Tamsin Beech Ch. 09: Edinburgh

By noon they'd reached the small town of Kinross unchallenged. Or at least where it had once stood. The buildings had been laid waste by an earthquake that had ripped through the area, creating deep rents in the land for them to negotiate. It was as McTavish waited for Tamsin and Leonid to scramble up out of one such chasm that he froze, crouching down and peering off into the distance ...

"What is it?" Tamsin hissed. She'd found a makeshift walking stick to support her knee and taken the precaution of tying her hair back and covering it with a filthy scrap of material. From what she'd gathered Reekies seldom took pride in their appearance and her lustrous red locks would be an instant giveaway.

McTavish didn't answer for long seconds, then, "Lookout. He's spotted us."

Tamsin squinted off into the distance but could see no-one.

"Already?" Leonid whispered, "we're still miles out."

"What do we do now?" Tamsin asked. She wished her Grach was close to hand instead of sitting at the bottom of her rucksack. The cool breeze blowing up from the south brought with it the smell of ash and sulphur, making her shiver. Her limbs were completely bared in order to show more of McTavish's artistic skills but also to further convince the Reekie lookouts of their authenticity.

"He's no' fired on us ... so we can move on. He'll tell whoever's leader now that we're here," McTavish straightened and walked away, making no attempt to help either of them out of the muddy ravine, "they'll be expecting us ..."

PART TWO: AULD REEKIE

For years, tourists visiting Scotland's capital had been intrigued by the fact that Arthur's Seat, the craggy hill to the east of Holyrood and the Scottish Parliament building, was actually an extinct volcano. They had ascended to the rubble strewn summit to take smiling selfies against the stunning backdrop of Edinburgh's majestic skyline, cheerfully thrown frisbees for their dogs and eaten picnics on its lower, grassy slopes and climbed its cliffs at Salisbury Crags despite the signs warning them not to.

But in 2021 when a fragment of Thanatos roughly the size of a Range Rover had slammed violently into Arthur's Seat at several thousand miles an hour, splitting the hill wide open, the volcano that had lain dormant beneath became the very opposite of extinct.

Seconds later the city and those few that had survived the shockwave of the asteroid's impact were smothered by a scalding, suffocating pyroclastic cloud before they even knew it was coming. Then rivers of lava had surged like a fast-moving tide along Princes Street and up the cobbles of the Royal Mile and down into the old town. Those sheltering below ground in Waverley railway station were soon trapped and entombed as the lava advanced, destroying Princes Street Gardens, the National Gallery, tram lines, cars, buses and everything else in its path.

Calton Hill with its observatory and Nelson Monument became an island in a sea of gradually cooling molten rock, looking forlornly across the devastated city to the much grander and more impressive island of Edinburgh Castle itself.

. . .

"Where the fuck are we?" asked Tamsin for about the tenth time in the space of a few minutes.

McTavish had insisted they continue rather than waste another night camping beyond the city. But Tamsin wasn't sure what made her more apprehensive - the sight of the entire Coalition fleet anchored off in the distance as they'd crossed the rusting collosus of the Forth Bridge, or the fact that their scout was taking them into the lair of the Reekies in darkness.

Her grandfather was on one of those ships, she mused, as she watched the grey silhouettes of both Russian and North Korean warships. Vladimir Zakhvatchikov. Now their undisputed leader after she'd beheaded Kim Napp Gylan on Kerrera. But if their plan involving the Reekies succeeded, for how much longer?

The outskirts of Edinburgh were like a weirdly sculpted black desert in the fading light of the evening. Rock spewing from Arthur's Seat just a few miles to the east had solidified into waves, ripples and splashes like ocean waves, making progress slow. Trapped cars and other shapeless, melted vehicles that had been swept along, formed half melted barricades, further impeding them.

The horrifying aftermath of a volcano exploding in the middle of a crowded city, the upper storeys of some of the city's grander Georgian terraces had survived surprisingly unscathed - merely scorched by intense heat, with their doors and windows now empty like the staring eye sockets of a thousand skulls. A gritty, sulphurous smell permeated the dry air and there was mud. Thick, claggy grey mud formed from volcanic ash that clung to their bare legs and boots and made every step a struggle.

McTavish pointed to a blistered sign fixed to what may have once been a stadium of some kind, "Murrayfield, home o' Scottish rugby. We're close."

"What's rugby?" Tamsin asked.

