Tulliver raised the wrapped plate to the chatts as a final warning. “Try to stop us and I’ll smash your precious ‘holy glyph’ to smithereens.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EVERSON KNEW THAT the creature attacking the chatts would have set off their alarm scent and the rampaging monster would command their attention for only a short while. They had to take advantage of that.
He moved his men swiftly but cautiously up the tunnel, into a larger chamber with numerous broad tunnels leading off. The stench of urine, dung and musk hung heavily in the air. The space was filled with roaring, snarling and unearthly sounds that churned his insides and made him want to vomit. He felt glad that they didn’t have to face what was down those passages, but they might slow the chatts down. He signalled to Evans and a couple of Mills bombs rolled down the passages. The tunnels shook and bloomed with a brief hellish light and a chorus of inhuman shrieks.
The section pushed on quickly, picking off any chatts that challenged them.
“Atkins, they must get the creatures in here somehow. That’s our way out. Find it. We’ll hold here. But we can’t do it for long.”
“Sir. Mercy, Pot Shot, Porgy: with me. We’re looking for a big fucking entrance. Something you can drive a tank through. Put some jildi into it.”
The phrase brought a smile to Everson’s lips. It was one of Sergeant Hobson’s little sayings from his time in India. Atkins could do worse than pick up a thing or two from his platoon sergeant.
Any major attack would come from the direction of the arena. Gazette, Gutsy, Riley and Tonkins covered the exit to the chamber. The Padre and Jenkins huddled against a wall.
“What about Tulliver and Hepton, sir?” asked Jenkins.
“Oh, I shouldn’t worry about Hepton, Jenkins,” Everson said, his lip curling. “As my father would say, he’s one of life’s floaters, that one. And as for Tulliver.” He let out a sigh. “Hopefully he can take advantage of our diversion.”
Everson shot another chatt. “Come on, Atkins,” he muttered impatiently.
Rutherford sloped up the tunnel, panting, his bayonets dripping.
Without warning, a chatt appeared from a side tunnel. Jenkins, in a move so uncharacteristic it must have been from terror, roared to mask his fear and charged with a rifle at the thing, plunging his bayonet into it, cracking and splintering its chest carapace.
“Face, Jenkins!” yelled Everson in warning.
“Sir?” Jenkins turned as, with its dying breath, the chatt spat its acid. It seared the side of Jenkins’ face with a sickening sizzle, blistering his cheek and ear, as skin and muscle burnt and dissolved. Turning, however, had saved his sight. He staggered back, screaming, as the chatt slumped to the floor.
Corporal Riley was first to reach him, emptying the contents of his water canteen across Jenkins’ face, flushing away the remaining acid. “Stay still, lad.” He cradled the man as he whimpered. “Tonkins,” he called. “Morphine.”
Tonkins fished in his haversack and came up with a tablet of morphine. Jenkins quietened down.
The others took the opportunity to pull their gas hoods on.
There was an explosion.
Mercy came haring down the tunnel, skidding to a halt.
“Sir, we’ve found it! Corp’s holding it now.”
“Move!” yelled Everson, waving his men past him up the tunnel.
The Padre led the way, and Riley and Tonkins took Jenkins between them, whimpering in pain.
It wouldn’t be long before the place was swarming. Scentirrii were already running down the tunnel towards them as the dust settled.
Rutherford charged, screaming, bayonets in hand, and thrust them into the throats of two scentirrii before they had a chance to spit acid.
Gutsy swung his meat cleaver, Little Bertha, and split the head of another.
Everson ran the next chatt through with his sword.
Rutherford fought off two more scentirrii, swinging Jenkins’ rifle, smashing in one facial plate with the shoulder stock, leaving the large black eye bleeding from its orbit, like a yolk from a broken shell. The other he caught against a wall and drove his hobnailed boot into its chest once, twice, three times to crush the carapace, driving shards into the vital organs.
Gazette knelt in the shelter of the tunnel giving covering fire for their retreat and picked off several more chatts with characteristic accuracy.
Atkins, Pot Shot, Mercy and Porgy were covering the exit into a large partially built courtyard. It may have been used for wrangling demonic creatures from the craters, but today it held something else. Something even bigger, tethered by ropes to the courtyard walls.
Atkins was elated and despondent at its discovery: the German kite balloon, patched, mended and inflated, with a new larger basket fitted below, a cradle adapted from a battlepillar. It floated above the courtyard in a serene silence, its mooring ropes reminding him of tentacles and its great grey bulk of the aerial Kreothe.
It called to mind Mathers’ prophecy. ‘The Kreothe, made, not tamed.’ If that wasn’t a description of a balloon, he didn’t know what was. What the hell did it all mean? What was the next line? He couldn’t recall and grimaced.
Tethered by anchor lines it floated, giving them some cover from the battlements above. There was a large drum of rope for winching it up and down. That would have to go. A swift blow with Little Bertha saw to that. The huge sausage balloon rose slightly, tugging at its moorings.
Already chatts were rushing along the walls above. Bolts of white fire crackled down from electric lances, pinning them in the entrance. Behind them, Everson could hear the crack of rifle fire as Gazette held the rear.
Pot Shot picked off one or two chatts on the battlements. They tumbled to the ground, hitting heavily with wet cracking noises, their broken clay batteries shattering with blue flashes.
Porgy dashed out to secure the long basket. “All aboard!” he yelled.
They clambered into it. It was a tight squeeze and even Pot Shot complained as Gutsy eased his stocky form into the wicker-work cradle. Riley and Tonkins helped Jenkins in, the right side of his head livid and blistering, and sat him on the floor in a morphine stupor, where the Padre comforted him.
“Christ, we’re never going to take off with you in it,” said Porgy.
“You have to think good thoughts!” Gutsy declared.
“Bloody hell, then we really are in trouble!” Porgy said with grin.
From the basket, Atkins called to Everson, who was sheltering in the doorway with Rutherford.
“We have to go, sir. Now!”
“Come with us, Rutherford,” said Everson.
“In that thing?” Rutherford shook his head with a regretful smile. “Not a chance. Besides, I can’t. My clan is out there somewhere.”
“We’re your clan,” Everson replied earnestly.
Rutherford shook his head. “Maybe, once, but I’d made my mind up long before the so-called mutiny. We’re marooned here for good. You’re on a fool’s errand, sir. The sooner you realise that and start to live in the here and now, the better it’ll be for you and the men. And even if there was a way, I can’t go back home, sir. Not to Broughtonthwaite. Not after all I’ve seen; all I’ve done. I can’t go back to some quiet little redbrick terrace after all this. No. I’ll wish you the best of luck, sir. I hope you find what you’re looking for. I intend to find my urmen.”
The man had gumption, Everson had to admit that. And maybe there wasn’t a way home, the Bleeker party certainly suggested that, but he wasn’t willing to accept it until he had exhausted all the possibilities. He owed that to the men. Nevertheless, he held out his hand. Rutherford took it and shook it firmly.