Hellsborough Chronicles - Hellsborough and The Dark Peak
The semi-mythical Van Hallam's adventures in Hellsborough and The Dark Peak.
The finished version of Dark Peak: Hellsborough Chronicles Book One, is now available in Kindle and paperback formats from Amazon -- or you can download the first 7 chapters for free in ePub or Kindle mobi format from Hellsborough Library
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Introduction » Chapter 1 » Chapter 2 » Chapter 3 » Chapter 4 » Chapter 5 » Chapter 6 » Chapter 7 »
Van is on a roll and I'm keen to hear more, so I don't press too hard.
I've learned to get anything juicy out of Van -- there's no need to rush; his story will manifest itself sooner or later -- usually sooner, and played out in conjunction with a cribbage hand.
Run of four. Four in the box, thanks for the gift, meself... Yeh, they came for us good, them mardy bloody-minded demonspawn. No place being out there in the Wisewood, they should be in fields -- penned in. But you and me, we survived, didn't we eh buddy boy?
Has I said Pip? I don't think I has. When I'm out and about in The Dark Peak and I sees them demonspawn in the distance -- even now, knowing what I know -- they makes my blood boil. Scream in my head I do -- Demonspawn! Demonspawn! I don't let my face show it, but that's what my head is saying. I have so much hate for them things, I'm spittin' feathers, I'm seeing red, just because I see them on some distant pasture. I don't hate much, Pip, but them demonspawn I hates them with a vengeance. It's been a long time, but even now I'm barely in control of my distaste for them creatures.
Which means -- I say -- that you're not in control of it, are you?
No, admits Van, I'm not in control of it. I hate them things to their very core, to my core. Demonspawn clovenfoot. Mindless creatures, the dullards of The Dark Peak. Cantankerous, messy, sinister, vile. Evil. They're not, they can't help 'emselves, but they are.
Van takes another long suck on his pipe and downs and hefty gobfull of ale. He's struggling to focus, I reckon, but still pretty coherent, it's almost like he's in some sort of hypnotic trance, but not quite:
It'd been dark for a while and we'd been in and outa sleep a bit, I remember. All those noises that are the Wisewood at night were going on and on. We ignored them though, me and Shad. Cuddling up we were, waiting for the sun-up, trying to get some kip. Floating in and out of consciousness, of dreamsleep. Nothing to fear here, nothing to fear here, that's what I kept telling myself. Was probably saying it to Shad 'n' all.
Then they were there, them demonspawn. I couldn't see them, it was so black and dark I couldn't see my hand in front of my own face, but Shad could -- see them, I mean. And it were cold. So cold, that's why you could feel their breath, and the frigid heat coming off their flaccid bulk as they blindly ploughed their way through that impenetrable undergrowth. Couldn't seem 'em, could sense 'em, and that's probably scarier than seeing the damn things. Knowing the repulsive things are there. But I couldn't see 'em. I felt 'em though. Smelt 'em. Heard 'em. Deep guttural lowing, cloven hoofs, duneweed and twig fall and fallen tree leaves crushed by their trampling.
It's the smell, Pip. If I sayed sulphur, you'd know, but that'd be easy, that's stinkegg. This weren't eggs. This was death. The stench of a month dead track discarded grizzler. And that blood smell -- when meat bleeds out and leaves the blood behind and that blood matures for a day or so, that smell; it's the stench of the dead: Of decay. That's your demonspawn. Mindless dullards, forever wandering murkwits; perennially lost. They mull about in bad dreams and terrorise waking thoughts.
That stench. That decay. I think that night in the Wisewood, I soiled myself. I soaked my myself at least. I puked n'all, or at least dry heaved, since me belly was empty. But apart from them involuntary functions of the self, I was frozen. Couldn't move. My mind whirred. Couldn't comprehend what was going on, and what, if anything, I could do.
I remember this -- I don't know why I remember, but I do -- I remember, pulling Shad close with one arm and biting down hard on the first thing that I grasped with t'other -- some sapling shooting up from forest floor. After that, I remember nowt of what you would say was tangible.
Van stopped talking and eyed me directly. It seems to me that you might have a question for me? He said, observing my expression. The question (and those eyes, those piercing eyes) made me jolt, spilling tiny sloops of ale onto the table. I hastily mopped them with my sleeve, for no other reason than to waste some time and gather my thoughts.
Van had already moved on.
His search was now for something of more interest than me, his part time temporary biographer. He seemed to have a renewed interest in things other than his life story.
His eyes glinted with recognition. Hah! That clown over there, I know her. He said. She's Pandora: Pandora of Hathersage! He wasn't discrete with the volume of his exclamation, the whole bar -- it seemed -- turning in his direction.
I know this too; I've seen Pandora before, she is one part of the Hathersage performing troupe. They're a seemingly informal bunch, and will perform anywhere and pretty much do any sort of clowning that you'd expect -- magic tricks, busking, joke telling, general clowning around, miming, you name it. There's a reason for that, I know. Whilst they're performing, whilst they're entertaining you and yours, they're also observing, taking notes, recording: People they see, interactions they witness, movements of goods they perchance upon, that sort of thing. These clowns you see, this Hathersage troupe, are spys.
Yes, spys.
They survive in Hellsborough performing for scraps. Scraps of anything - food, drugs, drink, information. Information is the most valuable. Why? Why do you think? Because information is tradable. Little snickets of information, things noticed here, things noticed there. Things that can be traded for better bits of information -- Better secrets. Bigger secrets. More information yields deeper and more important information. More little gems that further the cause.
What cause? Any cause on their side. Any cause that betters the clowns. For The clowns, only exist for their own kind, their own tribe, their clan -- not for the crosslanders, not the jellyheads, and certainly not the nascenti. No, clowns is clowns, and clowns act in the interest of clowns and clowns alone.
It's not just information though. They move things -- Physical goods. Drugs, parts, weapons -- between different cells of the resistance, whichever side it is your interested in. Or transporting things covertly for the nascenti, maybe the xin. Clowns have no favourites, they have no fear, and they have no compunction to take sides. To be clown is to be mercenary -- You pay, what they ask, and they don't ask no questions.