The Iron Beast Read online

  Orana was somehow subtly moved aside and the large man approached Jones, who took an involuntary step back, but was wise enough not to raise his rifle even though every atom of his body screamed that he should do so, and in the back of his mind Bainbridge was howling, “By all the Gods, kill this bastard!”

  “Greetings,” Jones said, licking his lips, wondering if death were about to visit. “I come from over the mountains. Your daughter found me. She thinks I can help your people. The people of this village.”

  The man stepped down from the porch and moved in front of Jones. His fists were involuntarily balled, and Jones felt a sense of rising fear in his belly, in his chest, in his soul.

  “You speak the old tongue?” said the man, accent thick, steel eyes never leaving Jones’s face.

  “Yes.”

  “You are Naravelle?”

  “No.”

  “The Naravelle have used the old tongue for many years. They supplement their own language with words we no longer use.”

  “I am not Naravelle.” Jones narrowed his eyes.

  “I will kill you if you lie.”

  “Yes. I believe you.” Jones looked to Orana. “Tell him, tell him how we fought the creatures, the walriders; tell him how I rescued you from those bastards. Tell him.”

  “Father, listen to him. He is Robert Jones. He comes from a distant land, from another people, another war. He saved my life, and he was lost, dying. I healed him, and we were pursued here by Naravelle soldiers . . . and creatures. . . . We lost them in the mountains.”

  The man extended his great callused hand and gave a nod. “I am Jorian. This is my wife, Beth. I do not like the fact you are in our village, but I will permit you to stay. For now. But any sign of threat, we will cut your head from your miserable ——ing neck.”

  Jones breathed softly. “I thank you.”

  “What happened to your face?” asked Jorian, eyes alert, staring without shame at Jones’s mustard-gas scars.

  Jones shrugged. “It’s a long story. Another life. Another war. Do I truly look that bad? That . . . horrific?” He felt his heart sink. How could Orana possibly love him when he was so deformed?

  Like the trees, whispered the Skogsgrå. Flesh abused.

  “No,” lied Jorian, after a telling pause. “Now. Step inside. We will eat.”

  Jorian and Beth entered the house, and Orana smiled sadly at Jones. He bit hard on his tongue. He did not want her pity. He followed Beth inside and was invited to sit at a broad table of rough-sawn planks.

  They ate in silence, a simple thick broth of meat and vegetables, with fresh-baked bread and sweet melting butter. To Jones, it was a banquet from Heaven and he had never thought to enjoy such food again. It felt like it had been years. Maybe it had.

  When the meal was finished, Beth cleared the plates away and once more Jorian fixed the Tommy with his steel gaze. “I would know what has been happening with my daughter during the last few weeks,” he said. “We have been worried; we thought her slain or bewitched by the Naravelle. But I will hear her speak later . . . first, I am curious. Tell me how you saved her life?”

  Slowly, Jones told of the battle, his wounding, his confusion, and his waking within the forest and subsequent flight. All the while Jorian never took his eyes from the soldier and this made Jones nervous and also annoyed by the giant man. Eventually, he came to the part of the story where he threw Mills Bombs—he described the explosions and Jorian suddenly roared in anger, surging to his feet and overturning the great wooden table. He leapt forward, grabbed Jones’s coat and hoisted the Tommy to his feet, bringing their faces close.

  “You have the power of demons!” he hissed, and Jones was suddenly aware of Orana shouting, dragging at her father’s arm. He could see Orana’s mother out of the corner of his eye, shaking. . . . “And to think I invited you to eat at our table, you are worthless, you are a man in love with death. . . .”

  Jones started to protest, but he was shaken like a rat and he felt his own anger rising as he prepared to fight back. But . . . suddenly everything halted as a distant bugle sounded, lonely and haunting, and Jorian dropped Jones back to his seat and ran to the door, throwing it wide open.

  Outside, a man stumbled to a halt carrying his rifle, and shouted, “They are coming, down from the forests . . . a unit of Naravelle! They have walriders with them. . . .”

  Jorian turned to Jones as the bugles continued in the distance.

