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301 lines
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<h1>28</h1>
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<p>All that came back to me in the dream-like déja; -vu feeling as we waded unto the tunnel.</p>
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<p>We were only a few yards under the arch when the light went out at the far end, as if a door had slammed shut. Suddenly it was pitch dark again. I held the blackthorn stick up and tapped my way along, trying not to slip, and holding Paddy's arm.</p>
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<p>'You might hear funny noises,' I told her, 'but they won't be real. Don't worry.'</p>
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<p>'I won't worry. Not with you all here with me.' Her voice echoed down into the shadows. I knew now that the thing Kitty Macbeth had spoken of had the power to make us see things that don't exist. Hell, the tunnel was forty yards at the most, there should have been enough light to read by, but it was dark as night and we were heading down to face whatever had the power to change all that.</p>
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<p>I was scared. Not with the panicky fear I'd had as a kid. It was more like the panicky dread you get as an adult. To tell the truth, there's not much to choose between them.</p>
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<p>Up ahead, there was a noise, like a low moan. I squeezed Paddy's arm and over my shoulder I told Colin not to worry.</p>
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<p>
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'It's just trying to scare us,' he said. 'I remember.'</p>
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<p>'Stay cool and we'll make it through.'</p>
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<p>I was beginning to wish we'd crossed the road, shotguns or no. It was stupid to come this way and get ourselves all freaked again.</p>
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<p>The low moan subsided into that rumbling gurgle, then faded to silence. Even the sound of the water was muted. Then came another sound that was more of a slithering sensation that sent the hairs on my neck standing to attention again. I could tell myself that it was all in my head, and I'd done this before, but it wasn't much help. The slithering came louder, but I kept going until something soft and sticky drew across my mouth, It tugged slightly, then gave. A cobweb, I realised, almost laughing with relief. Then another one draped over me and another and then a tangle of them, until I was clawing through a sticky mess that seemed to fill the entire space.</p>
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<p>The slithering was closer, as if something was sliding across the stones underfoot. I held my stick out and something jarred against it, knocking it to the left, then to the right. Something had
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<em>moved.</em></p>
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<p>Instinctively I jerked my hand back and I felt an added weight. I hit the walking stick down and heard a muffled splash, as if through layers of gauze. The weight seemed to be gone.</p>
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<p>Then something cold touched my hand.</p>
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<p>Something had crawled up the stick.</p>
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<p>A wave of revulsion jolted through me. I jerked my hand back and snapped it down again and whatever it was flipped off into the water. I took two steps and felt something crunch under my boot, It crunched with a pop. I didn't even want to imagine what it was.</p>
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<p>I took another step and then Paddy let out a shriek.</p>
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<p>'Get it off me. Oh, get it <em>off</em>.'</p>
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<p>O pulled her close. She writhed against me and beat her arms about. Something was on her neck and I swear it felt like a big wet spider, hard, but yielding, all its legs moving. Without thinking I just grabbed at it and squeezed hard. I felt stuff spurt over my hand. Then something landed on my shoulder, behind me I heard gasps from the others and Paddy screeched again.</p>
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<p>That was it for me.</p>
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<p>Cu Saeng, or whatever it's name was in our heads and it might have all been just hallucination, but I'd had enough.</p>
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<p>'Come on!' I bawled. 'Run for it.'</p>
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<p>I just held Paddy's arm - God, that arm must have been bruised by now - and lashed out savagely at the cobwebs and whatever lurked in them. I blasted my way through that tunnel, hitting and swinging like a madman. I seemed to run a long way through the dark and then I was in open air again, dragging Paddy behind into the light.</p>
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<p>I skidded to a halt and Paddy stopped yelling. I pulled her down beside me, keeping an arm round her shoulder. Paddy clasped her arms around my hip and sobbed. Behind us, Colin and the major ran out.</p>
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<p>If Donald had been an unbeliever before, he sure had got converted in that forty yards of tunnel. He was an old soldier and he'd seen and done plenty, but his face told me he had never gone through anything like that forty yard, nightmare stretch. Colin's face was pure white, but he had become a believer, become whatever he should have been all these years, when the three of us had joined hands on the dry steam bed.</p>
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<p>'Dear Jesus almighty,' Donald said, with real fervour. 'What on earth was...?'</p>
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<p>He stopped in mid sentence. 'No. Don't tell me. That was nothing on God's earth.'</p>
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<p>'Now you're getting the picture,' I said.</p>
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<p>
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'That's what you were talking about,' he said he turned to look back at the black tunnel. No light came out. It was a black hole that sucked everything into its dark.</p>
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<p>'I'm sure I didn't imagine that. Those things were...' he glanced at Paddy and stopped.</p>
