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497 lines
24 KiB
HTML
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<head>
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<title>Mythlands - Chapter 5</title>
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<h1>5</h1>
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<p>
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"I don't think it's earth at all," Jack said, sinking back in pain and exhaustion and the darkness came and swallowed him up.
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</p>
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<p>
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Dreams came, awful dreams of great crater-eyed crows wheeling and flocking, flitting between standing stones. A cold was creeping through him, an aching,
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somehow <em>deadly</em> cold that he knew was reaching for his heart with an icy determination.
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</p>
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<p>
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The crows wheeled outwards across a battlefield where beasts grunted and squealed and creatures that looked like grey, warted men battled with thick stone
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clubs against real men, true men in leather armour and helmets. The screams of the dying and the beasts and the harsh cawing of the crows swept like a
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storm across the broken bodies and the fighters, the birds wheeling tight and turning the sky into a creeping darkness that reached from the light towards
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him, a fluttering arm seeking him out to crush him in shadow.
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</p>
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<p>
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He backed away, terrified as the lead crow came winging in and landed on his shoulder, crater eyes festering and wet beak lunging for his own eyes.
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</p>
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<hr />
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<p>
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He was yelling in fright when Kerry woke him, shaking him by the shoulder. His eyes flicked open and pain sizzled across his skin.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Jack, man. Wake yourself." Kerry was bent over him. "Come on Jackie boy, wake up."
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</p>
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<p>
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He swam up and out of the dream, breath backed up in a tight, dry throat. His shoulder and chest ached with a pain that ached deep inside him, under skin
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and muscle and bone. His left arm twitched.
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</p>
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<p>
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Somewhere in the distance a dog was howling, or something that sounded like a dog, shivering the air with its hollow sound. Who could tell what it was? The
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awful dream faded and fragmented as Jack shook himself away from it as he came awake in a shadowed forest and realized where he was, even if he didn't know
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quite where they were at all. They were still here, still under the trees where they had run from the killing ground.
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</p>
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<p>
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"You were yelling," Kerry said. "Gave me a freakin' scare so you did."
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</p>
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<p>
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"I was…I was dreaming."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Must have been a real beauty."
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</p>
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<p>
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It was darker than it had been and shadows were growing around them, real shadows. Somewhere above them, there was still light in the sky and maybe
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moonlight, but the branches grew thick and intertwined and it wasn't easy to tell.
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</p>
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<p>
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"We have to move," Kerry said, nodding to where the trees grew thick and the undergrowth even thicker. "That howling out there, it's getting closer."
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack got to his feet, shook his head to clear it and moaned at the stiffness in the side of his chest, where his ribs felt glued together in ice.
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</p>
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<p>
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"You really don't look too good." Kerry put a hand to his shoulder. Jack could hear the concern in his voice.
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</p>
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<p>
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He mumbled something, trying to ease the ache away, not wanting to let Kerry know that it hurt <em>deep.</em> They had enough to worry about and he had got
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Kerry into this. He had to get them back home again. <em> </em>
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</p>
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<p>
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"Let's move." He shouldered the satchel and Kerry hefted his backpack and they began walking slowly and warily between the great gnarled trunks deeper into
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the forest in the opposite direction of the echoing howls that sounded too much like wolves for Jack's liking. They followed an animal trail, dodging
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thickets of thorny vines that snatched at their hair and clothes and around them was the smell of wet wood and rotting leaves.
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</p>
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<p>
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The trees crowded thicker as they moved and overhead things flitted unseen.
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</p>
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<p>
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The whole place smelt different. It <em>felt</em> strange and so unlike the forests that grew alongside Brander Water. The smell of rot and growing things
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and musky blooms came wafting on the still air. Roots as thick as tree-trunks snaked out from the leaf-litter and great mushrooms, big as footballs swelled
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amongst them, eerily white in the wan light.
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</p>
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<p>
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They kept going, while Jack tried to figure out a direction, but the compass in his head, the one that always told him where he was and where to go, was
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failing him, and that was scary too. It meant they really were far from home.
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</p>
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<p>
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Somewhere in the hidden sky, a moon glowed, but the high leaves blotted out much of the light. In the dark spaces, fireflies danced sickly green, and
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despite the still air, the thick leaves up above seemed to whisper secrets in the shadows.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack felt slow fingers of anxiety trail up and down his spine. The nausea inside him rolled and every now and then he felt the need to lie down, but he
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fought against it, and the crowding darkness that squeezed inside him and he saw, in his mind's eye, the bloated face of Billy Robbins as the dark oozed
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out of him.
