Matt had gone with them. He and Richard had joined Wolf Squadron, thinking it right that they should attack with people from their own country. Their leader, a man they knew only as Captain Johnson, was riding ahead of them in a jeep, a tiny Union Jack fluttering from the window, the wheels spinning on the ice. At the moment, Matt could see almost nothing beyond the backs of the people in front of him. He was out of breath, his feet tramping through the snow. They had just ten minutes to cross Oblivion. The air attack would have devastated the enemy. The blizzard would confuse them. Even so, they still had to use their advantage, to make sure they didn’t arrive too late.
But as they drew closer, Richard grabbed hold of him. “That’s far enough, Matt,” he said.
Matt shook himself free. “I’m going all the way, Richard. I haven’t come here just to stand here and watch.”
“You’re not armed.”
“I don’t need guns. You know that.” They were already being left behind, the other soldiers disappearing in the spinning snow.
“They don’t need you,” Richard insisted.
“I think they do!” Matt wasn’t prepared to have this argument now. “There’s something wrong,” he went on. “Everything is wrong. Why did they just let the planes attack them? Why didn’t they even try to defend themselves?”
“They were taken by surprise.”
“No. I know them, Richard. This is what they want.”
Matt was already moving forward again, his breath freezing in the air. He was dressed in outdoor gear and he had a balaclava over his face. That had been Lohan’s idea. He had persuaded Matt that it would protect him from the cold but they both knew the real reason was to stop him being recognized. Richard swore briefly to himself, then hurried forward to catch up with him. He drew a gun out of his pocket, thinking to himself how mad this all was. He was a journalist. He had a little flat in York. Less than six months ago, he had been writing stories about weddings. But suddenly he was steps away from taking part in a war.
People were streaming past him on both sides and it was just then that something happened that he would remember later on. A man turned towards him, just a couple of metres away, and smiled. Richard couldn’t see very much of the other person … he had a hood and goggles. But instinctively he knew who it was. His name was Atoc. He was an Inca who had been with them in the hidden city of Vilcabamba … indeed, he had brought Matt there. Richard wanted to call out to him, to greet him, but everything was happening very quickly as the army continued its advance. He was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. Richard didn’t see him again.
He caught up with Matt. “All right,” he said. “But you can’t get hurt. You can’t let yourself fall into their hands. You’re too important…”
Matt nodded. “I know…”
Scarlett had steered the blizzard all the way up to the edge of the fortress, hiding the army behind it. She let it fall away as they covered the last few metres … they had crossed the full length of Oblivion with amazing speed. The wind died down. The snow seemed to fall aside like a curtain. And it was only then, when it was far too late, that the truth was revealed.
The moment before, the fortress had been in ruins, burning, blasted by the air strike. Now it was intact again, the four towers and the barbican still standing, the walls unbroken. At the same time, the gates had opened and the forces of the Old Ones came pouring out in their hundreds. And that wasn’t the worst of it. There were thousands more of them. They had been lying flat on their stomachs, buried under the snow. But just as the World Army reached them, when it was far too late to turn round, they rose up, seeming to appear like ghosts or zombies, and suddenly they were everywhere, six rows deep, screaming and, surging forward with weapons raised.
First came the ordinary soldiers with axes, swords, spears and pitchforks, then their hideous and deformed commanders, the men and women who had been “adjusted”. They were followed by shape-changers, scrambling over the ice, a blur of half-human and half-animal constructions, screeching and howling. Fly-soldiers poured down from the battlements, solidified, and joined the others. It was a tidal wave of death. The World Army had walked right into it.
Scarlett couldn’t believe what was happening. From where she stood it had been like a mirage in the desert – as if what she was seeing had evaporated in a single shimmer of heat haze. She turned to Lohan. “How…?” she began.
“It’s a trick!” he snapped.
