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fredbassettTitle : The Fell Winter
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Crossover withThe Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia
Rating : 15
Characters : Nick, Connor, Alec Jacobs, Matt Rees and others
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Word count: 7,000
Summary : There was total silence in the command centre, then Stephen encapsulated what everyone was thinking in one simple word: “Shit.”
A/N : Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
telperion_15 for the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
primeval_denial Secret Santa
The siren call of the anomaly alarm dragged the ARC night shift out of sleep for the fourth time that week.
Captain Alec Jacobs swung his legs onto the floor, reaching with one hand for his boots while running the other through his short blond hair in an attempt to reassert a semblance of order. His hair appeared to have other ideas, but as he was going on an anomaly shout, not a date, he didn’t give a flying fuck. He reached the atrium two steps ahead of Cutter and Hart, confident that his security team would already be assembling their kit and heading for the transport.
Connor, still stationed in front of the many screens of the Anomaly Detection Device, had an even worse case of bed hair than the rest of them put together, although Jacobs doubted the lad had been anywhere near a bed in the last five hours.
“It’s the Haywards Heath one again,” Connor said wearily.
Jacobs didn’t miss the light squeeze the professor gave the lad’s shoulder. Connor looked like he needed all the support on offer at the moment. The teams had been run ragged for the past week and their unlucky streak showed no sign of ending.
The Haywards Heath anomaly had been the bane of their lives for days, appearing and disappearing like a particularly irritating schoolkid practicing for the role of the Ghost of Christmas Past by jumping out at people wearing a white sheet and yelling ‘boo!’.
They’d thrown a cordon around the wretched thing using the tried and tested unexploded wartime bomb routine, with strong electrified fencing powered by one of their large mobile generators. A couple of very bored young coppers stationed in a portacabin kept watch. Connor also had a military-grade drone he could have in the air at a moment’s notice, providing he kept it far enough away from the anomaly’s magnetic field, but over the last two days they’d been helped by a thick snowfall that had blanketed the surrounding area and showed no signs of thawing. Any creature tracks would stand out like a sore thumb.
Connor already had the drone in the air running its pre-programmed search patterns and transmitting close-up footage of the area inside the anomaly cordon.
“Nothing yet,” he observed.
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Stephen said. “Looks like it’s about to start snowing again over there.”
The anomaly glittered like ice shards in the air, bright even amongst the floodlights directed at it from around the cordon. A direct light in the face was often enough to deter any potential prehistoric tourists, and unless a woolly mammoth decided to pay a visit, anything else would probably find the thick snow less than attractive.
Cutter rested his hand on Temple’s shoulder again. “You’re looking tense, lad, what’s up?”
“There’s a difference in the light spectrum.”
Cutter leaned forward, staring at the screens, an intent look on his face like a dog that had just seen a rabbit. “A slight gold tint to the edges. Anything different on the frequency?”
Connor’s fingers flew over the drone controls as the footage from the small airborne vehicle wavered and dipped before he regained control and pulled the drone well back. “Woah, nearly lost her! The field has just ramped up to 5.75 tesla…” One of the ADD screens started to shiver and then the lines that represented the radio frequency subtly shifted, moving from the red baseline of 87.6 FM to 87.7 and then to 87.8.
There was total silence in the command centre, then Stephen encapsulated what everyone was thinking in one simple word: “Shit.”
Without waiting for any further instructions, the team headed for the vehicles, leaving the ADD in the competent hands of Amrit, who now knew the system almost as well as its inventor.
Jacobs knew there was no point asking what the changes meant. He also knew they were unlikely to be good news.
Connor would tell them as soon as he knew, but for now, all their boy wonder could do was fasten his seat belt and stare at his laptop screen, working on multiple small windows at once in a way that bent Alec Jacobs’ brain totally out of shape.
~~~~
“All quiet, sir,” the young police officer said, nodding towards the flickering ball of light. “But the colour’s a bit weird… Amrit said you knew about it.”
Cutter nodded. “We do, but we don’t know what’s causing it.”
Jacobs could see the answer did nothing to allay the lad’s fears. Cutter had a worse bedside manner than Matt Rees with a hangover.
“Fido’s on his way through,” Connor announced, referring to his latest Anomaly Rover.
The small tracked vehicle was already trundling towards the anomaly. Connor had programmed it to advance 20 metres through the anomaly, taking footage of its surroundings and then come back. Unsurprisingly, he had only a 50% success rate with this method of data collection and the list of Did Not Returns was getting longer by the week, with causes ranging from ‘fell off a cliff’ to ‘used as a chew toy by a Smilodon’. His lads usually ran a book on what would happen to the next one. The weather made ‘stomped by a polar bear’ odds on favourite at the moment.
Fido headed into the anomaly without slowing down.
From the (relative) comfort of the Portakabin the team were using as a control room, they peered over Connor’s shoulder as the screen with the video output from Fido crackled and then went dark then flickered like an old TV losing its station. After a collective intake of breath, the static noise was replaced by another snowy landscape.
While Connor fiddled with the camera controls, Jacob’s mobile started ringing.
Amrit.
“What’s the problem?” He knew the young technician was hardly likely to be ringing for anything other than an emergency. At a nod from Cutter, he put the call on loudspeaker.
“Two more anomalies,” Amrit said, sounding as calm as ever. “One is the Forest of Dean anomaly and we’ve had reports from there of what sounds like another scutosaurus. The other’s 20 minutes from you in the middle of a school playing field. Luckily it’s not match day. I’ve called in Ryan’s team and sent them to the Forest. Can you spare anyone for the other?”
“Stay on the line. Connor’s just sent Fido through ours. Awaiting sit rep.”
“Just snow.” Connor gestured at the screen. “Looks pretty much the same as here. The temperature is a few degrees lower than here. The sky looks pretty clear.”
What Jacobs really wanted was a threat analysis not a bloody weather report…
Stephen, correctly interpreting the look on his face cut in with, “No tracks on the snow. The anomaly is close to the edge of mixed deciduous woodland with a few scattered pines. No sign of wildlife. Could be pretty much anywhen, but we can probably discount anything earlier than the Quaternary. No obvious threats visible.”
