Shade’s Children

These Myrmidons wore gold and green metal-cloth armour that was all spikes and flanges, heavily decorated with battle charms and medals, sparkling even through the fog. Crested helmets enclosed their heads and black glass visors hid their faces.

If they had faces. They certainly had mouths, but they were silent, now that their target was trapped. The Trackers were quiet too, clustering in their trios behind the line of Myrmidons. Their work was done.

I’ll make them kill me, Gold-Eye thought desperately as the Myrmidons – toying with him now – raised their net guns. He tensed himself, ready to lunge, hoping to strike one behind the knee, to irritate it enough that it would kill unthinking…

“Hey, you! Shut your eyes and duck!”

It was so long since Gold-Eye had heard a human voice that he almost didn’t understand, till a fizzing, sparking object sailed past his head and bounced towards the Myrmidons.

He ducked, curling himself into the embankment, face pressed against the wet stone. For a second nothing happened save the massed growl of the Myrmidons’ surprise.

Then there was a brilliant flash, smacking his eyes with red even through closed eyelids, and his bare neck with sudden heat.

At the same time something hit his back and he flinched.

“Grab the rope!” called the voice again. “Hurry up! The flash will only hold them for a few seconds.”

A rope! Gold-Eye uncurled and saw the knotted end hanging above him. His eye followed the rope up the embankment, up to the fog-wreathed figures on the road above the railway.

Humans. Three of them. All older and larger than he.

For a moment he hesitated, glancing back at the blindly groping Myrmidons. Then he started to climb.

VIDEO ARCHIVE INTERVIEW 1802 • DRUM

Shade made me do this. He’s watching now, flapping his arms like a Winger.

I suppose that means I should say something.

<BREAK. VIDEO INTERVIEW RESUMED IN 27 SECONDS.

INTERVIEWEE HIGHLY UN-COOPERATIVE.>

How did I get out of the Dorms?

I just read that. he held up a sign. Or made one, I suppose. Being a hologram.

<SILENCE. 27 SECONDS.

NO BREAK IN VIDEO INTERVIEW.>

OK. I am going to talk. The Overlords took me out of the Dorms when I was eight.

<SILENCE. 14 SECONDS.

NO BREAK IN VIDEO INTERVIEW.>

That is how I got out of the Dorms.

<BREAK. VIDEO INTERVIEW RESUMED

IN 3 MINUTES 12 SECONDS.>

I was taken to the Training Grounds. That’s where the big, strong kids go. Lots of exercise, food… and the drugs. Steroids. Shade explained those to me… what they do… what they’ve done to me… Then when you’re fourteen, they don’t just take your brain, they destring your muscles too. Muscles to put in Myrmidons…

<BREAK. VIDEO INTERVIEW RESUMED

IN 8 MINUTES 10 SECONDS.>

The tracer? That was easy to get rid of.

I moved it out. If I can see something or I know where it is and how big, I can… think… it somewhere else.

When it was gone, I strangled the Watchward and left. I was thirteen and ten months old. Sixty days to go.

<SILENCE. 48 SECONDS.

NO BREAK IN VIDEO INTERVIEW.>

When? Three years? Five?

<SILENCE. 36 SECONDS.

NO BREAK IN VIDEO INTERVIEW.>

I don’t count my birthdays. Not since then.

<BREAK. VIDEO INTERVIEW RESUMED

IN 2 MINUTES.>

I don’t want to say any more.

<BLACK.>

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_3c0eaed0-3a38-5998-882f-f6395f963211)

There was no time for discussion at the top of the embankment. Gold-Eye was pulled up and over the edge, without apparent effort, by an extremely large, heavily muscled man. Or perhaps a boy – for his face was round and hairless, totally at odds with his mammoth physique.

The other two were women – or rather a young woman and a girl. It took a second for Gold-Eye to realise they were female, since all three of his rescuers had close-cropped hair and wore baggy green coveralls cinched at the waist with wide leather belts festooned with pouches and equipment. Long, broad-bladed swords hung in scabbards at their hips and they all wore heavy black boots.

They looked organised and Gold-Eye felt suddenly alien in his strange collection of mismatched clothing, with his matted hair showing the dirt of many weeks. He hadn’t really been clean since the harsh washing rituals of the Dorms.

“Come on!” shouted the woman, grabbing him by the shoulder and starting to run. Gold-Eye stiffened, resisting, then lurched forward as the strong man almost picked him up by one arm. It was either run or have his arm ripped off.

“I run!” blurted Gold-Eye, picking up the pace. Immediately the others released him and he almost fell again before matching their stride.

“I’m Ella,” said the woman, speaking in short bursts as they ran. “That’s Drum.”