‘Victorio Brakarius,’ Millok replied to a guard.
She maintained her strong striding walk through the gates of the barracks.
Any sign of weakness and the soldiers would attack her in an instant, she knew. They despised female fighters. It had been the same back home, where the soldiers would show her up on exercises or intimidate her in the barracks. She had kept her carapace tight and head down but they still taunted her with threats of forced mating and torture.
Millok kept her antennae low as she passed a group of older Brakari sharing war stories and scars.
‘…and the Skrifts just tore him apart. What was he thinking?’
‘Must have had air in his shell.’
Is this how my life will always be? Millok thought. The threat of violence keeping me silent? The main reason she had agreed to Doctor Cynigar’s experiments was for protection. Hosting a collection of unknown and lethal adaptations gave the aggressive soldiers second thoughts about trying to mate with her. It had been worse back home. After one of the largest soldiers tried to do his worst, Millok had reacted as any soldier would. When his decapitated body had been found in the mud saunas, the bullying stopped.
Millok climbed the steep wooden steps to the guard tower situated in the corner of the barracks. Her foreleg still ached but her other limbs were strong enough to pull her sleek body up to the platform, where two young soldiers kept watch.
The youngest soldier advanced. ‘You are not permitted–’ he started, but the other soldier leapt forward and nudged his shell.
Millok tensed and let two shocks of blue light up the new streaks that ran across her grey shell.
‘Captain Millok.’ The soldier bowed and turned back.
She was getting used to her new name. Bitet had been her name since hatching, but her adaptations had given her new powers, so why not a new name as well?
‘Leave me be,’ she ordered and the guards scuttled back to their posts.
Millok cleared her spiracles with a sharp exhalation and drew in fresh air as she walked around the tower, peering through various openings. The barracks had been built into the tall grey walls at a corner of the city by the river, which brought a cool breeze from the central lake.
‘Abzicrutia stinks,’ she muttered to herself, sure she could see a brown haze rising from the streets and mud domes.
How fast it had been built, and how quickly it had become a festering pit of filth. Streams of sewage ran down the main streets where packs of the black, wolf-like Skrifts were straining at their chains, feeding on the Brakari waste. The smell of other enslaved creatures wafted up on the air and Millok shut her spiracles. Lining the walls were the holding cells where General Panzicosta held captive soldiers for interrogation. The rumours of what he did to them made her shudder. Limp-limbed Ilanos, low slithering Gartoniads, even the few furred Sorean who had survived Panzicosta’s torture would be forced to fight with the Brakari, along with the restrained Lutamek robots. Millok tensed and felt a wave of guilt wash through her for the bracing she had used to keep the electronic behemoths at bay.
A snippet of conversation wafted up from the barracks below: ‘–told me a few of the scout groups haven’t checked in and Glexar thinks they were killed by the human army.’
So the enemy draw near, Millok thought, and they’re proving to be more dangerous than Panzicosta’s Draytor gave them credit for.
Turning to the city’s solitary entrance, a stone’s throw from her watchtower, Millok watched a stream of light-blue hatchling soldiers leaving the city. They were full of energy, bounding down the dirt streets and chattering away to each other with clicks and warbles. Her antennae twitched and her stomach acids swirled as she fought her emotions. She tried to detach herself from it, like a good soldier, but no matter how you looked at it, the truth always came back to her: these were her children.
Millok’s trade with Doctor Cynigar had been simple. She’d given her eggs to replace the troops the Brakari had lost through their wars, and she would receive advanced adaptations as compensation. She’d had little choice – they would have strapped her down and cut her eggs out if she’d said no – but her instincts remained intact. She felt she should be protecting her brood, at least until their shells had hardened.
Outside the walls, the bulky armour-headed troops of the soil massed together, burrowing into the dusty soil, creating mounds to rest in. A host of Lutamek were being chained together to form a land train and, beyond them, the tip of a tall white tent could be seen next to the bulky black shape of Belsang’s Vaalori. Inside, the Brakari leader was drawing up plans.
Sounds of commotion below attracted the guards next to Millok but she ignored them. Battle was not far away. She moved around the watchtower’s edge and found herself staring at the distant mist. On a clear day, you could see the slum that had grown around the great gates, and Millok had lost count of the number of armies she had seen make the victorious march through to the other side. She no longer let herself daydream about what lay beyond. It didn’t matter any more. What did she really have left to live for? She flexed her sore leg and felt the pain jolt through her nerves. Would she be fit enough to fight?