  “That is the sound for battle. The bastards are advancing on our trenches. Do you understand what you have done? Do you understand, fool?” He turned his eyes on Orana, who cowered under the intensity of her father’s gaze. “You have led them to us, you fools! We were hidden after the Battle of Yellow Pass, but now you have led them to us!”

  Jorian swung back to Jones, advanced a step and Jones thought—for a moment—he was going to die. Then the large man turned and disappeared into the back of the house, appearing with a massive rifle.

  He pointed the rifle at Jones, barrel first, and when he spoke, the words were muffled but carried clear their obvious intent.

  “You will leave my house, you will surrender your weapon, and you will stay away from my ——ing daughter!”

  With that, the giant was gone, and in the distance rifles boomed, and Jones exchanged glances with Orana, shook his head in sadness, and strode from the house, leaving his Lee-Enfield where it had fallen.

  The Poppy Fields. “Five Stripe.” 11th. November 1917.

  FIVE STRIPE SAT ON A ROCK, twisting a little in pain from the onslaught of the rockfall in which he’d been caught, battered, and nearly killed. Dried blood stained his warped skin.

  He surveyed the great plain of poppies far below. No emotion flowed through the walrider—other than the simple hate for the man he hunted—and yet the beast had a certain flicker of something which spun like a splinter through his broken, deviant mind.

  He watched as dark clouds gathered overhead, threatening more snow, and he grinned to himself, strings of drool spooling down from twisted jaws onto his lap, and onto the rocks beneath him. It melted through snow and ice, and laid bare the rocks. The walrider tilted his head slightly and grinned. Just like I will do to you, little man, he thought, picturing Robert Jones’s face clearly—as clear as day. Like a sun beaming down through his splintered skull and filled with a hot bright needle of hate.

  I will come for you.

  I will find you.

  I will curse you.

  I will kill you.

  I will eat you.

  I will lay your bones bare, ripping through your soft white flesh.

  I will absorb your eyes, and look out with your eyes, and understand what you have learned in your years of war, in your days of hardship, from your world of men whom I despise and will see fall.

  And your world will fall.

  Both worlds will fall . . .

  With your help, little Robert Jones. Your help.

  Five Stripe looked out across the world, this new world, and yet this old world.

  I am home, he thought, and leapt down towards the poppies, and Robert Jones beyond.

  The Forest of Bone. “Confrontation.” 11th. November 1917 (evening).

  JORIAN MET GAMESH AND KARN in the trenches, and together they strode across muddied duckboards until they reached the front line.

  “You!” boomed Jorian, pointing to a soldier who peered over the wire. “What is happening here?”

  “They attacked, Jorian. We let off a series of shots and they retreated; they are gathered just out of range. There are nearly thirty Naravelle soldiers, and twelve walriders.”

  “Good man.”

  Jorian climbed onto a ladder and peered out onto the killing ground. His gaze followed the line of bordering bone trees, past their black and red crooked trunks, like slick diseased limbs, until his eyes came to rest on the mounted warriors and cavorting, gibbering walriders.

  “They will send the walriders next,” he said, eyes narrowing in un
derstanding. “Be ready for them, and for their speed!”

  The men of the village readied weapons along the trench, and to either side runners hammered the boards and disappeared to relay warnings to other trench units posted closer to the mountains. Jorian was unsure whether this was an isolated incident, or if the entire Naravelle army was about to descend on his frail, humble, once-hidden village. . . .

  He set his jaw in a grim line and scratched his beard. Damn that foreigner! Damn him for leading the enemy to our hidden camp! He gave a narrow, evil smile then. Whatever happened, he would hold the trench and kill the bastards. There was no turning back now. Nowhere left to run. They were between hammer and anvil, between the ocean and the jagged cliffs.

  As predicted, the walriders were sent in. They set up a horrific screeching, flexing their claws, drool pooling from twisted muzzles as they came at the trench with incredible speed, muscles corded and bunched, fangs drooling as they bounded like dogs, helmets merged with skulls, their eyes fixed on ducking targets behind the wire. Jorian screamed the order and a line of rifles boomed, cocked, boomed again, and smoke rolled up from the primitive weapons. The walriders fell in a great line of writhing fur and torn flesh, blood gushing into the soil, and several lay twitching for a while, crying children’s cries, then flung back limbs, and screamed, and gurgled, choking on their own blood, and died.

