The Ironclad Prophecy (41 page)

“Fair point.”

The heaving black bulks extruded tendrils, which quested blindly towards the waiting bodies and, finding them, began to drawn them towards their open maws.

A third creature was expelled from its chamber like afterbirth and, unable to reach the food thanks to its birthmates, it sent tendrils out after the Tommies.

“And for my next trick,” Gazette announced, “pick a tunnel, any tunnel.”

Atkins picked one and they ran, the stone pots and jars chinking and clattering as they did.

T
HE TANK CREW,
abandoned in the passage by Mathers, began to turn on themselves.

“We’d better go after him,” said Frank.

Norman shook his head. “He told us to stay here.”

Reggie stepped forwards. “He’s ill, even if he won’t admit it himself.”

Norman glared at him. “Well, there’s no point us all going. Send him.” He jerked his thumb at Alfie. “
If
he’s got the balls. I want to see him put himself on the line for the Sub.”

“No!” Nellie protested.

“It’s all right, Nellie,” said Alfie. “I’ll fetch him. I’m not afraid.”

“Alfie, don’t!”

Alfie smiled shyly and gave her a wink that exuded more confidence than he felt. “I won’t be long. Back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. The Lieutenant can’t have gone far.”

“And why the hell should we trust you?” snarled Cecil, stepping into his path. “You’ve never understood the Lieutenant’s plans. He’s a genius, he’s got it all sorted out, up here,” he said, tapping his forehead. “He’s a man of vision. He has plans for this world and he’s taking us with him. But oh, no, you don’t want to go. You know better. You’d rather be with your bint, here.”

“’Ere, you watch your lip!” snapped Nellie.

“Or what,” Cecil jeered, “your beau will swing for me?”

Nellie’s eyes narrowed, full of focused fury. “He won’t bloody have to, I’ll do it myself.”

Alfie sighed. He didn’t want to do this. Not here, not now. “You can’t see it, can you? Any of you! It’s the fumes talking, all of this. This isn’t the crew I knew back in Norfolk. You lot have been riding my back about my loyalty. I’ve done as much to keep the
Ivanhoe
going as any of you, and we’re standing here arguing about it while the Lieutenant could be in danger. He’s not himself.” Cecil didn’t back down. “Fine. In return, I’m trusting you. With her!” he pointed at Nellie, knowing that he didn’t have to trust them. The urman, Napoo, would keep her safe, and she had her revolver.

“Seems like a fair deal,” conceded Reggie, arching an eyebrow. “Cecil?”

The sullen loader muttered under his breath, but let Alfie pass.

“Look after her,” called Alfie, holding up his torch, “and if we’re not back in five, get the hell out of here.”

“Alfie!”

It was hard leaving her, but he had to do this. He had to regain their trust. Mad or not, Mathers was still the tank commander and, despite what the others may think, he wasn’t himself. He was the only other one who knew about the things inside Mathers, the things Mathers had been fighting. Holding the torch high, he turned and gave Nellie a bright smile and an airy wave and, with a deep breath, plunged into the waiting dark.

D
RIVEN ON BY
hunger, the black mass of the freshly hatched creature propelled itself after the Tommies. Atkins and the others raced along the tunnel, desperate to stay ahead of it. Chandar bounded alongside them, its legs showing a power and spring it had kept well hidden. Around a slight curve in the tunnel came a faint glow of light.

“Lads, daylight! We’ve made it!” yelled Porgy.

Atkins grabbed the flagging Chalky by his webbing and dragged him on. They pelted up the curving inclined passage as it led upwards for several hundred yards. The light grew brighter until, used to the gloom of the labyrinth, their eyes ached. They could see a round opening now, draped with foliage.

The low susurrating sound of pursuit still harried them, closer now.

“Run!” shouted Atkins. He gave Chalky another shove and felt one of the chatt pots in the lad’s pack break. A green sticky stain spread over the canvas. He hoped it wasn’t anything important.

