‘Are they lying low?’ Hunter’s face had a strange expression that Hal couldn’t quite read.
‘They don’t realise that we’re aware of them,’ the General replied, ‘let alone searching for them. They should be relatively easy to locate. Our last reconnaissance placed them somewhere in the vicinity of Sparkford in Somerset. It appears they’re searching for something, though without much luck so far.’
‘Can we use the chopper?’
Hal flinched at Hunter’s request. With no new fuel being produced, vehicle use was rarely sanctioned, but the General acceded without hesitation. Hunter winked at Hal.
‘Get them back here as quickly as you can. Get them back in a state we can use,’ the General said firmly. ‘And don’t come back empty-handed.’
Outside Magdalen’s main college buildings, Hal waited for Hunter in St John’s Quadrangle, in the shadow of the porter’s lodge. Hunter had stayed behind after the General’s departure to brief his men, which Hal knew usually meant threatening them with genital removal in the event of failure. Hunter called it motivational therapy; Hal wasn’t wholly sure it was a joke.
‘I’ve got a funny feeling about the way things are going at the moment,’ Hal said when Hunter emerged.
For once, Hunter’s response wasn’t glib. ‘We’re at a turning point, no mistaking.’ He forced a grin. ‘Let’s hope the leadership are up to what’s expected of them.’
‘You don’t have much time for anyone, do you?’
‘Not really. That way you never feel let down.’ He cracked his knuckles uneasily. ‘I can’t get this damned REM song out of my head.’
‘The one about the end of the world?’
‘You’d think, wouldn’t you? No, another one, an older one.’
Hunter paused as Samantha emerged from the buildings that housed the staff living quarters. She’d showered after her run and her hair was still damp. Her face lit up with an open smile when she saw Hal, but became instantly guarded when her eyes fell on Hunter.
‘Hmm. Fresh and squeaky clean,’ he said as she approached.
Samantha’s eyes flashed. ‘I gather you’re about to depart on an extremely dangerous, possibly lethal mission. Don’t hang around here on my behalf.’
‘Samantha, you’re the reason I’ll be back. You give my life meaning.’ He winked at Hal. ‘See you, mate. Put the champagne on ice.’
Samantha watched until Hunter had disappeared from view, and then turned to Hal and said, ‘He gives sleazy a bad name.’
‘You know you like him really,’ Hal joked and was surprised by Samantha’s indignation.
‘How can you say that?’ Her tone was unduly sharp.
‘I was just-’
‘Well, don’t.’ She softened. ‘Listen, have you heard the latest gossip?’ Hal allowed himself to be dragged conspiratorially into an alcove. ‘The security forces have captured a god.’
‘What?’ Hal said, suddenly uneasy, although he didn’t quite know why. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘It’s true. They used some super-secret weapon, apparently. Anyway, he’s been brought in for interrogation-’
‘Brought here? Is that wise?’
Samantha looked at him, puzzled.
‘I know we’ve got secure cells-’
‘They’re already holding some powerful things down there,’ Samantha said.
‘I know. But not a god. How can they contain a power like that?’
‘He’s not a real god-’
‘You know what they did to London. Besides, even if we could hold it, that’s got to attract the attention of all its kind. Do we really want all that coming down on our heads?’
A flicker of disappointment crossed Samantha’s face. It stung Hal harder than he would have expected. ‘We’re at war, Hal,’ she said gently. ‘We have to take risks, for the sake of everyone.’ She gave his arm a reassuring squeeze, as if he was scared for his own safety. ‘Don’t worry. If I hear any more I’ll let you know.’ She flashed him a smile and headed towards the refectory for a late-night meal.
Hal stood in the silent quadrangle for a long moment, turning over what she had said. He wished Hunter was still around; he needed to discuss it with someone. It was too big to deal with himself. But there was no one else and, with a mounting sense of disquiet, he headed out into the night.