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</p>
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<p>
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He had been <em>touched </em>by that dark.
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</p>
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<p>
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He felt the cold of it in his bones and he wondered how long it would be before it ate into him and left him stiff and pale-eyed and dead on the ground. He
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tried his best to shake the images away, and plodded on, staggering and stumbling a lot, until his knees began to tremble with the effort of keeping
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himself upright.
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</p>
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<p>
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Eventually after what seemed like miles, they came to a dell where a small stream tumbled into a crystal pool, lit by a rising moon that managed to beam
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through the leaves around the clearing.
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</p>
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<p>
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"This is far enough," Jack said flatly. "We have to rest."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Suits me," Kerry agreed quickly. "My feet are killing me."
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</p>
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<p>
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Together they set up camp in the bole of a forest giant and Jack tested the water. It was cold and clear. Kerry lit a small fire and opened a tin of beans
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for both of them and afterwards he leant back against the tree, nestled in its spreading roots and lit one of Billy Robbins' cigarettes. In the light of
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the fire, in his rabbit-skin Halloween costume, he could have been a stone-age hunter, but for the smoke rings he was trying to blow in the still air, and
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the heavy short-sword that he had dug into the ground at his feet.
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</p>
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<p>
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"There's fish in the stream," he ventured, trying to sound positive. "And I saw rabbit trails. Or some kind of trails. We can put a few snares out and
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we'll be eating like kings."
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</p>
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<p>
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"We have to get back home," Jack said. "We left the Major. We shouldn't have run."
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</p>
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<p>
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"We never had much of a chance, did we? He shut the door on us."
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack eased himself back in the hug of big roots, feeling the shadows crowd around beyond the firelight. "I don't know where this is, but it's not home. The
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Major must know something. If we get back soon enough, maybe he'll have sorted everything out. He can tell us.
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</p>
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<p>
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Guilt over-rode the ache in his ribs. He felt a coward<em>.</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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"What happened to the ringstones? There must have been ten of them."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Thirteen," Jack stated. "Twelve spaces between them. We just went through and ended up here, wherever this is. How it happened, I haven't got a clue. I
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felt something. Like I was turning inside out."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Felt like the first night on a trawler. Made me want to puke."
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</p>
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<p>
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"But however we came through, I don't think we can back that way."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Maybe it's like a bank," Kerry suggested. "On a time lock. We could wait until the manager turns up."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Good idea," Jack said, concentrating on the problem and not on the pain inside him and not feeling confident at all that they <em>could </em>get back "We
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should have another look and see if anybody shows up. But first, I think we should have a look at what we've got."
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</p>
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<p>
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He looked steadily at his friend. "We're really on our own."
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</p>
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<p>
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Kerry opened the backpack and drew out the little telescopic fly rod along with the rope they'd planned to use to scale the wall around Cromwath Blackwood.
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He had a little torch for exploring whatever it was they had hoped to find and an old cigar box with thick line and fishing hooks and a shopping bag with a
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few cans of corned beef and some biscuits he'd filched from the Major's kitchen.
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</p>
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<p>
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"And I got the walkman I won at cards and a pack of fifty two, in case we get bored," he said lightly, trying to make the best of it. He pointed to the
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satchel the Major had pushed into Jack's hands. "And what's in that?"
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</p>
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<p>
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The satchel lay between them. It was old, with thick patterned leather that looked like scales from something big and armoured, like a crocodile. Jack
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opened the catch, felt inside and drew out a book. It was small and thin and leather-backed, and even older than the satchel. On the front were some
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wriggly signs he couldn't read. The leather was carved in the same way as the standing stones.
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</p>
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<p>
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Inside the pages were blank and felt as if they were made of thin crackly skin.
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</p>
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<p>
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"The Major said it was important. But it doesn't look like it's going to be much use." He put it on the bag.
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</p>
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<p>
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Kerry picked it up, held it to the light and the embossed lettering stood out in sharp relief.
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</p>
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<p>
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"<em>The Book of Ways</em>," he said.
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</p>
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<p>
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"What?"
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</p>
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<p>
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"That's what it says."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Stop kidding around, man. We have to think." It took Kerry all his time to read a page of a book and even then he struggled with words.
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</p>
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<p>
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"The Book of Ways," he said again. Then he stopped, eyes wide.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Now I know it's a dream now Jack man. Yours or mine, whosever it is. Must be if I can read that. An' I swear I can."
