by Andy Remic
And then there was Orana . . . beautiful, perfect, and out looking for him, searching because of a so-called prophetic dream.
Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Jones acknowledged this splinter and closed his eyes, breathing this amazing woman’s smell, breathing in her essence and soul, and finding himself growing suddenly aroused—
No.
He could not—would not—but she had noticed his arousal, felt him hard against her, and she turned those beautiful grey eyes upon him and smiled, and reached forward, and kissed his neck and chin and cheek and face, and her hands curled about his waist, around his body, and he felt himself falling into her and she was an angel in his arms, soft, perfect, beautiful, and he was Lucifer sent to despoil and ravage and destroy.
“Come to me,” she said, voice deep and husky.
She placed her cloak on the floor of the cave, and they kissed and it was so sweet, sweet with life and love and a gentle thrumming lust, and they entwined, lost within one another, and he was moving inside her, her nails raking slowly across his skin, pushing through his hair, cradling his face, stroking his neck and arms, and he was lost to her, he was hers, he belonged to her and she to him and they were joined and married in bonds stronger than those of religion or joy or thought. They were magnets, connected by their very souls and joined now in sex, and afterwards, Jones pulled his clothes on tight and sat with his back to the cave wall, staring out into the snow, breathing deeply.
Orana moved close to him, pushed her head under his chin, and snuggled against him, her smell invading his senses and leaving him utterly and totally drained.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.” He smiled down at her.
“Was our union . . . good?”
“It was good.”
“You do not regret it?”
He remembered their mutual orgasm and shook his head. “No, how could I ever regret such a feeling? I’m yours, Orana. You have me trapped in chains far stronger than any iron. I am yours. Now and forever.”
They sat, cuddled, and Orana gathered her fur-lined cloak and wrapped it around them both. Jones grabbed his rifle from where it was propped against the wall and checked the magazine.
“You seem anxious,” Orana said.
“It’s the walriders. And those soldiers. They prey on my thoughts, invade my ——ing mind. I cannot sleep, I cannot think! I must get you back to your village. I must protect you!”
“Why, Robert? Why do you care about me?”
“Because I do. We are part of one another’s pathway now.”
“I love you, Robert Jones.”
He smiled. “I love you also, Orana.” He gazed into her deep eyes, like oceans of time. He breathed deep. “But we must move, or we’re going to be trapped or shot. We cannot risk staying here any longer.”
“I am so exhausted,” she said.
“Me also. I’m sorry.”
Jones crawled to the cave’s entrance—and froze. A creature stood before him, long and low and sleek, about the size of a large attack dog, its fur white and speckled with black and brown, eyes yellow and slitted. It was vaguely feline in shape and yet was most definitely not a cat. The creature seemed oblivious to Jones’s sudden appearance, and yet he noted its muscles coiled, tense, and he breathed out slowly, and started to back away.
“It’s a gren,” said Orana, her voice only a whisper. She handed something to Jones, and looking down, he saw a chunk of half-frozen wolf meat in his hand. “Feed it. They are said to bring good luck.”
Slowly, Jones reached out, and the gren’s eyes watched his movements. Claws slid out, and he swallowed hard.
The meat landed in the snow.
Without taking its eyes from Jones, the gren took a graceful step forward, dipped its long muzzle, and sniffed. The mouth opened and the meat disappeared. There came a crunch of bone, Jones caught a glimpse of white fangs, and then the gren was gone, had leapt and merged, vanishing into the snow camouflage of its natural habitat.
Hurt World. “Ambush.” 6th. November 1917 (night).
“THOSE ——ERS ARE GETTING CLOSER!” hissed Bainbridge, and Jones stopped, brushed snow from a nearby rock, and clambered up the side to stand on top. He gazed through the falling white haze, shivering and blowing into cupped hands. All he could see were distant, tiny blobs of black through the fast-falling gloom.
“We cannot make camp,” said Jones, and Orana looked up, aware that something was wrong.
