reach.
'The lights, Holly ...'
A voice in her head. Probably talking to herself. An out-of-head experience. Ha ha. She must
remember to tell Foaly about this ... Foaly?
'Hit the lights, Holly. If those tusks get to work, you'll be dead before the magic can kick in.'
'Foaly? Is that you?' Holly may have said this aloud, or she may just have thought it. She wasn't
sure.
'The tunnel high beams, Captain!' A different voice. Not so cuddly. 'Hit the button now! That's
an order!'
Oops. It was Root. She was falling down on the job again. First Hamburg, then Martina Franca,
now this.
'Yessir,' she mumbled, trying to sound professional.
'Press it! Now, Captain Short!'
Holly looked the troll straight in its merciless eyes and pressed the button. Very melodramatic.
Or it would have been, if the lights had worked. Unfortunately for Holly, in her haste she'd grabbed
one of the helmets cannibalized by Artemis Fowl. Hence no Sonix, no filters and no tunnel beams.
The halogen bulbs were still installed, but the wires had come loose during Artemis's investigations.
'Oh dear,' breathed Holly.
'Oh dear!' barked Root. 'What's that supposed to mean?'
'The beams are off-line,' explained Foaly.
'Oh ...' Root's voice trailed off. What more was there to say?
Holly squinted at the troll. If you didn't know trolls were dumb animals, you'd swear the beast
was grinning. Standing there with blood dripping from various chest wounds, grinning. Captain
Short didn't like being grinned at.
'Laugh this off,' she said, and butted the troll with the only weapon available to her. Her helmeted
head.
Valiant undoubtedly, but about as effective as trying to cut down a tree with a feather. Luckily,
the ill-advised blow had a side effect. For a split second, two strands of conductor filament
connected, sending power flooding to one of the tunnel beams. Four-hundred watts of white light
blasted through the troll's crimson eyes, dispatching lightning rods of agony to the brain.
'Heh heh,' mumbled Holly, in the second before the troll convulsed involuntarily. Its spasms sent
her spinning across the parquet floor, leg jittering along behind her.
The wall was approaching at an alarming speed. Maybe, thought Holly hopefully, this will be one
of those impacts where you don't feel any pain until later. No, replied her pessimistic side, afraid
not. She slammed into a Norman narrative tapestry, bringing it tumbling down on top of her. Pain
was immediate and overwhelming.
'Ooof,' grunted Foaly. 'I felt that. Visuals are shot. Pain sensors went right off the scale. Your
lungs are busted, Captain. We're going to lose you for a while. But don't worry, Holly, your magic
should be kicking in already.'
Holly felt the blue tingle of magic scurrying to her various injuries. Thank the gods for acorns.
But it was too little too late. The pain was way beyond her threshold. Just before unconsciousness
claimed her, Holly's hand flopped from beneath the tapestry. It landed on Butler's arm, touching the
bare skin. Amazingly, the human wasn't dead. A dogged pulse forced the blood through smashed
limbs.
Heal, thought Holly. And the magic scurried down her fingers.
The troll faced a dilemma - which female to eat first. Choices, choices. This decision was not
made any easier by the lingering agony buzzing around its shaggy head, or the cluster of bullets
lodged in the fatty chest tissue. Eventually it settled on the surface dweller. Soft human meat. No
dense fairy muscle to chew through.
The beast squatted low, tilting the girl's chin with one yellowed talon. A pulsing jugular looped
lazily down the length of her neck. The heart or the neck? the troll wondered. The neck, it was
closer. It turned the talon sideways, so that the edge pressed against soft human flesh. One sharp
swipe and the girl's own heartbeat would drive the blood from her body.
Butler woke up, which was a surprise in itself. He knew immediately that he was alive, because of
the searing pain permeating every cubic centimetre of his body. This was not good. Alive he may
have been, but considering the fact that his neck had a one-eighty twist on it, he'd never so much as
walk the dog again, not to mention rescue his sister.
The manservant twiddled his fingers. Hurt like hell, but at least there was movement. It was
amazing that he had any motor functions at all, considering the trauma his spinal column had
suffered. His toes seemed all right too, but that could have been phantom response, given that he
couldn't actually see them.
The bleeding from his chest wound appeared to have stopped and he was thinking straight. All in
all, he was in much better shape than he had any right to be. What in heaven's name was going on
here?
Butler noticed something. There were blue sparks dancing along his torso. He must be
hallucinating, creating pleasant images to distract himself from the inevitable. A very realistic
hallucination, it must be said.
The sparks congregated at trauma points, sinking into the skin. Butler shuddered. This was no
hallucination. Something extraordinary was happening here. Magical.
Magic? That rang a bell in his recently reassembled cranium. Fairy magic. Something was healing
his wounds. He twisted his head, wincing at the grate of sliding vertebrae. There was a hand resting
on his forearm. Sparks flowed from the slim elfin fingers, intuitively targeting bruises, breaks or
ruptures. There were a lot of injuries to be dealt with, but the tiny sparks handled it all quickly and
effectively. Like an army of mystical beavers repairing storm damage.
Butler could actually feel his bones knitting and the blood retreating from semi-congealed scabs.
His head twisted involuntarily as his vertebrae slid into their niches, and strength returned in a rush
as magic reproduced the three litres of blood lost through his chest wound.
Butler jumped to his feet - actually jumped. He was himself again. No. It was more than that. He
was as strong as he had ever been. Strong enough to have another crack at that beast hunkered over
his baby sister.
