Fic. A Yellow Pup in a Black Land, Pup!Verse, 15

[fredbassett]

Title : A Yellow Pup in a Black Land
Author : fredbassett
Fandoms : Primeval/The Lord of the Rings
Rating : 15
Characters : Becker/Ryan, Allen Becker, Alex, Kay, Marcus, Shagrat, Gorbag
Disclaimer : Not mine (except Lyle, Ditzy, Finn, Blade) and the pups belong to fififolle, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : When an anomaly appears in the park Allen Becker knows it means trouble.
A/N : Written for lsellersfic's fandom stocking. And thanks to clea2011 for pointing out a rather important typo and therby saving me from the wrath of the Colonel!

Allen Becker tried to stop his hands trembling as swiped the screen on his phone. He hoped he would manage to get straight through to his son, but he knew the chances of that were vanishingly small.

For a bad moment, he thought the call was going straight to voicemail then Becker’s voice cut in. “Dad? Where are you?”

“I’m in the park. It’s happened again, Hilary… I can see a light in the bushes and…”

“We’re already on our way!” Becker said, and Allen heard the sound of a vehicle engine being gunned in the background. “Grab the kids and get as far away from the light as you can and stay away from it…”

“Hilary, there’s another problem…”

*****

A bad dose of pup cough had closed the nursery for the week. Allen Becker had stepped into the breach and offered to pupsit while his son stayed at work. He knew it wasn’t easy for Hilary or his partner to get unscheduled time off. Allan – much to his formidable alpha wife’s irritation – knew more about Hilary’s work than she did, and had a signed copy of the Official Secrets Act in a drawer to prove it. The Colonel, as she still liked to be known, was away visiting friends for a fortnight, so there was no barrier to Allen moving into his son’s house, and he’d been happy to help.

None of the Becker-Ryan pups had gone down with the ailment yet, but several of their friends had and Allen had ended up looking after Liam – Diana and Peter Collins’ eldest pup. The pups all knew each other from nursery and were firm friends, so it wasn’t much hardship to add an extra bundle of fur to the mix for a few days, while Diana went to work and Peter stayed at home to look after Jake, their youngest, who was busy coughing himself sick.

A day after Allan moved in, it was obvious that his young charges needed to let off some steam, so a visit to the park seemed like as good a way as any of engineering that and had the added bonus that he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the day putting the house back in order after four bundles of high-energy fur had torn through it all day.

After throwing bread to the ducks – which had involved an awful lot of instructions to throw it, not eat it – they made their way up to the copse of trees on the low hill in the middle of the common, where the pups liked to play hide and seek. After tossing a coin a few times, it was decided that Kay would be the first Seeker, and the others would do the hiding.

As usual, rules went out of the window in the first two minutes, but provided no one did any biting, Allen knew he was safe to leave them to it. After ten minutes, he heard a volley of barking. The tone was somewhere on the scale between excited and nervous, veering more towards nervous rather quicker than Allen liked. He broke into a run through the undergrowth…

A large ball of light hung in the air in the middle of the trees, turning slowly like a giant but rather threatening Christmas bauble. In Allen’s experience, nothing that beautiful could ever be anything other than dangerous, and it was obvious that the puppies felt the same, as he could see raised hackles and bared teeth.

His first reaction was to check they were all there. His hopes rose as he saw that his three grandchildren were standing shoulder to shoulder, all barking loudly. There was a particular note of distress in Marcus’ voice that immediately caused Allen to look around for Liam, but the black pup was nowhere in sight.

Allen immediately added his voice to theirs. “Liam!”

Marcus darted forward by a couple of paces, sniffing the air and staring at the ball of light. The pup looked pleadingly over his shoulder at his brother. Without hesitating, Alex put himself in front of Marcus and carried on barking. Marcus and Kay turned to Allen, eyes large and frightened.

Alex scooped the younger pups up, one under each arm. “Stay with me, Alex,” he ordered as he backed away from the glittering light. “Liam! Liam!”

The yellow-furred pup threw him an apologetic look and promptly ran into the heart of the light. It shimmered and then swallowed him without trace.

Allen’s instincts screamed at him to protect the two pups in his arms, but he knew he had to go after Alex…

The fractured light shimmered again, and a black bundle of fur came flying back through, looking like he’d been thrown by the scruff of his neck. From the low trajectory, it had probably been Alex who’d done the throwing.

“Liam! Alex!”

The ball of light flickered and then closed in on itself, as if it had never been there.

“Alex!”

Allen felt like someone had just ripped his heart out of his chest and thrown it on a fire.

