Wolf in Shadow-eARC (53 page)

It struck without warning.

After a brief struggle it pulled up a newt-shaped creature colored a blotchy grass green. The animal’s four stubby legs thrashed and clawed at the tentacle, which squeezed until the newt stopped moving. The tentacle retracted, doubling back into a loop to push its capture down into the mud. It disappeared altogether with a last obscene slurp.

“Keep moving,” Jameson said, utterly unnecessarily in Rhian’s opinion, as everybody’s pace had already picked up.

They reached the embankment without further mishap to find it was a flood defense. A wide river flowed slowly from left to right, except that it wasn’t freshwater. Rhian could see seaweed on the exposed shingles, and the smell of sea air was stronger. They must be looking over a creek at an island. As they watched, a lance of sunlight pierced the clouds and illuminated white cliffs on the coast to the far right.

The wind died down.

“Kent—this is the North Kent coast,” Jameson said. “We are on the south bank of the Thames Estuary.”

Frankie said something softly.

“What?” Jameson asked.

“Nothing,” Frankie said. “Just a passing line from some poetry.”

Rhian had heard her. Frankie said, “sea cliffs shining.”

It was appropriate. Under the sunlight the white chalk cliffs of Kent did seem to shine against the dark greyness of the sea and sky. The clouds closed, shutting off the shaft of light, and the illusion was dispelled.

A ramp led down from the embankment, disappearing into the sea. A wooden flat-bottomed raft with a square bow and stern was beached there. It had high wooden sides, along each of which was attached a heavy iron chain. These ran through pulleys fixed to massive wooden pilings sunk into the ground above the high-tide mark. They looped round to disappear under the sea in the direction of the island. Two more chains ran from the back of the raft, dropping into the sea.

A squall lashed the island, reducing visibility on the far shore, but Rhian fancied she could see chains emerging from the water. They climbed into the raft. Before they were seated, the chains on the seaward side tightened and clanked through the pulleys. The chains pulled from the sea, shedding water along their length. Frankie stumbled and would have toppled over the side had Max not caught her.

“Thank you,” Frankie said.

“Try not to die until the job is done,” Max said, encouragingly.

Gary glared at the man, which only made Max’s smile broaden into a grin.

“I know I can rely on you to look after me—at least until I am no longer useful,” Frankie replied.

Nobody said anything else as the ferry clanked across the creek in a jerky motion that made Rhian feel somewhat queasy. The heavy chains damped out the raft’s rocking motions, which was a bonus.

A massive head emerged from the water. Rhian had the merest impression of small yellow eyes in a slab of slate grey before yawning jaws opened and all she could see were teeth. Two shots cracked out from behind her before Gaston in the bow swung his submachine gun on its strap and let rip.

Rhian had seen such weapons fired in movies, but special effects were a pale copy of the real thing. Flame flickered from the muzzle in a continuous roar that hurt her ears. Empty cartridges spewed into the water. The hammering sound seemed to go on forever, punctuated by another double crack behind her and two loud thuds at spaced intervals. Blood and flesh exploded from the jaws and they sank back in a swirl of dark-tinged water, but not before plucking a Commission trooper from the ferry.

Max put his pistol back into his pocket. He had drawn and got off two shots before anyone else had moved. Gary calmly reloaded his shotgun, and, in the bow, Gaston clipped a new magazine onto his gun. Nobody mentioned the missing man.

At that moment, a squall hit and they hunkered down to avoid the driving rain. When it passed, Rhian was aware that something had changed. The clanking had stopped and the raft moved silently. The raft, the boat, was narrower, deeper, and the prow curved up over the water, like the Viking longships she had seen at Lundenburh. Sunlight sparkled on the water and the air was full of birds.

Frankie tapped her on the shoulder. “There’s an old friend behind you.”

The stern of the boat curved up like the prow, but Rhian had eyes only for the figure holding the steering oar. It was the hooded ferryman.

“Don’t pay him until we get to the other side,” Rhian said, with something of a forced smile.

The long ship grounded on the shingle with a hiss like frying bacon. Frankie put a coin in the ferryman’s hand. They jumped over the bow, getting their feet wet in the freezing water. Above the water line, another muddy track climbed upwards, straight as an arrow through heathland. Frankie bent down and began to scoop dirt away with her bare hands.

