The Protectors war

Just then another sound rolled across the open ground to their left, one he recognized from the same memories as the hippo. A hoarse grunting moan, oouuughh: oouu-ugh: building up to a shattering roar.

"Lion. Just what the country bloody needs," Hordle said disgustedly. "Not to mention all the lovely sweet wolves and cuddly little bears noshing on our ruddy cows."

"God damn all safari parks," Sir Nigel said crisply. "And double damnation to their curators for living long enough to set all the beasts loose."

"They make good hunting," Alleyne said judiciously. "On the whole, I can't disagree, though."

Hordle nodded. That's the Lorings for you, he thought. None of this "Let's hunt it, and damn the farmers" for them.

"Watch out below," he added. "They can walk on the bottom and come up right beneath you, hippo can."

Now that people were thin on the ground again and most worked the land for their livelihood, nearly everyone had adopted the farmer's fiercely protective attitude towards his crops and stock. Not to mention that the carnivores had all turned man-eater during the first Change year when the wandering masses of starving refugees were the main food supply available, and many hadn't lost the habit yet. A big animal with teeth and claws was no joke, when all you had was a spear or a knife.

Hordle drove his paddle into the water, angling over northward, towards the left bank of the river. One of the hippos raised its head and forequarters out of the water as they came closer, opening its barrel-shaped head in a raw bellow of warning, the four giant yellow teeth framing the huge red gullet. The others rotated their heads like submarines swiveling a periscope, their twitching ears showing the focus of their attention. Hordle gri

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The arrow went through the space he'd occupied an instant earlier. Reflex kept him crouched as he dug the paddle into the muddy water of the Ouse with all his strength. The tough wood bent and the canoe surged forward as the skin crawled up his spine and his gut twisted. Being shot at by people he couldn't see was among the many familiar experiences he had no desire to repeat.

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"Shit!"

The last hiss of cloven air ended in a ptank! as an arrow arched down and slammed down into the bottom of the canoe not far from his right foot, standing in the thin aluminum. Water began to rill in around the edges, and along the slit the broad triangular arrowhead had cut. Hordle dug harder at the water, switching the paddle back and forth from right hand to left to keep the canoe on a steady path, and looked behind him. A boat had come out from around the stretch of island bank, a crude flat-bottomed thing of planks and plywood and plastic sheeting. It was large enough for a dozen men-just-half of them poling it along with long wooden rods, and the rest with bows, shooting as fast as they could draw.

Maybe they'll ram a hippo: no such sodding luck, Joh

Luckily between the crowding and the uncertain footing, they couldn't shoot very well-the range was respectable, over a hundred yards. Another flight rose from the punt as he watched, twinkling in the sun, then fell all around the three canoes. The hissing of the shafts ended in a series of sharp, wet, slapping sounds, like hailstones in a pond. He thought about reaching for his own bow; he'd have to draw awkwardly, underarm, and the canoe's rocking would throw his aim off. Still:

"I can plink a few, sir!" he called.

"Not here!" Nigel Loring snapped. "We'll draw them to the buildings. You flank them on the right. Go!"

Nigel Loring drove his paddle into the water, gasping slightly with the effort, feeling the burning strain in his back and shoulders, the thudding of his heart at the literally life-and-death effort, the hissing wheep of passing arrows. The teeth beneath his graying blond mustache were bared in a snarl of effort; you might not think you cared much what happened to you anymore, but the body had its own logic and its own priorities.

Behind him Alleyne paddled with smooth, quick competence, his face set with strain, and the building grew ahead of them-an old brick lockhouse, the roof collapsed but the walls still standing, with scorch marks above the empty windows. There had been other buildings round about, but none of them were more than brushy mounds; there had also been a couple of big trees near the lockhouse, but the fire that brought down the roof had killed them all, except for a few branches on the far side of one oak. The wooden doors of the mitre-built locks were slightly open, and water poured through them in a sluggish current, pooling below where the lower ones were still mostly shut, though sagging Curse it, Nigel thought, as another flight of arrows came up-and fell short; the canoes were faster than the punt. They picked their spot well.

The canoes might be faster, but not so much faster that they wouldn't be caught if they stopped to heave them past this lock. Then the pursuers would catch up and riddle them with arrows at point-blank range. They couldn't turn about, either, with the savages behind them, and it wouldn't do much good to try to don their armor-the enemy could ring them in: : and in any case, wading around in this liquid muck with sixty pounds of steel on your back:

Past here they would be into the fens proper, first a narrow cone of them and then opening out into nearly a thousand square miles of reed and pool and mere. It had been farmland before the Change, some of the richest in the world-but kept that way only by pumps and drainage, a good deal of it below sea level because of the shrinkage of the peat soil.

The prows of the canoes slid into the soft mud of the bank. Alleyne and Nigel each leapt out of his craft, gave a swift wrench to slide it higher so that it wouldn't float away when relieved of their weight, then snatched up their personal weapons and extra bundles of arrows and ran for the lockhouse. The mud sucked at their feet, slowing Nigel's more than his son's, which were young and on the end of longer legs. Arrows whickered down behind them, hitting the bundled supplies in the canoes with dull thud-shunk sounds, and the thin aluminum of the hulls with unpleasant metallic pops. Alleyne drew ahead. Even then, with his heart pounding and lungs heaving Nigel knew an instant's pride that the younger man didn't slow-instead he did the tactically sensible thing, and sprinted up the last stretch of tall grass and brush to dive headfirst through the window.

A second later he popped up behind it, drawing his bow-from firm footing, protected to the waist, and with room to work. The arrow that he sent whickering past Nigel brought a yell from behind, faint with distance but sharp with pain. Nigel vaulted through another window himself an instant later, stumbling on the broken boards and rubble within as two arrows followed him in and vanished with snapping and cracking sounds in the tumbled wreckage of the interior, and another slapped into the window frame and stood humming with an evil descending note. Then he forced himself erect and wheeled. It was the work of a moment to string his own bow; you had to be careful with that, though, and the mental effort helped him slow his breathing. The interior of the lockhouse smelled of ancient wet ash and mold and rotting wood; he put his feet carefully on the floor, lest a foot go through the boards and trap his leg. He slung the quiver over his back, drew a shaft and shot-the bow wasn't his primary weapon, but he'd practiced a good deal since the Change and some before it.

There were two of the flat-bottomed boats now, but they were both moving backward rapidly to get out of arrow range. One halted, and a white cloth went up on top of a pole, waving back and forth. When no more arrows snapped out from the lockhouse the clumsy craft edged forward a little and halted within speaking distance.