“What is it?”
“They are too close. If we sleep, they could come across us when we’re vulnerable.”
“But we can’t go on forever, not like this.”
“I know.”
Orana nodded and, bending her head against the falling snow, pushed on farther up the pass. To the right, the gaping maw of the distant valley beckoned unwary travellers, and Jones was careful to pick each footstep with care on the slippery stones of the narrow trail.
“Was the route this treacherous when you first came over the mountains?” asked Jones, teeth chattering.
Orana shivered, pulling her fur-lined cloak tighter about her shoulders; her brown hair was white-streaked, damp, and to Jones she appeared as an ice goddess.
She smiled, and Jones returned the smile. “No. The pass was clear of snow; there was a little ice, but I travelled only during daylight.”
“Now we have no choice.”
Orana lost her smile. “I know. We are hunted.”
They battled on through the weather, and a cruel wind cut from the right, harsh and piercing. They had to shield their eyes with fur-wrapped hands, so fierce were the wind and driving snow, and they both felt the bite of the terrible cold right down to the core of their bones.
“They’re closer,” came Bainbridge’s voice, calm and quiet and steady.
Jones remembered long days of old, sat in damp trenches with wet boots, and knew that the calm in his old friend’s voice marked the beginning of adrenalin and action in the large, brutal Tommy. The calm before the storm.
Jones said nothing but turned, could see the shapes in the distance down the narrow trail, now large enough to distinguish. “Come on, faster,” he urged Orana, but they were both frozen and exhausted from days of travelling, weary to the point of collapse from this flight of fear.
“You will have to make a stand,” came Webb’s gentle voice.
“Lay an ambush!” chuckled Bainbridge. “That’ll surprise the bastards. The snow will make for good cover, all right, and they’ll be edgy as ——ing rabbits if you can manage to take out one or two. It’ll slow ’em down.”
“The time for running is over,” agreed Webb.
“It’s time to start the killing,” growled Bainbridge.
Jones, helping Orana along, thought quickly. His two friends were right; he had to make a stand of some kind, had to at least slow their pursuers. But how? With what? All he possessed was one Lee-Enfield, running low on bullets.
He began to scan the wall of rock to the left, and suddenly, stopping there in the snow he gazed up, his eyes tracking left and right.
“What are you looking for?” asked Orana.
“Shh. Our voices might carry to the enemy.”
Orana nodded, and Jones pointed to a distant outcrop of rocks, snow-covered and sheltered beside the carpeted mountain trail. He put his mouth close to Orana’s ear and her damp hair tickled his lips.
“Take my rifle,” he said, his words slow. “You remember how to operate the bolt?” She nodded. “Good. Climb to those rocks for cover, over there, and hide yourself well.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to surprise our friends from above,” he said, glancing up the steep cliff to the left. “I want you to start counting, and when you reach three hundred, let off a couple of shots. There’s no need to aim properly; just fire down the pass. If we’re lucky, you might hit one of the buggers . . . If I can’t find a way to slow them down, your shots will also give me time to get back
. Now start counting . . .”
Orana moved off into the fast-falling night and was soon a hazy ghost behind the curtain of snow. Jones turned left and, with a deep breath, began to climb up the steep slope of frozen scree. Soon, it veered upwards to become a vertical wall of rock, black and icy and deathly slippery.
Jones grinned to himself. “I can only die,” he whispered.
He began the treacherous climb, counting to himself as he did so. The rock was jagged, with many handholds and, under normal conditions, would have made a reasonable wall to ascend. But with the cold and ice, it was difficult to sustain any kind of grip, and the biting wind chilled his back and caressed down his neck, making him shiver as if touched by a long-dead lover.
He continued to count. He climbed upwards, fingers cramping.
After a couple of minutes, he gazed down, saw the pass below him, spread out, a frightening vast expanse of seemingly infinite black. Jones shivered violently, fingers trembling under the tension of holding his own weight. His boots scrabbled on rock, found delicate purchase, and he paused, resting, his breath coming in short, cold barks. His arms were aching as if filled with lead, and he was so terribly, terribly cold.