The fighting began at once, but for the World Army it was no longer an attack – it was a desperate struggle for survival. They had the guns, but even so they found themselves being stabbed and hacked at by a surging mob that had no interest in its own life or safety. Many of the Old Ones’ recruits were longing to die and they took out all the anger and the pain that they had suffered on the soldiers who had been sent to fight them, lunging out with arms that had been made into swords or biting with teeth made of jagged tin, moaning with pleasure when they themselves were shot down. Meanwhile, the fly-soldiers cut and slashed their way forward more slowly, deliberately. Bullets couldn’t hurt them. The insects simply separated to let them pass through. But when they congealed back together they were solid, their swords and spears razor-sharp. One after another, men and women from the World Army fighters died, with a buzzing horde of black insects in the shape of a spear plunged into their chests or throats.
There was blood everywhere, enough to turn the snow bright red. It was as if the shock of seeing the fortress undamaged had paralysed the World Army and many of them barely moved, allowing themselves to be cut down. A few turned and ran, dying with arrows fired into their backs. Others held their ground, even though it was hopeless, shooting again and again until their guns clicked empty and they were grabbed and torn apart.
The massacre had reached its height when Chaos sent out the forces that were closest to him. Thirteen black figures on horseback rode out of the fortress, hooded and shrouded like monks or friars, their faces hidden apart from their eyes, which glowed as specks of red in the shadows. Matt recognized the fire-riders. They had only to reach out and whatever they touched shrivelled and burnt. As he looked desperately around him, trying to work out what to do, he saw one of the British marines, a man in his twenties, firing with a machine gun. The man didn’t notice as one of the riders stretched out a single finger. He barely had time to scream. Instantly he was dead, blackened and disintegrating like a scrap of paper in a furnace.
Almost alone, Matt held them back. Just like Scarlett, he could feel the energy as it surged through him and he directed it at the enemy, simply gesturing with an outstretched arm. The fire rider who had just killed the marine was flung backwards, the black robes crumpling around him, his horse rearing up in terror. A shape-changer with two snake heads who had been scything through the squadron was hurled ten metres into the air and sent crashing into the fortress wall. With a single movement Matt scattered a long line of enemy soldiers, sweeping them off their feet and toppling them onto the ice. Next to him, Richard was firing wildly. It was impossible to be sure what was going on. Everywhere they looked, there was carnage – flailing arms, distorted faces, splattering blood.
The blizzard had sprung up again. Seeing what was happening from one and half kilometres away, Scarlett had done the only thing she could. She had sent the wind and snow whipping into the enemy lines, hoping to blind them and drive them back. She, better than anyone, understood what had happened. She had spent time in Hong Kong with the Old Ones in power and knew how easily they could twist reality, to make you see whatever they wanted. She knew that not a single missile fired by the Super Hornets had really found its target. There must have been some sort of shield in place. The buildings hadn’t been touched. Nobody had been hurt or injured. But the Old Ones had created a mass illusion and they had foolishly believed it.
Commander David Cain had also realized that he had been tricked. His hands were locked onto the binoculars, holding them as if he could crush them. What he was watchin
g was no battle. It was mindless slaughter. He knew that this was his fault. The boy, Matt, had tried to warn him.
“They’re toying with you. They’re waiting for you to come to them. You’re doing exactly what they want.”
He remembered the words but he hadn’t believed them at the time. Why should he have? He’d thought he had the advantage. A classic air strike followed by an infantry attack. It was what he had been taught decades ago, back at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. Nothing he had learnt there could ever have prepared him for this.
Once again, he lifted the transmitter to his lips.
“Red-seven.”
It was the signal for the retreat: not that he thought it would make any difference now. The Old Ones, these … things … would follow the World Army across the ice. They would hack them down as they ran. None of them would actually make it back to the tents and the tents would probably be destroyed too, the doctors and nurses, the children and civilians butchered. Was there anything he could do? Perhaps the Super Hornets could come back in. He could order a bombardment from the frigate. No. That would just kill his own people. He could only stand there and watch.
