Part 102 (1/2)

Samuel Archer was not a religious man. If there was a G.o.d, he had long ago decided, he was either wilful or incompetent. Perhaps both. Yet Sam stood now on the crest of the hill and prayed. Not for himself, though survival would be more than pleasant, but for the last survivors of those who had followed him in the War against the Bloodstone. Behind him were the remaining rebels, twenty-two in all, counting the women. Before and below them on the plain were the h.e.l.lborn elite.

Two hundred warriors, their skills enhanced by the demonseeds embedded in their foreheads. Killers all! Sam glanced around him. The rebels had picked a fine setting for their last stand, high above the plain, the tree line and thick undergrowth forming a rough stockade. The h.e.l.lborn would be forced to advance up a steep slope in the face of withering volleys. With enough ammunition we might even have held, thought Sam. He glanced down at the twin ammunition belts draped across his broad chest; there were more empty loops than full. Idly he counted the remaining sh.e.l.ls. From the breast pocket of his torn grey s.h.i.+rt he drew a strip of dried beef, the last of his rations.

There would be no retreat from here, Sam knew. Two hundred yards behind them the mountains fell away into a deep gorge that opened out on to the edge of the Mardikh desert. Even if they could climb down, without horses they would die of thirst long before reaching the distant river.

Sam sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. For four years now he had fought the Bloodstone, gathering fighters, battling against h.e.l.lborn warriors and Devourers. All for nothing. His own small store of Sipstra.s.si was used up now, and without it they could not hope to hold off the killers. An ant crawled on to Sam's hand. He brushed it away.

That's what we are, he thought, ants standing defiantly before an avalanche.

Despair was a potent force, and one which Sam had resisted for most of these four years. It was not hard back at the beginning. The remnants of the Guardians had gathered against Sarento, and won three battles against the h.e.l.lborn. None had proved decisive. Then the Bloodstone had mutated the Wolvers and a new, terrible force was unleashed against the human race. Whole communities fled into the mountains to escape the beasts. The flight meant that the Guardian army, always small, was now without supplies as farming communities disappeared in the face of the Devourers. Ammunition became in short supply, and many fighters left the army in order to travel to their homes in a vain bid to protect their families.

Now twenty-two were left. Tomorrow there would be none.

A young, beautiful olive-skinned woman approached Sam. She was tall and wore two pistols in shoulder holsters over a faded red s.h.i.+rt. Her jet-black hair was drawn tightly into a bun at the nape of her neck. He smiled as he saw her. 'I guess we've come to the end of a long, sorrowful road, Shammy. I'm sorry I brought you to this.'

Shamshad Singh merely shrugged. 'Here or at home . . . what difference? You fight or you die.'

'Or do both,' said Sam wearily. She sat down beside him on the boulder, her short- barrelled shotgun resting on her slim thighs.

'Tell me of a happy time,' she said suddenly.

'Any particular theme?' he asked. 'I've lived for three hundred and fifty-six years, so there is a lot to choose from.'

Tell me about Amaziga.'

He gazed at her fondly. She was in love with him, and had made it plain for the two years she had been with the rebels. Yet Sam had never responded to her overtures. In all his long life there was only one woman who had opened the doors to his soul - and she was dead, shot down by the h.e.l.lborn in the first months of the War.

'You are an extraordinary woman, Shammy. I should have done better by you.'

'Bulls.h.i.+t,' she said, with a wide smile. 'Now tell me about Amaziga.'

'Why?'

'Because it always cheers you up. And you need cheering.'

He shook his head. 'It has always struck me as particularly sad that there will come a point in a man's life where he has no second chances. When Napoleon saw his forces in full retreat at Waterloo, he knew there would never be another day when he would march out at the head of a great force. It was over. I always thought that must be hard to take. Now I know that it is. We have fought against a great evil, and we have been unable to defeat it.

And tomorrow we die. It is not a time for happy stories, Shammy.'

'You're wrong,' she said. 'At this moment I can still see the sky, feel the mountain breeze, smell the perfume of the pines. I am alive! And I luxuriate in that fact. Tomorrow is another day, Sam. We'll fight them. Who knows, maybe we'll win? Maybe G.o.d will open up a hole in the sky and send his thunderbolts down upon our enemies.'

