The banners of this legion of wraiths ripple silently, as if caught in currents other than those caused by the wind.
‘You will be spared,’ the voices adamantly declare, as if he should satisfied with this answer. ‘This must be done.’
*
Chapter 30
The great raven takes to the air once more, rising up from a huge hole suddenly opening up in the ground.
Other gigantic carrion follow it up into the sky.
Joshe’s people must have somehow seen the arrival of the massed ranks of the dead. How, I’m not sure; and neither is Joshe.
‘How…?’
The dead understand his bewilderment.
‘Those about to die can often begin to see more of the new world they will soon be a part of.’
If they can see the approach of this great army, then its intent must be equally obvious.
The ravens swoop down en masse upon the unhurriedly advancing legions, now like dragons in their furious roaring, the way they spit out flame with an irate clattering of hundreds of teeth.
The flames sear through the massed ranks as ineffectively as a fire would rage through the mist surrounding us. As soon as the conflagration clears, the formation trots remorselessly on, the only sign that something untoward has occurred being the darkly singed grass, the still burning bushes that the riders pass through as if they don’t exist.
In some cases, as if affected by a massive shaking of the ground, the dragon fire makes the earth itself erupt, boulders and huge clods of earth being sent flying skywards as if briefly made abruptly weightless. The ranks of the dead still remain perfectly formed, however, passing over a now invisible ground, the ground as it has been for centuries before this interruption in its wellbeing.
Chattering in disgust at their own failure, the ravens wheel away, soaring up as they come together in preparation for another attack
This time, they come in lower, heading directly towards the oncoming army.
This time, the dead retaliate.
A whole line, as one, launch their javelins high up into the air, as if utilising those unnatural currents that silently whip at their pennants, at their remnants of hair.
The spears whisk upward, an unavoidable, almost solid line of glittering blades of otherworldly metal.
Mercurial in their nature, the tips effortlessly pierce the onrushing ravens, the shafts dragging behind them bringing the coldness of death to those only moments ago alive.
The ravens spin in their death throes, their wings beating frenziedly but fruitlessly at an uncaringly unresponsive air.
The great birds shatter upon the ground, their dark skins shredded from them in an instant, their skeletal frames fleetingly revealed just before their lungs of stored dragon fire erupt as violently as any volcano.
Joshe slumps to the ground as heavily, as broken, as the fallen ravens.
I crouch down beside him, marvelling once again at how Bjeliq could sleep so contentedly though all this strange noise of a literally one-sided battle.
‘What will your people still on your planet do?’ I ask him, wondering if they would be foolish enough to attempt revenge, or if they would call off their intended invasion.
‘My planet?’ Joshe asks, frowning in confusion.
‘Will your people at least attempt to recover you dead?’ I add, seeing that he was perplexed by my question.
Wasn’t this how it worked for them? As they didn’t rise up from their useless husks, didn’t they have to at least recover their dead?
There won’t be much to recover from the ferociously burning wrecks that only a moment ago were darkly swooping ravens.
Thick, oily smoke curls up from the flames.
And amongst those coiling clouds swirling across the ground, other forms take shape; the spirits of the dead.
The spirits of Joshe’s people.
*
In my surprise, I grab Joshe’s hand, steadying Bjeliq in the one arm I’m now holding her by.
‘I was wrong.’ My chest feels tight with the shock. ‘Your people do have souls!’
Joshe can obviously see them too; he manages a grim smile.
‘Then…we do have some hope, after all,’ he breathes sadly.
A few of the dead have glanced our way, their straggles of hair undulating in those invisible currents.
It seems to me that they smile, that they are satisfied; and they expect me to be satisfied too.
The newly dead wander amongst the still advancing hordes, confused by their new state, the expectation of new allegiances.
The legions fail to welcome them, but neither do they treat them sorely; rather, they merely ignore them, much as any army heading off to battle might contemptuously bypass any civilians foolish enough to find themselves upon a battlefield.
The door to the underworld still lies open.
A deep, pained roaring erupts from it, as if the whole of the dark earth is mourning the loss of its children. As if proclaiming that it seeks revenge.
The roaring becomes a grumbling: and abruptly, giant, sandy-hued rats leap from out of the hole, their speed unbelievable as they rush and bounce across the uneven ground.
Their speed is such that they send up vast plumes of dirt and dust whirling up into the air behind them. No feet, no mater how swiftly moving, could achieve such a speed; and so these rats have wheels, and yet unlike chariots they require no steeds to pull them.
And once again, like the ravens, they spit out an irate fire.
*
Chapter 31
The dead require no elaborate battle tactics.
They lower their lances, break into a trot, and then into a headlong charge.
The opposing sides rush towards each other, but only one side is hoping they prevail.
The other side, the Legions of the Dead, have no need of hope.
Riders and mounts swarm through the oncoming rodents as if they are nothing but shapes made by clouds. The rats, as if abruptly ripped apart inside, stutter and falter, some simply chaotically wheeling to a halt, others jerking in their death throes, briefly launching a little up into the air before rolling across the ground, as rapidly shedding their fragile skins as the ravens.