The World Army had already fallen back, separating itself from the enemy, and for a few seconds there was a gap between them. Cain could see the white space, even with the snow falling. At the same time, he heard an explosion like nothing that had gone before. It was a hollow boom that seemed to start from inside the very earth. It was ten times louder and lasted ten times longer than any of the missile strikes he had commanded. And suddenly he saw. The entire ice shelf was shaking. People were running towards him – there were hundreds of them – but for some reason the Old Ones had pulled back. Some sort of black line had appeared in front of them. It was acting like a barrier. They were slowing down, afraid to cross.
Cain raised the binoculars to his eyes and stared in disbelief. There was a crack in the surface of the ice that ran the entire width of Oblivion. The glacier had split in half! He was looking at a chasm which must have been hundreds of metres deep. The World Army was on one side. The Old Ones were trapped on the other. Dozens of the enemy soldiers nearest to it, the ones who had been closest to it when it opened, were falling into the void. He saw them tumbling like black crumbs swept off the edge of a table. Of course, there were creatures who could fly. The fighters made out of insects. Some of the shape-changers. But they seemed confused by what had just happened. They were holding back.
The remnants of the World Army drew closer. Almost half of them – perhaps as many as a thousand people – had been killed. The battle was lost. But thanks to some miracle, a freak of nature, the massacre hadn’t been total.
Ten paces away, Scarlett knew exactly what had happened. It was Matt. Only he could have done this. He must have grown stronger than ever to split an entire ice shelf in two! She wondered if there was any limit to his power. Maybe, given time, he could take on the fortress itself.
“Commander…?” One of the staff officers approached Cain, waiting for further orders.
Cain shook his head and walked back into the tent.
FIFTY
It had been a disaster. The list of the dead was endless and the field hospitals had been working without pause to help the living. All through the afternoon, they had been performing operations, amputations – and by the time the clocks showed that night had arrived, they had run out of anaesthetic, bandages, basic supplies. But still they worked on in the Antarctic light, using alcohol and torn strips of sheet, doing what they could. The doctors were faced with horrible injuries, all the worse because they had been deliberately inflicted to wound, not to kill outright. The tents were crammed with men and women, lying in shock, stretched out on camp beds. The nurses and stretcher-bearers were in and out constantly, checking on who was still living and who had died, quietly removing the bodies and burying them out of sight, beneath the snow.
Those who were still able to walk had left the ice shelf, returning to the boats. There was talk of a mass evacuation. Certainly, a second attack on the fortress was out of the question. The World Army had been outnumbered to begin with. Now there were just a thousand of them left and the great fear was that the Old Ones would press home their advantage and launch a counter-attack. If that happened, they would be wiped out. Ammunition was running low. Few people had the strength or the resolve to fight. All they wanted to do was to leave this dreadful place. Most of them wished they had never come to begin with.
Matt, Scarlett, Richard and Lohan had returned to the Airbus just in time to meet the pilot, climbing down the ice steps. He was carrying a suitcase and looked pale and worn out.
“Good luck to you,” he said and they noted the bitterness in his voice. “I’m getting a berth on the Polar Star. There’s no point in hanging around here.”
“Where’s Zack?” Scarlett asked.
“He’s already gone.”
There was nothing else to say. Larry brushed past them and hurried towards the edge of the cliff and the pathway leading down.
The four of them made their way back to the upper cabin. The lower section of the plane was empty, abandoned, the metal framework, with its snow-covered windows, stretching into darkness. At least some food had been left behind and Richard was able to make them a meal of hot soup, tinned fruit, cheese and biscuits. None of them talked very much as they ate. Richard was coldly furious. Why hadn’t the commander listened to Matt? Why did he have to be so pig-headed? Lohan wanted to leave. As far as he was concerned, there was no further reason to stay. Scarlett was exhausted. Zack and Larry had gone. Everyone was abandoning them. Matt kept his thoughts to himself.
