by A. W. Exley
We stared at each other. No one was volunteering to be the first one to slip through the darkened door and into their nest.
"We could blow a hole through the top," the lieutenant suggested.
"London wants the queen alive, if there is one." Seth rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "But take your group up top and start digging, we need another egress."
"I'll go in," I said.
All eyes in the group focused on me. One of the soldiers laughed and feet were shuffled.
"Do you really think we would stand around out here, while you went through on your own?" Seth asked.
"I'm the smallest. I'm fast and I'm used to doing this. Besides, I didn't intend to hang around, it will be a quick look and back out." While the men around me were soldiers, all carrying the burden of their time in the Great War, I had more practical experience with this particular enemy — one that didn't fall to the ground dead when shot or bayonetted.
He ground his jaw, the movement cast in shadow. "No, but we appreciate your offer. Jack and Jake will go."
Two soldiers stepped forward, and I blinked. Before me I saw one man standing next to a mirror, so exactly did they mimic one another. Even the shuffle of their feet and fidget of their fingers was so perfect to be identical.
"In and out lads and report back." He waved them off.
"Twins?" My mouth blurted the blindingly obvious observation.
Seth watched them check each other's rifles and pick up a lantern. "They work exceptionally well in tight spots. I found they don't need to talk to cover each other, one knows exactly what the other is thinking or doing."
Practical, but a little eerie. The twins crouched low, and with a final thumbs up, they were swallowed by the dark mouth.
Chapter Twenty Two
Waiting seemed to take an eternity. From above came the monotonous thud as the men dug through the dirt, and then hit the stone. Not long after that, a soft boom vibrated the air around us and made me jump.
"Small charge," Seth said. "Just enough to break through the stone. Frank has a way with dynamite."
Then from below, a gun shot fired, followed by three more in rapid succession. I jumped and glanced to Seth.
"Shouldn't we go in? They need our help," I said.
He ground his jaw, but held his ground. "I can't risk more men without knowing what's in there. We wait."
I wanted to dash in after the brave young men. How could he stand here, while a few feet away his soldiers needed our help? He reached out and took my hand, holding me at his side and drawing my gaze again.
"This is what it means to lead, to balance two lives against many more. I don't issue the command to wait lightly, but I have faith in Jack and Jake's abilities."
Time stretched, and my heartbeat struggled to fill the void between each second. Then, just as I was rocking on the balls of my feet to jump forward, a shape staggered out of the hole. It lurched a few steps, the features indistinct until it hit the circle of lanterns. Was it an injured soldier? A low moan came from its throat. The figure straightened as much as it could, and ambled toward us with teeth bared. No — vermin.
Before I could draw my sword, Lieutenant Bain stepped forward and dispatched it with a swift strike. He was getting better with practice. He picked up the head, and two other soldiers rushed to collect the body to add to our growing bonfire. In the dark, the patrol had found three more vermin staggering back to mound; they made up the base of the pile. Other men gathered fallen branches from the surrounding trees to fuel the blaze.
Surely, now, Seth would send more men in?
Another shape pulled free of the enveloping black. My hand reached for my sword, when the shadow was joined by an identical blob. Relief washed through me as Jake and Jack stepped into the light.
"Report," Seth said to them in a quiet tone.
A glance was exchanged between the twins; then one of them began. "Short tunnel, no more than fifteen feet, but it's blasted cramped, captain. Opens out to a chamber, 'bout thirty feet long and perhaps fifteen wide."
The other picked up where his twin left off. "We spotted maybe a dozen of them in there, but it's awfully hard to tell. There's something big at one end, and they're crawling all over it."
"Have you heard of the rat king? That's what they're like, joined together, one twisted seething mass." Jake finished their narration.