The formation of the legions at last momentarily breaks, but only as they ride around the stilled rats, allowing the bewildered souls rising up from the carcasses to aimlessly wander for a while as they dazedly attempt to determine what they need to do next.
Will they eventually return to their own planet?
I stare up at the dark disc in the night sky.
Is this where the dead of Joshe’s people have their own home?
Is that why, at last, their spirits are rising up from their bodies – because their home is drawing close once more?
My gaze naturally switches from the gaping hole in the sky to the gaping hole in the ground as angels begin to rise from it on their wings of fire; their blades and arrows of flame just as useless against the dead as the dragon’s breath unleashed upon them earlier.
The lances of the legions’, however, are once again born aloft on otherworld currents, are once again swift bringers of death. The angels briefly arch agonisingly in space, then dip and swerve uncontrollably on flaming wings that only gradually fade, or flicker and stutter, at last allowing the lifeless husks to fall back to the earth like spluttering, falling stars.
As they plummet back to the ground, the ranks of the dead relentlessly flow on beneath them, their own progress perfectly silent, yet accompanied now by the grating of shifting mountains; for the vast doors of the opening to the underworld are beginning to lazily slip back into place.
Seeing their last line of defence fail, Joshe’s people only further demonstrate their lack of understanding of what they are up against by sealing themselves within their underworld domain; for now there will be no escape for them.
The great doors don’t exist in the world, or the time, of the dead. And so the iron or whatever that has go
ne into their manufacture present no obstacle to the remorseless surge of the dead’s columns.
‘So, this is how man faces his end,’ Joshe mumbles as he weeps.
*
Do all peoples call themselves ‘man’?
If so, perhaps ‘man’ will never actually come to an end. He – and she, of course – will always live on in some form or another.
As the dead pour into the underworld of Joshe’s people, he looks up towards the approaching planet.
‘I suppose there’s no point in weeping; for it seems Nibiru means to finish us all off this time. We could have avoided all this, if we’d saved the right people…’
A number of times now, Joshe has used words that might imply he doesn't see this planet – this Nibiru? – as his home.
Maybe they have lived here on earth too long; when you leave your homeland, and set up your villages somewhere else, how long does it take before a generation regards this new place as their real home, the old home as an alien land?
of home I speak
not knowing it now
for many a year
for many a year
I doubt my words
is this the home I speak of?
Seeing my puzzled expression, Joshe explains a little more.
‘There were so many, many people to save, but so few places underground; and the politicians and lawyers had reserved theirs, claiming we’d need their leadership, their skills at interpreting laws – when in fact there were no societies to lead, no established laws that still made sense. We stagnated, unable to make the advances that would have enabled us to flee earth.’
‘You would have returned; back to your home planet, this Nibiru?’
Joshe isn’t listening to me. He’s risen to his feet, to get a better view of the doors leading down to the underworld.
They still remain firmly closed, of course.
But the first lost souls of children are appearing there, wandering through those vast artefacts of metal every bit as easily as our own dead would.
There are men and women with them too, of course; yet it is always the souls of the children who present the most heart-breaking sight. Have they learned all they should while habiting their physical bodies. Or will they have to return, reliving all the old lessons and more?
Their cruel task completed, the legions are next to begin to file back out of the doors.
Unlike before, however, when they simply nonchalantly rode past the dazed souls, the riders lean down from their mounts now to hoist the sprits of Joshe’s people up behind them.
Even those lost spirits thrown from their burning ravens and rats, or cast back to earth when their wings of fire finally faltered, are picked up by the returning legionnaires. The sprits accept these offers of a ride without demur, as if they are at last becoming accustomed to their new state.
As soon as the army of the dead are sure they’ve picked up every last one of these wandering souls, the riders urge their horses to pick up the pace. It goes from a steady trot, to a gallop, and then to a full-on charge.
And then the hooves of the horses begin to rise up off the ground.
And the massed formations of the army of the dead wheel up into the night sky.
*
Chapter 32
Only a few of the dead who had apprehended us had bothered to dismount.
Now even these are returning to their horses, preparing to hoist themselves up into their saddles once more.
‘What’s happening to my people?’ Joshe demands anxiously. ‘What are you doing with them?’
The dead man stops, turns, the hair protruding from beneath his helmet swirling about him as if caught in unseen waters.
‘The souls of your people had become too enamoured of their bodies,’ the voices explain. ‘Only we could release them.’
‘Release them?’ Joshe explodes. ‘By massacring them?’
Joshe is so intent on accosting the dead man that he’s no longer watching the massed riders ascending up into the night sky. They’re moving incredibly swiftly, no doubt rising on those rolling waves that remain invisible, untouchable, lying beyond the senses of the living.
The hooves of the charging horses soundlessly pound upon the night sky as if discovering steps there, steps taking them ever closer to the black disc of the descending planet.
The dead are helping Joshe’s people return home.
