by Paul Kane
Schaefer remained silent, until he realised Loewe was waiting for him to give his answer. “Yes, of course, sir. But I bring bad news about the campaign in England.”
Loewe raised an eyebrow. England: one of their oldest enemies. That is, Loewe didn’t give a shit about the country either way, but his men felt especially passionate about taking control of the isle, which was why they didn’t complain – not that they dared anyway – about his use of so many resources over there, when they still had much of Germany to secure. This was potentially serious.
“You bring bad news?” asked Loewe.
“Er, actually...” Schaefer dragged in a second man, this one not familiar to Loewe; after a while all the uniformed people blurred into one. “Mayer here was the messenger who brought the news.” Schafer pushed the other man into the room, closing the door behind them. “Tell the General what you told me,” he ordered.
“Sir, I...”
Loewe rose, and his dogs raised their heads. “What is it, man? Spit it out, for God’s sake!”
Mayer was looking nervously from Loewe to the Alsatians.
“I said spit it out!” Loewe snapped. The dogs began to growl.
“I-it’s about the Widow’s venture.”
“The venture we have been funding, sir,” clarified Schaefer, adjusting his glasses. That word took on a different meaning in this day and age, from the one Loewe had been used to at any rate, but it amounted to the same thing. They’d been supplying the woman with vehicles and equipment in order to cause the maximum amount of trouble. Something had obviously gone very wrong, though, by the look of Mayer. He’s practically shitting himself, thought Loewe.
“The venture you convinced us to fund, Schaefer,” Loewe reminded him, then addressed Mayer again. “Go on.”
“T-there was an attack yesterday,” Mayer informed him.
“The Widow lost a number of men,” Schaefer added, “but also, regrettably, several jeeps and motorcycles, not to mention guns, ammunition –”
“Our jeeps, motorcycles, guns and ammunition,” Loewe reminded him. “Who was responsible for this attack?”
Schaefer prodded Mayer in the back to get him to answer. “Hood,” said the man, his voice breaking. “It was Hood, sir.”
Hood. Yes, Loewe had heard the tales just like everyone else, about a man who dressed like a folk take and fought using a bow and arrow. Loewe almost had to admire the conman’s audacity; it would be like him donning a toothbrush moustache and insisting they all called him the Führer. But that man had also, it was said, depleted the Tsar’s forces – another reason why they hadn’t attacked the New Order yet. In any event, if this Hood character was tackling the Widow, then reports were correct and he was doing just as they were, spreading out across his own country. It was a dangerous thing, because it meant that at some point their paths would cross. Someone like Hood, who had managed to convince his followers he was on some kind of damned crusade against evil, might get the bright idea of coming after them in Germany.
“How did it happen?” Loewe asked through gritted teeth.
“He and his Rangers were lying in wait, hidden in a convoy the Widow’s men were raiding.”
Loewe slammed his fist down on the desk, which hurt, making him madder. “The silly bitch! We give her all those weapons and she loses them to a bunch of fucking comic book characters.” He walked round the front of the desk and his dogs rose again. Loewe tapped his lips for a moment, trying to look thoughtful. He already knew what had to be done. Picking up a large silver letter opener that had been resting on the wood, he touched the tip, testing its sharpness. “Mayer, have you ever heard the saying about messengers and bad news?”
“Please, sir.” Mayer held up his shaking hands.
“You’re a member of the Army of the New Order, man! For Heaven’s sake act like it!”
Mayer attempted to show a little backbone, but there was still a quiver in his voice when he said, “It wasn’t my fault. I was not even there, sir. Please don’t –”
“Don’t what?”
Mayer looked at Schaefer, then back again at Loewe. “Don’t kill me.”
Loewe laughed; it was all part of the act. “Oh, I’m not going to kill you. Why would I do that? I wish you to deliver a message to the Widow.”
Mayer let out a relieved breath.
“However, I would like the message to be of a very specific nature. Do you think you can manage that?”
Mayer nodded, almost smiling.
“Good.” He clicked his fingers. The Alsatians bared their teeth, and Mayer’s eyes widened.
“But you said –”
“I said I’m not going to kill you. And I’m not,” replied Loewe. He snapped his fingers a second time and the dogs were across the room in seconds, leaping at Mayer. The first jumped up on its back legs, slamming Mayer in the chest with its paws and causing him to stumble backwards. The second took hold of his arm, clamping its teeth around the wrist and shaking it violently. Mayer’s scream was loud and piercing.
Loewe watched Schaefer’s reaction; it was largely for his benefit that he was doing this. There was no real reason to set the dogs on Mayer. The man was right, it wasn’t his fault. If anything, it was Schaefer’s, but Loewe needed him. Sadly, for Mayer, if Loewe was to play the part of their General without drawing any kind of suspicion, he had to make it look convincing. Failure should not be tolerated by someone in his position. His men expected this kind of behaviour, so that’s what he gave them. Schaefer would be his witness and word would travel fast through the ranks.
