by Andy Remic
Jones looked up into a chilling drizzle, and realised the sky was black.
There were no stars.
He knelt down suddenly on the granite. His hands pressed against cold rock. Sweat lay on his back like a canker, staining his uniform, and he panted fast as if he’d run a marathon.
Jones understood that all life was a trial, everything was a trial, and his was the ultimate trial. To be invaded. Judged. To be found worthy by a higher being, whatever it was.
He glanced across the plateau, through the rain. In the distance, he could see tiny fires, like fireflies, way beyond the mountain, down in the blackened valleys, which, he realised, were almost a parody of the lush, verdant valleys back home in Wales.
Jones blinked.
Ahead, his eyes came to rest on a huge, dark shape, angular, bigger than a house, its edges fuzzy and undefined.
Dark rain fell, and Jones lifted his face, welcomed the coolness on his skin.
“Is that it?” he said.
Nobody answered.
“Is that the Iron Beast?”
Was it a weapon? A vehicle? Confusion gripped Jones’s heart like a fist, crushing him. He put his hands together, almost in prayer, and took long, laboured breaths.
“Robert?” she said.
Jones staggered to his feet and spun around, eyes wide.
“Orana! What are you doing here? How . . . how did you get here?”
“I followed you,” she said, walking forward, hands clasped before her, fidgeting. Her skin was pale and deathly beautiful. She looked around, exploring the dark summit with her eyes. It seemed they stood under infinity.
“But you could not follow me—I was the key.” Confusion twisted his face.
“I think, back at the castle, some part of your magic, your essence, it rubbed off on me. When we passed through the castle portal. Remember? And . . . I came here behind you. I followed you, Robert.”
Jones nodded, and licked his lips. His heart thundered in his breast like a tank’s booming gun.
“Who are all the soldiers, Robert? Their uniforms are so strange!”
“They are the dead,” he said, words little more than an exhalation. “From back in my own world.” Suddenly, pain stabbed through his stomach, and he bent forward. Orana ran to him, took him, cradled him.
“Are you okay?”
“No.” He wheezed, fighting to breathe. It’s getting worse, he realised. It’s accelerating.
After many deep breaths, he was finally able to stand, to focus on something other than the pain within him. His skin tingled, as if ants crawled just beneath the flesh. He suddenly wanted to scratch every inch of skin and he groaned.
What’s happening to me?
Orana hung on to him, her presence a very great comfort. Finally, he looked down into her eyes.
“My God, you are beautiful,” he said.
“I love you,” she said.
“I know,” he said.
Then she looked past him. To the shape in the darkness. “Is that it?” she wondered.
“The Iron Beast?”
“Yes.”
Jones considered this, then turned, and together they approached the huge, dark, blurred shape. But he could not focus. It was as if his vision kept sliding from the bulk of the thing.
Rain pattered and ran in silver streams from the corners high above. Jones rubbed his eyes. Stared. Rubbed them again. But still he could not focus.
“What is it?” whispered Orana, at his shoulder.
He glanced at her, and smiled.
“Let’s find out,” he said, and edging forward, reached towards the cold, black, iron wall before him.
The Naravelle Offensive: Battle of Ra’eth Ke Larn. 20th. November 1917 (early morning).
RAGOR KAN FELT THE HEAT of battle pulsing through his blood as he fired his rifle into the confused ranks of Femor soldiers. They were on edge and ready to crack, he could sense it, and he knew his Naravelle troops could sense it also. . . . Their battle cries had renewed, and they were frighteningly close to the trench, could see a hard-core rabble of villagers still holding the trench line . . . but suddenly they broke, and his men sent up screams of lust and hatred and powered forward, rifles cracking, bayonets stabbing, and the remaining Femors fell with the villagers, leaving only a handful of defenders remaining.
Kan could see the steel eyes of the lead warrior, grim-faced and blood-spattered and ready to die. He was a giant, great chest corded with muscle, brown hair streaked heavily with grey. He carried a rifle and a shovel, the edge of the shovel blade drenched in blood.
