The Exiled

by William Meikle

“We won’t be taking you up on the offer though. We’re going home when the job’s done,” Alan said, and Grainger nodded in agreement, although he was by no means certain it would be possible.

  “Aye,” he said, trying to muster up some bravado so that Alan wouldn’t see his hesitation. “And we’ll be taking that bastard Galloway—or what’s left of him—back with us. It’s the only way we’ll convince anybody of our story—and even then it’s going to be hard. But first things first—let’s attend to Galloway in the here and now. How do we get close to him?”

  Simon smiled sadly.

  “I was hoping you could tell me. I have been unable to get even within shouting distance of the building without him being alerted to my presence or the Cobbe showing up.”

  “Then we’d best be sneaky,” Grainger replied. He turned to Alan. “Remember playing Cowboys and Indians in the long grass at the bing?”

  Alan nodded and Grainger smiled. They’d spent many a happy hour in the industrial waste ground to the south of the estate as lads, escaping from the grim reality of their childhood. And here they were again, on a different kind of escape.

  “Let’s put some old skills to new uses,” Grainger replied. “This time, we both get to be the Indians.”

  * * *

  Simon led them down farther through the ruins—they didn’t see another person, or any signs that anyone other than Simon had lived here for a very long time.

  “Where are your folk?” Grainger asked.

  “Mostly over on your side,” Simon said softly. “In exile, waiting for a time they might be able to return.”

  The tall man would say no more. He showed them into what had once been an armory of bladed weapons and armor, much of which was now rusted and dulled thorough age and lack of use. He opened a corner cabinet that contained long daggers and knives—these at least were still honed and shining.

  “They are all we have left, I’m afraid. Of no use against the Cobbe—but Galloway is still human—for now. He can still bleed.”

  Grainger wasn’t sure he liked that “for now,” but kept quiet. Both the men chose a long knife, and a sheath to go with it. In an adjoining chamber Simon opened tall armoires filled with leather tunics, trousers and boots and finally Grainger relented.

  “City clothes won’t do us much good out there,” he said to Alan. “It’s dressing-up time, wee brother.”

  Donning the leather gear made Grainger feel more than slightly ridiculous but it was supple enough, and would stand up to being dragged across rough terrain. It would also provide at least a modicum of camouflage in the grassland.

  The brothers, once they were fully dressed, looked at each other, and simultaneously burst out laughing. They were clad head-to-toe in soft leather—tunics over thinner shirts, trousers below knife belts and boots that tied up the shins to almost the knee.

  “Chin up, wee brother,” Grainger said. “It could be worse—it could be a kilt—and that grass out there is full of thistles.”

  That got them both laughing again while Simon and the woman watched on, bemused.

  Finally Grainger pronounced himself ready.

  “Are you sure about this, John?” Alan asked. “Your shoulder…”

  “…will be fine,” Grainger replied, although he was already in pain and trying not to think about having to crawl through a long stretch of tall grass. “Let’s get to it.”

  Simon led them past empty hall after empty hall full of nothing but cobwebs and dust until finally they came to a tall doorway. The wood was warped and cracked, and the door itself creaked as if it had been decades since its last opening. They stood at the top of a run of stone steps, looking out over the plain to the cliffs in the hazy distance. The Cobbe was no longer in sight, and the shimmer was too strong to make out whether Galloway was still out in the open.

  “He may have crossed over,” Simon said. “Or he may merely be in the ruins, gloating over his handiwork.”

  Grainger could see that sight in his mind’s eye only too easily. The thought of Galloway getting any kind of thrill from the sight of the dead girls threatened to bring his rage bubbling up again. He forced it down, ready to channel it when it was needed.

  “If we can’t see him, he can’t see us. Come on, wee brother. Let’s see if you’re still as sneaky as you used to be.”

  They left Simon in the doorway—but not the woman. She went down the steps alongside them.

  “I’m coming along,” she said, when Grainger looked round.

