H ave some more rabbit,” said Ohtar kindly. Although Danny had done nothing but eat all night, he felt it would be rude to refuse. Obviously the strange men prided themselves on their hospitality.
“Are you sure you’ll have enough for yourselves?” he asked desperately, as Ohtar produced two more burnt drumsticks, still mottled with little flecks of singed fur. The man they called Angantyr made a curious snorting noise.
“Don’t you mind him,” said Ohtar. “Plenty more where that came from.”
“Well, in that case…” Danny sank his teeth into the carbonised flesh and tried not to remember that he had been very fond of his pet rabbit, Dimbleby, when he was a boy. “This is very good,” he said, forcing his weary jaws to chew.
“Really?” Ohtar beamed. He had been field-cook to King Hrolf for most of his service, and this was the first time anyone had paid him a compliment. “You wait there,” he said and, gathering up his sling and a handful of pebbles, walked away.
“You’ve made his day,” said Angantyr, sitting down beside Danny and absentmindedly picking up the second drumstick. “Personally,” he said with his mouth full, “I hate rabbit, but it’s a sight better than seagull. You ever had seagull?”
“No,” Danny said.
“Very wise,” said Angantyr, and he spat out a number of small bones. “Not that you can’t make something of it with a white sauce and some fennel. Don’t get me wrong,” he added, “I’m not obsessive about food, like some I could mention. Five square meals a day is all I ask, and a jug or so of something wet to see it on its way. But I draw the line at seaweed,” he asserted firmly. “Except in a mousse, of course.”
“Of course,” Danny agreed.
Having looked to make sure that there was no more rabbit lying about, Angantyr lay back against the wall of the ruined bothy and pulled his helmet down over his eyes. “Ah, well,” he said, “this is better than work. What do you do with yourself, by the way? I know you’re a sorcerer of sorts, but that could mean anything, couldn’t it?”
“I’m a producer,” Danny said.
“Good for you,” Angantyr said. “Me, I’m strictly a consumer.” The early-morning sun was shining weakly through a window in the cloud, and the hero was in a good mood. “That was always the trouble with this country,” he went on. “Too few producers and too many consumers. I admire you people, honestly I do. Out behind the plough in all weathers, or driving the sheep home through the snow. Rotten job, always said so.”
“No, no,” Danny said, “I’m not a farmer, I’m a producer. A television producer.”
Angantyr sat up, a caterpillar-like eyebrow raised. “What’s that, then?”
“You know…” Danny said weakly. “I work out the schedules, supervise the crews, that sort of thing.”
“You mean a forecastle-man?” Angantyr suspected that his leg was being pulled. “Get out, you’re not, are you?”
“Not that sort of crew,” Danny said, wishing he had never mentioned it. “Camera crews. Keys, grips, gaffers, that sort of thing. I make television programmes.”
“Don’t mind me,” said Angantyr after a long pause. “I’ve been asleep for a thousand-odd years.”
“No, but really.” Danny nerved himself to ask the question that was eating away at the lining of his mind. “Who are you people?”
Angantyr looked at him sternly, remembering that he was a sorcerer. But he looked harmless enough, and they had smashed up all his magical instruments in the Battle of the Vans.
“If I tell you,” he said, lowering his voice, “you won’t turn into a bird or something and fly away? Give me your word of honour.”
“On my word of honour,” said Danny. Obviously, he reflected, the man really didn’t know what a television producer was, or he would have demanded a different oath.
“We’re King Hrolf’s men,” whispered Angantyr. “We went to sleep in the ship, and now we’ve been woken up for the final battle.”
“You mean the ship at Rolfsness?” Danny asked. Something at the back of his mind was making sense of this, although he wished it wouldn’t. By and large, he preferred it when he thought he was going mad.
“That’s right,” said Angantyr patiently. “We were asleep in the ship for twelve hundred years, and now we’ve woken up.”
Danny closed his eyes. “Then, what about the grey suits?”
“You mean the clothes? That Hildy got them for us. She said we’d be less conspicuous dressed like this.”
“Hildy Frederiksen?”
“Hildy Frederik’s-daughter. Can’t be Frederiksen, she’s a woman. Stands to reason.” Angantyr shook his head. “Funny creature. But bright, I’ll say that for her. It was lucky we met her, really, what with her knowing the sagas and all. Between you and me,” he whispered into Danny’s ear, “I think old Arvarodd’s gone a bit soft on her. No accounting for taste, I suppose, and there was that time at Hlidarend—”
“Could we go through this one more time?” Danny said. “You were actually in the ship when Frederiksen went into the mound?”
