The Hollow: At The Edge (13 page)

“Yes, Sergeant. With
the rot-gut you gave me.”

“Good. Last thing I
need is to have to drag your sorry arse around when you collapse
from infection.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Holly
said in sing-song voice. Only Serrel noticed her eyes roll.

“Well, if we’re all
finished with our precious bath-time and once more smell of roses,
I would appreciate it if you all got your lazy arses moving. Unless
you’d like to wash your hair as well, Wells?”

“No, Sergeant.”

“Then let’s go. Brant!
If I have to come over there, anything not covered by your trousers
is getting cut off! You hear me? Brant?”

There was silence. The
group exchanged glances. Caellix unslung her new bow and strung an
arrow as she crept towards the tree Brant was behind. Holly,
Dogbreath and Serrel spread out behind her, their weapons
ready.

Then there was the
sound of... Serrel wasn’t sure. It was a kind of huffing growl, but
somewhat familiar. It made him think of the last harvest festival
he had attended. He had an image of a huge cage, and a mouthy
showman asking for a copper to see...

He realised what it was
just as Brant came tearing into view.

“LEG IT!” Brant
screamed, his face an image of pure terror.

Behind him came a huge
wall of brown fur, charging through the forest at top speed. It
sped right past Brant, bowling him over carelessly with one huge
shoulder as it went by. The others all dove to the side as the
giant bear charged onwards through their ranks, not even bothering
to swerve around them.

Serrel rolled across
the ground, then sat up. He saw the bear continue on its way, its
huge body pushing aside everything in its path as it sprinted
through the forest.

Holly followed its
progress with an arrow aimed at its departing rear end. “What the
hell was
that
?” she asked in shock.

“Bear,” Serrel replied
simply.

“A big bear,” finished
Caellix. “Brant?”

Brant lifted his head
from the ground and looked at them. “Ye gods,” he said.

“You all right?”

“I think so.” He looked
himself over. “Let’s just say it was a good thing I had already
relieved myself. Otherwise, things might have gotten messy.”

He laughed. Dogbreath
and Holly joined in, just out of pure relief. Serrel and Caellix
didn’t so much as smile. They both watched the back of the bear
disappearing into the distance. Then they looked at each other, and
together, sharing an unspoken feeling, glanced backwards along its
path.

“A full grown bear
defending its territory could have ripped Brant apart,” Caellix
said.

“It wasn’t attacking,”
Serrel said. “It was running.”

“Very good, Fresh Meat.
The question is: what would scare a bear like that so badly?”

Serrel stared into the
forest. In the distance, he saw something move. There was the sound
of a multitude of frantically flapping wings, as a tree full of
birds suddenly took to the skies in fright. A huge owl swept over
their heads without slowing, followed by several squawking crows.
Serrel didn’t move his gaze from the forest. He saw movement again,
and a flash of green.

“Sergeant, you remember
those prints you found yesterday?” he said aloud. “I think whatever
made them just found us.”

“Let’s not give it
reason to come after us,” said Caellix. “You lot, shut it!” she
snapped at the others. “Get up. We’re going. Now!”

Everyone fell quiet at
the sound of Caellix’s tone. Dogbreath and Holly yanked Brant to
his feet, and everyone quickly followed after the sergeant as she
dashed away through the forest.

They moved carefully at
first, not wanting to attract the thing’s attention. From behind
them came the crack of a tree branch, and the sound of heavy steps.
At this Caellix ran faster, forgoing stealth to just keep them
ahead of whatever was now pursuing them.

“What is it?” Holly
asked as they ran.

“Something that can
scare the shit out of half the forest,” Caellix replied.

As if to illustrate
this, Serrel glanced to his left, and saw a stag with giant antlers
bounding through the forest alongside them. It barely even glanced
at them. It just kept going, terrified.

Then some overtook the
stag. Serrel didn’t get a good look at it. He only saw a grey blur
that overtook the stag easily. But it ignored the animal entirely.
The stag took advantage off this, and peeled off at a tangent,
putting as much distance as it could between it and this new
creature.

Caellix stopped
suddenly. She stared straight ahead.

“What is it?” asked
Holly.

“It’s in front of us.
Damn it’s fast.”

“It’s still behind us,”
said Brant pointed out.