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<p>
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'You're right,' he started off again. 'That was
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<em>wrong</em>. I don't know what it is, but it's evil. Whatever can do that, it has got to be stopped.'</p>
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<p>'Glad you've come round,' I said, a bit drily. 'It'll save me having to explain the facts of life every ten minutes.'</p>
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<p>'You just tell me what to do, laddie, and I'll be about it. I'm not too old to be taking orders, you know.'</p>
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<p>Donald was now convinced. It had taken me weeks of pussy-footing around to get to that stage.</p>
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<p>I looked up at the parapet, expecting to see a row of faces leering down, but there was no-one there. We waded out of the stream and came to a sheltered spot in the lee of some bushes. We hunkered down. I was worried about what all this was doing to Paddy. Having said that, my main concern was to keep her alive and
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<em>stay</em> alive and do something about this mess.</p>
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<p>What I needed to do was still unclear, a memory that refused to come into focus.</p>
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<p>Donald said he could use a smoke. He'd dropped his pipe between McFall's farm and here. I reached into my pocket and fumbled for a crumpled pack of cigarettes. I just hauled everything from the big patch pocket and tumbled it onto the grass.</p>
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<p>Colin reached past me and picked up the smooth spear point stone.</p>
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<p>'You found it,' he said excitedly. 'You've got the stone. That's what we had. That's what we need now.'</p>
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<p>Donald looked at him, then down at the sharp obsidian point.</p>
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<p>'An old spear head?</p>
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<p>I nodded. Colin turned it over in his hand, studying it, and I could see he was <em>remembering.</em></p>
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<p>The major and I lit up, and though I've long given them up now, I can still taste that one.</p>
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<p>'I need a spear,' Colin said. 'Can you make one, Nicky? Make me a spear with the stone ? I've forgotten how to tie it on.'</p>
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<p>'Sure, if you think it'll help.'</p>
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<p>'We had one last time. We might need it again where we have to go.'</p>
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<p>'And where would that be?' Donald asked.</p>
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<p>'Over there!' Colin pointed through the bushes towards the black hump of Ardmhor Rock that sat in a sea of grey mist. Above it, a menacing black cloud hung like a fist. Above us, the sky was dark and threatening, but not so ominous as the roiling mass over Ardmhor.</p>
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<p>
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'That's where it is. We saw it before, didn't we? But it hurt us. It hurt
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<em>me.</em> And now we have to hurt it back.'</p>
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<p>Colin said this with a look of bleak determination on his face that almost won the battle with the fear. He was scared all right, and with very good reason, but he was planning to face his fear and face the thing that had sent him to limbo for the past twenty years.</p>
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<p>When he said that, I could see the ten-year-old Colin Blackwood, the fiery, adventurous one-and-only, and a wave of sadness washed through me at the thought of what he had missed.</p>
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<p>And yes, if we had to go to Ardmhor to get his revenge, then I was going with him.</p>
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<p>Scared? Sure, but I had got beyond that. I reckon I was in such a state of numbed horror that I'd come out the other side and become rational again. I just wished the mist of memory would blow clear and prepare me for what was to come next.</p>
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<p>Donald and I used our knives to cut a good, straight rowan sapling as a shaft. I made a cleft in the top and slotted the stone into it and wedged it tight. Between us, we had enough twine to lash it securely until it looked just like a stone-age weapon. I knew how to do that. I had seen it before in a dream that had been sent to me that sunny day by the side of Strowan's Well.</p>
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<p>
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'Shouldn't you have a bow and arrow?' I asked. Colin shook his head. He touched the blackthorn walking stick.</p>
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<p>'You take that. It's the right stuff.'</p>
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<p>'What does that mean?'</p>
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<p>'I don't know. The right wood, I think.'</p>
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<p>'I hope so.'</p>
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<p>Paddy said she was thirsty and I was about to suggest she took a drink from the stream, but it was still coloured with spate silt. Then I remembered the bottle and I unscrewed the top and let her have a couple of big swallows.</p>
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<p>
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'Oooh,' she said, smacking her lips. 'That's so
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<em>good</em>.' Colin took a mouthful, then me. As soon as I drank, I felt better. It was as if the water had gone down and cleansed me, burning out the numbness. For an instant, I saw everything in bright clarity.
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</p>
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<p>Even Colin managed a small smile. 'It
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<em>is</em> good,' he said. 'We should save some for later. I know what we have to do, but we have to watch. It's waiting for us. It wants us to go there, but it's afraid of us too. From the last time.'
