The Beast of Exmoor Read online

willed it away, then repositioned her hand and tried again. That time it materialized parallel to the ceiling. By bending her wrist she could swing it against the supporting loops of the web rope, but she couldn't generate enough force to cut through them. She changed the angle of her swing to strike at where the rope looped around the wooden beam. The sword bit with a shower of sparks, but the cord didn't break. Still, she had no other choice, so she continued to hammer at the beam, hoping that the sparks meant the sword cut the braided strands one at a time. However, she also hoped the beam wouldn't break first and collapse the ceiling on top of her.

  It wasn't as easy as it seemed; most of her blows at first hit the ceiling or passed under the beam entirely. She quickly got the hang of it, but the cord stubbornly refused to part. As she paused to consider an alternative, she heard a scraping sound. Looking down, she saw the embryonic Martian cat clawing at the clear membrane that covered the top of the case. She didn't have any time left. She struck at the rope again, putting more force into her blows. The Cat's claws ripped into the membrane. She grimaced with the strain of trying to strike even harder. The Cat tore the membrane open and struggled to crawl through the opening.

  Suddenly the rope snapped apart with a crack like a lightning strike as the Cat freed itself. She yanked her arm down, pulling the loops loose from around the beam, as the Cat leapt at her. She chopped at it, and when the blade struck its body popped like a water balloon filled with blood. The gore splattered across her front, with some splashing on her face.

  She grimaced in distaste. "Arg, what a blooming cockup."

  She struck at the rope that tied her right foot, where it had been lashed to the support beam. Since she could use her whole arm to swing, she hoped she would cut through it in less time, but the lashing proved tougher than the cord itself. She realized she made more noise, too, but she figured it couldn't be helped.

  She heard a hiss farther up the shaft, and saw a Martian cat no bigger than a foxhound. It charged towards her, eating up the distance in long leaps. She hammered at the lashing harder and faster, and it parted with a snap that sounded like a rifle shot. She twist her body to the left, swinging the greatsword, as the Cat leapt at her, and caught it in mid-body just in front of the middle pair of legs. It also burst, but the momentum of the sword carried it away from her.

  "Bloody mine's full of them." She struck at the loops that secured her left arm and cut through them on the third hit. Gripping the sword with both hands, she then hacked at the lashing that bound her left foot.

  She caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Looking behind, she saw a Cat as big as a mastiff stalking her. It leapt; she swung in reflex and took off its head. She flattened herself against the wall as the body flew past to collapse on the floor, the head bouncing and rolling some distance beyond. She resumed chopping at the lashing, trying to get free before something else arrived.

  The rope finally parted with an explosive crack. She was free, but still had the other ends tied to her wrists and ankles. Considering how much effort it took to cut the cords even with Caliburn she didn't feel eager to try to remove them, but she couldn't drag around three feet or more of rope behind her.

  Maybe I can at least remove the excess from my legs. Taking one strand in her left hand, she left enough slack that the section of cord closest to her foot lay on the ground. She then chopped at it; the blade cut it off on the second hit, leaving only a couple of inches. She did the same with the other leg, but the strands hanging off her wrists were even longer. She took a hold of the left-arm cord with her left hand, leaving a large loop, and held it up against the rock wall. It took four hits to cut it, mostly because she couldn't swing the sword hard enough, leaving a foot of dangling rope, but she removed the right-arm strand just as fast.

  She took a moment to get her bearings. She had no idea which direction led out, and she couldn't feel anything like a breeze or hear any sounds that might tell her. She reached up to her left ear and felt the mobile handsfree headset still in place.

  "Differel to Base; Differel to Base. Come in, Base. Over." She heard nothing, not even a faint static. She opened her parka and checked the radio. It was still switched on and the battery appeared to have a few hours of life left. She removed the headset and examined it. It appeared to be undamaged, but she couldn't know if the internal electronics had survived the impact when she hit her head.

  She reinserted the headset. "Differel to Base; do you read me? Over." Still nothing.

  "Oh, bother!" They might have gone out looking for her; in fact, she considered that likely, but someone should have been left to man the radio. She figured she must be a long ways underground, and the surrounding rock blocked the signal. If she expected to get out it would be on her own.

