The Great Wall Page 2

  “What—”

  And then all hell broke loose.

  Something came at them out of the darkness. Something huge and savage, but that moved so fast it was little more than a blur. In less than the time it took to blink, William was aware of both Rizzetti and Najid being plucked from their positions beside the fire and disappearing into the blackness. Najid’s brief scream was one of agony and mortal terror; Rizzetti made no sound at all. As if in sympathy, the horses began to scream too. There was a brief, confused thrash of panic as they tore themselves free of their restraints, and then William was half-aware of the sound of pounding hooves receding into the distance as they bolted.

  A flash of green, and then Pero, who had leaped to his feet and instinctively run into the darkness in pursuit of whatever had taken their companions, was flying through the air. He landed in the fire, scattering logs and extinguishing flame, plunging the camp into near-impenetrable darkness.

  William spun instinctively, sword in hand, as their attacker turned its attention to him. He sensed it rather than saw it—a vast, thunderous presence bearing down upon him. Then it seemed to stop—and that was worse. Now he had no idea where it was. Moving forward, he swung his sword desperately, and felt it connect with something; felt it judder in his hands as the blade slashed through bone and tissue.

  The animal—the thing—remained oddly silent. Pressing home his advantage, William swung again and again, slashing and thrusting and hacking, his reflexes lightning fast. As his sword blade flashed with reflected moonlight from above he saw vivid green splashes in the darkness. The beast stumbled, and William swung his sword towards the sound, and again felt it cut through tough living tissue.

  And then the thing, whatever it was, was falling back. William got the impression, as it thudded away from him, that it was vast and meaty and weighty. At least as big as an elephant that had reared up on its hind legs, if not bigger.

  Could this be what it was? A rogue elephant? A rogue elephant that moved like lightning and bled green blood? Tingling with terror and the exhilaration of battle, William stepped forward, still thrusting and slashing with his sword.

  There was a tumble of rocks, and then suddenly, as the creature moved back from him, an awful, otherworldly scream.

  But the scream was fading, receding, as if the thing was falling back into the hell from which it had come. All at once William realized what must have happened, and he came to a halt, his heart thudding madly. Sure enough, limned by moonlight, he saw the edge of a chasm a few feet in front of him. And peering hard he glimpsed—thought he glimpsed—the silhouette of something huge and monstrous falling down and down.

  Stepping back he heard a crash of rocks, followed by a distant splash. And then…

  Silence.

  Still gripping his sword, William sank to his knees. Although he was a veteran of a thousand battles, he had never faced an enemy of such speed and ferocity. He began to shake with reaction.

  Then a voice came from the darkness behind him. It was Pero’s voice, though William had never heard it sound so lost, so plaintive. It called his name, once and then again.

  William roused himself. He clambered shakily to his feet.

  “Aye,” he called, turning.

  Pero emerged from the darkness, blood trickling from a wound on his forehead, his dark eyes wide. Standing beside William, peering into the blackness of the chasm, he muttered in Spanish, “What fresh hell is this?”

  William didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Still gripping his sword in both hands, his breaths came hard and fast.

  The two men stood shoulder to shoulder in the black night, listening to the eerie wailing of the wind in the canyon.

  2

  When the sun rose over the Painted Mountains, the two men were able to clearly see what their attacker had fallen into—and what they themselves had narrowly missed in the darkness. Less than a hundred steps from their camp was a narrow but horribly deep crevasse, the inner walls jagged with rocks, a stream or river just visible as a dark thread far below.

  Their attacker, whatever it had been, was gone, its body presumably swept away in the turbulent waters. In its wake, though, it had left devastation—the hideously mutilated bodies of three horses that had been unable to break free of their restraints, and all that remained of Najid and Rizzetti.

  The two men had been torn apart, their guts and limbs strewn across the dusty ground. At first light William and Pero had performed the grim task of tramping through the blood and gore to collect up the pieces and lay them out in a manner more befitting a pair of fallen warriors.

  It was a token gesture only. William and Pero had no intention of burying their companions. The task would be too arduous and time-consuming. If they had any chance of surviving this ordeal, they had to conserve their energy and move on quickly. The remains of the three men would become a feast for the vultures, insects and wild animals. Their bones would bleach in the sun and eventually crumble into the sand of the desert.

  Such is the fate of us all, William thought, staring down dispassionately at Najid and Rizzetti’s mutilated bodies. He thought of the time and care they had taken to bathe and dress Rizzetti’s leg wound yesterday. Pointless. Utterly pointless.

  The news wasn’t all bad, though. At some time in the night the two horses that had bolted during the attack had returned. Rising from a fitful and exhausted sleep, William had spotted them grazing on the meager scrubland nearby. Though skittish, the horses had been unharmed, and by working together and speaking gently to the animals, William and Pero had eventually been able to coax them back to camp. Now the horses were waiting, their saddlebags stuffed with the most valuable and useful items that the two men had selected from the packs of their dead companions.