“Course we were.” It suddenly occurred to Angantyr that the prisoner might find this hard to believe, if he didn’t know the story. So he told him the story. Even when he had done this, the prisoner seemed unconvinced.
“I’m sorry,” Danny said, when Angantyr put this to him. “I’m not calling you a liar, really. But it’s all the magic stuff. You see—”
Angantyr remembered something he had overheard the King saying to Hildy, or it might have been the other way around. “Just a moment,” he said. “You call it something else now, don’t you? Technology or something.”
“No, that’s quite different,” Danny interrupted. He had a terrible feeling that there was something wrong with his line of argument. “Technology is healing, the sick, and doing things automatically. Magic is—”
“Watch this,” Angantyr said, and from his pocket he pulled a small doe-skin pouch. “Here’s a bit of technology I picked up in Lapland when I went raiding there.” He emptied the contents of the pouch on to the ground, and picked up two small bones and a pebble. Then he drew his knife, and with a single blow cut off his left hand just above the wrist. Danny tried to scream, but before the muscles of his larynx had relaxed from the first shock of what he had seen Angantyr picked up his severed left hand with his right hand and put it on Danny’s knee.
“Hold that for me, will you?” he said cheerfully. Then he popped the pebble into his mouth, took back the severed hand and drew it back on to his wrist like a glove. Then, with his left hand, he took the pebble out of his mouth, wiped it on his trouser-leg and put it back in the pouch. “How’s that for technology?” he said. “Or do you want to try it for yourself?”
Danny assured him that he did not.
“It’s a bit like grafting apples,” said Angantyr, “only quicker. What was the other thing you said? Doing things automatically. Right.”
He threw the two small bones up in the air and blew on them as they fell. One started to glow with a bright orange light, and the other burst into a tall roaring flame. Angantyr blew on it again, and it grew smaller, like a gas jet being turned down. Then he whistled, and the flame stopped.
“That’s just a portable one,” he said, putting the bones and the pouch away. “You can get them bigger for lighting a house and cooking large meals. And they’re more controllable than an open fire for gentle simmering and light frying. Cookability, you might say.”
Just then, Ohtar came back, throwing down a large sack. Angantyr turned and looked at him cautiously.
“Couldn’t find any rabbits,” said Ohtar, sitting down beside them and opening the sack. “Will seagull be all right?”
According to the road signs at Melvich, they had finished digging up the A9 at Berriedale, and the main road along the coast was fully open again. Hildy was relieved; she had not been looking forward to going back down the Lairg road, for she felt sure that if their enemy had heard about them he would be watching it, and probably the Helmsdale road as well. The main road would be much safer, as well as quicker.
She still had her doubts about leaving the rest of the heroes to their own devices, even in the wilds of Strathnaver; but she consoled herself with the thought that it would have been even more dangerous to take them to London, not to mention the expense of food, accommodation and Tube tickets for them all. As she turned these questions over in her mind, she realised, with no little pride, that she had become the effective leader of the company, and as she drove she found herself composing the first lines of her own saga. “There was a woman called Hildy Frederiksen.”
“Mind out,” said the King suddenly, “you’re going out into the middle of the road.”
“Sorry,” Hildy mumbled. It was like having driving lessons with her father. Even now, seven years after she had passed her test, he still tended to give her helpful advice, such as “Why aren’t you in third?” and “For Christ’s sake, slow down,” when she was doing about thirty-five along the freeway. She hurriedly put Hildar Saga Frederiksdottur back on the bookshelf of her mind, and concentrated on keeping closer in to the side of the road.
The King, she felt, was adapting remarkably quickly to the twentieth century, asking perceptive questions and making highly intelligent guesses about the various things he saw as they drove along. Even when they had passed through Inverness, the King’s first sight of a major town had not seemed to throw him in any way. When she asked him about this, he simply said that he had seen many stranger things than that in his life, especially in Finnmark, and he expected to see many things stranger still. That, Hildy reckoned, she could personally guarantee. Large container-lorries seemed to intrigue him, but aircraft he regarded as inefficient and somehow rather old–fashioned. The one thing he did find fault with was what he called the ‘decline of civilisation’. Coming from a Viking, Hildy thought, that was a bit much, but the King refused to be drawn on the subject, and Hildy guessed that he meant all that noble-savage stuff that you got in Victorian academic writing.
