the public house's backrooms carrying a large rifle case. For a moment, he reminded Aelfraed of an American Roaring Twenties gangster.
"I'm on it," he said as he placed the case on a table. With him was Maggie King. Differel had hired her six months ago, ostensibly to be her lady's maid, but actually she was training her to be her double. She did bear a remarkable resemble to their mistress, almost mirror-perfect, but her hair was brassy blonde and her eyes sky-blue, and she had a more pronounced bosom.
Not that he paid attention to those sorts of things.
"I'd like to come, too," she announced. Holt appeared to ignore her, but Mrs. Widget gave her a concerned stare.
"My Dear," he replied, "we appreciate your loyalty, but you haven't completed your training yet, and there will be considerable danger."
She gave him a determined look. Another way in which she was exactly like Differel was that she was very strong-willed. "She saved my life, Aelfraed. If there's anything I can do to help, I have to try."
"We could use her help," Holt remarked.
He smiled. "Of course, we completely understand. Would you give her a hand, Helena?"
Mrs. Widget removed a British Army L92A1 submachine gun and handed to her along with a 100-round Beta C-Mag drum magazine.
Meanwhile, Holt removed a British Army L82A1 anti-material sniper rifle from the case. At nearly five long and weighing over thirty pounds, with a recoil like the kick from an angry mule, he was probably the only Order operative who could handle a monster like that, aside from the late Vlad. It was based on the American Barrett M82 and was designed to be used against unarmoured or lightly armoured vehicles, crew-served weapons, ammunition dumps, and fuel depots, though the Order found it worked well against monsters that could shrug off less powerful guns. He selected a clip of Raufoss Mk 211 rounds and inserted it into the breech before slinging it over his shoulder. He also packed four more magazines into his coat pockets. The Raufoss .50 caliber ammunition was as powerful as a 20mm cannon shell. They were themselves a form of miniature shell, containing high explosives, an incendiary mix, and an armour-piercing tungsten penetrator. Short of an anti-tank rocket, the rifle with those bullets was probably the only hand-held weapon that could destroy a Cat From Mars.
"Mr. Cummings," Holt called as he removed a transponder and slipped it into his pants pocket. A corporal carrying a British Army L85A2 assault rifle came out of the backroom.
Holt handed him a GPS-equipped tracking device. "Round up the other snipers and proceed to Sir Differel's location. From there you should be able to track us."
"Yes, Sergeant." He hurried out of the pub as Mrs. Widget and Miss King put on their parkas.
All three of them looked at Aelfraed. "We're ready to go when you are," Holt said.
He smiled and nodded. Regular soldiers might disparage them as mere household staff, but he would test their metal against seasoned, battle-hardened troops any day.
"Go on ahead, I'll just get my coat."
Differel awoke slowly. She groaned; she had a splitting headache from hitting her skull, but it faded as she became more lucid. She tried to move but couldn't. She realized she was standing upright, but not under her own power. It felt more like she hung suspended, being as she seemed to be leaning forward.
She opened her eyes. At first she couldn't see anything and thought the blow had blinded her. Then she perceived a faint glow from webbing hanging off the walls. As her sight adjusted to the low light she looked around. The walls were stone and rough-hewn, like the inside of a cave. The she realized the passage was too straight, it had a roughly square cross section, and a flattened and smoothed floor.
A tunnel perhaps, or a mine shaft.
Seeing the series of wooden cross-braces retreating into the distance seemed to confirm the latter hypothesis. She remembered from her research that Exmoor had been a center for copper and iron mining going all the back to the Neolithic.
It felt like her arms were raised over her head and spread apart. Looking up and to either side she saw she was hanging from a cross-brace. Thin ropes were tied to her wrists and looped around her arms and the top of the brace through gaps between the wooden beam and the ceiling. The rope looked like it was made from the same material as the webbing, except it was a single braided cord. She pulled on it, but while her body swayed in the harness, the line didn't stretch. She fingered it with one hand; it felt like steel wire. Looking down, she saw her feet were tied to the bases of the two upright support beams.
Have I become part of its larder?
Then she saw it. "Oh, bollocks."
On the ground three feet in front of her stood a mass eighteen inches high that resembled an insect egg case. Except it held only one individual, a miniature version of the Martian cat the size of a house feline.