  Only one made it through, leaping into the trench and scattering the villagers who stumbled back. Jorian strode forwards, eyes dark, face a thunderous mask of loathing. “Jump into my trench, will you, laddie?” He leapt, at the same time as the walrider, and they clashed against the mud wall, scattering earth. The walrider slashed with claws but Jorian grabbed the beast in a bear hug, pulling it close, lifting it from the ground where its sturdy boots kicked and thrashed. Jorian rammed his head forward into the face merged with helm, into the twisted muzzle. Again and again he head-butted the beast, feeling its yellow fangs snapping against his forehead, and then he pulled it even tighter, and a whine erupted from its broken face as Jorian, face turning purple with effort, yanked once again, and there came a terrific snap. The walrider went limp in his arms, spine broken by the huge man, and he dropped it, keening softly, to the duckboards.

  “Gamesh, finish it,” said Jorian, looking back over the trench wall. There came an awed silence from the other villagers.

  The walrider looked up with pleading eyes. “Please . . . no . . .” it crooned from behind broken fangs, and whimpered, like an injured child.

  Gamesh slammed his rifle bayonet through the broken creature’s face.

  It went silent.

  All was still.

  A rider bearing a grey flag cantered forward between the shattered trees and stopped his mount amongst the dead walriders. He held up his hand and his voice bellowed, “Who is the leader here?”

  “No matter to you, whoreson!” returned Jorian, face red with anger, veins throbbing deep in his forehead. “You do not attack and then come to parley! By your actions you proclaim your arrogance, and thus reveal your standing as Naravelle stock fit only to rut with pigs.” The men along the trench laughed. The rider did not move, although a vein pulsed in his forehead.

  “You have with you a man. He came in this morning with a young woman. The man is one of ours, and we would barter with you for his return. I apologise for the behaviour of the walriders. They were badly trained and no order was issued for them to launch an attack.”

  Jorian laughed, but it was a laugh without humour. “It is always the same with your kind,” he hissed. “Violence first, apologies later when your violence fails. Well, hear this—we know of no such man. Whoever you seek, he is not in our village. Now, I think you will find an open road the way you came, back through the shattered trees. Here, you will only find blood and death.”

  “Brave words for a man cowering in the earth,” said the mounted soldier, and wheeling his mount with a snort and stamp of hooves, he returned to the group of riders.

  Jorian watched, dark eyes narrow and unmoving.

  “Will they leave, do you think?” asked Gamesh.

  “No. They will attack.”

  True to Jorian’s words, the riders suddenly spread out into a standard cavalry attack formation, a spearhead, with the officer at the tip. They readied rifles and the hollow sounds of magazines being fitted echoed across the open ground.

  Without any command, they kicked mounts into a gallop and Jorian boomed, “Hold steady, lads!” as the horses, with muscles heaving, came charging close, and suddenly rifles were booming and beside Jorian a villager was blown backwards without a face and Jorian sighted on the officer and fired with a scream of hate, but the horses were moving fast, and his shot missed, howled off clattering amongst the shattered trees. Men to his left and right were firing volleys, smoke rolled through the trench, and more of the villagers fell as the enemy came closer, the horses readying to leap the trench and Jorian screamed, “Now! Now!” and catches were hit with shovels, releasing springs allowing thick coils of barbed wire, the barbs poisoned, to thrust up into position on heavy upended planks forming a sudden barrier across the top of the trench. The lead horses reared, whinnying, and more rifles boomed, but the weight of the charge carried soldiers and mounts onto the wire and suddenly all became a thrashing, screaming carnage as wood splintered and snapped and there were wails and cries and struggles, and they fell bleeding and screeching into the trench in one huge crazed mass of men and horses. Jorian put a bullet in the rider’s face then into the horse’s heart, and he looked up, his face speckled with blood and eyes wide with battle fury. Amidst the chaos, rifles were booming, and those who’d run out of bullets were using bayonets or even shovels to stab the enemy, decapitate the enemy, leaving headless bodies strewn through the trench.