“What are you up to?” Jameson asked.

“Just testing a theory,” Frankie replied.

“Sergeant, your knife, please,” Jameson requested

“Sir.”

Gaston pulled a heavy combat knife out of a sheath on his belt and tossed it over to Jameson, who caught it one-handed. He knelt beside Frankie and scraped away the dirt. Gaston winced at the sound of steel on rock.

“There’s cobblestones under the layer of mud,” Jameson said.

“And there will be gravel at the edge for drainage,” Frankie replied. “This is a Roman road. Can you lever out a stone and dig down?”

“I can see why he didn’t use his own bloody knife,” Gaston said to no one in particular.

Jameson ignored him and got to work, finding larger stones the deeper he went. He needed two hands to pull the last one free. Underneath, white cables writhed and coiled slowly around each other like giant whip worms. Bulges pulsed up and down.

“Now that’s not a Roman road,” Jameson said, sitting back on his heels. “So where the bloody hell are we, Frankie?”

“You gave me the clue,” she replied, “you and the sea cliffs shining. This is Harty Ferry and we are on the eastern part of the Isle of Sheppy or, to be more exact, the Isle of Harty.”

“Oh Christ,” Jameson said. “Shternberg’s people used a computer system called a Beowulf Cluster.”

“And this whole area is Schrawynghop,” Frankie added.

“We are all impressed by your boundless academic knowledge,” Max said, with heavy sarcasm, “but is there any chance of one of you explaining for the benefit of the rest of us?”

“You read literature, Jameson, at Cambridge, while I read history at a red-brick university. The floor is yours.”

“Beowulf is the oldest piece of English writing known, the Homer of the English-speaking peoples. It tells the tale of a Scandinavian hero of the Geat tribe in Sweden who travels to a far place, which is almost certainly the North Kent Saxon Shore. His task is to slay the monster Grendel that is terrorizing the Mead Hall Heorot of a Danish King called
Hroðgar
. Beowulf’s longship sights land by the shining cliffs.”

Jameson pointed at the chalk cliffs glowing in the light.

“Beowulf walks up a street, the Saxon name for a Roman road . . .”

“Like Watling Street?” Rhian asked.

“Like Watling Street, to Heorot, which has a paved floor. In the Dark Ages, paving meant that it was the floor of a Roman villa. They used to think that Beowulf was set in Denmark, but there are no Roman structures there, or chalk cliffs. Also,
Hroðgar
’s queen is called Wealtheow, meaning she was British, Weal being the same word as Welsh in modern English, from the Saxon Waelisc meaning—”

“Foreigner or slave, I know,” Rhian said.

“Quite, Jameson said, coloring slightly.

“I would point out that we call ourselves the Cymri, the northern British,” she added.

“Anyway, Beowulf slays the troll Grendel and Grendel’s mother in single combat before sailing back to Sweden,” Jameson moved the conversation onto less contentious areas.

“Oh great, trolls,” Gaston said.

“And other things,” Frankie said. “Jameson will no doubt correct me if I err, he normally does, but Schrawynghop in modern English means something like ‘place in the marsh that is infested by malignant daemons.’”

“Near enough,” Jameson replied.

Gaston spat, which neatly encapsulated Rhian’s view. He retrieved his combat knife from Jameson.

“I half hoped we would simply to have to smash up a few computer systems, but it seems we are inside the ghost in the machine,” Jameson said.

“We still could try a bit of vandalism,” Gaston said, reaching down with the knife.

“I don’t think . . .” Frankie started to say, way too late.

Gaston sheared a number of the pulsing cables with a quick slash. White sparklies flowed out and dissipated away on the wind. They waited, expectantly, but nothing happened.

“Okay,” Jameson said. “We move on.”

They made barely fifty meters before a flock of things that looked a bit like fruit bats fluttered down the hill towards them. As they got closer, it was clear that they were not really fruit bats. They were too big, for one thing, and their wings bent in all the wrong directions. Then there was the matter of their downward-pointing tusks. The tearing rip of submachine guns sounded and the bats-things fell, but their unpredictable flight made them difficult targets. Only body- or headshots took them out as hits to the wings merely made their flight patterns even more erratic.

“I’m not sure which is worse,” Jameson said to Karla, firing his bolt pistol and missing, “one big pterosaur or a lot of little ones.”

