Engn

VI

VIThree days later, Finn, Connor, and Diane lay in the barn. The sweet, dozy smell of hay and cows filled the air. Bars of sunlight streamed in through the narrow windows, thick with drifting specks of light. Birds called from the nearby trees, but otherwise there wasn't a sound in the whole of the world.

The three of them snoozed next to each other in the airless warmth. The hay prickled Finn's back. He and Connor planned to spend the night there themselves, when they could think of a suitable story for their parents.

“How did you know they were coming for you?” asked Connor.

Finn opened his eyes to squint at Diane through the flickering haze of his own eyelashes, but the light was too bright and he closed them again.

“My village isn't like here, with mountains all around,” said Diane. “We're on the edge of the plain. We saw them approaching.”

“But how did you know they were coming for you? asked Finn.

“There was no one else. They took my cousin five years ago and a friend a few years later. They must have been coming for me. Once it was rare for people to be taken; now they're coming for everyone.”

“So, you just ran? Without telling anyone?”

“Yep.”

“I'd do the same,” said Connor. “Definitely.”

Finn wasn't at all sure he'd be brave enough, but he had another question. “You knew all about Engn? I mean, about what they do to you there?”

“Hadn't just heard. My cousin was with them when they came back for my friend. Only he'd become an ironclad. He wasn't the same person anymore.”

“Wait, they aren't machines then?” asked Finn. “They're just people?”

“I suppose,” Diane replied. “Mostly, anyway. He took his mask and helmet off and it was definitely him.”

“What do you mean he wasn't the same person?” asked Finn.

“My cousin wouldn't harm a fly. We'd go fishing and he couldn't even bring himself to kill the trout and the salmon we caught. Didn't even like putting the worm onto the hook. But not when he came back from Engn. My friend's mother tried to stop him entering her house and my cousin just struck her, knocked her over. Broke her nose. And he didn't speak the whole time. He didn't say a single word.”

Finn opened his eyes again and looked at Diane. She seemed so much older and wiser than even Connor was. He could tell Connor thought so, too. Since Diane had arrived Connor had changed. He'd become quieter, more thoughtful. Finn often caught him staring at her. He found himself staring at her sometimes too.

“They'll stop looking for you sooner or later,” said Connor. “They'll have to.”

“Maybe. Sets a bad example though, doesn't it? If I get away, others will try as well.”

“But you have got away.”

“For now.”

They were silent for a time. Finn had smuggled out half a loaf of bread that morning. Connor had a rainbow trout, freshly tickled from the river. He also had a whole cabbage, as large as a cow's brain, pulled from his father's fields. Finn peeled a leaf off and crunched into its sweet, squeaky flesh.

“Why do they even need so many people?” asked Connor.

“When the wind is in the right direction in my village, you can hear the booming and crashing from across the plain,” said Diane. “It gets louder each year.”

Finn tried to imagine a machine that vast, something like his father's furnace, but filling the whole valley. He couldn't do it.

He sat up. “Come on, let's play the Engn game again,” he said.

“Okay,” said Connor. Diane opened her eyes but didn't reply.

“It's your turn to be the ironclad, Conn,” said Finn. “We'll be the wreckers.”

“Okay.”

They peered out through the slits in the walls of the barn to check no one was around, then jumped down to the ground floor. They raced out of the back of the barn for the safety of the tree line.

The game had changed in nature now. One of them still had to be the ironclad, defending Engn from the other two, but secretly they were working for the wreckers. They had to maintain the pretence until the vital moment, otherwise the other, imaginary ironclads would find out. But if you could sneak up and touch the ironclad without being seen, you had won. The one defending Engn could stop being an ironclad and become a wrecker, their true identity revealed.

They built the city between them, leaning branches together in a line between two trees. Connor scrambled inside to guard it. In his hand he held his stick, a whippy sycamore branch stripped of its twigs, that he would lash them with if he caught them. He had the sickle blades with him, too. By common agreement, whoever was playing the ironclad clashed these together when pursuing the others.

Finn and Diane raced off into the surrounding woods, whooping and shouting. When they were far enough away, they stopped to whisper their plans. They ran in opposite directions, Finn circling around, Diane creeping a little nearer to hide in the undergrowth. As Finn ran, trying to make as little noise as possible, he counted to himself. They would start sneaking up on Connor when they reached one hundred.