  “Alexandra? Is that your name? You might be better off staying here. I’m not too sure that my plan is a good one—it’s just the only one I’ve got.”

  She laughed.

  “That’s why I’m coming. You’re not the only one who played Cowboys and Indians—and I’ve done it in real life more recently that you, I’ll bet.”

  “How do we know we can trust you?” Alan said. “Last time we did, you left us in a cell.”

  “But I bought you dinner, didn’t I?” she replied. “Surely that guarantees me some leeway?”

  Grainger grunted.

  “I didn’t get a good night kiss though.”

  She laughed again.

  “There’s still time. And the name’s Sandy—give me a smoke and I’ll tell you a story.”

  “I’ll take you up on that later,” Grainger replied. “Let’s just see if we can get across this plain first.”

  * * *

  It proved to be slow going. What hadn’t been apparent from above was that the areas off the sides of the main track were either tough, wiry grass in a thick, almost impenetrable mat, or greener, thinner mosses and sedge that masked a clogging peat bog below. Muddy puddles sucked at their boots, wiry grass scratched at their clothes, hands and faces, and a variety of biting insects thought all their feast days had come at once.

  On top of that the ache in Grainger’s shoulder had become deep and throbbing; each slow step forward felt like someone trying to pull the arm out of its socket.

  I can’t go on too long like this—not if I need to fight at the other end.

  With a soft whistle he brought them to a halt behind a hemispherical mossy mound just tall enough to provide them with cover. A quick peek over the top showed him they’d got almost halfway to the building, but the sight of several large boggy areas still to be traversed made his spirits sink. At least the heat shimmer had dissipated, giving him a clear view of the ruins. Galloway was nowhere to be seen.

  A small mercy.

  The other two gathered in close.

  “Time to split up,” Grainger said. “How do you fancy being a decoy, wee brother? You go round the front and make some noise—you’re good at that. Sandy here will take the cliff side and I’ll come in the back. One or the other of us should be able to get the jump on Galloway that way. We corner him, then we try Sandy’s trick and see if we can force him back with us—back to the farmhouse.”

  “And if he doesn’t want to go?” Sandy said.

  Grainger patted the knife sheath at his side.

  “He’ll go—with a bit of gentle persuasion. Are we all okay with this?”

  Alan seemed uncertain, but nodded anyway.

  “And if the bird turns up?”

  Grainger laughed bitterly.

  “You could try offering it a biscuit?” He didn’t get a smile in reply. “Listen, at the first sign of the Cobbe, just get the fuck out of there. We’re playing this by ear as it is—no sense in getting yourself killed over it.”

  He turned to Sandy.

  “Are you okay with this as a plan? It’s not subtle, but with three against one we should be able to take him.”

  She threw him a mock salute.

  “Anything you say, sir.”

  Suddenly Grainger thought of Simpson again, and the bloody shroud on the gurney.

  “Or maybe we should all just go in the front door together and to hang with the consequences?” he said.

  Sandy punched him lightly on his good arm.

 
“Don’t you go second-guessing yourself now, big man. No good ever comes of changing a plan just before a mission—you know that, right?”

  Grainger nodded.

  “Okay then—I’ll see you both inside. Don’t get dead.”

  * * *

  Grainger hoped that the others had chosen a less arduous route than his own. Almost as soon as he left the mound he got into trouble. First he had to retrieve a boot that stuck in a deep pool of mud and got sucked off—he was soaked from toes to thighs and squelched his way onto a drier area cursing under his breath. Then, in trying to avoid more bog, he spent half an hour negotiating a dense thicket of gorse and blackthorn, and by the time he pulled himself out of a particularly thick patch his leathers were scarred with fresh white lines where thorns and briar had tugged at him.

  Finally, he had a clear patch of ground between himself and the ruin. He lay in the tall grass, wondering if he had enough strength left to do what needed to be done. His bad arm was now worse than useless, little more than a dead weight, cold as stone at his side. All he had left to drive him were the images—dead girls, dead sergeant, dead Ferguson.