After everything that had happened that evening, Hal felt distinctly out of sorts. Glenning’s death had shaken him profoundly, and the random numerical manifestations of five minus one still haunted him. He tried to pretend that his mind had only noticed the similar numbers because it was already troubled, but he couldn’t shake an overwhelming feeling that it meant something, although he couldn’t begin to divine what.
Yet he found no ease in the moon-shadows of the Deer Park. The night was too hot and appeared to be growing warmer by the minute; his sweat-sodden shirt clung to his back. But it wasn’t the temperature that continued to turn the screw on his psyche. With mounting disorientation, he looked around at the cityscape visible beyond the ancient rooftops. It was like looking at the city through a heat haze: a transparent curtain of shimmering sapphire light rippled back and forth, and through it Oxford appeared transformed. The medieval buildings and their modern counterparts merged and flowed into more fantastic structures: towers reached up into the night, some constructed from gleaming blue-white stone, others seemingly of brass and gold; lofty-roofed halls and gargoyle-riven battlements; arching bridges; steeples and spires and domes.
The illusion came and went with every eye-blink, fantasy and reality, reality and fantasy, so that in the end he couldn’t tell on which side of the line he stood. With it came a tingling in his fingers and toes, energy drawn from the ground itself, curling up his spine like the snake that slithered across Hunter’s back. Hal’s breath was taken away with wonder, while his rational mind ran wild in search of understanding.
Yet he was distracted after only a few seconds by a figure emerging from the haze as if it was slowly gaining solidity from a phantom existence. It was a giant of a man at least eight feet tall. His long black hair and beard and the dark coals of his eyes reminded Hal oddly of the disfigured tramp he had seen earlier that evening. Though his height was daunting, it was the man’s clothes that instantly set him apart. He wore a rough brown shift fastened at the waist by a broad belt. His left forearm was bound with a thong, from which several malicious-looking hooks gleamed.
Hal thought it prudent to retreat to the safety of the buildings as quickly as possible, but was sickened to discover that his legs wouldn’t obey his thoughts. Yet despite the stranger’s foreboding appearance, Hal felt no sense of threat. Instead, it was almost as if he was in a dream, watching the scene through someone else’s eyes.
‘I have searched for you across the worlds, for time upon time upon time,’ the giant began, ‘and now I find myself summoned to the place where you stand. Existence weaves a pattern that none of us can see.’
‘Who are you?’ Hal asked. The taste of iron filings numbed his mouth.
‘I am the Caretaker. I am the lamplighter. In the darkest of the dark, I ensure that a single flame burns. In the midst of chaos, I ensure that the home is kept safe and secure.’
Something supernatural, Hal’s sluggish brain thought. One of the gods?
‘Are you causing all this?’ Hal gestured towards the shimmering phantom city that kept overlaying itself on the Oxford skyline.
‘No. But it is serendipitous.’
Slowly, the Caretaker’s words wormed their way into Hal’s consciousness. ‘You’re looking for me?’
‘I come with a warning of greatest import: something has noticed you.’
‘What?’ Hal’s mind fumbled for meaning.
The Caretaker raised one huge hand and pointed up to the sprinkling of stars. ‘Out there, on the edge of Existence. It has seen you… and it is coming.’
Hal stared dumbly into the deep black depths of space. ‘What’s coming?’
; The blue haze began to fade and the true outline of Oxford started to emerge into sharp relief once more. When Hal looked back at the Caretaker, the giant had retreated several paces, though Hal had not been aware of him walking away.
‘It will be here soon now… very soon,’ the Caretaker continued in a low, echoing voice. ‘It may even be here already. You must be prepared. The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons must be united. But know this: one of the Five has already fallen. And without the correct number their effectiveness is dimmed.’ He stared towards the few lamps still burning in the windows of Magdalen. ‘There is little hope. Soon even the last light may be extinguished. And then my job shall be done.’
The Caretaker continued to fade, drifting across the grass, becoming more insubstantial the further from Hal he got.
‘War…’ The giant’s words were breaking up. ‘There will come an ending.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ Hal called.
