Hour of Need tlom-6 Read online

  He was. A map provided with the report showed what the sensing department nominated as ‘hot spots’, areas of concentrated magic. The map had been matched and overlaid with a map of the Divodorum front, and then of the supply and transport lines back into Holmland.

  In the days prior to Aubrey’s great spell, objects of magical power were being transported toward the Divodorum front. Most were coming from the direction of Fisherberg by train, but calculated guesses indicated that some were coming by airship, others by river barge. Twenty-seven separate objects impinged themselves on the map, shining brightly like beacons, tracking day by day toward the battlefront – only to halt and then change direction after Aubrey’s great spell.

  These observations matched up with the sensations Aubrey had had in the trenches. Vast magic had been in the area. Had it been assembling to generate an attack, or was it merely giving strength to the illusory charges sent toward the Albion lines?

  Now, according to the findings of the remote sensers, Stalsfrieden was ablaze with magical power. The only thing the commander of the remote sensing unit could compare it to was the emanation of the Heart of Gold in the middle of Lutetia. Aubrey immediately concluded that the magical artefacts had withdrawn with the Chancellor. Was this Dr Tremaine’s doing? Was he withdrawing as well? What did it signify?

  He rubbed his forehead. Intelligence was gathered to make sense of the confusion of war, but sometimes it was like striking a light in the middle of a midnight forest – the nearby trees could be seen a little better, but everything else remained decidedly ominous.

  Once he read each paper, Aubrey passed it on to Caroline on his left. When Aubrey finished with the last document – a repetition of the puzzling request for information about any missing dental supplies – he sat back just as the lieutenant-colonel finished and General Apsley jumped to his feet.

  ‘Excellent, Phillips, excellent.’ He beamed. ‘Now, I have some news directly from our High Command. The PM himself -’ he paused to nod at Aubrey ‘- has signed these orders, which apply to each and every one of you here. We have the task, the most urgent task, of ensuring that our new King be returned to Albion immediately. This is the highest priority for all units, and we are to provide any assistance necessary to expedite this goal.’

  Bertie frowned slightly, then nodded, and Aubrey knew that his friend had immediately understood the necessity for him to be removed from all possibility of danger. Having an heir to the throne near the front like this was barely acceptable, even given the rallying effect it had on the morale of the troops, but hosting the actual King? Preposterous.

  Aubrey had also seen the thoughtful looks many around the table had been giving the new King. He guessed they were the more ambitious among them, deciding how best to commend themselves to the new monarch. Ambition never slept.

  General Apsley went on to canvass the safest way to transport King Albert back to Albion, but Aubrey had other more important matters at hand. After taking in the information from the Directorate, he tried drawing diagrams to determine how Dr Tremaine fitted in.

  His cogitations were interrupted when George appeared at his elbow. It didn’t create any great interest as the room was abuzz with comings and goings; the brass at the table constantly had aides whispering into their ears with news, information and dinner menus, for all Aubrey knew, so one more was hardly noticed.

  ‘You need to come with me,’ George said softly, but urgently. ‘Professor Mansfield has escaped from Dr Tremaine and wants to talk to you.’

  60

  The field hospital on the east side of the chateau was a large and well-ordered, if sombre, place. George hurried Aubrey and Caroline through the rows of tents full of beds with men who weren’t critically wounded, but who were definitely not capable of fighting in the near future. At the centre of the medical facility was a large tent in uproar. ‘She’s refusing to go into the operating theatre until she sees you,’ George explained to Aubrey and Caroline.

  ‘She’s hurt?’

  ‘She was on that ornithopter we saw crash, but it’s more than that.’

  George explained that Sophie had been co-opted into acting as an interpreter for the hurt Gallians who had ended up at the facility. George had done what he could, and when on an errand to find a particular chest surgeon he’d been recognised by the seriously injured Professor Mansfield. She had implored him to bring Aubrey to her.

  Having delivered Aubrey and Caroline, George hurried off to find Sophie.

  Wounded men and stretcher bearers were clustered at the opening of the tent, which smelled of carbolic soap, ether and blood. From inside came shouting and the sound of breaking glass.

