Black Hand Gang (29 page)

"What, you mean we cover ourselves with this stuff and we can just walk right in?" said Mercy.

"That seems about the size of it, Evans," said Everson. "This may fool them but we don't know for how long."

Poilus tore a small hole in the organ, pushed his fingers in and brought them out, covered with a greenish grey slime that he proceeded to smear around his face and exposed skin. He passed the organ round. Everson took it, cleared his throat and dipped his fingers into the wet sac, smearing himself with the warm goo.

Once the men had anointed themselves with Khungarrii scent they set off around the edge of the clearing. Leaving the rest of the party in the capable hands of Sergeant Dixon, Everson, Poilus and 1 Section edged toward the pyramids of dead, each man hauling extra weapons and ammunition with which to arm the hostages while Mercy lugged a mysterious tarpaulin-covered object. From the cover of the shunned pyramids they then made their way, cautiously, to the midden piles and the Urman dwellings.

It seemed the dwellings slumped up against the side of the edifice were empty. There was no sign of any Urmen. Atkins knew if you scratched a living on this world, or any world for that matter, there was no time for idleness. It was obvious that the Chatts themselves never came here unless they had to, so it was an ideal place to make a discreet entrance. In the shadow of a huge midden: an accretion of dirt and gnawed animal bones, pottery shards, composting vegetation, dung, and rotting food, Gutsy and Pot Shot started work with a couple of pickaxes. Their points hammered into the hardened earth at the base of the edifice with very little initial effect, while the rest of the section kept watch nervously.

"Put your backs into it," growled Hobson. Gutsy and Pot Shot swore and swung their picks, grunting vigorously with each impact in a practiced alternating rhythm. After a few minutes, the surface began to pit and flake. Then it began to crumble. Blood stopped, panting, to wipe his brow.

"Good work. Change over," said Everson.

The men changed over. It was no use doing all the fatigue work only to end up too knackered to fight once you'd actually breached the wall.

Atkins heard a clatter of refuse skittering down the far slope of the midden pile to their left and signalled the men to stop digging. Slowly, eight loaded Enfields converged toward the sound as something clambered towards them.

Everson licked his lips and cupped his pistol hand in his free palm to try to disguise the fact that it was shaking. He couldn't let the men see. The clattering grew closer. He flexed his trigger finger and caught Hobson's eye. The Sergeant gave him a barely perceptible shake of the head and patted his trench club, 'Little Bertha'. The cruelly customised truncheon, its end studded with hobnails, had seen good service in many a trench raid. Everson felt a surge of disgust at the sight but thankfully lowered his revolver, realising that its report would give them away. He watched as the burly NCO tensed himself, his face compressed into a twisted snarl of hatred ready for whatever came over the brow of the slope. A small hand appeared over the lip and, a second later, there emerged a small boy, no more than six or seven years old. The Section let out a collective sigh. All except Gazette, who kept the boy in his sights.

For Atkins it was like looking at his own past. He'd been a boy such as this one, running round the streets of Broughtonthwaite, so far away now, in soot and grime and clogs. The boy was thin and covered with dirt and sores. He wore a tunic of animal skins and breathed heavily though his mouth, his nostrils plugged with dried green mucus. He continued to stare at the soldiers with a surly pout.

Poilus started to approach the boy, but Hobson raised his arms and stepped towards the child, snarling in the manner of an ogre. The boy took fright and ran off down the slope. "There, that's got 'im."

"You're losing your touch, Sarn't," said Mercy, nodding his head downhill. The boy had stopped someway down and again stood staring at them resentfully before disappearing round a bluff.

After five minutes, Gazette and Atkins were up on pick-axe duty, taking over from Mercy and Half Pint.

"Just imagine it's Ketch's head," said Mercy.

Atkins was glad of something to do. The nervous expectation of being caught by a swarm of gigantic insects was almost interminable. It was much better to keep yourself occupied. As they continued to swing, the picks bit deeper and deeper into the wall. It was some twenty minutes and four feet before Porgy's pick broke through to the other side. Hobson crouched by the opening and beckoned the men closer.

"Right," he said in a low voice, "just like Trench Clearance. You know the routine."

