Oisín McGann: Ancient Appetites

When the velocycle was forty feet away, the rope snapped taut like a fishing line, anchored by the stout Scots pine. The engimal's head and shoulders were wrenched to a complete stop, and its legs and hips swung around it, throwing it onto its side. The creature lay there, stunned. Nate crossed the distance to it at a full sprint, seizing it by the horns and leaping onto its back. Then he loosened the lasso and cast it off. It would just be a danger to him now.

'Right, let's see what you've got, you beauty!'

The thing didn't need any goading. It thrashed around on the marshy ground, trying to get back onto its wheels. The hind legs holding its rear wheel bent at the knees, pushing its rump up, and its front wheel twisted under it. Leaning on one knee, it flicked itself upright, lifting Nate with it. Its engine roared with outrage, and he held on for grim death as it bucked and pivoted, its spinning back wheel sending up a fountain of mud. The beast reared and then took off across the mountainside.

Nate's pulse was pounding as the wind blew his hat off and rushed past his ears. The ride was rough; the engimal swerved and bounced and tried to make sudden stops, but the swampy ground hampered its efforts. Too much turn and it would slip onto its side, and any attempt to skid to an abrupt halt ended in a long slide. Keeping his arms taut and his body supple, Nate foiled one move after another. But it would take a long time to tire, and he wouldn't. The constant shaking was jarring his senses, and he was in danger of having the teeth jolted out of his head. And all the time, Gerald's words echoed in his mind: You only have to hang on long enough. Long enough to make it remember.

He hoped it would remember soon. The creature raced back and forth across the ridge, twisting and bucking and tossing him like a rag doll, but he clung on. It jumped off humps and hags, trying to lose him in mid-air, but anything that came close to throwing him also risked turning it on its side again. It would not have that.

The enraged engimal leaped off a low embankment and Nate found himself lifted off its back as it soared, the momentum carrying him into the air. He went with it, following its movement, and as it hit the ground again, he landed back on it… his full weight crushing his groin against its metal frame. Pain drove like spears up from between his legs and he let out an embarrassing, high-pitched squeal. But he kept his grip.

The thing picked up speed, and he forced himself to ignore the excruciating pain. Tears were swept from his cheeks by the wind, chilling his face; grass and heather lashed past his legs. Every bounce over the rough ground threatened to reduce him to a blubbering baby, but he held on. The beast slowed, turning in tight jerks, smacking one horn and then another against his thighs, but he refused to let go. It bucked again, twisting and thrashing and throwing its wheels up, but he screamed defiance at it.

'You won't beat me, you cur! You're mine! You're mine! You're mine, y'hear me, you goddamned machine?'

His head was spinning, and he tasted blood in his mouth. His body ached and with every move he felt weaker. His hands and arms gripped the beast's horns with a will all their own. The engimal's thrashing seemed to be growing weaker. Nate's head lolled back and he saw stars above him. Stars in the fog. He slumped forward over the creature's back. It was some time before he realized he was no longer moving.

The engine was throbbing quietly beneath him. Nate raised his head and stared. The velocycle was standing still, heat radiating off it, steam hissing wearily from its nostrils.

'Bloody marvellous,' Gerald laughed.

He was leaning against a tree a few yards away, holding a cigarette in one hand.

'Best show I have ever seen, bar none,' he declared, tapping some ash off the gasper. 'My God, we could take it on tour. I haven't had this much excitement since that young Lady Haddington flashed her calves at the spring ball. You're a bloody star.'

'Ah thunk ah bit muh tongue.'

Nate pushed himself upright and worked his jaw around. He still had all his teeth, at least.

His hands were clamped around the creature's horns. Stalks unfolded from the metal bars and locked into place within reach of his fingers. Brake levers. It was giving him its brakes. He had tamed the Beast of Glenmalure.

He squeezed the front brake once, to acknowledge the gesture, and then peeled his hands off the horns and uncurled his stiff fingers.

'Are you going to ride it home?' Gerald asked him, stubbing his cigarette out on the tree trunk and picking up his shotgun.

'I'll have to.' Nate leaned back to ease the pain in his groin. 'Or at least as far as the gig anyway. I don't think I can walk.'

Gerald chuckled, but then his smile faded, and he gazed at the engimal for some time. 'I was right, wasn't I?'

Nathaniel nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'It remembered.'

T hey made their way down the hillside together, Gerald striding and stumbling, Nate riding the cowed velocycle. As he rode, his hips rocked in reflex. Gerald noticed this and laughed.

'It's not a horse, y'fool! Stop your bouncing. You look like you're trying to rattle the thing! Haven't you bruised your tackle enough for one night?'

Nate chuckled ruefully and settled himself more comfortably on the engimal's back. He had put his rings back on, but he knew he'd need to apply more gold to his skin to speed up his healing processes. And it wasn't on his fingers that he needed it.

'The sooner I get a proper saddle on this thing the better,' he commented, rolling his sore tongue around his mouth.

'You going to make it a mare or a stallion?' Gerald asked.

Engimals were asexual. Their owners referred to them as 'he', 'she' or 'it' depending entirely on their taste.

'Oh, I think I'll leave it as the mysterious cur that it is. And it goes like a flash, so that's what I'll call it.'

'"Flash",' Gerald mumbled, lighting another cigarette. 'I like it. And the girls will go potty over it. They'll be like flies to honey.'

Nate gave a satisfied nod. He eagerly anticipated riding into town on his monstrous new mount. He would be the envy of every man, and an object of wonder for every young filly who saw him. For once he and not his eldest brother, Marcus, would be the talk of the town.

The mist was thinning out as they descended, and through it they saw a figure climbing through the heather towards them. Nate and Gerald exchanged puzzled looks. The man was quite short, with square shoulders and a ramrod-straight back. He wore a long tail-coat and buckled shoes. He made no attempt to greet them until they had stopped before each other.

'Master Nathaniel, welcome home, sir. Master Gerald.' He bowed stiffly, doffing his cap to them.

'Clancy' Nate frowned. 'How did you find us?'

'You make your presence felt wherever you go, sir,' came the reply.

'I didn't think we'd made that much noise.'

'Perish the thought, Master Nathaniel.' A pause. 'That's a fine beast, sir.'

His manservant had an ugly face. Bushy, greying eyebrows hung over lined eyes; his wide, prominent cheekbones combined with a nose that had been squashed flat in his youth to give him features like broken stone. He looked weary now, and not from his climb up the mountain. If he felt any surprise that Nathaniel was riding a wild engimal, he didn't show it. Staring at the ground at their feet for a moment, he took a breath and continued.

'Sir, I'm afraid I bring terrible news. Master Marcus is dead. A climbing accident in the Mournes, I'm told. I'm very sorry.'