The tearing sounds drew Loewe’s attention back to Mayer, who had managed to turn but was on his knees. To his credit, and quite unlike what Loewe had expected, he was showing signs of being a true fighter. This soldier was someone who actually deserved to be in the New Order. Loewe couldn’t believe what he was thinking; he didn’t even believe in the fucking New Order himself! But this was starting to be quite entertaining, and would relieve some of the boredom for a little while.
Schaefer, pulling a face, stepped out of the way as Mayer – now with both dogs attached to him – crawled towards the door. His hand was shaking for an entirely different reason now, as it reached for the handle, then managed to turn it. In a last ditch effort to be free, Mayer flung it open and collapsed in the doorway – both dogs biting and clawing at his body; one ripping off an ear and eating it as blood poured from the wound.
This was good – now there would be more witnesses. As Mayer’s screams faded, some of the soldiers from the room beyond came to see what was happening. They gaped at the Alsatians savaging the man’s prone body, then up through the open doorway at Loewe.
“I trust you will see that the Widow is sent the remains,” he said to Schaefer, loud enough for those watching to hear as well.
Schaefer nodded.
“This Hood problem: I think we need to look into it further,” he told his second.
Another nod.
“I would hate for it to interfere with some of the other projects we’re involved with over there,” Loewe continued, and almost added ‘projects you also initiated, Schaefer,’ but felt his point had been made. “Perhaps we need to find someone to deal with him.” He knew Schaefer understood what he meant and would leave him to it, the example of Mayer spurring him on to succeed. But if he failed, would Loewe be able to go through with the punishment, as he’d done when blackmailing his targets back in his ‘terrorist’ days? He needed Schaefer too much. Maybe another pawn could be sacrificed. After all, Schaefer was too damned clever to put himself directly in the firing line: he’d always have a fall guy standing by.
Loewe clicked his fingers and the dogs returned to him immediately, Schaefer mirroring the men from the command centre, standing well out of their way. The dogs’ mouths were covered in gore as they took their places flanking Loewe. He gestured for Schaefer to clear the corpse away, then shut the door.
Loewe returned to his seat, tossing down the letter opener and ad
justing the position of the chair. As he lay back, he thought again of Hood and what he’d done, and hoped the man could be stopped before he really did become a threat.
THE PLANE REMAINED high, circling the area like a carrion crow.
When it finally descended, the small craft came in fast and low, making good use of the fading April light. Like its pilot, it was more at home in the shadows than the glare of daylight.
He’d managed to find a patch of grassland some distance from his chosen goal, near to a place called Creswell Crags. Deftly, he manipulated the sombrely-painted Cessna into position for a landing. He hardly felt the ground as the wheels touched down and carried him under the trees. The man opened up his door and climbed out, bringing his bow and arrows with him.
His dark clothes and long black hair, tied back in a ponytail, made him resemble that which he loved so much; his weathered skin completing the picture. It was the reason he had taken that name, the one he went by these days.
Shadow.
He began to camouflage his transportation, bending thin branches and layering foliage over the wings and main body of the plane. Before leaving her, he patted her cooling side. She had served him well during his long trip, admittedly punctuated by stops to replenish her fuel. Fuel supplied by those who’d employed him.
Shadow made his way stealthily through the Crags themselves. When he broke into the rundown visitor centre there, to search for a local map of the area, he noted that one of the caves not far away was named after his quarry – the original version, at any rate. According to books he found, under all the cobwebs – those that hadn’t been destroyed by vandals – it had been called this because it was rumoured to have been used as one of his storage holes. But for thousands of years before that, it had been used by hunters just like Shadow’s own ancestors. There was evidence of stone weapons and tools fashioned from animal teeth.
He dug out a map that showed him his destination within walking distance. So, quiver on his back, along with a handmade rucksack – knife and hawk axe already at his hip – he set off for the place where his ‘mark’ had once made his home. Nowadays, of course, the man spent most of his time in the city.
Shadow knew a great many things about him, simply from communing with higher forces, listening to his spirit guides. Even before he had set off, visions had revealed much about the Hooded Man and his forest. Prepared him for the task ahead.
Shadow contemplated the events that had led him here, the bargain he had struck. It had been necessary, like most things in his life. Part of him respected the hunter this Hood was. In another time, another world, they might even have been blood brothers. But, here and now, fate had forced them to cross paths as opposite numbers: Hood the person he must ‘deal with’ – isn’t that how they’d put it? – in order to receive his reward.
Did he feel any guilt? Some, perhaps. Though they looked alike, it was not Hood’s people who had murdered his brethren, taken their land and left them a minority in their country. Or was it? Hadn’t it been that man’s own ancestors who’d crossed the ocean and begun to colonise, begun the war that had lasted so long? His blood was their blood, wasn’t it? So how could they ever be brothers? Though the natives of this country were worlds apart from those across the Atlantic, they were still cousins. They still had the same ways.
Many of Shadow’s kind had banded together, forming a United Tribal Nation in order to take back what was theirs from the white man. They judged these post-virus times to be the perfect catalyst; thought the Great Spirit had granted them this opportunity. Shadow had always gone his own way, though, and used his own methods. He felt certain that they would achieve better results than the entire UTN affair.
