Bloodtide

by Melvin Burgess

  ‘I as no eart and I don care,

  Me skin’s as bare as an ogre’s lair.

  Trusting you, you can trust me true,

  TO EAT YOU DOWN TO THE TINIEST AIR!

  He flings her down again on the cobbles like so much pork. Two startled Orangers spin round to see who walks so boldly up to them outside the barracks.

  ‘I found this pig pretending to be a woman,’ says the man. He lifts his hand to his woolly hat in a salute, steps backwards, eyes still on the soldiers and, before they can even ask, is gone.

  ‘Who goes there?’ cries one, far too late. The Orangers start in pursuit, but it’s obvious there’s no threat and anyhow, Styr has melted away. The streets are silent. Spooky! He came so quietly, he could have strangled them both and they wouldn’t have known he was there.

  They turn back, irritated, to where the pig is crawling like an animal up the road.

  ‘What’s going on?’ With three well-aimed kicks, they get her on her back. ‘Speak!’ Melanie croaks and gasps: no words. One reaches down and rips her dress open.

  ‘She’s a pig all right. More tits than fingers.’

  The other snorts. They kick her head a few times to calm her down, and drag her into the station. Melanie’s thinking that Styr could at least have finished her off; he could easily have finished her off if there was even a drop of decent blood in him. The Orangers never killed halfmen quickly. It made a better example for the rest of them.

  25

  siggy

  It was two in the morning. Hyde Park. Not my normal stamping ground. I was out doing a job with a few ‘friends’.

  I wasn’t getting out much, but you gotta work. Well, tell the truth, I didn’t have to do even that. Cherry provided for everything we could want, even allowing for the fact that Melanie was getting greedy. Once a week Cherry dropped off a little bag of bits and pieces – jewellery, gold, you name it. But by the end of every week the cupboard’s always bare. Well, it’s expensive times but you can’t tell me a pocketful of gold and silver won’t pay the groceries for a week. Nah. It’s the resistance. Melanie gives every penny to Dag Aggerman. So who says I don’t do my bit? The money me and Styr bring home must keep the halfmen in swill for a year.

  Of course it all goes. If I filled the house with diamonds we’d be eating left-overs by the end of the week, but I don’t begrudge the old girl, not a penny, or Dag Aggerman, for that matter. Not that it’ll do anyone any good. Keeps their spirits up, the idea of fighting back, I suppose. I moan a bit when there’s no beer in the fridge, but my basic reaction is to supplement the income. But it gets me out of the house, it keeps Melanie happy, and let’s face it – I owe her one.

  And it keeps Styr happy. It’s the only thing that keeps Styr happy, seeing as I refuse to join the resistance. My sister took out any kindness from him, took out pity. What use has a soldier with pity? Instead of pity, he has loyalty, to me. Plenty of that. He’s bad news, my son. No good’ll come of him, I know that. Too much hatred. But he’s mine. Sorry, not my fault, but there it is.

  Normally he’d have been out with me, but when I mentioned this job he went all embarrassed, and it turns out… guess what? He’s got a woman. A girl! Don’t they grow up quick: one moment they’re newborn, two years later they’re off trying to get laid. I let him off the job like a shot. Hel, it’s the first time Styr’s ever had a private life. I was pleased. Maybe the boy will grow up into a human being yet.

  Mainly we work on our own ground: Muswell Hill, Barnet, Wood Green, maybe Hampstead or Stoke Newington – places a bit further in where there’s a bit of wealth but not so much that you’ve got a private army barracked round the corner. It’s quite good pickings, but of course the real challenge is further into town – the private estates behind iron gates or set in little parks of their own. That’s where the real business is. Not the sort of job you do on your own.

  It was me, Fumble, Skunk and Dozey. Dozey was a hard man, used to be a gangman with Conor but he got chucked out. Things kept disappearing as far as I could gather. You could trust him with your back, but don’t give him your coat to hold. He was basically a decent bloke so long as you didn’t expect him to give you your share. He just couldn’t help himself – a bit like old Melanie. Skunk’s real name was Jo, but he had a dash of the old furball in him, if you see what I mean. He reckoned it was dog but in the general opinion it was most likely skunk. Well, not really… It’s just that he didn’t like being called Skunk so of course we all did. As for Fumble, he was a stoat pure and simple, but not of the animal kind. Well, listen, work is work. I didn’t pick these blokes as friends.

