Chapter Ten
The contrast in light was abrupt. Before, everything was dark and dismal. Now it was bright and sharp like lightning. Thacker leaped from the door of the machine, orientated himself to the shift in gravity, and strode out into a sea of shifting rubble, swinging his spear in short, predatory arcs.
The Ankhani reacted, as far as he could tell, firstly with astonishment, then fear. They stopped their probing of the wrecked Land Rover, and as he turned to face them, they started backing away.
Thacker wondered if the armour was Ankhani-made after all, whether it was originally of human artifice, whether it had been designed to combat gods and monsters from the dawn of time, whether the Ankhani had taken the hero suits back to their own world and hidden them away so that they no longer presented a threat to their power.
The creatures would run into a blizzard of machine gun fire, but shrank from a man in brazen armour, wielding a spear and shield. He had to make the most of it, while he had the advantage.
With Adams still clinging to him, he leapt forward and plunged the spear deep into the heart of the Land Rover’s engine. Metal on metal shrieked and sparked. He twisted the leaf-shaped blade this way and that, scraping the point across the ruined engine block.
‘That’s not going to do it,’ shouted Adams. He let go his death-grip on Thacker’s head and dropped to the floor. He scrambled into the cab and reached through to the crates of grenades. He grabbed one at random, and struggled back out.
Thacker jumped up to the ruined ground floor and darted at the mass of Ankhani. They flowed before him like a great dark tide, deciding not to get close to him even though their numbers were such that they could have overwhelmed him in seconds.
It felt to Thacker like he was in control, actually master of his own destiny for the first time in days.
‘Major! Remember Jack.’
How he would have liked to have chased the Ankhani, spearing them one after another until the ground ran black with ichor. But Adams had called him to his senses. With a final defiant flourish of his shield, he dropped back down to the cellar.
‘Can you throw this accurately?’ Adams presented him with a phosphorous grenade.
‘Of course.’
‘I need to be well away when it goes off. You’ll need to protect me, even if you can stand the blast.’ Again, Adams had to remind Thacker of his frailty.
‘Yes, yes.’ He crouched down and Adams climbed up to his perch. Barely before he’d settled, Thacker was off, running to the far edge of the ruins.
When he judged the distance safe, he took the grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it in a low, tight arc. The bomb slotted into the space where the windscreen used to be, and suddenly white fire boiled out.
Adams slipped off and pressed himself behind two courses of brick. Thacker stood and watched as the Land Rover burned brightly enough to cast a shadow. With a shattering crack, and a blast of heat straight from the furnaces of hell, the grenades exploded.
A churning ball of flame flashed out and up, the air stiffened, the ground trembled. He watched it all. He looked into the heart of the inferno and stared it down. The fireball mounted a dirty pillar of dust and smoke, and roiled into the sky.
Eventually, he blinked, looked down, and saw that the machine was ripped apart. There were shards of it everywhere, scattered around him like bright tears.
‘You can get up now,’ he said to Adams.
‘Is it gone?’
‘Destroyed. Forever.’
The Ankhani were fleeing, scattering in the Oxfordshire countryside, slipping through hedgerows and leaving only frost-marks in their wakes.
‘They’ll kill plenty before they’re all caught,’ said Adams.
‘They’re nothing. Forget them.’ Thacker turned his gaze to the east and the west, then finally to the north. ‘That way. I can feel him like a pain in my head.’
‘Major? Go back to the camp first.’
‘That’s wasting time.’
‘You want me to get you to Jack? Go to the camp.’
Thacker picked Adams up roughly and carried him over the rubble and up the driveway to the camp.
‘Damn you, man, you’ll break me,’ Adams snarled at Thacker, who didn’t care. After looking to his new bruises, he took the Union flag that had been draped over the guys of a tent and told Thacker to tie it to his spear. ‘With that, the Army might just hesitate long enough to listen to an explanation.’
He disappeared into another tent, and emerged with some spare fatigues. He changed out of his white coverall and into khaki.
‘Now, Adams. Now.’ Thacker had run out of patience.
Adams tied the last shoelace. ‘Done. Now run like you’ve the very devil at your back.’
They went straight across country, as the crow would fly and the fox would hunt. Thacker found that he could hurdle hedgerows almost without breaking step. Landing from such a height didn’t affect him at all, but poor Adams suffered grievously from the shocks and knocks that he carelessly received.
In copses of trees, Thacker would dart athletically between the trunks, leaving his passenger to be lashed by the overhanging branches. He would leap streams and gullies and almost shake Adams off with the impact.
On and on, always northward, guided by some enhanced sense of Thacker’s until they could hear the rattle of small arms fire and the crunch of mortars.
The pair fell into a sunken road, and surprised a platoon of camouflaged Gurkhas making their way up to the battle front. As one, the soldiers cocked their guns in a clatter of metal. As Adams had hoped and predicted, they stayed their trigger fingers a fraction from firing.
The young English lieutenant in charge of the group advanced slowly on them, his pistol trained alternately on Thacker’s forehead and Adams’ heart. He’d had a briefing, and frankly hadn’t believed a word of it. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
‘Who goes there?’ he asked, his voice betraying his nerves.
‘Major Thacker, Chemical Weapons Unit, Porton Down.’
‘Private Adams. Formerly of the Third Battalion, Durham Light Infantry.’
The officer brought the muzzle of his gun up to vertical. ‘Sir? We were told to look out for you, but…’
‘Where’s Jack Henbury?’
‘A mile over the rise. There were advance units, but they’ve now turned on us. We can’t get close to him.’
‘How close is he to Banbury?’
‘In the outskirts already. The situation is very confused. There are civilians everywhere: only some of them are trying to kill us.’
‘Get me forward,’ ordered Thacker. ‘Adams? Off. Your work is done.’
‘I’m sticking around. I need to find Master Robert.’ Adams swung down and stood defiantly in front of Thacker.
‘Didn’t you hear? They’ve been converted. Robert Henbury belongs to Jack now.’
‘I won’t believe it until I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Master Robert would never give in to that thing.’
It was useless arguing with him. It would get Adams killed, but it wasn’t a concern of Thacker’s anymore. The lieutenant consulted briefly with a map, and pointed his way down the road.
‘This leads right over the bypass and the railway line. The creature’s last position was just beyond there.’
‘You’ve been warned not to get too close,’ said Thacker.
‘Yes, but how close is that? We’ve lost contact with units well outside what we thought was the danger zone.’
‘Leave Jack to me. Just get me that far.’