by Simon Clark
Now I glanced back at the forest. I should return to the house. Only did I know the way back home? I couldn’t even be certain about where I’d exited the forest exactly, never mind picking my way back through those millions of trees.
‘You took your time coming.’
I turned sharply at the sound of a strange bark of a voice. A man appeared from behind a bush. He was as tall as me with short-cropped blond hair. A scar ran from the man’s mouth up across his cheek to the bottom of his eye in a vivid red weal. He wore something like leather cowboy chaps over woollen trousers. Bare chested, he carried a bundle on his back by a broad leather strap that ran across his shoulder, much as a soldier would carry a rifle. His blue eyes blazed at me. One thing I couldn’t fail to notice was the spear that he carried in one hand. It was tipped by a long spike in green metal.
He spoke again. ‘Surely, you recognize me. No? Maybe not. You will, though, and you will do your duty that your blood demands of you.’
‘Pardon?’
‘There’s no need for pardon, unless you are guilty of sloth. You are, however, certainly guilty of hesitation.’
I was bemused. ‘I don’t follow.’ Probably I was uneasy too. Meeting a stranger armed with a bronze spear in a world that had abruptly manifested itself outside my back door?
‘You follow. But you follow slowly.’
Carefully, I responded with, ‘I haven’t followed anyone.’
‘You made me dart the hound.’
‘It was you? You did that?’ Now a surge of anger made my face burn.
‘Had no choice, brother.’ The spearman shrugged. ‘You were asleep. You needed waking. I reasoned if I darted the hound you would then seek me out.’
‘Asleep? I wasn’t asleep. What the hell are you talking about?’
‘You’ve been asleep in here.’ With his free hand he slapped the side of his head. ‘Your father should have woken you when you were twelve years old. He let you sleep on until manhood.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I took a step back. ‘It’s time I went home.’
‘Home? No! Not until you’ve done your duty.’
‘Oh, I’ve no duty here.’ Then I remembered a word he’d used seconds ago. ‘And I’m no brother of yours.’
‘Hah! But you are … brother!’ Then he showed me his foot.
‘They’re coming now, brother. You’ll need this.’ He slipped a double-headed axe from the bundle on his back, a bundle that contained a short sword, a blowpipe the length of my forearm and a bundle of feathered darts. They were the same kind that had struck Woody. All the metal parts of the weapons were of that same greenish bronze.
‘I don’t need it.’ I pushed the hand away that offered me the axe. ‘I’m going home.’
‘Home.’ The blond man laughed. ‘Home!’ He shook his head with an extravagant shake of his head. ‘No home. Not when there is your duty to fulfil. Remember what I showed you a moment ago.’
Once more he rested his foot on a boulder. An ordinary foot in every respect. Except that missing from the big toes were the toenails. The man had ‘silly toes’ – just like me.
‘That is the mark of our people, brother,’ he boomed. ‘Don’t turn your back on us when our survival depends on our kind standing together.’
‘But what do you expect me to do with that axe? I don’t know how to fight with it.’
The man grinned. ‘Learn from your dog. He knows how to hunt without being taught.’ He screwed his fingertip against his temple. ‘Instinct! Instinct instructs him. He will hunt for food if needs be.’
He pushed the axe handle against my chest. ‘Take.’
‘No!’
‘You will.’
‘You can’t force me.’
‘You will take, brother. Because here they come.’
Sweeping down from the valley came a blood-red tide. At first I though it was a rush of floodwater. Then I saw the mass was made up of thousands of….
Of what exactly, I don’t know.
‘Didn’t I tell you they’d come?’ the blond man asked with a degree of grim I-told-you-so satisfaction.
‘Oh, my God.’
‘Take heart, brother James.’
I shot him a surprised glance.
‘Yes, I know your name. You should know mine. I am Toran.’ The man who called himself Toran fixed his eyes on me; there was a sense of expectation in that blue-eyed stare. ‘So what do you need, James? A Shakespearian soliloquy exhorting you be of brave heart, and join battle to smite thy enemy crown and thigh? Or something more demotic? How about: Shift your backside, man, before they have your guts for garters?’