  We’d targeted a big house on the edge of Hyde Park. It wasn’t hard. They weren’t used to being picked on. They had half a dozen blokes in some weird family uniform, but there was only one way in or out of the barracks, so we just locked the door. Simple! When they started shouting we shot a few arrows in; that soon shut them up. These idiots, they keep thugs just for show, like owning a lawnmower, it shows you have the cash. They hadn’t even read the instruction booklet.

  We tied the family to the banisters. I terrorised them with my face, then we went through the drawers. Jewellery’s the stuff, you can’t transport anything big. And money, of course. Fumble and Skunk smashed the place up. They seemed to feel it was compulsory. Fumble had a shit in the piano. We left by the back windows. The guards were staring out of the window looking all scared.

  ‘Let us out! Let us out!’ they whispered as we left, scared of what the family would do to them when they got loose. Serve ’em right for being so stupid as to be employed by arses.

  Way home. Cross the park. Lovely, lovely day, but that was the dangerous bit. In the house you were safe enough, unless they were big enough to have an outside line to the police or army. On the way back, the Orangers were everywhere.

  Hyde Park isn’t so bad at night, but as you got further out there was a curfew. We waited in the park until the sun came up and people were moving before we went on. The others didn’t have much to worry about. They looked reasonably human, even Skunk; who wasn’t. No, I was the animal. One glimpse of me and half the population’s yelling for the Vermin. You saw it all the time. Kids, quite often. Maybe they thought it was a game. You’d hear them: ‘Animal!’ And some poor mutt’d start legging it before the Vermin came.

  It’d happened to me more than once. A couple of times I even had a set-to with the Vermin, but they usually got a surprise with me. They didn’t expect a civilian to be packing hardware.

  I’d more or less stopped going out except to work. I had to slink along, eyes peeled all the time. I kept a scarf around my face which wasn’t very convincing even though it was a chilly morning. The three others went ahead and warned me if there were people about. It was a dicey business. I should have worked nearer to home, but I couldn’t resist the big hits. We made one hell of a haul that day.

  It was a long walk, nervy like I say, but I was enjoying it – nice cool air, early morning, leaves changing colour. We were doing well. We got to Kentish Town, where the guys had some horses waiting for them. Fumble and Dozey went off, but Skunk and me walked on. Horses were no good for me, of course, put up on high with my face, so everyone could get a good look. No thanks. I stayed on foot. It was good of Skunk to keep me company, though. I appreciated it.

  So it was just the two of us walked into Muswell market.

  There was some sort of fair going on. Music belting out. Someone had one of those old steam-organs rigged up. It was boiling merrily away, rattling out its dumb old tunes. There were bands bashing it out, lot of drums. Someone even had an amp connected to a generator, and they had electric guitars. The Vermin were everywhere, some of them trying to get into the spirit of it, others looking pissed off. They don’t tend to approve of electric music. Maybe it’s the sound. More likely they just thought it was a waste of good petrol.

  The market was fun, even though I was worried about bumping into Vermin in the crowd. People know me ro
und there; I’m not so likely to be given away and even if I was, there were plenty of people willing to tuck me away out of sight. The whole place was all brightened up, stalls everywhere, food cooking, kids. People have fun, kids play, even under Conor. Down the street the corpses hung from their heels like a butcher’s shop, and the band played on. You live under that sort of shadow, you think about it often enough. You can’t begrudge people a morning off from being miserable.

  We walked around looking for a drink. Stalls selling clothes, old tools, bright ornaments, past kids selling little animals moulded out of silver paper. We walked past the mouth of the gibbet street. I turned my head and there she was.

  I recognised the dress. It was pink, gold and blue stripes, hanging down over her head. She had one leg splayed out, arms stuck out at angles, more like a pig than ever. She was pretty human, Melanie, apart from the big pig jaws, but she had porky little arms and legs. Shit, even a full human looks like an animal if you do that to them.