Mercy and Gazette came to an abrupt halt at the mouth of the opening. Gutsy barrelled into them, almost sending Porgy sprawling, but Mercy caught his webbing. Chalky came staggering up.

Atkins glanced over his shoulder. The creature was gaining. “Get out, get out!” he bellowed, closing the last few yards between him and the rest of the section.

“Not this way, we can’t,” said Mercy, sounding grim.

“What do you mean?” said Atkins, pushing through them to where the foliage draped across the opening. He parted it with an impatient sweep of his arm.

The ground fell away. The tunnel opened onto empty space. A hundred or so feet below, he saw the canopy of the jungle spread out before him.

“Eh, up!” said Mercy, grabbing Atkins’ webbing as he flailed to keep his balance.

The tunnel came out on the side of the precipice. Only it wasn’t just a precipice. Looking out across the top of a jungle canopy below, he could make out the far side of the valley with its rising cliff face, the one he’d seen before, when Jarak tried to sacrifice him. He saw now that it wasn’t a rift valley as he previously thought. From here, he could see that the cliffs curved round and met, the sides of a vast crater hundreds of feet deep and filled with jungle. Over to his right he could see the mysterious discoloured line of vegetation in the crater that he’d noticed before.

None of which helped them now. They were trapped, and the creature was rushing towards them.

A
LFIE SHUFFLED CAUTIOUSLY
down the passage, holding the torch high, and peered into the gloom. From somewhere up ahead he could hear a constant muttering.

“Sir?” he called. “Lieutenant Mathers, sir!”

At the very edge of the torch glow, he caught sight of the scarecrow figure of the tank commander in his shamanistic rain cape.

“Perkins? Don’t move. Stay there.”

Beyond Mathers, something filled the tunnel space, writhing. Alfie held his breath. The creature waited, small tendrils waving tentatively in the air around Mathers, apparently mollified by the Lieutenant’s muttering. The tentacles retreated into the body of the creature, and Alfie watched it withdraw back down the tunnel with a sucking sound, the way it came.

Alfie edged forwards, uncertain as to whether the thing had truly gone. “How?” he began.

“I wondered that myself,” said Mathers, unperturbed. “But you’ve seen them.”

“What, sir?”

“These things inside me. I think it could sense them. I don’t think it likes them.”

Alfie remembered the glimpse he got after being forced to drink the petrol fruit. He didn’t like them either.

Mathers turned to the Gearsman. “I need to get back to the tank, Perkins. I can’t fight them any longer. I was ready to give myself to them just then. I can feel them interfering with my mind. They want me,
need
me to die, for some reason. The fumes seem to subdue them somehow, but I can’t hold them back by myself for much longer.”

“We’ll get you back, sir.”

“Don’t tell them, Perkins. Don’t tell them about the things inside me. They don’t need to know.”

Alfie thought they did. He didn’t want to be a confidant. He didn’t want to be burdened with secrets, but he bit his tongue. “My lips are sealed, sir,” he said, guiding the weakened officer along. Mathers offered no resistance.

Alfie saw the bloom of torchlight ahead. “We’re here,” he called. The light moved along the passage towards him, highlighting Jack and Frank below it, as they approached.

Mathers had lapsed from lucidity again and, vacant-eyed, muttered to himself.

“We need to get him back to the
Ivanhoe
,” said Alfie, as Frank and Jack took Mathers from him.

“Alfie!” Nellie rushed forwards to hug him but stopped herself, the fleeting moment of impropriety before the others embarrassing her. Alfie was amused to find the tank men averting their gaze and shuffling awkwardly.

“We must carry on,” Napoo reminded them.

The crew picked up their jar-stuffed coveralls and let the urman take the lead, thinking to blame him if they remained lost. They pushed on, the tunnel spiralling upwards at a gentle gradient.

Mathers was delirious. He revived briefly when they felt the fresh air blowing down the tunnel. The tank crew stumbled towards it, finding a breach in the wall. They pushed through the tangled mass of creepers and vines obscuring their view, and caught sight of the tank across the clearing.

