Arrowland by Paul Kane Page B

but didn't - couldn't - move.
    Faces he recognised now were tackling the threat, such as Dale and Jack on his left, leading the attack against the Dragon; Bill, Azhar and Mary on his right, trying to avoid those webs and deadly mandibles. Mary turned, urging him to join the fight; they couldn't do this without him. Robert tried to move again, but still couldn't.
    Then he saw it. Something, some one striding out between the two creatures, ignoring them as if they didn't matter. A man, but not quite a man - indistinct and shadowy, his body like fog. He was carrying something above his head. Something with antlers.
    The stag. The thing Robert had often become himself in this dreamland. Was that meant to be him there, defeated? Dead even? There was definitely blood dripping from the body, he could see that now. As the man came closer, his features grew clearer. He looked Native American, but Robert didn't have long to take in the sight of him.
    Everything happened so quickly. First, the Dragon and the Widow shrank back, reducing in size as something else was revealed behind them - an unclear shape, pushing, or manipulating, them. Next, the shadow man started to increase in size, becoming stronger, more significant. As he did so, the stag he was holding caught fire - perhaps from one of the Dragon's blasts, Robert couldn't tell. The stag burnt fiercely for a second or two before becoming ash which rained down onto the ground.
    Robert thought something terrible might happen then. Often the dreams had shown him his own death, in an effort to try and prevent it. But what actually occurred was that everything went black. It was like a TV being put on standby, the picture telescoping away into nothing. At any second Robert thought he might wake up, but he didn't. Nothing happened. He'd lost the connection somehow, the information it was feeding him out of reach.
    He awoke not long after, Mary stirring when she heard him.
    "What is it?" she asked, half mumbling.
    "Nothing," he lied.
    She rolled towards him, snuggling up. "Good. Go back to sleep, love."
    It was good advice, and he tried. For a long time. He'd finally nodded off before dawn, long enough usually to bring back the dreams. But again there was nothing but darkness.
    Over breakfast, back at the hotel provided by the marketeers, Robert was agitated, but refused to discuss it with Mary. She'd come to understand that Sherwood was a special place for him, but still didn't really get how special. Nor how much of a role it played in keeping them one step ahead of their enemies. When she looked hurt, Robert had given her hand a squeeze and told her not to worry; he didn't want her thinking he was shutting her out again. But at the same time he wasn't in the mood to talk about what was going on with his dreams.
    "So," Bill had asked, "any idea what we're going t'do about this situation?"
    They'd questioned the captured raiders and found out more about the Widow. The conclusion they'd drawn was that her men were devoted to the woman, fanatically so in fact. She was power hungry and she was, not to put too fine a point on it, completely insane. The raiders didn't mind telling them about her, in fact they quite relished it, fuelling the rumour that she ate human flesh, that she was into black magic and that she could never die. They were less forthcoming about her defensive capabilities. Loyal, even under pressure, and that didn't include the kind of pressure De Falaise and his goon Tanek put their prisoners under, Robert and Bill had gained nothing from the interrogation sessions, apart from the location of their base: Edinburgh Castle.
    That had been when Mary stepped in with the sodium pentothal. Picked up during routine searches of medical facilities for supplies that her and the trainee nurses back home could use, Mary was the only one allowed to administer this drug, and even then only in extreme circumstances. It was surprising how much looser their tongues were then, spilling