by Tom Holt
It was more important than ever now to make no noise. It was tricky getting over the skeleton, because obviously it had been moved when my enemy fell over it. So I took the time to feel my way, stretching out my arm until I found it with the tips of my fingers. After that I could get past the bones without treading on anything, and I started looking for spilt blood. It wasn’t hard to find. In fact, I nearly slid on it. That told me I’d stabbed the bugger deep enough to make it bleed a lot, and nothing slows an animal up like loss of blood.
I knew that because it’d happened to me once. In a wood rather than a tunnel, but I can remember just what it was like. I’d been badly cut and I was leaking blood all over the place. First I felt tired, then sort of light-headed, like I’d had a drink or two. I started to think that it really didn’t matter too much if They caught me and killed me, just so long as I could stop making the effort of dragging myself along. All I wanted to do was sit down and rest. Staying alive just wasn’t that big a deal any more.
I thought about that, and I reckoned the sensible thing would be to keep going on slow and steady, give it time to bleed a bit, until it got tired and slowed down. I’d have no trouble following it, after all, and the longer it ran, the weaker it’d get. Sooner or later its strength would give out, and then I could finish it off nice and easy.
So I took my time, stopping every few yards to stoop down and poke about with my fingers till I found a wet patch on the floor. Not that I really needed to do that, because I could smell the blood easily enough. It’s not a smell you can mistake for anything else, a cross between honey and iron filings. I remember thinking, That’s the hard bit out of the way. All I’ve got to do now is stay calm and patient, and it’s in the bag.
Of course, that’s a bloody stupid attitude, and I was lucky to get off as lightly as I did.
Probably what saved me was going along slow and steady. If I’d been hurrying, I most likely wouldn’t have noticed the slight change in the air until it was too late. As it was, I remember thinking, the air feels a bit cooler here, and I was just about to stop when it jumped me.
I think I mentioned already, cooler air generally means a junction, where a side-tunnel branches off the main run. What it’d done, of course, was squat down in the mouth of the side-tunnel to wait for me. Because I was walking more slowly than it was expecting, it jumped out a little bit too early. Instead of landing on my back and pulling me down under it, all it managed to do was push me sideways into the wall. Naturally I had my knife out ready, and as soon as I realised what was going on, I lashed out. But the knife didn’t slide in easily like it’d done the first time. It hit something hard — armour, most likely — and glanced off, and that pulled it right out of my hand. I heard it clatter on the ground, and that was a very bad feeling, I can tell you.
At least I managed to keep my head. As soon as I’d figured out that it had messed up, I took a long stride forward, to get out of the way, and turned round sharply. I only had a vague idea of where it was likely to be, but I was fairly certain I was out of reach till it moved forward. I was listening like mad, trying to pick up on its breathing or the sound of its claws on the tiles, but I couldn’t hear anything. That told me it was standing still, probably listening for me same as I was listening for it.
I was also trying to figure out where my knife was likely to have landed. That was pretty bloody important. I couldn’t very well get down on my hands and knees and scrabble about till I found it, but without it I didn’t stand a chance. What I really wanted to know was whether it had a weapon of any kind, or just its claws and teeth. It’s a crazy business, fighting right up close against something you can’t even see.
Now there comes a time in a fight like this one where you find yourself thinking, Sod this, let’s just get it over and done with, one way or the other. It’s a calculated risk. If you give it a go and you get it wrong, you’re screwed. On the other hand, standing still and waiting for something to happen isn’t the safest thing in the world, either. Then it suddenly struck me: the side-tunnel.
Because I hadn’t heard it move, I was fairly sure it was stood there, trying to hear me breathe so it could get a fix on where I was. If I was right, that meant it hadn’t moved much from where it landed after jumping out at me. In that case, .it’d still be more or less opposite the junction.
I could use that. If I felt my way nice and quiet over to the opposite wall, then followed that into the mouth of the junction and kept going, it stood to reason I could go round the bugger and come up behind it without it knowing. If I could do that and maybe get my hands round its throat, or my boot in its kidneys, maybe I wouldn’t need the knife after all. I could either strangle it or stun it long enough to find the knife and cut its throat.
Had to be worth a try, I thought. If it heard me, of course, most likely it’d try and jump me again, but I’d be expecting that, I could be ready. In any case, it had to be better than standing still.
Moving quietly is all about doing things a little bit at a time. You need to break down every movement into little pieces. You don’t just take a step. First, you lift your heel off the ground. Then you stop and check your balance. Then you can lift your whole foot, and after that you do the same in reverse — toe down first, stop, check, then the heel goes down and you carefully shift your weight.
It takes some getting used to. You’re having to figure out every detail of something you’d usually do without thinking about it at all. The only way you can do it is by taking your time. Everything slows down except your brain. It feels like a week between lifting your foot and puffing it down again, and mostly what you’re thinking about is breathing. It’s no good holding your breath, because you’re almost certain to make a noise when you finally let the breath go. Instead you’ve got to breathe in real slow, hold it just a second or so, then breathe out again, slow as you like, and keep it going like that, all the time. That takes real concentration. You just don’t have the brainpower to think about anything else while you’re doing it.
