Pat Kelleher - The Ironclad Prophecy

DRIVEN 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.

ALFIE 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.

MATHERS 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.

THE 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.