Vertigo surged into his mind, but closing his eyes for a few moments, he quelled it viciously and thought of Orana, thought of the numbers hissing between his cold lips as he counted, counted . . . He blinked, coughed, then, looking up, started to climb once more.
He climbed and climbed, arms screaming, and his head thumped with the beat of his heart and blood flowed fast through veins and his eyes blinked out snow and wind and he shivered and cursed and climbed, heart beating faster faster faster as his fingers suddenly slipped! Legs kicked out, and he scrabbled against the rock wall with a scream welling in his throat as one boot thumped against the rock and he dug in his fingernails, felt one break, tumble free with a spurt of hot blood, but there was no pain, only terror, and he pressed against the wall, panting, thanking God and the angels he was still bloody alive.
What number? What number? He had lost count in his panic and, cursing, tried to estimate. Horse shit.
Wind snapped at him. Slapped him. Bit him.
He climbed the last few feet and hauled himself onto a flat ledge, gazing up into the snow-haze heavens for a moment as relief flooded him. He pulled out his knife and could see rocks littering the ground, loose boulders, ice-covered, some as large as his head and very heavy. Jones rolled several to the edge, where he could see the narrow, winding snake of the trail below, and he piled ten atop one another. Below he could see the loose scree, also littered with small boulders, and he hoped to God his ——ing plan would work . . .
Orana? he thought, gazing out into the bleak, cold world.
Where are you?
He waited, shivering, his eyelids almost frozen shut, his face so cold it was hot; and then he saw them, dark shapes moving below him, one punctuated by a slash of white. Jones felt his jaw clamp tightly shut.
The walrider, from back in the trench. The one who mocked Jones. Said it hunted him in his dreams and reality . . . Five Stripe, the twisted, deviant walrider bastard of desecrated nightmares . . .
Jones’s eyes narrowed as, suddenly, a shot rang out, buzzing down the trail and booming like a bomb in the pass. The shapes below paused, unsure for a second, then a second shot boomed and the figures dived for scant cover on the narrow rocky ledge. Jones heard shouted orders, and his scowl grew even more pronounced as he recognised the voice. Jen Marker, Third Division.
The enemies were hugging the wall, looking back for cover. Several return shots slammed through the snowy gloom, and Orana returned fire, her volley cracking out. There came a yell, and Jones saw a soldier topple from the ledge, arms and legs flailing for a moment before the blackness ate him like snapping jaws.
That’s my girl! thought Jones, grinning, and then, leaning forward, heaved at the pile of rocks on the ledge, watched them bounce and roll down the scree slope, picking up extra rocks and stones on their accelerating descent, and thundering towards the trail and the soldiers and walriders who looked up, mouths open at this sudden rock avalanche, and screams and shouts echoed up as there were smacks and crunches of impact, and the screams were sent howling off far down into the ice-filled pass.
Jones scrambled along the ridge to get a better look, feeling suddenly warm and bright and alive, his fear a banished ghost.
Below, he could see the trail was empty.
He’d killed them all, swept them away like a dark tide.
He found a narrow gulley channelling down through the rocks, and he squeezed into it, began his descent, easing himself down into oblivion with frozen fingers but a glad heart.
Jen Marker, Five Stripe, and others were dead . . .
His boots hit the trail and he crouched, praying Orana had heard the rockfall and would halt her firing.
He glanced down the trail where the rockfall had finally settled, blocking the path and making it treacherous to cross.
Turning, he loped up the trail, boots slipping on snow but face triumphant. He reached the hiding place and Orana stood, SMLE limp in her hands. Jones grinned and grabbed her, and gave her a long, hard hug. They gazed into one another’s eyes.
“You did it!” she said.
“We did it, Orana.”
“We stopped them. For now,” she said.
“It is enough. For now.”
“More will come.”