I recalled tales of rat kings, where the creatures' tails become entangled, living as one entwined mass, permanently bound to one another. A shudder ran through me at the thought of a vermin-sized rat king. Perhaps our name for them hadn't been far removed after all. Were they more rat-like with a nest, than bees with a hive? It seemed so different to speculate on these things in the warmth and security of Seth's study, as opposed to standing outside their burrow with the darkness waiting to claim us.
Frank appeared at Seth's side. "We're through up top, we have about a foot square."
"Good. We'll need light now that we have lost the element of surprise. Take a half dozen lanterns and suspend them from ropes so we can see what we're doing. Take the barrel as well, I want it ready just in case."
Frank saluted, and in that moment it struck me how similar the two men were when you saw only their outlines. More than their height and build, but also the shape of their noses, the sweep of their cheekbones down to strong jaws. Once you realised they were half-brothers, everything made sense, right down to the easy camaraderie they shared.
Frank fed lanterns through the hole above, and soon a dim light shone back through the narrow tunnel. The moaning from inside rose, as though they protested the invasion of their nest. Or perhaps, with the suspended lanterns, they objected to their décor.
"All right, men?" Seth cast around. "There's not room for many, Jack and Jake you lead." He assigned places in our small procession. I would follow Seth, and Henry would have my back. Two more men would follow him.
Jake and Jack led off, back into the cramped confines. My heart hammered in my chest and vibrated up my throat as I approached the source of the stench and wails. I pulled the handkerchief up over my airways, but the fetid aroma made its way through the fabric. I ducked my head and stepped into their domain.
Scratches showed where they had dug through the earth and rock to make their home. Bones stuck out of the soil, but it was impossible to tell if they were the disturbed remains of the original inhabitants, or left from the vermin clawing their way in.
I held my drawn katana in hand, and was grateful for the lights dropped by Frank from above. At least I didn't have to worry about clutching a lantern at the same time. Behind me, Henry kept both hands wrapped around his rifle. Our little procession shuffled through the dirt, heads bowed as though we were supplicants on a religious pilgrimage.
My heart beat loud in my ears, a reminder that I was alive in this cave of death. The noise amplified, swirling around us, and beads of sweat broke over my back. What was I doing?
Crumbs of soil broke away as we passed and trickled down the walls, making the shadows roll and undulate. Thankfully, nothing waited ahead, or nothing that stepped into our narrow line of sight. One footstep, then another, and we travelled down the short corridor. Then, blessedly, it opened out into the main burial chamber. Once a great warrior was entombed here amid a grand ceremony to mark his passing. Now his remains and eternal companions were defiled by the undead.
Above our heads dangled half a dozen lanterns at various heights. Taken together, they would make a rather fetching type of chandelier, if it hadn't been for the horror they illuminated below.
Shadows moved and rolled at the very edge of the light. Pottery, discarded armour, and rusted short swords lay at my feet. Entire skeletons slumped over shields, except where they had been kicked aside and scattered. Bony fingers reached for weapons eternally beyond their grasp. Here, the moans increased in pitch, as though the creatures shied from the light, but thankfully the vermin seemed to ignore our presence.
A shape roiled
at the end of the chamber, like a dead animal covered in maggots. The rat king of vermin, but what were they doing? The more I stared and concentrated, the more individual shapes formed. There seemed to be a large shadow that the vermin enveloped. Were they feeding off it? Was this their queen? I couldn't see, not without pulling them out of the way.
The way they acted reminded me of swarming bees, covering an object until it's obscured by all of their furry bodies. We spread out to form a rough line and advanced, one careful footstep at a time. The other men covered their faces, and we kept our weapons at hand, waiting for them to scent our presence and turn en masse, to attack.
One or two stood at the sides, like invited guests at a banquet who find there is no place set for them. They turned as we neared. Grunts were uttered back and forth, not between them, but aimed at the undulating mass. The seething thing half rose and gave an answering cry, then they lumbered toward us. One had no need to open its jaws, the bottom half of its face had fallen away, revealing teeth and gums.
