Extropia

by Robin Bootle

  Edward glanced back to the church, alarmed. He was about to retrieve his own telescope to see for himself when Hasgard ordered, ‘After him!’ And all the horses charged, leaving Edward clinging around Hasgard for safety.

  As they raced across the field, Edward strained to get a clearer view. Ivandell had come to a halt twenty yards from the church. He and his horse were still as a statue. Edward dismounted when Hasgard’s horse drew level and the sight that met his eyes was so vile, so incomprehensible that it paralysed his body with shock.

  ‘Cut them down!’ ordered Hasgard, his voice strained in anguish.

  The horror of it all was almost blinding, mind-erasing, as if no thought or emotion could possibly make sense of what they saw.

  Hasgard’s men reached the church, dismounted and hurriedly scaled the walls. The first of them reached out, taking hold of the nearest blackened leg that dangled down the side of the church.

  A hundred of them, maybe more, burnt and pinned with stakes to the walls of the church. Edward didn’t need to ask who they were. The look of desperation on Ivandell’s face was enough. The remains of the villagers. The ones Ivandell had tried to save.

  25

  Skelton Tower

  With one knee on the ground and his interlinked hands resting on the other, Ivandell bowed his head in prayer. After a short while he rose, seemingly calm and collected, and walked towards the church to help the others. They’d already begun to cut through the rear section of the stakes in between the corpses and the church, releasing the villagers to waiting arms below. Even when one of the little ones fell, Ivandell’s face remained focused on the task at hand.

  This time, it didn’t make Edward cry, not like his last visit to Hawkshead. The brutality of it all was so incomprehensible that his emotions seemed wiped away, as if his mind had been shocked into some kind of existential emptiness. He joined Ivandell and the others. The smell of burnt flesh filtered through the bottom of his lungs and into his gut, making him retch.

  ‘All they wanted was a new home. To find a new life where no one could hurt them.’

  ‘Tell me what to do, Ivandell.’

  Ivandell looked at him plainly. ‘They will be buried before the church. Take their bodies around to the front.’

  Edward leant down and grabbed the nearest body by what was left of its forearms. More than anyone else, it was Ivandell who worried him now. If he’d been broken before, then how would he be feeling now?

  Edward trudged backwards as he dragged the body, his gaze drawn to the burnt-out sockets near the middle of the skull. He couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, just that it was someone of medium build. Whoever it was, until yesterday they would have been carrying on with their lives in spite of the horror that surrounded them. But now all that had been washed away, sparked by a fight in the streets of Hawkshead. He wondered if this was one of the people he’d fought alongside when they’d defeated Dēofol’s soldiers in the street. And with that thought, the abhorrence of it all kicked in. Of all the things that had happened in recent days, this was the worst. Worse than taking the lives of Dēofol’s soldiers. Worse than witnessing the general’s death. It wasn’t just the sight of the charred bodies. It was the sense that this massacre was somehow his fault. And even as he thought it, he knew that was exactly how Dēofol and Vanderboom wanted him to think. It was a message, for him, for Hasgard and all of them.

  This is what happens when you don’t surrender.

  * * *

  He dropped that first body in the centre of the square before the church’s large wooden doors, sweat dripping down his temples, and went back around the side of the church to collect another. Everyone was silent, save for the grunts of labour and the groans of horror as they released each body.

  He leant down to grab a second pair of blackened arms and a waft of burnt sweetness caught in his throat, as if he could still taste them in the air; the dead haunting the village. He stepped away and breathed deep to try to cleanse his lungs.

  Out there, beyond the fields, something was moving, as if a swarm of black insects was carpeting the base of the valley. Smoke caught in his eye, drawing a tear. He rubbed it away, blinking before focusing again on the base of the valley. This time he was certain. His hairs standing on end, he alerted the soldier next to him, ‘Someone’s coming.’

  The whisper echoed down the side of the church in seconds. One of the soldiers pulled a telescope from his belt. When he lowered it again, his face was pale. ‘An army, my Lord! A whole bleeding army!’