A sound made her turn – it was one of the guards.
‘Captain Millok?’ he repeated.
He was young too, she thought, but not one of hers.
‘Yes,’ she replied.
‘It’s General Panzicosta – he requests your presence.’
Gal-qadan smiled as he watched his soldiers file through the last clumps of orange cacti and into the dark pine forest. In close combat, his enemies would be powerless against this small but deadly force.
‘We need more men,’ he growled at Tode.
‘I shall ask the scouts to look for lone warriors,’ Tode replied.
‘And horses. Can these men ride horses?’ Gal-qadan asked.
‘Yes, Khan. Dakaniha assures me he was one of his clan’s greatest riders.’
‘I would like to see if it’s true.’ Gal-qadan kept his face stone hard as he stared at Dakaniha and his compatriots, who talked out of earshot at the front of the line.
Gal-qadan had watched the men bicker and taken note. It wouldn’t be good to let wounds fester. For now though, their objective was clear: find food and water and maintain the direction the Japanese swordsmen had been taking.
‘Send the archers to hunt.’ Gal-qadan ordered Tode away.
Gal-qadan felt content on his own, here at the back of the line, from where he could peer up through the dark forest canopy in private. He didn’t want his men to know his secret: he had to keep up the pretence that he knew the way to the silver gates his men talked of.
‘So is your great leader everything you thought he would be?’ Kastor asked Dakaniha as they stood at a cliff top.
‘His military prowess speaks for itself,’ Dakaniha replied. ‘And he led us out of the cactus lands.’
‘True.’ Kastor nodded. ‘But is he really a leader? And what does he know about this land?’
‘He survived on his own while others perished,’ Dakaniha replied and pointed at the canopy of deciduous trees at the bottom of the cliff. ‘This forest is different.’
‘And it goes on forever!’ said an Ottoman soldier, as the rest of the group arrived at the cliff top.
‘How much further, Great Leader?’ Dakaniha asked.
‘Distance should not concern you, only how we get there,’ Tode said.
‘But we only have fourteen days,’ the Mayan warrior said.
Gal-qadan glared at the man.
‘We must find a way down the cliff. You three,’ Gal-qadan pointed at Kastor, Dakaniha and Osayimwese, ‘descend here.’ He pointed to a goat path that zigzagged down the cliff face. ‘Everyone else, this way.’ He pointed to a landslip which had created a rocky slope down to the cliff base.
‘Really?’ Kastor stood with hands on hips. ‘You go that way and we go–’
‘Come on!’ Dakaniha was already a few steps down the path.
Kastor shook his head and followed, using his long spear for balance.
Dakaniha didn’t care if Kastor thought him too eager to impress Gal-qadan. The Mongol was a great soldier and any warrior wishing to improve their skills could learn from such a man.
His feet pattered rhythmically against the sandy soil of the cliff, but slid to a stop when he heard yelling from the forest below. Movement could be seen through the branches and leaves: somebody running.
‘What’s happening?’ Kastor caught up.
‘There.’ Osayimwese pointed down to a dark figure speeding through the woodland.
‘Is that the soldier who killed the Roc?’ Kastor asked.
‘Looks like it. He’s being chased.’
Seven dark-grey shapes rose out of the soil of the woodland floor, closing in on the running man.
‘Wolves,’ Dakaniha said.
‘We must save him!’ Osayimwese raised his spear and looked at Kastor, as if to challenge him.
‘You’re on!’ the Spartan grinned and scampered down the cliff path.
Dakaniha ignored the two spearmen and strung his bow. He stepped and slid down the steep hillside to a better vantage point. Below, the dark shadow of the rifleman burst out into the opening lining the cliff base. The man’s clothes reminded Dakaniha of his enemy – the British – and his conscience told him he should not be saving this man.
No, he thought, I owe him a debt no matter who he is.
