Young Sherlock Holmes: Fire Storm Part 16

'What now?' Sherlock asked after they had heard nothing for a few minutes.

'I think we need to meet up with my father and Rufus and Matty. Somehow.'

Sherlock nodded. 'All right.'

He turned his head. Her eyes were only an inch away from his.

He wanted to kiss her, but instead he just said, 'Let's go.'

The gorse and the heather were rough underfoot. The stems kept catching on Sherlock's shoes as they trudged across the moorland. Virginia's shoes were a lot more practical than his and he had to struggle to keep up.

They both looked around as they walked, checking the buildings behind them and the low wall they were slowly approaching in case anyone had seen them, but they were alone. The whole landscape seemed strangely deserted. Sherlock worried that a figure would spring up from somewhere, point at them and shout, but nothing happened.

The setting sun cast their shadows across the heather, purple on purple. The air was cold, and it smelled of flowers. Despite the lateness of the year a handful of bees buzzed slowly around, moving from bloom to bloom in search of pollen.

'What are you thinking?'

He turned his head. Virginia was looking at him questioningly. She had noticed his preoccupation.

'I was just thinking about bees,' he explained.

'Bees?' She shook her head disbelievingly. 'We're separated from our friends, we're on the run from a gang of murderers and you're thinking about bees? I don't get it.'

He shrugged, suddenly defensive. 'I understand bees,' he said. 'They aren't complicated. They do whatever they do for obvious reasons. They're like little clockwork machines. They make sense.'

'And you don't understand people?'

He kept walking, not answering for a moment. 'Why is any of this happening?' he asked suddenly. 'Because Bryce Scobell decided that he didn't like the American Indians and decided to wipe them out instead of just moving somewhere there weren't any Indians? Because your father was sent to catch him and became obsessed with finding him no matter how many people he lost along the way? Because Scobell became obsessed in turn with taking revenge on your father and followed him to England instead of hiding peacefully somewhere else in the world? I don't understand any of it! If people just acted logically, then none of this would be happening now!'

'Scobell is mad, according to my father,' Virginia said quietly. 'He doesn't have any morals, any scruples. He does whatever he needs to in order to get what he wants.'

'The madness aside,' Sherlock said quietly, thinking about his own father, 'that's the only thing about this whole business I do understand. It's a very logical att.i.tude.'

'It's only logical if you're the only person who acts that way,' she pointed out quietly. 'If everyone in the world acts that logically, then everyone fights everyone else, civilization falls apart, chaos ensues and only the strong survive.'

They walked on in silence for a while. Sherlock could feel Virginia staring at him, but he didn't have anything to say.

A sudden movement and a burst of noise startled them both, but it was just a bird launching itself from cover and flying away.

By now they were nearly at the stone wall that they had seen earlier. Sherlock looked over his shoulder once more, expecting to see the same empty landscape he had seen every other time, but there were people moving down by the chapel. At that distance he couldn't tell whether they were locals or Scobell's men, but he wasn't willing to take a chance. Before he could do anything, Virginia grabbed him by the arm and pulled him towards the wall. It was only waist high, and she jumped over it lithely and vanished from sight. He vaulted the wall and dropped down beside her.

Sherlock got to his knees and peered over the top of the wall, looking down the slope. There were still people around the chapel.

'Come on,' Virginia urged. 'We need to keep moving. We need to get to my pa.'

'All right,' he said, 'but carefully. Stay out of sight.'

Together they scurried along in the wall's shadow, keeping low so that the stones s.h.i.+elded them from anyone looking in their direction.

Sherlock peered ahead. In the distance, across an undulating stretch of ground, was a wooded area.

'Come on,' he said. 'We need to get to cover before nightfall.'

Despite being rife with tension the walk towards the trees was quiet and even boring. Sherlock was exhausted after all that he'd suffered that day, and he found that just putting one foot in front of the other, over and over again, was one of the most tedious things he'd ever had to do. Every now and then he would stumble over a stone, or put his foot in a pothole, and he would nearly fall over a much to Virginia's amus.e.m.e.nt.

