitting cap. ‘We’re in a hospital transport, old man. At least, that’s what it looks like.’
Aubrey surreptitiously glanced around the lorry. Each of the soldiers was wound
ed. Bandaged limbs and heads, blood-stained uniforms, but Aubrey had trouble believing that the wounds were entirely responsible for the bonelessness and the grey pallor in the faces surrounding him, especially since none of them had head wounds.
Young faces, too, he realised. It gave him a wrench to see they were about his age, youths who should be making their way in a world unblighted by war. These were the fodder for the insatiable appetite of the war monster that had been unleashed. So young, so many, and with the war so new.
He wrinkled his nose. A faint vibration was lodged there, irritating but not to the point of sneezing. He sniffed, but it buzzed and he realised he was detecting low-level magic. He frowned, looking around at the blank faces, the unseeing eyes, the chins resting on chests, and he realised with a start that the entire squad was enspelled.
He shook the shoulder of the soldier on the other side of the lorry, a fair-headed youth with one arm in a bloody sling. While George watched with some alarm, the Holmlander’s head lolled from side to side like a rag doll. Aubrey lifted the soldier’s good hand. When he let go it fell, unresisted.
Aubrey sat back and wiped his hands together. ‘It’s clever,’ he said after a moment’s thoughtful contemplation of the canvas roof, remembering various descriptions in texts he’d read.
‘Some sort of trance?’ George asked. His expression was one of caution tinged with definite distaste.
‘Our Dr Tremaine has come up with a new application of the Law of Patterns, is my guess. These poor wretches are entranced by a repeating pattern, caught in following an endless loop, so to speak. They follow it to the end, but find that they’re at the beginning again. The effect, as you pointed out, is much like a trance.’
‘For what purpose?’
‘So they can be loaded onto lorries and shipped wherever needed.’
‘But who’d need wounded battlers like this?’ George swept an arm around the interior of the lorry. ‘They should be in hospital!’
‘They should, indeed.’ Aubrey was quiet for a moment. ‘But it appears that someone has plans for them.’
Moment of Truth Page 25
