The sudden realisation of what he had done struck him, and he ducked back into cover.
But it was too late. The procession came to a sudden halt. A heavy silence descended over the scene, with each of the drones standing motionless as though all life had suddenly been drawn from them.
He was barely ten metres from the nearest figures, close enough to see the trails of light playing out over their bodies.
Slowly, he raised his rifle up from his side.
As though sensing his movement, the queen turned her blank gaze upon him.
Her stare was utterly empty, as though she somehow inhabited a different reality. And suddenly the thought came to Ryann that she was the mask — that there was no face behind it, and that thought scared him more than anything.
Ryann’s heart was in his mouth as he charged his rifle, ready for any sign of sudden movement.
And then slowly, the queen raised an emaciated hand. She pointed a slender finger directly towards him and a sound like a breath of wind emanated from between the golden lips of her mask. The wind quickly rose in intensity, louder and louder — a screech of a storm upon which a thousand voices seemed to cry out in fear and anguish.
Ryann felt his body buffeted by the force of the blast as it tore through the shaft and he staggered backwards.
And then, beside the queen a darkness seemed to form, like some cloud of ash, swirling violently as it coalesced into the unmistakable silhouette of a man.
“This way! This way quick!”
Ryann spun around in terror, his gun held out in front of him.
He found himself face to face with the pale woman who had signalled him.
“Please! He’s coming! She’s calling for him! We have to go now!”
Ryann thought that his mind would collapse under the weight of events. The masked queen was rising to her feet now, her corpse-like hand outstretched as though she were trying to tear at Ryann’s flesh. He could see the dark air streaming from the mouth of her golden mask, flowing into the swirling darkness, imbuing the figure with solidity.
The man within the cloud was almost fully-formed now; where the wind had momentarily before whipped through him, now it swirled around, tearing at his dark clothes.
“Come on!” pleaded the pale woman in desperation. The deafening sound of the queen’s cry was almost too much to bear, and without thinking Ryann found himself turning and following the woman, fleeing for his life.
She led him straight back into the wreckage, squeezing deftly between the tangle of metal. Encumbered by his flight-suit, Ryann found it difficult to follow her, but he pushed on, desperate to get away from the nightmarish scene.
With some scrambling he managed to make it through and found himself on the other side of the walkway.
For a moment, there was no sign of the pale woman, and he looked around in confusion. And then, to his relief, he spied three short flashes of her light as she peered around the corner of a narrow corridor some distance off in the shadows.
Ryann set off at a sprint as the sound of the storm grew ever louder at his back.
He made it to the corridor where the woman waited, and turned around for a last glimpse of the queen and her following.
She stood at her throne, staring straight into Ryann. As he looked on, the howl of the storm ceased instantly, leaving behind a terrible void.
The shadowed figure beside her was fully-formed now. He dwarfed the others, and was dressed in some unfamiliar black uniform. His face was pale and gaunt, giving him the appearance of a dead thing, with black, lifeless eyes that conveyed only cruel indifference. A long scar, vivid against his pale flesh, ran down his right cheek.
At the sight of the figure, Ryann found himself utterly overwhelmed by his fear. All he wanted to do was run, but he was paralysed, rooted to the spot.
And then the figure spoke, and it was as though the rasping voice made no audible sound, but instead formed itself within Ryann’s head.
“Who are you? Why are you here?”
The words were like a whisper of breath from a grave, but Ryann’s legs almost buckled under their intensity. He struggled to form a thought, as though he were inhabiting some strange nightmare.
“Ryann Wade.”
The words fell from Ryann’s mouth of their own volition, drawn out against his will.
The shock of hearing his own voice gave Ryann an instant in which he was back in the present — the physical world. With all his effort he tried to force himself into action but it was no use, it was as though his body was no longer his own. In desperation, he focussed all his concentration upon the gun in his hand and somehow he willed himself to pull the trigger.
The retort of his rifle shook him out of his paralysis. The shot streaked across the open space and impacted into the wall some way off its target. But it was enough to release him. He turned and fled down the corridor not caring where he went as the entire nightmarish procession howled its fury at his back.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A LIGHT LOST IN THE SHADOWS
“Thanks for helping me out back there,” gasped Ryann at last. “I’m Ryann by the way.”
They had been running for ages now, charging recklessly along unlit corridors until the howl of the queen had finally receded into a deathly stillness. The pale woman had eventually come to a halt, and now Ryann was slumped upon the floor with his back against a fallen girder trying hard to catch his breath.
He looked around in silent wonder. They had come out into a high-ceilinged hangar that stretched off far into the distance. The walls gave off