The clouds of choking ash had long since settled and the lava had long since cooled. Barely discernible streets blocked with rubble and wreckage and lava floes hardened into towering wave formations limited their choices and McTavish, Tamsin and Leonid found themselves herded, funneled closer and closer towards the city centre. In the distance, a trail of dirty white smoke drifted lazily skyward from the shattered crater that had once been Arthur's Seat and was whisked away by the strengthening wind high up.

"You still remember the way?" Leonid whispered, looking around uneasily. Almost anywhere here would be a perfect spot for an ambush.

McTavish turned off down a narrow lane, "Aye. I was born here."

"I've been meaning to ask," Tamsin ventured hesitantly, "just how old are you?"

McTavish glanced back over his shoulder, "Me? I was a wee lad - ten years old, when the strikes began. I sheltered with the other survivors in the castle."

Older than she'd thought. But with the strong, healthy body of a man half his age. It seemed there was a lot to be said for living a tough life, "You don't look more ..."

McTavish silenced her by clamping a filthy hand over her mouth. Just visible emerging from the gloom around them, dozens of scruffily dressed figures appeared. Moving as silently as the oncoming darkness itself, the newcomers were mostly naked but for the odd loincloth, bone necklace or filthy scrap of tartan. Swirls of blue - much like their own, painted crude patterns over their scarred, wiry bodies. Tamsin glanced back to see more closing off the way they'd come. In moments they were surrounded.

"Cò th 'annad?" demanded one of the closest Reekies in such a distorted form of Gaelic that it took Tamsin a second to realise there were actual words, "agus cò iad sin a tha thu a 'toirt a-steach don bhaile-mhòr?"

Bowstrings creaked as crude arrows were nocked and aimed menacingly at the trio.

"What's he saying?" Leonid hissed urgently.

"Ssh. He wants tae ken who we are," answered McTavish, "lemme handle this."

The Reekie addressing them wasn't a particularly tall or imposing individual but the numerous scars, intricate woad markings and impressive staff he carried with dozens of human vertebrae threaded onto it hinted that he might be a person of some import. He stepped up onto a solidified curl of lava as several of the others squawked and grunted at one another. What may have once been words rendered gibberish by time and isolation.

"Is e m 'ainm McTavish ... Ruaridh McTavish," their scout continued, bowing slightly, "tha an dithis seo nan caraidean dhomh."

"Caraidean?" the lead Reekie raised his eyebrows and glanced around at his fellows, "cuin a bhiodh fear de na càirdean againn càirdeil ri daoine a-muigh?"

Tamsin nudged McTavish in the back, "He's not buying it is he?"

"He's a new leader," McTavish answered quietly, "I've no' met him before."

The Reekie leader raised a hand, "Boghadairean," and at once bowstrings were drawn back all around them as archers prepared to shoot.

Tamsin impatiently shouldered McTavish out of the way, "My name is ... Tamsin Beech," she announced and followed McTavish's example by respectfully bowing, "forgive our intrusion. I am leader ... of the resistance fighting President Zakhvatchikov's Coalition ... the invaders," she waved a hand in the general direction of the Firth of Forth barely five miles distant.

The Reekie studied her, his dark - almost black eyes taking in every detail of her somewhat pathetic disguise. It had been enough to get past the lookouts but now she realised just how transparent it was. Half naked and painted blue for fuck's sake. What could be more ridiculous? Tamsin continued, "These ... are my most trusted scout McTavish, and my second in command ... Leonid Denisovich. It was he ... that rescued McTavish's clan by killing Colonel Dikaya in Berwick. He's made an enemy of his own people, so ... he's like all of you now. An outcast."

A ripple of murmured conversation moved through the assembled Reekies. The leader once more impatiently raised a hand for silence. He turned to McTavish, "Es this ... true?"

The words sounded distorted as if English had been all but forgotten by the Reekie leader. McTavish nodded, "Tha mi a 'mionnachadh air mo bheatha."

"Englesh," growled the leader, "we hev ... guests."

Guests. Not prisoners, thought Tamsin. Well ... that was encouraging. The idea made them sound almost civilised as she processed what the Reekie had said. But they couldn't afford to forget that these people were still at best formidable warriors and at worst ... bloodthirsty cannibals.

They were the reason why Reivers had never strayed this far east.

McTavish calmly spoke again, "I swear it's the truth."

The Reekie leader pondered for several long minutes. A breeze from the direction of Leith on the coast brought the scents of seaweed and salt water to counter those of ash and sulphur that permeated everything in the obliterated city. The Reekies shuffled impatiently, adjusting their grips on makeshift weapons and rusted swords perhaps plundered from somewhere within the castle.