He fumbled in his pocket for his phone…

*****

“The magnetic reading is still coming and going,” Connor said, staring down at one of his latest gizmos.

“Tell me it’s going to come back, Connor,” Becker said, knowing he sounded afraid and needy, but not giving a flying fuck. One of his pups was missing. He had a right to sound fucking needy.

“It’s going to come back,” Connor said. “I promise you, mate, it’s going to come back…”

Exactly three minutes and 35 seconds later, the anomaly burst back into life.

“Leave this one to us,” Ryan said, staring meaningfully at Cutter. “Ditz, Blade, Finn, with us. Stephen, we’ll need a tracker, you’re with us, too. Lyle, if we’re not back in an hour, it’s your call.”

Stephen nodded. So did Lyle. The lieutenant clearly didn’t like it, but someone had to stay behind and deal with whatever might come through. He had Dane, Kermit and Fiver for back up, and Lyle would have no compunction in taking a strong line with Cutter if necessary.

Becker’s priority was getting his kid back. He had no time to spare for stroppy scientists. If something needed killing, he’d kill it. No arguments. “On me,” he ordered, and stepped through the anomaly, his Mossberg held in readiness.

After the soft earth of the park, soaked after nearly a week of intermittent rain, Becker immediately noticed the hard rock under his boots. In addition, there was a nasty stink of bad eggs in the air. It settled on his lungs and he coughed, blinking in the semi-darkness. A heartbeat later, Ryan and the others were beside him, fanning out in a defensive formation, weapons raised.

Becker drew in another breath and tried to take in his surroundings. They were at the foot of an almost sheer precipice on the edge of a range of jagged, inhospitable mountains. Before them lay an equally inhospitable wilderness of broken rock and dry ground and beyond that, another mountain rose up into a dark, cloud-filled sky, but this one had fire at its heart and was busily belching out smoke and molten stone.

There was no sign of a yellow-furred pup.

“Don’t like the look of that fucker, boss,” breathed Finn, staring at the volcano. “No one move, Stephen and I need to pick up Alex’s tracks.”

The two trackers broke ranks and scanned the ground, moving carefully around the anomaly.

“Got something,” Stephen said, staring at a confused set of scuff marks on the dry earth.

Finn knelt at his side. “Two sets of pup prints.” He pointed. “That’s Alex, he’s bigger than Liam.”

Stephen took up the story. “Liam came through here. Alex came after him. From what Allen said it looks like Liam didn’t go back of his own accord. Alex had a scuffle with him and chucked him back through…”

“But the anomaly closed before Alex could follow.” Finn stood up and took a few paces away. “Alex came this way and then started to circle round, looking for the anomaly…” Finn stopped, staring at more marks on the ground. “Someone picked him up. Someone wearing fucking great big hob-nailed boots.”

“And whoever it was wasn’t the only one,” Stephen said, doing his best to keep his voice strictly neutral, no doubt for Becker’s benefit.

“How many?” Becker demanded.

Stephen and Finn took a moment to answer, checking the tracks on the ground carefully. “Maybe ten,” Stephen said. “All wearing similar boots, as far as I can see.”

Finn, a couple of metres away, shook his head. “One of them is smaller, and barefoot.”

“We follow them,” Ryan said, in the calm, deadly voice of someone whose child was in danger.

The trackers nodded and set off at a fast walking pace. With Stephen following the main trail and Finn staying a few paces behind to check that no one had deviated from the course, they could move quickly and Stephen’s pace quickly picked up until they were moving at a steady jog. The ground was brutal, but on the plus side they didn’t have to worry about any wildlife. This was a harsh, barren land.

After nearly ten minutes of keeping up an even pace, Becker realised that they had joined a rough trackway, from which the worst of the rocks and lava fall had been cleared. Stephen increased the speed and they were running hard now, but still staying behind their two trackers. Even at this speed, Becker trusted the two men to alert them to any prints leaving the track. Stephen was watching the right-hand side and Finn was covering the left. The pair of them had the eyes of a hawk when it came to tracks.

Becker was beginning to wish they had Lyle with them. They could have used the lieutenant’s preternatural danger sense, but just as that thought was forming, Stephen lifted his hand and they came to a halt.

“They stopped here,” he said, then, pointing to the north of the track. “They’ve gone that way. It’s getting darker. I think whoever they are might be about to hole up for the night.”

“Someone’s watching us.” Blade’s voice was as cold as the grave.

“A trap?” Ryan said, staring around at the wilderness of rock.

Blade shrugged. “They might think so.”