Except this was worse than trench clearance and Atkins knew it. He still had nightmares about the mines. Nevertheless, he swallowed hard and tried to put it to the back of his mind as, one by one, the Black Hand Gang entered the short tunnel. Blood took the lead as ordered, slithering through the hole and disappearing into the darkness. There was a brief, tense moment of silence before he hissed back the all clear. They passed through the extra rifles and grenades, boxes of ammunition and a couple of Lewis guns, before following.

Atkins looked back at the silent urchin, now watching them again, sitting atop a pile of bones. "See you," he said with a wink and joined his pals in the Chatt-ridden gloom beyond.

High above, in the labyrinth of tunnels and chambers, Jeffries, having successfully passed the ritual, had spent the last few hours recovering from the ordeal. Thankfully, they had hauled the snivelling Padre back off to the gaol chamber. He had no idea what the chaplain had experienced but he did hope it wasn't pleasant. As for himself, he only felt mildly disconcerted by his vision. He had no idea how long he had been under the influence of the oil; it could have been a couple of hours or a couple of days.

The Khungarrii saw the Rite as one of submission, of acceptance to the colony, but, on a more personal level, for him it had been one of control, of discipline. His will against theirs. And he had won.

His Great Working had taken months to prepare and years to perfect. Only a handful of people would have understood the significance of what he had done on the Somme, of what he had achieved or, more gallingly, attempted to achieve. Everything he had read, everything he had learned had led him to believe that the Old One would be summoned within the great pentacle laboriously calculated and etched on the battlefield; that the blood of thousands would have summoned him and confined him in a crucible warded by a circle of geographic proportions. When their transportation to this world had occurred in its stead, he'd felt confused and angry. Loath though he was to admit it, there had been several small flaws in his calculations. There was the fact that vital commentaries to the Ritual had been long since lost, and that the ritual itself was an Enochian translation of manuscripts that Voynich, the old antiquarian book dealer, had discovered and got rid of, not knowing what they were but rather
fearing
he knew what they were.

Had this whole experience been a salutary case of 'be careful what you wish for'? Had his invocation inverted, torn them from Earth only to deposit them in Croatoan's own domain? A case of 'if the mountain won't come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain,' as Everson had so innocently suggested? A lesson in humility? If so, then he was suitably humbled, but not by these insects. These Chatts were a step on the road to his personal mountain, so to speak, and he had no compunction about treading on ants to get there.

Napoo's mention of Croatoan, his recent ritual vision, his Great Working; there had to be a connection. Was he brought here as an unforeseen consequence of his working? Were these insects just a means to an end?

"When you are ready, Sirigar has instructed this One to share knowledge about Khungarr society as you asked," said Chandar, watching intently as Jeffries tore hungrily into the loaf of fungus bread. "Then you will deliver your herd."

Jeffries looked up and regarded the old Chatt. That something had passed between Chandar and Sirigar, Jeffries was now quite sure. Now he knew there was a crack in their relationship, all he had to do was apply pressure.

"This One has made its work to study wild Urmen," said Chandar, "and you are unlike any others this one has come across. You have a keen intelligence almost matching the One's own. Your garments are complex and of a quality this One has never smelt, yet the scouts report that you live in your filth, among your own dead. It was these odours that the breath of GarSuleth carried to us spinnings ago, alerting the scentirrii and dhuyumirrii to your presence on Khungarr territory. Sirigar and Rhengar are of conflicting opinions, although each has their views rooted in holy scentures. Even now the Khungarrii Shura debate your presence. Some hold that you should be culled without consideration for your initial resistance but it seems to some that your earth workings and burrows imitate, in a primitive fashion of course, the great tunnels and chambers of the Ones' own colonies. It marks your herd as different. This, and your bargain, is what has what saved you," Chandar said.

"And those Urmen you keep here, are they so different from us?"

"They are Khungarrii."

"Not Urmen then?"

"Khungarrii Urmen. They smell Khungarrii, they belong to Khungarr."

"They are kept here by force?"

"They submit to the will of GarSuleth daily in their decision to wear the mark of Khungarr. It is reapplied, willingly, every day. By doing this they show their obedience and gratitude."

"But surely if these Urmen of yours are as much a part of the colony as you say, what culture do they have left for you to study?"

