‘What are you talking about?’ said Golden Girl.

‘Why don’t you all shut up and let funny-face finish?’ said Josa. ‘Then we can get to the party.’

‘It’s like this.’ Ed looked round at their faces. He had their attention, which was a start. ‘You all saw the sickos the other night,’ he said. ‘The night of the blood-red moon, a wave of them passing through.’

There were mumbled yeses from around the table.

‘They were headed for London,’ Ed went on.

‘How do you know that?’ asked Dara.

‘I just do, OK?’

‘We’re from London,’ said Kyle. ‘We’ve seen what’s going on. There’s a bare massive army of sickos building up there.’

‘So what?’ said the Bracknell boy. ‘That’s not really our problem, is it?’

‘It is, though,’ Ed insisted. ‘If we allow them to get strong, to build an army, they’ll wipe us out. All of us. This is our one chance to end it for all time. If we got our own army together we could slaughter every last one of them. I’ve seen what you lot are capable of. I saw your best fighters in action today and it was awesome. All I want from you, my prize as the winner, is that you bring your best fighters with me into London, your horses, your vehicles, your weapons, and we take the fight to the enemy. We’ll make the races real. We’ll defeat the sickos for real. We will win this!’

Ed stopped. Held his breath. The faces round the table were giving nothing away.

There was a long silence.

And then Josa stood up.

‘I’m in,’ she said.

Dara shook his head. ‘I’m not letting you have all the fun,’ he said, and he, too, stood up.

Ed let out his breath.

Perhaps his plan had worked.

Chapter 69

69

The journey back to The Beeches seemed to take no time at all, and, no matter how much he told himself not to worry until he got there, Ed had to admit he was nervous about what they’d find. When the sickos had gone on their stampede the other night, had they got inside? The place was pretty well protected, so it was possible that if they’d come through this way they would have just gone round the walls.

Maybe this was going to be one of those days when everything went well.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

It had certainly started well. A convoy of vehicles and horses had left Ascot. Kids from Slough and Sandhurst, Bracknell and Windsor. Sophie and her archers from Ascot. Only Maidenhead had turned Ed down.

The sun was shining and they hadn’t spotted a single living sicko since they’d left Ascot. Not even a sentinel. You could almost imagine it was over and the sickos had all gone or died.