B00dw1duqa ebok, p.6
B00DW1DUQA EBOK, page 6
The girl looked confused. ‘Me? No. I’ve never been anywhere near Engn.’
Finn lowered his knife. She didn’t look dangerous. She looked starving if anything. Starving and exhausted. Green and black smudges covered her face, as if she had attempted to camouflage herself. Her eyes were wary, like those of a panicky horse. A bush of tangled hair straggled out from her head. Dried blood from an old cut stained her forehead. She was maybe a year older then Connor.
Finn and Connor lowered their knives.
‘Why are they chasing you?’ asked Finn.
The girl shrugged.
‘How long have you been out here?’ asked Connor.
‘Eighteen days now. Maybe nineteen. I’ve lost count.’
‘Here.’ Finn fished the pasty out of his backpack and broke off a lump. The girl looked wary but her hunger was too great. She grabbed the food and began to stuff it into her mouth. She sat down on the log, no longer watching them. It was the same log, Finn was sure, that he and Shireen had shared all that time ago.
Finn and Connor perched next to her, one on each side. Finn broke the rest of the pasty into three and handed it round. Connor had bread and a hunk of beef that he hacked into three with his knife. Finn passed around the water.
‘So what did you do to them?’ asked Connor. ‘It must have been something incredible.’
‘Didn’t do anything,’ the girl mumbled through a mouthful of food.
‘But there were loads of them hunting you,’ said Finn. ‘Dogs too. And they had an engine with them. We saw it. A machine on wheels that moved by itself.’
‘What? You’ve seen the Ironclads?’ The girl stopped chewing. His eyes were wide with shock again. ‘They’re here?’ She glanced past them at the wall of trees, expecting her pursuers to burst out at any moment.
‘They passed by yesterday, heading up the valley,’ said Finn. ‘But they must have lost your trail.’
‘They know I’m here somewhere,’ the girl said. ‘There are only two ways out of the valley.’ She looked down at the ground. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. They’ll find me sooner or later. They never give up, never.’
There were tears in her eyes. She had already been crying, Finn could see, smudges running down the grime on her cheeks.
‘We’ll help you,’ said Connor. ‘We can bring you food. And keep an eye out for the Ironclads. We know these woods better than anyone. We can watch the tracks and not be seen.’ He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Hey, I know, there’s an old barn in the high meadow on our farm. The cows shelter in it but there’s an upper floor no-one uses.’
‘I could stay there?’
‘Sure. No-one else would know.’
‘We play there sometimes,’ said Finn. ‘There’s these little slit windows you can see out of. No-one could sneak up on you.’
‘Is it far?’
‘Back down the valley a bit,’ said Connor. ‘We can go through the woods and cut across the field if there’s no-one around.’
‘We’d have to make sure Mrs. Megrim didn’t see us,’ said Finn.
‘We’ll keep the barn between us and the Switch House,’ said Connor. ‘It’ll be easy.’
The girl looked reluctant, not able to bring herself to trust them.
‘How did you escape the dogs?’ asked Finn. ‘They must have had your trail.’
‘I waded up the river,’ she said. ‘At night, so no-one would see.’
‘Smart,’ said Finn. ‘When they came for my sister there was nothing we could do.’
‘They took your sister?’
‘Years ago. I was only young.’
Sitting there, the memories of that day were vivid now. Thinking Shireen had returned had brought her surging back. It was a strange coincidence that he had found the glade again just as the Ironclads had returned to the valley.
‘What’s inside the engine?’ asked Connor.
‘It’s just a cage. It’s what they put you in when they catch you. To make sure you don’t get away when they take you to Engn.’
Finn looked to see if the girl meant it. He and Connor spent their lives roaring through the woods, running where they wanted, going miles and miles. They could walk all day together and not feel tired. The thought of being caged inside that smoking, iron box was too much.
‘We’ll take you to the barn,’ said Finn, standing up. ‘You’ll be safe. We’ll make sure no-one sees you. I promise.’
