The Hounds of Avalon tda-3 Read online

  When he turned back to the helicopter, Hal was standing beside him. ‘Bloody hell, will you stop creeping up on me?’

  ‘We need to talk,’ Hal said.

  Hunter walked quickly, forcing Hal to skip to keep up; it was a game Hunter liked to play. ‘You’re like a bloody ghost. Natural stealth abilities. You should be doing this job instead of pushing paper around an in-tray or whatever it is you do to waste your time.’

  ‘Something’s up.’

  ‘There’s always something up.’ Hunter noted the concerned tone in Hal’s voice and relented. ‘What’s wrong?’ It was the first time he had looked his friend full in the face and he was surprised to see the depth of the worry there. ‘All right,’ Hunter said. ‘If you don’t mind watching me shovel food into my face, you can talk while I eat.’

  Hunter and Hal sat alone in a corner of a sprawling refectory once used by students. Hunter listlessly played with a plate of cold lamb and mashed potatoes while he listened to Hal relate the pieces of the information he had started to put together.

  Afterwards, Hunter said, ‘The mission I’ve just been on was to Cadbury Hill. Old stories say it was the site of Camelot. All rubbish of course, but…’ He took a mouthful of potatoes and grimaced as he swallowed. ‘They can never get the bloody lumps out. But… it’s a hell of a coincidence,’ he finished.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t bloody know, mate, but I’ll tell you this: that Caretaker bloke didn’t choose you at random.’

  Hal put his head in his hands and thought for a long moment. ‘I don’t want this. I went straight from university into the MoD for a quiet life — shuffle a few files, eventually carry the odd ministerial briefcase.’ When he raised his head, the look Hunter had seen earlier had grown even more intense. ‘You can sum up my life in two words: nothing happened. And that’s just the way I like it. Safe. Secure. No risks attached. What’s gone wrong?’

  ‘You know what they say: if you’re not living, you’re dying. Maybe this is just what you need.’

  ‘Like hell.’ Hal thought for another moment and then said, ‘What do I do? Go to the General-’

  ‘No chance,’ Hunter said vehemently. ‘Never trust anyone in power. Haven’t you learned anything while you’ve been working here? They’ll either lock you up in one of their little cells while they investigate you — for three or four years — or they’ll bang you up for being a potential traitor.’

  ‘Well, I’m not supposed to deal with this myself, am I? I’m not you, the man who’s seen every country in the world-’

  ‘And shagged all the women and drunk all the booze.’ He tapped his belly. ‘Getting close to eating all the pies, too. Listen, you can do anything you want. You’re in charge of your life.’

  Hal shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Look, you’re not in this alone. I’m here. We can figure this out together. When I get back from my little jaunt with the General, we’ll have a chin-wag, put two and two together… there’s an answer somewhere.’

  ‘The Caretaker said something was coming. That we’d been noticed. I’m worried something really bad is going to happen.’

  ‘Me, too, mate.’ Hunter shoved his plate away from him. ‘Me, too.’

  Sophie felt as if she was at the bottom of a deep, dark well. In the tiny circle of sky visible high overhead, she could just make out the morning sun behind clouds. But she couldn’t feel her body at all. Floating in the water, she thought. She could float there for ever-

  ‘Sister of Dragons! You must hear me!’ The voice was insistent, but mellifluous and soothing.

  Despite her desire to continue drifting, Sophie found herself rising up the well until she was looking into a woman’s face. At first, the features appeared to run like oil; Sophie thought that she was in the presence of some famous artist whose name she couldn’t quite recall, then a wise woman from a camp she had once passed through. As her perception cleared, the sense of familiarity faded. The woman was beautiful and sensitive, her dark eyes flashing in a pale face surrounded by long black hair that shone in the light of the moon.

  ‘Who are you?’ Sophie was surprised by the weakness of her voice.

  ‘Your kind once called me Ceridwen, amongst many other names,’ the woman replied. Her gaze left Sophie to dart around the dark hillside with apprehension.

  Sophie wondered briefly if she was dreaming, for it appeared to be snowing. It was only when she attempted to move that she realised how numb her body had been; pain shot through her as if she had been stabbed. She looked down to see blood staining the whitening grass.