  With Caroline at his side, Aubrey eased his way through the crush at the entrance to find a large space, well lit by electric light, a preparation area for those about to enter the operating area behind the two wooden doors at the far end of the tent. Screened-off beds were being shielded by nurses, while near the doors white-coated doctors struggled around a trolley. One – round glasses and an impressive pointed beard – staggered back and cursed in a most unprofessional manner. When he saw Aubrey, he barked in aggrieved Albionite tones: ‘Are you Fitzwilliam? She keeps calling for you.’

  ‘Professor Mansfield?’

  ‘Calm her down, quickly. She needs surgery, but we have others just as needy who are waiting.’

  With a word from him, the other doctors backed away from the narrow trolley. Aubrey approached to find his one-time lecturer in Ancient Languages draped in a blood-stained sheet, her eyes wild, her movements frantic. ‘Aubrey? Is that you?’

  Aubrey’s heart went out to her. She had been the most energetic and most vivid of his Greythorn lecturers, and not only because she was the only woman among them, and nor was it the fact that she was by far the youngest. It was her animation and her vivacity that had appealed to him, but here it was transformed. Her eyes rolled, her small frame shivered, her face was blackened by soot, her hair hung in sweaty ringlets as she was sitting, gaze darting about as if she expected to be attacked from all sides at once.

  He came to her side. ‘Professor Mansfield.’

  Her gaze locked on him. She gasped – a wrenching, tormented sound – and clutched at his arm with bony fingers. She buried her face in his chest. Awkwardly, he took her in his arms. ‘Dr Tremaine,’ she sobbed hoarsely, ‘he’s on his way to attack Trinovant.’

  Trinovant? But Tremaine needs to be near a battlefront for the Ritual of the Way!

  Aubrey felt as if he’d been standing on carefully constructed scaffolding made from his observations, speculations and deductions about Dr Tremaine and as he was about to reach out to grasp the final, clear understanding of the rogue sorcerer’s plans the scaffolding dissolved beneath him.

  Why is he abandoning everything?

  Aubrey glanced at Caroline to find that she was staring with horror at the back of Professor Mansfield’s head.

  He looked down and nearly cried out. In a shaved patch, just above where her neck swelled out into the skull proper, was a socket.

  The ghastly thing was an inch or so in diameter and had the appearance of hard, white ceramic. Scar tissue surrounded it, reddened and weeping in places, and Aubrey shuddered at the thought of the operation needed to insert such an abomination.

  Professor Mansfield pushed away from Aubrey. Before he could ask what had happened to her, she chided herself. ‘No, no, no! I promised Kurt I wouldn’t cry. Not a tear, not at all.’

  Aubrey took Professor Mansfield’s shoulders, but at that moment he saw the bearded doctor hovering behind her. He pointed at his watch then at his leg in an awkward pantomime. Aubrey looked down and saw fresh blood on the sheet.

  ‘They said I might lose my leg,’ Professor Mansfield said softly.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ The words came automatically to Aubrey’s lips. ‘You’ll have the best of care.’

  She grimaced, then gripped his arm again, hard. ‘I won’t, but it doesn’t matter. Kurt risked
his life to save us from that madman. He made a much larger sacrifice when we crashed, and I’m not going to dishonour his memory.’

  ‘But how is Dr Tremaine going to attack Trinovant?’

  ‘He has the Rashid Stone,’ she said and Aubrey wondered at her state of mind, skating about like that. How badly shaken had she been by her experiences, let alone the crash?

  ‘It’s important?’

  ‘Listen!’ She glared at him and her fingers dug into his arm. ‘He’s collected magical artefacts from all over to enhance his magic, including the Rashid Stone. He’s gathered magicians and savants from all over -’ She broke off and coughed, her face contorting with pain. ‘He’s harvested their knowledge and harnessed their magical talent.’

  ‘He wired you together.’ Aubrey remembered the booths under Dr Tremaine’s clifftop estate. Revulsion made the words stick in his throat. ‘He treated you like a row of batteries.’

  A flutter of a smile. ‘You were always quick, Aubrey. As you should be with such parents.’