It was impossible to see Connor hiding in the shadows, impossible to know which way he was looking. When he had counted, Finn began to creep forwards. He kept one of the two trees between himself and Connor as much as possible. Diane would be doing the same from the opposite direction. If they had successfully counted at the same speed they would arrive at the same moment. Then, if one of them could touch Connor, the game would be won.

The woods were very still. Finn could hear nothing but the rush of his own breathing and the occasional tick as he stepped on a twig. At any moment he expected Connor to come roaring out, waving his stick. But he reached the trunk of the tree without being seen.

He took a breath, preparing to dash out into the open. But Diane was there ahead of him. She must have counted more quickly. She ran into the clearing in front of the wooden hut. Connor emerged, his voice booming, scything his stick backwards and forwards with a whoosh. Diane backed off but didn't run, trying to dodge past the stick to touch Connor.

Finn crept forwards. Diane had noticed him but Connor's back was to him. If Connor turned, Finn knew he would have no chance.

He was very close when Diane, with a shout, leapt at Connor. For a moment Finn thought she might make it but the whirring stick caught her in the side. Her back arched as she shouted in pain and crumpled to the ground. Connor, satisfied that Diane was beaten, turned to see if Finn was nearby.

Finn lunged at Connor even as he turned. Connor's branch whipped into Finn's legs, a sharp, painful blow on his left thigh. But Finn had already touched Connor's side as he turned. Finn had won.

There was silence for a moment. Finn and Connor stood looking at each other. Connor still wore his stern, ironclad face.

“I got you first, Connor!” said Finn. “Come on, you're a wrecker now.” Diane, watching them from the ground where she was rubbing her side, said nothing.

Connor held the stick up behind his head again, ready to swing it at Finn. “You are an enemy of Engn and you will die!”

“Connor! I got you first.”

“No one can defeat the ironclads!”

“Connor!”

Connor's arm flinched. Finn stepped backwards.

“You're not an ironclad anymore! Those are the rules.”

With a roar, Connor leapt, but at the wooden building rather than Finn. He began to kick and trample the walls. Finn joined in with him, and, after a moment, Diane too. Soon they had reduced Engn to a tangle of branches on the forest floor.

Afterwards they sat among the ruins, Finn and Diane examining the wounds they'd received from Connor's stick. Finn had picked up a splinter during the fight, too. He tried repeatedly to pluck it from his palm with his fingertips but couldn't get it.

“Here,” said Diane to him. “Let me try. You have to get it out or it'll get infected.”

She held his hand in hers, turning it into the light, then lifted it to her mouth to try and pull the splinter out with her teeth. Finn could feel her warm breath on his skin, the moist tip of her tongue tickling him. Then she got it. She spat the splinter, a long, curving thorn, to the ground.

“Better?” she asked.

“Better, thanks.”

He grinned at her. She let go of his hand and nodded over towards the ruins of Engn.

“You know something?” she said. “If they ever do catch me and cart me off there, I will join the wreckers. I'll do whatever it takes to destroy it for real. So no one else has to be taken.”

She looked suddenly very serious, very grown up. She looked scared.

“Hey, I know, we should swear an oath,” said Connor. “In blood, to make it unbreakable. We could swear that if any of us ever does get taken, that's what we'll do.”

“You mean join the wreckers?” asked Finn. A game in the woods was one thing. To do it for real was another.

“Of course,” said Connor. “Diane? What about you?”

She nodded.

“Finn?”

He wasn't going to be taken to Engn anyway; it didn't really matter. And it was what he'd want to do, if he were brave enough. “Okay.”

They bunched into a circle, legs crossed, knees touching. Finn drew his knife from its leather sheath and examined the blade.

“Use your hand,” said Diane. “Not your wrist. If you cut your wrist you'll bleed to death.”

Connor held his knife over his palm, then glanced around at them.

“This is our greatest secret,” he said. “No one else must ever know.”

“Agreed.”

“Agreed.”

“We vow to destroy Engn, by whatever means it takes.”

“Agreed.”

“Agreed.”

Connor drew the knife across his hand, scratching a red line that pooled blood into his palm. He passed the knife to Diane, who did the same. Finn, refusing to look afraid, refusing to cry out, opened the skin of his own hand, too.

The three of them placed their hands together, grasping one another, their blood mingling as it dripped to the woodland floor. The flap of skin on Finn's palm, rubbed by the others' grips, made him feel sick.

