Part 21 (2/2)

'Right here,' a cheerful female voice said, stepping out of the trees. Shadows s.h.i.+fted behind her, and Kovacs got the impression of well-hidden men in there. Not wearing camouflaged gear, just very hard to see.

Easier to recognise was the speaker, though Kovacs still doubted his eyesight. It was Sam. 'Wait a minute. How the h.e.l.l did you get back here? We just left you in there.' He pointed to where the TARDIS had been, recalling too late that it was no longer there.

'Where?'

'In the TARDIS,' Bearclaw said, sounding as baffled as Kovacs felt. 'You joined us back at the bridge.'

Sam shook her head, looking worried. 'No,' she said. 'I didn't. Whoever's in there, it's not me.'

Kovacs knew that everybody was thinking of their favourite curse-word. 'Well, there's nothing we can do about that. For right now, we'll just have to set up a perimeter around this junction.'

A lithe and dangerous-looking figure with white hair emerged from the shadows behind Sam. 'My people have already taken up positions on all four roads. We can deal with humans on foot, by clouding their minds and making them walk in circles so that they never arrive here. Those in vehicles, however, we cannot approach. You will have to deal with them.'

'Oh, joy,' Kovacs opined. 'You can at least warn us when they get here?'

'Of course.'

'Good.' He pointed down one road to the south. 'Most likely the Germans will have to come along from that direction. I want you to post a couple of your people there, a couple of miles along.' He pointed to the western road. 'Lewis'll be coming that way. Same arrangement: a couple of your people a couple of miles along that road. When your people see tanks on the way, they're to pull back and let us know. Got that?'

'I understand,' the white-haired figure agreed, melting away into the afternoon shadows.

'OK,' Sam said. 'So what are we doing while Galastel and the other Sidhe are watching our backs?'

Kovacs smiled lopsidedly. 'Becoming lumberjacks.'

A few miles away, Leitz signalled his column to halt on the road towards the Eifel. His three armoured cars were flanked by a couple of Tigers and half a dozen half-tracks full of troops.

He spread out a map on the top of his armoured car's turret, as Farber climbed up to join him. 'This is where we divide our forces,' Leitz told him. 'Position the Tigers in this copse, ready to approach the rest of us if needed. I want a defensive perimeter around this area on the Eifel.'

Leitz had drawn a circle on the map, enclosing all the points at which the detection equipment in his armoured cars had registered Elven activity. Lines drawn between them all crossed through a central point in the southern half of the Schnee Eifel, at a crossroads on the road the Americans had nicknamed the Skyline Drive. 'According to Lewis, the Americans will try to take and hold this area.'

'And we have to stop them?' Farber asked.

'No. We let them in, then enclose them, and make sure they never get out.'

'It would be easier just to mine the road here, and '

'Easier, but not as useful in the long term. We and here I speak for Wewelsburg also ' he lied 'want to test whether a battle can be fought inside the Marchenland Marchenland, the Sidhe realm. So, we let the Americans go there, then we follow them in and destroy them. If the experiment is successful, then we know we can engage enemy forces from there in such a way as to leave undamaged those resources in the areas they occupy. Then we can move in and take the spoils.'

Sweating despite the cold weather, Sam and the four men had been using their entrenching tools to cut down trees a mile along both the southern and western roads. The fallen trees had been stretched across the road, braced by those that had been left standing. Large tanks like Tigers would be able to roll over them, but any half-tracks or armoured cars would be held up, at least for a short time.

Even a short time was better than none at all.

Kovacs had also strung some grenades about ten feet off the road, a few yards on the far side of the fallen trees. Their pins were pulled, and the safety levers held on by thread tied to one end of the fallen trees. If someone tried to push a tree aside, anyone waiting in an open-topped half-track, or sitting out of the hatch of a tank turret, was in for a nasty surprise. Sam hadn't been happy about it, but Kovacs had overruled her.

Now Kovacs and Bearclaw withdrew into the undergrowth just within the boundary of the southern roadblock, while Garcia and Wiesniewski were positioned to watch the western approach. None of them had any illusions about how well two men, even with Sidhe help, could hold up an armoured column.

The Doctor had a time machine, so surely he would have the sense to come back to a point as soon after he left as possible? Kovacs hoped so, anyway. Just as much as he hoped the shadowy presences around him were on his side.

Back at the crossroads, Sam paced nervously, watched by a calm Galastel. 'Be at peace,' he suggested. 'What happens, will happen.'

'That's not very rea.s.suring.'

'The Evergreen Man will do what is necessary.'

Sam grimaced. 'I'm the one who should be telling you that.' She was the one who should be doing something, anyway. Not sitting waiting for news.

'You probably will,' he said enigmatically.

'They we are so outnumbered.'

'Numbers mean little in such things,' Galastel said. 'Heart matters. Soul matters. Those things have infinite capacity. Numbers are finite, and therefore nothing.'

He solidified, and she knew he had discovered something.

'They are here,' he announced. 'Leitz is approaching the south road.'

Kovacs had received the same news, and was now alert. He could hear tank engines and tracks in the distance, but the only sign of life so far was a small patrol of maybe half a dozen camouflaged SS troops, who were examining the roadblock.

Kovacs cursed again. He didn't want them to discover the grenade trap, but nor did he want them to trigger it. Not before there was a better target.

There was only one thing to do. Pressing himself against a tree-trunk, Kovacs opened fire with his Tommy gun. One of the SS troops fell, but the rest ducked under cover, and started laying fire down the road.

'What's happening?' Leitz demanded as his column halted. If the elves had returned, some ought to be taken alive.

A Waffen-SS corporal on foot saluted. 'The Americans. They've set up a roadblock about a mile from the crossroads. We need armour support.'

'How many Americans?'

'I don't know, but they're on both sides of the road, and have us pinned down.'

Leitz considered this. 'Send the two Tigers to flank them and run northeast through the woods to the crossroads. We'll charge them directly.'

Lewis sat in the turret of a modified Sherman, studying the roadblock of fallen trees. Surely the Germans would have gone for something more sophisticated, like concrete tank traps, or mines, or ant.i.tank guns?

No, this must be the Doctor's work.

He looked around carefully, and spotted the grenades strung above. He was surprised, horrified, but also harboured a faint sense of admiration. Who'd have thought the Doctor had such a devious trap in him?

'b.u.t.ton up,' he ordered, sinking into the turret and closing the hatch.

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