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</p>
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<p>'What makes you think that?'</p>
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<p>'I don't know. It just is. It's getting clearer. I can't see it all yet, but I can <em>feel</em> it. I can feel
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<em>him.'</em></p>
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<p>'Cu Saeng?'</p>
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<p>I don't know it's name. It doesn't have a name. But he's old and he's bad inside. All bad. He wants to kill us, but I'm going to kill him, because he
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<em>stole</em> me.'</p>
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<p>'That he did,' I said under my breath, but Colin continued.</p>
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<p>
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'He's watching us, but he knows we're strong. The water has kept him back now that we fixed it and he is very angry. He wanted out, but now he's stuck inside again and he's really mad.'</p>
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<p>Colin stopped and seemed to converse with himself, then snapped out of it.</p>
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<p>'We have to be brave and very careful. We have to be ready for him.'</p>
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<p>Donald coughed quietly.</p>
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<p>'I think we should be moving on, while we've still got the light.'</p>
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<p>
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'You're right,' I said. 'How are you doing, Paddy?'</p>
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<p>'I'm all right now.'</p>
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<p>'Do you know where we're going?'</p>
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<p>
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'Yes,' she said resignedly, and pointed towards the rock. 'We're going <em>there.</em>'</p>
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<p>'Just keep a hold of me and stay close. I'll be looking after you.'</p>
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<p>'I know,' she said, and looked up at me with a small smile. I really hated the idea of taking her with us, but there was no way to avoid it. Nowhere was safe now in Arden and no matter what we had to face, I wanted her close by so I could protect her.</p>
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<p>Colin used the stout spear to get to his feet, and as he did so, I got another image of him. His four-day stubble was a black matt and his dark eyes gleamed in the weak light. If he'd put on skins and let his hair grow long, he would have been the image of that long ago dream hunter who had followed the elk to the water.</p>
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<p>This time, Colin led the way, with the major and his Armalite as rearguard.</p>
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<p>We headed towards the mist.</p>
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<p>We were halfway to Swanson's farm when a shout halted us in our tracks. The major whirled just as a shotgun blast ripped the air, and sent duck-shot tearing into the brambles on the edge of the path.</p>
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<p>Billy Ruine looked even more crazy than before. There was blood all over his face, and there was something really odd about one of the other guys with him. He only had one eye, and one side of his head seemed to have been pulped. How the man was conscious, never mind walking, I couldn't imagine, but he was there with the rest of them, a dozen or maybe fifteen others, armed with shotguns and a whole array of blunt and sharp weapons. It was like a peasant uprising from the old days.</p>
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<p>One big man wielded a garden fork, for god's sake, and he was shambling along with the rest of them, staring straight ahead with a blank look that was more frightening than if it had been fury.</p>
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<p>
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'Move,' Donald shouted. 'Quick!'</p>
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<p>We moved quickly, in the direction we'd been heading. There was another blast that hit the hedge again. The shooter was no expert. I hustled Paddy along the path and risked a glance back. Donald was down on one knee with the stock of the gun ticked tight to his shoulder.</p>
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<p>There was a sharp crack, not as loud as the shotgun, and an immediate cry from behind us. Wee reached the stile and I lifted Paddy over. Colin followed and I looked back again.</p>
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<p>The major was on his feet and running.</p>
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<p>'Keep moving,' he ordered. 'Fast as you can.'</p>
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<p>He caught up with us on the other side and I got a whiff of cordite from the barrel.</p>
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<p>'Too exposed there,' he said. 'I need somewhere I can hold them off. I don't want to shoot them all.'</p>
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<p>'Why not?'</p>
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<p>'Just the ones with guns,' he said. 'But there's too many. They could outflank me in the open.'</p>
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<p>We got behind Swanson's farm and over the gate to the path that led to Ardmhor. The farmyard was deserted, which was good. I didn't want any more opposition.</p>
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<p>About a hundred yards down the track, with the crazy cries of pursuit behind us, we came to the narrow space between the trees where I'd had the fright with the moving bramble vines on the night of the storm. Donald rapped me on the shoulder.</p>
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<p>Colin stopped when I did.</p>
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<p>'This will do,' Donald said. 'I can hold them off from here.'</p>
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<p>
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'Won't they get around you?'</p>
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<p>The old soldier shook his head. 'No. I can see right and left. If they come at the side, it'll be through all that undergrowth. I'll hear them. You go on and I'll catch up later. Get moving now.'</p>
