Read Online A Whisper of Southern Lights by Tim Lebbon - Free Book Online Page A

unbelievable.
    “I won’t,” I said.
    “One glance, soldier boy, and all this death will seem like child’s play.” I looked, only for a second, and somehow I kept my eyes away from his hand. It was shimmering there—something was moving—but I tore my gaze away, turned and ran into the jungle.
    I looked back just once, in time to see Gabriel kneel, swing his arm around and throw his knife in one fluid movement. It struck Temple in the face, and I heard the crunch of breaking bone. He fell to his knees. I slowed, then stopped.
    Gabriel turned and glared at me, blood pouring from his eye. “Run!” he shouted.
    Behind him, Temple stood.
    I ran.

Twelve
    I HEARD THE FIGHT BEGINNING. I did not hear it end. As I ran, I heard the screams, the battle cries, the snap of breaking bones and the animal grunts of unarmed combat. It faded the further I ran, and when I came across the small river where we had been ambushed, the sound of running water carried the fight away.
    I made my way through the water, pausing for a quick drink. My heart was hammering. This was unreal, yet it felt so immediate. My skin tingled, my hair stood on end, and I ignored my tiredness and forged ahead.
    I found the place where I had hunkered down as Meloy lobbed grenades toward the Japanese. The jungle echoed with the ghost sounds of gunfire and screams, and skeins of smoke seemed to drift between leaves, touching branches and blooms with their rank fingers. I moved a few steps, and the scene moved into the past once more; just one small shift of perspective changed everything. I listened for the sounds of Gabriel and Temple fighting, but there was nothing. Perhaps I had gone too far.
    Trying to remember where Davey had emerged from the jungle after the battle, I climbed a small hill. Where bushes grew high I crawled beneath them, and where they hugged the ground I shoved ferns and branches aside, looking around for the marker I knew Davey would have left on Mad Meloy’s grave. He’d been a religious man, and he would not have buried his friend and left no sign.
    I was terrified, and excited, and thrilled to be away from the Japanese. Even the war felt more distant than it had for the last three years. I’d been in France, plucked from the beach at Dunkirk, trained in Southern England and then shipped out here, and in all that time, I had never felt so remote from the world as I did right then. It was as if I was on another path, a road travelled by Gabriel and his demon, parallel to our own and yet barely troubled by reality.
    “Being used,” I whispered. “That’s me. Just being used.”
    Something moved behind me. I dropped to the ground and twisted around, watching a fern wave to a standstill. There was no breeze, no movement. Insects buzzed and a bird cawed somewhere above me, unconcerned at whatever might be hiding out there.
    I hurried on, still climbing the shallow hill. I came across a couple of dead Japanese and walked between them, pausing to pluck a bayonet from one of their belts. I discarded the small kitchen knives I’d brought along with me, amazed that I’d thought they could help. It felt good to be carrying a proper weapon again.
    In the distance, a scream.
    I paused, ducked down, and through a tangle of roots and stems I saw a rough marker stuck in the ground a dozen steps away. It was the shovel that had been used to dig the grave, stuck in the ground, handle broken. “There,” I said. I crawled, twisting my way through the undergrowth.
    It was a shallow grave dug in the frenzy of post-battle confusion. I reached across, clawed my hand and pulled back a tangle of dried roots and mud, exposing the tip of an army boot.
    “Hi, Meloy,” I said. “So, what are you hiding in there?”
    “Sykes!”
    I screamed. I couldn’t help it. I must have been so tightly wound that hearing my name hissed from the undergrowth caused me to vent my tension. The scream was short and abrupt, accompanied by the tripling of my heart rate. I