“Not much point in secrecy. They know fucking well we’re here.” Ryan stepped off the trail in the direction the tracks had taken and raised his voice. “You have something of mine! I want it back.”

Only silence greeted his words.

Becker gripped his combat shotgun harder and looked around for a target. Someone had his pup and he didn’t give a fuck who – or what – he had to kill to get Alex back. His kid was coming home and that was non-negotiable.

“You do, do you?” The answering voice was harsh, and had an accent that Becker couldn’t place.

Becker turned, the barrel of the Mossberg pointing towards the sound of the voice.

“You heard me,” Ryan said. “Are you going to show yourself?”

“Might do, Might not do.” The voice sounded amused. “Dunno what you’re pointin’ at me, but I don’t trust you as far as I could throw the first stone of Lugbúrz.”

Becker watched as Ryan lowered the barrel of his M4. “How about we talk, not fight?” his mate said, in the reasonable voice of a trained negotiator.

“Mebbe. But if you put one foot out o’ line, we’ll drill red maggot holes in yer belly. Got that?”

“Got that,” Ryan acknowledged.

No more than 20 metres away, Becker saw a dark shape rise from behind a large boulder. He couldn’t distinguish its features, but the creature was man-like and man-sized, but broader. The phrase built like a brick shithouse came to mind. In one hand, it held a broad-bladed knife. From the other dangled an unmistakeable bundle of golden fur, held up by his blue harness.

Alex was wriggling hard and whining in a gut-clenching mix of anger and fear, but the pup seemed unharmed.

“Becks, no!” Ryan hissed, sensing that Becker was about to do something rash. “He’s alive, let’s keep him that way!”

Reluctantly, Becker took his finger off the trigger of his shotgun. Of the two of them, Ryan was the negotiator. Becker preferred the stuff-a-shotgun-up-their-nose-and-pull-the-trigger approach to delicate situations. But where his kids were concerned, he’d do whatever it took to keep them safe, so for the moment Ryan was calling the shots – or lack of them.

Ryan slung his rifle over his back and held out both hands to show they were empty. “My name is Tom Ryan. Captain Tom Ryan. What shall I call you?”

The creature rammed a curved sword into a sheath. “Shagrat.”

For a moment, the clouds broke up and the dying light showed what they were facing more clearly. Becker knew he wasn’t looking at a human being, but he wasn’t looking at an animal either. It – he – had a broad face with strong features and leathery-looking skin more akin to hide, topped with a shock of unruly dark hair. His eyes held a cruel intelligence that made Becker’s fingers curl more tightly around his Mossberg. Shagrat was as tall as Ryan but broader, with long arms, He was dressed in a heavy leather jerkin and leather trousers tucked into iron-nailed boots. His clothes spoke of long use, and on the slight breeze, Becker could smell sweat, leather and blood.

Other similar creatures massed behind him, armed with a mix of scimitars, long knives and some spears. One of them, smaller than the others and barefoot, carried a bow. Becker could see no guns. He had utterly no fucking idea where or when they were or what sort of creatures they were facing. He didn’t like not knowing things.

“If you let us take the puppy, we’ll go,” Ryan said. “We don’t want any trouble.”

“Little fucker bit me,” Shagrat said. “Down to the fuckin’ bone. Feisty little sod.” His tone was almost admiring.

“Bet it’ll make good eatin’” one of the others commented.

Shagrat grinned, slowing an impressive array of crooked, fang-like teeth. He dangled Alex in the air again and said to Ryan, “You want it, you fight for it. None of your fancy tark-talk. But what’s so valuable about a scrap of fur?”

“We can fight if you want,” Ryan said, ignoring the question.

“Where’ve you come from?” the question was fired at Ryan with the force of a slingshot.

“I thought you wanted to fight?” Ryan’s tone was mild.

Becker wanted to fight. He wanted to blast the thing’s fucking head off and he was weighing up the odds of doing just that before it could hurt his pup.

“No need to be hasty.” The creature turned around and walked away, still holding Alex, but now supporting the puppy’s bottom with his other clawed hand. Shagrat looked over his shoulder. “You comin’ or not?”

*****

Ryan accepted the leather flask and took another mouthful. The liquid burned a molten trail down his gullet like the lava trails on the slope of the distant volcano. He’d drunk worse, but that had been in the sergeant’s mess at the Lines. That was standing him in good stead now. After knocking back a respectable slug, he handed the flask to Becker, who did the same and passed it on.

