Artemis Fowl_ The Opal Deception - Eoin Colfer [67]
Fortunately there were no trolls on the scaffolding. All of the animals were busy trying to kill each other, or avoid being killed, but it was only a matter of seconds before they remembered that there were intruders in their midst. Fresh meat. Not many of the trolls had tasted elf meat, but those who had were eager to try it again. Only one of the present gathering had tasted human meat, and the memory of its sweetness still haunted his dull brain at night.
It was this particular troll who hauled himself from the river, carrying twenty extra pound’s of moisture weight. He casually cuffed a cub who had come too close, and sniffed the air. There was a new scent here. A scent he could remember from his short time under the moon. The scent of man. The mere recognition of the smell brought saliva flowing from the glands in his throat. He set off at a pitched run toward the temple. Soon there was a rough group of flesh-hungry beasts hurtling toward the scaffolding.
“We’re back on the menu,” noted Holly when she reached the scaffolding.
Artemis unhooked his fingers from the LEP captain’s belt. He would have answered, but his lungs demanded oxygen. He whooped in gulps of air, resting his knuckles on his knees.
Holly took his elbow. “No time for that, Artemis. You have to climb.”
“After you,” Artemis managed to gasp. He knew his father would never allow a lady to remain in distress while he himself fled.
“No time for discussion,” said Holly, steering Artemis by the elbow. “Climb for the sun. I’ll buy us a few seconds with the tele-pod. Go.”
Artemis looked into Holly’s eyes to say thank you. They were round and hazel and . . . familiar? Memories fought to be free of their bonds, pounding against cell walls.
“Holly?” he said.
Holly spun him around to the bars, and the moment was gone. “Up. You’re wasting time.”
Artemis marshaled his exhausted limbs, trying to coordinate his movements. Step, grab, pull. It should be easy enough. He’d climbed ladders before. One ladder at least. Surely.
The scaffold bars were coated with gripped rubber, especially for climbers, and were spaced precisely sixteen inches apart, the comfortable reach distance of the average fairy. Also, coincidentally, the comfortable reach of a fourteen-year-old human. Artemis started to climb, feeling the strain in his arms before he had risen six steps. It was too early to be tired. There was too far to go.
“Come on, Captain,” he gasped over his shoulder. “Climb.”
“Not just yet,” said Holly. She had her back to the scaffold and was trying to find some pattern in the approaching bunches of trolls.
There had been an in-service course on troll attacks in Police Plaza. But that had been in the event of a one-on-one situation. To Holly’s eternal embarrassment, the lecturer had used video footage of her own tangle with a troll in Italy over two years ago. “This,” the lecturer had said, freezing Holly’s image in the big screen, and rapping it with a telescopic pointer, “is a classic example of how not to do it.”
This was a completely different scenario. They had never received instruction on what to do when attacked by an entire pack of trolls in their own habitat. No one, the instructors reasoned, would be that stupid.
There were two converging groups coming straight toward her. One from the river, led by a veritable monster with anesthetic venom dripping from both tusks. Holly knew that if one drop of that venom got under her skin, she would fall into a happy stupor. And even if she escaped the troll’s claws, the slow poison would eventually paralyze her.
The second group approached from the western ridge, composed mainly of latecomers and cubs. There were a few females in the center of the temple itself, but they were taking advantage of the distraction to pick meat from abandoned carcasses.
Holly flicked the tele-pod’s setting to low. She would have to time this exactly right for maximum effect. This was the last chance she would get, because once she started to climb, then she could no longer