Ignoring his itching temples, Dakaniha slipped an arrow into his bow and aimed behind the running man. As soon as a fleck of grey fur rose from the ground, he fired four paces ahead, then at the next wolf when it revealed itself. Exhaling with each arrow, Dakaniha had little time to see if he had hit each target, and only stopped when Kastor and Osayimwese jumped in to attack, releasing their javelins in unison and unsheathing their swords to charge the wolves. Their yells echoed up the cliff as Kastor pummelled a wolf with his shield and jabbed with his short sword. Osayimwese tried a different tack when his wolf turned on him: with a deft feint, he dodged the flying claws and nicked the wolf’s belly with his sword and eggshell dagger. Isolated, Osayimwese and the wolf repeated their fight to the death until, on his third attempt, Osayimwese stabbed the beast through the heart.
They had distracted some wolves but three remained focused on the rifleman, who scrambled up the cliff, trying to gain safety on a rocky ledge near the cliff’s base.
Dakaniha looked over to Gal-qadan and the rest of the group. They were too far away to help and Dakaniha watched in horror as the rifleman stumbled on the loose rocks. The lead wolf pounced with teeth bared. Then a flash lit up the cliff, followed by an explosion that echoed like an avalanche.
When Dakaniha’s eyes had recovered he saw that the wolf was dead by the rifleman’s side and the surviving wolves were running back to the woods, slipping into the safety of the earth. He slowly slid down to where the rifleman rested, noticing odd shapes in the rock plateau around him.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked the stranger.
The man squinted from beneath his peaked hat and said something in a language Dakaniha had heard before but couldn’t understand. One word did stand out though: Cherokee.
Dakaniha bristled. ‘Aniyunwiya,’ he replied with a snap and pulled a mushroom from his satchel. Tode had given him it shortly after blowing the spores in his face and Dakaniha repeated the process now.
The man coughed and aimed his gun at Dakaniha, who held his hands up and waited for the dust to work its power.
‘Take your time,’ Dakaniha said as he put the mushroom away, ‘and wait until you can understand me.’
The man’s face calmed, he lowered his rifle and rubbed his nose. ‘Say, what was that?’ he asked.
Dakaniha gestured at the forest. ‘Another gift from this strange land.’
‘Like those wolves? Hell, it looks like the Unionists got men from every goddam creed searching this land, and now the wildlife don’t want me here either.’ The stranger looked at the rifle Dakaniha had taken from the dead soldier. ‘Say, are you one of Stand Watie’s men?’
‘No, I…’ Dakaniha started.
‘Well, I’m Ethan Turner… a sharpshooter.’ He patted his rifle. ‘And I’d appreciate it if you could point me in the direction of the nearest Fed outpost.’
Dakaniha stared at the stranger’s long, thin limbs and grey skin. He had seen the same colour on British soldiers who had been blown up by powder kegs.
‘I’m not sure where we are,’ Dakaniha replied. ‘We’re searching for the silver gates.’
‘Silver gates?’ Ethan looked up. ‘What in hell’s name are you talkin’ about?’
‘Our chief–’
Kastor hopped up to join them. ‘They’re all dead or gone!’ he pointed at the scattering of dead wolves.
‘You’re wounded.’ Dakaniha pointed to a cut on Kastor’s knee that dripped blood onto the smooth rock.
‘Oh, it’s nothing – just a scratch,’ Kastor said.
‘Osayimwese?’ Dakaniha asked.
‘He’s fine.’ Kastor wrinkled his nose. ‘He’s not bad with a spear, you know.’
Gal-qadan and the rest of the group descended the scree fall to join them on the rocky platform.
‘That was an impressive fight,’ a bearded swordsman said, nodding and smiling. ‘Good work!’
Kastor tilted his head. ‘Next time we’ll charge a fee.’
‘This is Ethan Turner.’ Dakaniha felt obliged to introduce the newcomer. ‘He is the man who killed the eagle.’
Ethan pulled the cap on his hat down further and mumbled, ‘Damned light burns my eyes.’
Gal-qadan mumbled, ‘He can join us.’
‘I prefer to work alone,’ Ethan kept his head low, trying to avoid eye contact, ‘but if you guys are heading to the nearest outpost I could tag along.’
‘There are no outposts here,’ Dakaniha said.
‘Okay then.’ Ethan sighed and stood to his full height. At nearly two metres tall, he towered over the men around him. ‘I’ve never heard of no silver gates, but if you’re heading my way I could use some company.’