“Yes!” A weary cheer went up. Even Alfie was relieved to see the great iron beast again. It was like coming home. Inside that, they would be safe.

M
ATHERS ROUSED SLIGHTLY,
his brow furrowed as he listened intently. He couldn’t hear it anymore, the constant whisper of Skarra. It had gone and he didn’t know if it would ever return. He felt an unassailable grief so profound he wanted to howl. Then he felt the wind on his face. For a fleeting moment, he caught sight of the faint scent spectre of Jeffries, a supercilious smile on his face, as he turned and waved before walking away from the edifice and dispersing on the breeze.

As the breeze blew, all his cares blew away on it. He forgot Jeffries. He remembered a vague feeling of sorrow, but not why. A moment later, he no longer even remembered that. All he knew was the wind. He turned to face it and waited.

T
HE COLUMN OF
air pushed ahead of the creature and ruffled the curtain of foliage behind them.

Chalky was whimpering with fear. Gutsy muttered to him in calm tones.

“We’ve got bombs. We can kill it,” suggested Pot Shot.

“If we don’t bring the tunnel down with it, it’s still going to block our way back,” said Atkins. “No, we’re going to have to lure it out of the opening.” He peered out of the gaping hole at the surrounding rock. Above, there was a large overhang, that looked impassable. The top of the cliff was seventy or eighty feet above them, but seemed too sheer to climb. Around the opening, however, were small trees with spreading root systems, holding them to the cliff face, that might hold a man? There was only one thing for it.

Atkins swung back in. “There’s a small ledge to the right, and creepers that should hold our weight.”

“Should?”

“Best I can do.”

Gazette shook his head. “I’m not bloody going out there.”

“Well, that creature is headed this way whether we like it or not. Jump or be pushed.”

“Let’s do it,” said Gutsy, reaching out and grabbing a root. The plant creaked, but held, as he stretched out for another further along. “Well, if it’ll hold me... You follow me, lad,” he called to Chalky, “and just follow the advice of me missus when she’s getting undressed – don’t look down. Many’s the time I wished I’d followed her advice, son, believe me. Brr.” He shook his head vigorously until his jowls wobbled.

Gazette edged out. “I hate heights.”

Pot Shot, Porgy and Mercy scrambled out over the other side.

“You too,” Atkins told Chandar.

“But what about you?” the chatt asked.

“Oh, I’ll be joining you shortly, don’t you worry.”

The chatt scuttled out with a cockroach-like speed that startled Atkins as he watched it use the invading roots to scurry up the passage wall and out of the tunnel mouth. He shuddered, then checked that his men were out of the way.

He ran back down the passage a short distance, intending to bait the creature. He fired a couple of rounds, not imagining that he’d stop it, but just to goad it. The bullets buried themselves in the oncoming flesh with sucking
thwups.
“Come on, then, you ugly bugger. Come and get me.”

He turned and ran. The great glossy wet bulk, spraying its lubricating oily mist to ease its way, barrelled towards him. He could see the opening ahead. It wasn’t far, but it was further than he wanted it to be. He had grossly underestimated the speed of the thing, and its blind, instinctive need for food. It began to put forth thin tendrils that flailed blindly, closing the distance between them.

As he raced towards the end of the tunnel, he saw Mercy’s face and arm silhouetted against the light. “Run!” he yelled.

How the hell did he think that was going to help? Of course he was bloody running.

As he pounded the last few yards, Atkins felt a tendril wrap round his puttee. No! He was so damn close. A couple of yards shy of the tunnel mouth, he took a deep breath and bellowed his rage and fear, putting everything he had into one last, desperate lunge. He leapt through the curtain of foliage.

For less than the space of a heartbeat, he hung in the air. He saw the blue sky ahead and glimpsed the awful fall to the jungle below, before strong hands grabbed his webbing and swung him aside.

Another heartbeat. He crashed into the cliff wall with a force that winded him; one of Chandar’s precious amphora shattered in its pouch. He saw Mercy’s sweaty, grinning face and grabbed instinctively for the roots in front of him.