Dark Ages

COPYRIGHT

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events of localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper Voyager

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Copyright © John Pritchard 1998

John Pritchard asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

For permission to reproduce copyright material the author would like to thank the following:

Lyrics from Sell Out (words & music by Simon Friend, Charles Heather, Mark Chadwick, Jonathan Sevink & Jeremy Cunningham) © 1991 Empire Music Ltd, 47 British Grove, London W4 for the World. Used by permission of Music Sales Ltd. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

Lyrics from The Fear (words & music by Simon Friend, Charles Heather, Mark Chadwick, Jonathan Sevink & Jeremy Cunningham) © 1995 Empire Music Ltd, 47 British Grove, London W4 for the World. Used by permission of Music Sales Ltd. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

Lyrics from Forgotten Ground (words & music by Simon Friend, Charles Heather, Mark Chadwick, Jonathan Sevink & Jeremy Cunningham) © 1995 Empire Music Ltd, 47 British Grove, London W4 for the World. Used by permission of Music Sales Ltd. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

Lyrics from Tell Me about the Forest, by Dead Can Dance, © 1993, reproduced by kind permission of Beggars Banquet Music/Momentum Music.

Lyrics from The People who Stumbled in Darkness, by Roger Ruston, reproduced by kind permission of the author.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780006496373

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008219499

Version: 2016-10-26

DEDICATION

To

Mum and Dad,

who laid the deep foundations.

Michael Wood,

who made the past alive.

and F.M.E.,

who’s still my leading lady.

EPIGRAPH

Behind them, to divide the carrion meat,

They left the raven, dark and shadow-clad,

With cruel beak; the dun-cloaked eagle too,

With his white tail – exulting in the feast,

A hungry battle-hawk; and the grey beast,

The wolf of the deep woods …

THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE, 937

Watchman, what is left of the night?

Watchman, what is left?

The watchman replies:

Dawn is coming, and also the dark.

ISAIAH 21:11 – 12

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

PROLOGUE (1989)

Rising Signs

PART ONE WATCHERS (1993)

I Spire Dreams

II Grey Ravens

III Cross of Iron

IV Testament

V Heaven and Hell

VI No Man’s Land

VII Running Blind

VIII The Waste Down

PART TWO SLEEPERS

I Fiends and Ashes

II Out of the Deep

III Predicator

IV Mind and Memory

V Dreams and Decay

VI Grief Riders

PART THREE SHADOWS

I Green Blades Rising

II On Earth as It Is in Hell

III Wessexena Sky

IV Moonblade

V Harrow Path

VI Home from the Hill

VII Our Summer

PART FOUR HUNTERS

I The Watchman’s Mark

II Odysseus

III Stranger

IV Wolf Hook

V Witch Hunt

VI Tare Dog

VII Circle of Sorrow

VIII The Anger of God

IX Lightning East to West

X No Graves on Badon Hill

PART FIVE RAIDERS

I Land-Waster

II Bone Fire

III Celebrant

IV The Lych-Road

V Fields of Blood

VI The Fell Tale of the West

VII Dark Moon Rising

VIII The Sermon of the Wolf

PART SIX MARTYRS

I Massacre Is My Forgiveness

II A Thousand Silver Pieces on the Black

III True Cross

IV Dead Men Ride

V In Search of Holy England

VI Night in Gehenna

VII Requiem

VIII Dominion

PART SEVEN PILGRIMS

I Liberation

II Inferno

III The Rage of Killing

IV Mystic and Severe

V Hell’s Ditch

VI Winter Runes

PART EIGHT WARRIORS

I Forgotten Ground

II On the White Hill

III Saint and Sorceress

IV Reprisal Weapons

V The Saying of the Swords

VI Wilderness

VII Black Cavalry

VIII Hard Standing

IX Legion

X Snake

PART NINE RAVENS

I Book of Shadows

II The Betrayed

III The Field of Blades

IV The Cat, the Wolf and the Dog

V Scorpion Gate

VI The Fire of the Dove

VII The End of the River

VIII A Roof for a Skyful of Stars

EPILOGUE

So Close that There Is Nothing in Between

Keep Reading

Author’s Note

About the Author

Other Books By

About the Publisher

Prologue

RISING SIGNS

(1989)

As touching the terrors of the night, they are as many as our sins. The night is the Devil’s black book, wherein he recordeth all our transgressions.

Thomas Nashe

She had no truck with horoscopes. No way could someone’s future be predicted by the stars. And yet, as Frances glanced at them with casual disinterest, her own was written there for her to see.