Gal-qadan remained on the rock and took in the group that were now under his command. Ethan’s rifle was a worthy addition, he thought, and he weighed up the men as they shared rations and stories. While he thought, Gal-qadan rubbed a spot of Kastor’s blood into the rock with the tip of his bow. The curves and shapes in the rock seemed familiar and he bent down to take a closer look. A line of a leg here, a head there and an eye. Horses? he thought, and his gaze flicked to another drip of blood, which had been absorbed into the rock near what looked like a horse’s fetlock.
It twitched.
Gal-qadan gasped and looked at his battalion. No one had noticed and they continued their buzz of chatter. He took a step back and scanned the fossils beneath his feet: horse-like creatures lay in various death poses within the dark stone, with hooves and long legs at odd angles.
If a drop of blood gave life to one muscle?
‘Tode,’ Gal-qadan snapped. ‘Order the men to forage for food. Send some for fresh water.’
‘Yes, Khan,’ Tode replied and started ordering the men into groups.
Before they moved out of sight into the forest, Gal-qadan whittled down his options. He could provide more blood himself or… he weighed up his men’s weapons and usefulness. One man stood aloof from the group. He could be sacrificed.
‘I need that man for another job,’ Gal-qadan said and Tode beckoned the soldier over.
The Mayan blinked and stayed silent beside Gal-qadan as he waited for Tode and the others to move further into the forest.
‘We need soldiers,’ Gal-qadan said, ‘but we need horses more. Can you ride?’
The Mayan looked blank. ‘I don’t know what horses are, I…’
Gal-qadan held a hand up to silence him and unclipped his dagger, but the Mayan had noticed and drew his weapon in response.
‘Look.’ Gal-qadan pointed to the forest to distract him and swiped at the Mayan, but he was too fast and countered the attack.
Gal-qadan cursed himself for not attacking sooner and raised his arm to defend against the Mayan, who had swung his axe. Gal-qadan dodged and swiped with his knife, but the Mayan’s handle was longer, giving him a greater reach. Incensed, Gal-qadan rushed and took the Mayan by surprise, tackling him to the ground, but Gal-qadan fell awkwardly and the Mayan had room to swing his weapon, which came crashing down. Gal-qadan held an arm up in defence and watched in disbelief as the razor-sharp stone axe bounced off his forearm with a shower of sparks.
The Mayan stumbled back in confusion and swung again. Gal-qadan defended and the sparks flew again. His skin was as tough as metal! A new energy surged through Gal-qadan. They grappled on the rock ledge, but Gal-qadan felt invincible now and the fight slowly turned in his favour. Blades clashed and sparks leapt around them until Gal-qadan saw an opening and took it. With a flash of steel, Gal-qadan painted a red line across the soldier’s throat and blood cascaded down his chest, splashing maroon dots onto the rock. The Mayan gurgled and grabbed at his opened throat as Gal-qadan struck again, slicing at his arm and then his calf, sending the Mayan crashing to the ground.
The dying warrior eventually stopped convulsing, yet the blood poured from his opened veins, pooling in the crevasses and curves scattered across the rock. Gal-qadan gave a rare smile, and scanned the forest. Nobody was in sight, so he threw the Mayan’s weapon into a pile of rocks and rolled the body over, spreading blood on more dry rock. Shapes jolted beneath his feet as Gal-qadan set to work, hacking away and distributing limbs to dry areas.
When he had covered most of the fossilised mass, Gal-qadan climbed up the cliff to watch the rock come to life. A curve of leg vibrated here and a circle blinked there, followed by spasms and mini-earthquakes which shook the dust and crumbled the stone. A sound could be heard, muffled at first but becoming clearer: tock, tock, tock-a-tock. Stones were shaking free from the rumbling mass and small boulders rolled onto the grassy floor. Then a leg broke free from its stone prison, clawing at thin air. Stones rolled, shaken by equine heads rising out of the dust and hindquarters struggling with wild kicks.
Gal-qadan listened to the animal’s sound. Tocka, tocka, tock-tock. He pictured hooves clashing against the rocks but a head broke free and he saw a large set of sharpened incisors gnashing together: tocka, tocka.
‘Steady!’ Gal-qadan shouted as the beast flung its head about: its wild eyes staring about in fear.
The animal chomped in panic, shaking a foreleg free, then the other. It was clear by their teeth that these horses were not grass eaters. These will be better than any steppe horse, Gal-qadan thought, and found his cheeks aching from his wide grin. His breathing sped up with the excitement and turned into a deep laugh.