Strange, really, how something completely ordinary like taking a breath can suddenly turn into the most important thing in the world. I guess you could call it paying attention to detail, but I think it goes further than that. I think that when things get really tight, you need to concentrate on the really basic stuff. If you can get that right, everything else ought to follow.
Sometimes, though, you can do everything pretty well perfect, and you still screw up. The stupid thing was, it was having my dearest wish come true that nearly did for me. I found my knife. Trouble was, I found it by stepping on it, and that made a noise.
As soon as I heard it scrape on the tiles under my foot, I knew what had happened. That was when things started coming at me fast.
I heard it grunt. It probably didn’t mean to. It was the effort of making a spring, I suppose, and maybe leaping out at me hurt, because of where I’d wounded it. Anyhow, I heard it and my instinct was, duck, get down out of the way, and as I was doing that, I remember thinking, Well, if I’m going down, I might as well pick up my knife along the way.
It landed on me while I was bent forward, and for a split second I was sure the shock must’ve broken my spine. I was pushed down, my knees folded, and I can still remember how much it hurt when my chin hit the hard floor, with its weight as well as mine pressing down on me. I felt my teeth come together with a hell of a crack — lucky I didn’t bite my tongue in half —but the good thing was that even as I went down, my fingertips touched the knife handle. That was a good moment, like meeting an old friend you thought you weren’t ever going to see again.
I wriggled my fingers about until I’d got a firm grip. Problem was, of course, that the hand with the knife in it was trapped under me, and I was trapped under the bastard thing that was attacking me.
That was when it bit me.
All those years I’d been in the trade, and I’d never been bitten by one of Them before. What got to me was the sheer pain of it. It’s not like being st
abbed or cut, or even like breaking a bone. To give you some idea, imagine what it’s like when someone pinches you with their fingernails, and then think of how bloody strong those jaws of Theirs are. I’ve seen one of Them hanging off a man’s arm with both its feet off the ground, like a terrier hanging off a bit of rope by its teeth. I’ve seen Them tear off hands and feet with a shrug of Their heads. No wonder They can bite.
This one had got its teeth into my left shoulder, right on the round bit of muscle at the top. It’s a wonder it didn’t just bite it clean off. I remember thinking, Well, that’s my left arm buggered up for good: I was pretty calm about it, because when things are happening really fast, somehow there isn’t time to panic.
You realise something, and accept it.
At the same time, of course, there was the pain. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. In fact, it was like the scream was welling up inside me, and if I couldn’t get it out I was going to burst open. But I opened my mouth and no sound came out, and I realised it was because I didn’t have breath left to scream with.
That was a pretty bad moment, and I reckon that I was not too far off being done for. Looking back, I mean. At the time, there was just the pain, and another part of me that was separate, like it was in another room watching through a window and saying, Oh well, too bad.
Thinking back, I can work out more or less what happened. It bit into my shoulder and pulled back, trying to tear off the chunk of meat it had in its mouth. That was what saved me, believe it or not. As it pulled back, it took some of the weight off my arm, the one I was holding on to the knife with.
Quite suddenly I realised I could move that arm. I tugged on it — I felt a nasty stabbing pain in the tendon just behind the elbow, but that was the least of my problems — and quite unexpectedly it came free, still holding the knife. Without stopping to think, I reached behind me and stuck the knife in, hoping I’d connect with something.
I connected all right. I felt the knife slide in, and as it did so the bastard’s jaws tightened in my shoulder, and the pain made me dizzy for a second. That was when I got a stroke of luck. It was still trying to pull away, and as I twisted the knife to get it free, it jerked violently — pure reflex, I guess, like the way your knee flexes if you bang your kneecap on something — and shifted its weight over to the right.
That really hurt my shoulder, and without realising what I was doing I kicked out with both legs. All I kicked was the floor, but hard enough to upset the bastard thing’s balance. It slid half off me and hung by its teeth in my shoulder, so that all its weight came down on my hand and the knife it was holding, driving the blade much deeper into the wound than I could ever have managed to do.
It squealed and jack-knifed, each movement banging the knife-hilt hard on the tiled floor. I felt its grip loosen in my shoulder, and I saw I had a chance. Letting go of the knife, I put my right hand on the ground, palm flat, and pushed with all the strength I had left. My enemy was still thrashing and bucking forwards and backwards on the ground, I pushed hard with both feet and my one good hand, and it slid off my back onto the floor.
A voice inside my head was saying, Go on, stab it now, while you’ve got the chance, and I knew that was what I had to do. Finish the bloody thing off, before it got away or turned on me again and killed me.
But I didn’t, and even now, years later, I’m not sure why. It’d have been different, I know, if I’d managed to keep hold of the knife. But I hadn’t, so in order to kill it, I’d have had to grab hold of it and try and keep it still with one hand while I felt and prodded about for the knife with the other. And I didn’t want to do that, for some reason. I couldn’t see it, naturally, but I could hear it slapping and banging as it twisted and squirmed about on the floor, and — well, I guess the only word for it is squeamish. I didn’t want to touch the disgusting thing again. I just wanted it to die as soon as possible, so I could go home.