The girl hesitated for a moment more then stood. She stooped to pick up her bundle of blankets and looked back at Finn.
‘Thanks.’
‘What’s your name?’ asked Connor, also standing up.
‘Diane.’
‘I’m Connor. This is Finn. We’ll go first to make sure no-one’s watching.’
They stood together in the shadows of the trees, looking out onto open fields. The stone barn sat a little way away. Nothing moved apart from two buzzards wheeling high in the sky, calling out in distant mewing cries.
‘The lane’s empty,’ said Connor. ‘Let’s run across before anyone comes.’
‘What about this Mrs. Megrim?’ asked Diane.
‘She can’t see us here,’ said Finn.
‘I’ll go first and make sure no-one’s around,’ said Connor. He loped off down the slope and into the wide, mouth-like opening of the barn. A few moments later they saw his arm thrust out through one of the slit-windows on the upper floor, waving to them to follow.
Diane looked at Finn. Finn smiled at her.
‘Come on,’ he said, and the two of them ran to the barn wall. The yellow stones were warm to the touch from the sun that had been on them all day. No-one called or shouted. They stepped into the darkness.
They scrambled up a rough staircase of straw bales that led to the upper floor. There were large cracks in the wooden floor up there, so that you could see right down to the ground, but the boards seemed solid enough.
‘We can cover the floor with straw for you to sleep on,’ said Connor. He held a rusting sickle blade, using it to hack open one of the bales. They soon had a thick layer of it in one corner. Diane pushed more of the bales together to form a low wall between the hatchway and her bed.
‘In case anyone looks in,’ she said.
Finally they sat together on the carpet of straw. Finn and Connor threw handfuls of it at each other, laughing, and soon Diane, smiling at least, joined in. They ate the last of the food together.
‘We’ll bring you more tomorrow,’ said Finn. ‘And some water from the river.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Thanks for everything.’ She lay down and closed her eyes. She looked exhausted.
‘We’d better go,’ said Finn. ‘We’ll cut back through the woods so no-one knows we’ve been.’
‘And don’t worry,’ said Connor. ‘No-one ever comes here.’
She nodded but said nothing else. Finn and Connor exchanged glances, then jumped back down to the ground floor to run back into the woods.
Ambling down the lane on his way home that evening, Finn met Matt. The lengthsman whistled as he walked. He had a mattock and a shovel slung over his shoulder. The skin of his arms and face was grey with a coating of dust from the lane he’d been working on. He smiled cracks in it as he spotted Finn.
‘Hello, young man. What mischief have you been up to today, then?’
‘Playing with Connor.’
‘Ah!’ said Matt, as if this was a great secret. ‘Any more sign of them Ironclads?’
Finn shrugged.
‘Well, let's hope we’ve seen the last of them, eh?’ said Matt. ‘Those contraptions of theirs make a real mess of my lanes.’
‘Yes.’
‘Mind you, they’re mighty powerful and no mistake. They say if you teamed ten horses together and put them in a tug-of-war with the engine, the machine would win. Imagine that! That would be some sight to see, eh?’
Finn nodded.
‘Well, tell your dad I’ll be round first thing tomorrow.’
‘I will.’
The lengthsman turned and, still whistling his tuneless tune, strode off.
That night, Finn’s mother tucked him into bed. Finn thought about Diane, out there alone in the barn with the darkness and the owls. Was she asleep yet? He thought about the Ironclads. His mother sat with her arm around him, stroking his hair. The hard stone walls of his room faded away into the shadows, leaving them alone in the bubble of light from the bulb. Occasionally the glow dimmed as the current from the water-wheel fluctuated, then snapped back to full brightness. His mother spoke quietly to him, whispering to the top of his head.
‘Is there anything wrong, Finn? You were very quiet at tea.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you having the nightmares again?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘They’re just dreams, you know. They can’t harm you.’
‘I know.’
They sat in silence for a time. Finn traced the patterns on his blanket with his finger.
‘Mum, why don’t people destroy Engn?’
‘Now, Finn, you mustn’t say things like that.’