  ‘Into the church!’ ordered Hasgard.

  As Edward ran, he prayed that Vanderboom was with them. All he needed was one chance, one ball of flame to knock Vanderboom down and render him no different from all these people so recently slaughtered.

  The great doors of the church closed behind them. The pews inside had been piled together in the centre of the room and set alight. Now all that remained were the burnt-out ends, littering the perimeter of where the fire had been. At the far end of the church, one man, presumably the priest, hung in a noose tied to a wooden balcony. Behind him, the sunlight beamed in past the skylarks in the steeple windows, as if they were the fingers of the Skylar reaching down to the mortals of Extropia.

  Where are you now, Skylar? thought Edward, as he bit his tongue from another cry of anger towards his father.

  ‘You two, cut him down,’ Hasgard ordered two of his men. ‘And tell us what you see out there.’ The men ran to the far end of the church and disappeared up the stairwell to the bell tower.

  Ivandell paced to a window and peered out. ‘If he is with them… All I need is one shot! We can end this madness here and now!’

  ‘Get away from there, Ivandell!’ Hasgard whispered. ‘Be calm. We must stay collected, and silent. If they find us we will all be killed.’

  ‘Then pray the Skylar dampens my temptation!’

  The two men who had climbed the bell tower came scampering back with jubilant smiles. ‘It’s not Dēofol, my Lord! I… I can’t quite believe it.’ The man seemed unable to finish, and instead dropped to his knees in prayer.

  ‘Who is it?’ barked Hasgard.

  The other man stepped forward. ‘If I’m not mistaken, it is old Captain Westmacott. There are hundreds with him, sir! Hundreds!’

  ‘What?’ Ivandell ran to the church doors, swung them open and marched into the street.

  Edward followed him and pulled out his telescope. Sure enough, the movement he had seen to the northwest was indeed an army. Ivandell leapt onto his horse and galloped towards them, waving an arm to draw their attention. A shout came from somewhere in the army’s ranks, and then another, and soon a figure at the front of the army signalled for them all to come to a halt. Ivandell reached him, pausing only for a moment before they both accelerated away from the main force towards the church. Edward lowered his lens as the captain approached alongside Ivandell.

  ‘Quite a shield you have there, Edward,’ Captain Westmacott said with a smile.

  Edward glanced down to the oblong shield he’d taken from the captain’s basement. ‘I’m sorry. It belongs to you.’ He went to take it off his arm but the captain stopped him.

  ‘No, Edward. It is my honour to see you carry it. Consider it a gift.’

  Edward nodded towards the army. ‘I don’t understand. Where did they come from?’

  ‘This beacon of Dēofol’s brutality, smoke rising into the sky, was visible for miles around. Word quickly spread to the rest of the villages.’

  ‘And so they chose to fight? But why now? Captain, we don’t have the general.’

  ‘Ivandell told me what happened in the mountain pass,’ the captain replied heavily. ‘But the villagers were visited by a rider, dressed in the Armour of the Night and wounded in the leg. He said he had met with the boy from the prophecy, and that you had the General’
s Ward. Only a few of us dared believe it at first. It seemed impossible that you could have retrieved the ward so quickly after the battle of Hawkshead, let alone that this dark rider could come to spread the word. But then we saw the light this morning, colouring the grey mountain clouds blue. Tell me, boy, is it true? Do you have the ward?’

  Edward pulled down on the neck of his robe for the captain to see the ring, glittering in the sun’s rays. But his mind was with Hound. How had Hound known that he had the ring? And how had Hound time and again known where to find him? Was Hound watching him somehow, hacked into the display on Edward’s port? ‘This dark rider, where is he now?’

  ‘The last of the villagers saw him riding in the direction of the tower. You know him?’

  ‘He’s a friend, I think,’ Edward replied, daring to believe that Hound’s latest actions meant he’d at last decided to help. And Hound’s help was exactly what they needed. He could use his hack of the Tartarus Portal to help them escape; they wouldn’t need to recover the stone from Dēofol.

