K Jeter - Infernal Devices

I was soon halted by the edge of a sheer cliff-face dropping down to a river below. No handholds were visible by which to climb down; the rocks churning the rushing water to lace: assured death if any foolhardy leap were to be attempted. Behind me, I could already hear the rude accents of the native men as they shouted to one another. Crouching low to avoid detection as long as possible, I ran along the cliff's edge, hoping to gain the bottom of the hill's slope before the beaters completed their movement around its base.

Too late; as soon as I reached a point where I could see the cliffside crumbling into a loose scree of rocks into the river's bank, the far edge of the line of beaters reached the water, cutting me off from that final angle as well. Worse, I had been spotted. One of the men shouted and pointed, alerting the others. Hurling various imprecations and threats at me, they began scrambling up the hillside, their hands digging into the heather for leverage. I turned and, caution abandoned, ran back towards the hill's crest.

Gasping for breath, I mounted the hill with no more thought of strategy in my head than has a winded fox turned on every side by the baying hounds. The shout went up from the other side; Sir Charles and the rest of the Godly Army had spotted me. They mounted towards me, sure enough of their prey to wait until they had a clear shot.

Spinning about on my heel, I could see the barring jaws of nature, the sea and the cliff, on two sides; the men intent on blood forming the rest of the box. I watched in dread anticipation, frozen to the spot, as the line of men ascending from the valley halted halfway up the slope. The rifles rose to the shoulders of the Godly Army, their stern faces sighting over the barrels.

A roaring, beating noise came suddenly from above my head. For a moment, I thought my racing pulse had burst through the limits of my temples. Then I heard cries – not of triumph and excitement as before, but of astonishment and fear – and saw the hunters raising their round-eyed gaze from me to the skies. Amazingly, from the heavens, someone shouted my name.

I looked up as a great shadow swept over me. Something like a bird, but many times – larger, shot past, its ragged-edged wings beating against the air. It swooped low through the valley, flattening the men on the hillside as they scurried for cover into the heather. As it tilted and swung back in my direction, I could see the figures upon the thing: a man, a woman, and a barking dog.

Scape stood upright, holding the lines controlling the machine's gyrations in his hands in the manner of a Roman charioteer; his face, I saw as the beating wings bore him close again, was lit with a wild excitement. Kneeling beside him, Miss McThane held on to the thin struts, her head tilted back, laughing as the rush of wind sent her unbound hair streaming behind. A cord secured Abel from falling; his barking seemed to hold more enthusiasm than fear.

The flying machine came low enough over my head that I felt the force of its wings keeping it aloft. Drops of blood spattered across my brow as I ducked from its path; the sheepskins covering the armatures of the wings were little more than raw carcasses with the meat and bones hacked away; the matted fleece was still thick on most of them, and blank-eyed heads dangled and swayed with the device's motions. Scape's haste to get the machine up into the air had yielded this grotesque result.

"I told you, sucker! I told you!" His triumphant cry edged on sheer mania; he had broken through to his own true element. The dark spray from the sheep carcasses coursed across his chest and face, as though spelling an emblem of the Future on his form. The machine mounted into the sky again as Miss McThane's laughter mingled with his. "Eat shit, turkeys!" came her mocking shout.

Another voice came from behind me. One of the beaters, an aged Scot with a beard like an Old Testament prophet's, lifted a trembling finger towards the apparition in the sky. "The Beast!" he cried. "Frae th' Book o Revelation! D'ye ken the heads, and th' Whore 'pon its back?" His eyes wild, the old man exhorted the others. "Laughing; she was – th' whore o' Babylon! The last days have come 'pon us!" This hypothesis was rapidly taken up by the other men, their voices rising into a panicky babble. Over the valley, the flying machine turned around, its. wings bending almost vertical, and headed back towards the hill.

"The Beast!" Voices from the hillside in front of me took up the cry; the recognition had swept through all of the religiously minded. It was no respecter of persons; several of the Godly Army had thrown away their rifles, the better to clasp their hands in fervent prayer.

Another cry went up from around the hillside: "Its fiery breath!" Smoke and flames billowing along the device's wings had been spotted by several of the aghast onlookers. I could see sparks shooting from the metal joints; the results of Scape's hurried assemblage of the machine were now becoming apparent. The sheepskins covering the wings had begun to smoulder, sending greasy smoke trailing behind.

The machine started to disintegrate, from the inadequacy of its construction and the violence of its manoeuvres through the air. Flaming carcasses peeled away from the wings; sheep's heads, smelling of singed meat, rained upon the men circled about the hill. This last sent them into complete terror, as well it might; with inarticulate shouts, they turned, Godly Army and native Scot alike, and sprinted in all directions, fleeing the burning wrath of Satan visited upon them.

Above me, I saw the flying machine wheel about, the controlling lines in Scape's hands no longer functioning. Miss McThane screamed as the device turned upside down; she grasped desperately for one of the metal struts to keep from falling. Poor Abel howled as the cord tethering him to the disintegrating machine tangled into the gears and chains. Struck dumb, I watched in horror as it spun about, glided for a moment with flames and smoke billowing, then plummeted into the range of hills on the other side of the valley.

For a moment I was rooted to the spot. Then remembered my own plight; however tragic the consequences, the sudden appearance of the flying machine had afforded me a chance of escape. The beaters and the Godly Army had taken to their heels, pursued by the Biblical demons of their own imaginations. I hurried to the cliff's edge behind me and headed down the slope to where I could cross the river below.

"Dower!" the voice froze me in my tracks. I nearly fell forward as I halted, the small stones sliding out from beneath my boots. At the bottom of the slope, by the river's bank, Sir Charles stood waiting for me.

Our eyes met across the distance. He then lifted his rifle to his shoulder, his narrowed gaze squinting into my chest. The hillside afforded no place to hide;. I was trapped against its heathery flank. With no hope, no thought, I turned and ran, my feet scrabbling at the stony trail.

I heard the shot, sounding as if from miles away. For a moment I thought he had missed me, and I might yet reach the top of the hill and be able to scramble down the other side towards the sea. Then something seemed to hit my shoulder, and it felt unaccountably warm. The cliff's edge slipped out from under my boots, and I was falling even as the darkness welled up to swallow me.

The sound of water splashing against rocks came first to me. I opened my eyes and saw a dark mass of soil, tangled with roots, above my face. Daylight sparkled against the river, setting its reflections dancing across me where I lay beneath an overhang carved from the bank.

A dark face moved between me and the light. I focussed and saw the Brown Leather Man – as I had first seen him so long ago, the stitched covering masking his true features – peering at me. "Dower," he said. "You can hear me? How do you feel?"