Seth dispatched of one with a clean swing of his sabre. I danced to the side of the other and struck while it watched its companion fall to its knees. A second head joined the first and rolled across the floor, coming to rest on the outstretched hand of a long dead retainer.
We stopped two feet from the altar, a stone sarcophagus measuring eight feet long and three feet wide. The sides were covered in ruins and signs, perhaps narrating an ancient story of the warrior who lay within. At least the long dead man slumbered on, unaware of the sacrilege committed atop him.
The undead moved and jostled for space as the entire thing rose up. Some slid to the ground, their arms raised as they clung to the stone, dead eyes fixed on their object of adoration.
"Oh God," no more words would force their way out of my throat.
I was right. Just like bees, the vermin worshipped a queen — a monstrous pink thing that barely resembled the human she had once been. The skin had bloated and distended as it increased in size, yet the head remained human-sized and out of proportion, like a doll head removed and shoved onto a much larger body. Long lank hair plastered its skull and covered part of its face, the only sign that this used to be a woman. It rested on its elbows, attempting to sit up, but its limbs were withered and tiny, compared to the body that resembled a balloon filled with pudding.
The moans and whimpers echoed around our stone-lined enclosure. Disturbed from their mother's embrace, the vermin rose and eyed us. Jake and Jack had counted true; a dozen formed a cluster around the altar. We spread out to give each other room. You don't want to stand shoulder to shoulder when you need a good swing to remove a head.
"We're supposed to take it alive," Seth glanced at me, and then back to the creature that used to be a living human like us.
"How? There's no way that is fitting back through the tunnel." I knew it was rude to comment on a woman's weight, but does that still apply to what no longer resembles a woman? Which raised another observation: she must have been regular-sized before they turned her into whatever she was now, or they would never have been equipped to carry her in. What had they done to her? Worker bees fed royal jelly to a larvae to spark its transformation into a queen. Was there a vermin equivalent?
Thoughts of similarities to bees were halted abruptly when the walls moved and coalesced into more vermin.
"Seth, we have a bigger problem." I pitched my voice low. Nobody wanted to go shouting and start a riot, but there were far more than twelve vermin and a queen in the barrow. The dense shapes broke from the stone and earth and turned into at least another dozen. We were encircled, and they had blocked our tunnel exit.
The queen hissed and levered her bloated form, but couldn't move. A disproportionately small arm waved at me, but what really disturbed my balance were her eyes when she raised her head. They weren't the dead vacant orbs of the other vermin. Hers were black and soulless as she directed her guards to move against us.
The toe of my boot scuffed a piece of fabric. On instinct, I bent down and picked it up. Tears choked in my throat as my mind cobbled together the evidence in my hands. "It's Rose Linton's mother."
Seth swung his head to face me, frowning in the half-light. "How do you know?"
I held up the scrap of fabric, a torn apron bearing embroidered daisies that once, a lifetime ago, were yellow and white. "It's the same as Rose's dress."
Perhaps as little as two months ago, the monster before us had been a loving mother who sat at night sewing flowers on matching outfits for her and her daughter. Then the vermin snatched them from their beds. What have they done to her to turn her into this monstrosity? Had they targeted her to become their queen?
The creature before me narrowed her gaze at the cloth in my hand, then she shook her head. The black consuming her eyes lifted, like pulling aside a curtain to reveal the blue beneath. This gaze was different. It retained a vestige of her humanity, and her eyes teared up as our gazes met.
"Rose?" she rasped, in a ragged voice that reminded me of Henry's disused tone. Her tongue wet her lips, as though she were unused to conversation. The scrap of embroidery had given her a focus point to remember her former life.
I swallowed and shook my head, holding the apron out to her. "Gone."
A tear trickled down its, her, face.
The soldiers turned so we formed our own circle, each of us protecting the other's backs, as we faced off with the enemy. The vermin edged closer, a wall of death intent on recruiting us to its cause.
