The Ironclad Prophecy (7 page)

“This One is Dhuyumirrii. This One does not fight. This One watches, observes.”

Atkins frowned, but didn’t let down his guard. Something about it was familiar. Chatts all looked the same, true, but the broken antennae?

“I... know you,” he said. “The edifice. Jeffries. You were there. I saved you from the gas. You called yourself...” But the name evaded his memory.

“This One is called Chandar,” said the chatt.

Gutsy turned, bayoneted and shot a charging scentirrii. “Only, this is no place for a reunion,” he warned.

Chatts began to swarm around them. The section fell on the confused Khungarrii with bayonets and clubs and succeeded in driving them back.

“Better give us a hand then,” said Atkins, helping Chandar up. “’Cause we’ve just got ourselves a prisoner.”

An arc of blue fire earthed by Gutsy’s feet, and he turned and fired. A chatt fell dead.

“He’d better be bloody important,” he said.

There was a sporadic ripple of jubilant cheers from the trenches behind them. The main Khungarrii force was withdrawing, but the confused chatts stumbling around 1 Section in the poppy field still posed a threat.

He heard Sergeant Hobson’s voice cut through the cheers.

“Atkins, get out of there. Make for the farmhouse!” he ordered.

Atkins looked along the length of wire entanglement behind them. Over to the right he saw the front of the old Poulet farmhouse flanked by the wire entanglements. Heavily shelled on the Somme, it was now a forward observation post. The ground floor had been converted into a machine gun emplacement, while the first floor acted as an observation platform. It might be their only chance.

One of the milling scentirrii rushed Atkins with a long, barbed spear. Confused they might be, but they still recognised an enemy. Atkins thrust Chandar back towards Gutsy, ducked under the spear thrust and brought his bayonet up, burying it deep between the chatt’s mandibles.

Running at a crouch, the section made for the farmhouse.

Behind them, he heard the soldiers in the trench open fire at the crowd of dazed, stumbling chatts.

Atkins could see the muzzle of a Vickers machine gun poking out of the window of the farmhouse. Past it, he saw angled wooden doors leading down to the old fruit cellar.

“Lance Corporal Atkins, 1 Section 2 Platoon, C Company!” he called out to the machine gun section inside. “We’ve got a prisoner. We’re coming in through the cellar. Cover us!”

“Stoppage!”

“Well get it cleared, man, you know the drill!”

Bloody Nora, the day just gets better, Atkins thought as he shot the bolt and flung open the cellar doors.

“In,” he yelled. “Make for the sap at the rear of the house!”

Prof, Chalky, Nobby, Pot Shot, Gazette, Mercy and Porgy tumbled into the dark hole.

Gutsy pushed Chandar down into the cellar and Atkins followed.

A shadow fell over him as he hit the floor. He turned, rifle at the ready, as a scentirrii sprung through the cellar opening at him. It was dead before it fell on his bayonet, a bullet hole through its horned flat facial plate. Gazette was covering them from the cellar door across the low room.

Gutsy ushered Chandar through.

Another scentirrii appeared at the cellar opening. Crouching, spider-like, it let out a challenging hiss. Atkins pulled his trigger but his magazine was empty.

Gazette fired again, sending it spinning out of sight.

“We need to get these doors shut,” Atkins said.

A third chatt sought to clamber in. Gazette killed that, too, and a fourth crawled over the bodies of its comrades to reach them. That, too, fell. No more attempted to come through.

Atkins steeled himself, reached out and pulled the cellar doors shut, jamming them closed with the handle of a broom that he found stood in the corner.

Above, he heard the machine gun stutter start up again.

“About bloody time!” he spat. He clapped Gazette on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

He staggered up the worn stone cellar steps and out of the house, following his men down the sap trench towards the front line.

Alarmed by the appearance of Chandar in the fire trench, several Tommies swung their Enfields in the chatt’s direction as 1 Section emerged from the sap.

“It’s all right, he’s with us,” said Atkins. He looked around and saw a private with a runner’s brassard. “You. Tell Lieutenant Everson that we have someone he’ll want to meet.”

CHAPTER THREE

“For God’s Sake Don’t Send Me...”

T
HE HEAVILY SANDBAGGED
command post looked out over the lines of trenches, breastworks and earthworks now crawling with Pennine Fusiliers as they dispatched straggling and retreating chatts. Linseed lancers of the RAMC scuttled about with stretchers, collecting the wounded and carrying them back to the aid posts and hospital, while flocks of carrion creatures were already circling and descending on the bodies. Frustrated ‘hell hounds,’ smelling the blood, could be heard howling across the valley.

Lieutenant Everson looked out through a loophole with his binoculars, across the wire weed entanglements and the bodies that hung on them, already being ensnared and sapped of their life by the slow-moving thorny creepers tightening around them. His gaze didn’t rest there, but was drawn out across the veldt where he watched the Khungarrii retreat.

They had repulsed them, but only because of their guns, and their ammunition was rapidly running out. Of course, the chatts didn’t know that, but at some point, the Khungarrii would attack again. No doubt they could hold off several such attacks. His counterpart was exceedingly clumsy, tactically. With their short-range weapons, the alien scentirrii seemed to be much more proficient in small police actions, defending their edifice and the like, but the growing confidence evident in recent raids on urmen enclaves showed his nemesis was a fast learner and damned if he wasn’t learning it all from the Pennines.

The observation posts on the valley hilltops had reported no sign of a support column. They must have been foraging food along the way. Nor were there any signs of siege machines. So they didn’t see this action lasting very long. A short brutal engagement, then, to stamp out their enemies.