  ‘Do not move, Sister of Dragons. Your light burns low,’ Ceridwen said. ‘You have little time left for the Fixed Lands unless your wound can be staunched.’

  Sophie let her head flop back, her vision swimming. ‘Mallory,’ she whispered.

  Ceridwen was doing something at her side, from where the pain emanated. On the edge of her vision, Sophie saw a soothing blue glow and the pain eased a little. ‘There,’ Ceridwen said, ‘that will hold for a while. But you need to rest and heal.’

  ‘I was shot-’

  ‘Hush. We need to leave this place. Something terrible is happening. The Lament-Brood are here, only a few of them, but if they find us, they will corrupt us both. Yes, even I, even a Golden One.’

  Ceridwen lifted Sophie as if she weighed nothing at all.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ Sophie said weakly.

  ‘Far away from this place of sorrow.’ The words caught in Ceridwen’s throat. ‘Though in these bitter times, even the Far Lands are tainted with misery.’

  Before she could utter another word, the soft, unnerving whispering of the Lament-Brood rolled across the hillside. Sophie raised her head enough to see the riders on their reptilian mounts emerging from the trees.

  ‘What are they?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘Agents of the Void,’ Ceridwen replied. ‘The abyss has beckoned.’

  Sophie began to slip back into the well. Ceridwen backed away from the approaching riders, but there was the sound of others approaching to close off their retreat.

  ‘There’s nowhere we can go,’ Sophie muttered. ‘They’ve got us.’

  When Ceridwen didn’t reply, Sophie knew she was right. The last thing she heard before she slipped into darkness was the sound of the horses’ hooves thundering across the hillside towards them.

  Hal walked with Hunter along the empty, ringing corridors and out to the Deer Park where the helicopter waited. Neither of them felt like speaking.

  The snow gleamed crisp and even across the grass in the morning light, with only one trail of multiple footprints leading to the waiting chopper; the General and his men were already on board.

  ‘He’s keen,’ Hal said.

  ‘What the bloody hell is up with this weather?’ Hunter snapped. ‘I hate snow. I hate it!’ He turned to Hal and his familiar rakish grin had returned. ‘Keep the home fires burning. And don’t talk to anybody, all right? Don’t do anything dangerous like thinking for yourself. Do what I say.’

  ‘I will.’

  Nodding his goodbye, Hunter ran towards the helicopter, ducking low beneath the blades that had just started to whirr. Hal waited until it had disappeared and then turned back to Magdalen with a heavy heart.

  Inside the ancient buildings it was unusually deserted. Most of the staff was in the New Library, which had been converted to an operations room for whatever the General had been planning. Hal was to report there later for a briefing.

  As he made his way to his room for a rest, he heard footsteps approaching. For some reason he couldn’t quite explain, Hal felt the urge to step out of view. He slipped into one of the darkened offices and waited with the door ajar.

  A few seconds later, Catherine Manning marched forcefully by, the echoes of her heels clack-clacking off the walls. She was talking to herself.

  ‘If I can get close to the PM, I think I can turn things around,’ she said.

  Although H
al could see no sign of a radio or mobile phone, Manning acted as if she was having a conversation with someone unseen.

  ‘All it takes is a little-’ Manning paused suddenly a few feet past the door behind which Hal was hiding and then turned to look back. Hal slipped away from the door before she saw him.

  ‘Where?’ she snapped.

  Hal’s blood ran cold. He backed further into the room, banging against a desk top, stifling an instinctive cry and grabbing the edge to stop the desk from grinding across the floor. Quickly, he ducked underneath it.

  He was just in time, for the door swung open silently at the touch of Manning’s fingertips. Hal could see her legs as she stood there silently for an unbearable few seconds. Then: ‘There’s no one here.’

  Hal only breathed again when he heard her heels disappear up the corridor. The troubling questions came thick and fast. To whom had she been talking? How had she known that he was hiding there? Why had she mentioned the PM, who was ensconced in his war bunker at Balliol and rarely seen by anyone outside the Cabinet? It left him with the feeling that some deep, dark plot was being put in motion.