I stared at him. His speech patterns shifted from theatrical tones to the homely Yorkshire accent I’d grown up with.
‘James, it’s OK. Our people are mobile. Versatility is our most powerful weapon. We can use the word elevator for lift if need be. Do you follow what I’m saying?’
‘But how can—?’
‘Brother, hush. Believe me, this isn’t the time for ten-a-penny questions. We should find your grandfather.’
‘Hey!’ Now that stung. ‘Both my grandfathers are dead. You shouldn’t be saying things like that, haven’t you got—’
‘Come see, brother. It’s faster to show than explain!’
The dog gave a yip in the back of his throat. He’d seen the flow of … of whatever they were down the valley toward us. Woody glanced back at me then, turned to glare at the relentless incoming tide of figures.
‘Good,’ Toran stated. ‘Your hound recognizes danger when it sees it. You should, too.’
Then Toran loped across the rough grass, weaving round dark rocks that came up as far as his shoulders. I realized I was still holding the double-headed battleaxe. Shaking my head, I threw it down onto the ground.
‘Woody,’ I ordered. ‘Home.’
The dog started to run. Only it wasn’t toward me. He followed Toran, who ran with an easy, relaxed gait. He didn’t look back. Damn him, I thought, the man’s taken it for granted that I’ll follow. But it’s the dog that’s followed him instead of me.
Smarting at the betrayal, and knowing equally that I couldn’t leave our family pet here, I swore as violently as I could then picked up the axe, and followed the pair: one, a dog of dubious loyalty to his owner, the second, a blond warrior guy, who carried a bronze-tipped spear. A guy who also had the same kind of big toes sans nails as me. And what was that about meeting my grandfather?
‘Wait,’ I called after the pair. ‘Wait a minute!’
I had to run hard to even match their pace never mind catch up. By the time we rounded a cairn of rocks that was as high as my head I was panting hard, while the axe seemed to have acquired the weight of a sack of cement in my hands. There, I found Woody standing companionably alongside Toran. What made me stop dead was the sight of more people. A group of five men and women. Beyond them, in a dip in the landscape, must have been hundreds. Most potent for me was that group of five. Three men, two young women. They were dressed in clothes made from coarse wool that made me think of Victorian illustrations of Vikings. One of the men boasted a head of striking white hair.
‘Granddad Victor?’ I gaped.
He seemed to take his time sweeping his gaze from the red figures surging down from the mountain valley before focusing on me. ‘Ah, yes …’ he said after a pause. ‘Young James. And, it must be stated, not before time.’
‘Ah …’ All the words I meant to say were going nowhere. Because this was my grandfather, the same one who quoth: ‘Ladies first, James,’ and detested seeing people eating in the street – and, moreover, would relish using archaic words like ‘quoth’ for ‘said’.
‘That’s absolutely right, James,’ he declaimed. ‘I am dead. Or in your world, back there, I’m dead.’
‘My world … you mean I’m dreaming?’
‘Oh, cut him someone. His ear or his jaw. That will hurt him enough so he knows he’s not damn well tucked up in bed dreaming his head off.’
One of the women – all athletic amazons to the last – slipped a knife from her belt, before advancing at me. Her eyes searched my face for a suitable place to slash the blade.
‘Whoa … hey … hey!’ I held out the axe in front of me. More like someone using a chair to ward off a fierce-looking moggy than wielding a ferocious man-slaying weapon. ‘Hey, stop! That won’t be necessary. I’m awake.’
‘Glad to hear it, my boy.’ Granddad Victor murmured the words in the way I knew of old. A tone that suggested he was dutifully acknowledging my limited achievements, rather than celebrating them. ‘Toran, have you been able to explain to James here what we need to do today?’
‘It hasn’t been as easy as I would have hoped, Grandfather.’
‘Grandfather!’ I gaped even more in astonishment. ‘This man is your grandfather, too?’
‘Why?’ One of the formidable women looked at me in a way that oozed pity. ‘James knows nothing at all.’
‘You’re right, my dear. He knows absolutely nothing. But then I blame his father. He was a fool.’
