Bloodtide

'It's my time,' said Val.

I thought, your time? Is all this death just so Odin can pick you up? There's a saying, see – to go to Odin. To die. My father believed that all this was nothing more than Odin arranging the manner of his death.

We watched him get close, then he disappeared from the screen as he climbed up onto the car. You could hear him crawling on the roof. Then – BANG BANG BANG – he was pounding on the hatch. Val stood there staring upwards.

'It's some trick of Conor's,' I insisted, but even I didn't believe it. I could feel the knife by my side like a living thing; that was enough to let me know this was nothing to do with Conor. And something else – everything had gone so quiet. You could still hear the shells, but it all sounded distant, like chestnuts popping in a fire, even though we were only a couple of streets away.

Val lifted his arm up to open the hatch. Ben screeched, 'No!'

Even Had, in a mess on the floor, had cottoned on to what was happening. 'Don't go, don't go!' he groaned.

Outside a spatter of bullets crackled against the metal of the armoured car.

'We can still get away if…' I began. But I was interrupted by more pounding – BANG BANG BANG!

'We can never get away from him,' said Val.

I pulled at Val's arm. Ben was tugging desperately at his clothes. Val said, 'Let go.' And we did, at once. That was how used we were to obeying him.

From above came a fury of banging, as if the god was having a tantrum outside. Val stared up at the hatch. 'I can't avoid the time of my death, but I can face it in my own manner,' he said. But I've never seen his face look so strange.

Val leaned up and pushed open the trap door. The sounds came rushing in upon us again – people screaming, guns roaring. It was deafening, we all flinched back. There was no sign of Odin. Val turned to face us one last time and tried to yell above the racket. I missed the first bit.

'…prisoners squabbling in the exercise yard.'

He put his arms up, ready to pull himself up.

'One of you get away. Even one,' were his last words to us. He was looking at me, then he glanced down to the knife I wore at my side. I knew what he meant. Odin had chosen me. I thought, yeah, great, and he's chosen you, too.

Then he hoisted himself up and out. I didn't see the meeting between Odin and my father. We crowded round the narrow window, but there was no sign of either of the dead men. A shell landed near to us and blasted the trap door shut. I thought I caught a glimpse of someone tall walking away through the smoke and turning the street corner; then the smoke and broken walls hid whatever it was. Another shell landed near us.

We'd lost our lead, there was no chance of escaping now. Their cars were coming in on us. The only thing was to surrender.

The radio was broken, so we had to open the hatch and wave a shirt out of the window, but they still hit us with one more shell before they clocked that we were waiting. Then the guns stopped speaking and a voice on a megaphone ordered us out. Ben and me got out on our own with our hands up. Had couldn't walk. Outside, the only people lay flat on the ground, and there were many of them. I could see Val; he lay face down. Then we saw the soldiers coming through the smoke. I expected them to execute us at once, but they had some gloating to do first.

As my brother Hadrian once said, if you ain't clever and you ain't honest, all you got left is ruthless. Conor had that in plenty.

That's the end of this story about Val's times. As we came down I thought, what about Signy?

28

In the morning Conor had already gone. Signy got up and did her exercises in her private gym. She had a shower, dressed, and went to go down to the compound but the trap door was shut tight.

Her heart was going at once, as if it knew what she didn't. Well, maybe the door was jammed. She banged and shouted. Then she cursed and stamped on it a few times, before going to the internal phone to call someone to come and deal with it. But the phone, of course, was dead.

Signy understood. A little voice inside her seemed to say, I told you so. She had after all been an accomplice in her own deception, but she was not yet ready to admit it. Her cat, Cherry, brushed against her ankles and batted with her paws at the edges of her dressing gown. Signy scooped her up and held her tightly, swaying from side to side.

'You knew, you knew, didn't you, darling?' she said absently. Cherry had always hidden whenever Conor was visiting.

Signy put the cat down and ran to look outside. There, in the long grass that grew at the edges of the clearing, half obscured by the trees and bushes, she could make out the form of a soldier on guard. She banged on the window, but the man stayed where he was. Signy was about to look again, but then she caught sight of another… then another… then another, arranged in a loose circle around her home.

Quietly, as if afraid they might see her, Signy moved away from the window and made her way up the tower. Right at the top was another trap door leading out to the roof. Signy pushed it open and climbed through it. She stood up on tiptoes as high as she could and looked south over the city.

You could see everything that was to be seen from here: the endless buildings falling into disrepair, the high, shattered towers of her father's lands that had once housed the financial institutions of the world, before the gang wars and the halfman wars. But although she could see so far, the trees and buildings prevented her from seeing what was happening on the streets.

Signy allowed herself to think the impossible. Betrayal? But the deception would be massive! The plans she and Conor had made! The love-making. Could he even fake love? Or had he simply used his love? And what about the people? Had the crowds and the cheering been part of a plot? Had the whole of North London been in on it?

No, no, it wasn't possible. If an ambush had been planned surely there would have been cars coming and going, weapons moved about. It would be a battle to end all battles! And she had seen nothing, heard nothing. It just wasn't possible.

Reassured by this thought, she began to climb the high wire fence which surrounded the roof, in order to attract the attention of the soldiers. She couldn't get to the top, as the fence curved inwards, coiled with razor wire. She had asked Conor to have this taken down many times, and he had promised, but somehow nothing had happened. She got up two metres and, clinging to the wire, called to the guards standing half hidden in the woods. They turned at once to look up. One of them raised his gun and pointed it at her. Signy froze. She hung there, waiting, until the man fired – a warning shot above her head, but not terribly far above her head. Signy dropped down to the ground and walked round the roof.

'There's been a revolt,' she realised. Of course… that was it. The rival families Conor had told her about so often – the O'Haras, the Sandersons, the old guard. This was their work; she was their prisoner, not Conor's! And suddenly Signy was overcome with worry and fear for her Conor, who must even now be fighting for his life. Who might even now lie dead!

There was a noise behind her, coming from the trap door. Signy gasped and caught her breath in fear, but it was only Cherry. The little cat ran to her and she bent to pick her up. Stroking her head, Signy sat down on the roof, and waited. There was nothing else she could do. In an evil way it was a comfort to think that it was not just her who had been betrayed, but Conor as well. Her only hope was that the revolt could be contained. Perhaps her father would help Conor crush it!

Yes. A revolt. That was the answer. Otherwise the deception would be unbearable.