  Before they could leave, however, there was still one task left to perform. It was a task William had been putting off since waking that morning. Cleaning the thick green fluid from the blade of his sword had been bad enough. The fluid had been as thick as blood—thicker perhaps—and it had a foul stench, worse even than the high stink of rot that William was used to from the many battlefields he had fought on over the years. A thick trail of the green fluid, copious spatters of it, led from the area where William had clashed with the creature to the edge of the crevasse it had fallen into. But right on the edge of the chasm was something even more alarming than a pool of green fluid. There was a piece of their attacker. A trophy. Something that William must have severed in the darkness with a slash of his sword.

  He had seen it that morning, but hadn’t wanted to touch it. Now, taking a deep breath, he once again followed the trail of stinking green ooze to the edge of the chasm. He came to a halt and stared down at the huge taloned claw, twice as big as his own hand, which sat in the middle of a pool of drying gore beneath the desert sun.

  The claw was green and scaly, almost armour-plated, and the hooked talons on the ends of its stubby appendages (fingers?) were as black as the magnet that William carried in his tunic. It was a fearsome thing. Savage and somehow evil. Though inert, it seemed to give off an aura of hostility and potential violence, as if, like a desert scorpion, it might suddenly rise up on its talons and scuttle forward to attack.

  William looked down at the claw for a long, long moment. Behind him he heard the horses snort and stamp, eager to be off. He had been through so much peril in his life that at times he had felt almost armour-plated himself; had considered himself no longer capable of fear. But this thing frightened him. It was unknown and unknowable. He wouldn’t let it defeat him, though. He wouldn’t let anything defeat him.

  Clenching his teeth, eyes narrowing, he bent down and picked up the claw.

  It was heavier than he had expected. It had a dull, meaty weight. Green goo drooled from its severed end and spattered on the dusty ground, splashing his boots.

  He turned with it to see Pero staring at him. His friend looked momentarily troubled, then nodded at the claw with disdain.

  “I’m not eati
ng that. We have plenty of horsemeat to keep us going.”

  Ordinarily William would have smiled, but right now he wasn’t in the mood. Still gingerly holding the claw, he walked past Pero and approached the horses.

  “What are you doing?” Pero asked.

  William’s horse shied and whinnied, its eyes wide with fear, as he carefully worked the huge taloned claw into his saddle bag.

  Pero rolled his eyes, but said nothing. With the claw out of sight, William wiped his hand on his trousers, then glanced across at the bodies of their fallen comrades.

  “You want to say something for the dead?” he asked.

  Pero muttered in Spanish, “Better them than me.”

  William nodded, then squinted up at the cloudless sky. Vultures wheeled overhead.

  “Let’s saddle up and move on.”

  * * *

  The men were exhausted.

  The horses were exhausted.

  But still they rode on.

  The camp was five hours behind them. Five hours in which they had seen nothing but sand and rock and sky. Five hours in which the only other life had been the vultures wheeling constantly overhead and the occasional darting movement of a nearby lizard.

  They were hungry and thirsty, their clothes reeking and stained, their skin and hair ingrained with sweat and sand and dust. They were currently straining up a steep slope, their horses sweating and panting beneath them. If they didn’t find water soon, William knew their steeds would simply collapse beneath them—and then where would they be? They’d be stranded in the Painted Mountains. Caught in a breathtakingly beautiful, multi-colored death trap.

  Maybe there’ll be something over the next rise, he thought. An oasis. A village.

  He glanced back over his shoulder to see how far they’d come—and his heart sank.

  Down below them on the trail, perhaps a mile back, was a cloud of dust. And within the dust…

  “Pero,” he said.

  Pero pulled up and turned to William. His bearded face was drawn, his dark eyes hooded with fatigue. William nodded down at the trail behind them. Pero twisted on his horse to follow his friend’s gaze. His expression didn’t change, but he spat on the ground.

  A group of riders, packed in a tight bunch, were urging their horses along the trail in pursuit of the two men. They were desert tribesmen, and they looked like black beetles against the vividly striped mountains, their dark robes flying behind them.

  William turned his attention away from their pursuers and scanned the route ahead in search of some tactical advantage. A place that was easily defendable. Even some loose rocks that they could set rolling down the mountainside.

  But there was nothing. Nothing but the steep, even slope stretching before them.

  Looking back at the riders, squinting to make them out more clearly, he said, “Looks like five to me.”

  Pero patted the neck of his panting steed. Its skin was foamy with sweat. “The horses are shot. We can’t outrun them.”

  “Then we’ll have to kill them,” William said.

  He reached behind him and started to unstrap his longbow from its sheath, which was attached to the back of his saddle. Although he was an excellent swordsman, the bow was his real weapon of choice, the one with which he was most adept.

  “William,” Pero warned.

  William looked up to see that their problem had doubled. From a different crevice in the canyon below, another five-strong group of black-clad riders had appeared and were now thundering up the slope towards them.

  “How many arrows do you have left?” Pero asked calmly.

  William glanced again at the ten riders pursuing them. “Nine.”

  Pero sighed. “You think these are the bastards from before?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Pero shrugged.

  William tightened the reins in his hand, readying himself and his horse for one last effort. “We’ll take the rise,” he said. “Make a stand there.”