Rather than risk staying the night in a hotel, they left the motorway at Penrith and found a deserted corner of Martindale Common, near where, disconcertingly enough, the King had fought a battle with the Saxons.
“A race of men I never did take to,” the King added, as they roasted the inevitable rabbit. “What became of them, by the way?”
Hildy told him, and he said that he wasn’t in the least surprised. “A nation of shopkeepers,” he muttered, “bound to do well in the end.”
Hildy had written a paper on early Saxon trade, and would have discussed the matter further, but the King seemed not to be in the right mood. In fact, she thought to herself, he’s been strange all day. Preoccupied.
The next day, after filling up with petrol at a service station (enough tokens now for a cut-glass decanter, only she didn’t want one), they pressed on towards London. In the back, Arvarodd and the wizard were playing the same complicated game of chess that had kept them occupied all the way from Caithness, and the journey seemed not to trouble them at all. It was only when they stopped outside Birmingham for more petrol and a sandwich that Hildy noticed that the shape-changer was nowhere to be seen. “Not again,” she muttered to herself, and asked where he’d got to.
“Down here,” said one of the chess-pieces.
“We left the black rook behind,” Arvarodd explained. “But don’t you mind?” Hildy asked the black rook. The rook shrugged its rigid shoulders.
“It passes the time,” he said. “And chess-pieces don’t get travel-sick.”
“It’s just that black always seems to win,” Arvarodd said. They had drawn for colours before setting off, and he was playing white. “Not that I mind that much, of course. I generally lose to Kotkel anyway.”
“Do chess-pieces get hungry?” Hildy asked. She had only bought enough sandwiches for four.
“This one does,” said the rook firmly. Then the wizard grabbed him by the head and used him to take Arvarodd’s queen.
They arrived in London late in the evening, and Hildy realised that she had made no plans for their stay there.
“That’s all right,” said the King absently. “We can sleep in this thing.”
Hildy started to explain about yellow lines, traffic wardens and loitering with intent, but the King wasn’t listening. He was looking about him and frowning deeply.
“Of course,” Hildy said, “this must be all totally strange to you.”
“Not at all,” said the King. “It’s most depressingly familiar.”
“It can’t be,” said Hildy.
“I assure you it is. Isn’t it, lads?”
Arvarodd looked up from the chessboard. “Hello,” he said, “I’ve been here before. It’s just like—”
“It’s just like Geirrodsgarth,” explained the King, “where the sorcerer-king had his first stronghold, and which we erased from the face of the earth, so that not even its foundations remained.”
Hildy shook her head. “Surely not,” she said.
“I started to worry when we went to Wick, but it might just have been coincidence. At Inverness I felt sure. All the other cities we have passed confirmed my suspicions. The enemy has built his new city as a replica of the old one, except that it’s much bigger and rather more primitive.”
“Primitive?”
“Oh, decidedly so. For a start, the whole of Geirrodsgarth was covered over with a transparent roof. But I suppose it’s because he could only influence its design, not order it entirely according to his wishes. All the buildings in Geirrodsgarth were square towers like those over there.” He waved his hands at a grove of tower-blocks in the distance. “I suppose he found the Saxons rather more stubborn than the Finns. That’s shopkeepers for you.”
In the end, Hildy parked in a side-street in Hoxton, beside the Regent’s Canal; it would somehow not be safe to go any further. She was aware of some vague but localised menace, and something of the sort was clearly affecting the King and the wizard, who huddled together in the back of the van and talked in low voices. Hildy realised that the wizard had put aside the language-spell, so that she could not understand what was being said. She felt betrayed and rejected. In a strained voice she said something about going and getting some food, and opened the door. The King looked up and said something, but of course she could not understand it. Arvarodd, however, translated for her.
“He says you shouldn’t go,” he said.
“But I’m hungry,” Hildy replied. “And I’m sure it’ll be all right.”
The King said something else. “He says go if you must, but take the shape-changer with you.”
“Don’t I get any say in the matter?” asked the black rook. “Two more moves and it’ll be check.”
Arvarodd picked up the rook and offered it to Hildy. “Just slip him in your pocket,” he said.
“No, thanks,” said Hildy stiffly. “I don’t want to spoil your game.”
“Just to please me,” said Arvarodd. Startled, Hildy took it and put it in her pocket. Then she opened the door and slipped out.
It took a long time for her to find a chip-shop, and she had a good mind not to buy anything for the King or the wizard. In the end, however, she bought five cod and chips, five chicken and ham pies, and a saveloy for herself, as a treat. She failed to notice that the two youths in leather jackets who had been playing the fruit machine had followed her out.
