Mark Chadbourn - The Hounds of Avalon

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 Hal 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.

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.