  Pero looked at the slope stretching ahead of them. Who knew whether the ridge they could see outlined against the sky was the crest of the mountain, or whether there would be still further to go once they reached it?

  “What a long stinking way to go to die,” he said wearily.

  Then he and William looked at each other and simultaneously dug their spurs hard into their horses’ flanks.

  “Away!” William yelled.

  “Yah!” shouted Pero.

  Their horses shot forward.

  The race was on!

  Dust and stone chips flew as William and Pero urged their steeds on to one last desperate effort. From the way it shuddered and gasped, its eyes rolling in its sockets, William could tell that his horse was almost spent, that its legs could give way at any moment. He looked behind him and saw that the tribesmen were gaining, their strong and compact ponies flying up the steep slope like mountain goats. The desert people had wild, nomadic faces, eyes like black flints that were fixed on their prey. Opening their mouths, they let loose a series of crazed, ululating war cries. In their hands they carried mallets and spears, which they waved above their heads.

  William faced front again, urging his horse ever onward. They were a hundred yards from the summit now…

  Seventy-five…

  Fifty…

  But the tribesmen were gaining. With each exhausted, lunging step that his horse took, William could hear the thundering hoof beats of their pursuers getting closer and closer.

  Twenty yards… and suddenly William’s horse stumbled. He felt himself sliding forward, had to dig his heels and knees into his mount’s hot flesh to prevent himself flying over its head and on to the rocky slope. He hauled on the reins, and through sheer force of will, encouraged his horse to regain its footing, to keep going.

  But their pursuers were closer than ever. Their battle cries reverberated in his ears. William kept expecting a spear to thud into his back, a mallet to crash down on his skull.

  Ten yards to the summit now… but it was hopeless. There was nowhere they could run to, nowhere to hide.

  Eight yards… five…

  Leaning low over his steed, William gritted his teeth and urged it to clamber up and over the top.

  He had no idea what was awaiting him beyond the peak of the striped mountain. It could have been a further slope, or a plateau, or even a sheer drop to certain death.

  What he and Pero did find, as their horses scrambled up and over the top of the ridge, was so unexpected, and so incredible, that they both came to a sudden and instinctive halt. For a split-second, hit by the majesty and the scale of the thing before them, they forgot their pursuers and simply gaped in awe and shock, their eyes widening in their filthy faces, their mouths dropping open.

  Towering above them, so high they had to crane their necks right back to see the top, was a vast stone wall. And it was not just a wall, but a wall that went on and on, stretching out in both directions, undulating over mountains and valleys, for as far as the eye could see.

  It was a wall, William thought, which might encompass the whole world. And beyond the wall was… what? A vast city? A mighty kingdom?

  Certainly there was something. Squinting against the sky, the top of the wall almost lost in the heat haze from the sun way above, William saw what appeared to be the tip of a vast tower or fortress.

  “Mother of God,” Pero muttered in a hushed voice beside him.

  William lowered his gaze, looked at his companion. He felt dizzy and disorientated, and not merely from thirst and exhaustion.

  Then something caught his eye at the base of the wall, a flash of brilliant purple in his peripheral vision. He turned his head again, this time in the opposite direction.

  And—wonder of wonders—he saw a group of at least thirty horsemen, sitting atop magnificent steeds and watching them silently, who had appeared seemingly from nowhere. The horsemen’s gleaming purple armour was so beautiful, so immaculate, so intricately decorated, that William was quite prepared
to believe they served whatever god ruled these provinces, and had been sent down from the heavens to offer divine justice. Each of the purple-clad horsemen wore a purple helmet from which antlers curled, and each was armed with an unusually long lance. William and Pero were so overawed that even when the soldiers, in one smooth motion, unsheathed their swords and raised their long lances, the two mercenaries simply stared, making no move to defend themselves.

  Another flash of color, red this time, made William look up. And now he saw that above them, equally positioned along the top of the wall, a row of red-clad archers had appeared, their heads encased within crimson helmets. The archers were poised, their bows readied, countless gleaming, deadly arrow heads pointed in the direction of the two men.

  Before William could speak, there was a zing! as dozens of strings were released in unison, and the next second arrows were flying at them like a swarm of deadly insects. He watched them arc across the clear blue sky, and then fall, speeding towards them.

  William knew there was no point in retreating, no point in throwing himself from his horse and ducking for cover. The arrows were too fast and too plentiful. Gripping the reins, he sat up straight in his saddle and waited calmly for death.

  But death didn’t come. Instead the arrows thudded into the dusty earth around them, enclosing them in a perfect circle, a fence of slim, scarlet-feathered arrow shafts.

  “Por dios…” Pero murmured.

  They don’t intend to kill us, William thought, and his heart leaped. Maybe there is hope, after all.

  Pero was clearly thinking the same thing. Now that the immediate danger was over, he was perusing the vast wall once again, his grimy, haggard face etched with awe.

  “You are a well-travelled man, William…” he said quietly.

  But William shook his head. “No. I’ve never seen anything like it.”