‘Run free!’ he shouted.
With a deep crack, the ledge gave way and crashed onto the grass below. Gal-qadan caught glimpses of heads and legs, wild eyes and teeth, but the dust billowed up, masking the host of freed beasts who screamed and chomped in exultation. When the cloud settled, the grass was covered with nothing more than grey stones and cracked boulders, covering what was left of the Mayan’s body.
Gal-qadan scanned the forest but the only movement he saw were his men returning to the cliff, drawn back by the sound of the landslide.
‘What happened?’ Tode asked after sprinting back with Kastor and Dakaniha.
‘The horses were in the rocks,’ Gal-qadan replied. ‘The man with me died in the rockslide when they broke free.’
He watched the men’s face to see if they believed the lie, then clambered down the rocks to the grass floor and kept alert.
‘There!’ Gal-qadan pointed to their left flank, where sounds echoed through the forest: crashing branches and running hooves.
Time to break them in, Gal-qadan thought, and pulled a rope free from his belt.
‘Tocka!’ he shouted. ‘To-cka, to-cka!’ He tied a lasso and swung it through the air. Here they come; he could hear the hooves getting nearer. ‘Tock-a, tock-a!’
Then the sound stopped.
Strange how the floor still rumbled, Gal-qadan thought. Then, with a flash of white, the herd rushed out of the forest with eyes of tigers and teeth of sharks. Gal-qadan stood his ground and released his lasso but it failed to snare a head. A bite caught him on the shoulder, slicing into his armour, but it slipped off his toughened skin.
As soon as they came, they disappeared.
‘Amazing!’ Gal-qadan staggered backwards.
The equine predators wheeled around and sped in for another attack. Gal-qadan braced himself, refusing to unsheathe a weapon. He heard yelling behind but focused on the wild animals rushing at him: jostling and barging one another to be in the lead.
Then something changed – he sensed it in the animals’ eyes. Their expressions softened and the front runners braked hard, digging their strong hooves into the grassy earth. A tsunami of dirt billowed up as the herd came to a sliding stop.
‘They obey me!’ Gal-qadan said, his eyes wide with excitement.
‘No.’ Kastor was standing behind him. ‘They obey me.’
‘But, I must break them.’ Gal-qadan felt anger rise and his right hand twitch for his sword.
‘They won’t be broken,’ Kastor replied. ‘They are equals and have the right to choose. These… tocka, will not be led.’
‘Tocka?’ Gal-qadan breathed deeply and weighed up his options. He could kill Kastor for insubordination. He wouldn’t allow this kind of arrogant behaviour in his army.
One of the taller equines, some sixteen hands high, stepped forward and offered its muzzle to Kastor. Gal-qadan took a deep breath and controlled his ego. He still held power. If he ruled the Spartan, he ruled the beasts. Without the Spartan, he would have no horses.
‘Will they carry men?’ Gal-qadan asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ the Spartan said as he patted the soft muzzle and grinned, ‘but we can ask them.’
Two hours later, Gal-qadan’s troop rode through the last stretch of forest on their steeds and found themselves at the shore of an enormous waterway. Gal-qadan studied the detritus left along the sandy beach: vines, sea bladders and lumps of wood.
Tode joined Gal-qadan after scouting the beach. ‘There was a battle here. Craters suggest gunpowder, and there are bodies of giant insects.’
Gal-qadan nodded and more men joined them.
‘What will we do?’ Dakaniha asked.
Gal-qadan glowered at him and clenched his fist. These men asked much of him and it made him feel… trapped. He paused to let his anger slide and noted how easier it had become in the past few days. It was true what Tode had said: Dakaniha was an accomplished rider. He could be useful.
Scanning down the beach, Gal-qadan saw a group of a dozen men in red coats dragging wood onto the beach. If they were heading across the water, and the mess on the beach suggested others had built rafts, it left him no option.
‘Gather your belongings and make them waterproof,’ Gal-qadan spoke slowly. ‘Tie the bladders to your weapons. The tocka will take us.’ He nodded to the water.
‘What?’ Kastor shouted. ‘You don’t even know if they can swim.’
Gal-qadan shrugged. ‘Ask them.’