Halfway back to the van they made their move. One stepped out in front of her, waving a short knife, while the other made a grab for her bag. Hildy froze, clutching the parcels of food to her breast, and made a squeaking noise.
“Come on, lady, give us the bag,” said the youth with the knife, “cos if you don’t you’ll get cut, right?”
He took a step forward. At that moment, something fell from Hildy’s pocket and rolled into the gutter. The knifeman looked round, and suddenly dropped his knife. Apparently from nowhere, a terrifying figure had appeared. At first it looked like a gigantic bear; then it was a wolf, with red eyes and a lolling tongue. Finally, it was a huge grim man brandishing a broad-bladed axe. The two youths stared for a moment, then started to run. For a few moments, they thought that they were being pursued by a vast black eagle. They quickened their pace and disappeared round the corner.
“I knew that stuff you sold me was no good,” said one to the other.
“Are you all right?” said Brynjolf, returning and perching on a wing-mirror. He ruffled his feathers with his beak, and then turned back into a chess-piece. “Sorry to be so long,” he said. “I couldn’t make up my mind what to be. The bear usually does the trick, but the wolf is more comfy.”
“That was fine,” Hildy mumbled. She was breathing heavily, and there was vinegar all over her new anorak. “Thank you.”
“Not at all,” said a voice from her pocket. “Who were they, by the way?”
“Just muggers, I think,” Hildy replied. “That’s sort of thieves.”
“I don’t know,” said her pocket. “Young people nowadays.”
“Don’t say anything to the King,” said Hildy. “He’d only worry”
“Please yourself.”
Hildy didn’t tell the King when she got back, but she gave Brynjolf the saveloy. It was, she felt, the least she could do.
The next morning, they left the van and set off on foot. They went by Tube from Old Street to Bank, and changed on to the Central Line for St Paul’s. The concept of the Underground seemed not to worry the King or the wizard, but Brynjolf and Arvarodd didn’t like the look of it at all.
“You know what I reckon this is?” Arvarodd whispered to the shape-changer.
“What?”
“Burial-chambers,” replied the hero of Permia, “like those shaft-graves on Orkney only bigger. They must go on for miles.”
“And what are we in, then—a coffin?” Brynjolf looked around the compartment. “Can’t see any bodies.”
“Must be the tombs of kings,” replied Arvarodd. “Look, there’s a diagram or something up on the side.”
Brynjolf leant forward and studied the plan.
“I reckon you may be right,” he said, returning to his seat. “I think there are several dynasties down here. Those coloured lines joining up the names must be the family trees. Funny names they’ve got, though. Look, there’s the House of Kensington all buried together: South Kensington, West Kensington, High Street Kensington—”
“Kensington Olympia,” interrupted Arvarodd. “They must have been a powerful dynasty.”
“Them and the Parks,” agreed Brynjolf. “And the Actons away in the west. Hopelessly interbred, of course,” he added, looking at the numerous intersections of the coloured lines at Euston. “No wonder they got delusions of grandeur.”
Hildy overheard the end of this conversation but decided not to interrupt. It would be too complicated to explain; and, besides, as a trained archaeologist she felt that their explanation was rather better than the conventional one.
They got off at St Paul’s and were faced by the escalator. This Hildy felt she would have to explain, but the heroes seemed to recognise it at once—they must have had them in Geirrodsgarth. At the foot of it, Arvarodd stopped and studied the notice.
“Dogs must be carried on the escalator,” he read aloud. “I knew we should have brought a dog. I suppose we’ll have to flog up all those stairs now.”
“All right,” said Brynjolf wearily, “leave it to me.” He sighed heavily and turned himself into a small terrier, which Arvarodd picked up and tucked under his arm. “Only, if you’ve lost your ticket,” said the dog, “you’re on your own.”
Once they reached street-level, the object of their quest was obvious. Before Hildy could point to it and identify it as the building she had seen through the stone, her companions were staring at the soaring black tower that dominated the rest of Cheapside.
“That’s him all over,” said the King. “No originality.”
“Well,” said Arvarodd, “do we go in, or what?” His hand was tightening around the grip of the sports-bag in which he was carrying his mail shirt and short sword.
“No,” said the King.
“Why not, for crying out loud?” Hildy could see that Arvarodd was sweating heavily; but he was not afraid. There was something uncanny about him, and Hildy edged away.