Then finally the Reekie leader spoke, "Breng thum."

Tamsin and Leonid's rucksacks were taken from them, and with archers covering their every move, they and McTavish were marched towards the towering outcrop of black rock in the distance on which sat Edinburgh Castle.

. . .

Hours later, Tamsin Beech sat on the bare stone floor of Edinburgh Castle's Great Hall. She leaned across to Leonid Denisovich beside her, "He's been in there an awfully long time."

"Radi chego ..." Leonid swore under his breath, "you said that five minutes ago."

Tamsin frowned, "How do you know it was five minutes?"

"I'm guessing," Leonid retorted sarcastically, "it was probably more like two."

Flanked by a jeering mob of torch bearing Reekies, they'd been marched through the maze of Edinburgh's lava choked streets, across the castle's broad esplanade and through its main gate - the thick stone battery walls around them pockmarked and blasted by weapons' fire but still very much intact. With the firepower at its disposal, Tamsin had no doubt that the Coalition could easily target the castle and wipe out the Reekie threat once and for all with a naval bombardment. So apparently Zakhvatchikov had other plans. She assumed the castle would make a formidable base of operations from which the occupation of the UK could be conducted from. Her grandfather wanted it captured intact.

The castle was huge and commanded a view for miles in every direction. Millions of tourists had once flocked there to visit the batteries and barracks, the prison and the military hospital, or simply to watch the daily tradition of the 'one o'clock gun' firing. But now the place was home to the Reekies. All once denizens of the surrounding city who'd been cut off from the outside world for so long they'd resorted to cannibalism and developed their own tribal culture.

On reaching Crown Square at the top of the castle, they'd been separated from McTavish. The Reekie scout had been ushered across the cobbled courtyard into the Queen Anne barracks while she and Leonid were guided into the Great Hall next door.

The whitewashed walls had once been adorned with displays of pikes, swords, halberds and muskets - all long since removed to equip Reekie fighters. Polished oakwood panelling - hundreds of years old, had been stripped off for firewood when the years long winters that followed Thanatos had gripped the country in a cruel icy fist. Reekies tended numerous pots simmering over an open fire at the front of the hall while hundreds more lounged on crude bedding around them - jabbering in their own dialect, sharpening weapons, stitching garments using bone needles, reapplying woad to one another or simply scowling at the newcomers in the flickering torch light, wondering perhaps why they hadn't been slaughtered already for the evening's meal.

Tamsin shuddered. Whatever it was McTavish was telling the Reekies' leader, she hoped to hell he was doing a convincing job of it. Not just their lives but the lives of everyone in what had once been the United Kingdom depended on it.

"How's your knee?" Leonid asked. Human skulls - picked clean, had been rammed onto long staffs in the corners of the hall. Dozens of them.

"Sore," Tamsin answered. She was growing increasingly nervous of a group of younger Reekies close by who'd done nothing but stare with a haunted, hungry look in their dark eyes since they'd been brought in, "that was a neat move Kim Napp Gylan used on me. Wish I could learn how to do it."

"Perhaps he could've taught you if you hadn't sliced his head off," Leonid shrugged, trying to appear casual and unconcerned by their predicament, but she could tell from the movement of his eyes he was alert and assessing every detail of their surroundings.

An enormous wooden door creaked open in one corner of the hall, and in walked McTavish, the Reekies' leader and two other dead-eyed, woad decorated brutes carrying their confiscated gear. Their rucksacks didn't appear to have been interfered with. The rest stopped their whispered conversations and grew silent as the group paused in the centre of the hall.

"McTavish ... has told me who he is ... and who ye are," began the leader haltingly as if trying to remember how to speak English. His voice was low, growly and heavily accented, "we ... welcum him beck."

Tamsin watched expectantly, trying to read McTavish's expression. But with his head lowered it was hard to make out.

The Reekie leader continued, "My name is Fraser. I've been leader sence my father was muddered by the invaders ... ten years ago. And my word here is law. McTavish ... hus told me o' yer plan. An' I think it's ... a desperate one if I'm honust wi' ye. But ..."

"It's true," Tamsin blurted, "the Coalition have vastly superior equipment ... and this time ... if you choose to join us, you won't have the luxury of loaned weapons ..."

Fraser glared at her, annoyed by the interruption. Tamsin bit her tongue, waiting for him to continue. Here it comes, she thought. The moment of truth.