‘I mean it. Why doesn’t every one get together and go there and tear it all down?’
His mother sat up and turned to look at him, grasping his shoulders.
‘Now listen to me, Finn. You mustn’t say things like that. Not ever. Do you understand? If people hear you, you could get into trouble. Real trouble. You can’t trust everyone in the valley you know.’ Her voice was louder, urgent.
‘I know.’
‘You must promise me.’
‘I promise.’
‘Good.’
She sighed and turned to sit next to him again. They sat together in silence.
‘It just isn’t that simple,’ she said after a while. ‘Engn is a special place. It’s vast and miraculous, a place of wonders. Generations of people have laboured to build it, not destroy it.’
‘Well I don’t like it.’
‘Oh, Finn.’ She hugged him close. ‘I know it all seems frightening. But you’ll think differently when you’re older. You can do things, become things, in Engn that you couldn’t out here.’
‘Did you ever want to go?’
‘Well, once, I suppose. But then I wouldn’t have been able to have you, would I?’
‘Or Shireen.’
‘Or Shireen, of course.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t go.’
She squeezed him tighter for a moment. ‘Come on. It’s time you were asleep.’
They sat like that for a long time, neither speaking, until Finn’s eyes drifted shut.
Chapter 6
Three days later, Finn, Connor and Diane lay in the barn. The sweet, dozy smell of hay and cows filled the air. Bars of sunlight streamed in through the narrow windows, thick with drifting specks of light. Birds called from the nearby trees but otherwise there wasn’t a sound in the whole of the world.
The three of them snoozed in the airless warmth, lying next to each other. The hay was prickly on Finn’s back. He and Connor planned to spend the night there themselves, when they could think of a suitable story for their parents.
‘So how did you know they were coming for you?’ asked Connor.
Finn opened his eyes a little to squint at Diane through the flickering haze of his own eyelashes, but the light was too bright and he closed them again.
‘My village isn’t like here, with mountains all around,’ said Diane. ‘We’re on the edge of the plain. We saw them approaching.’
‘But how did you know they were coming for you?’ asked Finn.
‘There was no-one else. They took my cousin five years ago and a friend a few years later. They must have been coming for me.’
‘So you just ran? Without telling anyone?’
‘Yep.’
‘I’d do the same,’ said Connor. ‘Definitely.’ Finn said nothing. He wasn’t at all sure he’d be brave enough.
‘So you knew all about Engn,’ said Finn. ‘I mean, about what they do to you there?’
‘Haven’t just heard. My cousin was with them when they came back for my friend. Only he’d become an Ironclad. He wasn’t the same person any more.’
‘Wait, so they aren’t machines then?’ asked Finn. ‘They’re just people?’
‘I suppose,’ Diane replied. ‘Mostly anyway. He took his mask and helmet off and it was definitely him.’
‘So what do you mean he wasn’t the same person?’ asked Finn.
‘My cousin wouldn’t harm a fly. We’d go fishing and he couldn’t even bring himself to kill the trout and salmon we caught. Didn’t even like putting the worm onto the hook. But not when he came back from Engn. My friend’s mother tried to stop him entering her house and my cousin just punched her, knocked her over. Broke her nose. And he didn’t speak the whole time. He didn’t say a single word.’
Finn opened his eyes again and looked at Diane. She seemed so much older and wiser than even Connor was. He could tell Connor thought so, too. Since Diane had arrived Connor had changed. He’d become quieter, more thoughtful. Finn often caught him staring at her. He found himself staring at her, sometimes, too.
‘They’ll stop looking for you sooner or later,’ said Connor. ‘They’ll have to.’
‘Maybe. Sets a bad example though doesn’t it? If I get away others will try as well.’
‘But you have got away.’
‘For now.’
They were silent for a time. Finn had smuggled out half a loaf of bread that morning. Connor had a rainbow trout, freshly tickled from the river. He also had a whole cabbage, as large as a cow’s brain, pulled from his father’s fields. Finn peeled a leaf off and crunched into its sweet, squeaky flesh.
