Werner’s whole posture sagged. “It is not possible.”
“Why?”
“Because they are earmarked for the pits!” he declared. “They’re dead. If you won’t help me, then perhaps your kinematographer, what was his name, Hepton. Perhaps he will help. He seemed very eager to save his own life. If you care so little about yours, you can join your friends!”
That was when Tulliver saw the truth. Across the side of the edifice, all the other balconies were scentirrii watch posts. He glanced back into the chamber. This wasn’t a private chamber with its own balcony, like some hotel in Paris. It was unadorned and functional. The chatts weren’t his attendants, they were his gaolers. This chamber was as much a cell as the one Everson had been kept in.
Tulliver’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “The chatts didn’t save your life, did they? They spared it. In return for what? What do you owe these creatures?” he asked.
“Nothing,” said Werner. But his face told a different story. The mask of geniality and charm had slipped to reveal someone who had been playing a game for far too long and had grown weary.
“But I am afraid, Tulliver. If I am right, then this world is a hell like no other, and no human god created this place.”
INTERLUDE 3
5th April 1917
My Dearest Flora,
Today I spotted someone I thought knew. It would have been nice to catch up again, but it wasn’t them. Still, maybe we’ll meet up somewhere down the line. I remember bumping into William once down the reserve lines, when he was stacking artillery shells and I was on a ration party. We both had to do a double take.
We haven’t made it to the tank yet (story of my life, that). We made some new friends along the way though, and took a bit of a detour. Still, I suppose we are still getting to see quite a bit of the local countryside, and at least we’ve got a roof over our heads for a while.
However, as Pot Shot will keep harping on, someone will have to pay the piper soon, so expect us to have to sing for our supper. They won’t get much of a song for it though, because the food is nothing to write home about, so I won’t. That never seems to stop Mercy. He’ll eat anything (and he did). You should have seen Gutsy’s eyes light up when he found out. “In that case, I’ve got some nice calves’ trotters and scrag end of mutton I could sell you!” says he. What larks.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ALFIE HAD HEARD estaminet tales about the poor buggers found guilty of desertion and sentenced by court-martial to death by firing squad.
He had a mate who had stood guard with one on their last night. ‘Prisoner’s friend.’ Filthy job, he said. You needed a heart of stone. Young, he was, too; barely nineteen. Only been at the Front for a month before he funked it. But he wouldn’t sleep. Couldn’t sleep, probably. The lad’s moods would swing wildly. Sometimes he’d sit with quiet resignation, constantly asking the time, for they all knew that when dawn came he was to be shot. Other times he wept and cried and wailed and begged and pleaded, every shred of dignity gone, dissolved in streams of tears and snot. In the end they got him drunk. So drunk, as it happened, that he could barely stand the next morning when they led him out to the firing squad. They literally had to drag him. When they tied him to the post, blindfolded him and pinned the white rag over his heart, he’d pissed himself.
Then again, half the firing squad were more than a little squiffy themselves, having been given tots of rum to stiffen their resolve. Didn’t do much for their aim though, his mate said. Sergeant had to come over and finish the bugger off with his revolver.
Sat here in the dark of the urman hut, the pain in his leg flaring and a great knot of anxiety and terror churning in his belly, Alfie knew how the poor sod felt. He could feel the vomit burn up his throat, but he swallowed it again. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing he was afraid.
The urmen were going to kill him. They’d said as much. He was to be sent to converse with their dead or some such. Bit of a one-way conversation, he thought.
He never reckoned he’d end his days as a ritual sacrifice, even if that was what Jeffries had planned for them with his diabolic battlefield rite back at Harcourt Wood. Funny, he thought. Perhaps that’s all they’d been all along; sacrifices. The top brass seemed willing to sacrifice everyone on the altar of Victory for a few hundred yards of muddy corpse-ridden field. Ah, the good old days. He let out a bitter laugh. Jesus, who’d have thought he’d be longing to be back on the Somme.
His thoughts turned to Nellie Abbott. He smiled to himself, but it was wistful, full of regret for the time they would never spend together. He thought of her out there, with the others. At least she’d be safe. Oh, bloody hell, what was he thinking? She didn’t just sit still. She’d come halfway across the planet to find him before. What on Earth made him think she’d stop now? He didn’t know who to feel sorry for most: him here without her, or his crewmates with her cajoling and barracking them into action.
But what the hell could he do? How far did he think he could get with a broken leg, even if he did escape?
Ranaman entered the hut with Tarak, interrupting his thoughts. “The time of Croatoan’s Torment approaches,” the clan chief said. “We must ease his suffering with your passage.”
Alfie pushed himself back up against the wall, and his broken leg protested with another burning jolt of pain. He clenched his teeth and sucked air in through them, hard. Not because of what Ranaman had said, but what the urman was holding. It was a rifle. No, not a rifle; an old-fashioned musket.
“Where did you get that?” he asked in spite of himself.
“It is a holy relic. It is the Key. Our ancestors said it opens the door to the underworld.”
“Well that’s one way of bloody putting it,” said Alfie under his breath.
He brandished the ancient firearm at Alfie, who flinched, half expecting it to go off, until he realised that Ranaman was holding it all wrong. He was holding it like a swagger stick, something with which to point. His finger was nowhere near the trigger.
Besides, Alfie found himself thinking, wasn’t sacrificing done with a special sacred knife or something? What did they do, cut your heart out and hold it aloft, still beating, dripping with hot blood?
All of a sudden, a firing squad didn’t seem that bad.
He determined to look for any opportunity to escape. At least then, if he were going to die, it would be on his own terms.
But no, if he did, the boy Tarak would pay the price. There had to be another way. If there was, though, he couldn’t see it.
Ranaman nodded and Tarak took Alfie’s arm, pulling him up without concern for his beside manner, or the suffering of his patient. Alfie sucked down the pain again as the young urman put Alfie’s arm over his shoulders and helped him out of the hut.
He stepped outside into a small stockade settlement of wooden huts, flanked by Ranaman and Tarak, and a collective gasp arose from the rest of the clan as they saw their sky-being. They stood around swaying gently and muttering chants and litanies under their breaths, or making signs. They were elated. A litter stood adorned with great fragrant blooms.
He’d seen scenes like this several times, with the rest of the Ivanhoe crew dressed in their raincapes and chainmail splash masks, pretending to be priests, servants of Skarra the dung-beetle god of the underworld, as they tricked gullible urmen clans. He’d always had a bad feeling then, but he’d never expected to bear the full brunt of their come-uppance. That just wasn’t bloody fair.