CHAPTER THREE

HOW OBERON WAR DIED

 

 

WEEKS BEFORE, ON the way to Wittenbergplatz station...

“There is strength in numbers,” Oberon War said. “There is strength in numbers, and when Them return. We must needs strength. The Master’s Voice, it demands it.”

His whisper was low and guttural, but Evelyn could hear him well enough. If she could not hear him, she could have guessed what he was saying, because his words had become a mantra over the past weeks, and an urgent one in recent days.

“Strength in numbers,” Oberon said again, and then, “Zoo Pack heard me once upon a time, before Ezra Pound, before the end of the Believers.”

Evelyn knew that he was talking too much, that he was too old to fight. She knew that she should have come alone, but he had insisted they come together. He had insisted that he must talk to the leaders of the other packs if Ezra could not be persuaded to meet with them himself.

“Aux heard me once. Aux heard me speak the Master’s Voice and they Believed,” he said. She knew that it was the truth.

Evelyn War could remember the strangers that visited the Zoo Pack when she was a pup. They came to hear her father talk, and to learn what the Masters had to say. Aux had been proud to be Believers, proud to follow Hearers, like her father, and to listen to their words.

“The Age of Ice, it has killed the Hearers and it has killed the Believers, but it has not killed the Master’s Voice and it has not killed Them. Soon it will begin again,” Oberon said.

Oberon War stopped in the tunnel. He stopped and he stood tall. Evelyn heard his sharp intake of breath. She turned to look at her father.

Oberon War’s eyes glazed over and he appeared not to be breathing. He lifted his arms wide in front of his body, broadening his chest. He straightened his neck, making him taller and more upright than usual. Evelyn knew what was happening, and she knew that as much as she wanted to, she could not prevent what would come next. The Voice was in him.

“The Age of Ice will be done!” proclaimed Oberon War. “The Aux, them will get whet!”

His pronouncement boomed down the tunnel in both directions and echoed back at Evelyn.

She wanted to stop him, but there was nothing to be done. She wanted to drag her father down and away, but his feet were firmly fixed between the rails, knees locked, back straight, shoulders thrown back. He was old, but he was solidly made, heavy, and he was carrying the full weight of conviction of the Master’s Voice.

She was young. So young.

Evelyn had tucked herself low under the arching wall of the tunnel while she waited for the last of the echoes to dissipate. She thought she felt a rush of air, as if something was moving down the track.

She knew that her father could be heard for hundreds of metres in two directions, and possibly along other branches of the underground system. She wondered whether he could even be heard on other levels. She wondered whether he could be heard above ground, outside. She was sure that he could.

Evelyn War wondered whether the Aux listening to Oberon’s words knew that they were hearing their Master’s Voice. If any of them suspected it, they would dismiss the idea at once as superstitious nonsense.

The echoes dispersed around them.

Oberon War dropped his shoulders, his chest collapsing, shrinking by several centimetres.

“Get whet,” said the Hearer, but this time it was in his own weaker, more vulnerable old voice.

“Not yet,” said Evelyn. “Us, we must talk to the pack leaders. Strength in numbers, remember?”

Oberon hadn’t been talking to his daughter. As she shuffled out of her hiding place, Oberon looked around to see where and from whom her words were coming. He looked confused.

Evelyn took her father’s arm and led him down the tunnel towards Wittenbergplatz station and their first meeting.

“Strength in numbers,” he whispered back to her.

There was strength in silence and stealth, too, thought Evelyn War. Her father had robbed her of both, even though she believed in and trusted him. She was trying to fulfill his last and most urgent wish, and this was how he repaid her.

They had made it up to the grand entrance of Wittenbergplatz station and across the marble floor of the vast, deserted space. There had been no point taking their time silently skirting the hall, trying to cross it without being seen or heard.

They had been heard while they were still in the tunnels, and Evelyn knew it. She was surprised not to be greeted by armed dog soldiers from the Kade Pack. Wittenbergplatz was neutral territory, but it was on the boundary of Kade Pack land, and she had sent word that the famous Hearer, Oberon War, wished to meet with their leader. She expected to be intercepted by a war band, and she expected it sooner rather than later.

“Outside,” said Oberon War.

“Checks first,” said Evelyn, resigned to venturing outside when she would rather have kept her aging father close to a route back below ground. He was vulnerable, made more so by his outburst in the tunnel.

“Strength in numbers,” said Oberon, walking purposefully towards the station exit.

“Checks first,” said Evelyn, again, taking her father by his arm and beginning to run his weather checks for him. She had insisted they put on eyeshades before making their way up to the station entrance, so she began by checking his boots, making sure that they were properly fastened and weather-tight.