Gary fired calmly, each shotgun blast taking out a bat. He winked at Rhian.

“This is a lot easier than hitting clay pigeons,” he said as he reloaded.

Rhian reflected that people were endlessly surprising.

The fruit bat survivors, of which there were more than a handful, fluttered on. They had nasty little scarlet eyes. There was no reason why their eyes shouldn’t be red, but it was unsettling all the same.

Frankie yelled something and stretched her arms upwards, releasing a flood of green light. The fruit bats flying into it stuck, moving in slow motion. Their wings caught fire and burned with green flame. The bats fell like comets, rolling and hopping on the ground until the flames consumed them utterly. Frankie collapsed on her knees, exhausted, and the bubble of light faded. Unfortunately, there were plenty more bats.

They were so close that Rhian could hear their soft chittering cries, which became loud squeals to the wolf’s ears when she transformed and bounded forward. A bat dropped to intercept her, but the wolf crushed the creature’s skull in her jaws. She spat it out, bouncing immediately upwards to rip the wing off a second bat. They hit the ground simultaneously. The bat flapped its one remaining wing against the track and tried to spear the wolf with its tusks, but she sheared its neck with a single contemptuous bite.

Karla moved ahead of the wolf, faster than any human could run. Bats swarmed over her in a mass. There was an explosion of bloodied pieces. Heads, wings, and furry bodies hurtled from Karla. The last couple of bats flapped hard, trying to escape. Karla grabbed one by the legs with a clawed hand and dashed its brains out on the cobbled track. The wolf plucked the second out of the air, taking a chunk from its body.

Blood dripped from Karla’s fangs. It ran down her neck and breasts and stained her hands deep red. She glared at the wolf with a terrible beauty and Rhian thought she was about to attack. A struggling bat with a broken body caught Karla’s attention and she grabbed it, ripping off its head with her bare hands. She drank its blood straight from the neck.

Urged by Rhian, the wolf loped back to protect the fragile humans. She had a glimpse of Max. He smashed the bodies of two bats together until they were bloodied pulp in his hands. Frankie was on her knees trying to fend off a bat clinging to her chest, its tusks lunging at her throat. Gary was running towards her, the butt of his shotgun raised, but he was not going to make it in time.

The wolf hit the bat like an orca taking out a luckless penguin. She ripped it from Frankie and cut it in half with two quick bites. A Commission trooper went down covered in furry bodies. He dropped his gun and put his arms up to protect his face and neck. The bats raked their tusks against his body armor. The wolf jumped straight in, jaws snapping at anything in fur until nothing moved. Gaston gazed up at her through the visor, and she smelled his fear. She jumped off, heart singing with the music of the hunt. She experienced disappointment when the last living bat was killed and dismembered.

A trooper lay unmoving on the ground, two holes punched through his visor.

Jameson held Karla, who trembled even though her claws were retracted.

“Easy Karla, focus on me, relax to the sound of my voice,” Jameson said.

Max was still in hunting mode, his eyes bright metallic blue.

“Oh shit,” someone said. “He’s in a blood frenzy.”

Rhian heard the metallic clicks of guns being prepared.

Max heard them too and moved towards the sound, towards the humans. The wolf intercepted and Max looked at her without recognition. He snarled, showing his teeth. The wolf wanted to answer in kind, but Rhian suppressed the growl. They would never have survived the bats without the help of the vampires.

Karla had Jameson to bring her out of it but Max had no one, no one but Rhian. Even if he beat the wolf, the massed automatic guns would tear him apart. Max was tough, but nothing is that tough, and Frankie had told her about Jameson’s vampire-killing bolt gun. Taking a deep breath, she turned back into Rhian. She walked slowly towards Max, softly calling his name.

“Rhian, no!” Frankie said.

“For God’s sake, girl, clear the line of fire,” Jameson said simultaneously.

“Max, it’s over. You won, Max. All your enemies are dead. Time to relax,” Rhian said, stroking his face.

He looked at her, head on one side. The metallic glare slowly faded from his eyes. Max took in the weapons leveled against him and chuckled. He retracted his claws and canines, holding one hand up, palm outwards in the universal sign of
pax
.

“I am so, so, glad I kept you, Snow White,” Max said. “Have I mentioned that?”