Clash of Empires (24 page)

“He is right,” Frost says. “We will be lucky to get out of here ourselves. We must not stop. Not for anything. We must—”

He looks quickly back at the earthen mound of the dike.

“Take cover!” he cries, but it is too late. Willem hears the whinny of a horse and a moment later four cuirassiers charge up and over the dike, encircling them.

“Run!” Arbuckle shouts, drawing his dagger.

Willem grabs Frost's arm and darts for a hedge-lined lane that leads to the hamlet.

One of the soldiers spurs his horse toward Arbuckle while the others move to cut Willem off.

What happens next happens so fast that Willem is barely aware of it. The horseman raises his saber high and strikes down at Arbuckle, but the thin metal blade slices open only the air. Arbuckle has shifted like a breath of wind out of the path of the blade. He grasps hold of the man's sword arm and pulls himself up. The next thing, he is seated on the horse behind the soldier and there is a spray of blood before the Frenchman topples sideways, his saber now in Arbuckle's hand.

The other three cuirassiers wheel their horses around to face this new threat.

Willem grips Frost's collar and runs into the lane. They reach a crossroads and Willem glances back to see Arbuckle trapped in the center of a whirl of blades, then they round the corner and Frost and Willem are on their own.

The smooth dirt of the lane makes for fast going and the hedgerows on either side are high enough to conceal them from the battle behind. They run, turning often, into a maze of narrow lanes. To stay on an eastern heading Willem keeps an eye on the windmill, the brooding shape of which is ever-present above the hedges.

They hear the sound of hooves in a nearby lane and press themselves into the hedge, but the horseman passes them without detecting their presence.

“Slowly,” Frost says. “Slowly and silently from now on. They will only find us from our sounds.”

He perks his ears up again, listening intently.

Willem does too, and somewhere in the lanes around them he hears the rattle of a demonsaur. It is close.

“This way,” Frost whispers, leading Willem to the left. “We must put as much distance between us and that … thing … as we can.”

They have just reached a lane that leads directly to the windmill when from behind them they hear the rattle of spines.

How it has found them, Willem does not know. It paces slowly toward them, making its harsh, whispered growl.

Willem grabs Frost's arm to guide him and they sprint away from the demonsaur, toward the bulk of the windmill.

“There's a windmill,” Willem says, remembering that Frost cannot see it.

“Where is the door?” Frost asks.

“I can't see—yes!” Willem cries as a heavy wooden door comes into view at the base of the mill. If it is locked, they are lost. He risks a glance behind to see the demonsaur almost upon them.

They are in luck: the door is slightly ajar. He hits it with his shoulder and it is like hitting a rock wall, but the door opens and he stumbles through, sprawling across the dirt floor inside.

The door! He spins around, scrambling back to his feet to see that Frost has already thrown his weight against the bulky door. It is almost shut when there is a crash and Frost flies backward, but now Willem is there, putting all his weight against the door.

Frost recovers and they have the door nearly shut when a skeletal black hand reaches around, clawing at Willem's side. It snags on the cloth of his tunic, tearing it as he pulls away.

“Again!” Frost cries, and they both throw their weight once more against the door. The heavy door slams onto the wrist of the creature and there is a shriek of pain from outside. Again they slam it shut and there is a crack from the wrist but the creature does not withdraw its hand. Slowly the door starts to open despite all their efforts.

For a moment it seems as though they are winning, but it is just the creature drawing back. It slams into the door with all its weight and the door shoots open, sending Willem and Frost flying. Willem lands on a length of wood and picks it up, knowing how pathetic and useless it will be against the demonsaur.

Now it is inside, a snarl turning its mouth into an almost-human smirk. Willem backs away again and the creature follows, crouching back, then springing forward.

As it leaps there is the sound of a gunshot and the beast convulses in midair. Willem falls backward and rolls to one side as it lands right where he was standing. It reaches out its claws toward him, but feebly, and there is a spreading pool of black blood beneath it.