The sky tonight was orange and polluted, but frosty sparks were showing here and there. The only shapes she recognized were two her mum had shown her – out in the back, one bedtime, long ago. From the flyover embankment, she could see them well enough. The Great Bear, rising upward from the dark fields to the north; and setting in the west, the Northern Cross.

Cars passed fitfully, racing westward through the night; the junction left behind before they knew it. In the lengthy gaps between them, the dark and silent countryside drew closer. Fran turned on the spot, then pulled back her glove to check her watch. Just past midnight. They’d got here first this time.

Wrapping her long coat closer, she went back to the car. It was parked up a service road, just short of the underpass. The others had sat tight; she didn’t blame them. Paul leaned across to open the passenger door, and she climbed in, drawing a shivery breath between her teeth.

‘Anything?’

Fran shook her head. ‘Dead quiet.’

The CB crackled briefly, then lapsed into an empty, spooky hiss. She gave it a glance. The set was clamped below the dashboard, its digits glowing green.

‘Nothing on that?’

His turn to shake his head. ‘Not since Merlin.’

Ten minutes since that last, half-garbled contact. As if the silence of the night had clogged the airwaves. The sense of isolation was insidious: creeping up. Bullington Cross felt cut off from the world – a lonely, lamplit island in the murk.

‘Want some coffee?’ asked Marie from the back. Fran turned gratefully in her seat, and took the thermos cup she proffered. The coffee was too hot to taste: a gulp of scalding water. She wriggled as it seared its way down.

‘So when are we going to meet this boyfriend of yours?’ Marie teased in her ear.

Fran turned her nose up coyly. ‘When I let you.’

‘Knows about these midnight escapades, does he?’ Paul murmured.

‘Yeah …’ said Fran. ‘He knows.’ Her eyes flicked down. She took another sip.

‘And does he think you’re mad?’ Kate asked.

‘He thinks I’m bloody crazy.’

Paul grinned at that, and raised the CB handset to his mouth. ‘This is Catkin at Bullington … any news on the convoy, over?’

The edgy pause that followed made them all hunch forward: waiting. The radio snapped and squawked. And then a woman’s voice came through – tone firm but faint with distance.

‘… call for Herbs and Watchers along South Route … Four launchers, two controls, out of Yellow by ten past twelve …’

‘Shit,’ Kate whispered, shifting.

Fran swallowed. ‘Twenty minutes …’ She felt a tingle of relief: it wasn’t a false call. Then her stomach hollowed out. They’re on their way. They’re coming.

Heart thudding, she climbed out; the others followed. Paul unloaded placards from the boot and passed them round. Glancing up, Fran saw that a police car had appeared while they’d been talking: it was parked on the flyover above them, watching the A34.

The four of them walked in silence through the underpass, emerging in the day-glo of the link road. A handful of others were there already. Fran recognized old faces, said hello. Chatting, someone cracked a joke: she giggled with delight. The tension sometimes got to her that way.

A transit van came crawling past, and dropped off several coppers. She watched one cross the road to shine his torch into the woods. The others started spacing out along the nearside kerb.

‘Come far?’ one asked her, amiably enough.

‘Oxford.’

‘So when’ll you be getting to bed tonight?’

She shrugged. ‘God knows.’ Not much before three, if we follow it down. And I’ve got a tutorial in the morning …

‘This may be a silly question, right … but why are you wearing shades at half-past midnight?’

She reached up to adjust them with an impish little grin. ‘To preserve my anonymity, of course.’

‘Famous, are you?’

She shook her head. ‘Notorious, more like.’

The snarl of motorbikes made her heartbeat quicken. She turned her head as the outriders reached the underpass, and paused to rev their engines. Four or five patrolmen, helmets swivelling: waiting for the signal to proceed. They had it a moment later, and peeled off past her, roaring up onto the flyover and westward.

Frivolity had fizzled out. The thump of her heart felt as heavy as lead. Dry-mouthed, she started up towards the crest. A couple of Watchers were waiting there, well-marked. Silent now, the copper matched her pace.

The police car on the flyover came suddenly to life: drove backwards, blue lights flashing, to block the access road. Fran looked beyond it – but the A34 lay empty in the darkness.

A glance back at the others: they’d stayed down in the shadow of the heavy concrete span. But then she’d always been the type to strike out on her own.

A squad car – London plates – came cruising past.

‘Here they come,’ called someone; and turning, she saw the line of lights come streaming down the hill. It nosed into the far side of the system, and came snaking slowly through it: the vehicles still hidden by the roundabout mound, but their noise now rising clearly to her ears.

