The Place of Dead Kings

by Geoffrey Wilson

  Just keep going. One step after the other.

  A great slab of pain thumped him in the chest. He lost his breath completely. He slipped, held out his arms in an attempt to steady himself, slid again and fell forward into the snow.

  A blanket of darkness spread over him. He tried to stay conscious, but he was slipping away.

  The last thing he remembered was the snow pressing against his face.

  He felt so cold it was as if he were encased in ice. It was pitch black, but that was because his eyes were closed. He was sure of that.

  He was alive. He flexed his fingers and although they felt frozen, they moved. Yes, he was still alive.

  ‘Jack.’ Rao’s voice came from far away and was garbled, as if he were speaking underwater.

  Jack tried to open his eyes but the effort seemed impossible.

  ‘Jack,’ Rao called again.

  Jack tried once more and this time managed to prise his eyelids apart.

  Rao was squatting in front of him, dusted with snow, his eyebrows and moustache caked in ice. His face was grim, but a half-smile slid across his lips when he saw Jack stir. ‘Shiva. I thought you were gone.’

  Jack looked around and saw stone to either side and above him. He was lying in a shallow cave formed by an overhang in a rock face. But the recess was so small his feet stuck out of the entrance. The wild wind screamed and dashed snow in every direction outside.

  He was wrapped in a blanket, but this did little to keep him warm. He looked at his hands and saw they were a translucent white.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  ‘You passed out. I dragged you here.’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Near where you fell. I couldn’t get you far. This was the best place I could find.’

  Jack tried to sit up, but the sattva-fire flared in his chest, the force of it so strong it knocked him back against the rock. He grimaced, gritted his teeth and tried again, fighting through the pain. But his arms were weak and he couldn’t move more than a few inches.

  ‘You rest.’ Rao put his hand on Jack’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s too cold.’ Jack’s voice was no more than a whisper. His misty breath coiled up from his mouth, as if his spirit were already leaving his body.

  ‘I’ll get firewood. You stay here.’

  Jack struggled once more to move. He didn’t want to stay where he was. He had to get up. He couldn’t let Saleem down.

  But it was hopeless. He couldn’t move.

  Darkness rushed over him again. He fell down and down into a black pit.

  He heard the wind moaning. The sound ebbed and flowed, sometimes deafening, sometimes soft.

  Someone was shaking him. Someone was shouting.

  It took him a great effort to slide open his eyes. Rao was crouching in front of him again and gesturing at a small fire.

  ‘Sorry I took so long,’ Rao said. ‘I had to go a long way for wood. Right down into the next valley.’

  The flames licked along the branches and the smoke hovered in the small space. Jack tried to crawl towards the fire but managed to move only a few inches. Seeing the problem, Rao used two branches to shift the half-burnt wood and embers closer.

  A subtle patch of warmth spread across the lower part of Jack’s leg. He raised his hands and felt the barest trace of heat on his palms.

  Was the fire going to be enough to keep them warm? It was growing dark outside, and with night setting in the temperature would drop further.

  ‘We can’t stay here.’ Jack’s voice was hoarse.

  ‘Can you walk?’

  Jack tried to wriggle his legs but they seemed virtually paralysed. A wave of pain swept over him and he shut his eyes until it passed.

  ‘Looks like we’ll have to stay where we are,’ Rao said. ‘I don’t think I can drag you down this mountain. You’d probably die of cold if I tried.’

  The wind howled.

  Rao was right. Jack could see that, despite his dizziness and confusion. His only hope was to warm up and recover enough to be able to move again. But how long would that take? All night? And would he even survive the night stuck up on the mountain?

  ‘I have to get more wood.’ Rao upturned the knapsack and emptied the contents. ‘I’ll take this so I can carry more.’

  ‘Wait.’ Jack reached up weakly with his hand. ‘The cold out there could kill you.’

  ‘I’m all right.’ Rao edged backwards to the cave entrance. ‘I owe you this.’

  Jack went to say that Rao owed him nothing, but the Captain had already slipped out into the blizzard.