Amrit exhaled sharply. “Good, because I’ve got what looks like a juvenile allosaurus coming out to play at the school site.”
“Oh fuck,” muttered Stephen and it took Jacobs a moment to realise that his attention was rivetted on the screen and not on what Amrit had just said.
A child had appeared out of nowhere and was standing a few metres from Fido, staring at the anomaly rover in confusion. A mop of light brown curls poked out from a red knitted hat that framed a pretty, heart-shaped face. The girl was wearing a thick fur jacket over wide-legged yellow pantaloons that swirled like a skirt, and a bright green scarf was wound around her neck. She backed up carefully, away from whatever threat she thought the rover might represent.
“Fuck,” Jacob’s echoed. “Amrit, we’ve got a kid on the other side of ours.”
“Abby, Stephen, the allosaurus is yours,” Cutter ordered without taking his eyes off the screen. “Alec, you and Matt Rees stay with us. Send the rest with Anders and Carter. Allosaurus hunt in packs, even though Lester won’t let me publish the paper.”
“I’m going in with you,” Connor said. “Jess can keep watch here.”
His young, incredibly bright and irrepressibly chirpy assistant nodded, eyes wide with excitement.
“Let’s move!” Cutter ordered.
~~~~
“Bella, leave it alone, you don’t know where it’s been!”
“I know exactly where it’s been, Gorby, you dunderhead, it came out of that sparkly light!” Bella retorted, bending down to stare at the strange metal contraption, but taking care to stay between the strange flickering thing and her young son, exercising more caution than folks usually associated with the notoriously incautious Mirabella Took. “Rory-lad, go back to papa.”
“But mama …” her eight-year-old son whined. “I want to look at the shiny thing!”
“No buts,” Bella snapped. “Back to papa now or there’ll be no more sledging.”
The top of the metal thing whirred around, lit up as green as grass and let out a noisy like a cat whose tail’s been trodden on,.
Bella jumped back.
Rory turned to run.
A white-furred shape bounded out of the trees that clustered beside the High Hay and snapped at the back of Rory’s fur jacket, lifting him from the snow as though he weighed no more than a new born kitten, then it was off again, across the frozen river and into the snow-covered fields, making for the tree cover on the far bank.
Gorbadoc Brandybuck yelled loudly and started to flounder through the snow towards the river.
Mirabella Brandybuck (née Took), a fiery light in her eyes, took off after the wolf.
Four of the Big Folk emerged from the ball of fractured light just as another light opened between the wolf and the trees.
The wolf veered aside and disappeared into the wood.
“Stop!” The voice came from someone accustomed to being obeyed and the tone was enough to slow their headlong flight to the frozen river.
Bella turned to glance at the Big Folk and caught her foot on a hidden log, landing in a snow drift in an ungainly sprawl.
“Oof,” was followed by a cry of, “I’m not stopping! That mangy wolf’s got my Rory!”
One of the big folk went down on one knee and helped her up. Bella found herself staring into a pair of blue eyes set in a kindly face topped by a mop of surprised hair that wouldn’t have been out of place on their Isengar, who’d never managed to keep hold of a hairbrush longer than a week.
“You’re not a child,” the man declared, the surprise written all over his face almost turning the statement into an question.
“I’m 50, not that it’s any of your thrice-damned business!” Bella glared the Man. “Now you and your friend here put your long legs to some use and get after that escapee from Angmar’s kennels. It’s got my son and while you’re here, you might as well make yourselves useful.”
The other two Big Folk, both dressed from head to foot in black, were already sliding down the bank towards the ice.
“Will it take our weight, miss?” one of them called.
“How should I know?” Bella retorted. “It’ll take ours, but I can’t speak for Big Folk like you, and it’s Mrs, I’ll have you know.” Bella nodded her thanks to the blue-eyed Man who’d helped her up, and started to run through the snowdrifts towards the frozen river, pleased to see that Gorby was already on the other side and was now making his way up the opposite bank.
As she slipped and slithered after her husband, she cursed herself for ever agreeing to take little Rorimac sledging.
~~~~
Connor stared wide-eyed after the small woman and her equally small companion now moving far more nimbly through the snow than Nick and the soldiers. He’d seen a lot of weird stuff in his time on the anomaly project, but two little people no taller than 120cm, wearing thick fur jackets but with their feet bare despite the snow was beyond weird. They spoke perfectly understandable English but with a regional accent he couldn’t place. The woman who’d said she was 50 had looked no older than her mid to late 20s … Connor’s mind stuttered to an abrupt halt. It was well weird.
He hauled his attention away from the pursuit of the wolf and quickly transmitted a message back to the ARC on Fido’s video link before starting to take readings from the strange, gold tinged anomaly, checking the strength of its magnetic field. To his surprise, there had been a slight increase to 5.8 Tesla, with the radio frequency remaining the same. As far as he could tell, it was stable.
Now he needed to get over to the other one …
The muffled sound of horses’ hooves on the snow and the jingle of a bridle drew his attention. Connor swung around, wondering what the hell else was coming to join the party.
Knowing what Jacobs’ was like for accurate comms, he quickly reported that there were two bloody great big horses approaching at speed. He had no idea if ‘bloody great big’ was a technical term for a horse, but it was certainly accurate. He doubted the captain needed to know the colour, but just in case, Connor reported that one was piebald (he knew that from mainlining old Westerns with Tom and Duncan) and the other sort of golden brown with a pale mane and tail …
“You’re babbling, mate.” Matt Rees’ voice came over the radio, steady and calming. “Breathe, Conn, just breathe.”
That was easier said than done, Connor thought, trying to hold onto what was left of his composure when he saw that the horses were being ridden by two tall grey-cloaked men who could have come straight out of an old King Arthur film (and yes, he knew there was no Camelot, but he still liked the films – although Merlin was pretty good, too …)
“Breathe, Conn – in for a count of three, then out for the same, remember …”
Oh shit, had he really been babbling about King Arthur and Merlin on an open channel …?
“Yes,” Matt said. “More breathing, less talking, mate. I’ve got you covered in case there’s trouble, I promise.”
Connor sucked in a deep breath. The cold made his teeth hurt, but at least that was the only thing that was hurting at the moment. Horses made him nervous. Dinosaurs he could handle, but horses were big and stamped and snorted a lot.
