Robin Jarvis - Fighting Pax

“I am the Six of Clubs – head bowman of the outer wall!”

“No, Father! Come back to us!”

The sunlight dimmed and the man shivered. He moved the gun from Nabi’s head and put it against his own. This was the only escape for him.

“Don’t!” Eun-mi yelled.

Reaching out to him, her other hand slipped from Nabi’s mouth. The six-year-old instantly resumed spouting Dancing Jax .

General Chung’s face contorted. In an unhinged fury, he rounded on Nabi again. The barrel of the gun pushed against her temple and his finger closed over the trigger.

“Father!” Eun-mi screamed.

A single shot blasted out.

Cowering with terror and filled with despair, Maggie was nursing Gerald’s head in her lap. He was deathly pale and it was too dark to tell if he was breathing. With jittery fingers, she fumbled for a pulse, but couldn’t find one. The gunshot cut through her desolate sobbing and she turned to see General Chung Kang-dae slump lifeless to the floor. A thin wisp of smoke was rising from Eun-mi’s own pistol.

Eun-mi’s eyes were wet and sparkling, but she appeared frozen and unaware of what she had done. Then, slowly, she tilted her head and stared at the weapon in her hand. At that moment nothing else existed for her, just the gun and the painful scratch of her own voice as it tried to howl.

Nabi disentangled herself from her grasp and stepped casually over their father’s body.

“I am the Five of Spades,” she chirped dreamily. “I am naughty Posy, the Constable’s daughter. I spy on everyone in the castle and know all their secrets. Blessed be.”

The six-year-old retrieved the copy of Dancing Jax from the dead guard then strode past her trembling sister, to join the unicorn and the soldiers who were anxious to hear more of the sacred text. Little Nabi greeted them with a gurgling laugh. Cheering, they lifted her on to the skeleton’s back and she rode haughtily through the tunnels – towards the main concourse and the booth that housed the microphone for the tannoy system.

In the refectory, the other refugees finally dared to creep from under the tables and ventured to the doorway. With horrified faces, they looked out at the carnage in the corridor.

Maggie was huddled over Gerald, stroking his forehead – bereft and grieving.

“In fields where they lay,” she sang in a halting, tuneless whisper, “keeping their sheep. On a cold winter’s night that was so deep.”

The girl wiped her streaming eyes.

“Goodbye, Gerald,” she sniffled. “You’re safe now. Safe from DJ. Reckon I’ll be seeing you soon. We’ll have a merry Christmas then, won’t we, eh? Me, you, my Marcus and Charm. Give them my love and don’t start on those chocolate mincies till I get there. Promise me now.”

Throughout the mountain base the tannoy crackled into life and little Nabi’s voice began to read…

LEE WAS JOLTED AWAKE. His four guards were yelling and shaking him roughly. He looked up and found himself lying on the ground, with them standing over him. Their young faces were angry, fearful and wrought with panic. Shouting at him in Korean, they pulled on the chains attached to his wrists and forced him to sit upright.

“Quit that!” the boy barked at them, giving the chains a vicious tug back that almost wrenched the nearest guard off balance. “Give me a second to wake the hell up. I feel like crap.”

Ignoring their continued cries, he looked about. It was a deliciously warm afternoon and they were in a forest. All around them, the leaves were intense shades of gold, red and orange and the sky was an unbelievable blue. Beneath the branches, fallen chestnut casings were in abundance, split open – displaying cream-coloured flesh and the fattest, shiniest, chocolaty-brown fruits. A faint and delicate scent of sweet-smelling woodsmoke laced the air, combining with the damp must of rich, fertile earth. Early autumn in Mooncaster was a ravishing feast for the senses, just like every season here.

Lee felt nauseous. This time the crossing had been different. He still felt groggy and exhausted and bile burned the back of his throat. Remaining seated, he shifted around and saw that the trees stretched far into the distance in every direction. Whatever forest this was, they were deep in the middle of it. He had no idea exactly whereabouts in Mooncaster they were. There was no landmark in sight to help him.

“Don’t matter,” he told himself. “We ain’t hangin’ here longer than we have to.” But he wasn’t looking forward to the trip back if it was as rough as the journey getting here. His innards felt like they’d been put through a blender.

Looking up at the guards’ rifles, he hoped Gerald had removed the real versions from their sleeping selves back in North Korea and was making good use of them this very minute.

“Tough if he ain’t,” Lee said aloud. “Cos we is outta here.”

Rising to his feet, he tried to get the guards to calm down.

“Hey, Sporty!” he said, calling them by their Spice Girl nicknames. “Enough with the whinin’, and Scary, if you nudge me with that rifle butt one more time, I is gonna leave you here, I swear to God.”

The guards waved their arms and continued to shout.

“Yeah – yeah,” Lee said. “It’s mad, it’s off the hook, but stressin’ out and boohoos won’t do no good, ladies.”

Suddenly, close by, there was a furtive rustling. The guards leaped around in alarm and ‘Baby Spice’ opened fire. The autumnal peace erupted with a blizzard of bullets that went ripping through the undergrowth and a tree trunk splintered as lead hammered into it. A red squirrel fell from a branch and another half-dozen shots made it jump and twitch before the nervous guard realised what it was and ceased firing.

The others stared across at the thoroughly dead animal, then began to snigger in embarrassment. Their shared tension had been released and they gave Baby teasing punches on his arm.

Lee shook his head at them. “You all got that outta your systems now, yeah?” he asked warily. “That weren’t cool, you assholes. That furry bullet bag coulda had somethin’ to say – you have no idea what the zoo life is like round here. That coulda been anythin’. That was dumb, guys – real baseline dumb! Trigger-happy ain’t the word; trigger-hysterical is what you is. You need to frost up, right now, ’fore one of us gets capped the same way.”

The guards had no idea what he was saying. They pointed at the squirrel and laughed. It was the only time Lee had ever seen them display any jubilant emotion. Their relieved, joking chatter sounded weird in this place. One of them, the thinnest, and usually the surliest, was the first to become grave once more and lifted the chain that tethered him to Lee’s wrist. Then, with urgent gestures, he mimed the boy taking them away from here.

“You got it, Posh,” Lee agreed. “That’s what I is ’bout to do – take us back over that rainbow. This messed-up Oz has got enough crazy muthas in it already; it don’t need four more with guns, what don’t speak local.”

After several frustrating minutes in which he tried to indicate what he was going to do, he finally had them lined up on either side of him. They were on an overgrown forest path and, by scissoring his forefingers, managed to demonstrate that they were going to run along it a little way and wake up back in the medical room.

“In North Korea,” he said, nodding his head slowly. “DPRK – yeah? That crap heap, ass end of nowhere. We go back there, mkay?”