  ‘It seems you have many faithful friends these days.’ The smile fell from the captain’s lips. ‘And soon you will be needing them. Our spies report they have seen a boy in a cage, hanging from one of the platforms of Skelton Tower. It was too far to tell his condition. But they saw him move, so we know he is yet breathing.’

  Edward’s heart fluttered. Someone had actually seen James, and he was still alive. ‘How do we get to him?’

  ‘Dēofol’s army from the tower is already coming to meet us, leaving only a small guard at the tower itself.’

  ‘Now is our chance, Edward,’ said Ivandell. ‘The sooner we go, the better.’

  Hasgard nodded. ‘You are right, Ivandell. Most likely Dēofol will lead the army himself. Edward, if I may, I must ask for the ward. The men will not fight without it.’

  Edward lifted the ward from around his neck. Before he handed it over he said, ‘There’s another mage, called Vanderboom. I’m certain he’ll be waiting for me at the tower.’

  ‘A mage?’ Ivandell raised a concerned eyebrow. ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I can’t explain. I just need you to trust me.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Hasgard. ‘Perhaps then it is better I accompany you, Edward. I can handle this mage. Besides, the army will still doubt my leadership. They have seen my weakness this past year. I will take what remains of my personal guard. When Edward is safe, Ivandell, I will join you at battle.’

  ‘Wait.’ Edward remembered Ivandell in the basement of the captain’s house and in the mountain pass. The last thing he’d wanted to do was lead the army. ‘Are you sure you’re up to this?’

  Ivandell gripped his shoulders. ‘You are a good friend, Edward, but the world is changed, and me with it. Dēofol has taken everything from me: my family, my home, and now my friends. I have nothing left, and therefore nothing left to fear. I swear, by the lives of all those who have perished, I will make the beast Dēofol regret the day he became so cruel.’

  And now, seeing the glint in Ivandell’s eyes, Edward understood. There was no façade. There was no storm brewing. Only the steady resolve of a fearless man. He studied the General’s Ward in his hand. It weighed heavily; in it he felt the life of the general, the lives of all those around him. The hopes of the Lands of the Sun. ‘Time after time you’ve led your people from harm, stood up to Dēofol and his soldiers. Every day you sacrifice yourself to help those you’ve never met, not least of all me. It’s time to show the people who you really are.’ He placed the ward around Ivandell’s neck. ‘You truly are the Great Warrior, Ivandell.’

  Ivandell nodded, turned and mounted his horse. ‘Skylar be with you,’ he said, then kicked into his horse. As he neared his army, blinding blue light filled the air, and the men roared.

  * * *

  Edward rode again on the back of Hasgard’s horse, and for as long as Ivandell was within view he kept glancing back, trying to delay the moment that Ivandell would slip from sight. A week ago the thought of calling him a friend would have seemed misplaced, bizarre even. Now it was an understatement. The truth was, Ivandell was a far greater man than any he’d known in the real world.

  He waved one last time but Ivandell was distracted, riding along the front row of his army and encouraging his men as would a king from a bygone era. The army vanished between the slopes of two hills. Many of them would die in the coming hours, he knew. Emotion-feeling computer programs subjected to lives of misery, willing to end those lives in the name of their freedom, just like any brave human would do.

  Alongside Edward and Hasgard rode the five of Hasgard’s men who had survived the mist unscathed. Edward rested his head against Hasgard’s back as they followed the curve of the valley and joined the path of a river that meandered through the base of the hills. The grass on the hills was short, trimmed by sheep allowed to graze. So Dēofol and his men can eat well, thought Edward, even if no one else can.

  After winding back and forth several times, he at last caught sight of the top of a tower bouncing in and out of view above a distant hillside. ‘Is that it, Lord Hasgard?’ he asked. ‘Is that where they keep my brother?’

  ‘It is,’ replied Hasgard.

  Their horse veered right along the path of the river into a valley gloomy with clouds blown in from the east. Murmurs rumbled across the sky. And now several miles down the valley the tower lay in full view. Its circular walls of grey stone loomed over the hills on either side. At the top, platforms extended to the west, north, and south.