Jones shrugged. “Let them come,” he said, eyes hardening. “Now come on, let’s find some shelter and build a fire. Or we’ll be dead soon and our small victory will count for nothing.”
“Yes, my love.”
They moved on up the trail, leaving rocks and ice in their wake. More snow fell, coming down heavier now, a great white shroud which smothered the rockfall, veiled the mountains, and turned the world white and beautiful and pure as diamond ice.
It had taken Jones and Orana a week to cross the savage mountains, hiding in caves, eating what they could scavenge or hunt.
On the eighth morning, as they stumbled through knee-deep snow, the sun speared a finger of bright light from broken, broiling clouds. And Jones gasped, for before them opened a distant vista like nothing he had ever witnessed.
The land below the jagged snowline was bright red, and Jones blinked, as if drinking in a vibrant dream. He realised, with a start, that he was gazing out over an ocean of poppies.
They found a narrow trail between towering rocks, rimed in snow, and started picking their way down towards the warmer climate, towards a different world, towards an undulating plain of bloodred flowers.
After several torturous hours, they reached the snowline, moved beyond it, exhausted, their bodies shattered. They found an outcropping of rocks by which they could shelter from the wind and hunkered down, sharing the last of the wolf meat, which tasted bad but was all they had left.
Jones sat on a flat rock and stared out at the blood ocean.
“It’s enchanting,” whispered Orana, sitting beside him.
Jones nodded, speechless.
Finally, with a voice like lead, he said, “We should sleep. Try and regain some strength for the journey ahead.”
“Yes, that would be good,” said Orana.
Jones climbed down between two rocks, lay down, put his head on his arm, and within seconds, his breathing had deepened, eyes closed, and the dark corridors of sleep had spirited him away.
Orana watched him for a few moments, smiling, eyes full of affection, and then turned her attention back to the poppies. The smile drifted from her face, like smoke in a gentle breeze. Her eyes gradually narrowed. She licked her lips, a quick, sharp movement, like the flicker of a snake tongue.
“I am home at last,” she said, voice low and soft but changed somehow, now deeper, more guttural, like several voices laid over one another, merging to create an alien sound, unwholesome and disturbing.
She crouched on the rock, legs coming up beneath her, a sudden movement that w
as a blur. Her fingers curled inwards, as if her hands were riddled with arthritis. And then, gradually, Orana’s face began to change, soft wax dripping down the side of a candle. Her eyes seemed to flicker, shifting into a bright, intense grey, and her mouth began to squirm, teeth suddenly pushing outwards, protruding from her lips, before the flesh itself extended into a kind of broken muzzle. The teeth lengthened, curling into yellow fangs, as claws erupted from splitting fingertips with brittle cracks, like the multiple breaking of old bones.
Orana shifted, her muscles swelling, until she became . . . something else.
She turned, eyes settling on the sleeping form of Jones, and she grinned like a dog grins when it spies fresh meat. Reaching into her boot, she pulled free a length of iron, turning it slowly before her eyes. There was a wooden grip, carved, and backed by an iron plate. Between grip and blade there was a small curl of metal, and the blade was dark and long, from a relatively narrow base, widening towards the sweeping tip. The top of the blade was serrated, iron old and pitted, a relic.
Orana clenched the German bayonet tightly and jumped down, crouching beside the prone figure of Jones.
Her grey eyes swept up and down his sleeping body, and she shivered, as if thrilled by what she saw.
“I want to see with your eyes,” said the female walrider, and grinned.
His claws were wedged in rock, muscles screaming, heavy boots scrabbling for purchase. More rocks pounded down at him, several thumping into his face and head, threatening to dislodge him at any moment, but grimly he hung on, eyes narrowed, breath coming in fast pants and gasps. Then the rocks were gone and past, and stones trickled down over him, a river of pebbles and dust, making him choke and gag and nearly suffocate. But still he hung, boots finally finding grip on the narrow ridges of the rock wall, claws flexing as his muscles strained to take his weight.