Simon Clark - The Fall

The England of 1865 was full of snow.

The cold rushed at her; she shivered.

And coming towards them through the falling snow were figures.

‘What did I tell you?’ came Bullwitt’s croak. ‘Bluebeards. Bloody Bluebeards!’

‘Stop the bus! Lee, stop!’ Sam shouted the words as soon as he noticed something about the battle had changed.

Lee braked hard, bringing the bus to a sliding halt. He killed the engine.

Instant silence.

No gunshots.

No sounds of battle.

Only a silence that seemed so devoid of anything it cast a ghostly spell over the landscape.

Sam leaned out through one of the glassless windows. Snowflakes drifted down from the sky.

Here and there riderless horses stood, not knowing where to go next.

Bodies littered the snow. Everywhere there were either black smudges left by exploding shells and grenades, or pools of bloody red that stood glaring out from the white.

But there was no movement.

Casterton’s surviving soldiers stood looking around, baffled.

‘Dear Lord,’ Thomas said in a hushed voice as he took off his glasses. ‘Where have they all gone?’

‘They’ve run for it,’ shouted one of the soldiers. ‘They’ve only gone and bloody run for it.’

‘We’ve won!’

Rolle held up a hand. His piercing gaze swept the landscape.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not over yet.’

Nicole saw there were Bluebeards walking towards them.

That was, moving towards them. Those that could actually walk were either bent double or limping. Many crawled on hands and knees.

‘Something tells me they’ve taken a rather severe beating,’ William observed.

‘About bleeding time. If they’ve had a bloody good hiding it serves the bastards right. Go on, William.’ Bullwitt gave a delighted chuckle. ‘That one over there. Give him a good kicking while he’s down.’

William glanced down at one of the Bluebeards. A huge man in a grey cloak with a clutch of starling chicks springing from his face was dragging himself along the ground. He left a red smear that ran across the snow and into the distance, as if he’d been dipped in red paint.

‘What’re you waiting for, William? Stick the boot into the ugly sod!’

William shook his head. ‘There’s been a battle fought here. And undoubtedly the Bluebeards have met formidable opponents.’

Nicole gazed down at the dying warrior as he struggled back in the direction of his home. ‘But Rolle told us that Casterton was defenceless.’

‘No doubt we will find out more presently,’ William said softly. ‘But in the meantime we should devote our attention to these poor souls from Casterton, and see them safely back home.’

Sam shook his head, then said to Rolle, ‘You’re telling me that the Bluebeards aren’t in retreat?’

‘Retreat? No, far from it. They have only fallen back to regroup.’

‘Damn. We were that close to stopping them.’ Sam placed a forefinger and a twin-jointed ‘thumb’ together as if about to pluck an invisible flower stem from out of the air in front of his face. ‘That close. We’d nearly finished the Bluebeards for good.’

‘What a pity,’ Carswell said drily. ‘I was rather beginning to enjoy this. So, what are your orders now, Sam, old boy?’

‘We don’t quit. We hunt them down. Every last one of the sons of bitches.’ He called across to Jud, who was pulling arrow shafts out of the flanks of the bus. ‘Jud… Jud! Get all the foot soldiers and cavalry together… Tell them to follow the bus.’

‘Oh, goodie.’ Carswell snapped a fresh clip of ammo into his automatic. ‘The fun isn’t over yet.’

‘Right,’ Sam called out to the people on the bus. ‘Reload the guns.’

Zita shook Sam by the arm. ‘I think we’re going to need them sooner than we thought. Look what’s coming this way.’

Sam looked along the pass. A straggling line of people approached through the falling snow. ‘Damn,’ Sam hissed under his breath. ‘Okay, everyone. More Bluebeards are coming this way. We’re going have to deal with those before we go after the others.’

Rolle looked too. ‘Not more enemy.’ He turned back to Sam and smiled. ‘These are our allies.’

‘Our allies?’ Sam looked again. Approaching the bus were what appeared to be two or three hundred men and women. Some of the women he recognised as having been taken from Casterton on the night of the raid. Others were strange-looking figures. One he immediately recognised: the creature that was part cow, part boy. It moved quickly across the snow, the thick bovine legs eating the distance easily. The boy carried a bow with the arrow notched lightly against the string, ready to shoot the moment he needed it.

‘These are our reinforcements, Sam Baker.’

‘Dear God,’ Thomas breathed in astonishment as he saw what kind of people were approaching. He couldn’t take his eyes from the man with the mass of bees squirming on his face. A blond-haired man held up a hand to halt his people. Meanwhile a pair of bulging brown eyes peered from a slot in his jacket. ‘My dear God,’ Thomas whispered. ‘Who are these people? Where are they from?’

Sam smiled grimly. ‘I think we should consider them as heaven-sent and leave it at that, don’t you?’

Introductions, and reunions when Nicole and Sue came on board, were of necessity brief. Half a dozen Liminals continued walking on towards town, accompanying the rescued women and children.

The rest of the Liminals, armed with swords, axes, spears and shotguns, would follow the bus, together with what was left of the cavalry and foot soldiers.

‘Is everyone ready?’ Sam shouted from the front of the bus.

This time he was greeted by a cheer. Everyone there had got the bit between their teeth. They wanted to finish the job.

It didn’t take long to find the Bluebeards. Rolle had stood beside the timber box where Lee sat at the steering wheel. Like a maritime pilot he pointed ahead, talking to Lee constantly.

The bus lurched across the snow-covered meadow.

Hanging on tightly to the king post, Sam watched as hundreds of figures emerged through the mist of the falling snowflakes.

Already the Bluebeards had regrouped and were ready to fight once more.

He thought: If it’s a fight the barbarians want, then they’ve got it. They’re going to get themselves the mother and father of all battles.

The bus must have appeared as a great roaring dragon to them.

One that spat fire.

The artillery thundered from the sides of the bus, tearing the barbarians apart.

Soldiers fired their rifles. More barbarians fell dead.

Meanwhile, the surviving Bluebeards charged the bus.

They ran straight into a blizzard of bullets and grenades.

Dozens fell, kicking and screaming, clutching their stomachs, chests, faces.

Now there was pandemonium.

Even though there must still have been two thousand or more of the barbarian warriors, they’d had enough. Turning their backs on the advancing soldiers who followed the bus, they scattered back along the pass and into the woods.

Rolle shouted, ‘Don’t let them use the time-gates here. Drive them into the gorge farther along the pass.’

Sam leaned through the window and shouted to the soldiers to follow the retreating Bluebeards.

Rolle hung onto the king post and called to Sam. ‘Have the bus cut them off from going back through the pass. You’ve got to make sure you drive them up into the gorge. There’s no way out of there.’

No way out? Sam licked his dry lips.

Was Rolle, the Christian mystic, suggesting that they trap the two thousand Bluebeards in the gorge, then kill them one by one?