Time Riders: The Doomsday Code (30 page)

‘Master Locke!’ a voice nearby called out. ‘He is awake now!’

Liam snapped his eyes quickly shut again. He heard more movement around him, men stirring, the clank of things being put down, the soft crunch of footsteps on pine cones slowly approaching him. His mouth was covered with a gag of foul-smelling material; some thug’s sweaty rags, no doubt. But his eyes clenched tightly, the lids flickering, were giving him away.

‘You’re awake, fool … I can see it,’ growled a deep voice. A booted foot kicked him roughly in the side of the ribs and Liam grunted painfully. He opened his eyes to see a tall man with long untidy locks of sandy-coloured hair looking down at him. ‘See now? I knew you were awake.’ The man smiled, then squatted down beside Liam.

‘Hmmm, so, you’re the sheriff who’s been giving me so much trouble?’

Liam could say nothing, his mouth clogged with the dirty rag, his hands bound behind his back with twine.

‘And so young, as well,’ he uttered, cocking his head curiously. He spoke in a lowered voice. ‘You know, you did a far better job than the previous idiot. He managed to turn Nottingham and most of the county against him … made my life very easy here. No end of starving malcontents joining the cause every day.’

Liam looked over his shoulder at the gathering crowd of ragged men.

‘But you, young man … you’ve turned things around, haven’t you? Made things very difficult for me. John chose wisely this time. A noble with a brain for once.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Which makes it a real shame that I have to do this.’

The man stood up and turned to the assembled crowd. ‘Pick him up! Let’s see what the Hood wants done with him!’

A dozen pairs of rough hands seized and hefted him on to his feet. Liam looked around at the camp – an odd assortment of flimsy wooden shacks, wattle-and-daub huts and cloth tents stretched over frames made from branches. Among the growing crowd, he spotted men mostly, one or two women and no children. It had the look of a semi-permanent settlement, not an overnight camp but a year-round dwelling haphazardly built in and around the mature oak trees.

The tall man who’d spoken led the way through the camp towards a round hut with wattle-and-daub walls and a squat conical roof of branches and reeds. Bigger than the others; more effort had gone into it. Liam suspected it was their leader’s hut.

The Hood.

He watched the tall man duck down and disappear inside through a low door, leaving him alone with the crowd. He felt hands pushing and shoving him, a punch on his back that painfully jolted his head.

‘French scum!’ someone hissed at him.

Another cursed, then spat a fat gobbet of spittle into his face. ‘Go back to Normandy!’

Liam tried to reply he wasn’t French, that he wasn’t some arrogant Norman aristocrat, but the gag filled his mouth and the best he could do was grunt.

Probably wouldn’t have mattered if he could have made himself heard; he was wearing expensive clothes, a dark green velvet smock, fine linen leggings and leather boots, that marked him as a noble whatever he might try to say.

The tall man emerged through the low door and stood up straight, raising his arms to hush the hubbub of noise in the crowd.

‘He says it is for
you
to decide the sheriff’s fate!’

Liam felt his legs give, as most of the crowd roared with approval.

Oh that’s not good.

‘Kill him!’ shouted several voices.

‘You really wish to show John, the pretender … show him what we think of his Norman lackeys?’

The crowd shouted its agreement. Liam looked at the tall man, trying to make eye contact with him. He sounded different from the others, a different accent, perhaps educated. And wasn’t there a hint of regret in his voice? As if he’d rather they chose another fate for him?

I need to talk to him!

He twisted his head from side to side, trying to work the gag out of his mouth. But already he was being dragged by the mob, hands struggling through the press of bodies to get a grasp on him, pinch him or land a punch on him.

He could feel the rancid cloth rammed into his mouth loosening, able to find enough space at the back of his mouth to bunch his tongue up and push the cloth forward. It made him gag and he fought the urge to vomit.

Ahead of him he saw the crowd part, making space around the flat top of a broad tree stump. It was about a yard across and a yard high – like a roughly hewn table-top.

‘Send his head back to Oxford!’

