Hooded Man (57 page)

It sounded like one word over and over.

Vengeance.

De Falaise smiled, those broken teeth even more yellow in the flames. The Frenchman opened his arms wide and let the full force of the fire take him, and this time it did crisp his skin, blackening his face and exposed hands. His dress suit – the one he’d worn for the executions at the castle – melted onto him, then that too turned black. Robert stood watching, knowing he couldn’t do a thing. Not really wanting to. This was a replay of past events – slightly different, but still a replay. What he wanted to know about was the future, about his new enemies.

As if to answer him directly, the figure burnt brighter... and redder. It took a step towards him, and when it did, some of the black crust fell away. What was beneath was red, and it merged with the fire: creating a figure that was crimson from the feet upwards. Robert’s mouth dropped open as he witnessed this transformation. That’s the only way he could describe it, a fiery phoenix rising from the ashes. Dressed head to toe in red leather.

The build of the two men was similar, but Robert could see they were very different. This person was stockier, looked like he could really handle himself. Looked like he had seen some action in the past, not just ordered people to their deaths. And he looked... somehow regal. Like the campfire from the night before, the flames died down, and when they did, the man pulled on his greatcoat. Then he placed a peaked cap on his head.

He smirked at Robert. There was no denying the intent was the same. He was here to destroy the Hooded Man, just as the Sheriff had set out to do. Was this the distant future; some kind of reincarnation, perhaps? Robert had no idea, and no more time to ponder, because the fire surrounding them was also changing.

Robert looked to his left and right. There were faces there; faces painted white and black like skulls, with tattoos on their foreheads.
Yes, them! I came here to learn about them,
Robert told the dreamscape, told the forest.
I need to know how to defeat them.
If
I can defeat them!

Except behind the figures were more people, faces without make-up. The faces of soldiers, carrying automatic weapons. The ground was shaking – Robert felt the vibrations up through his legs, into his guts. To his left, breaking through the ground and knocking charred trees aside, a huge tank shot upwards and righted itself with a metallic
clang
. To Robert’s left, an armoured vehicle did the same, followed by a couple of jeeps. In the centre of the burning scene was suddenly an army of two factions. Impossible to fight alone.

Where were his people? Where were his troops?

There were shadows behind the man in red, stepping out. Two Asian women, Robert saw, and a man in a sharp suit. Each was holding a body by the scruff of its neck, which they threw to the ground in front of Robert. The first belonged to Tate, lifeless and limp. Then came Sophie, piled on top. Followed by Mary. Robert’s entire body stiffened when he saw her tossed there, like a Guy on a funeral pyre. Her beautiful eyes looked up at him in death.

“
No!
” he screamed. “You can’t do this!”

A larger shadow emerged, carrying two bodies – one in each hand. But he could manage them well enough, the size that he was. Robert’s jaw dropped again when he saw Tanek, the Frenchman’s second, assumed dead but very much alive here. (Though hadn’t De Falaise been standing there only moments before? Living or deceased, it didn’t mean a thing in this place.)

The two last bodies were thrown over towards Robert, Tanek grunting – more with satisfaction than effort. Robert recognised who they were as they landed: Jack, defeated and deflated... and Mark. Finally Mark. Beaten to a pulp and with more than his finger missing.

Robert sank to his knees, tears flowing freely. He knew it wasn’t a good idea to show weakness in front of his enemies, but couldn’t help it. When he reached up to wipe the salt water away, he found his face altered. There were antlers on the side of his head. He had a snout too. As he looked up again, Tanek was approaching with that crossbow of his raised, a bolt in the chamber pointing at him. The shot was fired and, though it entered Robert’s temple, he could somehow still hear and see everything around him: the flames, the assembled war machine. Tanek crouching, letting go of the crossbow and taking out a knife with a serrated edge.

Robert’s vision went black for a second then red, like a filter had been placed over a camera lens. Tanek finished his cutting, sawing, stood again with something in his free hand. Robert’s... the stag’s head.

He handed the gory thing to the man in leather, who took off his peaked cap and replaced it with the antlers.

