The Burning Man

4

The transition from the arid heat of the southern Sahara dawn to the chilly, gusting night rain on the grassy downs of Tir n’a n’Og left Hunter reeling. He found himself in the ruins of a watchtower on a ridge above the sweeping grassland, masonry crumbling with age and covered with ivy and lichen. His senses instantly came alive; every scent, every sound, every colour was heightened, more real than real.

Yet he found his footing rapidly and assessed his situation in a matter of seconds. He smelled ashes on the wind and behind the rhythm of the rain he could hear the clattering of metal, the steady tread of many feet and the beat of hoofs. Quickly, he carried Laura into the lee of one of the walls, afraid the cold rain would only worsen her condition. His attention was briefly drawn to the flaming outline of a man on the far horizon, but once he assessed it was not a threat, he quickly forgot it.

Laura was a poor sight. Bound to her armpits in mummy wrappings, her arms now free and lolling, she appeared to be dead. Her skin, which had always had a faint greenish hue, was bone-white, and her pupils were unresponsive. Yet Hunter had seen many dead bodies in his short, violent life and he was not convinced she was dead. Though she had no heartbeat that he could discern, no movement of her chest to indicate respiration, neither were there any of the changes that affected the body in the minutes and hours after death: no settling of the blood, no escaping of gases, no hint of the onset of rigor mortis.

‘That,’ he said to himself, ‘is enough to give me hope, and while I’ve got that I’m not going to give up on you.’ After a thoughtful pause, he added, ‘And probably not ever.’ Then: ‘God, I hope you can’t hear any of this sentimental bollocks or I’ll never live it down when you wake up.’

He carried Laura beneath a sprawling elder in a corner of the ruins to shelter her from the rain and to hide her if they were discovered. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s see what this world has to offer a plucky fellow with lots of ambition, an excess of charisma and the wherewithal to overcome any odds.’

Keeping low, he ran to the edge of the ruins and looked out across the downs. Through the rain, he could just make out hundreds of torches moving slowly, a river of flame in the dark. Occasionally, more intense bursts of fire flared up as if great furnaces were belching. It was a massive army on the move.

Crawling back to Laura, he sheltered beneath the elder. ‘Now what?’ he said aloud. ‘Strange land, no idea of the terrain. Absolutely no idea which way help lies. Some might say I didn’t think this through.’

‘Are you … a Brother of Dragons?’

Hunter jolted. He had no idea anyone was in the vicinity, and he always knew; that was how he stayed alive. ‘Come any closer and I’ll kill you.’

‘Are you here to free the Far Lands from the yoke of the Enemy?’ the scared voice continued, unperturbed.

‘Who are you?’

A pair of yellow eyes big enough to be human peered from the dark of a crevice amongst fallen masonry; yet the space looked barely big enough to hide a rat.

‘I am but a simple denizen of the Far Lands, minding my own business, foraging for food. Until they came.’ The voice grew tremulous. ‘They killed my ma and my pa and my poor sissy. They killed them dead!’ It began to sob loudly. ‘And they’re killing everything they come across, wiping the Far Lands free of us poor things. You know what they’re really doing?’ it babbled. ‘Burning away everything. Starting again. The Far Lands have served their purpose. No need for a source of dreams and wonder any more. It’s the end. And next they’re going to do the same to the Fixed Lands, mark my words. Burn it all away and start again. Oh, the age of gods and Fragile Creatures is passed. The season is turned. Oh, woe is me. Oh, woe is us.’

Hunter began to feel sorry for the frightened creature. ‘Come out. You’re safe here for a moment.’

‘No. If I come out now, I’ll be forced to eat your hands and I don’t want to do that. You won’t help us then.’ A pause. ‘I’ve eaten the hands of lots of Fragile Creatures. Yum!’ A faint smacking of lips.

Realising he had a lot to learn about Tir n’a n’Og, Hunter quickly withdrew the hand he had extended to help the creature out of the hole. ‘My friend here is injured-’ he began.

‘Yes, she hangs between here and there. I can smell her. Nearly gone.’

‘She needs help. Cernunnos-’

‘Oooh, no. Long missing from the Far Lands. The Golden Ones are mostly gone. I think they know it’s the Twilight Time.’

‘Who can help her, then?’

After a moment’s silence, the creature said hesitantly, ‘Only the Court of the Final Word. They’re still here. They’ll be the last to go. They’re enjoying themselves in these dark days, finding lots of what they need. Their river of blood is deeper and faster than ever. But you don’t want to go there.’

‘If they can help Laura, yes, I do.’

‘To them, “help” means something different from what it does to you and me. They’ll help you into a finer mess than you’re in now.’

‘I don’t care. Where is this place?’

A long, grey hand with broken, bloody nails extended from the hole, stretching like toffee as it pointed towards the distant army. ‘A long way. Through the Enemy’s lines. You’ll never be able to get there alive, not carrying your poor friend.’

Hunter watched the torches moving, remembering a similar scene in the Bosnian countryside.

‘Take my advice: don’t go! Even the Enemy haven’t gone near the Court of the Final Word!’

Hunter scooped up Laura and eased out into the downpour. ‘Thanks for the tip.’

‘Wait! Are you going to help? Everyone knows the reputation of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. The old stories say you great heroes will free the land and lead us in our greatest hour. We need you, Brother of Dragons. We need you!’

‘Don’t worry. It’s next on my list.’

With Laura in his arms, he clambered over the fallen masonry and began his journey across the downs towards Enemy lines. After six miles he could smell the greasy smoke from the torches and feel the ground shake from the relentless tread of thousands of marching feet. The downs had given way to a lush valley filled with copses and streams and boulders. Slabs of granite lay along the bottom of what appeared to be a dried-up river-bed. On the other side, the unbroken line of torches moved in the dark.