  ‘Get on, Sigs,’ said Skunk. ‘We’ll be seen.’

  He was right. It wasn’t a good idea to be seen staring. There were Vermin up and down the street; they questioned you if you looked upset.

  ‘She’ll be missed, anyhow,’ said Skunk. ‘A lot a people thought a lot of your Melanie.’

  That made me cross. Platitudes I could do without.

  ‘Shut up, Skunk.’

  ‘Don’t take it out on me, man. I mean it. She was spending a lot of money, wasn’t she? Helping people out, buying supplies for Dag’s men, that sort of thing. She had that flat up Talbot Street as a hideout. It’s how she’d’ve wanted it, Sigs, going out fighting…’

  Skunk rattled on, glancing nervously up and down the road and gripping my elbow and trying to pull me away, but I was rooted to the spot.

  Suddenly I wanted to see her face, to make sure, you know? Or maybe just let myself see her dead. They’d ripped her skirt down one side so you could see her face. They always did that so people would know who it was. I reached out to push her round so she was facing me. Skunk grabbed my arm. ‘Don’t be mad, man!’ But I shook him off.

  I pushed a foot and she swung round. Her face was badly bashed about. There was blood and spit all down her front. She looked like so much butcher’s meat. That was the idea.

  I heard Skunk groan, but it was too late. The Vermin were on us. This one marched up in his nice orange uniform, all sneers and smiles, like he was in for a good time.

  ‘Found your mother, son?’ he began. Then he stopped and jarred when I looked at him. My face, see? It’s not animal, it’s worse than that.

  ‘Right…’ He reached out to take me but he wasn’t going to lay a hand on me. Like I say, firearms take them by surprise. I banged him straight through the cheek. I heard Skunk yell. Half the Vermin didn’t get guns, either. They were needed at the front. I had to pop off another couple and then did a bunk for it. The crowd split in two for me like the Red Sea; a cheer went up. Conor is not a popular man, not even in his own country.

  I did a few enquiries after that and found out which garrison had been involved. Me and Styr paid a couple of them a visit – found their beat, caught up with them on the pavement outside Graveries’ supermarket. I tapped one on the shoulder and we showed them what we were holding in our hands.

  ‘You’re mad,’ one of them said in surprise. But when they saw my face they looked really scared.

  ‘You’re going to die now,’ I told him. I said to the other one, ‘As for you, here’s a message for King Conor. Tell him, Siggy’s back.’ Then I shot them, one through the head and the other in the knee.

  After that, me and my son had a journey to make.

  26

  It was a three-day march west down a stripe of yellow grass and seeding wildflowers a hundred miles long. A thin soil had been slowly building up on the M4 for a couple of generations. It was still too thin for grass, but the wildflowers loved it. Siggy and Styr, father and son, what a pair! United in warfare and – loyalty? Well, Siggy believed it. They walked their way scattering seeds and grasshoppers in their wake. On each side the wilderness had covered the pastures in tangles of bramble, scatterings of silver birch, and here and there a young oak wood. The forests were returning, but there were still squares of pasture with sheep and cows, and quiet plantations of cabbages and other crops. People had to eat, even in wartime.

  They walked mainly in silence; Styr was never one to talk, but on a hillside scattered with the ruins of old housing, there was a furious argument. Siggy wanted his son to understand what all this was about, this journey to join Dag Aggerman in the good fight. Not because the gods willed it. Not because Signy wanted it. Not for the greater glory of the house of Volson. Nothing, nothing, nothing of those. If anything they were reasons to turn away from this war. Siggy despised revenge and he despised glory. What good did such things ever do?

  This was for justice, for Melanie, for mankind. Conor was a piece of evil who had to be removed forever from the surface of the earth, not just because of what he had done to the Volsons, but because of what he did to everybody. Standing among the broken walls on the outskirts of the halfman lands, with the Wall towering above the trees behind them, Siggy raged against the gods and pleaded for justice in his son’s dark heart. Siggy knew that the gods had lined him up for the role of warlord and he hated the knowledge that his hatred of injustice was nothing more than a net to catch him. But what did the gods matter, their wills and whys? Justice was what counted, justice and the giving of all of yourself to make life one jot better for the millions who suffered because Conor had power.

