The End (49 page)

What could Shadowman do, though? From here the army was just a solid mass. He remembered how he’d once shot a bolt blindly into a group of St George’s sickos who’d been killing some children. Where had that been? Somewhere up near Hampstead Heath? Later on he’d discovered that, against all the odds, he’d hit a sicko in the chest. And that had been Spike.

What were the chances of
hitting anyone important from up here?

He got out his binoculars and scanned the battlefield.

And then he saw the tall woman. With the long, straight hair. The one who had organized the attack on Yo-Yo. There she was, her head towering above the crouched and slouching sickos around her. She was leading a large group of them, round the back of the main army and down the side.
Shadowman could see that her plan was to attack the rear of the kids who were engaged in a hard-fought stand on this side of the battlefield.

Shadowman swung his binoculars round, trained them on the kids. He could just make out Ryan, Achilleus and Jackson, battling hard among the swarming sickos.

He aimed his crossbow carefully at the Tall Woman. Loosed off a shot. Missed.
Was she too far away?

Calmly he fitted another bolt. Aimed again and missed again. He had hit Spike when he hadn’t been aiming for him, but that had been pure luck. Up here like this, from this distance …

He thought of all the kids he’d known who’d died in the last year. Too many to count. And then there were all the kids he hadn’t known, the nameless kids he’d watched die at
the hands of sickos.

He thought of the boy in Waitrose – his head carried out on a stick by St George. He thought of all the kids across north London, pulled out of their hiding places, torn apart and eaten. He thought of Yo-Yo, disappearing through the window. Thought about how he hadn’t been able to save her …

The third bolt hit home firmly between the Tall Woman’s shoulder
blades and she fell down. Instantly her group broke up, all sense of purpose gone. Like a pulled thread from a woven pattern, the sicko army lost its shape.

Could one person make a difference?

Shadowman climbed down from the scaffold tower and started to work his way round towards where Achilleus was fighting for his life.

It was time to join the battle.

75

Ollie was so wiped out he wondered if he was going nuts. Losing it big time. Hearing things that couldn’t be there. Things from the past. From television and films. The
old
world. Gunshots, car horns, engines, horses …

He was packed into a tight corner, his sword rising and falling, rising and falling … One by one the children around him were going down. He’d lost
track of Maxie and Blue and the Twisted Kids. His focus had narrowed down to the small area in front of him, killing any sickos that came into it, his arm ready to drop off, his lungs on fire, his guts in a tight, painful knot.

And then he felt something, a subtle release of pressure, as if a taut wire holding the sickos together had snapped. They fell back and Ollie could take
a deep breath. He heard distant cheers and shouts of encouragement. What was happening? One way to find out. He smashed his way over to the ladder, managed to haul himself up to the roof of the LookOut. Jordan was back up there, Blu-Tack Bill whispering in his ear.

‘What is it?’ said Ollie. ‘What’s changed?’

Bill pointed and Ollie looked out over the park to the west, not
trusting his eyes. He rubbed his aching temples, looked again.

He wasn’t going nuts. He wasn’t imagining things. There was a line of cars advancing across the park, pickup trucks with troops in the back, other kids riding horses. He saw a boy and a girl dressed in gold on big white chargers.

At the front was a blue people carrier. Could it be the one that Ed had left in? Ollie
watched as it stopped and the doors slid open.

Yes. It
was
Ed. With Kyle and Lewis and Brooke and Ebenezer. Trinity as well. And Ella with a boy who had a horribly scarred face. Ed was already shouting commands. Kids were leaping down from the trucks. Others were firing arrows, rifles.

Ollie laughed.

‘It’s Ed,’ he shouted. ‘The cavalry’s arrived. It’s Ed! We’re gonna do
this, Jordan. We’re gonna beat St George.’

He looked around wildly, trying to see if any of Jordan’s trumpeters were alive. Saw a huddle of them hiding among some wheelie bins at the rear of the LookOut.

‘Up here!’ he screamed. ‘Get up here and bring your trumpets.’

He turned to Jordan. ‘We need to break out of this camp,’ he said. ‘Lead us out of here so we can join up
with Ed.’

Jordan nodded, started giving orders to the trumpeters who were scrambling up to join them. Soon their horns were blaring, giving hope to all the kids who were fighting in small knots across the park. Ollie could see Matt’s banners and a clump of green kids in the middle. Further away, Will and Hayden with a group of Tower kids, trapped among some trees; in another
circle, to the right, were Jackson, Achilleus and Ryan.

Ollie was waving his arms and yelling, though there was no way they could hear him.

‘Don’t give up! Ed’s back. Join together.’

He shook Jordan.

‘Tell the trumpeters,’ he said. ‘Tell them that we all need to join together.’

‘I’ve told ’em, soldier,’ said Jordan. ‘It’s happening. I’ve given the signals. So
let’s go.’

Ollie glanced at Ed’s troops who were slowly advancing. Archers firing flat and low, javelin and spear throwers hurling their weapons into the retreating sickos; those with guns taking careful aim, experienced fighters charging in.

Ollie jumped down from the platform, flushed with a new energy and hope. Jordan’s ragged troops were starting to form a line. Jordan
came down and forced some sense of order and discipline into the weary mob.

And then they were moving, across the camp, cutting down any sickos who tried to stop them, out through the gap between the barricades, out into the main body of St George’s army.