She’d never forget the noise they made. Above the growl of engines, a clatter and squeak that made her hairs stand up.

Transits and patrol cars rumbled past her, driving steadily upslope onto the flyover – and then the first military vehicle came off the roundabout. A camouflaged command car, riding high on its wheels – a mottled, muddy shape behind the sleek white escorts. Whistles blew; a football rattle whirred. The turnout was too small to do much shouting. But Fran’s voice would have failed her if she’d been among a crowd. All she could do was stare, and search their faces: those bleak, unsmiling faces, staring back.

Pursing her lips, she stepped up to the verge and held her hand up, proffering a silent V for peace. The copper tensed, expecting her to lunge. The first Control was following already – a clanking monster, flexing like a serpent for the turn. She challenged the gaze of its armoured cab: a skull with a sarcophagus in tow. The second rumbled after it – and then the missile launchers, in a sinister cortege, their long, low backs enshrouded with tarpaulins. Engines roared at her, and axles squealed. As each one passed, she saw the double blast-ports at the rear; the missiles resting snugly in their tubes.

Four Cruise launchers: one full flight: the standard monthly exercise deployment. The wrecker came behind them, like an iron scorpion rattling with chains. A rearguard of police vans straggled after; and then the first pursuers came in sight. Used-looking cars, bedecked with CB aerials. Merlin passed, then Elderflower. And here came Torquemada too – a Dominican priest and friars in full regalia.

Everyone on foot was running now: the police for their parked transit, the Watchers for their cars. Fran wavered for a moment – watching the tail-lights fading in the darkness; almost shaking with the force of her reaction. Then she was off and pelting down the hill.

Reaching the car, she scrambled in. The others were all aboard, the engine running. She was still fastening her seatbelt as Paul took off – back through the underpass and onto the convoy’s route. Less than five minutes after its passing, the roads were clear again, the junction silent.

It didn’t take long to catch the convoy up again. They breasted a rise, and the snake of crimson lights was there ahead of them, sharp pulses of blue along its winding length. Soon they were up with the leading Cruisewatch cars. Fran could make out the control trucks at the front of the column, their high sides marked by orange running-lights.

She sat back in her seat, and braced one boot against the dash. Kate and Marie were motionless behind her; Paul’s grim stare was focused on the road.

‘… convoy approaching first Andover bridge …’ someone said on the CB.

Getting on for I a.m., and all the world seemed dead. The chase filled her with nightmarish excitement. As they sped on through the night, she thought of all the unseen eyes that watched them: owls and foxes staring from the copses and fields. But what else might be peering through the hedgerows; what faces in the long pale grass the headlights played across? She couldn’t help but think of ghostly figures, creeping up, to watch this roaring cavalcade go past.

Past Andover, and Thruxton Hill, they reached the long steep incline into Amesbury. Salisbury Plain was spreading to the north: a sea of pitch.

‘I’m going to try and get ahead of it,’ Paul said.

They broke off the pursuit at Amesbury Roundabout – the convoy grinding on towards Stonehenge. Paul put his foot down, speeding up the empty lamp-lit road. At Durrington he spun the wheel: they turned onto the Packway and raced west. Parallel to the convoy’s route; Fran looked and glimpsed its winking lights, a mile to the south.

Behind her, Kate was studying the map. ‘They’ll road-block us at Shrewton, sure as hell.’

‘Any way round?’ Paul called over his shoulder.

‘The road from the Bustard to Westdown Camp. They won’t have covered that.’

‘Right. They might have closed it, though.’

‘It’s worth a try.’

‘Fran?’

‘Go for it,’ Fran said.

They came to Rollestone Crossroads and went tearing north again. The road rose up, and let them see for miles; then dipped again. Darkness stretched away in all directions, but strange red lights were glowing here and there. The fringes of the firing range were coming up ahead.

Fran hung on, and braced herself. The Bustard vedette showed up in the headlamps as Paul swerved onto the narrow westbound road. No one was there to see them pass. The lonely sentry hut was locked and dark.

The unlit military road led up towards West Down. It might have been a country lane; Paul took it at exhilarating speed. The murk out here was dense and overwhelming: trapped beneath the starlight like a layer of London smog. Fran straightened up, and peered through her window, still searching for the string of phantom lights.

Then Paul yelled: ‘Jesus, SHIT!’

She swung around, and saw it in the headlights: a figure in the middle of the road. A featureless, inhuman face, with gaping holes for eyes.

Paul wrenched the wheel, and lost control.