Hunter could wait until the army had passed, but there looked to be no end to it and he was afraid of wasting a single minute.

‘Right now, I bet you’re wishing someone with brains had fallen in love with you, who could think their way out of this mess.’

He laid Laura in the middle of a thick copse, half-afraid to leave her in case there were predators around, and then set off on reconnaissance, keeping low, moving from copse to copse, years of training making his actions as natural as breathing. As he slipped through the shadows, every regulated breath reminded him of another time, of Bosnia again, and Iraq, Belize, the Ukraine, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Tibet; and with the memory of each place came the images of the deaths, by knife, by gun, by bare hands. He remembered every face. It was his penance: keeping those features embedded in his mind would ensure that all the people he had slain would live on as long as he did; and he would never know peace.

For the final few yards, he crawled on his belly until he reached a broad bed of dry, dead reeds. The vast army was only yards away. The ground shook so much it made him feel sick, and he could smell the stink of sweat and blood and decomposition, of metal and leather. Purple mist drifted in the breeze from the Lament-Brood who marched at the heart of a terrifying rank of misshapen warriors, beasts and creatures, some of which had skin that gleamed like oil and changed shape regularly, sprouting carapaces and mandibles, multiple limbs, spikes and horns.

‘I’ve seen worse,’ he muttered.

He crawled to the edge of the reed bed, anxious that each rustle of movement would draw attention to him. He didn’t know how long he had left till dawn, but he guessed it couldn’t be more than a couple of hours and then he’d have no chance of getting through the ranks.

Frustrated, he scoured the valley until his eyes fell on fissures that ran through the rocky river-bed. It was tricky to discern details in the dark, but it looked as if they were wide enough to crawl through, and they appeared to run right under the army. It was a gamble — the fissures could end right at the feet of the Lament-Brood — but he had no other choice.

Returning to the copse, he stripped off his sodden shirt and belt, and did his best to fasten Laura to his back. The knots were good, but the wet cloth had a lot of give and she could easily slip off.

It took more than an hour to crawl on his belly down the slope, and by the time he reached the reed bed, all his muscles burned. At least the downpour had given way to a slight drizzle.

But as he dragged his way through the reeds, he realised he had miscalculated. The darkness was already thinning, the detail of the army emerging from the gloom. He was only a couple of feet away from the fissure he had selected, yet in a few minutes it might as well be a mile. He hauled himself out of the reed bed, his elbows and knees cracking painfully on the hard rock. Too-rapid movements would draw attention to him in the half-light; however fast his heart might be beating, he had to take it slow and steady, inching forward and hoping the shadows blanketed his bulk.

With his internal clock slowed to the beat of each precise movement, the sun appeared to be rising phenomenally fast. Grey spread out across the river-bed and the first hint of colour materialised in the soaking vegetation. The bizarre figures that made up the army became more terrifying as they emerged from the gloom: decaying features, blood-spattered, rusted armour raising sparks as they dragged their weapons on the rock.

I’m not going to make it, he thought.

The realisation cut through the numbness of damp, chill and exertion that had settled into his bones. Then a glimmer of a way out came to him. In the first pale rays of the sun, a mist was forming on the valley bed, thickening fast but not yet opaque enough to provide cover. He lay still and waited.

Light came up fast all around him. One curious glance in his direction would be the end. After fifteen minutes, he looked up and saw that the pearly mist now swathed the army. Crawling hastily across the river-bed, he wriggled into the fissure, relief flooding through him. But the gap ahead narrowed until it was barely shoulder-wide. Undoing the straps, he eased Laura off his back, fighting the random despairing thoughts that she was already dead and that everything he was doing was pointless.

With great effort, he manhandled her limp form through the tiny crevice. In the close confines, the heavy tramp of thousands of feet was deafening. Pebbles cascaded as the rock shook, and he feared it would all come crashing down on him at any moment.

When he was midway through the fissure, he looked up to see the bodies moving overhead, stepping over the gap one after the other.

Fifteen minutes later, he had passed beneath the army and was attempting to scale a steep incline of slick boulders where a white stream splashed. With Laura strapped to his back again, every sinew and joint ached.

‘Okay, I was just spinning a bit of false modesty before,’ he said. ‘You got stuck with the right person after all. What can I say — I’m a hero.’

The climb took the best part of an hour. When the fissure opened out to reveal brilliant blue sky, with shaking arms he hauled himself onto a grassy slope with a breathtaking view along the valley to sweeping grassland and purple, snow-capped mountains beyond. Far below, the pearly mist glowed in the morning sun, hiding the black scar of the army and damping the martial tramp of feet.

Releasing Laura, he rested her head on his shoulder. ‘A view like this deserves a bottle of good wine, music and someone to share it with.’ He looked into Laura’s pale face and tried to ignore what he saw there. ‘Anyone listening would think I’m crazy, talking to myself. But whatever anyone says, I reckon you can hear me, somewhere, because that’s the kind of woman you are. And if all the medical experts in the world lined up to tell me differently, I’d still believe it.’ The view forgotten, there was only her face. Then he gathered her up in his arms and walked to the top of the ridge.

Beyond, the land rolled out to the horizon, mile upon mile of greenery that eventually thinned out to a rough, blackened zone in the distance. No sign of the Court of the Final Word.

‘Looks like you’re stuck with me for a while longer. No point hanging around … let’s go.’ He held Laura’s cold form tightly and set out on weary legs for the horizon.