A French soldier stands in the doorway. A smoking pistol in one hand, a saber in the other.

“Come this way,” he says. “And quickly.”

Willem looks around desperately for a way to escape but the mill is a trap. He and Frost have nowhere farther to run.

“Come this way,” the Frenchman says, only his accent is of the Netherlands, not of France. “If you want to live.”

 

LIFE AND DEATH IN A MEAT CART

The boy lies in the reeds under the bridge, one eye closed, the other open, one leg in the water, moving back and forth in the current as though toe-fishing. Jack is tempted to try to close the other eye, but does not want to touch the body. Not because the boy is dead, but because it was Jack who killed him.

The boy was tall and strong, a little like Jack. Were it not for a different uniform and language it might have been Jack. Was this boy also a good lad? Jack weeps silently in the shadow of the bridge as the boots of the French soldiers march past on the road above.

The
clank
of chains comes from the road, then a curse, in English. It is McConnell's voice. Jack risks a look, parting the long reeds at the base of the bridge.

He sees prisoners in a caged wagon being led down the road by French officers on horseback. He looks to see if Frost or Willem is among them, but cannot tell.

A cart follows, on it a number of bodies in French uniforms.

Jack sits. He thinks. What should he do? The situation is confusing and his brain is as foggy as the night. What would Willem do? He would know what to do, but Jack is not as clever as Willem. He thinks of the time when they escaped from the village on the hospital wagon, Willem wearing the uniform of a nurse. That was the sort of thing that Willem would think of.

And that gives him his answer.

With whispered apologies to the dead boy, Jack strips him of his uniform. He undresses and folds his clothes, leaving them in a neat pile near the bridge support. He dons the French soldier's uniform, which, although small, fits closely enough.

He stares for a moment at the body, clad only in underclothes.
It is undignified
, he thinks.

He drags the young Frenchman up out of the water and dresses him in his own clothes, before laying him flat on the bank beneath the bridge, folding his arms across his chest.

He bids a silent farewell to the young dead man and slips quietly out from under the bridge, staying off the road, in the dark embrace of the ditch.

He moves quickly, but even so it is not until the column stops for a while at a crossroads that he is able to catch up with the cart. The soldiers are making cooking fires, probably their first meal of the day. They are relaxed and do not see Jack as he creeps up out of the ditch and crawls across the dark ground toward the cart.

When he is confident that no soldiers are looking in his direction, he clambers quickly up onto the cart. He is immediately immersed in a warm fug of urine, feces, and blood.

The bodies of the soldiers piled in the cart are still warm, evidence that in each of them a heart was beating only a short time ago. Most of the soldiers are French, but as he scans the faces Jack is shocked to find Lieutenant Patrick, the winner of the trojansaur race. His eyes are open but sightless. Jack tries to close them but they are frozen open. Next to Patrick, on his side, is Lieutenant Weiner, who had the constant smile. He is still smiling, a frozen rictus baring his teeth in a horrific grin. Jack keeps looking, lifting arms and legs and digging around to find more faces, eventually coming across Smythe. He sits back, exhausted. He is unsure whether he is happy or sad. Sad to see such a waste of such fine gentlemen. Happy because he cannot find Lieutenant Frost or Willem. Or Lieutenants Hoyes and Gilbert. Or Captain Arbuckle.

Voices sound nearby and footsteps are heading in his direction.

He lies flat and pulls himself forward over skin tacky with congealing blood. He rolls a body to one side and slides beneath it for concealment.

He finds himself face-to-face with another body, one not in French uniform. A huge head and a walrus mustache.

It is the big man, Lars.

There is a shouted order. Horses whinny. The cart creaks and begins to move. Jack and Lars stare at each other, in life and death in a meat cart full of dead soldiers.

Jack finds he no longer feels sorry for the French boy under the bridge.

 

SECRET REUNION

In the forest the lightening sky is only a distant thought, flitting occasionally between the branches. But the French lieutenant clearly knows the ways of this forest. He leads Willem and Frost through paths that do not look like paths, across streams, always knowing the best place to ford. Emerging finally onto a country lane with low stone walls. There they move slowly, not wanting to attract attention.