“Breathe out, as well.”
He exhaled in a rush as the riders came to a halt a couple of metres away. As though they could read his mind, the two horses stamped, snorted then stood as still as statues, their heavy hairy feet – or did he mean hooves? – planted firmly in the snow. They stared at him knowingly.
Having to crane his neck to look up at the riders didn’t help his composure much, nor did noticing that they each had a sword strapped to their saddle bags along with a short bow and a quiver of arrows.
Then he saw their faces and his fear was swept away. “Bloody hell, they’re hot!”
“You said that aloud as well,” Matt commented, sounding amused. “And you’re right, which isn’t something I often get to say when I’m looking at someone down a rifle scope.”
“H… hello.”
The riders looked no more than their early 30s. Black hair framed identical faces that would have the cover editors of every glamour mag in the world coming to blows over the photo rights.
Twins.
Bloody hell. Double bloody hell. Or did he mean double bloody hot?
The piebald horse snorted. Connor was sure it was laughing at him.
The golden brown one just gave him a knowing look.
“Have you seen a wolf?” its rider asked in a cultured, lyrical, oddly accented voice.
He didn’t know where they were, but it sure as hell wasn’t Kansas, Toto!
“If … you … have… how… long… ago… did… it… pass… this… way?” the other man asked, enunciating every word slowly and carefully, leaving a gap between each one, as though he thought Connor might have trouble understanding him. Either that or he thought Connor was a complete halfwit.
“Er … not me personally, but there’s one over there somewhere.” He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the tree line. “It’s taken a kid.”
The pale horse snorted. Connor was certain the sodding things were a) telepathic and b) definitely laughing at him.
“When did this happen?” the rider snapped.
“A few minutes ago. My friends have gone after it as well as two … two rather small people who definitely aren’t children …”
“Is the soldier who is pointing some sort of weapon at me a friend of yours,” the pale horse’s rider asked, clearly making an effort to maintain a conversational tone while he stared down at the red dot over his heart.
Connor nodded vigorously.
“Then I would appreciate it if he pointed it elsewhere. We are not your enemies.”
And on some deep level, Connor knew that was true as a sense of peace and well-being flooded over him. He giggled nervously and said into his throat mic, “Matt, as well as being hot, I think they can use magic.”
“Perceptive,” the other one commented, before reaching down, picking him up one-handed and plonking Connor down in front of him on the very, very big piebald horse. The very, very big telepathic piebald horse. On cue, the horse snorted loudly. “My apologies, but we have need of speed. The wolf has cubs to feed and we must find her before harm comes to the stolen child. And I hope you’ll forgive me when I say that I do not entirely trust soldiers in black with strange weapons.”
“Although you do not feel evil,” his twin added.
“T… thanks,” Connor stammered before the horse sprang forward, nearly throwing him off his precarious perch. “I think.”
“Relax,” the rider murmured. “I will not let you fall.”
“You’d better not,” Matt Rees commented, loudly enough to be audible to the rider as well as to Connor.
“Trust me, I won’t,” the man said.
The strong arm tightened around his waist as the horses sprang across the frozen river, their hooves barely touching the ice. They ran smoothly up the slope towards the woods as Matt Rees waited by the tree line, his rifle now trained on the second anomaly as it flared brightly to reveal a furry creature waddling through, wearing a somewhat dazed expression and what appeared to be a frilly apron.
The piebald horse came to a halt in a flurry of snow and stamping hairy feet – or hooves – or whatever. The rider lowered Connor to the ground and slid off the horse behind him, buckling his sword belt around his waist with practised ease.
Connor stared at the furry animal that had just walked out of the second anomaly. “Matt, I think it’s harmless. It’s a beaver wearing a pinny!”
The beaver reached into a pocket of its pinafore and settled a pair of round spectacles on its quivering nose. “Where am I?” it asked politely.
The man on the golden horse stared down in open amazement. “Fuck me, a talking beaver!”
The beaver stared up at the horseman disapprovingly. “Language, young man!”
“I do apologise for my brother,” the piebald horse’s rider said smoothly. “You are just east of the Baranduin, in the land known as the Shire. I am Elladan of Rivendell. My more vulgar brother is named Elrohir.”
“Connor Temple,” Connor volunteered, wondering when he was going to wake up.
“You’re not asleep, Conn,” Matt Rees muttered.
Connor groaned. “Oh shit, have I done it again?”
The beaver winced at his language.
Elladan grinned and looked expectantly at Matt Rees.
“Lieutenant Matt Rees,” the young soldier said. “Look gentlemen …” he looked down at the beaver, “and lady, we’ve got a situation here, a wolf has taken a child …”
“And we need to find her …” Elladan said.
“A wolf?” the beaver squeaked. “But the White Witch’s wolves have been cleared from the land…”
“There are still wolves that obey the Witch King, but none of them venture this far south. The Dunedain keep watch on the northern borders and few escape their watch.”
“I think you’ll find the White Witch is female, young man.”
“Can we debate royalty and gender another time?” Matt Rees asked. “Mrs Beaver, would you mind stepping back through the sparkly light behind you? That’ll take you home.”
The beaver’s whiskers quivered as she stared down her nose at Matt, which was no mean feat as she was not even a quarter his height. “Miss Beaver, if you please. Mr Beaver has not yet declared his intentions although he has given me cause to believe …”
The man who’d introduced himself as Elladan bowed low with a flourish. “May I assist you, Miss Beaver?” He offered his hand to the beaver who took it in her small brown paw. “We would hate you to miss your own wedding …”
“What do you know about the sparkly things?” Connor hissed to Elrohir.
“Enough to know that they are not to be trusted. And not being children, we call them rifts. Come, my brother will ensure the safety of our furry friend. We have a wolf to track.” He stared down at the tracks in the snow. “And fortunately, that is unlikely to be a problem. You clearly have a means of communicating with your comrades. Tell them not to injure or kill the wolf. She has cubs reliant on her.”
“Your wolf has taken a child!” Rees snapped. “We do our best, but we’re not running a fucking petting zoo.”
Elrohir grinned down at Rees. “Language, young man.” He dismounted smoothly and set off at a run into the trees, Rees hard on his heels while Connor struggled to keep up.
