| From: | Paul J. Adam Shadowtk@********.demon.co.uk |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Stately Homes |
| Date: | Thu, 2 Sep 1999 21:07:53 +0100 |
>>>>>[Her Ladyship appears well and happy. She also seems quite
receptive to any other tasks we may require her for.
+++++begin video
The cameraman lifts his head and leans slightly, looking around the
gnarled trunk of an ancient oak.
Across the valley, emerging from a copse, is a handsome male red deer.
He'd be in his prime, were it not for the way he obviously favours his right
foreleg: even at this distance, the badly-healed scars can be seen across
the deer's shoulder.
Wolf, perhaps, or something bigger? Whatever inflicted those wounds has
left the stag injured and in pain.
"Him?" the cameraman says in a very soft voice. Educated, Home Counties
perhaps.
"Aye. sir." is the equally quiet reply, in a Highlands burr.
The cameraman raises his rifle, aims carefully. (The weapon is a
handsome bolt-action; Monte Carlo stocked in rich wood and fitted with a
Saeder-Krupp scope) Not a long shot, barely a hundred and fifty yards -
A wolf howls somewhere nearby, and the buck leaps into a run just as the
cameraman's rifle fires. "DAMN!" he snarls as he works the bolt for a
second shot.
His bullet - aimed for the heart - has struck the deer in the belly, and
while the animal is sure to die eventually that wound will cause a slow
lingering agony. Shocked and in pain, though, the wounded animal has
bolted into the trees and out of sight.
"What do we do, Danny?"
"I've got it, Mr Pendleton sir." the cameraman's companion replies calmly.
Far up the valley slope, the buck emerges from the trees at a limping run.
Pendleton suppresses a groan: the wounded animal is far out of range,
and from its pace it's going to cover a lot of ground before they can close
enough to administer a _coup de grace_.
He's jolted by the sudden shock of Danny's rifle firing. A second and a half
later, the deer drops as though pole-axed.
"That's that, sir."
Pendleton turns to look at his companion: a man in his late twenties,
wearing canvas jeans and a Barbour jacket, also carrying a rifle (his is an
utilitarian weapon, stocked in green fibreglass). "Danny, how in the name
of blazes did you do that?"
"It's not that hard, sir, if you've had enough practice." The ghillie slings his
rifle, sets off towards the fallen deer. "That was a good shot you made,
Mr Pendleton, if the wolf hadn't started him it would have dropped him on
the spot. Nothing you could have done about that one."
"Maybe not, but I don't like botching the job like that." Pendleton admits.
"Lucky you were there to pick up the pieces, eh?"
"You'd have managed, sir, I just saved you a longish walk."
"How did you do that, though? That's a damn hard shot."
"No, sir, it's easy. It's dead on five hundred yards, which made range
simple, fifty inches of bullet drop. Five hundred yards, fifty inches, it
sticks in the mind. The wind was about five miles an hour down the valley,
so that was about ten inches of windage." The ghillie gestures with his
hands, explaining the geometry of the shot. "The stag was making about
eight miles an hour up the slope, so I needed to aim thirty inches above
him. Add all that together, line it up and fire."
"You call that easy?" Pendleton asks, as they approach the dead stag.
"What would you call difficult?"
+++++pause
+++++resume
The room is unfamiliar at first: warm and comfortable, despite its
imposing size. It seems to be home to a young Baroness with a lunatic
smile, which suggests the room is in Castle Glamis and the Baroness is
Lieutenant the Lady Susan E. Rodriguez, better known to her friends as
the Mighty Quinn.
"Good hunt this morning, I see?" she's asking Pendleton as they're finishing
breakfast. Harcourt, beside his comrade, is trying to scrape marmalade
off his tie and succeeding only in mixing butter into the stain.
"An excellent stalk, though I made an awful hash of the kill." Pendleton
apologises. "The buck started just as I fired, I misplaced my shot, and if
Danny hadn't made a quite incredible long-range kill we'd probably still be
following the blood trail."
"See why Danny's so useful to me?" Quinn nods. "Some interesting wildlife
comes wandering south every now and then, and young Danny Monroe's
the man to handle it. One of the best riflemen I've ever seen."
Pendleton files that fact for future reference. "Quite. Well, how is your
research going?"
"Almost completed." Quinn grins happily. "That file was the missing piece
of the jigsaw. Now I just need to close the circle."
"And you intend to do this how, precisely?"
"You don't want to know, Sir Charles. Nar'moh'ach and his backers lifted
the lid on some rather unpleasant magical power, and I'm going to use
their own tools to nail the lid back down."
"Is that safe?" Pendleton refills his coffee cup.
"No. But it's safer than leaving all that power floating around loose.
Ground it out and neutralise it, that's what I intend to do."
"Power gained from the methodical murder of thousands of innocents?"
Harcourt asks, slightly incredulous. "And you want to use it?"
"Oh, not through _me_, Eddie! I wouldn't touch that stuff with a
bargepole. No, I know exactly where I want to put it." Quinn's unhinged
grin widens. "Where, who and how. The only question is 'when' and the
answer there should be 'soon'"
"Well, let us know how it goes." Harcourt replies. "If it goes wrong, we'll
try to pick up the pieces..."
"O ye of little faith." Quinn laughs again.
"What are your plans for the moment, Your Ladyship?" Pendleton enquires
after a moment.
"No idea, really." Quinn shrugs. "Done my Territorial Army duty for the
year about four times over already, Glamis is running itself smoothly, the
world shipping business is no worse than usual so my small fleet is coping
nicely... I find myself at something of a loose end. Why, something in
mind?"
"Not for ourselves, no." Pendleton shakes his head. "I fear our parts of
the
world are - for now - sufficiently stable as to not require our intervention.
I was merely curious what you intended to do after settling your score
with General Diennes."
"Oh, you figured out I wanted _him_, did you?" Quinn chuckles. "I really
don't know. But I'm sure I can find something to keep me busy."
+++++end video]<<<<<
-- Sir Charles Pendleton <21:07:43/09-02-60>