“This oath is unbreakable,” said Connor. “On pain of death.” Diane and Finn repeated his words. They sat for a few moments, hands still touching, then let go.

“I like your rings,” said Finn.

Diane wore intricate, knotted spirals of silver on several of her fingers, winding from her knuckle to the middle joint.

“Everyone has them back home,” she said. She slipped one off and handed it to Finn. It was smeared with her blood. “Have it.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Here's one for you, too.” She handed another ring to Connor.

“Thanks.”

They put the rings on. Finn's was tight and it made his finger throb as he screwed it up over his joint. He held it up to admire. Connor grinned as he studied the ring on his own finger.

“Come on,” said Diane. “We should wash our cuts.”

They stood and raced off through the trees together, towards the bright waters of the river. There, Finn lay down on the bank, and dipped his hand in the flowing water. He watched as wisps of blood from his cut floated off before dissolving away. The cold stopped his palm stinging. He lifted his hand out and watched as beads of blood started to seep out again.

Connor held out a rag for him. “Wrap it around your hand.”

Diane sat on the bank, dipping her feet in the river as she bandaged her own hand.

“This water is lovely,” she said. “It's a shame it isn't deep enough to swim in.”

“We could go up to the millpond,” said Finn.

“Would we be seen?”

Finn thought about it, running through the journey in his mind, working out whether the lane was visible from anywhere.

“No. We'll be okay if we stay near the river.”

Diane stood up and laughed. “Come on then, let's go.”

They ran along the bank, occasionally leaping over tiny creaks feeding into the main river. But they paused when they reached the millpond, each suddenly awkward. Finn and Connor had often swum n***d in the pond. With Diane there, it was different. She glanced at the two of them, seeing their awkwardness, embarrassed at her own.

She shrugged. “Come on. Last one in's a tadpole.”

She wriggled out of her skirt and shirt and, with a salmon leap, dove off the bank. Finn watched her white legs passing into the glass of the pond. A moment later she emerged in the middle, wet hair plastered to her face, laughing with exhilaration. She swam around in circles, clearly at home in the water, then dove back down again with a splash and a kick of her feet. Finn and Connor, grinning at each other, shed their own clothes and jumped in after her.

The next morning, after breakfast, Finn scoured the kitchen for food he could smuggle out. He had three pears in his pockets and was just cutting the crust off a loaf of bread when his mother came into the kitchen. He tried hard not to look as if he was doing anything wrong.

“Still hungry?” his mother asked. “It seems we never feed you enough these days.”

Finn shrugged. His mother didn't look suspicious or angry. Still, it was hard to tell what adults were really thinking. If his parents knew they were hiding Diane from the ironclads they would be furious. Worse than furious. He wanted to tell them, and nearly had on several occasions, but then Diane might be put in danger.

“I'm playing with Connor. We said we'd bring food to eat. So we can stay out all day.”

“Off you go then. And be careful not to cut yourself again. Come straight back if you do.”

He'd tried to hide the wound on his palm but his mother had noticed it when they were eating and had made him wash it again under the tap. He'd invented a story about cutting it while clambering over an old gate. He just hoped his parents didn't talk to Connor's and realize they had identical scars.

“I will. Bye!” He sprinted past his mother, bread tucked under his arm.

“Hey, not so quick, Finn!” she called after him.

“What is it?”

His mother caught up with him and kissed him on top of the head. She didn't have to bend down much anymore.

Finn sighed and turned to run off.

“And make sure you're home before dark,” his mother called after him.

“I promise.”

Outside, Finn fished the ring out of his pocket and wound it onto his finger. A groove spiralled up his skin, now, that it fitted into. It didn't throb any more. He grabbed his stick from where he'd left it last night, leaning on the hedge next to the garden gate. Now he was ready to meet Connor and Diane.

His stick was gently curved. He'd carved a series of notches along it, one for each kill. He had twenty-two now. Diane only had eight or nine but Connor had over thirty. Their latest game was one of m*********r. Connor had started it a few days earlier, after explaining that butterflies were destroying his father's cabbage crop.

“It's the white ones that do the damage. My father said he'd pay me for each one I kill.”

At first Connor had prowled his farm, creeping up on butterflies and attempting to smash them to death with his stick before they skipped away. Soon all three of them were playing the game. They ranged across the valley in search of white butterflies to bludgeon. Every time you got one you carved another notch onto your stick.