He kept alert for movement that might mean they had been spotted, but apart from the birds that circled in the sky and the occasional rabbit the only thing that Sherlock saw was a majestic stag standing on a rise in the ground. Its antlers spread like small trees stripped of their leaves. It stared impa.s.sively at them, head turned to one side. When it was certain they were not a threat it lowered its head to the ground and began to eat the heather.

The sky dimmed from blue to indigo and from indigo to black as they walked. Stars began to twinkle: first one or two, and then, within a few minutes, too many to count.

Remembering the stag, and how it had casually dismissed them from its mind to chomp at the vegetation, Sherlock realized that he was hungry. No, he was starving. Apart from the oatcakes at Amyus Crowe's cottage, he hadn't eaten since breakfast.

Virginia was biting her lip. She looked hungry too.

What were his options? Try to chase a rabbit down the next time one broke from cover? Unlikely that he would succeed. Throw Matty's knife a which was still in his pocket a and hope to hit a rabbit? He didn't know much about throwing knives, although he'd seen it done at fairgrounds, but he suspected that the knives had to be carefully balanced so that they spun smoothly, end over end. Matty's knife had a handle that was much bulkier than the blade. He wouldn't be able to aim it properly.

He remembered the first ever lesson that Amyus Crowe had given him, back in Hamps.h.i.+re in the woods that surrounded Holmes Manor. Crowe had taught Sherlock which fungi were safe to eat and which were poisonous. If he could find some mushrooms, then they could eat. He glanced around. There wasn't much chance of finding them in open moorland, but perhaps when they got into the trees he could find some growing on rotten logs in piles of leaf mould.

He looked up to see how far they were from the wood. The treeline was probably half a mile away.

'Look,' Virginia said. 'We can sleep there for the night.'

Sherlock followed the direction in which she was pointing. At first he saw nothing, but then he spotted a small stone building in the shadow of the trees. For a second he thought it was someone's house, but after a moment he noticed how small it was, the absence of gla.s.s, and the door-less entrance. It was a hut, built to shelter shepherds from storms.

'Well spotted,' he said.

'Any chance of some food?' Virginia asked. 'I'm starved after all that walking.'

Sherlock thought for a moment. He supposed he could safely leave Virginia for a bit while he scouted for mushrooms.

He told her so. She looked sceptically at him. 'Mushrooms? You tryin' to poison me?'

'Trust me a your dad is a good teacher.'

She raised an eyebrow. 'He may be a good teacher, but are you sure he knows what he's talkin' about?'

'Only one way to find out.'

'Look, why don't I collect some wood and get a fire going while you get the mushrooms? It'll save time.'

'Are you sure you'll be all right? There are people after us.'

She stared at him, an eyebrow raised. 'I can look after myself.'

They checked inside the stone shelter. Just one room, and leaves had drifted into the corners, but it seemed secure enough. There was even a small wood-burning brazier, along with a couple of battered saucepans and some metal plates.

'Are you goin' to be long?' she asked.

He shrugged. 'As long as it takes. You want dinner, don't you?'

She smiled. 'I've never had a man actually go an' gather dinner for me before, 'part from my dad. I kinda like it.'

He couldn't help himself. 'What about buy you dinner? Has anyone ever done that? Apart from Mr Crowe, I mean?'

She shook her head. 'Nope.'

'Or cook you dinner?'

'Nope.'

He smiled. 'I'll be back as soon as I can.'

The trees closed in around him within moments: trunks as thick as his body that erupted from tangles of roots and reached up towards the sky, forming a lacy ceiling with their branches. The thin light of the moon filtered down from above as he walked. Twigs seemed to grope for his face. Trailing strands of moss a or perhaps fine spider webs a brushed his cheeks and forehead, and he kept having to push them away. An owl hooted, and he could dimly make out the occasional sound of something larger a badgers, ferrets, maybe the odd deer a pus.h.i.+ng its way through the undergrowth.

Somewhere off in the distance, a twig snapped as if it had been stepped on. Leaves rustled. Was it the wind, or a person?

He tensed, fearing that Scobell's men had tracked them down, but a moment's thought convinced him otherwise. He could still hear the owls and the pa.s.sing animals. If Scobell's men were around, the wildlife would have been more cautious.

