The Edinburgh Dead - Brian Ruckley [77]
The man got a hold on his belt, and in the space of a single heartbeat Quire was off the ground. He was taller and broader than his opponent by some way, yet he was lifted bodily into the air. He tried to club the man in the side of the head, but could not land a sure enough strike. And then the man threw him.
Branches slashed at Quire’s face. He hit a tree trunk with his hip. It spun him round and he fell head first amongst bushes. The pistol slipped from his grasp. Dazed, he rolled on to all fours and began scrambling through the undergrowth. He could see almost nothing in the deep shadow beneath the canopy, in the thick scrub. But he struggled forward, stems and thorns scraping his face and arms, driven on by the sound of crashing pursuit behind him.
He forced himself up on to his feet and blundered ahead, beating away saplings in his path. As he went, he took his baton from his belt; used it to flail at the vegetation before him. There was that emptiness in him now which he had not felt with such clarity for years; the dread simplicity of being in the presence of imminent death. As it had always done, it lent strength to his limbs.
He burst out from the copse and into the moonlight once more. His feet went from under him and he fell on his side into a ditch running along the edge of the field. It was clogged up with dead wood and fallen branches, but there was a foot or more of water in it too, and he sucked some of that into his lungs before he could get his head up.
The moon was abruptly obscured, and a great weight landed on Quire’s back, punching him down into the bottom of the ditch. He rolled over, spitting filthy water, flailing for a hold to pull himself up. Brittle wood broke beneath his grasp. Hands pressed down on his chest, forcing his head underwater. He blinked as he went under, caught a glimpse of a face above him, one side of it gilded by the moon. It was Davey Muir, the gravedigger he had seen with Blegg at the Dancing School.
Muir got a hold of Quire’s throat, and the fingers were like steel bands. Spots of colour flared inside Quire’s eyelids. Water was in his nose. He clubbed with his baton at the arms holding him down, but it made no impression. The boy had an impossible strength. It was as if he was made of stone.
Quire’s body was howling for air. He let his baton fall, and instead took hold of Davey’s left hand; broke the third and fourth fingers backwards. It did not seem to bother Davey, but it did weaken his grip a fraction. Just enough. Quire managed to force that crippled hand away from his throat. He got his feet into Davey’s stomach and kicked out with all the desperate strength he could summon. It tore Davey free, and Quire burst up out of the water, roaring in fear and fury. And pain, for those fingers ripping away from his neck had felt as if they were taking his windpipe with them.
Quire got to his feet. His coat was as heavy as lead, soaked through. Water poured from it. He spat and sputtered. Davey was rising in front of him, the iron ring on its rope still hanging from his wrist like a manacle.
Quire fumbled about at his feet and dragged up a length of knotted branch. He swung it at Davey’s head. The gravedigger got an arm up, and the branch broke in two across his elbow, leaving Quire with just the stub of it.
Davey surged forward, piling up the filthy ditchwater in front of his pumping legs. Quire threw himself to one side, sprawling on the bank amidst a fringe of rushes and rotting logs. He tried to push himself, backwards, up and out into the field beyond, but the soft earth gave beneath his hands and heels and sucked him back down. Davey loomed over him, the light of the moon spilling over his shoulders, and flailed at him with the rope-tethered ring. It thudded into the ground by Quire’s head, spattering his cheek with wet mud.
Quire rose, sheer terror for once giving his left arm the strength to do what was needful. He threw himself inside the reach of the descending circlet of iron, and stabbed Davey in the eye with