Mark Chadbourn - The Hounds of Avalon

Sophie helped Mallory out into the cool night air on the slopes of Cadbury Hill, his face drawn from the pain in his ribs. He leaned over to brush the hair from her ear and whispered, ‘I’m not going to be much use if those freaks are still out here. Can you do anything?’

Sophie’s face was ghostly in the moonlight breaking through the clouds. ‘I can try,’ she whispered. ‘There’s a way of making us hidden in plain sight. I don’t know if those things will be able to sniff us out anyway, but…’ She shrugged. ‘I just need some time to concentrate.’

The words had barely left her mouth when there was a disturbance in the trees just below the scorched grassy area her earlier spell had made. Mallory drew his sword, illuminating his face with the thin blue light emanating from the blade. But instead of one of the warriors on the bizarre horses, a man ventured out. He was wearing camouflaged combat trousers, incongruously and pointlessly matched with a red silk shirt.

‘I don’t know how you managed to disappear off the face of the earth, but you gave us a right old run-around,’ the man said. ‘Two minutes from picking you up and then — poof! — gone. Nice trick if you know how.’

‘Who are you?’ Sophie said. Mallory stepped in front of her, sword at the ready.

‘The name’s Hunter and I am… well, words don’t do me justice.’ He approached them confidently. ‘I’d put that down, mate,’ he said to Mallory. ‘You’ll have somebody’s eye out.’

‘Tell you what,’ Mallory said, ‘take one more step and I’ll have two eyes out.’

‘I don’t think so. All right, boys.’ Hunter made a come-hither gesture and six men emerged from the trees all around.

Mallory eyed the circling men. ‘Looters,’ he said, though that didn’t sound quite right.

‘Actually, we have the stamp of officialdom and the full weight of the Government behind us.’ Hunter nodded and the men drew their guns. ‘There’s no need for any nasty stuff. I’m sure we’ve all got the same interests at heart — to clear out all the monsters and freaks and get our world back. I’ve come with an invitation for you to help us-’

‘You know who we are?’ Mallory asked. Beside him, Sophie rested her chin on her chest and closed her eyes. Silently, her lips moved.

‘I know you’re a Brother and Sister of Dragons.’

Mallory was taken aback by Hunter’s words. It was only very recently that he’d learned of his destiny. How could this stranger possibly know, too?

‘Chief, she’s doing something,’ an acne-scarred man barked.

Sophie continued to mutter under her breath, her eyelids half-open, the whites gleaming in the dark.

‘You can stop that right now,’ Hunter said firmly. Mallory could see that Hunter knew exactly what Sophie was capable of doing.

Before Hunter could act, the acne-scarred man raised his gun and moved in swiftly. Mallory whirled, sword at the ready, but the pain from his ribs left him off-balance. ‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ he snapped.

‘Shut it!’ the soldier shouted.

A low whispering rolled out from the undergrowth. Spooked, Hunter’s team turned, guns cocked, scanning back and forth for the source.

‘Come on — we need to get out of here,’ Hunter said to Mallory. ‘Quickly.’

‘Tell him to drop his weapon.’ Mallory nodded at the acne man, who had moved in even closer to Sophie. Deep in her trance, she was oblivious to what was going on around her.

‘You’ve no need to be afraid of us,’ Hunter said. ‘We’re on the same side-’

He fell silent as one of the riders burst from the bushes in a trail of purple mist. Gunfire erupted from all sides, but neither the rider nor its mount appeared to be harmed.

‘Come on.’ Her trance broken, Sophie grabbed Mallory’s arm insistently.

‘You called it?’

‘Come on!’

Bones shattered with a sickening dry-wood sound as the reptilian horse smashed into one of the soldiers. The others continued to fire at it futilely, knowing no other way to deal with it. The horse-creature lowered its massive head, pulled its jaws wide sending saliva everywhere and then proceeded to rip and tear at the fallen man’s stomach. Blood and flesh rose up in a cloud.

In the confusion, Sophie and Mallory had managed to skid a little way down the scorched grassy slope before the acne man appeared to one side, his gun aimed at Sophie.

‘Stop!’ he shouted.

Sophie glanced back and saw that the soldier was shaking, as if gripped by some kind of internal battle. The eerie whispering was clearly affecting him deeply: his wavering self-control was echoed, despite his training, in the gradually worsening tremor running through his arms.

Hunter came running up. ‘Don’t shoot, you idiot! We need them!’

The snapping and snarling rose up in a frenzy as another man fell to the horse’s crushing jaws. The acne man glanced in horror at the beast and its rider, who was whirling a double-headed axe, then turned and saw Sophie pulling Mallory towards the trees. Finally succumbing to the all-pervading despair, his eyes glazed over in surrender and he fired just as Hunter slammed into him, knocking his aim awry.

The force of the bullet smashed Sophie over the edge of a hollow and she rolled into the trees, gone; no sound or movement followed.

Mallory had one second to call her name before something crashed into him and he plunged into unconsciousness.

He awoke with a sense of movement and a deafening whup-whup-whup sound all around. Cold wind blasted against him.

Mallory began to lever himself upright, the pain in his side now electric; he could barely breathe and was too dazed to think straight. A gun pointed into his face.

‘Don’t move,’ one of the soldiers said gruffly, but his white face gave away his fear at what he had just witnessed.

They were on a helicopter, rising slowly. The large side door was open, revealing a square of cloudy pre-dawn sky. Hunter crouched, framed against it, peering down at the receding hillside.

‘There’s a group of them. What the hell are they?’ he asked, concerned.

Three other soldiers sat further down the helicopter. The acne man was one of them, but he kept his head turned away from Mallory.

‘Where’s Sophie?’ Mallory said weakly, his memory still disjointed. But when he locked eyes with Hunter, the reality hit him with force.

‘I’m sorry,’ Hunter said, with surprising compassion.

‘She’s dead?’

Hunter glared at the acne man, who refused to meet his gaze. ‘He shot her. If the bullet didn’t kill her straight away, she’ll have lost too much blood by now for us to save her. We couldn’t find her and didn’t have time to search with those bastards on the loose.’ He looked out into the night, avoiding Mallory’s devastated gaze. ‘I am sorry,’ he added quietly. ‘No one was supposed to get hurt.’

Mallory laid his head down on the floor of the helicopter and closed his eyes.

‘Bloody hell, what’s this?’ Hunter reached a hand out of the doorway where the gusts buffeted it. White flakes streamed past. ‘Snow? In the middle of summer?’

‘ We are the masters at the moment, and not only at the moment, but for a very long time to come.’ Lord Shawcross

The Compound lay in the lower levels of Brasenose and Lincoln Colleges, which had been linked by new tunnels hacked out within days of the Government’s arrival in the city. In addition to housing Kirkham’s research facility, enemies of the state were incarcerated there: trouble-makers, traitors, anyone attempting to block the slow progress of a society getting up off its knees. Yet this low-level prison was only a small part of the Compound; larger by far was the high-security section, access to which had always been beyond Hal’s clearance. He’d heard rumours about who was imprisoned there, but since the Fall rumours were all anyone had and none of them could be trusted. It was a sign that events were coming to a head that he had been issued with a pass inside.