"But," the Reekie leader continued gruffly, "... for how the invaders treated our kinfolk after Berwick ... I'm willin' tae offer ye our support ..."

Tamsin clambered eagerly to her feet to offer thanks and make proper introductions. But Fraser slammed the butt of his staff impatiently down on the flagstoned floor with a dull thud, "I'm no' finished. True, we want revenge ... fer how we was treated ... but ... ye're gonnae have to prove yersel' ... to those gethered here."

Oh fuck, Tamsin mouthed as a chill crawled her spine.

"We want the invaders gone. As much as yoursel'. But ... if we're gonnae be layin' down our lives we need to ken if ye're a leader worth followin' ..." Fraser pointed at Tamsin, "single combat. Against a champion o' my choosin' ... if ye win, we're with ye."

Leonid stood up in protest, "Tamsin can't fight. She was badly wounded. She doesn't have the strength to ..."

Fraser raised a hand, "Quiet! Are ye ... offerin' to take her place ... Russian?" he made the word sound like a grevious insult.

A ripple of angry murmuring ran through the hall as the others realised exactly what Leonid Denisovich was. It seemed that no matter what heroic deeds he had accomplished in the past on the Reekies' behalf - he was still one of the invaders. Spetsnaz. The invaders who'd armed and supplied the Reekies in order to attack Berwick Upon Tweed then swiftly turned on them once they were surplus to requirements.

"Don't," Tamsin shouted, desperately grabbing his arm, "it should be my responsibility, not yours."

She assumed that McTavish had omitted that Vladimir Zakhvatchikov was her grandfather. If the Reekies had even suspected her identity they would all probably have been in one of the pots simmering over the fire by now.

"You can barely walk without a stick," Leonid protested softly, gazing down into her blue green eyes, "how are you going to fight?"

"It should be me," Tamsin reiterated. She chewed the inside of her mouth, angry. Because she knew her second in command was right. They needed the Reekies as allies or their plan would fail. She nodded silently.

Without preamble, Fraser banged his staff hard on the floor making the stacked vertebrae rattle, "Our champion - Renton here ... will fight the rebel's second ..."

Leonid wiped his sweating palms on the threadbare rags of his disguise, "Okay, good. When exactly do we ..."

"TÒISEACHADH!" Fraser barked.

With no further warning, one of Fraser's brutes suddenly lumbered forward and slammed into Leonid, taking him completely by surprise. The Russian stumbled backwards and landed on his backside, winded.

"Wait a minute," yelled Tamsin, horrified, "what are the rules?"

But neither Fraser or any of the other Reekies were listening. The ones closest to the combat scrambled out of the way, some dragging their bedding with them while others hooted and cheered. Leonid made as if to stand up, then instead slid sideways across the floor, sweeping a leg at the backs of Renton's knees. The Reekie jerked at the impact but incredibly stayed upright, an enormous paw snatching at Leonid's head as he rolled away.

But the Russian was much too fast. Renton was physically huge, making Tamsin wonder what he lived on when the majority of Reekies were thin and wiry in comparison. But Leonid Denisovich had years of Coalition Spetsnaz training behind him - supposedly making him an elite killer. They circled one another, sizing each other up and searching for any sign of previous injury that might betray a weakness, while the assembled Reekies squawked encouragement.

Renton feinted.

Then in the split second as Leonid reacted, lunged at him. A massive arm across his neck and shoulder knocked Leonid to the ground again while the Reekie's other fist slammed again and again into the healing scar of the bullet wound he'd sustained back in Ayr.

Tamsin's hand went to her mouth as Leonid's face contorted with pain. They both had injuries that needed rest and recuperation to properly recover from. But that wasn't something the Reekies cared about.

Damn it. If Fraser wasn't going to tell them the rules, she'd make up her own. Tamsin snatched up a blood encrusted bone tomahawk from a Reekie's bedding close by and tossed it, "LEONID! CATCH!"

Almost too late, Leonid squinted over at her, then grabbed the spinning tomahawk from the air. With a fluid movement he brought the shaft down against the side of Renton's dreadlocked head, splitting his ear in two. The Reekie squealed and rolled away clutching a hand to the injury, "Sìol neònach Ruiseanach!"

Leonid nodded his thanks as he shakily stood, blood smeared across the right side of his abdomen from burst stitches. Sweat gleamed on the blue swirls decorating his muscular torso as he gulped down a breath of air.