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</p>
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<p>
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He opened it, stared at the blank pages. "Bit of a swiz though. Just a name and nothing in it." He slung it back on the satchel. "It can't be that
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important."
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</p>
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<p>
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The book landed at a slant. Very quietly the back cover opened and the pages riffled all by themselves until it reached the first page.
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</p>
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<p>
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They both leant forward together.
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</p>
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<p>
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A shape began to appear on that first page, darkening the surface very slowly, almost like a photograph developing in the darkroom.
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</p>
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<p>
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"There must be a computer chip in it," Kerry said. "Look at that."
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</p>
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<p>
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The picture became clearer, darkening onto the fine old leather page. As they watched, fascinated, two standing stones carved with grotesque shapes and
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strange lettering, stones exactly like the ones they had seen on the moor, <em>un-</em>faded into being. Between the stones was nothing at all.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Neat trick," Kerry lifted the book up and held it between them.
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</p>
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<p>
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Even as he spoke, a script appeared above the image, scrolling onto the page as if written by an invisible hand. Jack could make no sense of it at all.
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</p>
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<p>
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"The Farward Gate of Temair." Kerry mouthed the words slowly. "That's what it says."
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack's breath came out long and slow. He was shaking his head in disbelief or dismay when Kerry looked up from the book.
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</p>
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<p>
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"No," he said softly. "It can't be."
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</p>
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<p>
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But Kerry's eyes had dropped back to the old book again. New letters, or what seemed to be letters to Kerry, were scrolling on, line by line, directly
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beneath the etching of the two rock pillars. They came to an end eight lines down. Kerry's fingers worked along the line and he read out haltingly.
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</p>
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<p>
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<em> From Farward set for set of sun</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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<em> First step on travail just begun</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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<em> But journey-man be well aware</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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<em> A shadow wakes in far Temair.</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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<em>Perils from the shadow's wrath</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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<em>Lurk to lure from righteous path</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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<em> Steel your heart and brave your fate</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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<em> Ere you find the Homeward Gate</em>
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.
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</p>
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<p>
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"What do you think that means?"
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</p>
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<p>
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Jacks face had paled to ghostly in the firelight. "If it means what I think it does, we're in real trouble."
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</p>
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<p>
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"As if I never knew that already," Kerry nudged him on the arm. "No, but really, what sort of trouble, apart from all this weird stuff."
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</p>
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<p>
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"You remember the stories I used to read? The Celtic ones."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Aye. Cahoolin and all them loonies an' witches." Kerry sat, leaning on the sword. It seemed part of him. "Sure, they were just fairy tales."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Temair was from <em>before </em>Cuchullain<em>.</em> It's the oldest name for the Celtic kingdoms in the legends, when the Fomorians were beaten and
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thrown out."
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</p>
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<p>
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He shook his head in denial. "No. This is impossible. Temair doesn't exist. Temair was the old Celtic kingdom, but long before the Celts ever came. It was
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Ireland and Scotland before the sea came up and split them apart. You must have made a mistake."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Maybe," Kerry agreed. "You know what I'm like with words."
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</p>
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<p>
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"That word. <em>Travail</em>. How do they spell it?"
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</p>
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<p>
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"I dunno," Kerry shrugged. "I can get a sense of it, but don't ever ask me to spell it. I don't even know what the letters are." He held the book up and
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mouthed the word again. "When I read it, I get the feeling like it's trouble, or hardship, something like that. It doesn't sound like a picnic, for sure."
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</p>
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<p>
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"That's travail all right. I don't know what the rest of it means, but if it is right, then we can't go back the way we came."
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</p>
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<p>
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"How do you mean?"
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</p>
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<p>
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"The Homeward Gate. The one we came through, it disappeared. Don't you think it means there's another gate somewhere else?"
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack blew out a slow breath. "It means there's another gate somewhere that will take us home. And we <em>have</em> to get home. I have to find the Major."
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</p>
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<p>
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Kerry shook his head this time. "You don't believe any of this, do you?" He stopped himself short. Those bodies had been real, men and beasts both. "I
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could smell them", he muttered. "And this sword." He hefted it, heavy in his hand. "That's for real."
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</p>
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<p>
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But Jack was thinking back, back to the hike up Brander Ridge with the Major. <em>The universe is stranger than we </em>can <em>imagine,</em> he'd said. <em> </em>And this was stranger than anything he had ever imagined. As strange as the dark that had sucked its way inside Billy Robbins and then come
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oozing out in a muttering, occult flow.