Head? Oh God please no …

Liam saw someone place a wicker basket beside the base of the stump. He began to buck and squirm against the grasp of the men dragging him, causing them to wrench him forward more roughly.

‘Come on, pig! We’ll put ye on a spike when we’re done!’

Strong arms pushed him against the tree stump and grabbed his shoulders to bend him down over the rough flat top.

Liam frantically worked his tongue against the gag, pushing the material bit by bit out of his mouth. But even then, even if he could scream something, he was sure nothing was going to stop them now. They wanted their dark-haired Norman head.

His arms were twisted behind his back and the jagged splinters of wood from the stump ground and mashed away against his cheekbone as several hands firmly pressed his head down. He rolled his eyes to one side to look up – and wished he hadn’t. A thickset man was standing beside the stump, enjoying the moment and flexing his muscular arms as he wielded a broadsword in both hands.

‘One stroke! One stroke!’ several in the crowd began chanting.

‘Aye! ’Tis always one good stroke!’ the man roared in reply.

‘Not so, Seth!’ another man bellowed. ‘Did take more than three on the last!’

Close your eyes, Liam
, he told himself.
Best not to see the blade coming down
.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t take his eyes off his executioner. The man making a big show for his crowd, stepping round the stump and limbering up with long swooshing swoops of the sword.

The material of the gag was now almost entirely pushed out of his mouth, but still over it. He tried screaming at them to stop, but his words were muffled.

In his peripheral vision he spotted the tall man, looking down at him with a stern expression. And beside him, a foot taller, the sinister form of the Hood, motionless, a face lost in the dark shadows of his cowl. Their presence hushed the baying crowd until it was quiet enough that Liam could hear the soft rustle of a breeze chasing through the oak leaves far above them.

‘You wish this?’ said the tall man. ‘You wish to send his head as a message to those who rule yer country?’

The crowd roared in response.

‘So be it, then,’ he said with a tone of regret in his voice. He nodded slowly at the executioner. ‘See it done. And mind it’s a clean blow. This young Norman deserves a quick death.’

‘Aye,’ nodded the executioner. He took a couple of steps over to Liam and gently rested the sword’s cold blade against the back of his neck. Liam felt its weight, the razor-thin edge biting into his skin.

And then he felt the weight of the blade being lifted.

Lifting for the swing.

Oh God, oh Jay-zus …

Liam jerked his head, bucking and kicking as hands pressed harder to hold his shoulders still.

‘Best hold still!’ one of the men holding him warned. ‘Unless you want him to hack at you like a hog on a spit?’

As the executioner sucked in a breath and his sword hovered for a moment above his head, Liam jerked his chin once more, finally freeing his mouth above the cloth gag.

‘
Please!
I’m not French!’ he heard himself screaming, shrill and terrified. ‘I’m – I’m – from the future!’

‘STOP!’

Liam heard the blade coming down, a long deep swoop that sounded like the wingbeat of Death itself and then the wooden stump his head was pressed against vibrated with the jarring impact. He heard the blade clang and hum and the executioner curse as the blow vibrated his hands.

Liam tried to focus on the wobbling metal blade right beside his nose, reflecting his own face back at him. And that was the very last thing he remembered before he fainted.

Water splashed across his face, and Liam came to screaming, ‘NOOOOO!’

He opened his eyes to see he was in a dark place, his bonds now removed. It was a round room of wicker walls caked with mud. Above him, sunlight dappled through a crude thatch of twigs and reeds, and beams caught dust motes and pollen gracefully floating through them.

‘In case you’re wondering,’ said a voice calmly. ‘You’re not dead.’

Liam looked around the room, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. The first thing he saw was the hooded figure squatting on the mud floor of the room. Beside it, sitting on a wooden stool, was the tall man with the long sandy hair, studying Liam intently and stroking his bottom lip thoughtfully.

‘Who sent you?’ he asked after a while.

Liam struggled to gather his senses. A moment ago, seconds ago, he’d been awaiting the downward strike of a sword on the back of his neck.