So.
This was the last line of defence before Kan’s men ransacked and slaughtered the village beyond.
Ragor Kan lifted his arm to order the final slaughter. A wide grin took over his face. He met the defenders’ grim eyes and saw they understood. He also saw the bravery in each man’s face, and a splinter in his dark soul respected that.
These men would die with honour.
Then the Naravelle troops would slaughter their wives and children.
Suddenly, a song went out over No Man’s Land, across the Forest of Bone.
It was a solitary bugle call.
And it sounded the note to retreat.
“No!” screamed Kan, spinning around. “It cannot be!”
But more bugles joined the song, and it wailed, and was most definitely the sound to retreat—as if, as if . . .
Kan shaded his eyes. Distantly, through the mist and smoke, through the boles of shattered trees, from the slowly climbing ground which led to the hills and mountains beyond, Kan could see . . .
An enemy force approaching.
“I don’t believe it,” he snarled, and spinning back to the trench, lifted his rifle, aimed at the giant man, the leader, and fired. . . .
The Black Mountain. “The Plateau of the Iron Beast.” 20th. November 1917 (early morning).
ROBERT JONES PAUSED, his hand hovering before the wall of black iron. He could feel a hum in the air, a source of twisted energy. He could sense something evil, and his head tilted to one side as strange, alien thoughts flickered through his brain, like the heat of sunlight through woodland leaves, like the pulse of sap oozing through tree roots.
Think about it, came the soft words of the Skogsgrå.
“Do it,” said Orana, words tickling his ear she was so close. “Go on, go through! You can save us all!”
“Or destroy us all.” His words were dry and level.
Suddenly, Robert took a step back, turned, and faced Orana. “How do you know that thing won’t eat me? Consume me? This . . . this power is not the Iron Beast. This is like a machine built for death.”
“You are wrong,” hissed Orana, her eyes wild, face changing into something manic. “You must go through, release the power, absorb the energy, become the Iron Beast . . . then you can kill them all!”
A cool wind blew across the mountaintop. And Robert Jones had a chilling vision, of a man, his eyes fizzing, glowing black, consumed by an all-powerful energy source. It had eaten his mind, and he was no longer human, and he marched across the world killing everybody within his reach, killing all life indiscriminately. An anti-God.
This monolith was no weapon to be used by Man.
It was a machine that would use a host to destroy Man.
“I cannot go through. It will consume me. It will use me. It will murder the populations of two worlds. I understand now. It was created by the walriders.” And the answers were there, floating before him, tantalising, like golden wraiths of smoke . . .
“You are wrong!” shrieked Orana, hands twitching, and her body started to buckle, fingers extending into claws, arms contorting, muscles writhing under her skin as her face lifted to the infinite black sky and she screamed, screamed a long lullaby of anguish until there were crunches of bone, and her muzzle pushed outwards, and her eyes went wide and she became, once again, the broken, brutal, feral female walrider . . .
She growled at Jones, whose
mouth had dropped open, eyes wide like saucers.
“——ing God almighty,” he whispered, hands clenching and unclenching. He suddenly realised he had left his rifle somewhere back in the tunnels. He breathed deeply. His breath streamed like dragon smoke.
Orana had dropped to all fours, her clothing ripped, tattered. Long curved yellow fangs came from under her muzzle, and she grinned at him like a wolf, like a demon, like a monster.
“Orana, what the —— happened to you?”
She launched at him, her whole body slamming into his chest, where her claws scrabbled for a moment at the Naravelle breastplate, attempting to carve out his heart. They both went down hard in a flail of limbs, and by the time Jones was even aware what was happening, Orana had grabbed the edge of the breastplate and wrenched it sideways. Leather straps snapped, popping like torn tendons, and she launched it away where it screeched along the granite floor, cascading sparks.
“Now you suffer,” she snarled, words distorted from behind her muzzle.