~~~~
The tracks weren’t hard to follow, but the wolf outpaced them all, despite the weight of the child in its jaws.
The Little Folk, as Jacobs was now thinking of them, were light on their – very bare – feet as they weaved through the undergrowth, leaving only light imprints in the thinner snow beneath the trees.
“Only shoot to kill if there is no other choice, Alec,” Cutter ordered. “I don’t know when or even where we are …”
“Am I usually trigger happy, Professor?”
Cutter shot him a wry glance as he swerved around a thick-trunked beech tree. “No, which I’m grateful for.”
The undergrowth thinned out under the canopy of the beeches and the ground started to rise, grey rocks adorned with low dark green juniper thrusting their jagged profiles out of the white ground.
Connor’s voice cut into the shared comms channel, breathless with exertion, “You’re about to get company. Tall bloke, looks like he’s walked out of a King Arthur movie, armed with a sword and a bow. Running faster than me. His identical twin’s escorting a talking beaver back through another anomaly.”
Jacobs nearly went flying when he caught his foot on an exposed tree root. “Did you say a fucking talking beaver?”
“Language, young man,” Connor panted, in a high pitched, faux posh voice.
Jacobs and Cutter shared a puzzled look. Jacobs wondered what it said about his job that a taking beaver was by no means the weirdest thing that had happened to him recently.
Ahead, the Little Folk came to a halt as the woman flung out her arm imperiously.
“Gone to ground in the cave,” she murmured.
“That’s where she’ll have hidden her cubs.”
Jacob’s swivelled around and found himself face to face with a dark haired, grey eyed supermodel wearing a dark green tunic over soft brown leather trousers tucked into well worn high boots.
Jacobs glared at the man. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Elrohir of Rivendell at your service. And you?”
“Captain Alec Jacobs, at his service.” He nodded to Cutter.
“And I’m Bella Took,” the little woman said. “And this is my Gorbadoc. Now stop glaring at each other and start coming up with a way of getting our Rorimac back!”
“Were you going to have a picnic?” Connor asked, going off on a tangent as usual.
Too surprised to query the question, Bella nodded.
“Then get the food out, we need to see what we can tempt her with.”
“Gorby, the sandwiches!”
Gorbadoc swung a leather pack off his back, spread a red cloth on the snow and turned the contents out into it. “Ham sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, pork pie, rabbit pie, smoked garlic sausage, hard boiled eggs, seed cake, apple cake, buttered scones …”
“How long were you going camping for?” spluttered Connor as the seemingly never ending pile of neatly wrapped waxed paper parcels tumbled out.
Gorby looked up at him, a puzzled frown on his round, slightly weatherbeaten face. “Just for the afternoon.”
“Not cheese, it’ll upset their stomachs.” Elrohir gestured at the packets. “May I?”
Gorby held one up to him. “Be my guest. Help us get Rorimac back and we’ll lay on the finest spread the Shire has ever seen. Just make sure you come back in summer, we’re on short commons now while the snow lasts.”
“Short commons?” Cutter said faintly. “You must know my gran if that’s your definition of short commons.”
“I like family trees as much as the next Hobbit,” Bella interrupted, “but I’d be grateful if you ridiculous Big Folk would just concentrate!”
Through a mouthful of cheese sandwich, Elrohir mumbled, “We’ll start with the rabbit pie and the hard boiled eggs.” He shucked off his heavy cloak, laid his sword on top of it and took another bite of sandwich. “Nice. I’ll finish the rest when I get back. Now wait here and don’t do anything stupid unless I tell you to.”
Jacobs glared at him and watched in irritation as a look that had quelled several generations of gung ho lads fresh from Selection slid off the other man – if that’s what he was – like water off sodding duck’s back. “I’ll be the judge of what’s stupid or not.”
Elrohir nodded thoughtfully. “Don’t come after me unless I call.”
Matt Rees raised his eyebrows at his CO and Jacobs nodded.
“I won’t need to come after you. I’ll be coming with you. You might need a medic.”
“A what?”
“A healer,” Connor volunteered.
“Stay behind me, stay quiet and leave that thing,” he gestured at Rees’ M4, “behind. She will smell it coming.”
The woman named Bella gathered up two of the packages and stuffed them into her jacket. “He’s my son. And I know the cave. You can both stay behind me. Do you understand?”
~~~~
Without waiting for a reply, Bella Brandybuck moved silently through the snow towards the mouth of the cave. They’d played here as children when she’d visited Brandy Hall. Gorby had never really been the adventurous sort, preferring to wander the woods and listen to birdsong, but the cave had fascinated Bella and she’d loved the thrill of walking as far as daylight would allow then using her tinderbox to kindle a spark so she could light the candle stub she’d taken from her bedroom. She would creep further and further, staring up at the shapes in the rock, entranced by hanging pendants of creamy white and tiny twisted slivers of white growing at strange angles that would sparkle in the flickering light like myriad tiny glowworms.
For Bella the roof of the cave was well above head height. She walked soundlessly across the snow covered floor of the entrance area. Behind her, the Elf moved with the same care, even though he had to stoop to avoid striking his head on the stone draperies. Behind him, the Man breathed so loud she could have taken his eye out with a stone without even turning around but she knew he was doing his best; she just hoped they wouldn’t need a healer.
Away from the snow, the cave floor was hard and stony underfoot. Bella crept forward, trailing her left hand along the wall as she’d done as a curious fauntling, every sense heightened now in the gathering dark. She could smell dry earth and a rich animal musk mingled with old grass and leaves, and something else … the smell of her Rory.
The sound of quiet snuffling and low whines left her in no doubt that the wolf was now holed up – literally – with her pups. A deep throated growl announced that the she-wolf was aware of their presence.
“Hush,” a gentle voice chided. “There’s no need to worry. Mama and Papa will come for me, they’ll help, you’ll see. They won’t let your babies starve, I promise.”
Her heart leapt but she knew not to approach a wolf with pups in her den.
“Rorimac?”
“Mama!”
She heard a scramble then a small shape launched itself unerringly at her, grabbing her around the waist and nestling close. “Rory, are you hurt?”