  Aubrey did his best to be reassuring, but he found it difficult as he tried to fit this new data into his thinking. ‘He did this to you and the others to achieve his goal.’

  ‘You know what that is?’

  ‘I do.’ The Ritual of the Way. A blood sacrifice and then immortality for his sister and himself.

  A thousand thoughts were rampaging in Aubrey’s mind, calling for attention, insisting that he bring them all together to form a coherent, comprehensive theory. One of these thoughts rose above all the others and thumped the inside of his skull until he turned to it.

  Dr Tremaine wouldn’t abandon his preparations unless he had something more suited to his ends. ‘He could have something better than the Ritual of the Way,’ he said softly. The horror of anything that would surpass a magical rite needing the blood of thousands struck him like a blow. Only with an effort did he prevent himself from folding in the middle and falling to the floor.

  ‘Aubrey.’ Professor Mansfield brought her face close to his. She was shivering. ‘Whatever he’s doing, he must be stopped. He’s going now!’

  61

  TheDoctor, Having Seen That Professor Mansfield had collapsed, bustled in and, with the assistance of a horde of nurses, whisked the trolley through the wooden doors.

  ‘She’ll get the care she needs,’ Caroline said. She took Aubrey by the arm and shepherded him out of the preparation area, which had exploded into action as soon as the impasse with Professor Mansfield had been resolved. Screens were dragged aside, trolleys and equipment rushed to bedsides, bandaged soldiers in wheelchairs hurried away.

  Aubrey was deep in thought as they hurried back to the chateau. Through adroit nudging and steering, Caroline kept him from colliding with apple trees, water pumps and the many hurrying service people who had turned the estate into a headquarters. She even had to stop his progress with an outflung arm to prevent his running into a maintenance crew that was rushing to one of the new Gannet model ornithopters that had just landed in the large flat area to the west of the chateau.

  General Apsley would need to be informed, Aubrey decided, plucking a single decision from the furore in his mind. News of this development needed to get to the Directorate immediately, so Trinovant could prepare for Dr Tremaine’s assault. Not knowing the exact nature of the attack was going to make things difficult, but this warning would give a chance to ready the forces.

  Aubrey was jerked out of his planning by the abrupt thumping of thirteen-pounder guns. He looked east, shading his eyes, looking past the line of poles that brought the telegraph line to the chateau. ‘Anti-aircraft artillery?’

  Caroline pointed. ‘On the edge of the estate, near the road, the other side of the avenue of trees.’

  Before Aubrey could make out the emplacements, he was stunned in two vastly different ways. With astonishment, he saw the target for the anti-aircraft guns while simultaneously feeling as if someone had implanted a hook below his sternum and yanked it skywards.

  ‘Aubrey!’ Caroline cried as he doubled over, then staggered a few steps. Around them, soldiers began running and shouting, which was never a good thing in Aubrey’s experience. The sudden appearance of helmets did little to reassure him, and the looming presence on the horizon fully justified such preparations.

  A skyfleet was steaming towards them.

  62

  Masses of ominous dark-grey thunderheads were heaped up, towering toward the heavens. Advancing from the middle of this storm was a horribly familiar line of cloud-forged warcraft led by a massive battleship – a dreadnought large enough to make other dreadnoughts think about doing some quiet dreading.

  The sun vanished. Lightning flickered above the thunderheads and the day was suddenly cold. As the storm surged toward them, wind sprang up, whipped at tent flaps and sent leaves scurrying across the ground.

  The anti-aircraft guns continued their determined barrage, firing faster and faster as the skyfleet steamed closer. The shells burst all about the cloud ships but did nothing to stop their progress.

  Dr Tremaine was up there. The jolt Aubrey had felt was a tug on the link he shared with the rogue sorcerer. It was a whiplash moment, then it was gone, but in that instant he had Dr Tremaine’s location as surely as if the sorcerer were standing on top of a lighthouse with a flag on his head.

  Caroline was quick. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Dr Tremaine? Is that how he’s going to attack Trinovant?’