And Jones stared up at her in absolute disbelief. Orana? ——ing Orana? A walrider? What happened? How did this happen? He loved her, had fallen for her, had made love to her . . . and yet here she was, shape-shifted into some kind of grotesque horror story.
Orana’s clawed fist slammed down, and with a twitch Jones shifted his head. She punched the floor, a knuckle cracked, and she howled. Steeling himself, and wincing even as he did it, Jones launched two left straights, then a right hook, knocking his Orana, his true love, sideways, where she rolled across the floor and scrabbled around onto all fours, like some distorted, twisted dog.
“Stop!” cried Jones.
“You don’t understand,” she snarled, and long pools of phlegm spooled from her jaws. “They did this to me. They raped me and infected me. So I could capture you. Bring you here. You must go in there . . .” She gestured to the fizzing, out-of-focus portal, doorway, machine, whatever the hell it was. “You must”—and with a breaking heart Jones realised tears were running down her broken face—“or I will stay like this forever! If you go in there, I will be free of the walrider curse!”
“So the walriders, they were once human?”
“They were cursed by the God of War,” Orana growled, and then her eyes narrowed. “Jones, you must enter the iron. So I can be a woman again. So I can be free of this devilish curse.”
Jones shook his head.
“You are a parasite,” he said. “You walriders, you infect humanity like vampires. And ironically, you want to destroy the men and women, not just in one world, but in two. That is truly insane.” But Orana was done talking, and launched herself at him again, claws slashing for his face. He blocked with his forearms, but her claws were sharp and cut lines across his flesh. Jones yelped, and kicked her in the groin, then leapt sideways, out of reach as her claws cut like razors towards his face.
“Stop, Orana!” he shouted. But she came on, snarling and growling, her humanity now clearly gone as the beast of the walrider inside took complete control. For several minutes they battled, a grim fight of punches and kicks. Jones had learnt a lot from Bainbridge during these last months of combat, but Orana was more powerful and quicker than he, and he was suffering by the time he staggered away, blood pouring from cuts to his face, neck, shoulders, arms, hands and ribs.
“Come back to me, Orana,” he tried, one last time.
Orana snarled, hissing through a broken fang, victim of a left hook. She leapt, but Jones ducked and twisted to one side, both hands lashing out and catching her leg, which now bent backwards, the joint working the opposite way to a human knee. He screamed, and heaved with all his might, and launched Orana towards the fizzing, buzzing portal . . . the machine . . . and she landed hard, rolled fast, and slid across the granite, eyes fixed on Jones one last time as he watched her approach the wall of black iron . . .
And vanish.
Silence came down with the rain.
Jones, panting, put his hands on his knees, face twisted in pain. He gasped several times, and shook his head, still unable to believe, or to process, what had just happened. Then he thought back to every hug, every kiss, every moment of sex . . . and gave a little shiver. How could he not have known?
“She did well bringing you here, little man.” Jones froze. He knew that voice. And it was an impossible voice.
Slowly, he turned. Five Stripe stood, grinning at him, face merged with helm, long curved fangs glistening. There were several wounds across his face, across its face, but it was alive, and big, and very real.
“I thought you died in the mountains,” snarled Jones, standing straight and pushing back his shoulders. He was a British Tommy, but more than that, he was a Royal Welsh Fusilier. If this was his end, then so be it. Because he could not stand against this massive walrider, without a rifle or knife, and live.
“I’m hard to kill,” grinned the walrider, shrugging back its shoulders. “But you did well. Against the little one.” He gestured towards the machine; the iron machine. “Have you worked it out yet? What it is?”
“You walriders built it? To exterminate humanity?”
“Very clever, Robert Jones.” There came a low rumble, almost like a lion purring. “But do you understand why we built it here, in this place?”
Jones looked around. Intuition flooded him. “It is a place of great power,” he said, voice gentle. “It is a place that occupies more than one space. It crosses boundaries, merges worlds. It is a portal between my world and yours, is it not?” He thought about the soldiers. “And a place where the dead can rest.”