"It is true their culture is now that of Khungarr. They, too, worship GarSuleth but their ancestors and the wild Urmen, the remnants of their culture, fascinate me. I have been studying them for many spinnings."

"And Sirigar allows your studies?" said Jeffries, probing to see where the cracks between them lay.

"That One tolerates them," Chandar replied. "There are those of us among the dhuyumirrii that have long believed Urmen have a place in our Osmology. Other Ones, Sirigar among them, dispute this, believing that Urmen can have no other purpose but to serve the Ones."

A theological schism, thought Jeffries. That would certainly account for the animosity between Sirigar and Chandar and was certainly something he could exploit. "But you believe differently?"

"Come, let me show you something," said Chandar.

Intrigued, Jeffries followed Chandar back to the temple. He noted again the niches all round the walls. Hieroglyphic script of some form covered each niche. Chatts had their faces to the walls of the niches, their feelers moving dextrously over the surfaces.

"Here dhuyumirrii read and study sacred texts and debate on points of interpretation," explained Chandar.

Jeffries could see now that what he took to be contemplation, praying and bowing, was in fact the action of their antennae over the glyphs. Now he understood. Not only was there information contained within the hieroglyphs themselves, but there were other olfactory layers of meaning contained within chemical scents
attached
to the text. Layers of nuance, subtlety and context lay impregnated within the glyphs. Chandar led him on through the archway through which Jeffries had been taken previously. It led to the chamber of trench equipment. Along the way they passed through the alchemical chambers he had seen only briefly before. Now Jeffries was able to study it in more detail. Its walls were filled with small niches and recesses. Galleries led off the large room, each one containing bays crowded with stone bottles, pots, urns, beakers and amphora; ceramic vessels of all shapes, sizes and ages.

"This is the receptory of Khungarr, the repository of all our knowledge. The sacred odours stored here are the thoughts of our prophets and gon dhuyumirrii."

"A library," said Jeffries, nodding in appreciation at the vast accumulation of containers and the knowledge they must represent. Each bottle, each jar, contained what must have been an essence of scripture or holy aromas; bouquets of bibles, prophetic perfumes, olfactory encyclopaedias. There was so much he might learn, but it was like giving a blind man the key to a library.

He was not allowed to dwell on it for long as Chandar ushered him into the next series of interconnecting chambers. They passed through what looked like an apothecary's storehouse, hundreds of niches filled with earthenware bottles, jars, tubes filled with oils, essences, liquids, tinctures, extracts, secretions, resins, saps, powders, pastes, samples of plants, leaves, flowers, barks, bones, skins, fur, shells, all arranged, classified and organised. The smell was overpowering and made Jeffries' nostrils sting and his eyes water. Beyond them, blinking though teary eyes, he could see further chambers where more of the Khungarrii priest caste, the dhuyumirrii, were engaged in their great alchemical endeavours.

"For many generations the dhuyumirrii have been attempting, amongst other things, to distill the true quintessence of our creators' odour of sanctity, the scent of GarSuleth. Some believe certain notes of the Urmen musk may yet be relevant to our studies, but teasing out the lone indivisible base notes is a long and arduous task."

"Why?" asked Jeffries. "Why Urmen? They're not Chatts, I mean; they are not of the Ones. Why should they be relevant?"

"GarSuleth dwells in the Sky World, his web spanning the firmament above us. Ancient incenses tell us in his wisdom he once descended from his web to spin this world, this orb, where his eggs were laid and his children, the Ones, hatched. The Ones, the children of GarSuleth, then spread out across the world and begat the colonies," Chandar picked one of the knotted tassels on the cloth draped over its shoulder and lifted it up, almost nostalgically, its antennae stumps waving feebly. "Although this one can no longer read this odour, this one has committed its scents to memory. It tells how, many generations ago, a sickness infected the line of Queens who now ruled each colony. Eggs laid to be djamirrii -workers- hatched malformed and continue to do so to this spinning. Djamirrii populations were decimated and the Ones struggled to survive. The Ones knew of the Urmen's existence, but treated them as competition for scarce and hard won resources, until some came to believe they were created by GarSuleth for the Ones' own use."