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</p>
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<p>
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<em>Thin places.</em>
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That's what the Major had said. Despite the ache inside him, Jack thought about that. <em>Thin places where worlds meet</em>. It was all too puzzling, all
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of it. And frightening.
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</p>
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<p>
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"So what now?" Kerry broke in to his thoughts. The howling was distant now and it was getting darker in the trees. Up in the canopy, things rustled, but no
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breeze stirred the flames. Ghostly moths the size of sparrows fluttered in to the light, and whirring insects hummed juicily up against the ear. Now and
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then a big dragonfly, bigger than anything they'd seen at Stoneymill pool, would zoom in on clattering wings. Eyes seemed to watch them from the darkness.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I reckon we should get some sleep and think about it in the morning." Jack twisted on to the side that gave less pain, aware of the ache crawling over his
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ribs as if he'd taken a heavy blow, even though it had just been a <em>touch. </em>His mind was abuzz and he couldn't sleep. He lay a long time, thinking,
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as the shadows rolled in and small things moved out there in the undergrowth unmoving.
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</p>
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<p>
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He started when Kerry shook him by the arm.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Jack!" Kerry hissed close to his ear.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Whassamatter? Jack was groggy and drained, as if he was coming down with the flu, but he knew it was something else, something worse than that.
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</p>
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<p>
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"There's something out there. I heard it. I can feel it. We're being watched." Jack reached for the bow.
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</p>
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<p>
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"It's too dark to move out there," he said. "We'll get lost or fall down a hole. We best set up a perimeter."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Like in <em>Predator</em>?"
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</p>
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<p>
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Kerry dug in the pack and brought out the rope and the thick nylon line he used for rabbit snares and together they set some trip wires, just in case.
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Kerry used his weight to bend down sturdy saplings and Jack helped him fix them with spring nooses that would snare anything that kicked away the notched
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stick that held them down.
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</p>
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<p>
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He had seen Kerry set them up before, back home, wherever <em>home </em>was now. Anything that stumbled into it would be caught when the saplings sprang
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back and tightened the nooses.
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</p>
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<p>
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They gathered dry branches to lay all round beyond the fire, so they'd crackle if anything came near. Finally Jack sunk down onto his haunches, drained of
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strength, breathing hard.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I'd better take a look at that," Kerry said, kneeling beside him. The leather jerkin Jack had made from the old jacket was puckered and twisted close to
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the neck. It seemed to have shriveled from heat.
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</p>
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<p>
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Kerry helped peel it off as Jack winced with the movement then, when he'd pulled the shirt aside, he let out a long slow breath.
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</p>
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<p>
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From Jack's shoulder to just above his heart, what looked like a bruise was risen and welted on his skin, not blue, but grey and going on to black in the
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centre, and risen up from the skin in twisting knots. It stretched like a wide hand, dark, too dark against the pale skin, blistered and already peeling.
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</p>
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<p>
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It looked poisoned.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I don't like the looks of that," Kerry said. "We have to get you some help."
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</p>
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<p>
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He rummaged in the bag and brought out the flask with his father's illicit whisky and soaked his last paper tissue. Jack lay back.
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</p>
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<p>
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"This should kill the germs," Kerry assured him. "It'll kill just about anything."
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</p>
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<p>
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He dabbed gently at the blackening skin and Jack let out a howl, so loud and sudden that Kerry pulled back and the howl faded into a moan as Jack slumped
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against the root as the firelight spangled through sudden tears. He blinked them back and closed his eyes, waiting for the hurt to die away. A wave of
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dizziness looped through him and he felt the dark closing in from beyond the fire glow and he could do nothing but let it take him again.
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</p>
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<p>
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It was pitch dark when he came round again, gasping for breath and aching all over as if cold toxin was pulsing sluggish through his blood. Kerry was
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beside him, dabbing his brow with water from the stream. He made him drink, holding the canteen to his mouth and the cool sucked some of the pain away.
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</p>
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<p>
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"You have to stop scaring me like that," Kerry told him, trying to be jocular, but just sounding miserable and afraid. Jack could swallow the water, but he
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couldn't eat any of the beans left in the can. A sick feeling roiled in his belly and he clamped down on it, trying to get his mind into gear so he could
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think. The ring of stones was gone, but if the old book, however implausible, however <em>impossible,</em> was in any way correct, there might be a way
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home, somewhere in this strange place. How far away, he couldn't imagine.
