Clash of Empires (15 page)

He runs madly. His coat is heavy and flaps around his legs, slowing him, so he rids himself of it and sprints. He loses his hat but does not notice, his hair wild to the wind.

He raps on doors as he runs, shouting for shelter, for refuge, but the doors remain closed. The windows are dark. Behind him, the footsteps get louder.

He sees Adams in the distance and follows him down the long driveway toward the asylum. The high stone walls and barred windows will be their best protection against what follows.

Adams reaches the asylum first, banging on the stone gates in the wall that surrounds the building. There is no answer. Monro arrives to find Adams pulling on the rope to the bell above the gates. The bell clangs loudly and after a moment the door opens. The orderly who opens it is clearly shocked to find his employer in a disheveled state at this time of night, but has no time to say anything as Monro and Adams burst past him, slamming the door shut behind them.

Monro's chest is heaving, his face dripping with sweat. He is hatless and coatless. His heart is pounding and his leggings are saturated.

But that is not sweat.

From outside they again hear the roar of one of the creatures, and it sounds closer.

But after that, nothing.

The city has gone strangely quiet.

 

IRELAND

The headlands at the entrance to the harbor are windy promontories, jutting into the Irish Sea. It is raining, an icy drizzle, and the red-coated British soldiers on sentry duty huddle beneath trees. They are cold and wet but dare not light fires for fear it will ruin their night vision.

The moon is curtained by heavy cloud and of no use, so the sentries do not see the unlit French ships holding position just off the coast. Nor do they hear the sounds of the ships' rigging through the hiss of the rain on the ocean.

The French longboat that enters the mouth of the harbor has been tarred to a deep black. Thibault's soldiers on board are covered by black cowls and the wooden cage at the stern is also black, as is what is inside. Two identical boats follow, also invisible on the dark ocean. The boats are not rowed, but sculled by a single oar at the stern. This is slow for a heavy longboat, but it is silent, and the current assists, sweeping them into the mouth of the harbor with the incoming tide.

The British sentries neither hear nor see the disaster that approaches.

The longboats slip past the headlands and keep to the center of the estuary, away from any curious eyes.

The lights of Fort Charles approach, and the longboats slow. Silence is more important than speed. They veer toward the shore, well away from the fortifications, and make landfall on a tiny sandy beach squeezed between seaweed-covered stretches of rock. The fort looms ahead of them, and on the other side of the estuary the smaller Fort James is a distant glow.

The eight soldiers on each boat now lift the wooden cages, nervously carrying them to the pathway that runs along the shore, trying not to listen to the scratching, slithering sounds and the strange rattles that come from within.

Three cages are set on the path and three saurmasters uncage three creatures, surely born in the smoky depths of hell.

Few men have ever seen such creatures and few of those who have, have lived. Even fewer know their name: demonsaur.

Each has a ridged and muscular hide the color of old burnt wood. Long, skeletal arms lead to bony fingers, jointed like a human hand, but ending in hooked claws. Protruding from their skulls and down their backs are thin spines that rattle as they move. Their hind legs have hocks like those of a horse.

With whips and low voice commands, the saurmasters guide the demonsaurs toward the fort, keeping to the darkest shadows.

The soldiers from the longboats, twenty-four in all, now creep over the rock and scrub of the foreshore to the roadway that runs past the fort.

The entrance to Fort Charles is via a drawbridge across a moat, leading to a set of heavy gates set in a stone archway. The drawbridge is down, in absence of any immediate known threat, but the gates are closed.

The soldiers take position on the roadway. They split into two groups, one to the left and one to the right of the bridge. They load and ram their muskets. They wait.

By the wall of the fort, the saurmasters release their hideous creatures and melt away into the safety of darkness.

The three saurs approach the great wall, sniffing at the air, their spines rattling with anticipation. They each place a foot on the wall, then another, the hooked claws of their so-human-looking fingers finding purchase where no man could.