Serrel glanced back,
and saw another flash of movement in the undergrowth.

“Shit,” said Caellix.
“There’s more than one. This way. Move!”

She turned right and
ran. The others sped along behind her. Serrel was suddenly so glad
for all the running he had been forced to do during training. He
managed to keep pace with the others easily. But Dhulrael was
having trouble. His breathing was getting louder and louder, and he
was obviously struggling.

Suddenly the elf
tripped over, and dropped face first to the ground. Serrel slid to
a halt and stumbled back to him.

“Get up!” he yelled at
the elf, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him desperately to his
feet.

Dhulrael groaned and
forced himself forwards. “I hate this forest!” he hissed in
pain.

He was limping, and
Serrel had to help him along. They moved painfully slowly. When
Serrel glanced back, he saw the creature charging with impossible
speed towards them.

And then Caellix pushed
him aside and stepped in front of him, bow raised. She fired. The
arrow tore through the air, its aim perfect. But the grey blur
seemed to twitch its head at the last moment, and the arrow missed
by mere inches.

“Get behind me,”
Caellix ordered.

“Sergeant-”

“Don’t argue, Fresh
Meat!”

She strung another
arrow, and fired again. Again, the creature dodged without breaking
stride. Behind him, Serrel heard the sound of other bowstrings
cracking, and someone cursing. Multiple footsteps charged at
them.

Caellix pulled an axe
from her belt. “Fresh Meat, run!”

Without thinking Serrel
thrust his staff around Caellix, and threw up a shield. The
creature pounced, and then with a flash of blinding green light it
bounced off the shield in mid air.

“I think it would be
better,” said Serrel, “if you all got behind
me
.”

Serrel raised his staff
upright, and expanded his shield into a large dome than encircled
the entire group. Its bottom-most edge hit the forest floor, just
as two more creatures erupted from the tree line and slammed into
them. The impacts sent shudders through his staff and nearly shook
it from his grasp.

“Get closer!” Serrel
snapped at the others. “Come on, close up, now!”

“Do it!” ordered
Caellix.

Serrel felt the group
press closer together. A warm body was breathing heavily against
his back, and there was something furry pressed against his leg,
growling fearfully. All of them tried to ignore the fact that they
were closer to Dogbreath than anyone generally wanted to be.

Outside the shield,
three large monsters paced back and forth warily.

“What the hell are
those things?” Holly breathed.

“No idea,” replied
Caellix. “Pointy?”

“I have never seen, nor
heard of such a thing existing in Elsbareth,” said Dhulrael. “They
do not belong here.”

“Swell,” said
Holly.

When they had been
moving, Serrel had thought maybe the creatures had been some sort
of oversized wolf. Considering all the other things he’d seen in
the Faelands, that wouldn’t have been completely unreasonable. Now
that he could see them close up, he could see they were indeed
vaguely wolf shaped, with long sleek bodies that stood as high as
Serrel’s chest, and long snouts full of sharp teeth. That was about
it though. Each creature had six legs, with each leg ending in two
long, opposable digits that were tipped with wicked, sharp claws.
Instead of fur, they had a thick, grey, scaly-looking hide with
short, bristle-like hairs sprouting sporadically from its surface.
Thick, bony spikes lined down the vertebrae, growing larger down
the middle of the creatures’ backs, and shrinking as they reached
the end of their tails.

But the heads were the
worse. They had six eyes, two facing forwards, and two on either
side of the head, which probably gave the creatures a great field
of view. Like every other freakish thing the Hounds had come
across, the creatures’ eyes glowed green, and stared at the trapped
group with blatant intelligence. When the creature closest to
Serrel stared at him, and snarled, Serrel got a good look at the
long mandibles that ran along the creature’s snouts.

They seemed to Serrel
almost to be like some kind of giant insect that had been shaped
into the forms of wolves. That concept was just plain
wrong
for so many different reasons.

“Well,” Caellix said in
his ear, conversationally. “So far so good, Fresh Meat. Out of
curiosity, what was the next part of your plan?”

“To be honest, I hadn’t
really thought that far past the saving our lives bit. You’re
welcome by the way.”

“You haven’t
technically saved my life yet,” Caellix had to point out. “How long
can you keep this spell up?”