God, that sounds so stupid. After all, I’d been wrestling with it, I’d had its claws digging in me, it’d bitten my shoulder half off, and I’d knifed it twice. Touching it — well, surely I was way past that. But that’s what stopped me. It was a bit like when you’re a kid and there’s a dirty great big spider crawling across your pillow. You know, in your mind, that you’re about a hundred times bigger and stronger than it, but you still lie there frozen solid, yelling for Daddy to come and rescue you, rather than balling your fist and just squashing the bugger.
It’s not fear, see, it’s disgust. Somewhere deep down, you believe that if you touch it, it’ll make you dirty, so you can’t make yourself do it, no matter how hard you try. That’s how I felt right then, with it writhing around on the floor a few inches away from me, and my knife stuck inside it. Besides, I was absolutely sure it was going to die in just a few seconds, and then— But it didn’t. It just carried on and on with the bumping and flapping around, until at last I couldn’t take it any more. I got to my knees and crept forward towards it, and that was the stupid thing. Something bony and very, very hard hit me in the face, and I went out like a snuffed candle.
CHAPTER FOUR
I OPENED MY EYES and it was still dark. For a second I was really scared, until I remembered about being down a tunnel, and the fight. That explained why my shoulder was hurting so bad, and why there was such a strong smell of sweat and blood. Then I remembered how I’d left matters.
I groped about on the floor for a bit, hoping it had died while I was out cold and I’d find its body, but all I could feel was a few sticky pools. That told me I’d been out long enough for the blood to begin drying. It also meant that I hadn’t killed it. It’d been well enough to get away, taking my knife with it.
That changed a whole lot of things. It meant I’d failed, of course. Also, I’d got myself pretty badly carved up, and nothing to show for it. Back then, the Pest Control Board was much fussier about proof. If you wanted to claim the bounty on a kill, you had to have something to show them — the head, for choice, or if that wasn’t possible and you had a good excuse, you could get away with an arm or a scalp, something they could nail up and show the ratepayers they were getting value for money.
Now my guess was that I’d stuck it well enough that it’d die of something or other soon enough, if only loss of blood. But I couldn’t take that to the Board offices and get paid for it. I tried moving my left arm, but all I got was pain. That was it, then. Chances were that the arm would have to be amputated, and even if it wasn’t, that was the end of my career in the trade. I felt angry about that, and really stupid. I thought, it’d have been better if the bastard thing had killed me. What use is a one-armed man to anybody? Might as well be dead as crippled with no money.
Well, I didn’t get over that exactly, but I managed to cram it away in the back of my mind, mainly by thinking about the really bad mess I was in. Down a tunnel, badly chewed up, no weapon, and who was to say there weren’t half a dozen of Them down there with me? Suppose the one I’d been fighting had crawled away to where the rest of them lived, told them about me and where it had left me, and They were on Their way right now to finish me off.
Then I thought, Don’t be stupid, They don’t talk to each other like people do, They’re animals. Even so, I was fairly certain They’d be able to smell my blood. I had to get out of there as quickly as possible, number one priority.
Then I remembered, I’d fought the bastard at the junction of two tunnels, and now I’d lost my bearings. It’d have been all right if it hadn’t knocked me out, but waking up like that had screwed my sense of direction. I felt about on the floor and found the walls, but I couldn’t figure out which was the way I’d come by and which was the side-tunnel. I hadn’t got a clue where I was, or which tunnel was the way out.
That was pretty bad, but at least it cleared one thing up for me. I stopped wishing it had killed me and I was dead. I realised I really wanted to stay alive, even with a useless left arm. Being scared helps with issues like that, trust me.
All very well sayin
g to myself, It’s all right, I’ve decided I won’t die after all. I’d made the choice, but I had a very bad feeling that it wasn’t going to be up to me. Even if there weren’t any more of Them, and the one I’d been fighting had leaked out all its blood and died curled up in a corner somewhere, that still left me lost in the dark in the tunnels, no clue which way to go. And of course I’d lost a fair bit of blood myself by this point. It’d be easy as pie to go the wrong way, end up deep inside the maze, pass out from exhaustion and blood loss, and wake up to find I’d died. That’d be a really stupid way to waste the only life I’d ever have.
Sometimes when something like that hits you, you panic. Other times, it cools you right down and makes you start thinking. I’d like to pretend I’m the sort of man who pulls himself together and copes with a crisis, but I know it doesn’t work like that. It all depends on a whole load of things, and it’s too complicated to explain or understand. Anyhow, I got my head together and tried to think my way out.
Stood to reason, I told myself. The tunnel I came up by was the tunnel that had blood in it — the blood it had leaked from the first wound, which I’d followed while I was tracking it. So I waddled about on my hands and knees for a bit, sniffing like a dog, and I found the blood trail. That was easy. Problem was, it ran two ways.
That puzzled me for a bit, until I realised that one of the trails was from the blood it had slopped everywhere as it ran off, after I’d been knocked out. I couldn’t tell just by the smell and the feel which trail was the older one, so I was screwed. One trail led back to the light, safety, staying alive, going home. The other would lead me after my wounded enemy, further into the darkness, to where its mates might well be waiting for me.