‘Why do they even need so many people?’ asked Connor.
‘When the wind is in the right direction in my village, you can hear the booming and crashing from across the plain,’ said Diane. ‘It gets louder each year.’
Finn tried to imagine a machine that vast, something like his father’s furnace, but filling the whole valley. He couldn’t do it.
He sat up. ‘Come on, let’s play the Engn game again,’ he said.
‘OK,’ said Connor. Diane opened her eyes but didn’t reply.
‘It’s your turn to be the Ironclad, Conn, said Finn. ‘We’ll be the wreckers.’
‘OK.’
They peered out through the slits in the walls of the barn to check no-one was around, then jumped down to the ground-floor. They raced out of the back of the barn for the safety of the tree-line.
The game had changed in nature now. One of them still had to be the Ironclad, defending Engn from the other two, but secretly they were working for the wreckers. They had to maintain the pretence until the vital moment, otherwise the other Ironclads would find out. But if you could sneak up and touch them without being seen, you had won. The one defending Engn could stop being an Ironclad and become a wrecker, their true identity revealed.
They built the city between them, leaning branches together in a line between two trees. Connor scrambled inside to guard it. In his hand he held his stick, a whippy sycamore branch, stripped of its twigs, that he would lash them with if he caught them. He had the sickle blades with him too. By common agreement, whoever was playing the Ironclad clashed these together when pursuing the other two.
Finn and Diane raced off into the surrounding woods, whooping and shouting. When they were far enough away they stopped to whisper their plans. They ran in opposite directions, Finn circling around, Diane creeping a little nearer to hide in the undergrowth. As Finn ran, trying to make as little noise as possible, he counted to himself. They would start sneaking up on Connor when they reached one hundred.
It was impossible to see Connor hiding in the shadows, impossible to know which way he was looking. When he had counted, Finn began to creep forwards. He kept one of the two trees between himself and Connor as much as possible. Diane would be doing the same from the opposite direction. If they had successfully counted at the same speed, they would arrive at the same moment. Then, if one of them could touch Connor, the game would be won.
The woods were very still. Finn could hear nothing but the rush of his own breathing and the occasional tick as he stepped on a twig. At any moment he expected Connor to come roaring out, waving his stick. But he reached the trunk of the tree without being seen.
He took a breath, preparing to dash out into the open. But Diane was there ahead of him. She must have counted more quickly. She ran into the clearing in front of the wooden hut. Connor emerged, his voice booming, scything his stick backwards and forwards with a whoosh. Diane backed off but didn’t run, trying to dodge past the stick to touch Connor.
Finn crept forward now. Diane had noticed him but Connor’s back was to him. If Connor turned, Finn knew he would have no chance.
He was very close when Diane, with a shout, leapt at Connor. For a moment Finn thought she might make it but the whirring stick caught her in the side. Diane’s back arched as she shouted in pain and crumpled to the ground. Connor, satisfied that Diane was beaten, turned to see if Finn was nearby.
Finn lunged at Connor even as he turned. Connor’s branch whipped into Finn’s legs, a sharp, painful blow on his left thigh. But he had already touched Connor’s side as he turned. Finn had won.
There was silence for a moment. Finn and Connor stood looking at each other. Connor still wore his stern, Ironclad face.
‘I got you first, Connor!’ said Finn. ‘Come on, you’re a wrecker now.’ Diane, watching them from the ground where she was rubbing her side, said nothing.
Connor held the stick up behind his head again, ready to swing it at Finn. ‘You are an enemy of Engn and you will die!’
‘Connor! I got you first.’
‘No-one can defeat the Ironclads!’
‘Connor!’
Connor’s arm flinched. Finn stepped backwards.
‘You’re not an Ironclad any more! Those are the rules.’
With a roar, Connor leapt, but at the wooden building rather than Finn. He began to kick and trample the walls. Finn joined in with him, and, after a moment, Diane too. Soon they had reduced Engn to a tangle of branches on the forest floor.