General Panzicosta watched Millok’s sleek, grey body descend the watchtower ladder and felt stirrings beneath his carapace. They didn’t have the domed halls of sex slaves here, so Panzicosta’s sexual frustration had built up since settling in Abzicrutia. The only way he had found to reduce tension was to inflict pain on others. The power he had over his captives was addictive. With it he could incite fear – he chose when to cause pain and when a creature would die. If the torture helped the Brakari cause then it was a bonus.
‘General Panzicosta.’ Millok bowed and her new stripes flashed.
‘Your leg is still weak.’ Panzicosta had only seen the leg wobble once, but could tell by Millok’s open spiracles that maintaining the illusion of fitness was tiring her.
‘Yes, General, but growing stronger by the hour,’ she replied.
An answer for everything, Panzicosta thought. ‘Good, we need every soldier fighting fit for the forthcoming battle. Now,’ he raised his body up and stalked over to the barrack gates, ‘we have much to discuss. Good and bad.’ He walked on, expecting Millok to follow him.
They left the barracks, past the makeshift huts leaning against the mud-brick walls of the city.
‘If you haven’t already heard,’ Panzicosta kept his voice low, ‘three of the seventeen scouting parties have not reported back.’ He waited for a response, eager to know how fast the gossip was travelling through the army.
‘I have heard rumours, General,’ Millok replied, keeping her head low.
‘Where?’ Panzicosta stopped and loomed over the female.
‘In the watchtower.’
With a snort, Panzicosta resumed his walk. ‘Belsang put it down to communication issues. But three? We must be under attack.’ The General stretched his long blue back to crack a shell in place. ‘I say we weaken them, but Belsang wants them in large numbers for our great victory.’
‘A risky strategy.’ Millok spoke softly.
‘Yes.’ Panzicosta decided not to chastise her for speaking openly: she was here to help and provide a sounding board for his thoughts. ‘Victory will be ours, but at what cost?’
Perimeter guards were approaching, so Panzicosta remained silent.
‘General. Captain.’ The pair of young Brakari crouched between huts to let them pass.
Panzicosta noticed Millok inhale as they passed.
‘Of the remaining scouts,’ Panzicosta continued, ‘fifteen report nothing… but two have seen separate groups of humans making their way across the plains.’
Millok slowed her stride for a second. ‘There are more of them?’ She skipped to catch up.
‘Not in great numbers, but I fear we may have underestimated their capacity to evolve and survive.’ Panzicosta saw the mud-brick holding cells up ahead and felt a tingle run through his pincers. ‘We should take the fight to them before they create alliances with any surviving species.’
Panzicosta felt distracted by the stench of unwashed vertebrates and their faeces. They passed the first cell , which had been built to form a box with no lid. Inside, three starved and beaten Sorean soldiers whimpered and slept , their fur and muzzles burnt and torn. In the next cell, whose windowless walls were high enough to trap their captives but low enough for Panzicosta to retrieve them, two red , twisted and tentacled creatures lay in their own mess. One wasn’t moving, so Panzicosta halted and sniffed. ‘Krotank!’ he bellowed.
A bulky and scarred Brakari scurried out of a doorway down the path. ‘Yes, General!’
‘Why is this creature dead?’ Panzicosta barked.
‘It was alive this morning, General, I checked – ’
Panzicosta thumped Krotank with a thick, spring-loaded pincer, flinging him back onto his shell. ‘I decide when they die, do you understand?’
‘Yes, General!’ Krotank wriggled to right himself. ‘It won’t happen again.’
‘You are right it won’t happen again,’ Panzicosta hissed , ‘ or you’ll have a cell of your own.’ Panzicosta snorted and retracted his thumping pincer. ‘Go!’ he shouted and turned to check Millok was still behind him. ‘This will not be tolerated.’
He con tinued past the remaining cells to a building capped with a thick, wooden roof. ‘The good news is I have heard from the Draytor . ’ He punched the door open and a thick waft of foul air drifted out. ‘The Draytor is close to capturing a human soldier. So,’ Panzicosta gestured for Millok to enter the dark and damp building, ‘we must prepare for their visit.’
Inside, it took a second for Panzicosta’s variety of eyes to adjust to the low light. The slicing blades, rusted manacles and holding tables came into view , alongside pails of blood, lumps of fur and long- lost limbs.