"New plan," Seth said. "We all get out without being bitten, and the War Office can have the next queen we find."
"She can talk, she remembers." I half turned to catch Seth's gaze. Didn't he realise how pivotal that was? There was so much we needed to know. How had she become a queen — did they single her out for this particular path, and why? For the first time, I felt frustrated at my inability to just chat with a vermin, but we were short on time.
"Move it along Ella, we don't have much time," Seth said from beside me.
I racked my brain. With limited time, I needed to ask the most pertinent questions. I just didn't know what they were.
"Do you control them?"
A nod. "Yes." She grimaced and screwed her up face for a moment. The advancing vermin faltered, their command to attack cut off. They seemed confused, like drunk men who had woken up face down in an unfamiliar front garden. I shut my ears as the men took the slight advantage, and the slaughter began. Metal sang as it caressed the air, before it struck bone and cartilage. The crunch was punctuated by groans from both those who wielded the swords, and the huff of escaped air from those who had been struck. A gun shot added a staccato beat as the force was used to send a vermin back a stride or two.
"Why? To what end?" So much about what these things were could be locked in her mind, and I was desperate to reach out and shake it free.
"More. They need more." A frown grew amongst the rolls of bloated flesh, and her eyes squinted. More tears rolled down her cheeks. "Not enough yet."
"Time, Ella," Seth said. "Clear the tunnel, Jack and Jake."
She was losing control. The men were cutting down the undead, but more were rising from the earth, as though they were hiding in the layers just waiting to be called forth.
"End it," she whispered as she met my gaze. Then her eyes rolled up into her head, and the spell was broken over the surrounding vermin. They shook themselves, then lurched forward on us as they always had.
I raised my sword, stepping up to the stone altar holding the blade aloft.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, and brought down the katana as hard as I could. She gasped and gurgled, as to my horror, her neck hung by the tendons. Thick viscous blood shot out and coated the cloth covering my face. I sliced again, severing the tendons, and her head dropped to the ground. The eyes closed, and perhaps I imagined it, but I thought a sense of relief touched her distorted features. Blood continued to pump from her severed neck, like the valve had jammed open on a water pump
. At the same time, her gross body deflated and began to fall in upon itself.
I didn't have time to stand and stare. We were being rushed from all directions. My blade danced in the swaying lights as we cut a path to the tunnel.
"Light it up!" Seth yelled upward. Beyond the dangling lanterns lay Frank, ready for his orders.
Our team hacked and slashed at limbs and moved toward the tunnel as a single unit, not a man would be left behind. We reached the entrance and slipped through. My heart pounded as we bent double and raced as fast as we could, like a demented child's game, back to the open expanse and air that wasn't contaminated by vermin blood.
Chapter Twenty Three
"Run!"
Seth gave the command as soon as we emerged, but our feet were already moving.
Frank waited up top until he saw we were clear. Then he let the missile drop, jumped, and rolled down the side as though the hounds of hell were snapping at his heels. We ran toward the trees and the shelter of a low ridge. As we passed over, Seth looped an arm around my waist and pulled me to the ground, the damp grass chill against my skin. His larger body shielded me as a whump hit my ears, at the same time that heated air blasted over the top of us.
"What was in that?" I asked, although with the buzzing in my ears I wasn't sure if I would be capable of hearing his reply.
A minute passed before he caught his breath and answered. "Ever hear the story of Greek fire?"
Vague memory cells sparked. As a child, I had the benefit of a classical education, and father had loved reading me ancient stories of lost civilisations and long dead warriors.
Seth started talking as he rolled us to our sides. "It was a secret weapon of the Roman emperors, invented in the seventh century. The formula was so closely guarded it was lost to history. Needless to say, the War Office has poured a lot of money into trying to replicate the effect." A grin spread over his face. Boys never lost their excitement for blowing stuff up. "The lads and I replicated our own version, using liquid soap."
