The Ironclad Prophecy Read Online Free PDF Page A

“I have heard tales of your Clan, the Tohmii; the Urmen who challenge the Ones and who have Skarra fighting by their side. Naparandwe says you will protect us.”
    “If you’ll accompany us back to the encampment, to our enclave, and add your number to ours. Gather your people together and we’ll take you now. Mercy, help them round things up, just what they can carry – and don’t nick anything.”
    He saw Nobby running back down towards him through the trees. “Only! Corp! Gutsy told me to tell you he’s found something for you.”
    “What is it?”
    “It’s a surprise, Gutsy said.”
    Atkins mouthed an obscenity and followed Nobby as he trotted out of the trees and up a small hillock. Gutsy and Gazette were lying just below the crest. Atkins crawled the last few yards to keep out of sight.
    He was aware of an insistent thrumming. “What’s that bloody noise? Sounds like something crunching with its teeth.”
    “I think we’ve got a problem, Only.”
    “We wouldn’t be the bloody Pennines if we didn’t,” said Atkins bitterly.
    Gutsy thrust his chin towards the summit. “See for yourself.”
    Enfield cradled in the crooks of his arms, Atkins crawled up the crest on his elbows, lifted his head cautiously above the lip and peered out across the open veldt.
    “Fuck!”
    He slid back down a few feet in shock and looked back at Gutsy, who gave him an apologetic shrug.
    Atkins crawled back to the top again. Not taking his eyes from the plain in front of him, he thrust his right hand back, feeling blindly in the air until Gutsy put a pair of binoculars into it. He peered through them.
    There, far across the veldt, he saw chatts. Khungarrii. Thousands of them, column after column of a vast army on the march. Great caterpillar-like beasts writhed along in front, clearing a path through the tube grass, followed by massed ranks of Khungarrii scentirrii, their rear-most ranks lost in the dust cloud of the vanguard.
    The rhythmic thrumming he heard was the marching step of the chatts muted by the distance, as they banged swords, spears and electric lances against their thorax plates.
    They were marching on the British encampment.

 

     
    CHAPTER TWO
     
    “All Our Might and Main...”
     
     
    T HEY RAN.
    Atkins and his men half-jogged, half-walked, sure they were hidden from sight of the approaching army, but cajoling the weary and frightened urmen on anyway. The speed of their initial flight had gained them some ground, but now the logistics of moving families slowed them down.
    They briefly stopped to let the last of the stragglers catch up, an urman urging on an old woman, and casting anxious glances behind them.
    The Khungarrii were in no hurry to reach the Tommies’ stronghold. Their pace was steady and persistent and their chanting and clicking relentless and pervasive.
    Chalky mumbled something. Gutsy bent his ear to listen.
    “Nah, don’t you pay it no heed, boy. That racket there, it’s meant to frit you. Don’t you let it get to you. Bloody hell, Jerry’s done worse than that. They’re just chatts out there. No artillery, no trench mortars. Once we’re back in the trenches they can’t touch you, so buck up, lad.”
    Atkins was reminded of the Old Contemptibles’ tales of the Battle of Mons, as the BEF retreated across Belgium before an advancing German army. He’d seen photographs in the newspapers and war news magazines of fleeing Belgian peasants, on the move with nothing more than they could carry. Then, the British had turned up and made a stand. And they would here, too. But right now they still had a way to go.
    Atkins scanned the sky, hoping Tulliver might be up there in his aeroplane, but he realised he hadn’t heard the insistent drone of its engine all day. Tulliver would have spotted the chatts’ movements in plenty of time. These days, however, Everson didn’t allow Tulliver to go up except for urgent missions. His machine may have been a marvel of modern mechanics but it was