In spite of the fire’s warmth, Robert felt cold. It spread quickly throughout his body. If this was a vision of the future, as he’d wanted, then he was sorry he’d asked for it. Better to be ignorant than live with the knowledge that they would all soon die.

“Vengeance,” said a voice close to his ear, a figure he couldn’t see whispering to him. It sounded... familiar. De Falaise, but not him; the voice softer.

Then he felt hands on him, moving him.

Moving his corpse.

I
T WAS A
revelation when he found he could move – grabbing the hands shaking him. “N-not dead,” Robert mumbled. “Not dead!”

“Sshh. Keep it down,” another voice whispered, a different voice. “We’re not alone.”

Robert shook his head, clearing it. It had been a while since he’d slept so heavily, had a dream as intense. He’d forgotten how disorientating it could be. Mark was the person by his side – not the dead, mutilated Mark, but the living Mark who he could still do something to save if he got his act together. Mark, who had been trying to wake him for some time.

“People, circling the camp,” he told Robert. “I caught a glimpse when I got up to pee. I managed to crawl across to your lean-to without them seeing, I think.”

“How many?” asked Robert in hushed tones.

Mark shrugged. “A couple, maybe.”

“That’s the next lesson, then. Counting.” Mark scowled, then Robert tapped him on his arm. “Come on, let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

Grabbing his bow, arrows and sword, Robert emerged from the back of the lean-to with Mark beside him, using it to shield them both. Robert slipped the quiver and bow around his torso. It wasn’t quite light, but the sun was close to the horizon, giving everything a strange sepia look. There was an early morning mist covering the ground, thin enough to see through close up, but out in the distance it could hide anything. Robert trusted the boy’s instincts; after years of living on his wits, the lad had developed a sense about these things. He’d been the first to warn Bill about the attack on the market, and told Robert when Jack first entered Sherwood. Now he was telling him there was a potential threat in the woods, and Robert took that very seriously.

This was real hunting.

Mark nudged him and gestured towards a nearby tree on his right. He saw an elbow sticking out from behind the trunk. Robert nodded, then pointed across at another tree. Mark evidently couldn’t see it, but there was bark missing from one side where someone had scraped by it. Robert turned when he heard a noise behind him. Mark may well have dismissed it as a woodland animal, but he knew better. Although it had been a while since he’d lived here, Robert still felt the rhythms of this place – could tell when there was something out of sync. He was surrounded, as in his dream. Robert just hoped the tanks and jeeps weren’t about to shoot up from out of the ground.

He made a fanning-out gesture to Mark, who nodded. He hated having to split them up – especially when he could still picture the boy’s dead face – but he knew Mark needed to do this as much as he did. Robert pulled up his hood and began to stalk his prey, vanishing into the undergrowth.

Keeping low to the ground, he backtracked round to where he’d heard the noise. Robert closed his eyes and breathed deeply, attempting to sense where the intruder was. Where the disturbance in his forest was rooted. It didn’t prove difficult, not when the attacker suddenly showed himself and charged at Robert. He opened his eyes in time to see a flash of machete blade, a painted face leering down at him. A Servitor!

Robert took hold of the rushing figure, at the same time dodging the man’s weapon, then used his own momentum against him, flinging him into a nearby birch. “Damned Halloween freak,” he snarled. The tree leaned slightly and the robed man fell over it, landing on the other side. Robert was round it in seconds, bringing up a swift knee and clipping the cultist under the chin.

He was suddenly aware of two more attackers on either side of him. They appeared from behind trees and lunged at Robert, machete blades cutting through the morning air. He dodged one, then turned swiftly and ducked another. But as he came up again, he brought his clenched fist with him, practically lifting the Servitor off his feet with the punch. The next swing, Robert met with his own sword: metal striking metal. Gritting his teeth, he pushed the robed man backwards into a tree, winding him. Robert turned his back on the man, turned his sword around and thrust it backwards so that it slid into his attacker’s side and out again very quickly, incapacitating him.