They begin to climb, scaling the wall swiftly. They reach the top and disappear from sight. Almost immediately there are shouts of alarm and the clanging of bells from inside the fort.

Then the screaming starts.

There are gunshots, and the sounds of people panicking and running. A cannon fires within the fort, and the crackle of muskets is only overpowered by the piercing screams of the people.

On the roadway the French soldiers take aim as, with heavy creaking sounds, the main gates of the fort open and the inhabitants start to stream out.

The French muskets fire in volleys of eight, giving each group a chance to reload. On the drawbridge the bodies lie where they fall, or topple over the low wooden railing into the moat, gasping their final breaths in the cold, dark water.

Volley after volley sounds but even the roar of the muskets is lost amid the shrieks and cries from inside the fort.

*   *   *

The moon has finally found a gap in the cloud curtain as Thibault stands on the walls of Fort Charles and surveys the much smaller fort on the other side of the harbor entrance. They lost only two ships in the Raz de Sein passage, a stroke of good fortune considering the foul weather that had rushed in from the west. One of those ships was the
Sceptre
, a big loss, almost a fifth of his men drowned in one incident. The other ship was a supply vessel and that concerned him less. He can pick up food easily enough in Ireland, and if all goes to plan he will have plenty of gunpowder to replace that which he lost.

Montenot comes to stand with him to watch a British longboat pull away from the rocks below them, the two enemy soldiers on board rowing frantically toward Fort James on the other side of the harbor. One of them is a captain, until recently the second in command of Fort Charles. Thibault would sooner have sent the commander, but most of his head is now missing.

“You think they will surrender that easily?” Montenot asks.

“I do not ask them to surrender,” Thibault says. “The British captain will inform them that I have no interest in their fort, but if a single cannon fires on my ships, then every man, woman, and child within their walls will be fed to my dinosaurs.”

As he speaks, the cruel sharp lines and the full sails of the
Redoubte
come into view at the mouth of the estuary, silvered by the moon. Behind it, as yet concealed by the headlands, a line of ships stretches out.

“Should we ready our cannon, just in case?” Montenot asks. Fort James is a bare half mile away and the big twenty-four-pounders of Fort Charles would smash it like a fist.

“They will not fire,” Thibault says. “And I have no wish to see the fort damaged. It will be mine soon enough and I would rather not damage my own property.”

On the other side of the estuary, the longboat reaches the shore and the two British soldiers run for the safety of the stone walls.

“And if they do fire?” Montenot asks.

“Then, as I have said, I will feed them to my girls,” Thibault says. “But they will not fire.”

A few moments later the
Redoubte
reaches Fort Charles, already furling its sails as it heads for the point. The captain salutes up at Thibault, who returns the gesture and watches with interest, but without concern, as the ship approaches the guns of Fort James.

There is only silence from the dark walls on the far side of the estuary.

The remaining ships of the French fleet now approach the shore. Ship after ship passes the fort, each lowering its sails as it turns past the point and moves on to the docks beyond.

Thibault turns to Montenot and permits himself a smile.

“Our first prize in the island kingdom. I want the ships unloaded as quickly as possible. We must make haste for Cork.”

 

WENZEL PARK

Willem stands anxiously at the gates to the estate, under the lamps that adorn the huge pillars on either side. The first light of morning is just coloring the sky to the east. The earl's man, Ethan Arbuckle, stands with him. He holds a lantern in one hand and a leather tool case in the other.

Willem hears the carriage before he sees it. It is traveling quickly, from the sound, but not overly so, which would not be safe in the dark, in the mist, on a road of loose stone.

Eventually the curtains of fog peel back and the carriage emerges through them, as if arriving onstage.

Big Joe is driving, his face covered with blood. Frost sits next to him. The carriage slows as it pulls between the gates, then Arbuckle and Willem close the great metal gates behind it.

Willem runs to the side of the carriage and is horrified to find it still locked.

“She is still caged?” he asks.

