The Eye of Zoltar

‘There’s some duct tape in the toolbox,’ I said, pointing in the back. ‘Get a couple of lengths and I’ll tape it on.’

She did, and pretty soon the Princess had two hands again, even if her new one was too large, four decades older then her, hairy, and had ‘No more pies’ tattooed on the back. She didn’t waste any time, either. The Helping Hand^™ grabbed a sword and she and it joined Addie on the bonnet.

We covered the next four hundred yards in less than a minute, the engine labouring to overcome the drag of the clothes stuck in the tracks. We plunged down the slope into the shallow ravine and forded the river, barely glancing at the decaying bones of the massacred. We made it another hundred yards beyond this, and just as the engine temperature was nudging into the red, the Hollow Men closed ranks and presented an unbroken wall in front of us. There were fewer of them – Perkins had depleted their numbers by at least two-thirds – but even as we watched, more were streaming from Shandar’s Guanolite facility, quite literally dropping their droppings to assist in this, the most important of tasks: protect the secret.

The half-track slowed to a walking pace, then stopped entirely with a clatter as it overheated.

We were less than three hundred yards from the Hollow Men, who were standing about an equal distance between us and safety. As their ranks swelled with their identical compatriots, they began walking slowly towards us, the outer edges of the long line curving around in readiness to attack on all sides.

I grabbed a sword and joined the others on the bonnet for what was now a last-stand defence. The Hollow Men would be upon us in thirty seconds, and unless we could each take down between sixty and seventy drones before succumbing ourselves, the end would not be long in coming.

‘It’s funny what runs though your mind when the end is near,’ said Addie, ‘and all I can think about is how annoyed I am that my sums didn’t add up. With Perkins and Wilson dead we’ve lost five out of eight, and that’s one more than the fifty per cent I’d calculated.’

‘I was thinking of odd stuff too,’ I replied with a half-smile, ‘like who was going to look after the Quarkbeast – Tiger, I guess.’

‘I was thinking about walking one more time in the Palace gardens,’ mused the Princess. ‘The fountains are very cooling in the summer.’

I looked behind us. Cadair Idris was almost three-quarters of a mile away. I could see the jeep, and the rock-hewn stairway. We’d be safe there, but only safe to die of starvation, or be attacked again on the next attempt.

‘We’d never reach it in time,’ said Addie, divining my thoughts, ‘and I don’t run. Not from anything.’

‘Me neither,’ said the Princess. ‘Fleeing for one’s life is so very … unregal.’

So we stood together on the bonnet of the half-track, swords at the ready, awaiting our fate. I wasn’t thinking only about the Quarkbeast. I was thinking about the Eye of Zoltar, and where it might be. I was thinking that I had failed to find the Eye, and that the Dragons would die. And I was thinking about Perkins.

Then I had no more time to think, for the Hollow Men had charged.

The Princess was the most skilled with her new old hand, with Addie not far behind. They dispatched three each in quick order, keeping the drones from climbing upon the bonnet. We were, quite literally, defending the high ground. For my part, I simply swiped where I could with my sword in both hands. It was desperate but, given the numbers, we were not so much fighting as postponing the inevitable. I sliced through one that had jumped on the bonnet, then ducked to allow Addie to cut down another behind me. The situation was becoming increasingly difficult, and I could feel my muscles begin to tire. When they could no longer swing a sword, it would be over.

And that was when we heard a loud rushing noise. It was like a distant express train, but ahead of the noise was a call, like the sharp bark of a … seal. A sound that was familiar, but given that I was concentrating on the fight, a sound that I could not at first place.

The rushing noise increased to a thunderous roar and a moment later the Hollow Men in front of us scattered like playing cards, disrupted by a foe whose form was wobbly and indistinct. Almost instantly the drones we were battling disengaged to fight the new, larger enemy, and we were once more on our own. I had a cut on my thigh, had lost part of my boot and, I think, my little toe. I could also feel the salty taste of blood in my mouth from a cut lip, but we were still alive.