The recipient was an ugly sod called Gorbag. Ryan didn’t trust him an inch. To be quite precise, he didn’t trust any of the uruks, as Shagrat had informed him they were called, as far as he could throw them, but that went for a lot of the people he’d drunk with over the years.

They hadn’t yet succeeded in getting Alex away from Shagrat, but Ryan didn’t feel the uruk captain was the biggest danger. Shagrat kept one hand on Alex, his clawed fingers twined in the pup’s blue harness, but other than the indignity of having been held up by the blue straps, Alex didn’t appear to have suffered at the hands of his captors. Fortunately for them.

“So who’re you puttin’ up first?” Shagrat demanded.

“What’s the challenge?”

Shagrat looked thoughtful for a moment. “Knife.” He glanced at one of his uruks. “Durluk, git off yer fat arse and show ‘em how to fight.”

One of the uruks stood up. In the light of the campfire, Ryan could see that he was of lighter build than either Shagrat or Gorbag. He moved quickly into a typical knife-fighter’s crouch, long arms crooked at the elbow, a weapon in each hand.

On the other side of the fire, Blade came smoothly to his feet. One moment his right hand was empty, the next it held his Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife, the lethal blade black-coated to prevent any give-away glint of light on a night op.

The uruk had the advantage of reach. Blade had the advantage of being the most lethal fucker Ryan had ever known.

“First blood or last?” Ryan queried.

Shagrat shrugged. “Up to them. We ain’t big on rules.”

“Good. Neither are we.”

Whole Ryan was speaking, the uruk lunged with the speed of a striking snake. With deceptive ease, Blade swayed to one side and the blade harmlessly cut the air instead his flesh.

“Don’t play with your food, mate,” Finn commented. “It’s not polite.”

Two more strikes from Durluk met empty air and it was clear the long-armed uruk was getting frustrated. His moments were less focussed now as the sharp edge of anger crept in. Blade toyed with him for another moment or two, but they all knew time was of the essence now. Twenty minutes of the allotted hour had already gone. They needed to wrap this up before the cavalry arrived. Lyle wasn’t known for his subtlety.

Ryan leaned back and accepted another mouthful of the liquor. “End it, Blade.”

A lazy smile touched Blade’s handsome face. “Sure, boss.”

A heartbeat later, the uruk’s blade spun out of his hand to land in the campfire. The second one followed a moment later and a heartbeat after that, a long red line opened up one cheek from ear to mouth and another lightly scored Durluk’s neck.

Blade stepped back, sheathed his knife and held out his hand in expectation of a drink.

The audience – uruks and men alike – erupted in cheers and cat-calls.

“Your boy’s good,” Shagrat acknowledged. He glanced at Ryan and commented, “You’re trying to hide it, but you want this over with fast, don’t you?”

Ryan debated lying, but some instinct told him they’d be better served by the truth. “Do you know anything about shining balls of light that sometimes lead to places very different to here?”

The uruk’s eyes narrowed. “They appear sometimes,” he admitted. “Years ago, I got sent through one. The Big Boss,” he gave the words the benefit of capital letters, “wanted some birds’ eggs.” He rubbed his cheek. “The ugly fucker we nicked ‘em off damn near had me eye out.” Shagrat stared at Ryan and grinned. “So you’re not tarks, and if the light closes you’ll be stuck ‘ere.”

Ryan nodded.

“We need to take them to Lugbúrz,” Gorbag declared. “The Big Boss’ll want to question them.”

Shagrat threw him a filthy look. “What He don’t know, He won’t cry over. We’re patrolling for tarks. This lot ain’t tarks.”

Gorbag stood up, his long arms reaching almost to his knees. The uruk had a mad look in his eyes that made Ryan want to reach for his pistol and put a double-tap into the creature’s chest and then another into his head, just to make sure.

“Let’s stop arsin’ around. You want the little sod, you fight for him.”

Before Ryan could intervene, Becker was on his feet, swinging his shotgun up to his hip.

“Becks, no!” Ryan’s voice was low and urgent. “Stand down.”

The uruks were heavily-armed, but not with anything resembling guns. Ryan knew they had to end this without resorting to modern weaponry. He’d already weighed up their chances of simply massacring the uruk troop, grabbing Alex and heading back to the anomaly as fast as they could, but they couldn’t take the risk of one of the creatures legging it into the night and taking word of what happened back to their Big Boss, whoever that might be, and giving him a reason to want to investigate the anomalies in search of superior weapons.

The smaller creature with the bare feet and wide nose crept closer to Becker, snuffling noisily like an asthmatic with a cat on their lap. “’e smells like the little ‘un. They’re kin.”