‘Hey, my father’s not a fool!’ This fired me up. ‘Don’t you ever say that. He isn’t like you! You were cold, aloof … arrogant! You didn’t give a damn about my father!’ Just for a moment I saw myself drawing my arm back then throwing the axe at my grandfather – my dead grandfather – so what the hell did it matter?
‘Oh?’ One of the warrior women showed surprise. ‘He does have spirit after all.’
‘So the Shillito gene hasn’t degraded as much as I feared.’ My grandfather said this with something close to a smile on his dour face.
‘We don’t have much time,’ Toran warned. ‘They’re crossing the ford.’
Perhaps a kilometre from where we stood ran a shallow river. The red figures splashed through. A tingle trickled along my spine. They – whatever they were – moved rapidly enough. Probably as fast as I could when I’d been marathon-fit a couple of years ago.
My grandfather sighed. ‘No time for elaborate explanations, James, I’m afraid. But if the rest of you could show him your feet … a chance it might stir a race memory? Something of a long shot I know.’
The group of half a dozen moved a couple of paces toward me, then they each put a foot forward onto that wiry turf that was so suggestive of Arctic tundra. This time the feet didn’t surprise me. None of the big toes possessed nails.
‘See, James. Meet your family. And those …’ – he indicated the hundreds of men and women waiting nearby armed with their bronze weapons – ‘those, too, are your kin.’
From our right a line of horses mounted with armed warriors appeared. They rode by us toward the advancing red tide. I glimpsed the foot of one and saw the lack of nail on a bare big toe. No need to ask which side he was on. Many of the riders hefted long swords with a formidable fist guard. They reminded me of the Byzantine Rhomphaia carried by their cavalry. Other riders were armed with lances. A few favoured a heavy mace that bristled spikes like a sea urchin.
‘James,’ Grandfather whispered. ‘Hold on tight to your axe. You’re going to need it.’ Then in a louder voice: ‘Good luck, everybody. This is no practice bout. We fight for our survival.’
When I studied the Classics as part of my archeology degree I read ancient texts that described the unreal moment on the battlefield between waiting to engage the enemy and the first angry clash of weapons. It’s a moment suspended in time. A moment of pellucid clarity. A moment of self becoming detached from body where it can survey the battlefield. In the here and now, as a wall of red approached, there was a sense of dislocation from reality. Strangely, I seemed to float above myself. I saw one James Shillito, unemployed archeologist, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. He carried a double-headed battleaxe in his two hands. A spotted dog stood beside him. He, James Shillito, stood in the company of men and women who uncannily bore a family resemblance to him, even though there were hundreds waiting in the dip in the landscape. A location cunningly chosen because it put us out of sight of our attackers until the last possible moment. I recalled the Byzantine strategy for defence was an ultra-violent counter-attack conducted under some form of camouflage or part-concealment. There was an echo of that battle plan here.
Total silence … or was it the shock of this spectacle that had rendered me deaf? I could see the mouth of the valley that formed a vast gully in the mountain range of jagged peaks, tipped with white ice. To my left, the vast forest that had sprung forth around my house. To my right, the waiting warriors. Behind me, a boulder-strewn slope ran down into a softer, greener terrain of lakes, fields and track ways.
The silence, the all pervading silence, held me firm, as if it possessed the power to grip me, to stop me from moving my limbs. Then, as if from a great distance came a whisper. In a moment the whisper became a rushing. A flood, or a waterfall sound … then it morphed into a full-blooded animal roar.
The red wave struck. It broke like a tidal wave hitting solid ground. The red wave consisted of creatures. Blood-red animals. They had bodies similar to those of lions; they ran on four legs. Yet, sphinx-like, a head that half-resembled something human erupted between the shoulders.
One of these things bounded toward Toran. It snarled; its lips slid back over a chaotic line of teeth. They were V shaped. Lethally razor sharp. Toran sidestepped it to drive the spear into its flank. There was no fur covering there. Only a blood-red skin that could have been formed from PVC it was so glossy. I watched the flesh tear as the bronze spearhead plunged into it. The creature’s blood was more suggestive of a black oily substance that contained flecks of red. The dark fluid gushed from the wound to stain the grass.
