- 10 -
The cave was proving to be cramped quarters. The half-dozen WHO folk complained about the squad smoking, complained about the too-strong coffee, moaned about the field rations available, and generally proved to be a pain in Hynd’s arse.
Their leader, the woman Henderson, seemed to be the only one not actively taking offense at something. She came to sit at Hynd’s side where he sat in the cave mouth looking out into the night and offered him a mug of coffee.
“A peace offering?” she said, and he nodded in reply, taking it gratefully. “Try not to be too tough on my team. They’ve had a hard run of it.”
Hynd took out his cigarettes, a reflex when there was coffee involved then went to put them away but she stopped him.
“On you go,” she said. “Whatever gets you through, isn’t that the phrase?”
Hynd lit up, and before he got ’round to asking for her story, she had started to tell it anyway.
“They came in the night,” she began. “If they’d held off for another forty-eight hours, we’d have been off and away safely, for we’d already decided we weren’t dealing with anything viral. You came through the village. You saw what they were eating?”
Again, Hynd nodded but it had been a rhetorical question and she continued without pause.
“We’d isolated the source of the toxin, educated the villagers, helped them bury their dead, and I was working on a final report when the beasts came out of the jungle. At first, we thought it must be crocs come off the river; them we could have dealt with. But there were three of these things—you’ve seen them, you killed one. Have you seen the ones with riders on their backs though?”
Again, she didn’t wait for a reply.
“They rounded us up like we were cattle. John Terry tried to go for a gun. One of the things bit his arm off at the shoulder and they left him there to bleed out in the mud. Everywhere was chaos in the night, screaming and yelling, blood flying, bones crushing, and these tall, impossible beasts with more impossible men on their backs rampaging here and there in the carnage. More men arrived behind the advance attack—the feathered ones you saw on the wall, the guardians of this city as we later learned.
“Those of us that were left alive were trussed up hand and foot and manhandled away into boats that took us upriver in the dark. All the way we heard the raptors bark and shout to each other as they thrashed through the foliage along the banks. If any of us so much as raised our heads, we were knocked harshly back to the floor of the canoes.”
She raised her hair above her left ear and sowed him a very impressive egg-sized bruise that had a blood-encrusted line of red running through it.
“It was a river ride through a hell we thought would never end. None of our captors spoke a word all the time we lay there and it was clear that we were forbidden on pain of further beating from speaking up for ourselves. And when we finally did get pitched up on a river bank and Jacques Thibeaux took it on himself to stand and speak, they put him up on a cross and…”
Tears weren’t far off now and Hynd stopped her there with a hand on her arm.
“We saw,” he said softly. He didn’t tell her that the captain had the poor man’s hand, ring and all, in his backpack.
“The fucking things ate him,” she said and he finally saw it was tears of rage that brightened her eyes. “The next time one of the fuckers turns up, just hand me a rifle. I owe Jacques that much.”
She fell quiet for a minute and he thought she was done then she started her tale up again, softer now as if her anger, having flared, was now spent for a time.
“We were dragged for what seemed like miles and arrived at this place as the sun was coming up. We were kept in a stone cell with only water, no food. There’s one among them, their leader I think, who came to us last night. He speaks English, perfect English, although I think he is more than a little insane. It was from him that we finally got the reason for our imprisonment and incarceration.
“They have a god here—I believe it must be one of the raptors or some such. By feeding on the flesh as the villagers had done, they had angered the god, who must now be calmed lest his anger be furious—these are his words, not mine, you understand? The surviving villagers were taken away earlier last evening then we heard the drums, the roars, and the screams.
“I am sure we were considered guilty by association and we were hauled up onto the gate to face the same fate as the poor villagers before us. And that’s where you come in. That’s about the full extent of what happened and what I know and I think I’ll have one of your cigarettes now, if I may? Now seems to be a good time to start again.”
Hynd smoked Capstan, full strength and almost chewable, but she took to it easy enough and they sucked smoke together in silence.
“Just tell me you can get us out,” she said, almost a whisper.
“It’s what we do, Ms. Henderson.”
She managed a smile at that.
“Now that you’ve got me smoking again after nearly fifteen years, you’d better call me Debs.”
“Okay, Debs. I’ll get you all out of here. There are a couple more of us around here somewhere too, my captain and an annoying wee arse of a corporal. Once we get back together, we’re all going out, every one of us. I promise you that.”
“And I’ll hold you to it,” she replied and he saw she was now deadly serious. “So what comes first?”
“We hunker here until daylight then young Wilkins will see if he can get us up and over the top out of the crater. Then we find the captain and Wiggo and we get the flock out of here back to colder weather and warmer beds.”
“Sounds like a plan to me, Sarge,” she said. “Now give me another of your ciggies, I’m getting a taste for them.”
- 11 -
Banks and Wiggins were driven like sheep, two ridden raptors herding them, the beasts so close that the captain felt hot, fetid breath on the back of his exposed neck. They been stripped to the waist, all weapons removed and cast away somewhere into the dark. He was only thankful they’d been left their boots and trousers for he was feeling exposed enough as it was without being paraded around naked for all to see. They were taken out of the empty streets and back to the large gate. Once there, they were winched up on top and unceremoniously bundled down the other side into the town they’d left just an hour or so earlier.
The townspeople had risen en-masse to see what their chief had caught. They, adults and children alike, lined the area around the gate three deep on either side. But they made no noise, a silence that was almost respectful. Banks felt like he was on parade.
“Chin up, lad,” he said to Wiggins. “We’ve seen worse.”
But when they were led into another open central area lit by flickering firebrands to see their captor sitting high on a stone throne flanked on either side by a guard of ridden raptors, Banks found it hard to maintain any kind of optimism.
The feathered man stood and raised his hands. The silence became even deeper.
“You will be tested when the sun rises,” he said directly to Banks. “Until then, you are guests. You will be bathed and clothed. Then I will see that you are brought to my chamber where we shall talk further over a meal. You will not be harmed.”
And with that, the man turned and left, the honor guard following behind him. Banks and Wiggins were grabbed none too gently and taken to what was obviously a bathhouse. There they had to suffer the ignominy of being stripped and were washed roughly with hard, brittle brushes that left their skin raw and bleeding from many tiny scrapes and cuts. Clothes, local style, were provided; their army issue boots and trousers had gone the way of their weapons. They wore kilts of soft leather, soft shoes of the same material, and a woolen over-shirt cut short at the top of the shoulders and with deep, soft pockets sewn in at the waist. They were left alone to dress although two raptor guards stood just outside the only exit to the chamber; escape, for the moment at least, was a forlorn hope.