However, if the chatts were to lay siege to the stronghold and this turned into another war of attrition, then God help them. They had barely held their own against the Hun on the Somme. This time, without reinforcements, without logistical support, they couldn’t hope to hold out against such a superior force. Everson gave them a fortnight at best, a month at the outside. The Pennines’ own foraging parties had to range further and further to find food and wood. Even with the help of the refugee urmen, feeding this many men was becoming a nightmare without some degree of successful agriculture. He couldn’t allow a siege to happen. He needed to deliver a swift, decisive blow. Something that would have the Khungarrii give them a wide berth in future. To do that, he needed to know more about them, and he recognised that the captured chatt represented a slim opportunity.

“Is this absolutely necessary?” asked Padre Rand nervously, from the other side of the sandbagged room. He’d asked the Padre here because he’d had dealings with them in Khungarr.

“Yes, Padre, I’m afraid it is. But don’t worry. You’re only here to observe. It won’t touch you. I’ve taken precautions.”

The Padre, though, seemed little mollified by this.

Sergeant Hobson appeared in the doorway. “The prisoner is here, sir.”

Everson turned from the unsettling sight of the chatt army regrouping out on the veldt. “Show him in, Hobson.”

Atkins, accompanied by a grim Napoo, escorted the captured chatt into the dugout. It hobbled into the room with a lopsided gait that suggested old injuries and new pains. Everson felt a cold shock of recognition. Most chatts looked the same to him, even now after all this time, but this one, even with its featureless white facial plate, was unmistakable. Its worn stumps of antennae moved with feeble jerks like a broken clockwork toy. This was no mere chatt soldier. This was the chatt that Jeffries had held hostage in Khungarr. Everson remembered that the damn thing had refused to help them when they were trying to find a way out of the labyrinthine tunnels. But there was so much information it might give them, not least about Jeffries’ last movements and intentions. If it would talk. But every moment it was here it could be gathering information about them; numbers, layout, weapons.

Atkins stood smartly to attention, by the prisoner. Sergeant Hobson brought up the rear of the escort party and stood, stiff and formal, behind the chatt, his eyes never leaving it. In the far corner was Padre Rand, backed against the sandbagged wall, his hands clutching his bible to his chest as though it were a shield, his lips moving silently in prayer, his eyes following the chatt warily as it looked around. Even captured, its curiosity seemed insatiable.

“Your herd is truly different from that of other urmen,” it said, in its breathless, monotone way. “They build their flimsy dwellings on the ground. I had heard reports from raiding scentirrii that Tohmii dwellings and burrowings imitate those of the Ones. This structure is crude, but strange and wondrous nonetheless.”

Everson stepped toward the arthropod and held out a hand.

“I’m Lieutenant James Charles Everson, Acting Commanding Officer of the 13th Battalion of the Pennine Fusiliers. We’ve met,” he added pointedly.

The chatt finished surveying the room before answering. “Yes. This One is Chandar, gon-dhuyumirrii, olfactotum to Sirigar, liya-dhuyumirrii of the Khungarrii Shura.” It appeared to swallow air and force it out, as if having to shape words with organs not meant for human speech. “In gratitude this One offers you a blessing in the name of GarSuleth,” it said, opening its arms, tilting its head back and opening its mandibles.

There was a loud click as Sergeant Hobson cocked a Webley revolver and pointed it at the back of the chatt’s head.

“I’ve read the reports,” said Everson. “Attempt to spray anything – acid, a soporific mist – and Sergeant Hobson here will shoot you. Is that understood?”

The creature lowered its head, relaxed its mouthparts and sank down on its legs in a submissive posture. “This One intended no threat.”

Everson offered it a seat. The Khungarrii looked at the wooden chair incomprehensibly. He shrugged, then sat down behind his desk. “I suppose a cup of tea is out of the question, then?” He gave a nod of dismissal in the Lance Corporal’s direction. “Thank you, Atkins.”

Atkins looked at the Sergeant for confirmation.

“Off you go, lad.”

“Sir.” Atkins saluted and snapped his heels together.

There was a strangled gasp as the chatt abandoned its half-hearted attempt to sit, and regurgitated air. Its mouth palps seemed to knit the human words laboriously. “This urman stays.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Everson.

“The urman stays,” insisted Chandar, rearing up.

Recognising the aggressive stance, Napoo drew his short sword and took a step towards the chatt. Everson held up a palm to stop him. Napoo relented, but remained tensed, ready to spring.

“Why?” asked Everson of the creature. “Why him?”

“That urman saved this One from the mandibles of Skarra when your Jeffries would have me wrapped in clay and rolled into the underworld. This spinning, this same urman spared this One again. These acts are of significance to this One. They are acts of Kurda, a basic tenet of colonyhood.”

If it made the damn thing more predisposed to talk, then that was fine with him. “Very well,” said Everson. He waved his hand and indicated that Atkins should stay. “At ease, Lance Corporal.”

“Sir.” Atkins looked uncomfortable as he stood at rest. He glanced at Hobson, who just shrugged.

Its request acceded to, Chandar relaxed its stance.

“Now, see here,” Everson began. “We will not surrender to you. You will not take us prisoners to be mesmerised as slaves in your colony. We will not bow to any tyrant’s yoke.”

“It is too late for that,” said Chandar. “Not since the days of Wuljungur has Khungarr been invaded. Now, in retribution, Sirigar has chemically decreed that you and any wild urmen caught within our sovereign burri are to be expelled. Failing that, you are to be culled to preserve the sanctity and safety of Khungarr. Those are your choices.”