“As long as I have
too,” Serrel replied. “Although it would be better if that period
were kept as short as possible. Dhulrael?”

“Yes, Caster?”

“Can you weave without
a staff? Elves can do that, right?”

Dhulrael cleared his
throat sheepishly. “I never really had the knack, I am afraid. And
my staff was lost when I was captured. However, I might be able to
transfer my energy to you. One moment.”

Serrel felt a hand on
his shoulder, and heard Dhulrael muttering under his breath. He
heard the word of power
Illisolde
as Dhulrael linked their
auras together, then there came the faint sensation within himself,
as the elf’s energy trickled into him.

“Thanks,” said Serrel.
“With your energy I can probably keep this up for much longer.”

“I don’t intend to sit
here forever, Fresh Meat,” said Caellix.

“Then, with all due
respect, Sergeant, think of something. I’m a little preoccupied at
the moment.”

He heard her sniff
irritably. Out of the corner of his eye, Serrel caught sight of one
of the creatures digging into the ground, hoping to slip in under
the shield. Serrel twitched his staff to the right, just a
fraction, and bumped the creatures snout with the shield. It jumped
back with a yelp, then glared at him and snarled, its long
mandibles spread wide.

His staff shook
suddenly as the creature behind him clawed at his shield
experimentally. The creature in front saw this, and copied the
action.

“If we dropped the
shield,” he asked. “You think you could kill them all?”

“No,” Caellix said
flatly. “They’re fast. Faster than you’d think something that size
should be. Even if we killed them all, I don’t see us escaping
without casualties.”

“The elf will probably
die,” said Dogbreath solemnly.

“You might die as
well,” Dhulrael replied calmly.

“That’s a mean thing to
say.”

Holly prodded the
inside of the shield with an arrow. “I don’t suppose I can shoot
through this thing?”

“No,” said Serrel. “And
stop poking at it. You’re not helping.”

“If you drop it fast
enough, I think I can shoot this ugly bugger in the face,” Holly
said, nodded towards the creature nearest her.

“You aren’t that fast,
Hol,” Brant told her.

“I’m faster than
you.”

“True. But while you’re
shooting that ugly bugger, this rancid bastard’s going to be eating
my face off.”

“Does anyone have a
problem with Brant’s face being eaten?”

“It might improve his
looks, heheh,” Dogbreath chuckled.

“I’m for the plan where
we don’t get our faces eaten,” said Serrel. “In fact, how about we
don’t get anything eaten. How about that?”

“Everyone
shut
up
! I’m trying to think,” snapped Caellix.

There was a brief
silence.

“Well?” Serrel
interrupted.

“All right... If we are
where I think we are in this gods damned forest, then we need to
head north east.”

“What’s there?”

“A river.
Probably.”

Serrel almost objected
to the “probably”. He exhaled sharply. “All right. Which way?”

Caellix glanced about.
“That way. I’ll lead you.”

“All right then. I’ll
make the shield bigger, so we have more room to move.”

Serrel increased the
size of the barrier around them. It used more energy to keep it
going, but ensured the group had plenty of space to move about. He
didn’t like to think what would happen if he should trip and drop
his staff. The growing barrier pressed against the creatures and
pushed them away. They growled at him in irritation.

“To your left, Fresh
Meat,” Caellix advised.

Serrel took a breath.
“Let’s go.”

Holding his staff
upright, and carrying the shield with him, Serrel walked with the
group off in the direction Caellix specified. Caellix walked in
front, leading them, with the others in a ring around Serrel.
Dhulrael took the rear, his hand still placed on Serrel’s shoulder
to maintain the energy tranfer.

The trip was slow
going, with the group clustered together, and the three creatures
following closely, still circling them. Caellix kept her pace slow
and even, making sure they diverted around any obstacles. Even so,
low branches, and occasionally one of the group, would bump the
shield, which caused more energy to be used up. Even so, Serrel
didn’t have any trouble maintaining the barrier, thanks to the
constant flow of energy coming from Dhulrael. He wondered how long
Dhulrael could keep up the link. How much energy he still had in
reserve. He didn’t want to think what would happen if Dhulrael
reached the Hollow. But whenever he glanced back, the elf just
smiled reassuringly.