“Because we wouldn’t get past the front gate,” replied the King quietly. For his part, he was as cold as ice. He stood motionless, but his eyes were flicking backwards and forwards as he considered every scrap of evidence that the view of the building had to offer. “Or, rather, we would, which would be all the worse for us. I don’t think physical force is the answer.”
“I don’t see that we have that many options,” muttered Brynjolf. “Unless you’d like me—”
“Certainly not,” snapped the King. “Your magic wouldn’t work in there.” He turned sharply on his heel and walked away.
“Now what?” Hildy whispered to Arvarodd. “He’s not going to give up now, is he?” Arvarodd shook his head.
“He is the King,” was all he would say.
The King was talking with the wizard, and they seemed to have agreed on something, for the King turned back and approached Hildy.
“Tell me,” he said, “how would the power to work all the machines get into that building?”
Hildy told him about the mains and the underground cables. He nodded, and suddenly smiled.
“And all the houses and buildings in the city are connected to the same source of power?” he asked.
“I think so,” Hildy said. “I can’t be certain, of course.”
“What we need, then,” said the King, “is a building.”
“Down the tree, four spaces over, and that’s checkmate.” The power-level in the computer wavered suddenly.
The grim-faced man got up from his desk and banged on the side of the tank.
“Any more of that,” he said savagely, “and I’ll take that game off you.”
“Sorry,” chorused the pale glow inside the tank. “Well, all right, then,” said the grim-faced man, “only let’s have less of it.” He scowled and returned to his desk.
“For two pins,” said Prexz, “I’d run straight up his arm and electrocute him.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” replied Zxerp scornfully. “And, besides, he might have rubber soles on his shoes, and then where would you be?”
“As I was saying,” said Prexz through clenched teeth, “checkmate.”
“Who cares?” Zxerp stretched out his hand and knocked over his goblin to signify surrender. “What does that make the score?”
Prexz consulted the card. “That’s ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine sets and eight games to me, and four games to you.”
“Inclusive?”
“Exclusive,” replied Prexz, making a mark on the card. “So I now need only one more game for one match point. You still have some work to do.”
“I might as well concede, then,” said Zxerp. He pressed his feet against the side of the tank and put his arms behind his head. “Then we can start again from scratch.”
“Don’t be so damned pessimistic,” replied Prexz. “A good match to win, I’ll grant you, but it’s still wide open.”
“We should have brought draughts instead,” yawned Zxerp. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry. Is there any of that static left, or have you guzzled it all?”
“Help yourself.” There was a faint crackling noise and a few blue sparks. “That box of tricks over there fair takes it out of you,” Zxerp went on. “I’ll need more than static to keep electron and neutron together if I’ve got to keep that thing going much longer.”
Prexz turned and glowered at the computer. It winked a green light at him, and started to print something out. Just then, Prexz felt a vibration in the wire running into his left ear. Zxerp could feel the same thing. He started to protest, but Prexz hissed at him to be quiet.
“It’s coming in over the mains,” he whispered.
“Tastes all right,” said Zxerp. “A bit salty perhaps…”
“Don’t eat it, you fool, it’s a message.”
“The old file-in-a-cake trick, huh?”
“Something like.” Prexz closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. “I think it’s the wizard.”
“Kotkel?” Zxerp leant forward.
“He’s talking through the mains running into that machine we’re linked up to. Honestly, the things he thinks of.”
The two spirits lay absolutely still. “We’re going to try to get you out,” they heard, “so be ready. But it won’t be easy. Don’t try to reply or you’ll blow the circuit. Bon appétit.”
“Very tastefully put,” said Zxerp, and he burped loudly.
The proprietor of the hotel gave Hildy a very strange look as she went past, and she could not blame him. After all, she had come in just under an hour ago with four strange looking men and hired a room; and now they were all going away again. Still, it had been worth the embarrassment, for the wizard had managed to talk to the two captives via the shaver socket—how he had managed it she could not imagine—and they seemed to have received the message. The thing to do now was get away fast, just in case their message had been intercepted and traced.
The van was still where she had left it (why was she surprised by that? It was just an ordinary van parked in an ordinary street) and they all climbed in and drove off, entirely uncertain as to where they were going and why. The King was sitting in the back with the wizard and the shape-changer, and they were all deep in mystical discussion. But Arvarodd sat in the front, and he seemed to be in unusually good spirits.
“Don’t you fret,” he said, as they drove through Highgate. “We’ve been in worse fixes than this, believe you me.”