  And overriding it all was the sense that Hal could no longer trust anyone.

  Strong winds buffeted the helicopter from side to side as they flew over the Scottish Border counties. They’d already been forced to put down for several hours to avoid bad weather and the mood on board was strained. Snow encrusted the edges of the windows, making it difficult to see more than a few feet out, though there was nothing at all visible in the night-dark countryside below.

  Hunter stared out into the snowstorm, lost in thought. The General had refused to say what they were going to see, but his demeanour suggested it was not good.

  In the days since the Fall, electric lights had been missing from much of the countryside at night, so Hunter at first assumed the glimmer he saw on the horizon to be just an illusion caused by the snow. But as they moved closer, he realised it was fire, and closer still the reality became apparent: it was an enormous fire.

  ‘That’s it?’ he asked.

  The General came to sit next to him. ‘I think so.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘While we were plotting our strike-back, the enemy decided to move first.’

  Hunter gazed at the flickering flames. The smoke billowed up into the snow-filled clouds. ‘That’s a town?’

  ‘Lanark.’

  ‘It doesn’t make any sense. The gods have left us alone for so long because they know we’re no threat to them. They can pick us off as and when they like, so why would they be launching a full-scale assault now?’

  ‘Nevertheless, our intelligence says that’s what’s happening. And as you know, Hunter, in the absence of being able to do anything more effective, we have at least established a first-rate intelligence network. Probably better than the one we had before the Fall.’

  ‘Can we get closer?’

  ‘We’ll go as close as is safe.’ The General sat back. He was surprisingly at ease, and when he next spoke, Hunter understood why. ‘I’ve spent months arguing for a chance to repel the invader. Months. Manning was too cautious. Reid was always after more intelligence; more, more, more. He’ll never have enough. The others always sat on the fence because no one was big enough to take the really tough decisions, so the PM was always swayed by those two. Now the balance of power has to shift. We can’t sit around and do nothing. We need to mount a robust defence and then strike back with devastating force.’

  ‘Have we got any? I know I’m devastating in my own way, but I don’t think I’d be much use against that.’

  ‘We have things at our disposal.’ The General looked away, his body language suggesting that was not an avenue that should be pursued.

  Hunter ignored the signals. ‘Conventional weapons? You know they’ve failed in the past. You tried to use a tactical nuke during the Fall, didn’t you?’ Hunter attempted to keep the loathing out of his voice, though he’d remonstrated loudly about the idiocy of his superiors down the pub at the time. ‘As I remember from the leaked report, the bomb became wrapped in trees that appeared to have a life of their own and then somehow turned into a flock of birds.’

  ‘Some of the backroom boys have finally managed to adapt to the new rules we find ourselves operating under,’ the General replied curtly. ‘Even Reid has made a few helpful suggestions in that area. Frankly, I’d attack them with a handful of magic beans if I thought it would work.’

  Hunter’s attention was fixed on the destruction below. The pilot took the helicopter in from one flank to fly parallel to the wall of fire, just above the level of the treetops. Every building in Lanark was aflame, a field of devastation that stretched as far as the eye could see. But that was not what left him pressing tightly against the glass for a better look.

  ‘They’re establishing a beachhead,’ the General said.

  The enemy moved out of the fire relentlessly, so thick on the ground that the white of the recent snowfall was almost obscured. It reminded Hunter of nothing so much as an ant hill he had disturbed as a boy.

  ‘How many of them are there?’ he said with hushed awe.

  Some of the figures looked oddly human. Others were bestial, moving from upright to all fours and back again. A few resembled medieval siege machines, yet they were alive somehow, alien life forms clearly wearing their war-like purpose, every pounding of their enormous limbs like the beat of a drum. And all across the landscape a purple mist drifted, swathing the figures as they made their slow, purposeful progress across the land.

  As the helicopter swooped nearer, Hunter made out a group of figures distinct from the others: four bulky shapes surrounding a tall, thin one; the only details he could pick out were random images illuminated by the lick of flame. Yet there was something about them that made him feel sick to the pit of his stomach. He felt instinctively that they were the ultimate threat.