  No more, he whispered, and headed in a crouched run for the rear of the tumbled building. By the time he reached the back wall his heartbeat thudded loud in his ears and his chest burned, struggling to draw enough breath to keep him going. He forced himself to stand still, trying for calm, expecting to hear the thwup of giant wings at any second or feel the weight of Galloway’s stone axe again on his shoulders.

  All he heard was his own breathing and the crash of waves on rock in the distance. He edged along the back wall until he reached a window and risked a look inside. He stared down the whole length of the interior. Nothing moved; everything was still—there was no sign of Galloway, or of Alan and Sandy.

  With some difficulty he pulled himself up over the lip of the window and rolled inside. He tried to control his landing, but his arm failed to hold his weight, collapsed beneath him and send him tumbling to the stone floor where he hit a wooden settle. It scraped across the floor with a shriek that seemed to echo for seconds in the rafters high above and set a rook off squawking noisily before silence fell again.

  Still nothing moved on the floor of the building.

  Grainger stood, stifling a groan as fresh pain lanced through his shoulder. He slid the long knife from its sheath and took some comfort in the weight and heft of it as he moved farther into the ruin. He’d got his bearings now—the altar where he’d found Alan on his previous visit was straight ahead of him—empty now of any decoration. The nave where he’d found the dead girls was coming up on his left in five yards, and he had to force himself to look inside.

  Galloway wasn’t there, but there was something different; it took him several seconds to realize. It was only after he smelled fresh blood and noticed it dripping from a naked leg onto the carving on the altar that it came to him. There was a new body in the tableau. Five dead girls now hung, bodies mutilated, wings outstretched, swinging in the grisly dance above. He backed away out of the nave, his anger growing. The rage was close now, threatening to blow. He pushed it down—he had Alan and the woman to consider.

  He made his way down the length of the building. Just as he passed the main altar someone moved to his left. He turned, raised the knife, and stopped. Sandy stood there with her finger to her lips. She walked over to him, dancing steps that were light and almost silent, and spoke close to his ear.

  “Anything?”

  He shook his head.

  “The bastard got another girl. He’d better stay in hiding if he knows what’s good for him. Let’s try up front.”

  They walked side by side to the main door. It was open. Alan stood just outside, knife raised.

  “Did you see him?” he asked.

  Grainger didn’t reply. His attention was taken by movement above the mountains in the north—a black speck, coming fast, straight at them. He turned Alan to see it.

  “Run or fight, what’s it to be?” he asked.

  Sandy came and stood at his side.

  “I’m about done with hiding. And there’s nowhere to run to—we don’t have time to get back to the fortress. Let’s just get it finished, one way or the other.”

  Grainger clapped his brother on the shoulder.

  “How about you, wee brother?”

  The black speck was much larger now. It would be on them in seconds.

  “We stand,” Alan said. “But I’d feel better if we weren’t out in the open when that thing gets here.”

  “Agreed,” Grainger replied. “Back inside—we’ll see how strong these walls really are.”

  They retreated inside as a black shadow fell over the building.

  * * *

  It took all three of them to close the heavy wooden door and secure it with two cross-timbers in iron slots. The Cobbe barked, twice as it glided overhead, a seemingly endless shadow tracking through the ruins.

  “Nice of you to drop by,” a voice said from behind them and they turned to face Dave Galloway—or rather what had once been Galloway. Physically at least, he was now something else entirely.

  The first thing Grainger noticed was the most obvious—the man had grown in both in height and breadth and was now near seven feet tall and barrel-chested above stocky, thick legs. He looked gray and dry, cracked in places and oozing pinkly through skin with the texture of rough stone. His eyes, deep set now beneath heavy brows, were milky and clouded.

  Galloway must have seen the shock on Grainger’s face. He laughed and stretched out his arms.