  Jorian stabbed a Naravelle soldier through the eye, pinning him to the duckboards with his bayonet, watched his legs dance until he soiled himself, bowels releasing, and gurgled down into death.

  Suddenly, the thrashing seemed to end. Three rifle shots killed the last of the horses, which were tangled in barbed wire, eyes wide, screaming like women.

  Silence settled.

  Jorian looked out over No Man’s Land and watched sixteen of the thirty riders retreating. He sighted down his rifle, triggered a shot with a flower of smoke, but missed. Then a small unit of his infantry, who’d spent the last twenty minutes circling behind the attacking force, ran from their concealment behind the bone trees, out on the killing field—and the Naravelles’ hasty retreat became a massacre as rifles boomed and they were caught between two lines of fire. Men and mounts were cut down in hails of hardened bullets, in a barrage of fire and death. Suddenly, silence fell like ash. It was deafening. Louder than the end of the world.

  Jorian slumped against the trench wall, panting, eyes fixed on the twisted visage of a slaughtered horse.

  He waved to several men, and they climbed over the trench wall, picking their way between barbed-wire coils with readied weapons, and moved amongst the Naravelle. They found three men still alive. One lifted his rifle and was blown apart. The other two were moaning, and were dragged back through the mud, into the trench, and had hands bound behind them with wire.

  The trench defences were heaved back into position by twenty men, and locking plates secured with thick iron levers.

  Jorian looked again at the dead horse, shook his head, and with anger rising he strode back through the trenches, gathering his sons to him as he walked. Moving back through the village towards his house, hands still slippery with blood, and blood in his beard and on his face, he stopped suddenly in the road as he saw Jones sat with his back to the wall of the house, drinking water from his canteen.

  “You!” he roared, and marched forward. Jones jumped to his feet and stepped to meet the giant soldier, his head high, eyes hard.

  “They said they came for you, that you were with them!” hissed Jorian. “They wanted to barter for your return. What do you say to that, bastard?”


  The rifle had lifted, was pointed at Jones’s face.

  “Your daughter brought me here,” said Jones, voice cool, staring down the barrel of the gun.

  “We did not ——ing ask for you to come! She acted of her own free will!”

  “It is not my fault,” said Jones, still cool, and his eyes met those of Jorian. Something passed between them, then. An understanding.

  “No, Father!” screamed Orana from the end of the street, and came running forward, her eyes filled with strength. “I will not let you kill him! I will not!”

  She moved between the two men, before Jorian’s rifle, and stared at her father, her face twisted in anger. “What does it take to convince you? Do you disbelieve your own daughter’s words? He saved my life, he is brave, and he has come here to help us! He has come to help, don’t you understand? He can make a ——ing difference!”

  “All I understand, girl, is he led those bastards to our door. They could have taken the village, slaughtered us all! You are fools. Both of you.”

  “He has the key to the Stoneway,” whispered Orana.

  Jorian stopped, and stared, and lowered his rifle. “I don’t believe it. That is . . . impossible. It has not been opened for a thousand years.”

  “I’m telling you, he has! I have seen it. In a dream.”

  Jorian shook his head. “Listen, daughter. I won’t kill him . . . yet. Because you have grown fond of him . . .”

  “Or been bewitched,” muttered Karn.

  “But he will carry no weapon whilst he remains here; if I catch him in the wrong place then I’ll blow a hole the size of my fist through his very heart; and if any more soldiers come looking for him, then we hand him over. We are not risking our lives for this man again.” Jorian looked past Orana, steel eyes fixing on Jones’s. “You are not wanted here, stranger. You are not welcome. I suggest you leave at the first opportunity.” He gave a cold smile. “Or an unfortunate accident might occur.”

  “If he leaves, then I go with him!” hissed Orana.

  Jorian paused, his eyes moving between Jones and his daughter. Then turning on his heel, he said, “So be it,” and strode away towards his cabin.