All around me I heard snarls. The warriors called out to one another. Encouragement. Warnings. Strategy. All or none of those, I don’t know. For me it was a confusing maelstrom of movement. While all the time screams fit only for the darkest, most pain-ridden, quarter of hell filled my ears.
Some of the warriors had armed themselves with blowpipes. They placed the tubes to their lips then pffft! A feathered dart flew a dozen paces to strike the red beasts. Although tiny in comparison with the hefty lion-shaped bodies, the darts must have been dipped in poison. With a squeal the creatures dropped down to writhe in the grass in seconds of being pricked by a dart. I saw human – oh … all too human eyes – burn in the man-like faces then quickly fade into death.
Suddenly … straight in front of me … bounded one of the red creatures. It fixed its predator’s glare on me, then tensed ready to attack. A blur darted from my side to lunge at the creature’s hindquarters.
‘Woody!’ I shouted with astonishment.
The dog snapped at the creature’s flank. As the monster turned its head back to bite Woody it exposed a smooth crimson expanse of neck where muscle and arteries bulged. I swung the axe down. Like a paring knife through a ripe tomato, the axe blade parted the flesh into a deep valley-shaped wound. The weapon opened a dozen blood vessels that spat strings of blood. The creature jerked its head back. Only any desire it might have entertained to bite me passed as the injury took its toll. Its entire body flipped over, rolling across the grass, its thick, brown tongue hanging loosely from its mouth. Once more, I looked into a face that was a crude approximation of man’s.
‘James!’ Toran shouted. ‘You’ll have ample time to examine more Feral. For the time being, just kill the swine before their masters come.’
‘Their masters?’ I hadn’t anticipated that these creatures were merely a weapon NOT our enemy.
All along the line of battle there was a fury of activity as our people fought the red creatures – the blood-red Feral. Despite their muscular power the creatures were no match for armed warriors. Soon there was a mound of monstrous bodies running for 200 metres to my right. Our warriors weren’t invincible though. As I killed another of the creatures I saw that it had a human foot in its mouth, one that shared my characteristic of a lack of toenails.
Woody worked with me. He distracted the creatures by sn
apping at their hind legs. Once they turned their snarling faces from me I lunged in close with the axe. The blade sliced through flesh to sever arteries with uncannily little effort on my part. Was there some latent power in the weapon itself? A kind of Excalibur effect? Certainly, I’d never considered myself as possessing unusually powerful upper-body strength. Once struck, the creatures would slump to the ground, where I’d witness that fading of what I can only call the life light in their eyes. A dull gaze would swiftly replace the blazing glare.
With the noise, the yells, the screams, the thud of blades against bodies, there was also the pungent smell of the Feral. A malty bitter smell, that made me think of unfinished beer left in a glass overnight. Just when I’d begun to believe this battle would last forever the creatures twisted on their own axis as one, then fled back in the direction of the mountains.
‘We’ve won.’ I grinned at Toran.
‘We’ve won the first round,’ he agreed. Blood oozed from a deep scratch on his bare forearm where one of the creature’s paws had raked him. I saw his body steamed from exertion. I was panting, too; my body slick with perspiration.
‘The first round?’ I sucked in cold, sweet air.
‘The Feral are sent only to tire us before the main battle. Man will be here shortly.’
The name of our enemy perplexed me. ‘Man?’
‘Yes, of course.’ My Grandfather strode up. ‘Man.’ He wiped the blood of slain Feral from his sword with a rag. ‘Good Lord! I have to admit, James, it grieves me bitterly that your father told you nothing.’
‘Don’t start that again. My father’s a good man.’
‘He might be good. He might be guilty of not telling you the truth. But without doubt, what he isn’t, is a Man.’
‘Hey! I’m not taking that crap! My father’s a hundred times better than you’ll—’
‘James, listen to me. James … don’t go. Just hear what—’
‘You’re my grandfather, but I don’t have to listen to you insult my father – your son!’
Toran caught my arm as I walked away.