Ten minutes later he was on a scrubby hilltop among hazel and thorn, looking across a wide shallow valley. Without trees above him he could see the sky, the grey-brown canopy of leaf-falling woodland spread out at his feet. A range of low hills on the further side climbing into distance and mist.
There was a new hill above the treeline. It hadn’t been there the day before. A fingernail clot of dark purple-red, the rim of a second sun rising.
Rett hurried back down the slope to rouse the others.
All that day they walked in the direction of the red hill rising. The sky settled lower with thickening cloud banks and strange copper light. Trees spread around them in all directions, numberless, featureless and utterly bleak, a still, engulfing, unending tide of reddening blankness. Hour followed hour and always they passed between trees, and always the trees were replaced by more trees, and always the trees were the same. They were moving but getting nowhere because the forest was without boundary or finish or variation. Its immenseness was beyond size and without horizon. Walking brought them no nearer and no further away. Motion without movement. Everything unchanging copper and grey except the red hill. That was coming closer. They walked on towards it until it was too dark to move, and then they camped without a fire. Rett felt small beyond insignificance and absolutely without purpose or hope.
In the morning the red hill was nearer. It had moved in the night. Its lower slopes were ash-grey. Rett started towards it. The air prickled, metallic. The trees were looking ill. They had no leaves.
Fallun hung back. ‘I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘It’s not right.’
The sky was low and copper again. The air tasted of iron, the fine hairs on their skin prickled.
‘We must,’ said Rett. ‘Orders. I think that’s what we’ve come to find.’
Fallun stared at him. ‘Orders?’
‘“Find a hill that might be moving,” ’ said Rett. ‘It’s the primary objective of this whole thing. Burning the forest is secondary. The icing on the cake. The colonel told me before we left.’
‘A hill?’ said Senkov? ‘A moving hill? What the fuck’s it meant to be?’
‘An angel,’ said Rett. ‘But alive.’
Fallun took a step backwards. Hitched his pack off his shoulder and dropped it. ‘No. No way. Not me.’
Rett stared at him. He didn’t know what to say. He was an engineer.
‘It’s an order.’
‘Fuck orders.’
‘An order, Fallun.’
Fallun looked at Senkov. Rett felt sick, like he was going to throw up again. Senkov blushed and looked at his shoes.
‘Fuck orders,’ said Fallun again, ‘and fuck you both. I’m going home.’
Rett hesitated. Then he shrugged. ‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘We’ll pick you up on the way back.’
Shreds of low bad-smelling mist drifted across the ground. A sour sickening smell under the copper sky, the light itself dim and smeary. The earth in places a crust over smouldering embers–the roots of trees burning under the ground–but there was no heat.
The wind brought the smell of burning earth and something else, something edgy, prickling and dark. Like iron in the mouth.
‘Something bad,’ said Senkov. ‘Careful.’
‘We have to see,’ said Rett. ‘We have to go there.’
‘OK,’ said Senkov. ‘But be careful.’
The red hill was hundreds of feet high. Rounded, fissured, extending shoulder-slopes towards them. Rett felt the pressure of its gaze.
A mile before they reached it, the earth was a brittle cinder crust that crunched and broke underfoot. Boots went through ankle-deep into smouldering cool blue flames. The ground was on fire without heat and the air sang with electricity. Ahead of them were pools of colourless shimmering. Small lakes but not water. The undergrowth and the trees were white as bone. Ash-white, they snapped at the touch.
A grey elk struggled to get to her feet and run from their approach but couldn’t rise. She had no hind legs. She gave up and collapsed to her knees and watched them with dull frightened eyes. Milky blue-grey eyes. Like cataracts.
Rett felt dizzy and almost fell.
‘I can’t feel my feet,’ said Senkov. ‘Please. This is far enough.’
‘Just a bit further,’ said Rett. ‘Then we’ll turn back.’
Five more minutes and they came upon the bodies of the giants. The giants weren’t simply dead; they were destroyed, their bodies eroded and crumbling like soft grey chalk. Parts of the bodies were there and parts were not. Broken pieces were embedded with fragments of hard shining purple-black skin. Flinty bruises.
Objects crunched underfoot.
Senkov picked up an axe from the ground. The iron was covered with a sanding of fine grainy substance, a faintly bluish white, as if the metal had sweated out a crust of mineral salt. When he tried it against a tree the axe head broke, useless.
‘What did this?’ he said quietly
The copper was draining from the sky, leaving it the colour of hessian. Darker stains seeping up from the east. A hand of fear covered Rett’s face so it was hard to breathe. Everything inside him was tight. Tight like wires.
‘They’re moving,’ he said. ‘Oh god, they’re moving. They’re not dead.’
The ruined giants were shifting arms and legs slowly. Scratching torn fingers at the air. Eyes opened. Mouths mouthing. Wordless. The eyes were blank and sightless and the words had no breath: they were parodic jaw motions only. One body was twisting. Jerking. A hand seemed to grasp at Rett’s leg. He recoiled and kicked out at it, and the whole arm broke off in a puff of shards and dust. Gobbets of bitter stinking sticky substance splashed onto his face. Into his mouth. Rett made a noise somewhere between a groan and a yell, leaned forward and puked where he stood.
‘They’re dead,’ said Senkov. ‘The poor fuckers are dead, they just don’t know it.’
‘We need to get out of here,’ said Rett. ‘We need to move. Now.’
Senkov stumbled and fell, twitching, shuddering, struggling to breathe. White saliva bubbles at the corner of his mouth. Thick veins spreading across his temples, the muscles in his neck standing out like ropes. His back arched and spasmed. He fell quiet then but his chest was heaving. His eyes stared at the sky. They were dark and intent, unfocused inward-looking whiteless bright shining black. Senkov’s mouth began to speak words but the voice was strange.
‘Tell him,’ he said monotonously and forceful and very fast, over and over again. ‘Tell. Tell. Tell I am here. Tell I am found. Come for me. Come for me. Nearer now. Nearer. Tell him to come.’
5
Engineer-Technician 1st Class Mikkala Avril, secret Hero of the New Vlast, personally selected for a glittering new purpose and destiny by Papa Rizhin himself, freshly uniformed, all medicals passed A1, tip-top perfect condition in body and mind, ready and willing to hurl herself into the shining future, takes a seat across the desk from Director Khyrbysk himself. In his own office. A welcome and induction from the very top. She is conscious of the honour, flushed and more than a little nervous. She must work hard to concentrate on what he is saying, and the effort makes her frown. It gives her an air of seriousness that belies the trembling excitement in her belly. She holds her hands together in her lap to stop them fidgeting.