When the hours of night arrived, they were still sitting together in silence. Lohan had managed to retrieve a bottle of brandy and he and Richard were sipping from it. Outside, it was snowing softly. Although it was eight o’clock, the light was unchanged, a pale silver-grey without a shred of warmth. Lohan wiped some of the condensation from the window and looked across the ice shelf.
“Why don’t they come?” he asked. “They know we’re weak, defenceless. They could come over here and finish us off, one by one.”
Richard turned to Matt. “So what happens now? Do we leave?”
“We can’t leave without Scott,” Matt said.
“Scott?” Richard sighed. “Do you know, I’d forgotten all about him.” He shook his head. “Even if you could reach him, do you really think he’d want to come? And what about Jamie and Pedro? Maybe we should try to find them.”
There was a movement at the cabin entrance and one of the American officers appeared, dressed in a greatcoat and cap. For a moment, Richard struggled to remember his name. Of course … Greyson. That was it. With his straw-coloured hair and upturned nose he looked like he should still be in college. He had driven in with Wolf Squadron and had been in the thick of the fighting but it seemed that he hadn’t been hurt.
“Good evening,” he said. “I’m sorry to break in. But Commander Cain very much wants to see you. Something’s happened that you should know about. He asked if you would accompany me back to command HQ.”
Command HQ. That was just another name for the big tent. Richard glanced at Matt wearily, wondering if he would want to go out in the cold again. They’d all had more than enough of Commander David Cain. But Matt was already getting to his feet, reaching for his weatherproofs that he had taken off when he came in. Scarlett did the same. Lohan shook his head, an ugly look on his face, but he wasn’t going to be left behind on his own. He muttered something in Mandarin and dragged on his jacket.
The four of them followed Greyson out of the plane and back across the ice shelf. Even now, the doctors were still working. Matt saw movement behind some of the tents and he could smell blood and antiseptic in the air. Two stretcher-bearers walked past, carrying a body covered in a sheet. He glimpsed a hand hanging down streaked with blood. From somewhere, they heard a man groaning. Outside one of the wooden shacks, a group of uniformed soldiers stood
together, sucking on cigarettes, the smoke and their own misting breath indistinguishable from one another. They glanced at Matt as he went by but said nothing. They were probably waiting for orders, even if they didn’t fully trust the people who were giving them. Their eyes were haunted. None of them was speaking.
Eight officers were waiting for Matt and the others inside the tent. Cain was one of them and Matt recognized most of the others. The Russian, Shubniakov, and the Argentinian, Sabato, had both died. But some of the other military men who had attended the morning briefing were there. The British commander, Johnson, was supporting himself on a crutch. Others were bandaged. Almost nobody from the day’s assault had escaped completely unscathed. The mood in the tent was quiet and subdued. It was as if they all knew that they were responsible for what had happened but none of them wanted to blame themselves.
There was a stranger sitting in a chair, the centre of attention. He was West African, muscular, dressed in rags with a gash in the side of his head and dried blood running all the way down his cheek. He had short hair, in dreadlocks, and a tattoo of some sort of animal around his neck. He had recently been in shackles. His wrists were raw and there was more blood on his arms. He looked up quickly as Matt came in. His eyes were large and staring. Matt saw a spark of hope and yet, he thought, at the same time, fear.
“What’s happening?” Richard asked.
David Cain stepped forward. Something had gone out of him since he had made his speech that morning. There was a waxy quality to his face, a sense that he was only holding himself together, being himself, with an effort. And the men around him knew it too. They were uneasy in his presence. They probably weren’t even aware they were doing it but they were avoiding each other’s eyes.
“We took this man prisoner,” Cain said. “That is, he came back with our forces after the attack. It’s not clear how he made it across the ice before it cracked but the point is he came here deliberately, of his own free will. He says his name is Omar and he’s originally from Senegal. He was working for the Nightrise Corporation in New York and they brought him down here. He says he’s a Christian and that he has no loyalty to the Old Ones. He fought with them because he had no choice but he took the first opportunity he could to desert. According to Omar, a lot of the people in the fortress wanted to do the same but they’re too afraid.”