  Jack sighed as another bolt of pain shot through him.

  Would he still be alive when Rao came back?

  Would Rao even make it back?

  He tried to get Katelin’s necklace out from under his tunic, but couldn’t find the strength and instead clutched it through his clothing. As he slipped away, he saw Elizabeth back in Shropshire. And the thought that at least, for the moment, she was safe spread warmth through his frozen limbs.

  Rao shook him awake. He opened his eyes and stared at the Captain as though through a film of gauze. The pain in his chest was fierce, but he didn’t feel cold at all now. He imagined he was blissfully warm for a moment, but then realised he was just numb.

  Rao was panting and his eyes were wild. ‘I saw people out there.’ He swallowed and tried to catch his breath. ‘Savages.’

  Savages? Jack remembered them. But he didn’t care. They were irrelevant. What did it matter if they were creeping about nearby? What did it matter if they killed him and Rao?

  He stopped this train of thought, blinked a few times and managed to concentrate.

  ‘I saw wolves.’ Rao grasped Jack’s sleeve. ‘I fired to scare them off but they kept coming. I had to use up all the bullets. Then, as I was coming back, I saw figures. Savages. Out in this weather. Can you imagine?’

  Jack felt tiredness swamp him. He wanted to plan what their next move should be. What should they do if the savages approached? But he didn’t have the strength. He couldn’t think straight.

  ‘I don’t know if they saw me,’ Rao said. ‘I ran back here. At least I got this.’ He patted the knapsack, which had a few branches poking out of it.

  Jack shut his eyes and felt himself drifting away again. Everything seemed so difficult and tiring. So impossible to deal with.

  It was strange to think that he was now incapacitated and probably dying, with Rao trying to save him, when last night the opposite had been the case. God’s will was unfathomable sometimes.

  He forced his eyes open again. He’d made a decision and had to tell Rao. But was he strong enough to speak?

  Rao was busy trying to relight the fire, which had died while he’d been away. The matches kept blowing out and he was cursing in Rajthani.

  ‘Listen.’ Jack’s voice was a thick whisper.

  Rao leant across. ‘What is it?’

  Jack raised his hand and tried feebly to grasp Rao’s coat. ‘You go on.’

  ‘Go on?’

  ‘Leave me here. I’m done for.’

  Rao sat back. His icy moustache straightened. ‘I will not leave you.’

  Jack shut his eyes, tried to summon the strength to continue. He had to make Rao see sense. He opened his eyes again and his vision was even more cloudy now. ‘You’ll die if you stay here. Too cold. You won’t last the night.’

  ‘There are savages out there. And wolves.’

  ‘You have to take a chance.’

  Rao’s eyes moistened and he touched Jack’s shoulder gently. ‘Now you close your eyes and sleep. I’m going nowhere. I won’t leave a comrade here to die.’

  Jack’s eyelids slid down. It was too hard to continue. Rao was an idiot if he stayed. But there was nothing Jack could do about it.

  Jack woke and the cold on his face and hands burnt. His chest throbbed and there was a sour taste in the back of his throat. He glanced across and saw Rao huddled beside him under a blanket. The Captain’
s face was pale, his lips were tinged blue and his eyes had a slightly glazed look.

  Even in his confused state, Jack could tell it was bad.

  He looked towards the entrance of the cave. The fire had gone out, leaving just grey coals. The storm still raged outside.

  ‘The fire,’ he managed to say.

  ‘What?’ Rao leant in closer.

  Jack took a deep breath and tried to speak more loudly. ‘The fire.’

  Rao eased himself back and shut his eyes for a moment. ‘Ran out of wood.’

  ‘Go.’

  ‘I won’t go.’

  ‘Get wood, then. We’ll freeze.’

  ‘No more bullets . . . No more strength either . . . Don’t know if I can walk even.’

  Christ. They were both going to die of cold. Unless the wolves or savages got them first. ‘I’m sorry. You should have gone.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that.’ Rao put his gloved hand on a folded piece of paper, which looked as though it had been torn from Atri’s notebook. ‘I wrote a final letter. In case anyone finds us.’