And then it hit Jones, with the force of a sledgehammer. A mighty blow that, had he not faced his greatest enemy, would have sent him reeling.
“That bitch saw the power in you,” grinned Five Stripe. “She brought you to our world to release the Iron Beast . . . but, to do that, we knew you’d have to come up against us, and that.” He pointed with crooked claws at the huge buzzing machine.
“You mean the Skogsgrå?”
“Yes. She will die, like all you pathetic warring soldiers will die, when you get inside it. It will consume you. It is like no other weapon you will ever see. It can kill thousands at once with its dark violent energy. And yet, you will have no control. It knows who it wants to kill, it just needs the Key. That very special person, one in a billion, who can channel the power through their core. And that person is you, Jones. That’s why the Skogsgrå found you so young. To protect you. Well.” The grin widened. “Now you are here. And now you are mine. . . .”
“I know,” said Jones, his eyes shining bright.
“What do you know, little ——ing man?”
“I know what the Iron Beast is.”
“Then speak your mind, before you kill millions of your own kind using our technology.” And the mocking laughter filled the mountain plateau. “And you will die in the process, used up, and broken, spat out as a hollow shell, a husk, a ——ing nothing.”
Jones calmed his breathing. His eyes shone. And he fixed them on Five Stripe. When he spoke, his words were little more than a whisper. “Hark, a tumult on the mountains as of a great multitude! Hark, an uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathering together! The LORD of hosts is mustering a host for battle. They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the LORD and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole earth . . .
“The Iron Beast, walrider, is the iron reserve of all good men. It is the strength which binds us. It is the backbone that makes us fight on for what is right, for what we believe in, good against evil, law against chaos, for King and Country and God! The Iron Beast is the pumping heart of every hero, every good man, every brave soldier who died giving his life for what he believes in! It is the greatest weapon we will ever have, because it’s what powers humanity to fight against evil . . . and you, walrider, you are so very, very evil.”
Five Stripes grin had become a rictus.
“Come out! All of you!” screamed Jones, and from the dep
ths of the mountain there came a drifting, thumping, stomping of boots. The sound got louder, and louder, and louder. Voices were heard, suddenly, raised in song, proud voices, strong voices:
“Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag,
And smile, smile, smile.
While you’ve a lucifer to light your fag,
Smile, boys, that’s the style.
What’s the use of worrying?
It never was worthwhile, so
Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag,
And smile, smile, smile.”
And then another powerful dominant set of voices blasted out, and it was as if they were competing not just for volume, but for the quality of their rendition. . . .
“Weit ist der Weg zurück ins Heimatland,
So weit, so weit.
Dort bei den Sternen überm Waldesrand,
Liegt die alte Zeit.
Jeder brave Musketier
Sehnt heimlich sich nach dir,
Ja weit ist der Weg zurück ins Heimatland,
Ja weit, so weit.”
Jones found himself beaming, filled with joy, filled with pride, as out of the dark, dank death halls of the mountain marched the soldiers of the Great War, the German, the French, the British, the Australian . . . and they marched in perfect rhythm, and they carried rifles, and they had grenades. They moved swiftly, maybe a hundred of them charging over to surround the walrider, Five Stripe, who crouched down suddenly, hissing and snarling, head twitching left and right as if looking for a means of escape.
“Don’t move, you bastard,” snapped Webb, lowering his bayonet to the walrider’s face, “or we’ll run you through.”
Others did the same, and Five Stripe found himself staring at a circle of glittering, sharpened steel.
Then Charlie Bainbridge marched over to Robert Jones, and grinned that cheeky, toothy grin, slapped him hard on the back, and said, “I knew you’d be behind this, laddie!”
“You’re alive?”
“Not really,” said Bainbridge. “But . . . well, it’s ——ing complicated. We have some . . . time.”
“How did this happen?”