  “See what you’re missing? You too could have a body like mine. I just need one more and it will be complete.”

  “One more? One more wee lassie, you mean?” Grainger said, almost shouting. “I’ll see you in hell before I let that happen.”

  He stepped forward, knife raised, aware even as he did so that the weapon would be little use if Galloway’s skin proved to be as tough as it now looked.

  The big man laughed, mouth gaping open to show a gray tongue like a slab of cold stone among tombstone teeth.

  “Come and try it, copper,” Galloway said. “You have no power over me—not here.”

  Maybe I do.

  “All magic is an effort of will,” Grainger said softly. He turned to the other two. “An effort of will—remember? Let’s see if Simon’s right—let’s see if we’re special. I’m taking this bastard back to the farm. The sofa should be right over there.”

  He pointed ahead of them.

  “Can you see it—can you feel it?”

  The stone walls wavered, showing the dingy farmhouse interior beyond.

  Galloway wailed and stamped a huge foot. Great wings beat overhead, sending air whistling through the ruins.

  “The chair is over there,” Grainger shouted, pointing again.

  “That carpet’s filthy,” Alan added.

  “And that wallpaper has got to go,” Sandy said, laughing.

  The farmhouse filled in around them, and Galloway seemed to be shrinking, growing less sure of himself.

  “Dave Galloway, you’re nicked,” Grainger said softly as the farmhouse walls grew solid.

  “Not yet, wee man,” Galloway shouted and ran forward, head lowered, bellowing like an angry bull. He hit Grainger full on the weak side of his body. White pain flared. Somewhere a swan barked.

  The walls of the ruin started to show through, just as Galloway wrapped his arms around Grainger and squeezed, hard. Something tore in his wounded shoulder; the pain was too much—Grainger fell into a black place full of emptiness and quiet.

  The last thing he heard was Alan shouting.

  22

  Alan stood in the farmhouse, staring at the spot where Grainger—and Galloway—had been a second earlier. He hadn’t even had time to react to Galloway’s charge. One second they were in the ruins, the next, back in the cramped room, the smell of bleach and dust almost overwhelming coming so suddenly after breathing the clear air of the cliff to
ps.

  “No!” he shouted. He grabbed Sandy’s hand, squeezing tight enough for her to gasp in pain. “Come on—concentrate—we’ve got to get back.”

  He tried to conjure up the image of the ruin, of Galloway and the bird, but the farmhouse walls stayed staunchly solid.

  “John!”

  The room rang, but there was no reply.

  “Can I have my hand back?” Sandy said and it was only when he released his grip that he saw how hard he’d held her—she had to flex her fingers to coax the blood back into them.

  He stomped on the floor, then pounded on the wall, hard enough to graze two knuckles, as if he might force himself back to the other side. But it was all to no avail.

  “It’s the bird,” Sandy said softly. “The Cobbe is blocking us. I can feel it.”

  Alan hit the wall again, leaving a long smear of blood on the wallpaper.

  “Aren’t we supposed to be the Chosen Ones—special fuckers? We need to get back there—John’s in trouble.”

  “I think we’re stuck here,” Sandy replied, tugging Alan away from the wall. “At least until the Cobbe’s attention is drawn elsewhere. And even then, Galloway and it together might be too strong for just two of us.”

  That made Alan pause. He sucked at his grazed knuckles before replying.

  “You mean we might never get back?”

  Sandy nodded.

  “I’ve noticed it the last few times I crossed over—there’s been something blocking me, getting stronger—it must have been Galloway. And now that he’s taken the fifth girl, I can’t even manage to get the walls to shimmer. We have to consider that we might really be stuck back here permanently.”

  Alan headed for the Scotch on the table in front of the sofa, downing a swig straight from the bottle and rubbing a few drops on the wounds on his hands. Sandy walked over, took the bottle from him, and knocked back a hefty swig of her own.

  “John,” Alan shouted. “Bring us through.”