angle.
Too many, thought Artemis. There are too many. We can never make it.
But there was no future in giving up. So they kept going, taking two steps forward and one step back.
A crafty bull ducked low, avoiding Holly’s first sweep. He reached out one taloned hand, cracking the pod’s waterproof casing. Holly stumbled backwards, knocking over Artemis. The pair keeled over into the river, landing with a solid thump in the shallow water.
Artemis felt the air shoot from his lungs, and took an instinctive breath.
Unfortunately, he took in water rather than air. Holly kept her elbows locked, so the ruptured casing stayed out of the river. Some water drops crept into the crack and sparks began to play across the screen.
Holly struggled to her feet, simultaneously aiming the screen at the bull troll.
Artemis came up behind her, coughing water from his lungs.
‘The screen’s damaged,’ panted Holly. ‘I don’t know how much time we have.’
Artemis wiped his hair from his eyes. ‘Go,’ he spluttered. ‘Go.’
They trudged through the water, stepping around thrashing trolls. Holly chose a clear spot on the bank to climb ashore. It was a relief to be on dry land again, but at least the water had been on their side, as it were. Now they were truly in troll territory.
The remaining animals encircled them at a safe distance. Whenever one came too close, Holly swung the tele-pod in its direction, and the creature skipped back as though stung.
Artemis fought the cold and the fatigue and the shock in his system. His ankle felt scalded where the troll had snagged him.
‘We need to go straight for the temple,’ he said through chattering teeth. ‘Up the scaffolding.’
‘OK. Hold on.’
Holly took several deep breaths, building up her strength. Her arms were sore from holding the tele-pod but she would not let the fatigue show in her face, nor the fear. She looked those trolls straight in their red eyes and let them know they were dealing with a formidable enemy.
‘Ready?’
‘Ready,’ replied Artemis, although he was no such thing.
Holly took one final breath, then charged. The trolls were not expecting this tactic. After all, what kind of creature would attack a troll? They broke ranks in the face of the arc of white light, and their disconcertedness lasted just long enough for Artemis and Holly to charge through the hole in the line.
They hurried up the incline towards the temple. Holly made no attempt to avoid the trolls, running straight at them. When they lashed out in temporary blindness, they only caused more confusion among themselves. A dozen vicious squabbles erupted in Holly and Artemis’s wake as animals accidentally sliced each other with razor-sharp talons. Some of the cannier trolls used the opportunity to settle old scores. The squabbles chain-reacted across the plain until the entire area was a mass of dust and writhing animals.
Artemis grunted and puffed his way up the ravine, his fingers wrapped round Holly’s belt. Captain Short’s breathing had settled into a steady rhythm of quick bursts.
I am not physically fit, thought Artemis. And it may cost me dearly. I need to exercise more than my brain in future. If I have a future.
The temple loomed above them, a scale model but still over fifteen metres high.
Dozens of identical columns rising into the holographic clouds supported a triangular roof decorated with intricate plaster mouldings. The columns’ lower regions were scarred by a thousand claw marks where younger trolls had scampered out of harm’s way. Artemis and Holly clambered up the twenty or so steps to the columns themselves.
Fortunately, there were no trolls on the scaffolding. All the animals were busy trying to kill each other or avoid being killed, but it would be only a matter of seconds before they remembered that there were intruders in their midst. Fresh meat. Not many of the trolls had tasted elf meat, but those who had were eager to try it again.
Only one of the present gathering had tasted human meat, and the memory of its sweetness still haunted his dull brain at night.
It was this particular troll who hauled himself from the river, carrying ten extra kilos of moisture weight. He casually cuffed a cub who had come too close, and sniffed the air. There was a new scent here. A scent he could remember from his short time under the moon. The scent of man. The mere recognition of the smell brought saliva flowing from the glands in his throat. He set off at a pitched run towards the Temple.
Soon a rough group of flesh-hungry beasts was hurtling towards the scaffolding.
‘We’re back on the menu,’ noted Holly when she reached the scaffolding.
Artemis unhooked his fingers from the LEP captain’s belt. He would have answered, but his lungs demanded oxygen. He whooped in gulps of air, resting his knuckles on his knees.
Holly took his elbow. ‘No time for that, Artemis. You. have to climb.’
‘After you,’ Artemis managed to gasp. He knew his father would never allow a lady to remain in distress while he himself fled.
‘No time for discussion,’ said Holly, steering Artemis by the elbow. ‘Climb for the sun. I’ll buy us a few seconds with the tele-pod. Go.’
Artemis looked into Holly’s eyes to say thank you. They were round and hazel and… familiar? Memories fought to be free of their bonds, pounding against cell walls.
‘Holly?’ he said.
Holly spun him round to the bars, and the moment was gone. ‘Up. You’re wasting time.’
Artemis marshalled his exhausted limbs, trying to co-ordinate his movements.
Step, grab, pull. It should be easy enough. He’d climbed ladders before. One ladder at least. Surely.
The scaffold bars were coated with gripped rubber, especially for climbers, and were spaced precisely forty centimetres apart, the comfortable reach distance of the average fairy. Also, coincidentally, the comfortable reach of a fourteen-year-old human.
Artemis started to climb, feeling the strain in his arms before he had risen six steps. It was too early to be tired yet. There was too far to go.
‘Come on, Captain,’ he gasped over his shoulder. ‘Climb.’
‘Not just yet,’ said Holly. She had her back to the scaffold and was trying to find some pattern in the approaching bunches of trolls.
There had been an in-service course on troll attacks in Police Plaza. But that had been on the basis of a one-on-one situation. To Holly’s eternal embarrassment, the lecturer had used video footage of her own tangle with a troll in Italy over two years previously. ‘Here,’ the lecturer had said, freezing Holly’s image in the big screen and rapping it with a telescopic pointer, ‘is a classic example of how not to do it.’
This was a completely different scenario. They had never received instruction on what to do when attacked by an entire pack of trolls in their own habitat. No one, the instructors reasoned, would be that stupid.
There were two converging groups coming straight towards her, the one from the river led by a veritable monster with anaesthetic venom dripping from both tusks.
Holly knew that if one drop of that venom got under her skin, she would fall into a happy stupor. And even if she escaped the troll’s claws, the slow poison would eventually paralyse her.
The second group approached from the western ridge, composed mainly of latecomers and cubs. There were a few females in the centre of the temple itself, but they were using the distraction to pick meat from abandoned carcasses.
Holly flicked the tele-pod’s setting to low. She would have to time this exactly right for maximum effect. It was the last chance she would get, because once she started to climb, she could no longer aim.
The trolls sped up the Temple steps, jostling for first place. The two groups were approaching at right angles, both heading directly for Holly. Their leaders launched themselves from a distance, determined to get the first bite of the intruder. Their lips were peeled back to reveal rows of carnivorous teeth, and their eyes were focused solely on the target. And that was when Holly acted. She flicked the brightness setting to high and scorched the retinas of the two beasts while they were still in the air. With piercing howls they swatted at the hated light, crashing to the ground in a melee of arms, claws, tusks and teeth. Each troll assumed he was being attacked by a rival group, and in seconds the scaffold’s base was a chaos of primeval violence.