She felt her son shake his head. “She didn’t mean me harm, Mama, they’re just so hungry, and I think she mistook me for a rabbit. I had some pie in my pocket, I think she smelled that.”
Bella felt a laugh rising in her throat, but it emerged as a sob. She buried her face in her son’s soft curls and let the tears fall. “Oh Rorimac …”
“The cubs have eaten all the pie I had, Mama. Can they have some more?”
“If their mama says so,” Elrohir said softly.
Bella felt her son startle at the strange voice. “Hush, he’s a friend.” Bella pulled a chunk of rabbit pie from her jacket. “I’ll set it down here for her, and when we’ve gone, I’m sure she’ll come to get it.”
“They’re very hungry, Mama, but she didn’t hurt me, I promise.” Rory’s voice trembled and she hugged him hard. “Don’t let anyone hurt them, p… please!”
“We will not hurt your friends,” Elrohir said. “We will leave them food and bring more, I promise.”
“They liked Mama’s pie very much!”
“I’m sure they did, little one. It looked to be very good pie. We will leave what we have for them and I will return with more. Now come, we need to get you back to your Papa.”
A soft glow lit the cave passage coming from a stick in the hand of the Big Folk’s soldier-healer showing her son’s grubby face, marked by nothing more than a graze on his forehead.
They emptied their pockets of food, leaving it for the she-wolf to take as soon as she deemed it safe.
With the cave lit by the glow from the fire-stick, Bella tucked Rory close to her side and hurried back outside. With a smile almost splitting his homely face from ear to ear, Gorby swept his son up in her arms and twirled the boy around in the air then hugged him close as though he’d never let him go.
The Big Folk talked in low voices. They’d been joined by another Man, the twin to the one who had entered the cave with her. She picked up an undercurrent of urgency as the strangely dressed Big Folk quickly interrogated the newcomer, who seemed to be describing some sort of animal, but not any creature that Bella had ever seen.
The younger of the Big Folk who, despite his size, seemed barely out of his tweens, listened carefully, then delivered his verdict.
“Deinonychus.”
~~~~
“If we’re lucky, the snow will slow them down,” Connor said, not feeling particularly lucky.
“The creature did not seem very slow,” Elladan said quietly.
Connor realised the man was bleeding from a long gash on his right arm. “OK, maybe we’re not going to be lucky.”
“What do we need to know?” Elladan’s brother demanded.
“They’re fast, deadly and extremely anti-social.” Nick had the resigned look on his face that Connor and the soldiers had learned to interpret as a kill order. Raptors in general and Deinonychus in particular never took well to a polite request to leave.
Matt pulled a field dressing out of his med-pack and gave one of his pointed medic stares at Elladan who pulled up his sleeve to let Matt quickly clean the blood off and slap a dressing on the gash. “Now the blood won’t foul your sword hand.”
Jacobs said, “We stay together. The first priority is to get the little folk to safety. “How far is your home?”
“Just over the river,” Gorbadoc answered.
“We have horses,” Elladan said. “They will carry the Halflings to safety.”
“What about Ms Beaver?” Connor shivered at the thought of the polite, apron-wearing animal encountering a hunting deinonychus.
“The light shimmered then closed moments after she returned through it,” Elladan told him. “The other remains open,” he added quickly.
Connor let out a ragged breath and felt Nick’s steadying hand on his shoulder. That gesture was starting to become a habit – one that Connor really liked.
Flanked by the soldiers, with the brothers taking up position at the front and rear of the small column, they started back through the narrow band of woodland.
Deinonychus hunted in packs and they were sneaky bastard things, far too clever for comfort and once they got the scent of prey, they were relentless. One had ambushed Elladan not far inside the wood. The snow was red with blood and a headless corpse lay in mute testament to the man’s fast reflexes and sharp blade.
Tracks in the snow around the raptor’s body and the bloody chunks ripped out of the lightly feathered belly were evidence that it hadn’t hunted alone.
“The wolf won’t want for food now,” Elrohir murmured. “Which of Angband’s many pits did that hellbird emerge from?”
“The Early Cretaceous,” Connor said. At the brothers’ puzzled looks, he shrugged. “A hell of a long time ago.”
“Three others,” Elladan said, checking the tracks with the intent look Connor had seen so often on Stephen’s face.
“Could be worse,” Jacobs commented.
A heartbeat later, feathered death with scimitar heels burst from the undergrowth.
Two swords were unsheathed in a blur of motion before either of the soldiers even got a shot off.
Connor and Nick put their backs to Bella, Gorby and their small son, doing their best to keep the young family between them as they watched a terrifying display of close quarter combat. The deinonychus were still almost unnaturally fast in spite of the cold. They darted in and out, avoiding the wickedly sharp blades, attacking with their spurred heels and the small, sharp teeth.
Elrohir got in a lucky stroke, sweeping the legs from one then moving in for the kill as Matt finished the creature off with a bullet to the head, leaving Elrohir free to jump over its still twitching body to stop a second one coming at Jacobs from behind.
The brothers flinched at the first gunshots but then took the unfamiliar weapons in their stride, being careful to stay out of the soldiers’ line of fire.
Connor hated seeing creatures killed but he knew they couldn’t take any chances with these buggers. Nick had long since stopped agonising over some things and even Abby had stopped arguing for non lethal measures where the larger and more dangerous raptors were concerned.
Gorby swept his young son into his arms, pressing the boy’s face to his chest as Bella stood in front of them, small but indomitable, with a short, sharp knife in her hands and a look in her eyes that told Connor she knew how to use it.
“Four’s small for a pack,” Connor said urgently. “They’ll smell the blood …”
Three more deinonychus burst out of the trees in a flurry of black and white feathers and high pitched squawks.
Alec Jacobs whirled to face the new danger. The captain’s shot went wide as another raptor barrelled into him and sent him sprawling in the snow before throwing itself at the Connor and the Halflings. Connor grabbed Bella, Gorby and Rory, doing his best to shield them as he ducked, taking them to the ground with him. He felt a thump on his shoulder followed by a white hot flare of pain. Nick’s angry yell broke through the babble of squawks, he heard what sounded like a curse in a language he didn’t know and then the world disintegrated into a welter of blood, feathers and snow as powerful claws trampled him, pressing his face down into suffocating cold. Pain flared in his head …
~~~~
“Drink this,” a calm voice said and something trickled between his lips.