The car went slewing off the road and plunged into a ditch. The bonnet crumpled up, the windscreen shattered. Fran was thrown against her belt: the impact mashed the breath from her lungs. Her head struck something hard and bounded off. Stunned, she felt herself flop back.

The world had just stopped dead.

She lolled there for a moment, sick and winded. Her whole head had gone numb – as if a piece of it was missing. Cold night air blew softly on her face.

Something started fizzing by her knees. Sparks, she thought, oh Jesus, we’ll catch fire. Galvanized, she struggled with her belt – and glanced at Paul. He was slumped against the wheel, head down. ‘Paul … ?’ she quavered, reaching out to take hold of his shoulder. She shook him, hard. He made no sound.

The muffled sizzling came again. She cringed away – then realized it was just the CB set: skew-whiff on its rack, but still lit up. She peered at it stupidly. Someone whimpered softly from behind her.

‘… convoy coming into Tilshead now …’

Help, she thought, and groped round for the handset. She found it dangling; scooped it up.

The radio hissed at her.

Fran recoiled again, as if she’d just picked up a snake. The hiss broke into eerie gibberish: almost like another voice, but mangled and tormented. Fear lanced through her. She dropped the handset, fought against her door and felt it give. She slithered out, and rolled onto the grass.

The headlamps were still on: staring and blind, like a dead thing’s eyes. The tail-lights left a bloody trail that almost reached the road.

They tinged the silhouette that waited there.

Someone in the car was weeping quietly. Ignoring them, she peered towards the road. Her mind flashed up the face she’d glimpsed. She thought its horrid gauntness had been muffled by a hood.

A soldier. In a gas mask?

But then the figure started coming forward. Something about its shambling gait made her struggle to her feet. Then the scarlet glow lit up the face beneath the cowl.

Oh Jesus Christ.

A metal mask stared back at her: brow and cheekbones setting off the tar-pits of the eyes. The lower face remained scarfed up in shadow. The sight was almost toad-like – and revolting. She stumbled back – then swung around and fled. Clear of the car, and out into the darkness of the range.

The shadow thing came striding in pursuit.

I

WATCHERS

(1993)

Beautiful city! … Whispering from its towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age … Home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs.

MATTHEW ARNOLD, ON OXFORD

CHAPTER I

Spire Dreams

1

Lynette caught sight of her from over the road, and gave a little wave. The gesture, like her smile, was almost shy; but her pretty face was bright with expectation.

Fran almost turned and walked away right then.

It had taken her so long to get this far. She hadn’t even answered that first letter. But Lynette had patiently persisted: so gentle, so committed, that all at once, one afternoon, Fran’s brittle shell had cracked. She’d wept a year’s worth of tears that day; her mum had told her later what a blessed sound it was – drifting downstairs from the bedroom through the silent, sunlit hall. After all those months of torpor and withdrawal, her daughter sobbing like a little girl.

More letters; then a phone call. We have to meet, Lynette had said. And Fran was feeling better, but still delicate and drained – as if she’d just brought up the poison of the world’s worst tummy ache. She’d hesitated; hummed and hawed. The soft voice on the phone was a voice from the past. And the past was forbidden ground.

Yet here she was, right now, in sunny Oxford, nervously waiting while Lynette crossed the street. As ever, Lyn looked gorgeous – a picture of elegance in her smart black trouser suit and snowy blouse. Fran suddenly felt dowdy in her cardigan and leggings.

Lyn hesitated for a moment, then gently touched her shoulders – kissed her cheek. When she drew back, her smile looked stretched; her eyes were bright and wet.

Fran felt her own eyes prickling behind the shades she wore. Her throat had tightened up, she couldn’t speak. That smile was from the Old Days: from Before. She’d almost forgotten what the sunshine looked like – the nuclear winter in her head had blotted it all out. But now, at last, the cold, black smoke was lifting. A glimpse of light again. A breath of spring.

And more than that: her friend was here, and beaming her delight. It made Fran warm inside, to see her pleasure. It made her feel so happy she could cry.

Lyn had worked so hard for this. She’d earned it. Fran wanted just to hug her, and hold tight.

‘Oh, God … Sorry …’ Lyn blinked and sniffed, still smiling. People kept on passing, heedless of the reunion in their midst. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she said simply.

Fran swallowed. ‘Thanks for waiting.’ An even bigger under-statement, but she couldn’t find a better way to say it. And had it only been four years? She felt like Rip van Winkle (Sleeping Beauty was too flattering a parallel): waking up to find the world had changed, and all her friends were dust …