Sea Of Ghosts

EPILOGUE

Maskelyne spat out dust and rolled over on to his back. Above him, smoke boiled behind the shattered remains of a wooden roof. He raised his head and winced as pain shot through his neck. He was lying on the floor of what was left of the guards’ hut. Through the open doorway he could see fires burning around a lump of twisted metal half-buried in the ground.

The chariot?

Maskelyne got up. His limbs felt beaten and raw. He staggered over to the door and looked out.

Dust and smoke filled the air. The horses stood a short distance down the trail. The wagon they’d been hitched to had smashed through the compound barrier and broken an axle. Now it lay collapsed at the end of a long dirt furrow. He spotted Mellor and two of his men, sitting under the palisade wall behind the crashed Unmer vessel. They looked stunned. The body of a third man lay on the ground before them among fallen debris and burning scraps of wood. The gunnery sergeant and his girlfriend were nowhere to be seen.

Maskelyne eased himself down the steps outside the guard post and limped across the ground towards the stricken chariot. His ankle buckled whenever he put any weight on it. He reached the craft and peered inside the open hatchway.

Empty. Nothing remained but a mangled mass of metal and wire. He was about to turn away, when he spotted something glinting among the wreckage. Carefully, he climbed inside and retrieved the object.

It was a crystal, as large as a man’s head. Maskelyne turned it over in his hands, marvelling at the multitude of perfect facets. In each one he could see a reflection of his own bruised and dusty face. He tucked it under his arm and then ducked back outside.

‘Mellor,’ he said. ‘We’re leaving.’