A taste like a spring morning burst in his mouth, leaving Connor wondering how hard a knock on the head had to have been to plant an analogy like that in his mind. The liquid ran down his throat, warming him to the core, taking away any pain and clearing his head like the best hangover cure ever invented.
“Yes, you did just say all that aloud,” Matt Rees said.
Connor opened his eyes to Nick’s concerned blue eyes. They were very nice blue eyes, and Connor loved the way the corners crinkled when Nick gave that funny little half smile he obviously thought no one else noticed …
Matt Rees coughed ostentatiously. “What is that stuff? 70% proof?”
“The cordial of Imladris,” one of the incredibly hot twins replied.
Connor’s wince was nothing to do with the pain in his shoulder as Matt helped him sit up. He knew without needing to be told that he’d just said the words ‘incredibly hot twins’ aloud. Maybe he should just stop thinking …
Nick said softly, his lips pleasantly close to Connor’s ear. “Probably a good idea, lad.”
“He’ll need a new jacket but the cut isn’t deep,” Matt said. “I can deal with it on the other side if we’re not hanging around. You managed to headbutt a rock as well, Conn. You’ve been out for about five minutes. I want you in a CT scan asap.”
“We’re not hanging around.” Jacobs said. “I’ve followed the tracks back to the anomaly with Elrohir. They’re all accounted for. And according to the Prof’s box of tricks, it’s weakening.”
“And if anything else comes through, we will deal with it.” Elladan – or it might have been his equally hot brother – finished drying his sword on a cloth and shoved the sharp, shiny sword back into its sheath, and that really shouldn’t have looked quite that erotic.
Nick grinned at him, even though Connor was at least 55% certain he hadn’t commented aloud on that.
“My brother and I have some experience hunting predators,” the other one said. “And if we need help, our small friends are doughty allies.” He smiled down at Bella who was busily plucking some choice feathers from one of the corpses while her husband and small son looked at her admiringly.
“What did I miss?” Connor asked plaintively.
“Mama killed one of them all by herself!” Rory piped up. “It tried to bite me and Papa when we were on the ground.”
“Oversized chickens,” Bella said with a disdainful sniff. “And them long legs are pretty vulnerable to a sharp knife.” She stared down at the bodies littering the snowy wood “There’s a lot of meat on them. Would they be good in a pie?”
“They taste like old pheasant that’s been hung a week too long,” Nick offered.
Bella sniffed again. “My Da used to like his birds like that. Nothin’ the right herbs won’t put right.”
“Leave some for the wolf, mama!”
Bella ruffled her son’s hair. “Plenty to go around, Rory-lad.”
“And those feathers will look good in my old hat,” Gorby said hopefully.
~~~~
To Alec Jacobs’ relief, they made it back to the anomaly with just over 15 minutes to spare.
The Little Folk and the brothers embraced each of them in turn.
Bella slipped Connor a thick cheese sandwich and Elladan handed Rees a small leather flask with a quiet instruction to only use it in direst need. The medic tucked it away in a pocket while Cutter ostentatiously looked the other way.
Jacobs waited until the others had walked through the anomaly, then with a last goodbye, he followed them through the flickering shards of time, emerging to hear Rees saying, “I want a medevac to get Connor checked over, he hit his head … yes, again.”
Cutter grinned and drew in a deep breath, one arm still held protectively around Connor’s waist. “Well, we’re back.”
Connor’s eyes lit up in delight. “I didn’t think anyone else had realised!”
“Contrary to popular belief, I haven’t just read scientific papers all my life.”
Jacobs sighed heavily. “More weird shit that we need to leave out of the official report?”
Connor and Cutter promptly nodded with as much synchronicity as the terrifyingly hot twins.
Captain Alec Jacobs rolled his eyes at the pair of them. And unlike Connor’s ramblings, he was quite certain he hadn’t said that last bit aloud.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Crossover withThe Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia
Rating : 15
Characters : Nick, Connor, Alec Jacobs, Matt Rees and others
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Word count: 7,000
Summary : There was total silence in the command centre, then Stephen encapsulated what everyone was thinking in one simple word: “Shit.”
A/N : Written for
telperion_15 for the primeval_denial Secret SantaThe siren call of the anomaly alarm dragged the ARC night shift out of sleep for the fourth time that week.
Captain Alec Jacobs swung his legs onto the floor, reaching with one hand for his boots while running the other through his short blond hair in an attempt to reassert a semblance of order. His hair appeared to have other ideas, but as he was going on an anomaly shout, not a date, he didn’t give a flying fuck. He reached the atrium two steps ahead of Cutter and Hart, confident that his security team would already be assembling their kit and heading for the transport.
Connor, still stationed in front of the many screens of the Anomaly Detection Device, had an even worse case of bed hair than the rest of them put together, although Jacobs doubted the lad had been anywhere near a bed in the last five hours.
“It’s the Haywards Heath one again,” Connor said wearily.
Jacobs didn’t miss the light squeeze the professor gave the lad’s shoulder. Connor looked like he needed all the support on offer at the moment. The teams had been run ragged for the past week and their unlucky streak showed no sign of ending.
The Haywards Heath anomaly had been the bane of their lives for days, appearing and disappearing like a particularly irritating schoolkid practicing for the role of the Ghost of Christmas Past by jumping out at people wearing a white sheet and yelling ‘boo!’.
They’d thrown a cordon around the wretched thing using the tried and tested unexploded wartime bomb routine, with strong electrified fencing powered by one of their large mobile generators. A couple of very bored young coppers stationed in a portacabin kept watch. Connor also had a military-grade drone he could have in the air at a moment’s notice, providing he kept it far enough away from the anomaly’s magnetic field, but over the last two days they’d been helped by a thick snowfall that had blanketed the surrounding area and showed no signs of thawing. Any creature tracks would stand out like a sore thumb.
Connor already had the drone in the air running its pre-programmed search patterns and transmitting close-up footage of the area inside the anomaly cordon.
“Nothing yet,” he observed.
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Stephen said. “Looks like it’s about to start snowing again over there.”