He chuckled then. 'Most likely he'd miss and hit us.'

'Don't mock, Sam,' she chided him. 'It is not for us to know what G.o.d intends.'

'It baffles me, after all you've seen, how you can still believe in Him.'

'It baffles me how you can't,' she responded. The sun was dropping low on the horizon, bathing the mountains in crimson and gold.

Down in the valley the h.e.l.lborn had begun their camp-fires, and the sound of raucous songs echoed up in the mountains.

'Jered has scouted the gorge,' said Shamshad. 'The cliff face extends for around four miles.

He thinks some of us could make the descent.'

That's desert down there. We'd have no way of surviving,' said Sam.

'I agree. But it is an option.'

'At least there are no Devourers,' he said, returning his stare to the h.e.l.lborn camp.

'Yes, that is curious,' she replied. They all padded off late yesterday. I wonder where to?'

'I don't care, as long as it's not here,' he told her, with feeling. 'How many sh.e.l.ls do you have?'

'Around thirty. Another twenty for the pistol.'

'I guess it will be enough,' said Sam.

'I guess it will have to be,' she agreed.

Amaziga watched as Gareth lifted the coils of rope from his saddle. The cliff face was sheer and some six hundred feet high, but it rose in a series of three ledges - the first around eighty feet above them, its glistening edge s.h.i.+ning silver in the bright moonlight.

'What do you thinly?' asked Amaziga.

Gareth smiled. 'Easy, Mother. Good hand and foot-holds all the way. The only problem area is that high overhang above the top ledge, but I don't doubt I can traverse it. Don't worry. I've soloed climbs that are ten times more difficult than this.' He turned to Shannow. 'I'll go for the first ledge, then lower a rope to you. We'll climb in stages. How is your head for heights, Mr Shannow?'

'I have no fear of heights,' said the Jerusalem Man.

Gareth looped two coils of rope over his head and shoulder and stepped up to the face. The climb was reasonably simple until he reached a point just below the ledge, where the rock was worn away by falling water. He considered traversing to the right, then saw a narrow vertical crack in the face some six feet to his left. Easing his way to it, Gareth pushed his right hand high into the crack, then made a fist, wedging his hand against the rock.

Tensing his arm, he pulled himself up another few feet. There was a good handhold to the left and he hauled himself higher. Releasing the hand-jam hold, he reached over the edge of the ledge and levered himself up. Swinging, he sat on the edge staring down at the small figures below. He waved.

Climbing was always so exhilarating. His first experience of it had been in Europe, in the Triffyn mountains of Wales. Lisa had taught him to climb, shown him friction holds and hand-jams, and he had marvelled at her ability to climb what appeared to be surfaces as smooth as polished marble. He remembered her with great affection, and sometimes wondered why he had left her for Eve.

Lisa wanted marriage, Eve wanted pleasure. The thought was absurd. Are you really so shallow, he wondered? Lisa would have been a fine wife, strong, loyal, supportive. But her love for him had been obsessive and, worse, possessive. Gareth had seen what such love could do, for he had watched his mother and lived with her single-minded determination all his life. I don't want that kind of love, he thought. Not ever!

Pus.h.i.+ng such thoughts from his mind, Gareth stood and moved along the ledge. There was no jutting of rock to which he could belay the rope, allowing friction to a.s.sist him in helping Shannow make the climb, but there was a small vertical crack. From his belt he undipped a small claw-like object in s.h.i.+ning steel. Pus.h.i.+ng it into the crevice, he pulled the k.n.o.b at its centre. The claw flashed open, locking to the walls of the crack. Lifting one coil of rope clear, he slid the end through a ring of steel in the claw and lowered it to the waiting Shannow. Once the Jerusalem Man had begun the climb, Gareth looped the rope across his left shoulder and took in the slack.

But Shannow made the climb without incident and levered himself over the ledge. 'How did you find it?' whispered Gareth.

Shannow shrugged. 'I don't like the look of those clouds,' he replied, keeping his voice low.

Gareth tied the rope to his waist. Shannow was right. The sky was darkening, and they had still a fair way to go.