I'm to be its first meal when it hatches.
From "The Golden Mushroom"
By that time they had reached the spot indicated on the map. It was a boggy hollow, in area a little larger than a baseball field. Pools of debris and silt-filled water lay interspersed by mounds and ridges of soggy earth. The trees were small and thinner there, and more widely scattered, but the only other vegetation were thick mats of a ground-hugging herb.
Shadow sat on a rock waiting for them as she gazed into the hollow. The long, lean, smoky-gray cat looked up at them with her mint-green eyes as they came abreast of her. "This may be a little more difficult."
To Eile she sounded smugly satisfied. "What do you think?" she asked Sunny.
"It doesn't look too bad." But there was a hint of uncertainty in her tone. Eile couldn't blame her. While it wasn't going to be as easy as the other items, it looked simple enough: avoid the pools, stay on the land, and hope it was solid enough to support them. But it would make searching for the gilded toadstool all the more difficult.
"If only we knew where to look," Sunny added in frustration.
As if her words were a prayer, a shaft of sunlight dropped out of a break in the clouds and fell on the central mound. At its center an object winked and twinkled with a distinctive metallic sheen.
Though stunned, Eile felt suspicious too. "Alright, now that was just too convenient."
"Yeah, but what choice do we have?"
Sunny sounded nervous, but she was right. "None." She placed the pack on the ground. "You go first. Use yer bow ta test the ground ahead, make sure it's firm." She unsheathed her sword and held it at the ready. "I'll watch our backs. Okay?"
"Okay, partner!" She grinned, excitement shining in her eyes. "Team Girl laughs in the face of death as we brave the dangers of the bog of doom! Ha-ha-ha!"
Eile grimaced and pressed the fingers of her left hand into her forehead. "Just...be careful where you step, will ya? Shadow, you stay here."
"I'll be sure to tell Mayv where to scatter the flowers."
She gave the cat a dirty look. "Thanks a bunch."
"Don't mention it."
Sunny made her way to the closest ridge and started out over it, probing the earth with her bow before she took each step. Eile made sure she stepped into Sunny's footprints. At first the ground seemed quite firm, but after a couple of yards Sunny started to sink. For a moment her heart seized up as she expected Sunny to be sucked down out of sight, but she only sank to her ankles. The ground was getting softer, but the vegetation seemed able to hold it together.
"Ick!" Sunny squealed as she extracted her foot.
"Keep moving!" She sank as well, but fortunately no deeper despite her armor. Apparently the herb mat was strong enough to bear their weight without breaking.
Sunny took another step. "I hope I tied the laces tight enough. I don't want to be stuck out here without boots."
After nearly twelve Dream-months, Eile had gotten pretty good at estimating the passage of time without a watch. It was sort of like dead reckoning. By her calculation, it took them a total of forty-five minutes to reach the central mound. It was a nerve-wracking trip; with each step, she expected them to stumble into q
uicksand or fall through an unsuspected dirt bridge and sink into a deep bog hole. But they made it safely, and she figured the journey back would be faster.
Sunny lifted her skirt and examined her feet. They were covered in muck half-way up her shins. "Ugh. I'm gonna need to get new shoes after this." She then dropped the hem and looked around, while Eile looked with her.
The mound was no different from any of the others, except larger. It was covered by an herb mat, but in its center stood the Golden Mushroom. It resembled its name exactly: a standard toadstool stalk and cap, but metallic gold in color. In fact, it looked like it was made of real gold.
"Here." Sunny held out her bow, and she took it.
"We'll take the same route back." She watched Sunny put on her gloves and go up to the fungus.
"Right." She spoke in an absentminded fashion as she knelt down.
In the same moment, Eile felt something strange in the woods around them. The hairs on the nape of neck stood up as her skin crawled and turned to goose flesh. Raising her sword, she turned around in all directions, trying to identify it, but she saw nothing. But she heard it: muffled thunderclaps like the stamping of huge feet. Then she felt the ground tremble with the concussion shock. Something was coming, something huge, but she couldn't pinpoint from where.
She looked back at Sunny. She had heard and felt it too, and she stood slowly as she looked
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