The Devil in Green (32 page)

He moved around the tunnel entrances, trying to decide which one to
explore, though he had no intention of venturing in too far. He could no
longer hear what he had thought of as breathing. Perhaps he had been
mistaken. Or perhaps it was simply holding its breath, waiting for him to
draw near. He looked back up. Hipgrave gestured vehemently for him to
press on.

'Bastard,' he said under his breath.

He went around the tunnels again, listening, peering into the dark,
smelling the air currents that came from them for any clue. Eventually, he
chose one at random and edged his way in, his sword held out in front of
him. With the fading light, the dark within became impenetrable after a
matter of feet. The tunnel was small - his head brushed the ceiling and
barely a quarter of an inch of space lay beyond his shoulders on either side
- and the claustrophobia was palpable. Caught in there, he wouldn't stand
much chance of getting out alive. He brushed the packed earth of the
ceiling, afraid of a collapse. If Hipgrave wanted to investigate further, he'd
have to do it properly, with a team and lights and supports.

Returning to the foot of the pit, he attempted to convey this information
to Hipgrave in sign language, but if the captain understood he wasn't
having any of it. He jabbed a finger in the direction of another tunnel.
Cursing, louder this time, Mallory turned back.

The shape erupted out of one of the tunnels, hitting him like a wrecking
ball. He went flying on to his back, seeing stars. He could hear the others
yelling something, urging him to get up, get out, and then there was a
tremendous weight on his chest and a sickening blast of hot, foul breath on
his face. Slowly, his scrambled thoughts coalesced and he realised he was
looking up into something that swirled with brilliant flecks, like a distant
galaxy hanging in the cold void. They were eyes, he presumed, though he
couldn't be sure, and if there was any human intelligence there he saw no
sign of it.

Time locked, sealing him in that moment of connection with a presence
he couldn't begin to comprehend; it was his only world, alien and
terrifying.

But then the bubble burst and everything rushed in with an unbearable
frenzy. The thing on him became a whirlwind; limbs lashed (he couldn't
be sure if they were arms or legs or tentacles or something else), their
sharpness tearing through his clothes, his skin. Desperately, he kicked and
scrambled to free himself. Sickening sounds burst around him, at times
high-pitched, then a low bass rumble, moving off the register; hot wetness
suffused his clothing.

It lasted for only a few seconds and then the thing was away from
him, bounding out of the pit with a single leap. Shattered by the attack,
with blood seeping from him and the pain only just making its way to his
brain, he was vaguely aware of the others yelling. Someone was shouting,
'Attack! Attack!' over and over again. Someone else was urging them to
scatter. A crashing and splintering as the barriers were torn up was
followed by a scream of agony, suddenly cut off.

Mallory's consciousness returned with a lurch. However badly
wounded he was - and he didn't want to begin to check - he knew
he had to get out of there quickly before the thing returned. He threw
himself to his feet only to feel his legs turn to jelly, pitching him back down
on to the ground. His head spun; nausea turned his stomach upside down.
With a tremendous effort, he managed to find enough equilibrium to get
him to the side of the pit, where he hauled himself up on his hands and
knees.

At the surface it was as unbearably dark as it had been at the bottom.
Night had fallen, the thick cloud cover obscuring all moonlight. It made
the sounds even worse: cries off in the blackness, panicked, pained, the
terrible thrashing of something enormous and unimaginably wild moving
too fast for its size.

One thought surfacing above all others:
We were led here, to find this.

Briefly, he wondered what he was going to do, but there was no way out
apart from the way he had come in. It was all he could do to pick out the
path amongst the rubble of the smashed branches and torn bramble. He
had taken some sharp blows to the head and it felt as if concussion was
coming on fast. Every time he moved he lost more blood; he could feel it
running into his trousers, puddling in his boots. It made him light-headed,
broke his thought processes even more, so that he could only really concentrate on the here and now: getting out of there as quickly as possible.

He lurched along the path, desperately trying to keep his balance so he
didn't plunge into one of the other pits, while at the same time continually
wiping the stinging blood from his eyes. There was more frantic movement ahead, running, the sound of boots on grass, more crashing.

He blacked out briefly, waking to find himself face-down in the mud.

Somewhere there were screams. It felt like a nightmare, as if he wasn't
really there at all, merely watching himself going through inexplicable
motions from a vantage point deep inside his head. Why was he trying to
escape? Why was he there? What was moving just beyond his perception?
And then the image of the fire in the dark, urging him to go forwards, not
back.

Pulling himself to his feet once more, the brambles tore at his hands.
One of the jagged branch-spikes ripped through his trousers into his calf.
Away to his left he heard whimpering, instantly drowned out by the wind.
'Miller?' he called out feebly.

Before he could turn in search, there was another explosion of movement as the hunting thing launched itself from the periphery of his field of
vision. He ducked just in time, but he felt it pass only inches over him to
crash into the barriers ten feet to his left. He scrambled on, almost slipped
into another pit, caught himself with his legs dangling over the abyss.
More movement, more running, sounds bursting from periods of silence
like explosions on a battlefield. His foot kicked something that bounced
a few feet ahead of him: a severed hand, now caked in mud. It was
impossible to tell which knight it belonged to, but the sight of it filled him
with a deep dread, and he knew he would never be able to shake the image
of it lying there, like discarded rubbish.

Somehow, he found himself near the display of skulls that marked the
boundary, and then he was out, crossing the hill-fort, tripping over the
holes in the turf, sliding down the ditches. He could barely walk, barely
think. No one else was around, and he couldn't help believing they were all
dead.

He was too weak to walk far. He went down the hillside head over heels,
ricocheting off tree trunks, crashing through bushes that ripped at his skin
and hair, using his body weight to keep the roll going as die only way to put
distance between himself and the monstrous thing that still roamed the
hilltop.

Finally, he came to a halt, lying on his back without the slightest strength
to move, staring up into nothingness. The night was torn by sounds that
could never have come from a human throat. Mallory felt as if he was in
hell.

Consciousness came in the grey light of morning. His body was a web of
agony and he was frozen to the bone, but he was still alive, though he
didn't know how much longer that would be the case. From the state of his
clothes he could tell he'd lost an inordinate amount of blood, and more
leaked out each time he shifted. Shakes wracked his body repeatedly. His
head felt stuffed with cotton wool as if he were on the verge of a
debilitating migraine.

Nightmarish images flashed back from the previous night. He felt sick
with shock, could barely believe he was still alive.
A
little joy filtered
through, but it was dampened by the pain and his doubts for the safety of
the others.
He
thought of the severed hand: one of them was certainly dead
from blood loss. Could any of them have survived such an onslaught? He
forced himself not to think about it, or the emotions that came with it.