As she worked her way over his outer clothing, Oberon began to check the fit of his cuffs and collar. Then he began to wrap his head.

“Good,” said Evelyn, patting Oberon firmly on the chest before beginning her own checks. “Good.”

Outside was as cold and dry and still as ever.

Exit from the station was up a ramp and through what had once been a window high above the concourse. Then out and down onto the hard-packed surface outside.

The old street level had not been seen in anyone’s lifetime. It was buried under a metre and a half of ice that was as hard as concrete and almost as black. Once in a while it was covered with centimetres – or sometimes metres – of dry, drifting snow. But the snow blew away on the lightest of winds, or was collected for use as fresh water. Nothing ever tasted so good as clean water melted from virgin snow.

The ground that Oberon and Evelyn War dropped onto was black and slick. It was colder than freezing cold.

The temperature was already showing indigo on Evelyn’s cuff gauge. Without extra thermal layers, she couldn’t stay outside for more than an hour, and Oberon would start to suffer in half that time.

Evelyn grasped her father’s arm and led him around the still-impressive shell of the station, which looked like a temple rising out of the square it stood in.

The extreme cold of the Time of Ice had caused the destruction of some of the older, smaller buildings in Berlin, and most of the glass in the city was gone. Almost all of the metal structures had survived, though. This part of Berlin was still crowded with some of the biggest, most impressive buildings that had once been the pride of the city, including the Kade Pack headquarters. Most of the buildings were abandoned shells, long since looted, now used as rat-runs through their territories by various Aux packs.

Evelyn looked west to the distinctive dirty orange roof of the Kade building, one of very few still inhabited. It was the only building she could see that did not have a thick layer of ice on its roof. It had been covered in the graffiti by the most intrepid young members of its pack.

Time was precious, so she did her risk assessment as they started to walk. It was only a few hundred metres, but if they stayed outside it could take as much as twenty minutes to get to the Kade building. And if they were turned away, her father could be in serious trouble before they made it back to shelter. Worse, if she had to fight, twenty minutes outside would put her at a disadvantage.

On the other hand, if she decided to try to navigate the unfamiliar rat-runs, she’d be out of her depth and she could be attacked at any time from any direction. If she got lost in the rat-runs, she’d be in real trouble. Better twenty minutes in the open... fifteen, if she could keep her father moving.

The moist warmth within her head wrappings was growing cold, and soon the moisture would turn to ice. Evelyn clutched her father’s arm a little tighter, and he responded by walking a little faster.

They made their way south and then west, their thick, soft-soled boots making no noise on the hard, black ice that was the only street surface she had ever trodden.

They both saw the shadow at the same time.

Oberon jerked his elbow away from his daughter’s grasp. He reached for the double-bladed weapon he still kept strapped to his side, despite his age and frailty.

The shadow was faster.

Evelyn drew the twin knives from their sheaths beneath her boot cuffs, and lunged to block the shadow.

The attacker was a lean, wiry male of indeterminate age, but strong and fast. His own short, narrow blade was at Oberon’s throat even as the dagger in Evelyn’s right hand stopped millimetres from his chest.

The dog soldier wore no armour and carried no projectile weapon, suggesting that he was a scout or pathfinder for his pack, and that he was a Kade of some considerable status.

“You’s the Hearer?” he asked, turning his head to speak into Oberon’s ear.

“Oberon War,” said Evelyn’s father, sheathing his blade, useless to him in the stand-off. “I Hear the Master’s Voice.”

“Me, I am Evelyn War,” said Evelyn. She kept her eyes firmly on the scout as he turned to look at her. Her right hand still extended, the point of her blade close to his chest, she slowly returned her left blade to her boot. Then, her gaze never wavering, she offered their assailant her closed left fist in salute.

The scout looked at Evelyn.

“Sheath the other blade,” he said.

Evelyn’s eyes flickered to her father for a moment. She could only see his back, but time was passing too fast, and she had to get him under cover as soon she could. She’d take her chances, but not now. She straightened and sheathed the weapon.

Without a second glance at Evelyn, and without acknowledging her salute, the scout turned and walked away down a narrow alley between two tall buildings.

“The Hearer, him goes with me,” he said.

“Where him goes, I go,” said Evelyn, pushing her father after the scout and almost falling into him as she hurried into the alley behind them.

The narrow path was appreciably warmer than the outside. It led to a metal-shuttered first floor opening at the top of a ladder made from heavy iron staples driven into the wall of the building.

