The Devil in Green (4 page)

'Shouldn't be long till dawn,' Mallory said as they ran, head down
against the deluge. 'They'll leave us alone at first light.'

The rider was finding it hard to keep up with his twisted ankle. 'How do
you know?'

'I don't.'

'Are you sure we'll find somewhere to hide out up there?'

'No, but we haven't got much choice, have we? Unless you want to
stand and fight?'

The rider didn't answer.

They came to the wooden bridge barred by a gate with signs warning of
the dangers of crumbling ancient monuments. Mallory laughed, then
hauled himself over, yanking the rider behind him.

The whistling assailed them as they ran through the broken remains of
the gatehouse; the wild shapes were already loping along the road past the
car park. Lightning revealed the bleak interior of the inner bailey: a flimsy
wooden ticket office and shop to their right, and then a wide expanse of
sodden grass and ruins that were barely more than four feet high in most
places.

'Shit, fuck and bastard,' Mallory said.

The rider whimpered. 'What do we do now?'

'Firstly, you stop getting on my nerves by whining. Secondly .
.
.'
Mallory scanned the site as best he could in the storm, then with a resigned
sigh broke into a run. The rider jumped and followed, looking over his
shoulder so much that he slipped and fell several times.

Mallory picked out the shattered block of the keep on the far side of the
inner bailey. It was useless for any kind of serious defence, but it was the
best place to make a stand until the shotgun shells ran out. They found an
area protected on three sides by the only remaining high walls on the site,
which also served to shelter them from the worst of the storm.

'We're going to die,' the rider moaned.

'Yep.' Mallory began to count out the remaining cartridges; there
weren't as many as he had thought.

'You don't seem bothered!'

Through an iron grille, Mallory could just make out frantic activity near
the gateway. He positioned the shotgun to pick off one or two as they
advanced across the open space, then waited. After five minutes it was
clear the things weren't coming in.

'They've stayed at the gate.' Even as Mallory spoke, the wind picked up
the insistent whistling, now moving around the ramparts as if searching for
access. It became increasingly sharp, frustrated. Mallory sank back down
into the lee of the wall.

'Why aren't they coming in?' The rider looked at Mallory accusingly, as
if he were lying.

'I don't know,' Mallory snapped. 'Maybe they don't like the decor.'

It was so dark in their defensive position that they could only see the
pale glow of their faces and hands. Above and around them, the wind
howled mercilessly, drowning out their ragged breathing but not the
whistling, which, though muted, still set their teeth on edge.

After a while, they'd calmed down enough to entertain conversation.

'I'm Jez Miller.' The rider appeared keen for some kind of connection,
comfort, someone to tell him things weren't as bad as he feared, though he
realised instinctively he was talking to the wrong person.

'Mallory.'

'It's lucky you came along when you did.'

'That's one way of looking at it.' Mallory examined Miller surrepti
tiously. Though in his mid-twenties, he had the face of a man twenty years
older, lined through screwing up his features in despair, hollow-cheeked
from lack of sustenance, made worse by scruffy shoulder-length hair
already turning grey.

'Where did you get the car?' Miller asked, plucking at his sodden
trousers.

'Stole it. In Marlborough.'

Miller thought for a second until the realisation hit him. 'You drove
across Salisbury Plain!' An uninterested silence hung in the dark. 'You
don't see many cars these days. Everyone's trying to save petrol, for
emergencies.'

'It was an emergency. I had to get out of Marlborough. Dull as
ditchwater, that place.'

Miller couldn't read Mallory at all and that plainly made him
uncomfortable. 'So you were going to Salisbury?'

'I heard they were hiring down at the cathedral. At least, that's the word
going around. Thought I'd take a look.'

Miller started in surprise. 'Me too!' Excitedly, he scrabbled around to
face Mallory. 'You're going to be a knight?'

'If the pay's right. These days food, drink and shelter would probably
swing it.'

'I couldn't believe it when I heard! I thought the Church had gone the
same way as everything else. You know, with all that's been happen
ing ...'
He struggled for a second. 'With the gods . . . what they call
gods ...
all that happening every
day ...
all the time . . . people said
there wasn't any need for a Church. Why should you believe in a God who
never shows up when all that's going on around you? That's what they
said.'

'You a Christian, then?'

'I wasn't particularly. I mean, I was christened, but I never went to
church. I'm a Christian now. God's the only one who can save us.' Miller
slipped his fingers around the crucifix he'd picked up from the broken
window of the jeweller's.

'Well, it's not as if we can save ourselves.'

Miller wrinkled his brow at the odd tone in Mallory's voice. 'You don't
believe.'

'I don't believe in anything.'

'How can you say that?'

Mallory gave a low laugh. 'Everyone else is doing a good job believing.
You said it yourself - miracles all over the place. I'm the only unbeliever in
a born-again world.' He laughed louder, amused at the concept.

'But how can you work for the Church .
.
. how can you be a knight?'

'They're paying men to do a job - to protect their clerics. The new
Knights Templar. That sounds like a good deal. A bit of strong-arm stuff
here and there, nothing too taxing. These days, it's all scratching in the
fields to feed the masses, or making things, or sewing - all the rubbish
people think's necessary to get us back on our feet. If I had a list of ways to
spend my remaining days, planting potatoes would not be on it.'

'They won't have you.'

'I'm betting they will. They'll have anybody they can get, these days.'

'That's cynical.'

Mallory grunted. 'We'll see.'

Miller scratched on the floor, listening to the rise and fall of the whistling
as it moved around the ramparts. 'What are they?' he asked eventually.

'No idea.'

'Where did all these things come from?'