The Ironclad Prophecy (18 page)

“Porgy, mark it on the map. Lieutenant Everson can send another party along to investigate it.”

“If we don’t push on and find that tank, there might not be anybody else left to investigate it,” Gazette reminded him.

Atkins was in low spirits. After Nobby’s death they all were, especially Prof. For a brief moment, Atkins had hoped the mysterious metal wall hinted at a way back to Blighty. All these months, thoughts of Flora had driven him on. Now he felt he had lost her again. He lashed out and kicked a stone.

Gutsy stepped forward to comfort his mate, but Porgy shook his head.

As they headed for the mouth of the canyon, Atkins thought his spirits couldn’t get any lower.

He was wrong.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“The Chances...”

D
ESPONDENT,
1 S
ECTION
left the canyon and picked their way over a fan of debris down on to a great fractured plain with deep cracks and fissures crazing the landscape.

Mercy pushed his battle bowler back on his head. “Bloody hell, just when you think things might get easier.”

“My wife says the same thing about our marriage,” said Gutsy, slapping him on the back.

An escarpment behind them, through which the canyon ran, rose several hundred feet and stretched away on both sides into the distance. With no compass reading worth spit on this world, landmarks like this scarp were invaluable. Atkins scratched another
‘13/PF
,’ their battalion abbreviation, on a boulder by the canyon mouth to mark their trail before they moved off across the plain.

It was hard going for all, so Atkins cut Chandar’s wrist bonds to help it to deal with the uneven terrain. It now scurried about, to Atkins’ mind, like the insect it was.

Unable to follow the tank tracks directly across the wider gullies, they had to pick their own way. They scrambled and slid down the sides of great rocky protrusions like giant’s steps, before they reached level ground. There, the gullies narrowed and the rocky terrain between levelled out.

It took them longer than anticipated to cross the plain and pick up the tank’s tracks again. It was coming to mid-afternoon when they found the bodies of the jabberwock and the stone beetle on the fractured plain beyond the canyon. They could smell them on the wind before they even saw them. Nellie clapped a handkerchief over her mouth and blinked away tears.

When they came across the carcasses, they couldn’t see them at first. A moving carpet of flat, woodlouse-like scavengers the size of Labradors were burrowing inside the rotting carcasses. As the section approached they slipped into the surrounding cracks and fissures with their prizes. The sight caused the party to avoid the cracks wherever possible.

The tank tracks headed towards the belt of vermillion and damson vegetation in the distance.

“Not more bloody forest. I hate forests,” said Porgy. “You know, I didn’t see a lick o’ nature until I joined the Army. Gimme brick an’ cobbles any day.”

“See them tank tracks?” said Atkins conspiratorially.

“Yeah?”

“Where do they go?”

Porgy knew where this was headed. “Into the forest, Lance Corporal.”

“So that is where we’re bloody well going. I don’t like it any more than you do, Porgy.”

They followed the tracks into the jungle as it closed in about them completely. Atkins hated this. He hated what these places did to him. Every noise was a potential threat, every pair of eyes, every screeching call, a potential predator. The unrelenting tension was exhausting. Trying to breathe lightly so as to hear better only to have the rush of blood in your ears drown out the advantage. Starting at every crack and rustle around them. Napoo’s presence helped little in negating that. A man’s sudden death might be the only warning the rest of them got and none of them wanted it to be them. Still, thought Atkins in an all-too-brief flash of optimism, if they kept to the tracks they didn’t have to worry about things like sting-a-lings, the spring-loaded barbed plants that had killed two of their section when they first arrived.

His body ached from the fall down the scree. It was a bed of bruises that had begun to bloom purple, blue and yellow. Small lacerations itched and stung beneath his heavy serge uniform. A bruise on his face swelled and stretched his skin uncomfortably, but he forced himself to ignore it.

“What are the chances we’ll find the tank crew alive eh, Only?”

“Well, as I heard it told, Chalky, ain’t no more than five things that can happen to a soldier: nowt, wounded – bad or cushy – prisoner, killed or doolally.”

Napoo disappeared up ahead and every so often came jogging back into sight. Scouting. “Footprints. Urman footprints.”

“After us?”

“No, too old. With tank. With
Ivanhoe
. Their footprints cross the beast’s tracks.”

“It’s not a beast, Napoo.”

Napoo shrugged. “I know what I know.”

Atkins could never be sure whether the man was simple or mischievous. He suspected Napoo knew a great deal more than he let on.

“These tracks?”

“They were with it. Urmen were accompanying it.”

“Stalking it or escorting it?”

“I cannot say.”

Urmen had generally been friendly towards the Pennines, so that was good. There must be an enclave nearby. They could restock with supplies, maybe rest up. Sleeping out in the wild here was not easy, it was nigh on impossible. If the urmen had been following the tank, they might know its whereabouts, or at least which way it went. After all, it was hard to miss.

So was the totem they came across with the body of the urman lashed to it.

Gazette regarded it nonplussed, “Well, if this was them, they don’t seem too friendly, like. Talk about your crucified Canadian. Fritz has got nothin’ on these fellers. Jesus.”

“You don’t think this is what they do to captives, do you?” asked Mercy.

Chandar let forth a sound that could have been a sigh. It wandered up to the body and stretched out a chitinous arm, its long slender fingers reaching out to touch it.

