The Ironclad Prophecy (38 page)

It was the Sigil of Croatoan from Jeffries’ journal.

Atkins’ mind was a flurry of thoughts, like a shaken snow globe. He found an ember of hope in the ashes of his world.

Jeffries had been here. It couldn’t have been by chance. He had a map. Had he expected to find this place? What was its significance? What information did the coded writing contain? What did it all
mean
?

He had no answers. One thing he did know was that Jeffries was his only lifeline, and his mind seized on it and wouldn’t let go. If Jeffries wanted the information, so did he. Somehow, Jeffries was the key. Maybe his boast back in Khungarr, that he was their only way back, wasn’t just a desperate tactic to buy himself time to escape. One way or another, Atkins wanted to know the truth. Taking a pencil stub from his pocket, he laboriously copied the symbols on the back of the piece of paper.

With his mind consumed with thoughts of Jeffries, he exited the chamber. He turned to the tank commander, who had recovered his composure and replaced his mask and helmet, once again hiding the ravaged face and the unnerving eyes that, Atkins now knew, saw things beyond the reach of normal human senses.

“Sir, you said you could follow Jeffries’ scent trail. Lieutenant Everson expressly ordered that any leads on Jefferies’ whereabouts be reported. I need to know which way he went from here. Can you do that much?”

Mathers looked up at him. Around him, his crew glared at Atkins with undisguised suspicion. The young lad, Cecil, watched Atkins like a hawk, his fists balled by his sides. Mathers put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and he relaxed slightly.

“Once I have killed this spirit and taken its power, and not before.”

A
S THE PARTY
readied to move off again, Atkins led the way, eager to pick up whatever kind of trail Jeffries had left, clambering over a low mound of rubble partially blocking the passage. As he held out the torch into the stygian space beyond, an arm reached out of the darkness and pulled him off balance. A hard, calloused hand, that smelled of dirt and sweat, clamped over his mouth and Atkins felt a blade bite into his throat, under his Adam’s apple, as he struggled to catch his breath...

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“The Far Gone Dead...”

T
HE TORCH FELL
from Atkins’ hand as he grabbed the wrist holding the blade to his neck.

“Be still,” said an insistent voice at his ear, “or you will die here.”

He recognised it. It was Jarak, the ousted shaman from the urmen’s forest enclave.

The shaman swung him around as a shield between himself and the soldiers. Atkins saw his mates bring their rifles up. The tunnel, however, was too narrow for them to flank or get a bead on his assailant without hitting him, too.

The shaman adjusted his grip, dropping his free arm across Atkins’ chest to grab his webbing, the knife still at his throat.

“Go on, kill me,” Atkins growled at him. “But the moment I drop, they’ll shoot.”

Jarak ignored him. “Where is your shaman?” he barked at the soldiers.

Mathers stepped forwards.

“You shamed me before my people,” the shaman said, the fury in his voice barely under control. “You took my place.”

“You could have stayed and served me,” said Mathers.

Napoo shook his head. “No, he could not. He has but two paths to regaining his place with the clan now. Banishing the dulgur, or killing his usurper.”

Jarak sneered at Napoo and jerked his chin towards Chandar, half hidden behind the soldiers, and snarled. “You consort with the Ones, yet do not wear their mark. What trickery is this?”

“No trickery. The One is our prisoner. The Tohmii are free urmen, like you, like me. They are a powerful clan. They have fought the Ones and triumphed.”

“Now I know you lie.”

“You have seen their power for yourself.”

“The urman speaks the truth,” Chandar chittered.

Napoo turned his attention to the shaman. “And where is the rest of your party?”

“The shaman’s party is dead,” said Jarak bitterly. “The dulgur took them; the dancers, the dreamers, the warriors. What use is a shaman without his party, without his apprentices? Who will safeguard the clan now? You?” he snapped at Mathers. “Your crawling god is mighty, but I have seen you. You are in thrall to it and it will drag you with it into the underworld. You are not long for this place, and what will the clan do then?”

Atkins might have felt for the shaman; he, too, had lost everything. He, too, was between a rock and hard place, no thanks to Mad Mathers, but the pressure of the blade on his throat cancelled out any sympathy he might have had.

“And you,” he growled into Atkins’ ear. “Your sacrifice at the precipice would have saved my enclave then. Perhaps it might do as much now. If you are such a powerful clan, then maybe your sacrifice may be acceptable to the dulgur, and it will leave my enclave alone, and I shall regain my place among my people. I will return to them in glory having banished the spirit by my own deeds, or else revenged upon my usurper.”

The blade rocked against Atkins’ throat as the urman shifted his weight and began to drag him back down the passage.

“Stop!” shouted Mercy, but Jarak wasn’t listening.

Atkins missed his footing and the blade bit into his skin as he struggled to keep his balance. He glanced down and saw the passage was coated with a thin layer of black deposit.

There was a warm, foetid breeze from the depths of the passage behind Atkins, as if something large and fast were pushing the air before it, causing the flames from the torches to gutter wildly in the dark.

“GarSuleth preserve this One!” hissed Chandar, sinking as low as it could.

The rasp rapidly became a slick sucking sound, and the shadows around Atkins grew darker as an oily cloud billowed round their feet. He scrambled to maintain a footing on the slick residue.

The sound stopped. For a heartbeat there was silence.

The shaman screamed as he was ripped away from Atkins, his knife raking across Atkins’ neck. As the great black tide retreated into the darkness, the shaman was dragged with it and his cries were swiftly smothered, like those of a drowning man.