“I am sorry, Willem,” Frost says, stepping down from the carriage, feeling his way. “I did not know how she would react to her freedom. I did not want to lose her again in the streets of London.”

“So you made her endure the cage even longer,” Willem says.

“We did not have the key, Major, nor time to waste,” Big Joe says. He climbs down also.

Willem calms himself. His nerves are tense, more than he had realized. “Of course. I was not thinking.”

Arbuckle has already set to work with the metal saw on the padlock that fastens the cage. The rasp of the fine teeth on the steel of the lock makes a high-pitched grinding sound.

Willem climbs up onto the driver's seat and opens the narrow slot into the cage. “Héloïse,” he says softly. “It is Willem.”

A low animal growl comes from within.

“You are safe now,” Willem says. “You will never go back to that terrible place.”

Silence.

Willem waits for a moment, then steps down. He reaches for Frost's hand and shakes it, then shakes Big Joe's hand also. “Thank you, gentlemen,” he says. “I am greatly in your debt.”

“It was worth it just to see the look on that old doctor's face,” Big Joe says with a laugh.

Willem laughs with him, then says, “You still have blood on your face. Best clean it before Héloïse sees you. She has been distressed enough.”

Big Joe wipes some of the blood off his face with a finger, and licks it.

“And nice-tasting blood it is,” he says with a grin. “But it is blood of the tomato, not of a man.”

“Did you pay the city folk?” Willem asks.

“They all got their coppers,” Frost says.

“And Harry?”

“Will be safely back in the barracks by now. Jack will have seen to that,” Frost says.

“It was a well-crafted illusion,” Big Joe says, wiping his face with a rag.

“A sight to be seen, Willem,” Frost says, reminding Willem, whether he intends to or not, of the young lieutenant's affliction.

“What the eye does not see, the mind imagines,” Willem says. “And the mind sees with a clarity that the eye can never hope to achieve. The illusion was only ever in Monro's mind.”

“I wonder what will happen to him when he tells people of dinosaurs roaming the streets of London,” Big Joe says.

“They will think him delusional,” Willem says.

“Perhaps he will end up admitted to his own institution,” Frost says.

“We can but hope,” Willem says with a laugh.

There is a crack from the direction of the carriage and the padlock falls free. Arbuckle starts to slide the bolt on the cage, but Willem stops him with a hand on his arm.

“I would ask you all to step well back,” he says. “Your presence may make her nervous.”

The grins and excitement of the night's events fade rapidly as Willem opens the door to the cage. It is dark inside and there is no sound or movement. He gestures for the lantern and, when it is handed to him, eases it forward between the bars.

Héloïse is huddled in a corner, her arms entrapped by the same thick straitjacket that she wore on the spinning chair. Her head is turned away from him and her short hair is matted with blood. The side of her face is badly bruised. Willem suspects that their actions that day had earned her a beating.

“Héloïse, it is Willem,” he says. “You are safe now.” The words sound thick, heavy, and inadequate. His eyes run freely as he stretches out a hand toward her. Still she does not move.

He climbs into the cage with her and touches her shoulder. She shudders and pulls farther away.

“Héloïse, it is Willem,” he says again. She must know him, he thinks. Whatever she has been through, she must recognize his voice, and know who he is, and what he once did for her. Can she have retreated so far inside herself that there is no way back?

He reaches for the buckles on the straitjacket and she does not pull away. One arm comes free, then another. The garment falls to the floor. Still she will not face him.

“Héloïse,” he tries again.

Abruptly she launches herself at him, hissing like a wildcat. He stumbles backward. One foot catches on the edge of the doorway and now he is falling, landing on his back on the mercifully soft grass that adjoins the cobblestone driveway. He is winded and struggles for breath. She has fallen with him, straddling him, fingers clenched into claws, jagged fingernails ready to strike.

“Stay back!” Willem warns hoarsely as Arbuckle moves to pull her off him.

He lies still, making no effort to defend himself, breathing heavily from the fall and from what he is feeling.

“Héloïse, I'm sorry,” he says.