Mark Chadbourn - The Hounds of Avalon

‘It’s not true.’ Hal took a deep breath. ‘I’ll explain it all when they get here. There’s been some mistake.’

Samantha grabbed Hal by the shoulders and shook him roughly. ‘Stop acting like a sensible clerk! They’re after a scapegoat so that they can get everyone behind the new leader. And they’re determined to pin it on you!’ She swallowed. ‘They’re going to have you executed as a traitor… make an example of you.’

‘But…’ The thoughts wouldn’t come quickly enough.

‘Stop talking!’ She grabbed him and thrust him out into the corridor. ‘Run! Find somewhere to lie low until… until all this blows over!’

Oddly, the most overwhelming thought in Hal’s head at that moment was the warmth he felt at the deep concern he could see in Samantha’s face. ‘What about you? If they catch you here-’

‘They won’t. Now, go!’

As she ran past him, she paused and gave him a kiss on the cheek, lingering just long enough to search his face before she was away and down the stairs. The sound of the guards was rapidly drawing closer.

Hal ran quickly along the corridor and down the far steps. More snow was falling, and he would be leaving footprints, but he had a head start. As he sprinted through the bitter cold and into the night, his alarm became intense. If they caught him, everything he had learned would be lost. But could he survive with everyone in the city looking for him? Suddenly lost and desperate, he ran as fast as he could to the only place he knew where he might be able to hide.

The barricades were up on every street into the city. Beyond them, purple mist was dimly visible away in the night. The Lament-Brood had arrived. Their forces encircled the city, thousands deep, an army that would never give up. There was no escape for anyone in Oxford.

The end had begun.

In a bower of ivy and roses, Hunter and Laura lay in a post-coital glow that belied the freezing temperatures outside. Their refuge was well insulated, the ivy covering a layer of interlacing living hazelnut, encased in elder, then Russian creeper, and finally densely packed hawthorn at least two feet thick. The warmth of their bodies kept the interior temperature nicely balmy. Even the sound of the howling blizzard failed to penetrate.

Hunter plucked one of the blooms and examined it. ‘Roses. Didn’t quite picture you as the romantic type.’

Laura stretched like a cat. ‘Actually, it masks your body odour. When was the last time you had a bath?’

‘If you think I’m going to frolic around in water in sub-zero temperatures, you’ve got another thing coming. Even if I could crack the ice. No, I’m quite happy reeking, thank you very much.’

‘For your information, I am romantic. It just has to be the right person, and you’re not it. What we have here is sex, pure and simple. Of the moment and not to be considered the instant our bodies separate.’

‘I’m in heaven.’ Hunter put his hands behind his head and surreptitiously sniffed his armpits. ‘I don’t get how she became a hero.’

Laura knew exactly who he meant: Ruth had been on both their minds since they had left Lincoln. Laura had not been parted from her since the Fall, and for a while had thought she never would be; they had never really been the closest of friends, but they were kindred spirits, bound by the Pendragon Spirit, hope and sacrifice and struggle. Though she would never tell Hunter, Laura was feeling a loneliness she hadn’t experienced for a long while.

‘You don’t know anything about her, so keep your trap shut,’ she said.

‘I know that she’s supposed to be a champion of life or humanity or whatever you want to call it, and when it came to the crunch, she turned her back on her obligation.’

Laura hovered over him, eyes blazing. ‘You have no right to judge her. Don’t ever do that again.’

The chilling hardness of her expression made Hunter reconsider his approach. ‘All right, I don’t know her. But you must accept that her decision could mean the end for all of us.’

‘And maybe it’s all over because you lot fucked up. We’ve done our bit. We fought and sacrificed. Your Five were supposed to pick up where we left off. Now you’ve come crying back to us-’

‘OK, back off. I wasn’t trying to pick a fight-’

Laura wasn’t about to let him off the hook. ‘Ruth loved Church more than anything. She’d earned her right to be with him. But this life isn’t fair, is it? We went through all we went through at the Fall and there’s still no happy ending for her. They deserved to be together, just so that the rest of us could see what true love is really all about.’

Hunter grabbed her shoulders and gently pushed her back. He was a little disturbed at the way hawthorn shoots had started to burst out of the ground all around him as her anger increased.

‘I’m not saying she hasn’t had a raw deal-’

‘Worse than that!’

‘Whatever. But sometimes you have to rise above your own suffering. Duty, responsibility, call it what you will. Everybody’s relying on us.’

‘You’re perfect for this job, aren’t you?’ she sneered, rolling away.

They lay separated by a gulf for ten minutes, until Hunter tenderly reached out to stroke her bare back. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Forget it.’

‘We’re going to do our best. No blame. That’s the job, too, isn’t it?’

‘Suppose.’

Hunter kissed her shoulder. ‘So if you’re all plant, how do you still get pleasure from this? Wouldn’t you be happier photosynthesising or something?’

‘I get pleasure from my clitoris, and yes, like all my other organs, I have one. I can, if I like, eat and drink, but I’ve given up on the periods.’

‘Don’t you miss being human?’

‘Overrated. And I told you — I’ll never be on the rag again. You tell me one woman who wouldn’t rather be a nature spirit than have to go through that every month.’

Hunter watched her as she dressed. Her personality wasn’t the easiest thing to like, but he admired her, and there weren’t many people about whom he could say that.

He rolled over and propped up his head so that he could get a last look at her body. ‘So was this plant thing written in the stars when you became a Sister of Dragons?’

‘You ask a lot of questions. Can’t you just go to sleep after sex like a normal bloke?’

‘Stop avoiding.’

She sighed. ‘Being a Brother or Sister of Dragons is about freeing the potential inside you. Didn’t you get the manual? You run around, leading your day-to-day life, and then somewhere a switch gets thrown and you’re activated. Over time, as you do your duty, you learn, you’re changed by hardship and all the nightmarish things you face, and gradually all those hidden qualities you never dared believe you had are teased out into the open.’

‘So you always had a bit of vegetation deep down inside.’

‘With some work, you could almost be funny. I was an environmental campaigner, a member of a radical green group. Tree-huggers, the right-wing wankers called us. So it was there. And maybe Cernunnos saw that when he turned me into this. It was my potential, to be a champion of the green, living world.’

‘And Ruth became the Uber-Witch.’

‘Right. From pain in the arse to the most powerful woman on the planet. Shavi became a magician or a seer or whatever he used to call himself. He could contact spirits, see the other side, like that.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Veitch. Poor, pathetic, useless Veitch. He went from a jumped-up petty crook to some kind of Conan the Barbarian warrior. And Church…’ Despite herself, her voice took on a hint of deep respect. ‘He became the kind of leader you’d always want in a fight. And like the kings in the old stories, he sacrificed himself so that everyone could live again. End of fairy story.’