  Aubrey went to agree, then another option presented itself with enough force to make him wince. He looked at the chateau, then he looked at the approaching skyfleet, then he looked at the chateau again. Was Dr Tremaine the master of multiple strategies? Of course he was. ‘Yes. Probably. Maybe.’

  Caroline followed his gaze. ‘You think he knows Bertie is here.’

  ‘Why not create some mayhem along the way to Trinovant? The disarray it would create would be useful, just in case his Trinovant mission fails.’

  The wind picked up. Aubrey had to shield his eyes from dust. Sergeants strode about, shouting, bringing order to the chaos the skyfleet had caused. A large black dog ran about, barking at the soldiers, the flapping tents, the whipping wireless aerials on top of the chateau, and the flailing trees. On the other side of the chateau, horses whinnied and stamped.

  Aubrey was still drained from his efforts on the battlefield, but he ransacked his brains for a spell, something to counteract the attack that was coming. He didn’t spare any time wondering how Dr Tremaine knew the location of the new King of Albion. Magical means or ordinary spying, Dr Tremaine’s methods were thorough.

  Aubrey remembered the havoc created by a similar aerial fleet attack on Greythorn. Much damage was done by weather magic concentrated by the skyfleet, but it had also dropped at least one bomb Aubrey knew about. He wondered if he could manage some sort of deflection; not stopping any bombs, but simply sloughing them to one side of the estate. If he couldn’t protect the whole estate, then maybe the chateau itself? What about the hospital, though? Could he shield it as well?

  They ran, bent nearly double against the wind, weaving through the companies of soldiers who were being dispersed to dugouts and trenches about the estate. Aubrey was relieved to see that one private was dragging the black dog by a length of rope, while it continued to do its job of giving the wind a good barking at.

  When Aubrey reached the side door of the chateau, he looked back. The skyfleet couldn’t have been a mile away. Its passage was flattening trees and crushing cottages, creating a swathe of destruction across the countryside. A herd of cows took one look and scattered; each cow was grimly doing its best to achieve this ‘galloping’ it had heard of but never personally experienced. The madcap sound of cowbells added to the cacophony of shots, shouting, artillery fire and the overwhelming, all-encompassing scream of the wind.

  ‘Get Bertie into the basement!’ Aubrey shouted to Caroline. ‘Tell him that Tremaine is here!’

  Caroline glanced at the sky, then nodded sha
rply. The door was wrenched from her hand as soon as she turned the handle. It slammed back, almost ripping from its hinges. While guards struggled to heave it closed again, Caroline slipped inside.

  Dimly, Aubrey heard the sound of breaking glass. He flattened himself against the stuccoed wall of the chateau. He had to shield his eyes from flying grit as he wrestled with the possibility of a spell.

  At this distance, half a mile or so, the connection he had with Dr Tremaine was faint, almost ghostly. It tickled his awareness without giving much more impression than an itch that couldn’t be ignored. It was swamped by the magical presence that was the skyfleet itself, wrought by magic from cloudstuff – and by a furnace-bright burning that came from the heart of the flagship itself. It had the texture of the magic Aubrey had sensed coming from the Holmland trenches at Fremont, the magic that coincided with the twenty-seven points of light in the Directorate’s remote sensing.

  Dr Tremaine wasn’t leaving anything to chance in his attack on the new King. He was bringing his collection of magical artefacts to add power to his magic.

  Aubrey anticipated the stormfleet behaviour he’d witnessed in Greythorn. There, the skyfleet had swept in and circled a single position, creating mayhem through weather magic, trapping those inside its whirling perimeter with a wall of cyclonic wind. If Dr Tremaine achieved this formation he could pound the chateau and the new King of Albion to pieces. Basement or no, anyone inside would be doomed.

  He was rapidly spinning an idea into the beginnings of a spell. The buffeting of the wind made him wonder if he couldn’t do something similar, some sort of displacement that could shift bombs. It would take a combination of the Law of Action at a Distance and the Law of Transference, but he might be able to shift a large enough volume of air to create a deflecting vacuum, or a vortex to spin a bomb aside… Of course, in order to cast these spells accurately, he’d have to spot the bombs as they fell, which would be a challenge in such conditions as the storm-brought darkness made the entire sky murky.