B00DW1DUQA EBOK (8 page)

‘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.

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.

Afterwards, they sat among the ruins, Finn and Diane examining their wounds from Connor’s stick. Finn had picked up a splinter during the fight too. He tried repeatedly to pluck it from his palm with his fingertips, but couldn’t get it.

‘Here,’ said Diane to him. ‘Let me try. You have to get them out or it’ll get infected.’

She held his hand in hers, turning it into the light, then lifted it to her mouth to try and pull the splinter out with her teeth. Finn could feel her warm breath on his skin, the moist tip of her tongue tickling him. Then she got it. She spat the splinter, a long, curving thorn, to the ground.

‘Better?’ she asked.

‘Better, thanks.’

He grinned at her. She let go of his hand and nodded over towards the ruins of Engn.

‘You know something?’ she said. ‘If they ever do catch me and cart me off there I
will
join the wreckers. I’ll do whatever it takes to destroy it for real. So no-one else has to be taken.’

She looked suddenly very serious, very grown-up. She looked scared.

‘Hey, I know, we should swear an oath,’ said Connor. ‘In blood, to make it unbreakable. We could swear that if any of us ever
does
get taken, that’s what we’ll do.’

‘You mean join the wreckers?’ asked Finn. A game in the woods was one thing. To do it for real was another.

‘Of course,’ said Connor. ‘Diane? What about you?’

She nodded.

‘Finn?’

He wasn’t going to be taken to Engn anyway; it didn’t really matter. And it was what he’d want to do, if he was brave enough. ‘OK.’

They bunched into a circle, legs crossed, knees touching. Finn drew his knife from its leather sheath and examined the blade.

‘Use your hand,’ said Diane. ‘Not your wrist. If you cut your wrist you’ll bleed to death.’

Connor held his knife over his palm, then glanced around at them.

‘This is our greatest secret,’ he said. ‘No-one else must ever know.’

‘Agreed.’

‘Agreed.’

‘We vow to destroy Engn, by whatever means it takes.’

‘Agreed.’

‘Agreed.’

Connor drew the knife across his hand, scratching a red line that pooled blood into his palm. He passed the knife to Diane, who did the same. Finn, refusing to look afraid, refusing to cry out, opened the skin of his own hand too.

The three of them placed their hands together, grasping each other, their blood mingling as it dripped to the woodland floor. The flap of skin on Finn’s palm, rubbed by the others’ grip, made him feel sick.

‘This oath is unbreakable,’ said Connor. ‘On pain of death.’ Diane and Finn repeated his words. They sat for a few moments, hands still touching, then let go.

‘I like your rings,’ said Finn.

Diane wore intricate, knotted spirals of silver on several of her fingers, winding from her knuckle to the middle joint.

‘Everyone has them back home,’ she said. She slipped one off and handed it to Finn. It was smeared with her blood. ‘Have it.’

‘Really?’

‘Of course. Here’s one for you too.’ She handed another ring to Connor.

‘Thanks.’

They put the rings on. Finn’s was tight and it made his finger throb as he screwed it up over his joint. He held it up to admire. Connor grinned and nodded as he studied the ring on his own finger.

‘Come on,’ said Diane. ‘We should wash our cuts.’

They stood and raced off through the trees together, towards the bright waters of the river. There, Finn lay down on the bank, and dipped his hand in the flowing water. He watched as wisps of blood from his cut floated off, before dissolving away. The cold stopped his palm stinging. He lifted his hand out and watched as beads of blood started to seep out again.

Connor held out a rag for him. ‘Wrap it around your hand.’

Diane sat on the bank, dipping her feet in the river as she bandaged her own hand.

‘This water is lovely,’ she said. ‘It’s a shame it isn’t deep enough to swim in.’

‘We could go up to the mill-pond,’ said Finn. ‘It’s deep enough there.’

‘Would we be seen?’

Finn thought about it, running through the journey in his mind, working out whether the lane was visible from anywhere.

‘No. We’ll be OK if we stay near the river.’

Diane stood up and laughed. ‘Come on then, let’s go.’

They ran along the bank, occasionally leaping over tiny creaks feeding into the main river. But they paused when they reached the mill-pond, each suddenly awkward. Finn and Connor had often swum naked in the pond. With Diane there, it was different. She glanced at the two of them, seeing their awkwardness, embarrassed at her own.

She shrugged. ‘Come on. Last one in’s a tadpole.’

She wriggled out of her skirt and shirt and, with a salmon leap, dove off the bank. Finn watched her white legs passing into the glass of the pond. A moment later she emerged in the middle, wet hair plastered to her face, laughing with exhilaration. She swam around in circles, clearly at home in the water, then dove back down again with a splash and a kick of her feet. Finn and Connor, grinning at each other, shed their own clothes and jumped in after her.

The next morning, after breakfast, Finn scoured the kitchen for food he could smuggle out. He had three pears in his pockets and was just cutting the crust off a loaf of bread when his mother came into the kitchen. He tried hard not to look as if he was doing anything wrong.