The Caretaker’s response was lost to the night breeze. A second later, he vanished and the blue haze along with him. Reality was hard and fast all around. But inside Hal the dread that had been mounting all night had now crystallised.
He had been noticed. And something was coming.
Chapter Two
The Call Of Ancient days
‘ The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.’
Karl Marx
‘Give us the sword.’
The skinhead wore a fixed, dead stare, but it was the shotgun the thug was pointing casually that held Mallory’s attention. In the distance, smoke from the burning village clouded the blue sky.
‘It’s not very fair, is it?’ Mallory said. ‘Sword… shotgun…’
‘You should have thought of that when you were choosing your weapon.’ The skinhead let out a gurgling laugh, then looked around at his gang as if he had said something clever. The gang clustered closer, smelling blood.
Physically, Mallory and the thug couldn’t have been more different: Mallory, with his shoulder-length brown hair and calm, intelligent eyes; the skinhead, clearly unintelligent, his arms a mass of tattoos — the flag of St George, a skull and crossbones, the names of girls who had long since faded from his memory. But Mallory’s attention was drawn by the one thing he shared with his opponent: a uniform. Mallory still wore his distinctive Knight Templar garb of a black shirt with the red Templar cross against a white square on the breast and right shoulder. The skinhead’s black shirt had a large red ‘V’ running from shoulders to waist.
‘What is that?’ Mallory said, nodding at the T-shirt. ‘I’m seeing it all over.’ And the insignia wasn’t just on the clothing of the gang members who were increasingly visible around the countryside; it was also painted on walls, abandoned cars, doors — graffiti with an odd air of menace.
‘He’s killing time,’ one of the other gang members said. ‘Just kill him instead.’ More laughter ensued, but Mallory’s calm in the face of his impending death was clearly destabilising the group.
A strange expression briefly obscured the brutality in the skinhead’s face; Mallory decided it was almost like awe. ‘We’re followers of the Lost One,’ the thug said. The others grew sombre, nodding in agreement.
Mallory considered a glib response, then decided it probably wouldn’t be in his best interests. ‘Who’s that, then?’
‘The Lost One,’ the leader said again, vehemently this time. ‘He disappeared in the Battle of London. His name is Veitch… Ryan Veitch.’
Mallory recognised the name instantly. ‘The traitor.’ One of the five Brothers and Sisters of Dragons who preceded him. They hadn’t been heard from since the Fall, but their presence still loomed large over the population; Mallory heard their names wherever he went.
The leader ignored the implication in Mallory’s words — denial or acceptance, Mallory wasn’t sure which. ‘He was the one who saved us, not the other four. When he comes back to us, he’ll lead us out of this mess we’re in.’
‘He’s dead,’ Mallory said. ‘He’s not coming back — or so the stories say.’
‘The stories are wrong! No one’s seen a body! He showed us how to act, how to survive — you do what you have to. And that’s what we’re doing.’
‘Just get his sword and have done with it,’ another gang member prompted.
Mallory gripped the hilt of his weapon more tightly, though he had no idea what he could do against a shotgun and fifteen brutes armed with knives, razors and clubs. ‘You know, this isn’t just any sword,’ he said. Mallory turned the blade so that they could see the faint blue glow emanating from the steel itself and the dragons carved into the handle. ‘It comes from the Otherworld-’
The leader hesitated; the others grew uneasy. Sensing that he had them, Mallory continued quickly, remembering the words of the god who had given it to him. ‘It’s one of the three great swords. The first is the sword of Nuada Airgetlamh — you know that one, right?’ Mallory didn’t even know it himself, but his confidence convinced the leader to nod. ‘The second is lost, believed corrupted. We won’t be seeing that one again. But this one… this is Llyrwyn. And, well, basically, mate, you don’t stand a chance.’
Mallory wished he was telling the truth, but while the sword endowed him with a degree of prowess, it certainly wasn’t powerful enough to take out the whole group. The gang had grown edgy — like most people since the Fall, they had quickly learned to assimilate the supernatural and the terrible dangers that surrounded it — but Mallory knew it would only be a matter of time before they tested his bragging. He braced himself, ready at least to take off the leader’s smirking head; a small spot of joy before he died.
