The CRES code

Chapter Sixty Nine - The Man's Eyes

     The spaceship, if that's what it was, had seemed to be landing to the west of the city while the road Randall was following led north, so as soon as he came to a side road he set off down it, humming a tune to himself.

     He felt good, even though he was still fuggy with fatigue and shivering with the cold. It would soon warm up, he knew, and it gave every sign of being a bright, sunny winter's day. On top of that, his enemies were dead and he was on his way to make contact with an army of machine servants that would serve his every whim. The priests thought he was still in Elmton. They would be turning the whole city upside down looking for him but they wouldn't find him.

     Maisey was safe. He was pretty sure that the fireballs he'd seen in the sky the night before had been the city killer satellite being destroyed, since it was the most direct threat to his life. If his infected machines had had access to a small cache of nuclear charges, enough to take out one enemy asset, the city killer satellite was the most obvious target. That meant that VIX had no way to destroy the city until he could gather an army of orcs and that would take days, by which time the war would be over, one way or the other. It was still possible that the priests would take Maisey hostage when they learned the identity he'd been living under and learned that the girl was important to him, but you didn't harm hostages and he could negotiate her release when the two sides met to discuss the terms of the ceasefire.

     He was hungry. He should have asked the heavies for something to eat. Never mind. Soon he would be able to feast like a King every day. An image popped into his head of himself sitting at a medieval banqueting table with cooked birds, suckling pigs and a haunch of venison arrayed before him while acrobats and jugglers performed in the centre of the room. He would take a single bite from a chicken drumstick, then throw it over his shoulder for the dogs to fight over. He smiled to himself, but then his stomach rumbled at him. Soon, my friend, he thought, patting his belly reassuringly. You must be patient for now, but very soon you will never be empty again, I promise.

     There was a robin singing somewhere. He tried to ignore it and listen for the sound of machinery. He imagined a hatch opening in the side of the landed spaceship and vehicles trundling out armed with whatever the infected machines could find to serve as weapons. There was something, he thought. There very faintest industrial hum, difficult to make out over the sound of rustling tree branches and rising and falling as the wind changed direction. It seemed to be coming from... That way. There was a ditch running along the side of the road. He chambered down, stepped carefully across the stagnant water sitting at the bottom, and climbed up the other side, pulling himself up by the beech saplings growing up the side of the bank. Then he set off across the field of cabbages, his expensive shoes soon becoming plastered with mud.

     As he walked the sound seemed to grow louder and soon there was no doubt. There was machinery ahead of him, the first time he'd heard that sound since he'd gone into the hibernaculum, a lifetime ago. There was a line of trees ahead of him, growing alongside another road. The sound was coming from the other side. He could see something through the trees, the sun reflecting brightly from something metallic. He could also see movement. Randall picked up his pace, almost shivering with excitement. This was it! He was almost home...

     He had almost reached the trees when he saw that there was a small group of human figures standing amongst them. They had their backs to him, watching whatever was happening in the next field, and at first Randall took them to be farmers or travellers who'd witnessed the landing and been captivated enough by the sight to overcome their natural superstitious fear of the unknown. It wasn't until he was almost among them that one of the men, who'd been leaning against a tree as if tired or injured, roused himself and took a couple of steps away from it, moving awkwardly as if in pain. Randall froze, recognising the outline of his body, the shine of his slicked back hair. At the same time the man turned, alerted by some small noise Randall had made. Their eyes met...