Remembering the Edinburgh tenement, and the faces of dead men that had been staring out at him from the darkened doorways, he began to feel a flutter of panic in his chest. Were there dead men stalking him through the forest? Were they even now cl.u.s.tering around the door of the shepherds' shelter, ready to burst in and attack Virginia? His heart started to race. He began to turn around, ready to race back to save her, but he stopped and took a deep breath. This was stupid. He put a firm mental hand on the panic in his chest and pushed downward. Dead men did not walk. There were no such things as ghosts. They weren't logical. They were just superst.i.tion. Amyus Crowe had taught Sherlock a lot over the past year, but whatever Sherlock had learned had been built on top of a basic scepticism that was part of his character. There had to be a reason for things happening. There had to be a cause. Things that were dead were dead a they didn't keep moving. Death was the absence of life. Whatever he had seen back in the tenement, whatever he and Matty had seen in Edinburgh, it wasn't dead men.

Feeling better, he kept on walking. If he was hearing anything in the woods apart from the breeze then it was scurrying animals. The rest was just his imagination drawing the wrong conclusions from small amounts of evidence. Speculation in the absence of correct information was, he decided, a fruitless occupation. If he was going to come to conclusions in future, he was going to make sure they were based on evidence.

He entered a small clearing. In the light of the moon that flooded down from above he could see a cl.u.s.ter of mushrooms pus.h.i.+ng through the loam and the leaf mulch of the forest floor. He approached and knelt beside them. They were bright orange in colour, and their edges were wavy, like lettuce leaves. He recognized them as chanterelles. Pulling as many as he could from the ground, he stuffed his jacket pockets.

A few feet away he found some morels, their honeycomb-like interior structure and brown colour unmistakable. Across the other side of the clearing, a few feet into the trees, he found a fallen trunk on which was growing a ma.s.s of the distinctive white strands of Lion's Mane mushroom.

Arms and pockets full, he set off back for the shelter. He had enough to keep the two of them going until the morning. If he could find some water then he could boil them in the saucepans. That started him thinking a were there any herbs growing nearby that he could use to flavour the water?

His mind occupied with thoughts of how he was going to impress Virginia with his culinary skills, he walked up to the hut.

'I'm back!' he called softly, in case she was sleeping. 'And I've got dinner!'

He stepped into the shelter, where Virginia had got a fire going in the stove. By its light, he saw that she was asleep, curled up on the ground. She had found some rushes or reeds from outside, and had piled them up underneath her head as a pillow. She had also piled more of them up for Sherlock, just a few feet away from her own head.

He wasn't sure what to do. He supposed he could prepare food and then wake her up, but it had been a long hike uphill, and they had more walking ahead of them in the morning. Best that she slept now.

He dumped the mushrooms on the ground and sat beside Virginia. Something about the fresh air and the long walk through the woods had quelled his own appet.i.te as well. They weren't going to die of malnutrition if they missed one meal. He could cook the mushrooms when the sun came up.

He stared at her face. She seemed so relaxed, asleep. Her lips were curved in a slight smile, and her expression was calmer that he had ever seen it. Usually there was a watchful look on her face, especially when she was looking at him, but now it was as if he was looking at her with everything wiped away apart from the real Virginia. The girl that he so desperately wanted to know better.

He reached out a hand and brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. She stirred slightly and made a noise, but she didn't wake up.

He watched her for a while, mesmerized by her incredible beauty. It was difficult looking at her when they were together in daylight, because she would spot him staring at her and stare straight back, or ask him what he was looking at, but now he could admire her for as long as he liked.

Eventually he stretched out beside her, his head on the rushes that she had left for him. He felt himself drifting off to sleep. Despite the danger, despite the situation that they were in, he felt happy. He felt as if he had found the place where he belonged.

He fell asleep so gradually that he didn't even realize when it happened, but he woke up suddenly. Sunlight was streaming through the doorway. He must have turned over during the night, because he was facing in the opposite direction, away from Virginia.

He turned back, and felt his heart freeze.

There was no sign of Virginia. Three white skeletal figures were standing in the centre of the room. They stared at him with wide, lidless eyes set deeply in shadowed sockets. In their hands they held curved blades, like the sickles that farmers use to slice through wheat when harvesting it.

