whole Uprising, only a battered remnant of the WFA smashed its way to Westgate. And there in the smoke- and snow-drenched darkness, the Poles and the SS grappled with each other in hate-filled fury, their firefight enveloping the gateway.
But in the end the sheer bloody-mindedness of the Poles triumphed and Trixie led her fighters out of the Ghetto.
The fighting provided the perfect cover of chaos and mayhem for Ella, Vanka and Rivets – together, of course, with Ella’s twelve dutiful disciples – to make their escape.
But rather than going towards the river as Ella had expected, Vanka headed for Middlegate. The reason was made clear thirty minutes later, when they were crouched by a barbed-wire fence that surrounded what looked like a flat, treeless playing field.
‘Where are we?’ whispered Ella as she scrolled through PINC.
Vanka was quicker with his answer. ‘Welcome to the John Hanning Speke Balloon-O-Drome, home to the First Aerial Detachment of the ForthRight Observation Corps.’
Ella peered out into the darkness that shrouded the Balloon-O-Drome. There, gently swaying in the breeze, she could just make out the bulbous form of a balloon. The penny dropped. ‘You mean us to fly to ExterSteine?’
Vanka nodded enthusiastically. ‘It’s the only way. Anyway, I’ve always wanted to go up in a balloon. We’re fifteen miles from ExterSteine and it’s only’ – he checked his watch – ‘five hours to dawn and as the wind shifts to the east between midnight and six in the morning it’s a perfect time. By my reckoning ExterSteine is almost due east, so all we’ll do is let the wind carry us in that direction until we see the standing stones and then let out the hydrogen from the balloon and…’
‘Crash?’
‘Sink gracefully to the ground,’ he corrected. ‘Look, Ella, I know it’s a pretty madcap sort of scheme but unless you can think of a better way of us getting to ExterSteine before dawn, this is all that’s on offer.’
‘It’s madness.’
‘You’re not frightened of heights, are you?’
‘It’s not the heights that frighten me, it’s the depths that come rushing up to greet you when you crash that I’ve always found discouraging.’
‘Don’t worry, Ella, flying can’t be that difficult.’
‘You’re not suggesting you’re going to fly it!’
‘Of course,’ answered Vanka casually. ‘Who else? Anyway, it’ll be fun!’
‘Fun? That’s a hydrogen balloon you’re talking about: one bullet and we’ll be toast.’
‘It’s night: no one will see us.’
‘What about the guards? They’re not just gonna let us waltz in and steal one of their balloons.’
‘Most of them will be drunk by now. It’s Spring Eve and everybody gets drunk on Spring Eve. And if there are any guards who aren’t drunk then your Disciples will settle them.’
Before Ella quite knew what was happening Vanka flourished a pair of wire-cutters, cut a hole in the fence and she was running behind him towards the balloon. All the guards protecting the Balloon-O-Drome must have been drunk as no one challenged them, or maybe none of them believed that anyone would be mad enough to steal a balloon. Closer to, the balloon looked enormous but very fragile. The canvas of the cover was stretched over a thin bamboo frame, and the basket that hung beneath was woven from what looked to be wholly inadequate wicker.
‘There isn’t room for more than two or three people in that basket. What are the rest of us going to do?’
‘Don’t worry about them,’ answered Vanka. ‘Rivets will come with us – he’s only little. The rest will be all right. They’re tough guys and they’ll make their way to the Quartier somehow. But I think they’d appreciate it if you said a few words of thanks before we go.’
‘How about a prayer?’ suggested Ella, only partly in jest.
Once out of the Ghetto, it was every man and woman for themselves. It was impossible for Trixie to control or to command the survivors of the WFA. So far as she could judge, the chance of their being able to fight through Odessa and St Petersburg to the Anichkov Bridge was very slim.
But the peculiar thing was that now, when they were at their most vulnerable, the SS threat had receded. There were still fire-fights going on all around the perimeter of the Ghetto, but not with quite the intensity of before. It seemed that – despite her father’s misgivings – their plan to escape through Westgate had worked: there were hardly any regular ForthRight Army soldiers defending the route south through Rodina to the Coven. But there was still a march of almost fifteen miles ahead of them and by the look of her soldiers that would be fifteen miles too far.
Wysochi provided the solution. Using a sharp tongue and a blunt boot, he drove the fighters up onto their feet and off searching for steamers. These he commandeered at the point of a rifle, and soon a veritable motorised regiment was puffing through the streets of Rodina, each steamer crammed full of fighters. It took them an hour to get to the Anichkov Bridge, and as the convoy wheezed to a halt by the side of the Volga River, she could see that now just the half-mile span of the bridge separated the WFA from the safety of Rangoon.
But as Trixie studied the bridge, her father’s observation began to trouble her. She had expected the whole length of the St Petersburg bank of the Volga to be alive with ForthRight assault troops as they prepared to attack the Coven, but it was virtually empty. Certainly, there was a sizeable force of SS defending the bridge, but that’s all they were doing: defending it. One thing for sure was they weren’t attacking the Coven.
‘Have you seen my father?’ she asked Wysochi.
‘No, though I’ve heard that he took his men east.’
East?
For a moment Trixie felt hurt… betrayed. How could her father have deserted her on tonight of all nights?
‘There’s no ForthRight Army waiting to attack, Sergeant.’
Wysochi shrugged. ‘The ForthRight have probably delayed the attack because of the weather. No one wants to advance into the teeth of a blizzard.’
Trixie nodded. It was a sensible explanation and better than her father’s idea that Heydrich had changed his mind and abandoned the attack on the Coven. Leaders like Heydrich didn’t change their mind; that smacked of weakness.
‘How many men do we have left?’ she asked.
‘Maybe a couple of thousand,’ Wysochi guessed. ‘It was hot work.’ He cocked an ear back towards St Petersburg. ‘And the SS aren’t far behind us.’ He was right: even with only one good ear she could hear SS steamers advancing towards them through the chilled silence of the night.
‘Can we force the bridge?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think we have any other choice, Colonel. And if we’re going to do it we should do it soon, otherwise we’re going to end up as meat in an SS sandwich.’
At a signal from Trixie, the remaining WFA fighters attacked the bridge and it was an attack that soon degenerated into mayhem. Later, all she could remember was ordering their steamers to smash through the barricades defending the bridge: the rest was just a blur of firing, fighting, yelling and cursing. The SS detachment stationed on the St Petersburg end of the bridge had obviously not expected to be attacked from the rear but they fought bravely and the cost of the victory was appalling.
When Trixie eventually arrived on the Coven side of the bridge, she was flanked by only a tattered and battered rump of the army of seven thousand men and women she’d led over the barricades just two hours before.
‘The Sacrifice of Blood?’
Crowley laughed at her concern. ‘Oh, don’t fret yourself, Daemon, your life isn’t to be forfeit. I just need a little of your blood to seal the psychic union between you and Lady Aaliz.’
He gestured to the Witchfinder, who moved forward with an evil-looking knife clasped in his hand.
‘Hold out the Daemon’s forearm,’ commanded Crowley.
‘No way!’
But there were too many of them to resist. They forced her right arm out and the Witchfinder ran the tip of his knife along it, slicing a six-inch cut in her pale flesh. Immediately blood began to run, collected in a gold goblet