It was why he was on his way to Sherwood, running at a pace that would see him reach the outskirts within the hour. Even though Hood appeared to have turned his back on it for now, in favour of building his army to police this land, the forest was still his seat of power – and it had waited so long for the rightful heir to come along.
Now Shadow intended to take that power away from the Hooded Man.
It was the only way to defeat him.
The only way to win.
HE COULDN’T SLEEP.
The aching in what had once been his hand was keeping him awake again. Not that he slept soundly anyway; the nightmares of the battlefield saw to that. Bohuslav understood it wasn’t possible for the hand itself to be aching, because it wasn’t there anymore. He understood it was just the nerve endings from the stump of a wrist, extending out into nothingness – perhaps even missing the lost appendage? Was that it; was the wrist, like him, still in mourning? None of which stopped it feeling real. He felt the pain, just as surely as he felt hatred for those who had done this to him.
He was grateful for the fact that the weather was starting to turn slightly warmer; you could never truly call it warm during these months. The ‘hand’ ached more than ever in wintertime, and the winters in Russia were invariably brutal.
Bohuslav pushed himself up on the enormous bed. One of the benefits of his position was occupancy of the Presidential Suite of the Marriott Grand; the only occupied room in the whole hotel. Back before the virus, he would have had the full five star experience. Even today there was a team of staff dedicated to giving him everything he could possibly desire. That included bringing him certain luxuries he craved. Certain ‘items’: living items. Male or female, it didn’t matter which. Not for sex, or anything like that. Bohuslav’s desires ran much deeper. It was a way of taking him back to the days before all this, when he would hunt his prey on the streets.
At first they’d just brought them to him, knocking on the door and leaving the meat standing there quivering. Where was the sport in that? He’d soon grown bored when there was no chase, no excitement. Then he’d struck upon the notion of letting them loose in the hotel. If they could escape him, they went free. If not...
None had ever escaped.
He closed his eyes and could imagine the weight of his sickle – once handheld but now attached to his stump – as it slashed and gutted. A smile played across his face. The memories of all that bloodshed, before – when he had been one of the most wanted serial killers in this country – and after the virus, came back to him all at once. It made him want to grab the sickle right now and slide it in place. Go out hunting and –
Bohuslav sighed. He should really try and rest. He had responsibilities beyond the ending of individual lives at his... hand. Inherited responsibilities from the man who had once been Tsar, who now rotted away in a distant land – killed by Hood.
It was no use. Bohuslav flicked on his bedside light, powered – like so many things these days – by generator. He padded across the room, yawning. When he reached the door that would take him into the spacious living area, he paused, remembering a meeting here more than a year ago.
Remembering the huge, olive-skinned bastard who’d got them into all this, persuading The Tsar to mount an offensive against Robert Stokes. Tanek. The name brought bile to his throat. If De Falaise’s former Second had never come here, things would have continued as they were. They would still be at full capacity with their troops and armament – instead of building forces back up again – and would now be thinking about a strategy of moving against other, more important enemies. It was what other countries were now doing, like Germany, from what Bohuslav was hearing.
Hood may have dealt the blow, but Tanek brought them all together. And, while it was true being the new Tsar of Russia did have its benefits, Bohuslav would still prefer to have been more behind the scenes.
Pulling on a robe, he walked over to the bar and poured himself a generous measure of Smirnoff; he preferred this to drugs when his stump was aching. By the second glass, the pain had dulled considerably.
Even after the alcohol, he heard, and felt, the person outside his room before they knocked. The sickle attachment was back in the bedroom, but Bohuslav never answered a door unarmed, even if there were guards out i
n the hall. He settled for a nearby ice-pick, concealing it behind his back as he looked through the spyhole.
It was a member of his staff – Klopov – but still Bohuslav kept the pick hidden as he opened the door.
Klopov smiled inanely as the new Tsar bid him enter. It’s obviously good news, thought Bohuslav. If it wasn’t, the man might have been more reticent. Bad news ran the risk of enraging him. And very bad news meant the same for the messenger. It was how any military dictator would act.
“Sorry to call at such a late hour,” Klopov said.
“Yes, yes,” said Bohuslav. “What is it?”
For a second an image of stalking Klopov through the corridors of the hotel flashed through Bohuslav’s mind, the pulse at the man’s neck exciting him. No, concentrate. Listen to what he has to say.
“I thought you’d like to know that he’s there.”
“Who is where, exactly?”
“The arrow,” replied Klopov, then added for good measure. “The arrow has landed, sir.”
Now it was Bohuslav’s turn to smile. The first part of his plan had been put into effect. The Native American was on British shores. “Excellent!” If all went well, he would soon be celebrating his revenge, or at least part of it. There would be more to come eventually.
It would be perfect. Bohuslav looked down at his stump for the millionth time since losing the hand fighting Hood and his men. “Would you care for a drink, Klopov?” He nodded towards the bar.
Klopov smiled again, then nodded.
Bohuslav was happy now, and ordinarily that meant he would leave the messenger be. It had indeed been good news; the best news in fact. But as Klopov moved towards the bar, once again the new Tsar’s mind was filled with things he’d like to do to him. The way he might wish to celebrate.