  ‘How will we get in?’ asked Edward.

  ‘The river flows under the tower, providing passage for provisions into the base of the tower. There is a servants’ entrance. We will be delivering a fresh bounty of goods to his lordship.’

  Edward’s nerves were high in his chest, leaving his thoughts tangled and jumping from one to the next. How many soldiers were guarding the tower? How was he going to find James and Elizabeth? ‘What if James isn’t there?’ he said aloud, not really expecting an answer.

  ‘Oh, he will be. There is no better stronghold in these parts. Do not be afraid. Dēofol will most likely wish to lead his army himself, and besides, you are with me!’ Hasgard turned his head enough for Edward to know he was smiling.

  Overhead the clouds continued to darken. To the south of the tower, he caught sight of something moving, as though the hills were alive. An indistinct shadowy mass wormed its way through the landscape, less than a mile from where Ivandell’s men were making their final preparations. ‘Is that the enemy?’ he asked.

  ‘It is. They move to meet us. Now, if you don’t mind.’ Hasgard took hold of Edward’s hand and lifted it away from his waist. ‘I too am fond of you, but your arms are growing rather tight.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Edward sat up straight. Since they’d left Ivandell he’d felt as if he was reverting to being some kind of infant, clinging to its parent. He needed to focus his senses, his mind.

  They would be there within the hour.

  * * *

  From a distance, the tower had appeared more like a needle in the landscape, but from where they were now Edward could see its true scale. Its grey stone rose high into the moody clouds above. It must have been forty yards across, the platforms at the top almost half of that again. At its base were campfires, their light occasionally interrupted by figures passing by in front, presumably those of Dēofol’s men left behind with specific instructions to keep guard over James and to keep watch for Edward.

  Hasgard led their company a way down the grassy slope towards the slurping river. ‘Alfred?’ he whispered.

  ‘Lord Hasgard!’ came a strained reply. ‘Over here.’

  They followed the voice, brushing aside branches and weaving through the shrubs and bushes. Ahead, Edward could see the silhouette of a long wooden boat amid the shimmering of the rushing river, then a figure
coming towards them, and a hand waving them over.

  ‘Alfred,’ said Hasgard.

  ‘Lord Hasgard! It is good to see you, master,’ whispered the man, whom Edward recognised from Force Crag Mine. ‘Twelve sheep, just as you asked.’

  ‘Well done, Alfred. Now take your horse, sidle down to the west and back south to find the others. They are soon to battle.’

  ‘Yes, master.’ With surprising agility, Alfred kicked his foot into the stirrup and rolled onto his horse, then disappeared back along the bank of the river.

  ‘Edward, I hope you have been kind to sheep in your years,’ joked Hasgard. In the boat, a long pen made of wooden slats filled the rear three quarters of the boat. In it were the twelve sheep, some sleeping, some staring with dopey indifference at their surroundings. ‘Climb in. The board in the centre comes loose. Hide beneath.’

  ‘What about you? Surely they’ll spot you? You’re not like them.’

  ‘Luckily for us, Alfred has prepared us a mask.’ Hasgard grinned as one of his men held out a wooden bucket. He scooped his fingers into the grey muck within and smeared it over his face. ‘It is far from perfect, but it will bear up in the darkness. Now get in. We must be off.’

  Edward climbed aboard, Hasgard’s light-hearted mood helping to keep him calm. He grabbed hold of the crate as the boat leaned to under his weight. On all fours, he unlatched the gate and crawled inside. The sheep darted towards the far side of the crate. ‘Don’t mind me,’ he whispered. He clambered forward, pushing down on the wooden boards of the floor. One gave way and tilted up at the other end. Beneath it, he could clearly see the size of his hiding place: six-foot-long, one-foot-wide, and only six inches deep. He shifted the board to one side and took a deep breath as he crawled further into the cage. Then he manoeuvred onto his rear and rolled backwards. He pulled his shield in with him and wedged it over his right arm. With his left, he slid the plank back over him, struggling for a moment until someone helped put it in place.