Gorbag’s eyes widened and he barked a laugh. “Funny ‘abits some folk ‘ave got.”

Without warning, Gorbag lunged at Becker, a knife appearing in his hand with startling speed.

Becker tossed his Mossberg to Ryan, side-stepped and made a grab for the uruk’s wrist.

A whooping cry came from one of the other uruks who promptly launched himself across the campfire to grapple with Finn, and in a matter of moments, a full-scale melee was in progress, with only Ryan and Shragrat remaining seated on the ground.

“The lads like a good scrap,” the uruk commented.

“So do my lot,” Ryan said, his eyes straying back to his pup. Alex was calmer now, not struggling, but Ryan could still hear the almost subliminal growl from his eldest child, intensifying now that his father was engaged in the fight.

Becker and Gorbag were grappling on the ground, using every dirty trick in the book. It looked like a Friday night free-for-all in the sergeants’ mess, but Becker was a veteran of any number of such challenges, and despite Gorbag’s advantages of weight and reach, Becker was holding his own. He had blood running from a cut on his forehead, but he’d succeeded in delivering a nose-breaking head butt that had smeared blood and snot across the uruk’s face.

Ryan forced himself to remain seated, and accepted another drink of the fiery cordial.

“Your mate’s a good fighter,” Shagrat acknowledged, as Becker delivered a round-house kick to Gorbag’s balls that drew an angry howl from the uruk.

Ryan kept his expression neutral and didn’t acknowledge the remark.

Shagrat gave a low, rumbling laugh. “Snaga ain’t the only one with a good nose on ‘im. You ain’t saying much, but you’d slit my throat in a heartbeat if you could.” He sent appointed glance in the direction of Becker’s Mossberg, cradled on Ryan’s knees. “I don’t know what that is, but you don’t want any of us too close to it.”

Gorbag suddenly used his superior weight to pin Becker down on the ground. The uruk slammed a fist had into his gut and Becker gasped, the breath rasping in his throat. Gorbag drew his hand back, his hand curved like a claw, poised to rip Becker’s eyes out.

Ryan tensed, waiting for Becker’s counterstrike but before he had chance to make it, a low growl erupting from Alex’ throat as the pup pulled free of Shagrat’s restraining hand and flew across the stony ground towards Gorbag. Before Ryan could move, Alex leaped up, latching onto the ruin of the uruk’s nose and worrying at it the way he sometimes did with his toys.

The distraction enabled Becker to launch a vicious knuckle strike to Gorbag’s throat.

Alex let go and dropped back to the ground, making sure he didn’t get between Becker and the gasping uruk.

Shagrat’s face held a mixture of amusement and approval. “Little bugger got away. Fancy that. Mustn’t have been holding him tight enough,” he said mildly. The uruk jumped to his feet and bellowed loudly in a voice that wouldn’t have been out of place on any parade ground in Sandhurst or Sterling Lines, “Playtime’s over!” He took two paces forward and kicked Gorbag hard in his side. “That’s enough! You’ve had your fun.”

A few more carefully-aimed kicks brought to rumpus to an end and Ryan watched as his men started to disengage from their opponents.

Alex stood protectively at Becker’s side, glaring up at Gorbag who was tryng to hold his nose and his balls at the same time.

Becker came smoothly to his feet, putting himself between his pup and the cursing, retching, snorting creature.

“Well done, Alex,” Ryan said. “But that’s enough.”

The pup looked over his shoulder, his tail slowly wagging.

“Good kid,” Shargrat said and now the approval was obvious.

Ryan came to his feet and slung Becker’s Mossberg over his shoulder. “You let him go, didn’t you?”

The look of innocence Shagrat tied to assume was unconvincing in the extreme. Ryan had seen that sort of expression before, usually on the face of one of his men.

Ryan held his hand out to the uruk. “Thanks.”

Shagrat grinned and shook, his grip firm but not bone-breaking. “Like I said, the pup’s a good kid. I don’t hurt kids and I don’t eat ‘em, either. Now go. If you’re lucky, the ball of light will still be open. If you’re unlucky, go west. There’s a pass through the mountains, watched by a city. They’re more your folks than mine, but don’t let ‘em know the kid’s yours. They ain’t as broadminded as us.” The uruk captain hesitated then said, “Best of luck.”

Alex looked up at Shagrat and wagged his tail.

*****

The anomaly was still open and they got back through before it faded.

“We’ll toss a coin for who writes the report,” Ryan said, his arm around Becker’s waist as they watched Allan drop to his knees and scoop Alex and the other three pups into one wriggling, yipping bundle of fur.