  Jack closed his eyes. It seemed beyond improbable that anyone who could read would ever find their frozen bodies up on the mountainside, but he didn’t want to say that. What was the point? Rao was probably well aware his note was unlikely ever to be discovered anyway.

  Jack thought he might have drifted asleep but he wasn’t sure. At any rate, when he opened his eyes Rao was still sitting beside him, fingering his letter.

  ‘Who did you write to?’ Jack asked. ‘Your sweetheart?’

  Rao nodded.

  ‘You due to get married?’

  Rao shut his eyes and winced. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Rao opened his eyes and his bottom lip trembled. ‘My father forbade it.’

  ‘Ah.’ Jack didn’t have enough strength to say anything further.

  ‘She’s from a lower jati, you see. Unclean. Our . . . friendship was bringing shame on the family. Pollution. When she got pregnant my father told me I had to leave her or be expelled from the jati. I couldn’t bear it, so I agreed.’ Rao’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘I left her.’

  ‘The child?’

  Rao raised his hand weakly and brushed the tears from his eyes. ‘She lost the child, I understand.’

  ‘So, you joined the army?’

  ‘Father insisted. Sent me away to avoid the shame.’ Rao sighed. ‘I never wanted to be in the army.’

  ‘What . . . did you want?’

  Rao was silent for a long time. ‘A poet. I wanted to be a poet.’

  A poet? Christ. Jack felt like laughing, but all that came out was a wheezy cough.

  Rao seemed to understand Jack’s response and managed to give a small smile. Then he shut his eyes and leant his head back against the rock. ‘I’ve made such a mess of things.’

  Jack tried to say something more but couldn’t manage it. Darkness embraced him and the sattva-fire bubbled in his chest. The storm roared outside, but the sound and the cold didn’t trouble him any more.

  He felt calm. He accepted his fate.

  Voices. He heard voices nearby.

  He opened his eyes, tried to see through thick rheum and made out a brutish face with a shaggy beard and wild hair.

  A savage.

  A twinge of fear ran through him, but less than he would have expected. He felt as though he were watching himself from a great distance, as if he’d already slipped over completely to the spirit realm.

  A second savage appeared beside the first.

  As far as Jack could tell they were both wearing heavy cloaks and carrying spears. They spoke to each other in Gaalic.

  Was Rao still alive? Jack wanted to find out, but didn’t want to move his head and so alert the savages.

  Better they thought he was dead.

  He noticed his scimitar lying beside him. He could grab it and attack, but he doubted he had the strength. Once he moved, the savages would know he was alive and kill him.

  But wouldn’t they soon realise he was alive and kill him anyway? They would crawl into the cave and check him more closely. What would they do then? Stab him? Worse?

  The savages were still speaking to each other.

  He would have to do something. He couldn’t just lie there and let them slaughter him – and Rao too, if he were still alive. He would sit up, grab the scimitar and shove it into the nearest savage’s chest.

  At least he would die fighting.

  He counted to three in his head, grunted, groaned and tried to sit up. But it was as though he were strapped in place. He couldn’t move his back more than an inch away from the rock.

  The savages jumped in alarm and shouted. One of them scrambled into the cave.

  Black pools spread before Jack’s eyes. He was going to pass out again. There was nothing he could do about it.

  So this was it. He would meet his death on the end of a savage’s spear.

  He no longer fought to stay awake. It was best that he passed out now.

  He heard more shouting.

  Soon it would be over.

  PART FOUR

  18

  The guns had stopped, the mortars were silent and no shells exploded. Occasionally, in the distance, Jack heard the pop of a musket, but near to him, in this part of the battlefield, the Slavs made no sound at all.

  He sat on the fire step, leant back against the wall of the trench and glanced up at the stars scrawled across the night sky. The smell of the wet earth was all but blotted out by the traces of powder smoke still hanging in the air. He’d got used to the smoke and its sulphurous scent during the long months of the Slav War. He’d run through great, choking clouds of it, felt it burn his eyes and the back of his throat. He’d marched over battle-scarred fields that still reeked of it. He’d fallen asleep with the scent clinging to his clothes. The smell seemed to seep into everything and followed him around wherever he went.