The anomaly glittered like ice shards in the air, bright even amongst the floodlights directed at it from around the cordon. A direct light in the face was often enough to deter any potential prehistoric tourists, and unless a woolly mammoth decided to pay a visit, anything else would probably find the thick snow less than attractive.
Cutter rested his hand on Temple’s shoulder again. “You’re looking tense, lad, what’s up?”
“There’s a difference in the light spectrum.”
Cutter leaned forward, staring at the screens, an intent look on his face like a dog that had just seen a rabbit. “A slight gold tint to the edges. Anything different on the frequency?”
Connor’s fingers flew over the drone controls as the footage from the small airborne vehicle wavered and dipped before he regained control and pulled the drone well back. “Woah, nearly lost her! The field has just ramped up to 5.75 tesla…” One of the ADD screens started to shiver and then the lines that represented the radio frequency subtly shifted, moving from the red baseline of 87.6 FM to 87.7 and then to 87.8.
There was total silence in the command centre, then Stephen encapsulated what everyone was thinking in one simple word: “Shit.”
Without waiting for any further instructions, the team headed for the vehicles, leaving the ADD in the competent hands of Amrit, who now knew the system almost as well as its inventor.
Jacobs knew there was no point asking what the changes meant. He also knew they were unlikely to be good news.
Connor would tell them as soon as he knew, but for now, all their boy wonder could do was fasten his seat belt and stare at his laptop screen, working on multiple small windows at once in a way that bent Alec Jacobs’ brain totally out of shape.
~~~~
“All quiet, sir,” the young police officer said, nodding towards the flickering ball of light. “But the colour’s a bit weird… Amrit said you knew about it.”
Cutter nodded. “We do, but we don’t know what’s causing it.”
Jacobs could see the answer did nothing to allay the lad’s fears. Cutter had a worse bedside manner than Matt Rees with a hangover.
“Fido’s on his way through,” Connor announced, referring to his latest Anomaly Rover.
The small tracked vehicle was already trundling towards the anomaly. Connor had programmed it to advance 20 metres through the anomaly, taking footage of its surroundings and then come back. Unsurprisingly, he had only a 50% success rate with this method of data collection and the list of Did Not Returns was getting longer by the week, with causes ranging from ‘fell off a cliff’ to ‘used as a chew toy by a Smilodon’. His lads usually ran a book on what would happen to the next one. The weather made ‘stomped by a polar bear’ odds on favourite at the moment.
Fido headed into the anomaly without slowing down.
From the (relative) comfort of the Portakabin the team were using as a control room, they peered over Connor’s shoulder as the screen with the video output from Fido crackled and then went dark then flickered like an old TV losing its station. After a collective intake of breath, the static noise was replaced by another snowy landscape.
While Connor fiddled with the camera controls, Jacob’s mobile started ringing.
Amrit.
“What’s the problem?” He knew the young technician was hardly likely to be ringing for anything other than an emergency. At a nod from Cutter, he put the call on loudspeaker.
“Two more anomalies,” Amrit said, sounding as calm as ever. “One is the Forest of Dean anomaly and we’ve had reports from there of what sounds like another scutosaurus. The other’s 20 minutes from you in the middle of a school playing field. Luckily it’s not match day. I’ve called in Ryan’s team and sent them to the Forest. Can you spare anyone for the other?”
“Stay on the line. Connor’s just sent Fido through ours. Awaiting sit rep.”
“Just snow.” Connor gestured at the screen. “Looks pretty much the same as here. The temperature is a few degrees lower than here. The sky looks pretty clear.”
What Jacobs really wanted was a threat analysis not a bloody weather report…
Stephen, correctly interpreting the look on his face cut in with, “No tracks on the snow. The anomaly is close to the edge of mixed deciduous woodland with a few scattered pines. No sign of wildlife. Could be pretty much anywhen, but we can probably discount anything earlier than the Quaternary. No obvious threats visible.”
Amrit exhaled sharply. “Good, because I’ve got what looks like a juvenile allosaurus coming out to play at the school site.”
“Oh fuck,” muttered Stephen and it took Jacobs a moment to realise that his attention was rivetted on the screen and not on what Amrit had just said.
A child had appeared out of nowhere and was standing a few metres from Fido, staring at the anomaly rover in confusion. A mop of light brown curls poked out from a red knitted hat that framed a pretty, heart-shaped face. The girl was wearing a thick fur jacket over wide-legged yellow pantaloons that swirled like a skirt, and a bright green scarf was wound around her neck. She backed up carefully, away from whatever threat she thought the rover might represent.
“Fuck,” Jacob’s echoed. “Amrit, we’ve got a kid on the other side of ours.”
“Abby, Stephen, the allosaurus is yours,” Cutter ordered without taking his eyes off the screen. “Alec, you and Matt Rees stay with us. Send the rest with Anders and Carter. Allosaurus hunt in packs, even though Lester won’t let me publish the paper.”
“I’m going in with you,” Connor said. “Jess can keep watch here.”
His young, incredibly bright and irrepressibly chirpy assistant nodded, eyes wide with excitement.
“Let’s move!” Cutter ordered.
~~~~
“Bella, leave it alone, you don’t know where it’s been!”
“I know exactly where it’s been, Gorby, you dunderhead, it came out of that sparkly light!” Bella retorted, bending down to stare at the strange metal contraption, but taking care to stay between the strange flickering thing and her young son, exercising more caution than folks usually associated with the notoriously incautious Mirabella Took. “Rory-lad, go back to papa.”
“But mama …” her eight-year-old son whined. “I want to look at the shiny thing!”
“No buts,” Bella snapped. “Back to papa now or there’ll be no more sledging.”
The top of the metal thing whirred around, lit up as green as grass and let out a noisy like a cat whose tail’s been trodden on,.
Bella jumped back.
Rory turned to run.
A white-furred shape bounded out of the trees that clustered beside the High Hay and snapped at the back of Rory’s fur jacket, lifting him from the snow as though he weighed no more than a new born kitten, then it was off again, across the frozen river and into the snow-covered fields, making for the tree cover on the far bank.
Gorbadoc Brandybuck yelled loudly and started to flounder through the snow towards the river.