‘You said “I’m from the future”,’ the man said. ‘The only person in the twelfth century likely to comprehend the notion of time travel is someone who, indeed,
has
come from the future. Therefore, I completely believe you. Now,’ he went on, sitting forward, ‘who sent you?’

Liam looked up at him. ‘You – you … you’re a traveller too?’

The man nodded.

‘Are you … are you one of us?’ asked Liam.

‘Us?’

‘The – the agency?’

He cocked his head. ‘Agency?’

Liam bit his lip. Perhaps he’d just blurted out too much.

‘Agency …? Hold on.’ The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re not talking about …?’ He smiled, then laughed. ‘You can’t possibly mean …
The
Agency?’

Liam shrugged. ‘Yes … I … no, I don’t know. I –’

‘There were rumours … back in the 2060s. A secret agency set up to track down and terminate illegal time travellers. They were just rumours, mind.’

Liam said nothing, but the man seemed wholly intrigued by him. ‘Of course, everyone suspected that was propaganda – a deterrent, something to scare off any tech companies thinking about secretly developing a machine. But
you’re
here …’ His eyes narrowed. ‘So … is that it? Is this agency actually for real? Is that where you’ve come from?’

Liam’s eyes darted towards the hooded figure. Menacingly large in such a small hut, it sat silently poised in a squatting position. So far the man was
asking
questions … not
demanding
. He wondered how long that was going to last.

‘It’s true,’ whispered Liam. ‘I’m with that agency.’

‘My God!’ The man laughed again. ‘It
was
real! I knew it! Tell me … who’s behind it? The North American Federation? Is it the Sino-Korean Bloc? New Europe?’

‘I don’t really know,’ Liam replied.

‘Or is it a corporation?’

Liam shook his head. ‘I don’t know … we just work on our own. I don’t know who organizes us.’

‘You’re just a
grunt
, then?’ He smiled, not unkindly. ‘A foot soldier.’

Liam shrugged. ‘I … I suppose.’

‘And I presume you’ve come back here because I’ve altered history somehow?’

‘Yes.’

‘A lot?’

‘Enough that there’s been a time wave. The present has been changed.’

‘And your mission was to come back here to kill me?’

Liam closed his mouth. There was much too much he’d be giving away with an answer. Instead, he asked a question. ‘Who are you?’

‘That’s rather direct of you. I like that.’ The man smiled. ‘So I suppose I shall tell you. My name is James Locke.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Locke,’ said Liam, gingerly offering a hand. ‘I’m Liam O’Connor.’

A grin slowly spread across Locke’s face. He reached out and shook the proffered hand. ‘I recognize that accent,’ he said. ‘You’re Irish.’

‘Yes.’

‘A pity, eh?’

Liam frowned. ‘Pity? Why?’

‘
Why?
’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t know … do you?’

‘Know what?’

‘Much of Ireland’s gone now. I think some peaks remain still in County Kerry, but the rest is all underwater.’

Liam stared at the man, wondering if he was playing a joke with him.

‘A lot of other places have gone too, mind. But you really don’t know about any of this, do you? What year exactly have you come from?’

He wondered if there was any point in keeping that from Locke. ‘2001.’

‘2001? Really? Why so far back? That’s over forty years before the first-ever test machine was functional.’

‘As good a place as any other, I suppose.’ He looked at Locke. ‘Did you just say Ireland’s
underwater
?’

‘Systemic climatic failure. It used to be called “global warming”. The ice caps melted decades ago; the sea ended up rising by about a hundred metres. We’ve lost about a fifth of the world’s land mass – the
most densely populated
fifth. What’s left is crammed full of people. Standing room only, I’m afraid.’

‘Jay-zus!’

‘Oh, you got that right,’ Locke said, pushing wisps of hair out of his eyes. Liam looked at his lean face more closely and realized he was a lot older than he’d first guessed. Forty, maybe fifty. His long hair threaded with greys and silvers, and criss-crossing lines splayed out from the corners of his eyes.

‘In my time the world’s dying, Liam. And it’s all our doing. It’s overheating and every ecosystem is gradually failing.’

Liam rubbed his head, still thudding with a dull ache. ‘So,
when
have you come from?’