He felt his rejuvenated heart speed up like the stroke of an outboard motor. Calm, Butler told
himself. Passion is the enemy of efficiency. But calm or no, the situation was desperate. This beast
had already effectively killed him once, and this time round he didn't even have the Sig Sauer. His
own skills aside, it would be nice to have a weapon. Something with a bit of weight to it. His boot
clin ked on a metallic object. Butler glanced down at the debris strewn in the troll's wake ... Perfect.
There was nothing but snow on the viewscreen. 'Come on,' urged Root. 'Hurry up!'
Foaly elbowed past his superior.
'Maybe if you didn't insist on blocking all the circuit boards.'
Root shuffled out of the way grudgingly. In his mind it was the circuit boards' fault for being
behind him. The centaur's head disappeared into an access panel.
'Anything?'
'Nothing. Just interference.'
Root slapped the screen. Not a good idea. First, because there was not one chance in a million
that it would actually help, and second, because plasma screens grow extremely hot after prolonged
use.
'D'Arvit!'
'Don't touch that screen, by the way.'
'Oh, ha ha. We have time for jokes now, do we?'
'No, actually. Anything?'
The snow settled into recognizable shapes.
'That's it, hold it there. We've got a signal.'
'I've activated the secondary camera. Plain old video, I'm afraid, but it'll have to do.'
Root didn't comment. He was watching the screen. This must be a movie. It couldn't be real life.
'So what's going on in there? Anything interesting?'
Root tried to answer, but his soldier's vocabulary just didn't have the superlatives.
'What? What is it?'
The commander made an attempt. 'It's ... the human ... I've never ... Oh, forget it, Foaly.You're
going to have to see this for yourself.'
Holly watched the entire episode through a gap in the tapestry folds. If she hadn't seen it, she
wouldn't have believed it. In fact, it wasn't until she'd reviewed the VT for her report that she was
certain the whole thing wasn't a hallucination brought on by a near-death experience. As it was, the
video sequence became something of a legend, initially doing the rounds on the Amateur Home
Movies cable shows and ending up on the LEP Academy Hand-to-Hand curriculum.
The human, Butler, was strapping on a medieval suit of armour. Incredible as it seemed, he
apparently intended going toe to toe with the troll. Holly tried to warn him, tried to make some
sound, but the magic hadn't yet reinflated her crushed lungs.
Butler closed his visor, hefting a vicious mace.
'Now,' he grunted through the grille. 'I'll show you what happens when someone lays a hand on
my sister.'
The human twirled the mace as though it were a cheerleader's baton, ramming it home between
the troll's shoulder blades. A blow like that, while not fatal, certainly distracted the troll from its
intended victim.
Butler planted his foot just above the creature's haunches and tugged the weapon free. It
relinquished its grip with a sickly sucking sound. He skipped backwards, settling into a defensive
stance.
The troll rounded on him, all ten talons sliding out to their full extent. Drops of venom glistened
from the tip of each tusk. Playtime was over. But there would be no lightning strike this time. The
beast was wary, it had been hurt. This latest attacker would be afforded the same respect as another
male of the species. As far as the troll was concerned, his territory was being encroached on. And
there was only one way of solving a dispute of this nature. The same way that trolls solved every
dispute ...
'I must warn you,' said Butler, straight-faced. 'I am armed and prepared to use deadly force if
necessary.'
Holly would have groaned if she could. Banter! The human was trying to engage a troll in macho
repartee! Then Captain Short realized her mistake. The words weren't important, it was the tone he
employed. Calm, soothing. Like a trainer with a spooked unicorn.
'Step away from the female. Easy now.'
The troll ballooned its cheeks and howled. Scare tactics. Testing the waters. Butler didn't flinch.
'Yeah, yeah. Real scary. Now just back out of the door, and I won't have to cut you into little
pieces.'
The troll snorted, miffed by this reaction. Generally his roar sent whatever creature was facing it
scurrying down the tunnel.
'One step at a time. Nice and slow. Easy there, big fellow.'
You could almost see it in the troll's eyes. A flicker of uncertainty. Maybe this human was ...
And that was when Butler struck. He danced under the tusks, hammering home a devastating
uppercut with his medieval weapon. The troll staggered backwards, talons flailing wildly. But it was
too late: Butler had stepped out of reach, scooting across to the other side of the corridor.
The troll lumbered after him, spitting dislodged teeth from pulped gums. Butler sank to his
knees, sliding and turning, the polished floor bearing him like an ice skater. He ducked and
pirouetted, facing his pursuer.
'Guess what I found?' he said, raising the Sig Sauer.
No chest shots this time. Butler laid in the rest of the automatic's clip in a ten-centimetre
diameter between the troll's eyes. Unfortunately for Butler, due to millennia spent butting each
other, trolls have developed a thick ridge of bone covering their brows. So his textbook spread failed
to penetrate the skull, in spite of the Teflon-coated load.
However, ten Devastator slugs can't be ignored by any creature on the planet, and the troll was no
exception. The bullets beat a sledgehammer tattoo on its cranium causing instant concussion. The
animal staggered backwards, slapping at its own forehead. Butler was after it in a heartbeat, pinning
one shaggy foot beneath the mace spikes.
The troll was concussed, blinded by blood, and lame. A normal person would feel a shard of
remorse, but not Butler. He'd seen too many men gored by injured animals. Now was the dangerous
time. It was no time for mercy, it was time to terminate with extreme prejudice.
Holly could only watch helplessly as the human took careful aim and delivered a series of
crippling blows to the stricken creature. First he took out the tendons, bringing the troll to its
knees, then he abandoned the mace and went to work with gauntleted hands, perhaps deadlier than
the mace had been. The unfortunate troll fought back pathetically, even managing to land a few
glancing blows. But they failed to penetrate the antique armour. Meanwhile Butler toiled like a
surgeon. Working on the assumption that the troll and human physiques were basically the same, he
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