Atkins dropped to the floor, his hand clasping his throat. Above him a hail of gunfire roared out, muzzle flashes bursting in the darkness, one or two bullets whining off the tunnel walls.

As the fusillade died away, Nellie burst from the pack, pushed past Mathers and dropped down by Atkins.

He coughed and spluttered, gasping for breath, and she gently, but firmly, prised his hand away from his neck. It came away slick and hot. She worked to wipe away the blood and sighed with relief. “You’re lucky, Corporal. It’s not as bad as it looks. This will sting,” she said, as she applied an urman poultice to the wound from a pouch at her waist.

Atkins sucked in air through his teeth against the pain. “Funny, I don’t feel bloody lucky.”

She took off Atkins’ tunic, removed his braces and undid his shirt. She pulled a field bandage pack from the bag at her hip and tore open the paper wrapping, all with a practised ease. “Hold that,” she said, placing his hand on it. Nellie wrapped and rewrapped a length of bandage round his chest and shoulder to keep the neck dressing in place.“What the hell was that thing?”

“The dulgur,” said a grim-faced Napoo.

Mathers wandered past them, staring down the sloping passage into the dark, looking at something nobody else could see.

“Curious. That creature doesn’t belong here,” he said, to nobody in particular. “I
see
it. It is not of this place. It should not exist here. It was brought forth from... elsewhere.”

Chandar clicked its mandibles together rapidly. “It is true. It is an abomination.”

Chalky crossed himself. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I knew it. It’s a demon from the depths of Hell, isn’t it? Summoned by Jeffries to do his bidding. Oh, Lord and his saints preserve us.”

“Don’t talk daft. A demon? How is that even possible?” asked Gazette.

Porgy intervened. “
We’re
here. How is
that
possible?”

“Man has a point,” admitted Pot Shot.

With the attack of the creature, the place had gone from labyrinth to lair.

Atkins got to his feet. “We need to get out of here. That thing, whatever it is, knows we’re here now, and I don’t want to get caught in these tunnels again.”

Mathers cocked his head. “What?” he said.

“I said we need to get out of here, sir.”

“Quiet, Corporal. I wasn’t talking to you,” Mathers snapped, listening to whatever phantom voices were enticing him. “Yes, of course,” he answered.

He turned back to Atkins. “We’re headed this way, Corporal.” He began walking down the tunnel in the direction the thing had taken.

“Sir?” queried Atkins, but he received no reply. He pressed the point. “Sir, you’re not well. It’s not safe,” but the officer ignored him.

The tank crew shoved through the Fusiliers, to fall in behind their commander, with an insolence that made the Fusiliers bristle.

As he passed Nellie, Alfie didn’t dare look at her. He didn’t need to. Her shining aura was all he needed to see. Nevertheless, he contrived to walk by her and his fingers found hers briefly.

“Mad Mathers is going to get us all killed,” Porgy objected in a low voice.

“Quite possibly,” said Atkins, his voice laced with resentment. “But he is an officer and, as our orders are to bring the tank back, we can’t very well leave here without him, can we?”

Chalky broke his step to try to stay alongside Atkins for moment. “It’s all right, Only. I’m not afraid. I know you can kill the demon.”

Atkins rolled his eyes and swore under his breath.

“Boy sees you as role model,” said Gutsy, wrily.

“Oh, believe me, I’m nobody’s bloody role model.” The thought of Flora burned brightly in his mind.

“Maybe not, but apparently you have a reputation. Poor Chalky’s probably expecting you to magic up Saint George himself right about now.”

“Well, you’d know about that.”

“Eh?”

“Saint George. You’re the one married to the bloody dragon by all accounts.”

“Now
that’s
the Only I know and love,” said Gutsy, with a guffaw, slapping him on the shoulder. “Good to have you back.”

M
ATHERS PUSHED FORWARD,
trusting to his new abilities. He could see the scent trail of the creature, the spirit, now – a thin, tenuous vapour trail, so delicate that any movement tore it and it dissipated on the air current. “This way,” he declared, indicating the right hand fork without a second’s hesitation. The bantam driver, Wally, was at his right hand, as ever. Frank and Norman were flanking the stupefied Alfie, while Cecil, Jack and Reggie trailed in their wake. Atkins and 1 Section followed on behind as rearguard.

A
TKINS HEARD A
sound in the tunnel behind him, like a tide sucking on shingle, as something rushed along the tunnel walls towards them.“Run!” he yelled.

Ahead of him, after a moment’s confusion, the tank crew took him at his word, herding Mathers before them.

Atkins turned and knelt and, with Gutsy, held the tunnel as the rest of the section raced swiftly past. They felt the wash of foetid air, and in the darkness something moved, bearing down on them like a train. Gutsy pulled off his bayonet, slipped it back into its sheath at his waist, and fitted the wooden baton of a rifle grenade into his Enfield barrel. He pulled the trigger and the pair ran up the tunnel to where Mercy and Porgy were holding the second line.

The grenade exploded, the shock wave almost blowing Atkins off his feet as he raced past Mercy. Porgy fired three rounds rapid into the dying fireball and the pair joined Atkins and Gutsy in the retreat. They reached a gallery at the junction of five tunnels, where the others had taken shelter from the funnelled blasts.

No sooner had the noise of the grenade died than they heard a low rumbling howl, not from behind them where the creature had taken the brunt of the attack, but from below, the dread sound funnelled up from the depths via the surrounding tunnels.