  He shut his eyes for a second. He was sure he wouldn’t forget that smell for as long as he lived.

  A man screamed. A series of moans followed. Then another man, perhaps less than fifty feet away, sobbed.

  Jack opened his eyes and shivered. Now that the guns were quiet, he could hear the cries of the wounded. The fallen men had been lying on the shell-pocked field beyond the trench since a failed attack the day before. They would have been crying out all night.

  ‘Bastards!’ one man shouted. ‘Pull me back there. Bastards! Get me out!’

  William, sitting beside Jack, removed his cap and ran his fingers through his thin hair. ‘Poor sod.’

  Jack shivered again. It was hard to listen to the cries, but the officers had forbidden any of them to help the wounded. The Slavs would fire on anything that moved on that dismal plain.

  He glanced down the trench. In both directions, the other men from the company sat huddled on the fire step. A few had thrown blankets over themselves and were trying to sleep, while others rubbed their hands or stamped their feet to fight the cold and the tension. One man was repeating his prayers and crossing himself over and over again. The soldiers’ faces seemed more gaunt than even a few hours ago, as if the knowledge that at dawn they would have to go over the top had drained the blood from their skin.

  In the distance, the trench snaked away to join other trenches that stretched back for half a mile, worming between dugout shelters, earthworks, fascines, gun emplacements and shell craters full of water, eventually reaching the hospital tents, baggage carts, cavalry pickets and officers’ marquees. A whole teeming city of thousands of soldiers had been moulded from the mud as the campaign wore on.

  A man lying on the battlefield cried out repeatedly for his mother.

  ‘Wish he’d bloody give it a rest,’ old Sergeant Watson said.

  The men sniggered and even Jack couldn’t stop himself snorting. It was a cold-hearted joke but it lightened the mood. Gallows humour was the only kind available in that bleak field outside Ragusa.

  William put his cap back
on and secured the strap beneath his chin. He gave Jack a grin. ‘I’ll wager a shilling I’m the first to reach Ragusa Tower.’

  Jack smiled back and shook his head. He was always amazed at the way William managed to keep his and everyone else’s spirits up. He was twenty – only a year older than Jack – and yet he seemed like a veteran, as if he’d been through battles many times before, rather than experiencing them for the first time like everyone else in the company.

  ‘A shilling?’ someone said. ‘My pound says I’ll be first.’

  Jack jumped at the sound of the voice. Captain Jhala had walked up from a side trench as they’d been talking. Jack leapt to his feet and did a quick namaste, William doing the same.

  Jhala beamed. ‘At ease, men.’ He rested his hand on the pommel of his scimitar. The brass buttons on his tunic shone in the faint moonlight. ‘They say there’ll be no rain tomorrow. The weather’s on our side.’

  ‘Then I’ll have no trouble getting to the tower first, sir,’ William said.

  Jhala chuckled. ‘We’ll see about that, Private.’

  A dying man shrieked in the darkness and they all fell silent for a moment. A soldier a few feet down shook so hard Jack could hear his teeth chattering. The man who was praying said the Latin words of the Our Father even more loudly.

  Jhala seemed to quickly take stock of the situation. ‘Men! Listen, all of you!’

  The hundred and fifty men of the company shuffled to their feet, clasping their muskets to their sides. Men from other companies, sitting further along the trench, peered to watch as well.

  Jhala paced up and down as he spoke. ‘At first light we’ll get the signal to advance. We face a fierce foe. But there is no need to be afraid. The Slavs will crumble before us. That is for certain. We have right on our side. We are following our dharma. There is a true path laid out before us.’ Jhala met the eyes of the men as he walked past. ‘We each must follow our true path. All we have to do is keep our feet marching along it. One step at a time.’

  Jack felt a tingle in his spine as Jhala spoke. He squared his sagging shoulders and gripped his musket more tightly.