A sound like the billowing of a tarpaulin disturbed all of them. As the gang looked around for the source of the noise, a shadow swept across the green fields and descended on them. Mallory saw what it was before any of them, and he just had time to throw himself to the ground and cover his head before a murder of crows blazed out of the sky to attack the gang.
Blood spattered all around. The birds darted in, tearing flesh with beak and talon, their dark wings smashing against faces and throats. The gang scattered, some screaming with eyes missing, others terrified and cursing. The corvids didn’t relent until only Mallory remained in the centre of the lane. As quickly as they had come, they flapped away to lose themselves in the fields and trees.
As Mallory scrambled to his feet, he looked around for the familiar face. And there she was, her long brown hair flowing behind her as she strode through the tall grass of the nearest field, her eyes blazing, her hippie dress swirling with the determined motion of her legs. Mallory could see her irritation, but the fire in her only made her more attractive to him.
‘You are such a moron,’ Sophie snapped when she reached the stile.
‘Me? I could have lost an eye in that bird attack.’
‘A “thank you” would be nice for saving your worthless life.’ She stepped lithely over the stile. ‘I told you to approach the village with caution.’
‘Sorry. I forgot you were queen of the whole bloody world.’
‘Stupid bugger.’
Mallory grabbed her; she play-resisted before overpowering him with a passionate kiss.
‘But you still haven’t got this role thing down,’ Mallory said when they broke. ‘I’m the knight, the trained killing machine — I’m the one who’s supposed to be protecting you.’
‘In your dreams.’ Her warm smile eased the dull throb of the aches and pains he had developed on their long, hard journey from Salisbury — battles with looters and self-styled law-enforcement officers, potential rapists and horse-stealers, and all the nightmarish things that crawled out of the dark in the lonely stretches of countryside they’d crossed. Oddly, he found it easier to deal with all the supernatural predators than with seeing his fellow man preparing to commit some inhuman act.
‘They weren’t your average looters,’ she said.
Ma
llory stared past her to the now furiously burning village. ‘I didn’t think they were. We’ve seen them all over. I thought they were just some sort of movement — like the Celtic Nation — trying to fill the void in society. But that V on their shirts — you know what it stands for? Veitch.’
Sophie stiffened in his arms, kept her face pressed into his shoulder. ‘Ryan Veitch?’
‘It’s like they worship him… some sort of saviour who’s going to come back and make everything all right.’
Sophie pushed herself away from him, uneasy now. ‘There are myths building up around all of the Five.’
‘But the wrong ones are building up around Veitch. He was the traitor, sold all the others out. Jack Churchill, the leader, died because of what Veitch did. These morons think that’s some kind of plan for living.’
‘Then that only shows what a responsibility we have. Existence, the universe… God, the Goddess… whatever you want to call it — it selects five people to be the champions of life at any one time. Five people from all the multitude. The last Five saved us from extinction after the Fall-’
‘And now we’ve got the job.’
Sophie heard the familiar note in his voice. ‘You still don’t want it?’
‘It’s not as if I have a choice. But it would have been nice to have been asked.’
Salisbury still preyed on Mallory’s mind even though he had left it behind six months ago. His time there at the cathedral had been one of hardship and suffering, as the Church desperately attempted to cling on in a world that had grown largely immune to its teachings. When he had arrived at the cathedral gates, a mercenary looking for employment in the newly formed Knights Templar, Mallory hadn’t believed in anything. The Church leaders had accepted him eagerly, and his training had made him hard, but he had still been directionless. It was his meeting with Sophie and his recognition of his feelings for her that had given meaning to his life. Sophie was not only his moral compass in a world where the distinction between right and wrong was increasingly blurred, but also the sole thing that mattered to him. He knew that she loved him, but he suspected that she had no idea how much he loved and needed her in return.
The Hounds of Avalon tda-3 Page 3