“Such as?” Hildy cast her mind back through the heroic legends of Scandinavia in search of some parallel, but the search was in vain. Usually, the old heroes had overcome their improbable trials with brute force or puerile trickery.
“Offhand,” said Arvarodd, remorselessly cheerful, “I can’t think. But it looks to me like a straightforward impregnable-fortress problem. Let’s not worry about it now.”
“What’s gotten into you?” Hildy asked gloomily. She found the words ‘straightforward’ and ‘impregnable fortress’ hard to reconcile.
“You worry too much,” Arvarodd replied, to Hildy’s profound irritation. “That’s what comes of not having faith in the King. That’s what kings are for, so people like you and me don’t have to worry.”
Hildy, who had been brought up to vote Democrat, objected to this.
“The King doesn’t seem to realise—” she started to say.
“The King realises everything,” said Arvarodd. “And, even if he doesn’t, who wants to know?” The hero of Permia yawned and folded his arms. “If the King says, ‘Charge that army over there,’ and you say, ‘Which one?’ and he says, ‘The one that outnumbers us twenty fold in that superb natural defensive position just under that hill with the sheep,’ then you do it. And if it works you say, ‘What a brilliant general the King is,’ and if it doesn’t you go to Valhalla. Everyone’s a winner, really.”
“That’s what you mean by a straightforward impregnable-fortress problem?”
“Exactly. You have two options. You can work out a subtle stratagem to trick your way in, with an equally subtle stratagem to get you out again afterwards, or you can grab an axe and smash the door down. We call that the certain-death option. On the whole, it’s easier and safer than all the fooling about, but you have to go through the motions.”
“So you think it’ll come to that?” Hildy asked.
“No idea,” Arvarodd said. “Not my problem.”
After more petrol—if she collected enough tokens, Hildy wondered, could she get a Challenger tank, which really would be useful in the circumstances?—they parked in a side-road on the edge of Hampstead Heath and held a council of war.
“The situation as I see it is this,” said the King. “The tower, which would be unassailable even if we were in a position to attack it, which we aren’t, is guarded night and day. Our enemy has control of the two spirits, who are essential to us if we are to have any hope of survival, let alone success. Because of the risk of detection, and because detection would mean certain defeat at this stage, we cannot make a more detailed survey of the ground, so to all intents and purposes we know absolutely nothing about the tower, how to get into it or out of it. Again, because of the risk of detection, if we are going to do anything we must do it now. I am in the market for any sensible suggestions.”
“Why not attack?” Brynjolf said. “Then we could all go to Valhalla and have a good time.”
The wizard made a noise like worn-out disc brakes, and the King nodded. “The wizard says,” translated the King, “that the cause is not yet hopeless, that courage and wisdom together can break stone and turn steel, and that we have a duty that is not yet discharged. Also, Valhalla is looking pretty run-down these days what with nobody going there any more, the towels in the bathrooms are positively threadbare, and he’s in no hurry. He says he has this on the authority of Odin’s ravens, Hugin and Munin, who bring him tidings every morning, and they should know. Anyone else?”
Before anyone could speak, the van was filled with a shrill whistling, and Hildy realised that it was coming from her bag. At first she thought it was her personal security alarm, but that went beep-beep and, besides, she had left it in St Andrews.
“It’s the seer-stone,” said Brynjolf, shouting to make himself heard.
“You mean like a sort of bleeper?” Hildy rummaged about and found the small blue pebble. It was warm again, and the noise was definitely coming from it. With great trepidation, she put it to her eye, and saw.
“Really,” Danny said, “we’ll come quietly.”
The police sergeant raised himself painfully on one elbow. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he groaned. “You said that the last time.”
“You shouldn’t have tried to handcuff him,” Danny said. “He didn’t like it.”
“I gathered that,” said the police sergeant, spitting out a tooth. “If it’s all the same to you, I’m going to go and call for reinforcements.”
“Are you refusing to accept our surrender?” said Ohtar angrily.
“Yes,” said the police sergeant. “I wouldn’t take it as a gift.”
“Please yourself,” Ohtar said, fingering a large stone. “The last person who refused to accept my surrender made a full recovery. Eventually.”
The police sergeant looked round at his battered and bleeding constables, and at the eight grim-faced salmon poachers standing over them. It seemed that he had very little choice.
“If you’re sure,” he said.
“We’re sure,” said Ohtar impatiently. “We’ve got orders not to get into any trouble.”
“It’s the others,” Hildy said. “They’ve gotten into trouble.”