ion.”
“No luck. I can’t get a line. Magma flares must still be up.”
“D’Arvit,” swore Root. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to take our chances on foot. Butler you’re the expert here, you take point. Captain Short, bring up the rear. Feel free to boot any human backside if it lags behind.”
Holly winked at Artemis. “No need to tell me twice, sir.”
“I’ll bet there isn’t,” grunted Root, with only the barest hint of a smile playing about his lips.
The motley band trudged southeast by moonlight until they reached the railway line. Walking along the sleepers was the only way they could be safe from drifts and suck holes. Progress was slow. A northerly wind snaked through every pore in their clothing, and the cold attacked any exposed skin like a million electric darts.
There was little conversation. The Arctic had that effect on people, even if three of them were wearing coil-heated suits.
Holly broke the silence. Something had been nagging at her for some time.
“Tell me something, Fowl,” she said from behind the boy. “Your father. Is he like you?”
Artemis’s step faltered for an instant. “That’s a strange question. Why do you ask?”
“Well, you’re no friend to the People. What if the man we’re trying to rescue is the man who will destroy us?”
There was silence for a long time, except for the chattering of teeth. Holly saw Artemis’s chin drop onto his chest.
“You have no cause to be alarmed, Captain. My father, though some of his ventures were undoubtedly illegal, was . . . is . . . a noble man. The idea of harming another creature would be repugnant to him.”
Holly tugged her boot from eight inches of snow. “So, what happened to you?”
Artemis’s breath bloomed in icy clouds over his shoulder. “I . . . I made a mistake.”
Holly squinted at the back of the human’s head. Was this actual sincerity from Artemis Fowl? It was hard to believe. Even more surprising was the fact that she didn’t know how to react—to extend the hand of forgiveness, or the boot of retribution. Eventually she decided to reserve judgment. For the moment.
They passed into a ravine, worn smooth by the whistling wind. Butler didn’t like it. His soldier’s sense was beating a tattoo on the inside of his skull. He raised a clenched fist.
Root double his pace to catch up.
“Trouble?”
Butler squinted into the snow field, searching for footprints. “Maybe. Nice spot for a surprise attack.”
“Maybe. If anyone knew we were coming.”
“Is that possible? Could someone know?”
Root snorted, breath forming clouds in the air before him.
“Impossible. The chute is totally isolated, and LEP security is the tightest on the planet.”
And that was when the goblin hit squad soared over the ridge.
Butler grabbed Artemis by the collar, unceremoniously flinging him into a drift. His other hand was already drawing his weapon.
“Keep your head down, Artemis. Time for me to earn my salary.”
Artemis would have responded testily, had his head not been under three feet of snow.
There were four goblins flying in loose formation, dark against the starlit sky. They quickly rose to a thousand feet, making no attempt to conceal their presence. They neither attacked nor fled, simply hovered overhead.
“Goblins,” grunted Root, pulling a Farshoot neutrino rifle into his shoulder. “Too stupid to live. All they had to do was pick us off.”
Butler picked a spot, spreading his legs for steadiness.
“Do we wait until we see the whites of their eyes, Commander?”
“Goblin eyes don’t have whites,” responded Root. “But even so, holster your weapon. Captain Short and I will stun them. No need for anyone to die.”
Butler slid the Sig Sauer into its pouch beneath his arm. It was next to useless at that range, anyway. It would be interesting to see how Holly and Root handled themselves in a firefight. After all, Artemis’s life was pretty much in their hands. Not to mention his own.
Butler glanced sideways. Holly and the Commander were pumping the triggers of various weapons. Without any result. Their weapons were as dead as mice in a snake pit.
“I don’t understand it,” muttered Root. “I checked these myself.”
Artemis, naturally, was first to figure it out. He shook the snow from his hair.
“Sabotage,” he proclaimed tossing aside the useless fairy handgun. “There is no other alternative. This is why the B’wa Kell need softnose weapons, because they have somehow disrupted fairy lasers.”
But the commander was not listening, and neither was Butler. This was no time for clever deductions, this was a time for action. They were sitting ducks out here. Dark against the pale Arctic glow. This theory was confirmed when several softnose laser bursts bored hissing holes in the snow at their feet.
Holly activated her helmet Optix, zooming in on the enemy.
“It looks like one of them has a softnose laser, sir. Something with a long barrel.”
“We need cover. Fast!”
Butler nodded. “Look. An overhang. Under the ridge.”