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</p>
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|
<p>
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|
They would have to find it, find it quickly and get back home.
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</p>
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|
<p>
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|
He didn't know how they could do it, not from those eight lines in strange script, but they'd have to try. He was scared at the prospect, scared at the
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idea of being stuck here where broken bones of beasts and men littered the hillside and glowing eyes watched them from deep in the shadows. He was on the
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cusp of sixteen years old, and he was afraid. All his life he'd read about his heroes, the great warriors of old. Now he was laid in the bole of a tree,
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with a sickening poison spreading under his skin.
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</p>
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|
<p>
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|
He might have been dressed like his hero, but he didn't feel very heroic. Not in the least.
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|
</p>
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|
<p>
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|
It was the dead of night when he was suddenly aware of Kerry rising to his feet beyond the flickering fire.
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</p>
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<p>
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|
"What's wrong?"
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</p>
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|
<p>
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"I heard something," Kerry whispered. His eyes were fixed on the intense darkness beyond the fire. "We <em>are</em> being watched. I can feel it.
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Something's out there. The hairs on the back of my neck are going walkabout."
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</p>
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<p>
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Above them, something flew on whooping wings and they both started, staring into the canopy, but the crows hadn't followed into this dense part of the
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|
forest.
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</p>
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|
<p>
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|
A twig snapped. The sound was just a faint <em>snick</em> out beyond the glow of the embers. Jack's eyes flicked in that direction and he thought he saw a
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|
shape flit from one thick trunk to another. Above them an owl screeched and in the ferns a small animal made a thin cry. Kerry was jerking his head left
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|
and right with every sound, hands clasped round the pommel of the sword.
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</p>
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|
<p>
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|
Then without any warning a loud, piercing screech ripped the night. There was a whooshing sound and a wooden snap and out there branches thrashed violently
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|
back and forth.
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|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"We've caught something." Kerry hoisted the sword and Jack forced himself to his feet. They darted round the far side of the tree, pushed through the ferns
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|
and honeysuckles. A thin shape was grunting and twisting furiously, one limb caught in a noose where the sapling had pulled up to a stretch. The left hind
|
|
leg was caught in another and both saplings whipped and bent as it snarled and thrashed, trying to pull free,
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|
</p>
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|
<p>
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|
The two of them ran forward and Kerry raised the short sword, ready to strike at the squirming shape when there was a flash in the moonlight and one of the
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twine cords snapped and sprung the sapling back like a whip. The thing cried out, high and desperate.
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|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack made a grab for it and it twisted away from him. The flash came again and the noose binding its leg parted like thread. It turned, screeching, came at
|
|
him and he saw a curved glitter, a mere flicker of something sharp, like a claw. He fell back as the shape landed on him and the claw came stabbing down.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
It caught the satchel that had swung over his chest and the thing grunted as the sharp curve stopped dead.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Kerry dropped the sword for fear of hitting Jack in the gloom and launched himself at the tumble of bodies. He landed heavily across both of them. The
|
|
shadow kicked and snarled, scratching with a free hand while Kerry held on desperately to the one holding the blade. It fought like a cat. It was thin and
|
|
wiry and surprisingly strong. It kicked at him, twisting back and forth, grunting with the effort and he still held on.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The beast squirmed again, kicked like a mule and caught Kerry on the thigh, but he rolled with it, dragged the thing off, spun it away from Jack and they
|
|
crashed, tumbling, through a patch of ferns, down the steep bank of the stream and landed with a thud on the shingle beside the water.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The sharp flicker came again. A paw shot out and raked across Kerry's face, going for the eyes. Something clattered to the stones and Kerry saw it was a
|
|
blade. He made a grab for it, and the creature was on him, scrambling and clawing and finally Kerry lost patience and threw a punch as hard as he could.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The creature fell back into a bush and let out a moan. Kerry snatched the knife up, heavy in his hands. The long blade caught the moonlight reflected from
|
|
the stream and he got the thing in a head-lock and dragged it out, ready to slice and finish the thing quickly.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
His hand raised up and the thing squealed, still struggling, high and scared and angry, like a trapped cat, kicking and clawing to get free.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The moonlight caught the blade on the way down.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack's hand clamped around his wrist and the point stopped just under the thing's throat. Another inch and it would have done its work.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack held tight.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"It's a girl," he finally said.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
"Don't hurt her."
|
|
</p>
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|
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</div>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>
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