Arrowhead

'So what were you doing when the virus hit?' asked Robert.

'Working in a gym again, believe it or not. I was teaching classes at a Health and Fitness Centre this time – qualifications in wrestling, no less.'

Finlayson told them what had happened when the virus had hit. It was the same old story. The people either clogging the doctors' surgeries or hospitals, taking to their homes, or dropping in the streets. Robert listened, trying not to let his mind go back to his own experiences, trying not to think of Stevie and Joanne. After The Cull, Finlayson, like so many others, had taken off for a quieter spot. 'Guess I finally saw the wisdom of getting away from it all like my folks had done, all those years ago. Things were gettin' too, I don't know, out of control in the towns and cities.'

'Didn't you have anyone… anybody that you left behind?' asked Robert, then immediately said: 'Wait, don't answer that. It's none of my business.'

Finlayson didn't seem to mind. 'You mean a gal, a family and such? No woman's ever been able to pin me down, if you'll pardon the expression. As for family, they were all the way over in the US. Like I say, my Mom died before all this, thank the Lord. My Dad… He wouldn't have made it.'

'How do you know?'

'Wrong kinda blood.'

They sat in silence for a while then, before Finlayson broke the quiet.

'I sometimes get to thinkin' about what happened over there, what it's like back in the States. You know anything?'

Robert shook his head. 'I've been a bit out of touch. You never thought about returning, to see for yourself?'

'It's not my home anymore. This is. Which brings me to why I'm in Sherwood Forest. Word's spreadin' about what's gone on here. Stories about a hooded man helping the communities, about how he took on a bunch of men single-handed at a market and won. About how he gave back food and supplies to those who've been robbed by that son of a bitch holed up at the castle, pardon my p's and q's. I figure that you've got a cause I wouldn't mind fighting for.'

Mark must have caught the look of shock on Robert's face, because he added, 'You can't be that surprised they've heard of you. There aren't too many people, too many communities left.'

'Not only have they heard of you,' Finlayson chipped in, 'some of 'em want to join you. Not many folk care for a bully. Anyway, I thought to myself, hooded man in Nottingham… in Sherwood… hmm. I'm pretty damned big, maybe I ought to be in the runnin' for one of the starring roles in that flick.'

Robert quickly glossed over the obvious reference. 'We thought you were one of De Falaise's men. We thought you'd come here to kill me.'

'Nope,' Finlayson confirmed. 'I came to offer my services.'

'So why the fight, why creep up on us like this?'

'To show you what I could do. And to see just how good the set up was, if the stories were true about you… Like they say, you never really know a man till you fight him.'

'What's that, some kind of mystical thing?'

'Actually, it's from one of them Matrix movies,' chuckled Finlayson. 'Man, I really miss films, don't you?'

Robert found himself laughing, too. It felt weird, alien even. But good. He stepped forward and offered his hand again; this time in friendship. Finlayson shook it immediately.

'I won't let you down.'

'I know,' came Robert's reply. He looked at the staff he was holding. 'I think you might be needing this. It's more you than me, anyway.' He handed Jack the weapon and the man smiled. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Mark grinning wildly. 'Right, well, I think we ought to introduce you to a few people.'

Robert ushered the big man into the forest and then waited for Mark to fall in behind. If Finlayson was right, if there were enough people like him willing to fight, then maybe things could go their way after all.

And if the struggle against De Falaise could be turned around, well, maybe a few other things could be too.

CHAPTER TWELVE

After a while you grew accustomed to the screams.

De Falaise had learnt this fairly early on in his career. He was damned sure Tanek had as well. In fact, the huge slab of a man in front of him had probably been born with the capacity to shut out the cries of pain. Or was it more than that, was it that sometimes you could grow to actually enjoy hearing them, find them just as pleasing as a Beethoven symphony?

When it came right down to it, this represented everything De Falaise was about. The strong having control over the weak. And he had all of his troops' lives in the palms of his hands, could send for any of them at any time and just pop a bullet into their skull as an example. But there was something infinitely more satisfying about doing it this way. It was the difference between a nuclear explosion destroying a city, killing millions, and a laser cutting out a tumour. Meticulous work. De Falaise had observed Tanek's technique on many occasions. He'd seen Tanek extract information from the most reluctant of sources, men De Falaise thought would never crack. In the end they all did, it was just a matter of pushing the right buttons.

Which brought him back to the screams. Down here, away from prying eyes, and illuminated by a jury-rigged lighting system, Tanek laboured at his work. The subjects this time: two men and a woman. All were hanging in chains. None of them knew each other, but they did have one thing in common. They'd all been turned in for speaking about The Hooded Man: at markets, gatherings in villages, on street corners. De Falaise had his spies, so scared to put a foot wrong they'd rather turn in those who had befriended them than risk being brought down to these caves themselves.

The reports that were filtering back were displeasing. Yes, people were frightened of the Frenchman, as well they should be. A legend was forming around De Falaise, of what he did to anyone who opposed him, what he did under the castle with his prisoners. But the stories of initial attacks on villages by his men had only been rife for a short time. Now other tales were being spread.

These new stories revolved around Henrik and the tank, around Javier's incompetence in the forest (for which he'd not only lost his ear, but his freedom down in these dungeons). This last outrage had made De Falaise so angry that in a fit of rage he'd ordered the statue outside the castle to be torn down…

Word had also spread about the soldiers who'd swapped their allegiance. De Falaise had put paid to any such ideas of resistance amongst his own men quickly enough, by stringing the bodies of the soldiers who had returned with Javier up on posts in the courtyard for all to see. He'd even called a gathering to say a few words about their presence. 'This is the price of failure,' he'd shouted. 'Look upon it, and mark that it is not yourself next time!'

But if De Falaise was inspiring dread among not only the populace, but his own army, then this man who was following in the footsteps of an old legend was sending out another message. One of hope, of freedom.

And hardly surprising: in the past weeks since De Falaise had lost Savero – another one of his elite – and the goods he was carrying, there had been more attacks, more losses. It was clear that if something wasn't done soon, the tide could very swiftly turn against him.

'I will not lose everything I've worked so hard for,' he'd screamed at Tanek, 'not because of some half-breed savage with a knife and a bow and arrow!'

It was clear that this man – whose real name De Falaise did not even know – had learned a lot about him, and his plans. De Falaise intended to redress the balance.

Hence these three prisoners had been cherry picked because they were shooting their mouths off about the hooded man. They'd been bundled into the backs of jeeps under armed guard, brought to the castle, and deposited here in one of the dank chambers De Falaise had requisitioned for his needs. Or more specifically for Tanek's.

The girl he'd taken as his plaything would end up in the dungeons soon, too, De Falaise thought to himself. He was growing tired of her. The limp rag doll impression he'd found such a turn on at first was growing wearisome to say the least. While it was true he preferred no resistance, he was not a huge fan of necrophilia, either.

Another scream brought his attention back to the prisoners. Tanek was applying a hot iron to the oldest of