  Styr swore allegiance – to Siggy, to justice, to the cause. Struck the ground with his fist and promised his life for his father’s fight. But Siggy was not fooled by his fervour. None of these ideals meant anything to Styr. It was like trying to persuade an ant that it was good to die for the glory of the nest. Styr would die, but not for the cause. It was an instinct in him. Just as he had known so thoroughly how to bend his father to his will, he knew Conor had to die. It was as simple as that.

  Siggy raged; Styr was uncomprehending. Hadn’t he agreed with everything his father said? The truth was Styr would be happy if the Volsons came to power even if they ruled ten times more harshly than Conor had.

  So they stumped their way forward, stealing cabbages and carrots, until at last they stood on the ledge of a long, low hill and looked down at their destination – a smoky camp, struggling to hold itself out of the trees, brambles and ivy that crawled over the rubble in which it stood. Like many halfmen towns, there were not many full houses. Some of them just slept in shelters, but it was a matter of choice. The halfmen were not such tropical animals as full humans, and had less need of warmth and cover.

  In among the crooked houses and stables the creatures of the halflands walked. Pigs’ heads, birds’ wings, dogs and cats strolling around in each other’s bodies. In paddocks real cows grazed, real chickens clucked – or were they? Where the animal ended and the halfman began was as difficult to define as where the halfman ended and the human began. And who knew where the halfmen themselves drew the line? Maybe a lamb with a human face was as toothsome to a dogman as one without.

  ‘Seems like a good reason for going vegetarian,’ Siggy muttered to himself.

  This was Dag Aggerman’s camp, the centre of the resistance against Conor. From his vantage point, Siggy and Styr could see the divisions of the army: the army of the dog people, the pig people, and to one side the smaller army of the humans. To one side of this camp was a field with neat row after neat row of gibbets. Hanging from them, a familiar sight in these pagan days, row after row of bodies, upside down, hanging from one heel, sacrifices to Odin.

  ‘Looks like everyone loves Odin these days,’ said Siggy. ‘Except me…’ He noticed that the sacrifices were not just human.

  Siggy sighed and led his son downhill.

  27

  dag aggerman

  I pissed on the walls three times before I
went near him, twice to let him know who I was, once for luck. He could be a good thing for us, yes. Ah! Let it happen! I’d give the gods my pups!

  He was standing with the clone. Yuk. Had hold of a young dog, had him by the neck in the air, just to let me know who he was. I knew, I knew. Ah! And he knew I knew or he wouldn’t have risked it. A human, in my yard, pawing my soldiers! Nah nah! I’d have to want them bad. I wanted him bad!

  I came rushing up, hair up. He turned to look at me and up went my hair again. That face! Not human, not animal. Nothing on this earth. And he knew how to use it too – ah ah! Pulling faces, twisting it, ugh! It made you growl to look at it! And the clone, Styr, standing there – the pair of ’em, enough to make you eat shit.

  ‘Leave my guard! Leave my guard!’ I barked.

  ‘He’s lippy for a guard,’ he said. ‘Do your guards treat everyone like that, or just humans?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘You know who I am.’

  I thought, yeah! ‘What if I hadn’t?’ I said.

  ‘But you did.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. Ah!’ And I laughed! I thought, yes, yes, you’re a soldier. You’ll do. And he respected me. He knew I’d have good spies. How else would a human walk into my camp? Only if I wanted him to.

  He smiled at me. ‘I’m unmistakable.’

  ‘You’re welcome! You’re welcome, Volson!’ And he even stood still while I sniffed his arse.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to make a habit of that.’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, ah! Just getting to know you. It’s good manners!’

  ‘Not where I come from.’

  The boy – young man by now – he stood to one side, respectful. Never saw him respectful to anyone but Siggy. I gave him a sniff and shook all over.

  ‘How’s life?’ I asked him. An’ he said nothing, just gestured at Siggy and this cute little smile, all proud, like he was presenting me with the crown jewels. Holy shit! He was! Yeah, he was! I led ’em to HQ. I wanted to see what strategy sense he had. ‘Let loose the men of war,’ he said, and he was surprised when I laughed.