Artemis Fowl_ The Opal Deception - Eoin Colfer [57]
Artemis noticed something. The howling had stopped. The trolls had ceased fighting and were sniffing the air. The pheromones were in the breeze, drawing the beasts like puppets on strings. In eerie unison, their heads turned toward Holly and Artemis’s hiding place.
Artemis shook his manacles. “Try it quickly.”
Holly did. The light winked green, and the cuffs popped open.
“Good. Excellent. Now let me do yours.”
Artemis’s fingers paused over the keyboard. “I don’t read the fairy language or numerals.”
“You do. In fact, you are the only human who does,” said Holly. “You just don’t remember. The pad is standard layout. Zero to nine. Left to right.”
“Nine zero nine,” muttered Artemis, pressing the appropriate keys. Holly’s cuffs popped on the first try, which was fortunate because there would be no time for a second.
The trolls were coming, loping from the temple’s steps with frightening speed and coordination. They used the weight of their shaggy arms to swing forward, while simultaneously straightening muscular legs. This launch method could take them up to twenty feet in a single bound. The animals landed on their knuckles, swinging their legs underneath for the next jump.
It was an almost petrifying sight. A score of crazed carnivores, jostling their way down a shallow sandy incline. The larger males took the easy way down, charging right through the ravine. Adolescents and older males stuck to the slopes, wary of casual bites and scything tusks. The trolls crashed through mannequins and scenery, heading straight for the tent. Dreadlocks swung with every step, and eyes glowed red in the half light. They held their heads back so their highest point was their nose. Noses that were leading them directly to Holly and Artemis. And what was worse, Holly and Artemis could smell the trolls, too.
Holly stuck both pairs of cuffs into her belt. They had charge packs and could be adapted for heat or even weapons, if Holly lived long enough to use them.
“Okay, Mud Boy. Into the water.”
Artemis did not argue or question; there was no time for that. He could only assume that, like many animals, trolls were not water lovers. He ran toward the river, feeling the ground below his feet vibrate with a hundred feet and fists. The howling had started again too, but it had a more reckless tone, mindless and brutal, as if whatever self-control the trolls had was now gone.
Artemis hustled to catch up to Holly. She was ahead of him, lithe and limber, bending low to scoop up one of the fake plastic logs from a campfire. Artemis did the same, tucking it under his arm. They could be in the water for a long time.
Holly dived in, gracefully arcing through the air before entering the water with barely a splash. Artemis stumbled after her. All this running for one’s life was not what he was built for. His brain was big, but his limbs were slight, which was exactly the opposite of what you needed when trolls were at your heels.
The water was lukewarm, yet the mouthful Artemis inadvertently swallowed tasted remarkably sweet. No pollutants, he supposed, with that small portion of his brain that was still thinking rationally. Something tagged his ankle, slicing through sock and flesh. Then he kicked into the river, and he was clear. A trail of hot blood lingered for a moment, before being whipped away by the current.
Holly was treading water in the center of the river. Her auburn hair stood up in slick spikes, and her suit crackled to match the background where the mud had been washed off.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
Artemis shook his head. No breath for words.
Holly noticed his ankle, which was trailing behind him.
“Blood, and I don’t have a drop of magic left to heal you. That blood is almost as bad as pheromones. We have to get out of here.”
On the bank the trolls were literally hopping mad. They head-butted the earth repeatedly, drumming their fists in complex rhythms.
“Mating ritual,” explained