They continued to fall back.
It was beginning to get dark, which was good.
It was very possible they could double back on their hunters. At the very least, if they could get unseen to one of the coasts, they could just swim back around them. They were both undeniably good swimmers these days, after all.
They ended up being driven towards the northern end of the island and when they saw the walls of the enclosed garden, Aleksey remembered the shed. He tapped Ben on the arm; they rose from their latest concealment, and slipped unseen through the old door.
In the shed, Aleksey took down the scythe. It was rusty, but with a knife in one hand and that in the other, Ben now resembled the Grim Reaper himself. It was a good omen they both thought.
They went out of the garden over the back wall, an effort for Aleksey that etched Ben’s face with worry. Aleksey stroked Ben’s cheek for a moment, and they rested their foreheads together. ‘It will be full dark soon. Then we will become the hunters.’
Ben cupped him behind his neck. ‘How are you holding up?’
Aleksey snorted softly. ‘I have not seen my dead mother yet and the lighthouse is not leading me home, so things are looking good.’ He felt Ben’s body tense against him and suddenly recalled that he’d not told Ben the full story of the last night of their long swim. Fortunately, Ben didn’t have time to question this assertion. They heard voices once more, the counting off, the checking the line, and so slipped again into the darkness of the trees. They weren’t far from Kittiwake and decided to make for it in one dash. It was harder running silently in the rapidly declining daylight and, disbelievingly, Aleksey watched as Ben suddenly went flying over a root in the path that he’d not spotted. He’d almost never seen Ben make a misstep and fall, and so was stunned by the way he rolled, regained his feet and carried on, like an India-rubber ball. Indomitable. Indefatigable.
Kittiwake turned out to be a terrible idea.
They’d been beaten to it.
While they were slowly concealing themselves then running, laying low, repositioning, they’d assumed the line had held steady behind them, but one of the men had apparently been sent forwards to recce, and now came out of cover the same time they did.
He was well trained. He dropped immediately to one knee, brought up his gun and fired. Ben was faster, shouldering them both off the path, and the bullet clipped the trunk of the tree they’d landed by.
He hauled him to his feet, and ploughed them both deeper in the small wood. One more shot clipped a tree alongside Ben’s head, but the shooter apparently wasn’t going to waste his ammo, and he just shouted back their new location to his comrades.
They emerged into the open of Ben’s Bottom.
Aleksey suddenly felt extremely trapped and completely visible, despite the stormy evening.
They’d been seen: excited voices, the line beginning to speed up behind them. They curved to contain them; the men at the further extents south and north pulling forwards, preventing them from getting to the sea. They had to keep retreating. But Aleksey knew as Ben must have that there was nothing for them this way but the cliffs and death.
How had it come to this so fast? Ben was waiting for him even now, not even breathing deeply. He grabbed his arm and began to haul him up the steep slope towards the headland. He was even more effective than PB had been at towing. Ben was like a silent steam engine, ploughing them through the gorse. Until a lucky shot nicked his side. He twisted and went down, but once more rose like a runner on starting blocks and, ignoring the wound, continued to heave him on.
Aleksey glanced back. The line was entirely formed up behind them now. They weren’t even hurrying, only picking their way carefully through the scant undergrowth.
Ben’s shirt was darkening, and he had a hand to his side. Only now could Aleksey hear Ben’s faint gasp for breath.
They made it to the top.
Another shot, but it only succeeded in winging the concrete base of the lighthouse.
Ben looked around despairingly. ‘They have to keep us alive.’
Aleksey knew Ben wasn’t saying this in a good way. As had already occurred to him, it was very, very bad that they were needed alive. His ex-profession told him that few men resisted their interrogators when the right questions were asked. Or the right methods were employed to elicit answers anyway. He’d thought in the armoury that nothing could get the location of the island from him, but he’d known as he’d thought it that this was probably just a vaunting boast. The chimera’s hiding place would also be given up, under the right kind of questioning.
They backed together to the cliff edge.
The wind was howling up from the bottom of cathedral arch. The waves were almost as high as the lowest seabirds’ nests, great swells seeming to suck at the white chalky face more than bash it, as if the ocean had changed tactic in its assault on this despised obstruction.
Ben put a foot on the bridge, but some stone crumbled away.
He put a hand on Aleksey’s shoulder. Aleksey knew what Ben was telling him by this gesture: the cliff was a better option than what awaited them if they were taken.
He put a hand to Ben’s cheek. There wasn’t time for more.
Another shot rang out.
Instinctively they both ducked and ran further around the lighthouse. They needed a few more moments to say something—anything. Fifteen years and it had come to this?