  She decided to head in the direction she faced. However, she only went a couple of fathoms before she heard what sounded like a calliope bearing down on her with all whistles sounding at once. She stopped, and out of the gloom ahead appeared dozens of Martian cats racing towards her, ranging in size from housecat to mastiff.

  "Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" She retreated, knowing she couldn't take them all on at once. She turned to run, but realized she couldn't outrun them either. Instead she sprinted back to the cross brace and, using Caliburn like an axe, smashed the two support beams. As they splintered and broke, she raced under the cross beam just before it fell. Pausing, she turned and saw the ceiling crack and sag, but it didn't fall. She took her British Army L117A2 9mm service pistol out of its shoulder holster and fired three shots into the growing fissures. The rock shattered and the ceiling collapsed just as the first Cats passed beneath. She turned and threw herself away to avoid the debris, landing on her stomach and covering her head. Dust filled the air, choking and blinding her. She crawled forward a number of feet then turned to look back. The shaft was blocked, but one Cat, as big as an Alsatian hound, had partially made it through. Caught by its hindquarters it struggled to get free, scrambling with its fore and mid-limbs. Pointing her pistol at it, she shot it through the mouth, blowing the back of its head off. It collapsed with a violent shudder.

  She climbed to her feet, coughing, her eyes watering, and started down the shaft in the other direction. She hoped it would lead to an exit, but whether it did or not, she no longer had a choice.

  Aelfraed stood with Mrs. Widget to one side of the rock outcrop as Mr. Holt examined the sniper nest. Even with his untrained eye, he could tell that, whatever happened, Differel didn't go quietly. The disheveled blanket and camouflage netting, the spilled thermos of coffee, the discarded apple and rifle, and the broken scope they found at the foot of the outcrop indicated to him at least that she had put up a fight. That actually made him feel proud.

  He took a moment to glance down at Maggie as she cut the tethered ewe loose so that it could make its way back to its farm. The land rover they had driven sat parked a few yards away. When she started up the outcrop to join them, he turned his attention back to the Master-at-Arms.

  "There's no blood," Holt said, "so the Martian Cat didn't kill her. At best she might have been knocked unconscious, but she wasn't taken by surprise, either."

  "How can you be sure?" Mrs. Widget asked.

  He pointed to the rifle. "It's pointing upslope, from where the attack most likely came. That meant she had time to turn around." He picked up the rifle, worked the bolt, and opened the breech, then reached in and extracted a round casing.

  He held it up. "She managed to get a shot off as well. The Cat probably then threw her backwards, knocking the scope off the outcrop. At that point it dragged her off."

  "Why couldn't she have run off?" Maggie asked.

  "If she were still conscious she could evade," Aelfraed said, "but then she would have kept in contact with us, and taken the rifle with her."

  "Yes, of course."

  "Besides," Mrs. Widget said, "can you picture her running like a scared rabbit?"

  Maggie laughed. "Not hardly!"

  "
But where do we look?" the housekeeper pressed.

  Holt scanned the upslope, then pointed at a spot a dozen feet above them. "I see what look like scuff marks, where patches of lichen have been worn away. I believe she was taken up there."

  "But she could be anywhere by now."

  He shook his head. "Even a leopard or a tiger can't drag over ten stone of dead weight very far. A Martian Cat may be able to go twice that distance, but probably no more, and it needs a lair of some kind to stay hidden. There are supposed to be old mines around here; if we head upslope I'm sure we will find her before too long."

  "We're in your hands, Mr. Holt," Aelfraed said.

  Holt sighed and gave him an irritated look. "I wish you would stop saying that."

  Differel wandered down the shaft for what seemed like half an hour, and she began to wonder if she had only descended deeper into the earth. Unfortunately, she had nowhere else to go. She hadn't found any side shafts, though thankfully she hadn't encountered any more Martian Cats either. The only encouragement she felt came from her conviction that she headed gradually up, but she understood that could have been just wishful thinking.

  With little else to do, she pondered the presence of all those smaller Cats. There were so many of them, she believed that if they went