A few minutes down the road they come to an old, stone farm cottage. The lieutenant gestures they should enter, and it is with trepidation and reluctance that Willem pushes open the heavy, rough-sawn wooden door.

It is dark inside and when the door shuts behind them it is pitch-black.

Willem thinks he can hear breathing. A slightly labored wheeze.

“Who are you, old woman?” Frost asks, but as soon as he asks, Willem knows.

Sofie is there.

A flint sparks and a candle sputters into light, revealing a well-lined face shrouded by a black hood. Her clothing also is black, down to the lacy gloves that appear in the light of the candle, then withdraw into the darkness.

“Sofie,” Willem says. “I am so sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Sofie says. “The fault was ours.”

“It was François,” Willem says.

“I do not understand what he does,” Sofie says.

“He reveres Napoléon,” Willem says. “François murdered his own cousin and tried to hand us to the French. We were lucky to escape him. Now I fear for Lars, thanks to our betrayer.”

Sofie smiles. “Lars has been in worse scrapes than this. He is big, strong, and cunning. Do not fear for my boy.”

“What now?” Frost asks.

“We travel from here to another farmhouse, farther north, where they will not think of looking for you. If you wish to return to England, we will try to arrange it in a few weeks when the fuss has died down.”

“No,” Willem says. “I did not come here to hide out in a farmhouse. My mother and my friend are prisoners of the French and are at risk of execution every day. I must find a way to rescue them.” He pauses and thinks for a moment. “Perhaps also my father.”

“I would not count on that news,” Sofie says. “The information is only as good as its source.”

“I know,” Willem says. “But even so I cannot rest until I know.”

“And my mission is not yet over,” Frost says. “I must reach the Prussian Army at Waterloo on a matter of great importance.”

“In both cases, I fear you face insurmountable challenges,” Sofie says. “The offer stands.”

“I must go,” Willem says.

“And I will not safeguard my own life at the expense of others',” Frost says.

“Very gallantly spoken,” Sofie says. “Such is the valor—and the foolishness—of youth.”

“We escaped from the French ambush,” Frost says. “The others may have escaped also. If they get to Calais and carry out their mission, to kill Napoléon's battlesaurs, what good will that be if Blücher and his army do not then arrive?”

“Indeed,” Sofie says.

“Your concern is your mission,” Willem says. “But mine is different.”

“I understand,” Frost says. “Your mother and Cosette are of course your first concern. Madame, I must travel to Waterloo. Might I ask your man to guide me there? As you can see, I would not be able to travel there alone.”

Sofie shakes her head. “I apologize, young man, but Lieutenant Franke here has already been absent too long from his unit. He can use the confusion of the ambush as an excuse, but not for much longer. I would not wish to jeopardize his position in the French Army. It is too valuable to us.”

“I understand,” Frost says. “Then, Willem, I must prevail on you. Help me get to Blücher and deliver my message. After that we will together travel to the rendezvous point to see who else has made it, and then to the Sonian. I will do what I can to assist you in the rescue of your loved ones.”

“I will do it,” Willem says. “I hope we are not alone when we get to—”

Sofie's voice cuts over his. “I do not wish to know your rendezvous point. What I do not know, I cannot reveal.”

“But you will help?” Willem asks.

She nods slowly. “I will give you horses. And French uniforms.”

“To be caught in a French uniform is certain death,” Frost says. “We would be shot as spies.”

Sofie leans forward and looks at him. The flicker of the low candle makes shadowy crevices of the lines on her face. “For you and Willem, to be caught at all is to be executed. The uniform makes no difference.”

“This is true,” Frost acknowledges.

“Then leave immediately,” she says. “Lieutenant Franke will take you as far as the main road. After that you will be on your own. We must not know which direction you take.”

“What about you?” Willem asks. “If Lars has been captured, then your life also is in danger.”