Mark Chadbourn - The Burning Man

Returning to the copse, he stripped off his sodden shirt and belt, and did his best to fasten Laura to his back. The knots were good, but the wet cloth had a lot of give and she could easily slip off.

It took more than an hour to crawl on his belly down the slope, and by the time he reached the reed bed, all his muscles burned. At least the downpour had given way to a slight drizzle.

But as he dragged his way through the reeds, he realised he had miscalculated. The darkness was already thinning, the detail of the army emerging from the gloom. He was only a couple of feet away from the fissure he had selected, yet in a few minutes it might as well be a mile. He hauled himself out of the reed bed, his elbows and knees cracking painfully on the hard rock. Too-rapid movements would draw attention to him in the half-light; however fast his heart might be beating, he had to take it slow and steady, inching forward and hoping the shadows blanketed his bulk.

With his internal clock slowed to the beat of each precise movement, the sun appeared to be rising phenomenally fast. Grey spread out across the river-bed and the first hint of colour materialised in the soaking vegetation. The bizarre figures that made up the army became more terrifying as they emerged from the gloom: decaying features, blood-spattered, rusted armour raising sparks as they dragged their weapons on the rock.

I’m not going to make it , he thought.

The realisation cut through the numbness of damp, chill and exertion that had settled into his bones. Then a glimmer of a way out came to him. In the first pale rays of the sun, a mist was forming on the valley bed, thickening fast but not yet opaque enough to provide cover. He lay still and waited.

Light came up fast all around him. One curious glance in his direction would be the end. After fifteen minutes, he looked up and saw that the pearly mist now swathed the army. Crawling hastily across the river-bed, he wriggled into the fissure, relief flooding through him. But the gap ahead narrowed until it was barely shoulder-wide. Undoing the straps, he eased Laura off his back, fighting the random despairing thoughts that she was already dead and that everything he was doing was pointless.

With great effort, he manhandled her limp form through the tiny crevice. In the close confines, the heavy tramp of thousands of feet was deafening. Pebbles cascaded as the rock shook, and he feared it would all come crashing down on him at any moment.

When he was midway through the fissure, he looked up to see the bodies moving overhead, stepping over the gap one after the other.

Fifteen minutes later, he had passed beneath the army and was attempting to scale a steep incline of slick boulders where a white stream splashed. With Laura strapped to his back again, every sinew and joint ached.

‘Okay, I was just spinning a bit of false modesty before,’ he said. ‘You got stuck with the right person after all. What can I say — I’m a hero.’

The climb took the best part of an hour. When the fissure opened out to reveal brilliant blue sky, with shaking arms he hauled himself onto a grassy slope with a breathtaking view along the valley to sweeping grassland and purple, snow-capped mountains beyond. Far below, the pearly mist glowed in the morning sun, hiding the black scar of the army and damping the martial tramp of feet.

Releasing Laura, he rested her head on his shoulder. ‘A view like this deserves a bottle of good wine, music and someone to share it with.’ He looked into Laura’s pale face and tried to ignore what he saw there. ‘Anyone listening would think I’m crazy, talking to myself. But whatever anyone says, I reckon you can hear me, somewhere, because that’s the kind of woman you are. And if all the medical experts in the world lined up to tell me differently, I’d still believe it.’ The view forgotten, there was only her face. Then he gathered her up in his arms and walked to the top of the ridge.

Beyond, the land rolled out to the horizon, mile upon mile of greenery that eventually thinned out to a rough, blackened zone in the distance. No sign of the Court of the Final Word.

‘Looks like you’re stuck with me for a while longer. No point hanging around … let’s go.’ He held Laura’s cold form tightly and set out on weary legs for the horizon.

The truck smelled of hot oil and burning as it stood at the side of the dusty road beneath the baking Saharan sun. Shavi emerged from under the bonnet, a smudge of grease across his cheek. He shook his head. Church cursed loudly.

‘Regretting being the Good Samaritan now?’ Tom said superciliously as he sealed a roll-up in the only bit of shade at the back of the truck.

‘It was the right thing to do,’ Church snapped.

‘Keep telling yourself that.’

Shavi looked along the road. ‘We passed very little traffic all day. The map indicates no settlements for very many miles and it would not be wise to walk in this heat.’

Church retrieved the map from the cab and spread it on the flat-bed.

‘I’ll be interested to hear your options,’ Tom said.

After Church had mulled over the map, he said, ‘We’re getting the Last Train.’

‘What?’ Tom scrambled to his feet. ‘Have you taken a blow to your head?’

Church indicated a spot on the map less than a mile away. ‘There’s a track. Looks like it’s some sort of goods line for the mineral works we passed. We can pick it up there.’

‘No! I told you how dangerous that is!’

‘You’re always telling me things!’ Church couldn’t contain his anger. ‘None of it any good. Useless snippets interspersed with dig, dig, dig about how useless I am, all of us are.’

‘Stop whining. Sometimes you are useless. Sometimes you’re not. You had a lucky escape last time, but if you take that train again it’ll be the worst mistake you’ve ever made.’

‘I’ve made so many I should be used to it by now.’ Shavi stepped in to separate the two. ‘We’re taking the train,’ Church insisted. ‘We don’t have a choice.’

Tom glared at him.

Church picked up the map and marked the direction. ‘Coming?’

‘Of course I’m coming,’ Tom said sharply. ‘I’m one of you.’

‘Lucky us.’

‘But if you get me killed I’m never going to let you forget it.’

The mile felt more like ten in the afternoon heat, but eventually they were standing beside a small-gauge track almost lost beneath drifting sand.

‘Hardly used,’ Shavi mused, ‘if at all. Can the Last Train-’

‘It can go anywhere,’ Tom interrupted. ‘And does.’

‘How do you know so much about it?’ Church asked.

‘Because I keep my eyes and ears open, unlike you.’

With his knife, Church slit his thumb and dropped a spot of blood onto the rails. Within a moment they began to sing, and soon after the Last Train emerged out of the heat-haze, a mirage gradually taking substance. It stopped next to them in a cloud of steam and smoke. The door in front of them opened silently.

Church hesitated before he stepped aboard. In the dry desert heat, the damp, vegetative aroma of the interior was much stronger than before and slightly unsettling.

‘If you’re going to do it, do it,’ Tom barked.

Hands clasped, as if with excitement, Ahken waited just beyond the bright square of sunlight projected onto the floor, as if it troubled him. His eyes were hard and brittle and there was no humour in his smile. He appeared subtly changed from the last time Church had seen him, perhaps a note crueller, a degree more satisfied.

‘Welcome once again,’ he said.

‘We need to go east. China. The Forbidden City. Can you take us?’

‘Of course. The Last Train stops everywhere.’