The scout mounted the rungs, but turned back when he realised that Oberon was less surefooted. Evelyn followed, but there was little room on the ladder, and she was in no position to help. The minutes ticked on.

Twenty-two minutes after leaving Wittenbergplatz station, Oberon War was finally inside, albeit not underground. He and his daughter were led into a large, warm space.

Evelyn had been through buildings often enough, using rat-runs in more familiar parts of the city, or when she had scouted for a Zoo Pack war band. But she had rarely been in an actual room before, and never in one like this.

It looked onto a great central atrium, which appeared to be filled with daylight; it was only then that Evelyn realised the Kade scout wasn’t wearing eyeshades. She was grateful that she and Oberon hadn’t yet removed theirs.

She began to unwrap her head, the cloth heavy and clinging as it thawed. She wanted to look up and see where the daylight was coming from, to see the glass, but it was more important to stay alert.

Evelyn War was outnumbered. It was obvious that she was no threat to the Kade dog soldiers – they’d even let her keep her blades – but that was no reason to let her guard down.

“You’s the Hearer,” said a new voice, deep and low.

Evelyn’s eyes widened and she gasped.

He was a soldier like many others. He was exceptional, as every Alpha was exceptional. His hair and beard were dense and dark, with a smattering of steel grey to match his penetrating eyes. A deep scar cleaved the beard down one side of his face, across his jaw and diagonally across his throat. It was an old injury, but one he’d been lucky to survive.

This was John Done.

Evelyn knew his tale and his fearsome reputation. She had hoped for this meeting, had planned it. He was not the reason she’d gasped.

John Done sat in a large, square, leather chair, the skin grown dull and creased with age, the arms shiny from the caress of his hands. The chair stood in front of a wall of windows too wide and high for Evelyn to see the edges without moving her head. She wanted to maintain eye contact with him. She wanted to earn a little of his respect.

She did not gasp because of John Done, but because she had never seen so much glass.

“War,” said John Done.

“Us, father and daughter,” said Oberon.

“You, the famous Zoo Pack Hearer,” said the Alpha dog.

“You mock?” asked Evelyn.

“You question?” asked John Done, glaring hard at Evelyn. She stood her ground and held the leader’s gaze, despite the knot of fear in the pit of her gut.

Then he laughed, a wide, roaring laugh. His huge pink tongue lolled and Evelyn could see strings of spittle stretching between his gleaming teeth.

Oberon laughed too, and Evelyn took the time to look past the pack leader and sweep a glance over all that glass. It was three metres high and at least four wide, and it was flawless... utterly flawless, as far as she could tell.

Evelyn didn’t need to answer the question and she wasn’t asked another. John Done and her father fell into conversation, mostly about old times and old rivalries. It was a courtesy, nothing more.

When John Done was no longer amused by the company, he left Evelyn and Oberon in the care of one or two of the older Aux, veterans like her father.

It became clear that they were only interested in information, and that they would not advocate with their pack leader for the sort of alliance that Oberon insisted the Master’s Voice called for. Evelyn grew impatient.

“Us, we’ve been gone too long, father,” she said. “It’s time us, we went home. It’s cold and late. Ezra Pound, him will be missing us.”

She turned to the scout, who had been a menacing presence at her side throughout the meeting. He nodded curtly as if in agreement with her. He gathered up a crossbow and prepared to lead them to the exit.

They had never removed their eyeshades, and they had no need to, even in the declining daylight. They were used to the murk below ground. Evelyn kept them on as she helped her father to run his weather checks. Then she wrapped her head and completed her own checks.

They ventured outside with the scout, who escorted father and daughter back to the Wittenbergplatz station, through the rat runs. That saved them time and limited their exposure; they arrived outside the station in a more comfortable state than she had expected.

Not wishing to linger, Evelyn nodded to the scout and offered her closed left fist in salute. Her father continued to trudge up the ice to the station entrance.

The first sign that something was wrong was a shift in her father’s breathing. Evelyn saw the scout’s pupils dilate and his brow furrow; he’d seen something. He raised his crossbow.

Evelyn spun violently. She heard the slap of a distant crossbow string, the whisper of a bolt in the air.

Suddenly Oberon War was in front of her.

Oberon’s movement was clumsy and instinctive. His fall was lucky.

The bolt tore through the fur at his shoulder, missing his flesh by a hair’s breadth. He fell heavily to the ground, winded.

There was a Zoo Pack crossbowman high above them.

The Zoo Packer’s aim had been compromised, shooting while clambering through a window. The Kade scout’s aim was true. His bolt hit the Zoo Packer and knocked him back into the station.