Napoo stepped forward and grabbed it by the wrist.

“No.”

Chandar flicked its gaze to Napoo, then back to the gutted corpse, enraptured. “This is wonderful,” the chatt rasped, its fingers fidgeting, eager to touch it, but it restrained itself. “Wild urmen. I have never seen such a thing. What is its function? What is it for?”

Gutsy’s lip curled in disgust as he watched the chatt enthuse over the poor sod.

“Can’t we cut him down?” asked Nellie.

Napoo glanced around, examining the area around the totem without touching it. “No. It’s a warning. A totem to ward off
jundurru
– bad magic. Its power is strong.”

“To-tem,” repeated Chandar, its fleshy mouth palps moving thoughtfully, as if committing the word to memory.

“At least somebody’s happy,” muttered Mercy.

They walked past it, each man intent on following the tank tracks at their feet, avoiding the hollow-eyed gaze of the totem sacrifice.

T
HEY HAD NOT
got far beyond it when the section found themselves surrounded by urmen with spears and bark shields. Long blowpipes were aimed at them. The Tommies raised their bayonets to the guard position.

The agitated urmen were restrained only by a strong voice that barked out of the shadows. The Enfields came up and bolts cycled. It was a stand off.

Napoo stepped forwards, fingers splayed, patting the air, as he passed the Tommies. “Lower your firesticks.”

The Tommies looked at Atkins. He nodded and the bayonets were lowered. He hoped their urman guide could persuade his kin of their honest intentions and at least find out if they had any information before things went to hell. Atkins glowered and shook his head. An urman with a white-painted face stepped from the shadows. Napoo bowed. “I am Napoo, chief of the Horuk Clan. This urman is Onli of the Tohmii.”

“Those aren’t our real names,” muttered Atkins.

“This man is a shaman,” Napoo told him. “They believe given names have power. I spoke our taken names, which have less power.”

“You give your name too freely, stranger.” The shaman rolled his eyes upwards, scanning the canopy. “Here in the Thalpa groves, the spirits may take them. If they haven’t already.”

“The Tohmii are strong,” replied Napoo. “Our names are still our own. We seek kin of theirs, keepers of a great beast. We have followed its spore here.” He pointed at the twin tracks on the ground.

Several of the urmen muttered amongst themselves before one suddenly let out a tongue-trilling alarm. It had spotted Chandar.

“You walk with the Ones,” the shaman said, his lip curled in loathing. “You are not true urmen. You are their chattel!” He gave a signal.

Atkins felt a sting and clapped his hands to his neck to find a feathered dart protruding from his skin above his collar. He plucked it out and looked at it in a quizzical way as it swam out of focus. “Bollocks,” he muttered, through a suddenly drying mouth as his sense of balance went and he fell over. The skull-like visage of the shaman appeared in his tunnelling vision before all faded into blackness.

T
IRED AND ACHING,
he found himself walking down a cobbled street of familiar terraced houses, the numbers on the front doors counting down as he walked. The sky above was grey, leaden, and laced with the promise of rain. The smell of hops from the brewery hung heavily in the air and he breathed the familiar aroma deeply. With every step he took, he felt the exhilaration of a soldier on leave, nearing the end of his journey. He sensed lace curtains twitching. He could feel the weight of his pack on his back. An old woman shaking a tablecloth into the breeze tutted as he passed and shut the door on him.

A man in a flat cap and shabby jacket passed him on the street. “You’re no better than you ought to be,” he said with venom.

Still the numbers counted down as he walked, and there it was. Number 12. Flora’s parents’ house. Flora Mullins. The girl he had loved all his life. He dropped the pack from his back and began running. As he approached, the door opened and Flora stepped out. She was wearing a white blouse and long skirt, a shawl across her shoulder, no, not a shawl, something cradled on her shoulder in a shawl. A baby. He came to a stop yards from her, his heart wanting to burst with joy and pride. He smiled at her. She smiled back, and he took a step towards her. Someone else stepped from the door behind her, a man in shirtsleeves and braces, a man he knew well, better than any other. His brother William, declared missing on the Somme.

“William! You’re alive. Thank God.”

His brother stepped towards him. The smile vanished from William’s face as he did, contorting into a black scowl of anger and resentment, his hand clenching into a fist.

“Alive? More than I can say for you, you little shit, you bastard, I’ll kill you! I hope you rot in whatever hell you find yourself in!”

He heard Flora scream as William swung at him. The fist connected with his jaw and he went down, the world spinning into blackness, the scream still ringing in his ears.

T
HE SCREAM WENT
on and pain flooded his consciousness. He opened his eyes. He was lying on his side. He tried to move and couldn’t; his hands were tied behind his back. He strained his neck to find the source of the screams. It was Nellie. She was lashing out at their captors with her legs, the accuracy of her kicks hampered only by her calf-length khaki skirt, until they kept their distance, regarding her warily, and she had to settle for glaring at them. Atkins’ eyes met those of Mercy. “Bastards ambushed us with blow-pipes,” said the private.

Rough hands hauled Atkins to his feet. There were groans of protest around him as the others were pulled up, too. He counted all his men, Napoo, Nellie and Chandar. Their guns and equipment were piled up across the clearing, where some urmen were rifling through their haversacks.