By this time the first attacker had recovered and was getting to his feet. Robert had time to quickly glance over and see how Mark was doing, now their cover was well and truly blown. He saw the boy facing at least three of the freaks himself, and he’d already been relieved of his sword.

Holding the sword by the flat of the blade, Robert brought the hilt down heavily on the approaching cultist’s head. It struck him dead centre and he fell to his knees. Then Robert swung the sword like a baseball bat and hit the man in the face, sending his head rocking back and a few of his teeth flying.

Unslinging his bow as he went, Robert pulled out an arrow and aimed across to where Mark was fighting, kicking the first Servitor who’d attacked to keep him down. Just as he was about to shoot, though, a half dozen more of the men rose up from the mist or stepped out from behind trees.

“Crap,” said Robert under his breath. Mark was on his own, at least for now. He turned the bow on the nearest of the approaching cult members.

W
HAT HAD BEEN
his first mistake?

Mark was asking himself this even as he realised it was probably the worst time to be doing so. It was only what Jack would ask him later, if there was a later, but this clearly wasn’t the time for analysis. He’d blundered in, hadn’t he? Gone for the guy with his elbow sticking out, thinking he was an easy target. But then he’d realised, when the figure stepped out and confronted him, that the Servitor had been expecting the strike all along. What the hell was the matter with him? Mark had been so quiet and nimble as a boy, slipping in and out of cities and towns for supplies, scavenging them and stuffing them into his knapsack. But creeping up on people? Not so great at that.

The noise had brought another one out of the trees, and now Mark understood what Robert had been pointing at. Another hiding behind an oak, the bark worn off. He should have taken one out at a distance with a rock, then –

Swish!

Mark was suddenly stumbling backwards. This wasn’t a training sword anymore, but the real thing, held by someone who really did want to do him some harm. He reached for his own blade, but had only got it part of the way free before he felt it being lifted out by a third cultist who had appeared seemingly from nowhere. The sword was snatched away and thrown into the snowy grassland beyond the trees.

Swish!

Again Mark only just had time to dodge the blow, as it whistled past his right ear. Stepping back did, however, have the added benefit of knocking the man behind him off-balance, so that Mark could topple him fully over.

Now there were only two to deal with. And where was Robert? Having fun with his own playmates; Mark saw more and more – rising out of the ground itself, it seemed.

“You think you’re always going to have a weapon to hand? Uh-uh. Nope. But your opponent might.”

That’s what Jack had said, and he’d been right. Mark didn’t have his sword, and they each had one. Well, really big knives that you could probably call swords, but that was splitting hairs.
Think, Mark, think...
how had Azhar done it again?

Mark recalled the way that man had ducked and slid sideways to take the weapon from him. He had just seconds to react, to copy the move he’d witnessed. Now it wasn’t a game, Mark found his body co-operating, his movements less clumsy. Mark grabbed his opponent’s wrist and yanked, but the weapon wouldn’t tug free. The cultist pulled back and readied himself for another thrust. Thinking fast, Mark let his backpack – only hanging over one shoulder – slide down his arm; then, as the blade came into range, he wrapped the thing in the material, yanking down until the machete fell out of the man’s hands. As Mark bent forward to retrieve it, the first attacker fell over him and he instinctively followed through: standing and flipping him, letting his attacker’s momentum do all the work.

Snatching up the machete, Mark met the second attacker’s swing; the clash made his teeth rattle. The third joined in and suddenly Mark had to block his blows as well. That was one of the major differences between real combat and practising on your own: trees and fences didn’t fight back. These people did, and by all accounts they didn’t stop till one of you had stopped for good.

Mark batted away the attacks, using sheer desperation rather than finesse to carry him through. It was keeping him alive... so far. What he didn’t know was how he was going to keep this going indefinitely, especially as the remaining cultist was rising from the floor. Rising, and searching around for Mark’s sword.

What would Robert do in this situation?
he wondered. What was he doing right now, in fact?

That wasn’t the right thing to ask, to get him out of this – so he asked himself quickly instead:
What would Dale do?

What would Dale do if Sophie was watching?