Today they made their way along narrow woodland paths through patches of nettles and vast banks of brambles. A light drizzle was falling outside the woods, but the trees kept if off them, except for the occasional fat blip of water falling from the high branches to hit one of them on the head.

They peered around for the glorious sight of a shimmering, white butterfly. Whoever spotted it first was allowed the kill – that was the rule. You had to run after it, keeping it in sight but not getting too close, waiting for it to settle. There was an art to it. Sometimes the butterflies escaped, flitting across uncrossable oceans of undergrowth. Sometimes you thought you had them but they fluttered away even as you swung your stick down at them. But sometimes, gloriously, you got one, striking it before it could move, reducing it to twitching tatters of paper embedded in the ground.

“There's one!”

Connor sprinted down the path, attention focused on a white butterfly circling in front of him. Finn ran after him with Diane walking along behind. The butterfly appeared to know it was being hunted. It stopped occasionally, as if for a rest, but skittered on whenever Connor drew close. It veered off the path, flying high up over mountain ranges of fern and bramble. Connor, not stopping, lunged into the thick undergrowth, beating a new path through the bushes with his stick. Finn soon lost sight of him.

“You'll never catch it!” Finn shouted. “Let's find another, Conn.”

“No! It'll have to stop soon.” Connor already sounded distant, his voice muffled. “Come on!”

Diane came to stand next to him.

“He doesn't give up, does he?”

Finn shrugged. “Come on. Let's follow him.”

Finn and Diane took the path Connor had trampled through the undergrowth. They soon caught up, felling the ferns in front of him with wide sweeps of his stick.

“It's gone, Connor. Let's find another.”

“A bit farther,” said Connor. “I just saw it, not far ahead.”

They cut their way on through the undergrowth. Finn was hot from all the running but at the same time his arms were icy cold from the wet ferns. It was impossible to know where they were or which way they were going; the walls of green around them were too high to see over. Finn was just about to shout that he was turning back when Connor called from up ahead.

“Hey, look where we are!”

Finn caught him up. They had come to the edge of the bushes at last. A clearing stood before them. The sight was immediately familiar. The walls of trees. The log. It made sense; they weren't that far from the secret path he and Connor had found when they'd tracked down Diane. Still, it felt suddenly like a bad omen. The place was forever associated with the appearance of ironclads in Finn's mind.

“Any sign of the butterfly?” asked Diane, catching them up.

“No. It's gone,” said Finn. He stepped past Connor into the glade.

“Finn! Look!” said Connor.

Over on the old log there was a butterfly. But not the small, white one they had pursued. This one was much larger, the size of one of Finn's hands. Its wings, spread wide to the sun, were bright red with purple spots for eyes. Finn had never seen such a large, dazzling creature in his whole life.

“Quiet,” said Connor. “I'm going to get it. This one's worth two notches at least.”

“Connor, you can't,” said Finn. “It's not one of the whites. It isn't harming anyone. I mean it's … it's beautiful.”

But Connor crept towards the butterfly, stick held up high in the air ready to swing. The butterfly's wings twitched closed and open once or twice but it didn't move. It was basking, Finn could see, in a patch of warm sunlight.

“Connor, let's leave it.”

Connor ignored him. Finn glanced at Diane, who frowned and looked puzzled but didn't move.

With a whoop, clapping his hands, Finn darted forwards towards Connor, hoping to scare the butterfly into flight. At the same moment, Connor brought his stick down with a thwack onto the log. The butterfly was already moving but Connor caught its wing, knocking it back to the ground. He scrambled after it, bashing at it again and again. Finn tried to stop him but Connor struck the butterfly properly, pinning it down, its wings flapping uselessly. A few more blows and the flapping stopped.

“You shouldn't have done that, Connor. That wasn't part of the game.”

Connor turned to look at them, his eyes wide with triumph. Finn was about to reply when a sound blared out through the trees around them. The sound of a horn being blown. Connor's words died in his mouth.

“What's that?” asked Finn. It was familiar. It sounded like some wounded, angry animal, but there was a metallic edge to it too. It made his spine shimmy to hear it.

“Don't know,” said Connor.

“It's the ironclads,” said Diane, looking at the two of them in open alarm. “They've found me.”