Ahead loomed a towering hill of earth that Tulliver recognised as a chatt edifice, like that of Khungarr. Unfortunately, the large managed clearing around it was also now the nearest landing space. After what had happened to the salvage party, it wasn’t his preferred course of action, but there was no choice.
The engine caught. It coughed and spluttered, one of the cylinders missing intermittently, but with life enough for Tulliver to control his descent over the tree tops into the clearing. It was a bouncy landing and even before they had stopped, chatt scentirrii were racing toward the Sopwith in their curious springing gait. By the time they had taxied to a stop and Tulliver had switched the engine off, they were surrounded.
Ignoring the agitated chatts, Tulliver sat in a state of utter funk, still shaking, his heart pounding, and tried to compose himself. That had been a bloody close thing. No need to let the Padre know, though. He pulled off his helmet, goggles and scarf, and left them in the cockpit as he climbed out.
“Sorry about that, Padre,” he said brightly as he helped the pale-faced chaplain clamber shakily from the aeroplane.
“I think we have other more pressing concerns now,” said the Padre, eyeing the nervous-looking chatts that had now ringed the aeroplane, armed with spears and electric lances.
“Really? Right, then.” Tulliver turned and addressed the suspicious chatts. “Take us to your chieftain,” he said in a loud, slow voice. He turned to the nearest chatt. “And make sure you take damn good care of my bus, or there’ll be hell to pay.”
If it knew what he was saying, it gave no sign.
As they stepped away from the Sopwith, the chatts closed in about them. Tulliver put his hand down and checked the reassuring weight of the Webley in his waist band under his tunic before allowing himself and the Padre to be escorted into the edifice.
They were conducted through dark passages illuminated with niches of luminescent lichen. One of the scentirrii exhaled on the barbed circular plant door and it shrivelled open.
“I’ve seen places like this before,” said the Padre quietly. “It’s a gaol chamber.”
“Ah,” said Tulliver, and then he scowled. “I thought I told them to take us to their chieftain.”
They were ushered through the dilated doorway. The barbs around the rim of the contracted plant looked like fangs around an orifice – he had seen too many ugly things on this world to call it a mouth. Once inside, the door cycled shut.
They stood inside while their eyes adjusted. There was no luminous lichen here.
“Tulliver?”
It was a voice the pilot knew and often resented, but he was more than happy to hear it now. “Everson!”
“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” said Everson, stepping forward. “And more to the point, what the hell are you doing bringing the Padre?”
“That was my idea, Lieutenant. I twisted his arm, as it were.”
“Well that was a bloody stupid thing to do, Padre, if you don’t mind my saying.” His voice softened. “I trust your mission was a success, then.”
“Yes,” said the Padre. “Although as to the exact nature of the armistice, that will be down to you and Chandar to negotiate.”
Everson gestured at the earthen wall of the chamber. “Well, looking at the sterling job I’ve been doing here, we’ll be in for a rough ride, then.” He changed the topic. “How did you–”
“We were forced down, Lieutenant,” said the Padre, patting Tulliver on the shoulder “Took some skilful flying to find somewhere to put us down in one piece.”
Tulliver shrugged. It was actually a brilliant piece of flying, even if he did think so himself.
“What happened to you?” the Padre asked.
“Ambush,” replied Everson. “They seemed to know we were coming.” There was a shuffling and the odd cough in the gloom behind him. “Corporal Atkins and the men from his section are here, along with Hepton and Jenkins, Tonkins and Riley from Signals. The others are in chambers nearby. We can shout. Well we could, until the chatts got wise and got one of their dhuyumirrii to douse them with that benediction of theirs. We’ve not heard a peep for hours.”
“So what next?”
The door began to dilate open again.
“I think we’re about to find out,” said Everson.
EVERSON, TULLIVER, THE Padre, Hepton, Atkins and his section were escorted under guard up a spiralling inclined tunnel that led them up into the heights of the edifice. They came to a large plant door, with scentirrii guards either side.
“About bloody time,” murmured Everson. “Now maybe we’ll get some answers.”
The guards turned and breathed on the door in unison. It shrank away from their breath and opened.
Everson and his men were ushered into an airy chamber. Light came through a large window at the far end.
Silhouetted against the light was the figure of a man. He was standing by the window looking out over the unfamiliar forest landscape, his hands clasped behind his back, master of all he surveyed. This was no urman. This man was at ease in his surroundings, in control of them. This man wielded power, but what kind of man could wield power in a chatt edifice?
Everson made out the familiar outline of a fitted tunic and fitted calf-length boots.
An officer.
He must have known they had entered, yet still chose to stand there. There was only one officer he knew audacious enough to do something of this kind, one man who had the absolutely bloody gumption to treat them like this and expect to get away with it.
Jeffries.
Jeffries, wanted for the double murder of two debutantes back in Blighty. Jeffries, the infamous diabolist. Jeffries, the man who claimed he was responsible for bringing the Pennines here with some black magic ritual, using the Somme as a blood sacrifice. Jeffries, who had almost set them to war against the Khungarrii the moment they arrived. And a man for whom they had been searching for the past four months in pursuit of a way home.
Everson snorted with derision as anger boiled up within him.
The man turned.
“Gentlemen, welcome.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WASN’T JEFFRIES.“I have been waiting for this meeting for such a long time. It’s good to see some familiar faces. Well, I say faces,” said the stranger with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I mean uniforms. I don’t suppose you have any cigarettes? I would kill for a cigarette.”
Atkins felt his fingernails bite into his palms as he clenched his fists in frustration. He could almost weep at the injustice of it. For a brief moment when he saw the silhouetted figure, hope burned bright hot and white within him, like a star shell illuminating No Man’s Land and casting shifting pools of light on the darkest parts of himself, parts he would rather remain hidden beyond the barbed wire of his conscience.
When he and Everson faced Jeffries down in the Khungarrii edifice before he escaped and vanished, Jeffries claimed they couldn’t kill him as he was the only one who could return them to Earth.
Earth. Just the mere thought of the word was enough to make his eyes sting with tears. Not because of Earth itself, but for what it held. Flora. His love, his shame. Seven months pregnant with his child, by his reckoning. Although that wasn’t why he was ashamed. He loved her. She had been his brother William’s fiancée. But William had gone missing on the Somme. His betrayal wasn’t just of William, but their families, and God knows, every bloody soldier in Kitchener’s Army. He was the man they all despised, the unknown man who’d take their sweethearts while they were at the front. “You were with the wenches, while we were in the trenches facing an angry foe…” That was how the song went. He’d sung it in the dugout enough times, and each recitation twisted the knife more.