Peter Higgins - Wolfhound Century

The immense lock gates were shut against them. They could make out the silhouette of the Gate Master’s hut at the far end, between the lock and the turbine, but no light showed there. Of course not. Night was falling. No shipping traffic would come now. None, probably, till the spring. They were alone except for the mudjhik, standing in plain sight next to the massive stubby gate tower, waiting for them.

Lom fought the surging water with the oars, but there was nowhere to go. The skiff would either be brought up hard against the bottom of the gate or carried into the turbine’s throat.

‘A ladder!’ Maroussia shouted above the noise of the water. ‘Over there.’

Lom could just make out in the gathering gloom a contraption of steel to the right of the turbine, away from the mudjhik, designed to give access to the weir at water level. All he had to do was take the Sib across the current without getting dragged into the churning turbine mouth.

He could see nothing of what happened under the curtain of spray. There would be a grating, probably, to sift detritus from the canal. Maybe that’s what the ladder was for. To clear it. But even if there was a grating, the boat would surely be smashed against it. The whole weight of the river was passing through there: the force would be tremendous; nobody who went into that churning water would come out again.

He let the current carry them forward and tried to use the oars to steer a slanting course across it, aiming for a point on the embankment just upstream from the bottom of the ladder. His arms ached. His head was pounding. There would be no second chance. The mudjhik was attacking his mind hard, not constantly but with randomly timed pulses of pressure, trying to knock him off balance.

The skiff crashed against the wall, caught her bow on a jut of stone and spun stern-first away from the embankment towards the deafening roar and dark, blinding spray. Lom dug in with the left-hand oar, almost vertically down into the water, and turned the skiff again. She crashed against the foot of the ladder and Maroussia grabbed it. The boat kept moving. Lom crouched and leapt for the ladder. The impact jarred his side numb, but he managed to hook one arm awkwardly round a steel strut. He had slung the Exter-Vulikh across his back by its webbing strap and the Sepora was in his pocket. The Sib continued sliding away from under him. She left them both clinging to the metal frame and disappeared into the shouting darkness and mist. Lom scrabbled desperately for a foothold and barked his shin against a sharp-edged metal rung. Then he was climbing, following Maroussia up the sheer embankment side.

There was nowhere to go. They were standing on a railed steel platform overlooking the turbines. A narrow walkway led across plunging water and slowly turning turbines to the lock gate tower, and beyond that was the lock itself, and the mudjhik. There was no other exit.

Lom looked over the seaward side with a wild idea of diving into the sea and swimming for the beach. If there was a beach. But down there, there was no sea, only a cistern to receive the immense outflow from the turbines. It was a deep, seething pit of water. Hundreds of thousands of gallons burst out from the sluice mouth every second and poured into what was basically a huge concrete-walled box. You wouldn’t drown in there, you’d be smashed to a bloody pulp before the air was gone from your lungs.

Across the walkway a door led into the lock gate tower. With a crash of masonry it shattered open and the mudjhik shouldered its way through. It stood there a moment. Its face was blank. No sightless eyes. No lipless, throatless mouth. Just a rough lump of reddish stone sat on its shoulders. But it was watching them.

Lom raised the Exter-Vulikh and fired a stream of shells into the mudjhik’s belly. The clattering detonations echoed off the surrounding concrete, deafening even above the roar of the turbine sluice, but the shells had no discernible effect. Lom had not thought they would. It was a gesture. The magazine exhausted itself in a few seconds and he threw the gun over the rail into the water below.

For a moment nothing happened. Stalemate. The mudjhik watching them from its end of the walkway. Lom and Maroussia staring back. Waiting. Then the mudjhik turned sideways and began to edge its way across the narrow steel bridge, squeezing itself between the flimsy rails. Lom reached for Maroussia’s hand — it was the time for final, futile gestures — but he didn’t find it. Maroussia had darted forward, running straight at the mudjhik. Lom felt its surge of raw delight as it grabbed for her, reaching sideways, swinging its leading arm wildly. He felt it reaching for her with its mind at the same time. Opening itself wide. Drawing at her. It was like a mouth, gaping.

It’s trying to suck her in.

Understanding slammed against Lom’s head like a concussion. And with it another thought. Another piece of insight.

It’s too confident. It fears nothing at all.

And he saw what Maroussia was trying to do.

The mudjhik’s swing at her was too awkward a move for its precarious position on the walkway. She ducked and the arm missed her, sweeping through the air above her head. The impetus of the move overbalanced the mudjhik slightly. It stumbled and leaned against the walkway rail, which sagged under its weight.

Lom pulled Safran’s Sepora out of his pocket and fired, again and again, aiming high to clear Maroussia, aiming for the huge eyeless head. The recoils jarred his hand and shoulder. He flung all his rage and defiance and disgust and hatred at the mudjhik’s undefended, questing, open-mouthed mind. He was still tired and weak — the power of his push was nothing compared to what he had done under the ground — but he felt the jar as it impacted. It was enough. Together, the mental onslaught and the heavy magnum rounds confused the mudjhik and added momentum to its stumble. The narrow guard rail collapsed under its weight and the mudjhik fell into the churning, roaring waters of the cistern below.

Maroussia was lying on the narrow iron walkway. She wasn’t moving. Lom ran across. He knelt down beside her and laid his hand on her head. She stirred, raised her head and looked at him.

‘Is it gone?’ she said.

‘Yes. It’s gone. Are you… are you OK?’

‘If that thing is gone then we can go back. I need to go back.’

‘It’s almost dark,’ said Lom. ‘And it’s a long walk back. There won’t be any trams till the morning. We’ll have to stay here.’

She sat up slowly. She looked dizzy and sick.

‘No. I…’ But she had no strength for a night journey. No strength to argue even.

‘Just for tonight,’ said Lom. ‘We can stay in the Gate Master’s cabin.’

The Gate Master’s lodge was an incongruous wooden superstructure on the lip of the sea gates. The lock on the door gave easily at a shove from Lom’s shoulder. Inside was near-darkness. The smell of pitch and lingering tobacco smoke and tea. Maroussia found a lamp and matches. In the yellow lamplight the interior had a vaguely nautical flavour: large-scale charts of the harbour and the inner reaches were pinned to the walls, and more of the same were spread out on a plan table under the seaward window, with instruments, pencils, a pair of binoculars. There was a chair, the kind with a mechanism that allowed the seat to revolve and tip backwards. A long thin telescope on a tripod stood on the floor; heavy oilskins hung from a hook on the back of the door; a pair of large rubber boots leaned against the foot of a neat metal-framed bed. The Gate Master had left everything prepared to make himself comfortable when he returned: firewood stacked in the corner, water in the urn, a packet of tea, a box of biscuits. Lom pulled the heavy curtains across the window while Maroussia lit the stove and the urn. There were even two mugs to drink from. Maroussia sat on the edge of the bed and Lom took the swivelling chair, leaning back and putting his feet up on the table.