The manservant grabbed his charge by the collar, hoisting him aloft as easily as a child would lift a kitten. They struggled through the snow to the shelter of the overhang. Maybe a million years ago the ice had melted sufficiently for a layer of ice to slump slightly, then freeze up again. The resulting wrinkle had somehow lasted through the ages and now could possibly save their lives.
They dived underneath the lip, wriggling backward against wall of ice. The icy canopy was easily thick enough to withstand gunfire from any conventional weapon.
Butler shielded Artemis with his body, risking an upward glance.
“Too far. I can’t make them out. Holly?”
Captain Short poked her head from under the frozen ledge, her Optix zoomed into focus.
“Well, what are they up to?”
Holly waited a beat, until the figures sharpened.
“Funny thing,” she commented. “They’re all firing now, but ...”
“But what, Captain?”
Holly tapped her helmet to make sure the lenses were working.
“Maybe I’m getting some Optix distortion, sir, but it looks like they’re missing on purpose, shooting way over our heads.”
Butler felt the blood pounding in his brain.
“It’s a trap!” he roared, reaching behind him to grab Artemis. “Everybody out! Everybody out!”
And that was when the goblin charges sent fifty tons of rock, ice, and snow tumbling to earth.
They nearly made it. Of course nearly never won a bucket of squid at gnommish roulette. If it hadn’t been for Butler, not one of the group would have survived. Something happened to him. An inexplicable surge of strength, not unlike the energy bursts that allow mothers to lift fallen trees off their children. The manservant grabbed Artemis and Holly, spinning them forward like stones across a pond. It wasn’t a very dignified way to travel, but it certainly beat having your bones pulverized by falling ice.
For the second time in so many minutes, Artemis landed nose first in a snowdrift. Behind him Butler and Root were scrabbling from beneath the ledge, boots slipping on the icy surface. The air was rent by avalanche thunder, and the packed ice beneath them heaved and split. Thick chunks of rock and ice speared the cave’s opening like bars. Butler and Root were trapped.
Holly was on her feet, racing toward her commander. But what could she do? She threw herself back underneath the ledge.
“Stay back, Captain,” said Root’s voice in her ear. “That’s an order!”
“Commander,” Holly breathed. “You’re alive.”
“Somehow,” came the reply. “Butler is unconscious and we’re pinned down. The ledge is on the point of collaps-ing. The only thing holding it is the debris. If we brush that aside to get out . ..”
They were alive, then, at least. Trapp
ed but alive. A plan, they needed a plan. Holly found herself strangely calm. This was one of the qualities that made her such an excellent field agent. In times of excessive stress, Captain Short had the ability to seize upon a course of action. Often the only viable course. In the combat simulation for her captain’s exam, Holly had defeated insurmountable virtual enemies by blasting the projector. Technically she had defeated all her enemies, so the panel had to pass her.
Holly spoke into her helmet mike.
“Commander, undo Butler’s Moonbelt and strap yourselves on. I’m going to haul you both out of there.”
“Roger, Holly. Do you need a piton?”
“If you can get one out to me.”
“Standby.”
A piton dart jetted through a gap in the icy bars, landing a foot from Holly’s boots. The dart trailed a length of fine cord.
Holly snapped the piton into the cord receptacle on her own belt, making sure there were no kinks in the line. Meanwhile Artemis had dragged himself from the drift.
“This plan is patently ridiculous,” he said, brushing the snow from his sleeves. “You cannot hope to drag their combined weight with sufficient velocity to both break the icicles and avoid being crushed.”
“I’m not going to drag them,” snapped Holly.
“Well, then, what is?”
Captain Short pointed down the track. There was a green train winding its way toward them.
“That is,” she said.
There were three goblins left. Their names were D’Nall, Aymon, and Nyle. Three rookies vying for the recently vacated lieutenant’s spot. Lieutenant Poll had handed in his resignation when he’d strayed too close to the avalanche and been swatted by a one-ton pane of transparent ice.
They hovered at a thousand feet, well out of range. Of course, they weren’t out of fairy weapon range, but LEP weapons weren’t operational at the moment. Koboi Laboratories upgrades had seen to that.
“That was some hole in Lieutenant Poll,” whistled Aymon. “I could see right through ’im. An’ I don’t mean that like he was a bad liar.”
Goblins didn’t get too attached to each other. Considering the amount of backstabbing, backbiting, and general vindictiveness that went on in the B’wa Kell, it didn’t pay to make any special friends.