Jackson had sensed the change as well. Two changes. First a loosening of discipline among the already wild sickos and now a
loss of fight. As if they knew they were beaten. For the first time they were retreating.

‘This is new,’ she said and Achilleus grunted.

They heard the trumpets sounding and Jackson tried to remember what all the different commands meant.

‘I think we need to try and join up with the rest of the army,’ she said as something clicked into place in her exhausted brain. ‘A
last rally.’

‘Come on then,’ said Achilleus. He was a fierce sight, caked with blood, some dark and drying, some fresh and bright. She looked down at herself. Knew she must look
the same. Ryan’s leather was black with gore, ripped in patches, the bits of fur he wore matted and dripping.

‘Let’s move it,’ he said and the three of them were shouting commands, forming their kids
into a tighter unit. There were maybe a third of them left from when they’d started. Nearly all of Nicola’s kids were dead. The last to die had been Bozo, still wearing his policeman’s helmet. But the new arrivals from the museum hadn’t done much better. Jackson had seen Boggle stabbed through the heart as he’d tried to save a friend from a group of young mothers.

Maybe if they
could link up with other fighters the rest of them had a chance of surviving this.

They started to push their way across the slippery grass, keeping the barricades on their left as protection, their strongest fighters on the right to keep the sickos back, aiming towards the few remaining green banners of Matt’s group in the middle of the park. On the way they picked up smaller,
isolated groups of fighting kids, swelling their numbers as they trudged on. It wasn’t a question of fighting. All they could do was push and shove and smash sickos out of their way.

They
were
advancing, though, slowly and agonizingly. Protecting each other. Jackson found herself crushed up against Achilleus, struggling to breathe as her chest and lungs were squeezed by the crush
of bodies.

‘Don’t give up, girl,’ he said.

‘Not planning to, boy,’ she replied.

Achilleus rammed his spear point into a father’s mouth and he dropped out of their way.

But they were stuck now, too many bodies in front of them.

‘This way!’ It was Shadowman, off to their right. He had taken charge of a smaller group and they’d cut a path towards Matt’s kids.

‘Push right!’ Jackson yelled. ‘Go right!’

Their unit wheeled, pulling round the dense knot of sickos who’d been blocking their path. Moved quicker, Shadowman falling in beside her and Achilleus. And then Jackson looked up. She could see a banner fluttering in the breeze above their heads.

They’d made it to Matt. The pressure was relieved as the two groups joined together
and filled out into a circle. There was Matt, surrounded by the last shattered survivors from St Paul’s. They were singing and Matt was yelling something incoherent about angels that Jackson couldn’t understand at all.

‘Together,’ Jackson ordered them. ‘Stay together. We’re moving on. We have to link up with the main army.’

With the St Paul’s kids joining their force, they
were able to push on faster, the sickos moving away from them. Jackson had even joined in the singing, wordlessly, just bellowing out a noise, bellowing out the joy of still being alive.

They walked, side by side, they speeded up, they broke into a run, they charged past sickos, swatting at them as they went, and at last they met Jordan’s forces who were erupting from the encampment.
Now they were one army. And Jordan was taking charge. Leading them on westwards.

They formed into a massive fighting unit with Jordan, Achilleus, Ryan, Jackson, Maxie, Blue and Ollie at the front. Jackson had no idea where exactly they were heading or why. She was just happy to follow Jordan. He seemed to have a plan.

The sickos had lost all discipline now. They even appeared
to have lost the will to fight. They were hurrying away from Jordan’s force. But there was more fighting up ahead. The sickos were running on to the weapons of another unit.

And then Jackson saw what was happening. Reinforcements had arrived. Ed had returned. Jordan was linking his forces up with his.

And what forces! Jordan could see cars and vans, trucks, kids on horses
with lances, archers, kids with guns …

‘Halle-bloody-lujah!’ Jackson shouted, and lunged at a mother who came close, smashing her spear into the sicko’s face, destroying her nose and upper jaw.

Hallelujah. Lord knows where Ed had found his own army, but thank God he had.

Jordan’s troops surged in and linked up with them, and they turned as one and attacked. Now was the
time to kill. To take their revenge. There was no stopping the kids now. Jackson knew they would be merciless, utterly merciless, in flattening the disorderly remains of St George’s army.

A war cry of triumph erupted along the lines, as steadily they drove forward, cutting, slicing, stabbing, pushing, crushing skulls with clubs, splitting bones with sword and axe.

Destroying
the threat that had terrified them for the last year. Preyed on them. Ruined their lives.

Jackson spotted Ed, his scarred face cold and terrifying, moving like a machine, Kyle at his side with a look of intense joy on his face.

They were going to win.

76

It had been one of the tensest few hours that Ed could remember. Ironic, really, as nothing had actually happened – there had been no threat, no sign of any sickos, no danger on the road until they’d come rumbling into Hyde Park.

But the journey had still seemed to take forever. Made almost unbearable by the fact that he’d had no idea what to expect when he got here.
Trinity had picked up the message from the Twisted Kids, blurted it out – ‘The boy was dead, the kids need your help, hurry before it’s too late …’

Too late for what? Ed had some of the toughest fighters he’d ever met with him. The toughest and best equipped. They had vehicles, which meant they could travel fast. But not fast enough. What if they were too late? Would the day
end in blood and disappointment?

And then when they’d got here, seeing the park full of so many sickos, living and dead, for a moment Ed had been afraid, wondering what they could do. But then the battle fury had come on him.