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<p>I reached and gripped his arm. I would have preferred that he came with us, but I knew he would have to hold the others off. He knew he would have to stay and make a stand, and Colin and I
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<em>had</em> to get to the rock and whatever awaited us there.</p>
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<p>We didn't say anything. Donald and I just looked at each other, then he said: 'Go on, laddie. Just watch out for those two.'</p>
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<p>I let go of his arm and was about to move along, when Paddy stopped me. She reached up to Donald and he bent down, letting her wrap his arms around his neck to give him a warm, quick hug. He ruffled her hair, the way I often did.</p>
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<p>'You look after both of them, bonny lass. Now be off with you. Scat!'</p>
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<p>'Come on Nicky,' Colin said. We followed him down the path, leaving the major behind. Within fifty yards, the grey mist swirled around us like thick smoke and we went through the gap in the hawthorn hedge and into the domain of the thing that waited behind the old walls.</p>
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<p>The fog dulled everything and made strange shapes that writhed in front of our eyes and disappeared in wisps. Trees loomed out of the gloom and faded behind us and even the noise of our footsteps seemed deadened, sucked away by the fog. Paddy gripped my hand more tightly and I kept up the pace to ensure I didn't lose sight of Colin who was moving briskly ahead.</p>
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<p>Behind us came a muffled roar, followed instantly by a muted crack, like a squib. A faint cry diminished rapidly. I hoped Donald was all right.</p>
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<p>In the shadow of the big beech trees, the mist merged with the dark cloud looming overhead. The wind was rising now and it seemed as if the air pressure had suddenly increased, making it somehow more solid, but the mist stayed in place. It writhed in ghostly shadows.</p>
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<p>We stopped for a moment beside a big tree. Colin was keep to get on, to face the enemy. I knew I also had to, but was far from enthusiastic. Up close, in the half light, I saw a fierce, burning anger written on Colin's face.</p>
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<p>He stood with us, leaning against his spear, a warrior steeling himself for battle, psyching himself up.</p>
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<p>Paddy saw the movement first. She jumped so suddenly, she almost landed in my arms. Under my feet, the ground shivered and I heard a creaking sound. Right in front of us, a grey root twisted and heaved out of the soil, sending leaf mould scattering.</p>
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<p>I edged back and the root tore free, thick as a man's thigh and covered in fine rootlets. It slithered towards us. We all backed up until we were up against the trunk. It whipped around, questing, then it coiled, tensed and unleashed it's length right at us.</p>
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<p>I lifted Paddy away and jinked round the tree, shoving Colin to the other side as I moved. The ground heaved again and another big root started to flex. Then another and another, until all around us they reached and squirmed.</p>
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<p>We just ran for it.</p>
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<p>The stand of beech wasn't too wide, but it seemed like a mile as we raced through. At one point something looped out and caught my foot, wrenching me right off balance and I fell heavily, twisting so I didn't land on Paddy. She yelped. Something lashed at me as I lay sprawled in the dead leaves, and a stinging pain shot of my thigh.</p>
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<p>Colin grabbed my collar and hauled me upright and shoved me forwards, both of us leaping like hurdlers over the reaching roots.</p>
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<p>Then, suddenly, we were out of it and on to a clearing. At the far side, the wall of basalt loomed.</p>
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<p>Ardmhor Rock's black face towered up into the cloud.</p>
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<p>
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'That's it,' Colin said, breathless. 'Here's where he is.'</p>
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<p>'What now?' I had to yell to be heard above the tumult from under the trees.</p>
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<p>Colin pointed to a scree of fallen rocks that had slipped off the face.</p>
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<p>'There. Where we were the last time when he...'</p>
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<p>Colin's words were cut off as the ground heaved and buckled violently. Both of us were sent stumbling.</p>
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<p>There was an immense crack of sound, as if a volcano had blown and a rumble like a train racing at us down a tunnel. The intense noise sent pressure pains in my ears. Then from the swirling cloud there was a crash and a flash of lightning that stabbed down, almost in slow motion, and hit the rock face where the stone met the short turf.</p>
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<p>A purple after-image fuzzed my vision and the ringing in my ears fogged my brain, but I still held Paddy tight, waiting for the earth to open up and swallow us, or for another bolt of lightning to roast us to a cinder.</p>
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<p>For a second, I couldn't even move.</p>
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<p>Then Colin spoke. 'There. Look Nicky. That's where we have to go.'</p>
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<p>His voice, over the sound in my head, was faint and scratchy, but I heard what he said.</p>
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<p>Where his spear was aimed, I saw a deep dark triangle in the rock face that seemed solid. But it wasn't solid.</p>
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<p>There was a flicker of green light above us and I suddenly saw what Colin meant.</p>
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<p>Cu Saeng had opened the door.</p>
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<p>There was nothing for it but to go in</p>
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