He scrabbled desperately for the door, but thin arms grabbed him from behind. The fingers looked like twigs against the sleeves of his jacket, but they were as hard as bone, and they hurt as they dug into his flesh.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Sherlock struggled wildly, trying to break free, but the fingers of his attackers were immovable. One of them held a knife to his throat. It had a tarnished blade, as if it had been buried in the ground for years. The message was clear, and he stopped struggling.

The figures turned Sherlock over unceremoniously. He noticed with a s.h.i.+ver of fear that their clothes were ragged and mouldy, as though they too had been underground for a while. Buried.

They bent and grabbed his feet, hauling him unceremoniously into the air. They were strong, despite their appearance. He was carried from the shelter like a sack of corn. None of them said anything, but he suddenly realized that he could hear them breathing. One of them wheezed like an asthmatic, while the others sounded just like ordinary men would if they were carrying something heavy. Dead men didn't need to breathe, Sherlock told himself. They didn't smell as if they were dead. Sherlock knew the cloying, awful smell of rotting flesh: he'd found enough dead animals in the woods in his time. Looking at these things, they should have reeked to high heaven, but all he could smell was sweat. So they weren't dead men. Just men who looked like they were dead. But why? And what had they done with Virginia?

He looked down at where their thin hands were clutching at his shoulders. White marks were rubbing off on the material of his jacket. Make-up? On their hands? He breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't really thought they were dead, but it was a relief to have his deductions confirmed. He supposed it made sense: if you wanted people to think that you were dead, then you needed to look the part. White hands and white faces indicated a lack of blood circulating. If people saw them only at a distance, as Sherlock had till now, it was convincing.

They were carrying him downhill, away from Cramond. He caught sight of the occasional upside-down face as he was jolted along. This close he could see beard stubble poking through the white make-up on their cheeks and necks. He could also see how bits of thin paper had been stuck to their skin to resemble dry, peeling flesh, how the clever use of shading made it look as if their bones were poking through their skin, and how one of them had markings painted on his cheeks that, at a distance, would look like the grinning teeth of a skull. It was all theatrics and pretend. Dressing-up games.

'Tell me where we're going!' he demanded.

The 'corpse' holding his right arm looked down at him and grinned. His teeth were stained green, like moss, but even that was make-up. 'You come with us,' he grunted in a voice that sounded like it was bubbling up through mud. 'You see Clan Chief of the Dead.'

'You're not dead,' Sherlock said. 'You're just pretending.'

The 'corpse' kept on grinning. 'You sure about that?' he asked. 'You bet your life on it?'

Sherlock had no answer to that.

They carried him over rough ground for what seemed like an hour. He kept looking around to see if he could see Virginia, but if she was being carried as well then she was ahead of him and out of sight. He hoped that she'd managed to escape.

Eventually he was thrown on the back of a horse. His arms and legs were tied together with a rope running beneath the horse's stomach, and his belt was fastened to the saddle so that he didn't slip underneath the animal while they were riding. One of the 'corpses' mounted the horse, and they started to gallop away.

The repet.i.tive thumping impact of the horse's rump in his stomach and the heavy odour of the horse itself made Sherlock feel sick. He was constantly on the verge of sliding beneath the horse, where its ma.s.sive legs would pound into him over and over again until his bones were smashed to fragments. He clenched his arms and legs as tight as he could, trying to stay where he was.

His head was jolted up and down so much that he couldn't see what was flas.h.i.+ng past. He was dimly aware, though, that there were other horses ahead of him and behind. Was Virginia on one of them? As his discomfort got worse and worse, he hoped that she wasn't.

The noise made by the horse's hoofs changed. They weren't riding on earth any more; they were riding on stone. He heard echoes, as if they were surrounded by hundreds of horses. They were inside some kind of stone courtyard. The horse slowed to a halt. Sherlock was thrown forward, and the rear of the saddle hit him in his side, knocking the breath from him.

Hands grabbed him. A knife cut through the ropes holding him on to the horse. He was carried again, face down this time, too weak and nauseous even to lift his head. All he saw were cobbles, and the occasional edge of a stone wall.

And flickering shadows. The whole place appeared to be lit by torches.

Where was he? He remembered the granite shape of Edinburgh Castle, looming above the town. Surely they hadn't ridden far enough to be back in Edinburgh? Were there other castles around?