But there were more. A whole war band of Zoo Packers appeared at the station windows, shooting. Crossbow bolts whistled out across the ice.

Evelyn ducked.

“Cease! Cease fire!” she yelled. “It’s us! Zoo Pack! Oberon War and Evelyn War! Cease fire!”

The Zoo Packers did not. Evelyn realised why when she looked over her shoulder and saw several Kade scrappers in the street behind her.

She had not known that they had a full escort on their return journey. The Kade Pack’s stealth skills were extraordinary; she had been aware only of the presence of the scout. Now they were surrounded by half a dozen armed scrappers.

Squatting beside her father, she glanced up at the station and watched as another of her fellow pack members tumbled onto the hard-packed ice. She could see the dark patch on his chest where a Kade bolt had struck him.

Kade bolts cracked into the station frontage. Dust and chips of ice sprayed from the wall around the windows. A Zoo packer jumped clear of the station wall, and several crossbows withdrew from view back into the building as the Zoo packers wielding them ducked to safety from the Kade attack.

The air was full of the whistle of crossbow bolts and the cracks as they struck stone and ice. One of the Kade fighters, a couple of metres to Evelyn’s left, fell towards her. He lay still in a mess of fast-freezing blood, his crossbow still in his hand.

Evelyn grabbed the crossbow from the Kade scrapper’s dead hand. She seized the body by one of the bandoliers wrapped around its torso, and dragged it in front of her father to shield him from any stray missiles while he recovered.

“Father,” she said, hastily unbuckling the bandoliers of bolts and pulling them from under the corpse. “Father, can you make it into the station?”

He didn’t answer.

“It’s cold. You should be underground.”

“The alliance...” said Oberon.

“The Kade, them want no alliance, nor the Zoo Pack; and me, I want you alive.”

Evelyn fastened the bandoliers around her body. They were too big and wouldn’t buckle tightly around her torso. They would rattle when she moved and catch on things when she needed to climb or crawl, but all she had to do was keep her and her father safe. Safe from the Kade.

“You’re on your own,” yelled the Kade scout who had escorted them.

Evelyn turned on him, crossbow raised to his chest.

“We had orders to return you to Wittenbergplatz,” he said. “Those men, they are your people. You, you’re on your own.”

The Kade stopped shooting and fled into the ruins. Their retreat was silent, and hardly took any time at all.

Evelyn and Oberon War were alone outside the Wittenbergplatz station, shielded by the corpse of a Kade fighter, facing down their own fellow Zoo Packers.

One last crossbow bolt chinked off the ice a couple of metres to the right of Evelyn’s position.

Then there was silence.

She raised her borrowed crossbow above her head and waved it slowly from left to right. When the silence continued, she lifted her head into view of the apertures in the building in front of her so that she was sure she could be clearly seen by the Zoo Packers.

Cautiously, the men made themselves visible, gestured to her to follow them, and disappeared back into the station.

Evelyn War helped her father to his feet. He had been lying prone on the ice for several minutes, and the penetrating cold had added to the damage done to his old body by the fall. He was stiff and tired. Evelyn began to wish that they had never embarked on his foolish errand.

“There is strength in numbers,” said her father, firmly, as if he were reading her mind.

“Not today,” said Evelyn. “Today looking for strength in numbers almost got us killed.”

It took several more minutes for Evelyn to guide her father back into the station building. He was staggering as they crossed the grand entrance hall. His footfalls were heavy and irregular on the marble tiles. Her borrowed bandoliers bounced and rattled.

She barely heard the bolt that brought him down.

She felt his body crumple beside her and heard the heavy thud as his dead weight sprawled on the cold floor.

Evelyn cried out in horror.

She unslung the Kade crossbow and tried to target the source of the shot. A Kade scrapper must have got inside the building.

But, one by one, Zoo packers stepped into view. There were five of them. She didn’t recognise the pup on the far left, staring wide-eyed at her. She glared back.

“I thought you... him was Kade. I took the shot,” said a voice to Evelyn’s right.

She turned to face the male walking towards her. Robert Browning. She knew him. He’d known her father. She’d thought perhaps it had been the youngest Aux, the most naive. She thought he’d got nervous and made a mistake. She looked back at the pup for a moment, and then down at Robert Browning, bending over her father’s body.

“You, don’t touch him,” she said. She pointed to Thomas Hardy, the biggest of them. “You, take him beneath.”

She waited as Robert Browning walked slowly back to the rank. Thomas Hardy lifted Oberon War over one shoulder, ready to take him back below ground.

Her father was dead, a pathetic, stupid, pointless death, and he had accomplished nothing.