The black orb is far closer now, far closer than when the angel and her mother soared upwards towards it.
I can sense a throbbing in the air, as if it is a breathing, living thing that languidly approaches us.
It isn’t just the legions that are rising up towards the hovering planet. From the dark wickerwork of forests, there now also rise those others of the dead who were never warriors; the farmers, carpenters, milkmaids, the children. Along with them there are the creatures, those of the farm and of the woodlands, joining in this mass exodus of our dead.
It seems they wish to make Joshe’s planet their own home too now
As for the dead who quietly stand by us, they appear to see no reason why they should reply to Joshe’s question; they’re a people of few words – no doubt they believe they have explained everything they need to.
The fault lies with the listener, for not listening correctly, for not understanding.
‘They’re taking your people back,’ I say to Joshe, answering for them. ‘To their real home.’
‘Home?’ Joshe scoffs.
The dead man hoists himself up into his saddle, the last amongst them to do so.
‘The rest of the living must follow later.’
The voices seem to rush through me.
The dead man turns slightly in his saddle to glance down at Bjeliq. She still sleeps, as if unaware of the mayhem surrounding us; as if in a different pace, another world.
‘If you stay, it will not be a nice way to die,’ the voices whisper, a whisper mingling ominously with the humming of the dark orb. ‘You could come with us now: the answer is lying in your hands.’
Without the sound of any orders, or the clink of buckles and mail, the troops urge their horses into motion, in a moment rushing towards the more steeply inclined edge of the hill we stand upon.
They don't slow their pace as they approach the edge; rather, they spur their mounts into a more furious gallop.
Naturally, instead of toppling, they gracefully swirl up into the air, as fluid as a flock of starlings curling their way across the sky.
As if their flight has caused a disturbance, the hill rumbles unnaturally, the otherwise completely silent nature of their rising accompanied now by the loosening of pebbles, rocks, even large boulders.
Over towards the forests, the tops of the trees shiver, some of them weirdly beginning to ascend, rising up from amongst their companions as if joining all those fleeing towards the darkly throbbing disc.
Then they fall back, as if too heavy, as if refused permission to swap their home on earth for one on this new planet.
A nearby hill rips apart, a dark grey fissure running down it.
‘Its happening again!’ Joshe morosely wails. ‘Nibiru is tearing the earth apart!’
The whole earth quakes in fear.
I almost fall, as does Joshe, but we manage to steady ourselves.
This is what the dead meant when they said it won’t be a nice way to die.
The earth will no longer be our parent, our nurturer, but our tormentor, as he himself slowly, painfully dies
The answer lies in my hands?
I look down at Bjeliq, who still lies undisturbed by the approaching end of days.
They mean Bjeliq, of course; she contains the answer to our problems.
Yet her wings are nowhere near strong enough to bear herself upwards, let alone to carry me along with her as the other angel had taken her own mother up.
The baby was dead, the mother was dead; is this how the dead mean for us to follow on behind them?
&n
bsp; A cruel joke then; ‘the answer lies in your hands.’
Suicide.
Filicide: murder.
That’s what they mean.
*
Chapter 33
The hills, once so still, so seemingly permanent, now roll as if alive, as if transformed into fluid waves.
Trees lean, topple, as even the deepest roots are loosened.
Grassy earth shivers, cracks and breaks up, turned over as if by an immense yet unseen ploughman.
A storm is already blowing up, too, howling in malice as it anticipates the extra destruction it will deliver upon the land.
‘We can’t shelter in there anymore,’ Joshe states blankly, staring mournfully upon the closed doors to the underworld. ‘Even if we could get in, there are so many dead bodies to…’
He can’t finish his sentence.
He means the bodies will rot, poisoning the atmosphere.
The hound, at least, has made a decision on what we should do.
He’s looking back longingly towards the hill we’d originally come from; the hill where we can take some form of shelter within the giant’s mouth.
He’s simply waiting for me to mount up on his back once again, to make sure our journey back is as swift as possible.
*
‘Your people,’ I say to Joshe, as we both stare forlornly through the giant’s jaws at the storms and destruction enveloping the earth, ‘can’t they help us?’
Joshe’s expression changes to one of bewilderment.
‘Heliq: you just saw them all killed!’
‘I mean the ones on your planet!’
‘My planet?’
‘But…’
I hesitate, wondering if I should ask this; am I’m dreading upsetting him, or dreading the answer?
Have I simply refused to accept the true meaning of his words, preferring instead to continue believing the words of our shamans that Joshe’s people came from this planet?
‘Wasn’t this planet your home: I mean, from where your people originally came from?’
His laugh is a touch exasperated; which, under the circumstances, I could hardly find surprising.
‘How could it ever have been our home, Heliq? It’s Nibiru, whose orbit brings it through our own system of planets every four thousand years: but they're just legends, all this nonsense than man came from some other world. We're – we were – descended from earlier species; in our case one who, along with most of humanity, was one of the countless species more or less wiped out after Nibiru’s last visit here, when it set off our weapon stockpiles, poisoning the air.’