  ‘They’re not like anything we’ve seen before,’ Hunter said. ‘What are they?’

  The General’s eyes gleamed with a sickening light of anticipation. ‘Are you ready for a fight?’ he asked.

  The helicopter shook briefly in a random gust of wind. Hunter grabbed on to the straps for support, shivering as the temperature dropped another degree. The pilot moved the helicopter away from the invading force, heading back towards Oxford. The snow, which was coming thicker and faster, soon obscured all signs of the threat.

  Hunter shivered again, this time not from the cold.

  Winter was coming in hard.

  Chapter Four

  The Final Word

  ‘ The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.’

  Edward Grey, Viscount of Falloden

  Lime and lavender filled the air, the scents cloying and a little sickly as if masking more disturbing odours. The overpowering aromas filled Sophie’s senses before she opened her eyes, more heady than anything she had ever experienced before. When her eyelids did finally flutter open, she clamped them shut again immediately, so bright was the light. It took her a second or two to acclimatise, and slowly conscious thought returned with the vivid sensations: at first a simple awareness, then puzzlement, then concern.

  Cautiously, she opened her eyes again, shielding them with her hand as she took in her surroundings. She was lying on a table of white marble. Slowly easing herself upright and swinging her legs off one side, she saw white marble everywhere in the large, columned room, so that it appeared to blaze in the sunlight that streamed through glass skylights far up in the lofty ceiling. It reminded Sophie of drawings she had seen of the homes of the gods in Greek mythology. But there was a pleasing organic aspect to the straight lines, with vines wrapping themselves around some of the columns and trees growing up through the floor to the ceiling. Songbirds fluttered back and forth amongst the highest branches. Nearby was a sparkling spring that ran into a reflecting pool with a soothing bubbling. Peace lay heavy all around.

  �
��Welcome, Sister of Dragons.’

  Sophie started at the honeyed voice. She turned to see Ceridwen looking at her with a warm smile that had been absent the first time Sophie had seen her face. And with that thought came another rush of memory: the strange, twisted warriors on their reptilian mounts rushing towards her.

  ‘Not dead, then?’ she said, not quite able to believe it herself.

  ‘Not dead,’ Ceridwen replied, faintly amused.

  With her was a man in scarlet robes. The colour was shocking in the bright white of the room. Sophie experienced the same unnerving shift of perception she had felt when she had first seen Ceridwen, but after a second, the man’s face settled into a form she could comprehend. He was hollow-cheeked, his nose aquiline, his eyes a piercing grey set off by the red scarf tied around his head to hold back his hair. His tall, thin frame was a stark contrast to Ceridwen’s voluptuousness.

  ‘This is Dian Cecht,’ Ceridwen said. ‘He has admitted you to the Court of the Final Word.’

  The name felt like a cold breath on the back of Sophie’s neck. ‘Not in my world,’ she said to herself, knowing it to be true the moment the words left her lips.

  ‘Dian Cecht is the name by which he was known amongst the tribes of the Fixed Lands,’ Ceridwen continued. ‘He is a wise man, a healer, a maker of great things.’

  Sophie’s hand instinctively went to her side.

  ‘Yes, Sister of Dragons, I repaired you,’ Dian Cecht said.

  There was something in his tone that made Sophie feel queasy, but she attempted to show gratitude. ‘I could have died.’ The shock brought another rush of realisation. ‘You’re two of the gods that came with the Fall.’ Then: ‘Why are you helping me?’

  ‘You are a Sister of Dragons,’ Ceridwen said with a note of puzzlement, as if that should be explanation enough. When she saw from Sophie’s face that it wasn’t, she added, ‘Existence is at a cusp. The old ways are ending… our ways…’ Dian Cecht flinched at this, but said nothing. ‘Your ways are in the ascendant. Fragile Creatures are poised to rise and advance, to become something… greater. And the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons will have a part to play in that. You are important in so many ways,’ Ceridwen added warmly. ‘It is believed by the filid of my people that if Fragile Creatures do not reach their potential, then all of Existence may come to an end.’