Mirabella Brandybuck (née Took), a fiery light in her eyes, took off after the wolf.
Four of the Big Folk emerged from the ball of fractured light just as another light opened between the wolf and the trees.
The wolf veered aside and disappeared into the wood.
“Stop!” The voice came from someone accustomed to being obeyed and the tone was enough to slow their headlong flight to the frozen river.
Bella turned to glance at the Big Folk and caught her foot on a hidden log, landing in a snow drift in an ungainly sprawl.
“Oof,” was followed by a cry of, “I’m not stopping! That mangy wolf’s got my Rory!”
One of the big folk went down on one knee and helped her up. Bella found herself staring into a pair of blue eyes set in a kindly face topped by a mop of surprised hair that wouldn’t have been out of place on their Isengar, who’d never managed to keep hold of a hairbrush longer than a week.
“You’re not a child,” the man declared, the surprise written all over his face almost turning the statement into an question.
“I’m 50, not that it’s any of your thrice-damned business!” Bella glared the Man. “Now you and your friend here put your long legs to some use and get after that escapee from Angmar’s kennels. It’s got my son and while you’re here, you might as well make yourselves useful.”
The other two Big Folk, both dressed from head to foot in black, were already sliding down the bank towards the ice.
“Will it take our weight, miss?” one of them called.
“How should I know?” Bella retorted. “It’ll take ours, but I can’t speak for Big Folk like you, and it’s Mrs, I’ll have you know.” Bella nodded her thanks to the blue-eyed Man who’d helped her up, and started to run through the snowdrifts towards the frozen river, pleased to see that Gorby was already on the other side and was now making his way up the opposite bank.
As she slipped and slithered after her husband, she cursed herself for ever agreeing to take little Rorimac sledging.
~~~~
Connor stared wide-eyed after the small woman and her equally small companion now moving far more nimbly through the snow than Nick and the soldiers. He’d seen a lot of weird stuff in his time on the anomaly project, but two little people no taller than 120cm, wearing thick fur jackets but with their feet bare despite the snow was beyond weird. They spoke perfectly understandable English but with a regional accent he couldn’t place. The woman who’d said she was 50 had looked no older than her mid to late 20s … Connor’s mind stuttered to an abrupt halt. It was well weird.
He hauled his attention away from the pursuit of the wolf and quickly transmitted a message back to the ARC on Fido’s video link before starting to take readings from the strange, gold tinged anomaly, checking the strength of its magnetic field. To his surprise, there had been a slight increase to 5.8 Tesla, with the radio frequency remaining the same. As far as he could tell, it was stable.
Now he needed to get over to the other one …
The muffled sound of horses’ hooves on the snow and the jingle of a bridle drew his attention. Connor swung around, wondering what the hell else was coming to join the party.
Knowing what Jacobs’ was like for accurate comms, he quickly reported that there were two bloody great big horses approaching at speed. He had no idea if ‘bloody great big’ was a technical term for a horse, but it was certainly accurate. He doubted the captain needed to know the colour, but just in case, Connor reported that one was piebald (he knew that from mainlining old Westerns with Tom and Duncan) and the other sort of golden brown with a pale mane and tail …
“You’re babbling, mate.” Matt Rees’ voice came over the radio, steady and calming. “Breathe, Conn, just breathe.”
That was easier said than done, Connor thought, trying to hold onto what was left of his composure when he saw that the horses were being ridden by two tall grey-cloaked men who could have come straight out of an old King Arthur film (and yes, he knew there was no Camelot, but he still liked the films – although Merlin was pretty good, too …)
“Breathe, Conn – in for a count of three, then out for the same, remember …”
Oh shit, had he really been babbling about King Arthur and Merlin on an open channel …?
“Yes,” Matt said. “More breathing, less talking, mate. I’ve got you covered in case there’s trouble, I promise.”
Connor sucked in a deep breath. The cold made his teeth hurt, but at least that was the only thing that was hurting at the moment. Horses made him nervous. Dinosaurs he could handle, but horses were big and stamped and snorted a lot.
“Breathe out, as well.”
He exhaled in a rush as the riders came to a halt a couple of metres away. As though they could read his mind, the two horses stamped, snorted then stood as still as statues, their heavy hairy feet – or did he mean hooves? – planted firmly in the snow. They stared at him knowingly.
Having to crane his neck to look up at the riders didn’t help his composure much, nor did noticing that they each had a sword strapped to their saddle bags along with a short bow and a quiver of arrows.
Then he saw their faces and his fear was swept away. “Bloody hell, they’re hot!”
“You said that aloud as well,” Matt commented, sounding amused. “And you’re right, which isn’t something I often get to say when I’m looking at someone down a rifle scope.”
“H… hello.”
The riders looked no more than their early 30s. Black hair framed identical faces that would have the cover editors of every glamour mag in the world coming to blows over the photo rights.
Twins.
Bloody hell. Double bloody hell. Or did he mean double bloody hot?
The piebald horse snorted. Connor was sure it was laughing at him.
The golden brown one just gave him a knowing look.
“Have you seen a wolf?” its rider asked in a cultured, lyrical, oddly accented voice.
He didn’t know where they were, but it sure as hell wasn’t Kansas, Toto!
“If … you … have… how… long… ago… did… it… pass… this… way?” the other man asked, enunciating every word slowly and carefully, leaving a gap between each one, as though he thought Connor might have trouble understanding him. Either that or he thought Connor was a complete halfwit.
“Er … not me personally, but there’s one over there somewhere.” He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the tree line. “It’s taken a kid.”
The pale horse snorted. Connor was certain the sodding things were a) telepathic and b) definitely laughing at him.
“When did this happen?” the rider snapped.
“A few minutes ago. My friends have gone after it as well as two … two rather small people who definitely aren’t children …”
“Is the soldier who is pointing some sort of weapon at me a friend of yours,” the pale horse’s rider asked, clearly making an effort to maintain a conversational tone while he stared down at the red dot over his heart.
Connor nodded vigorously.
“Then I would appreciate it if he pointed it elsewhere. We are not your enemies.”
And on some deep level, Connor knew that was true as a sense of peace and well-being flooded over him. He giggled nervously and said into his throat mic, “Matt, as well as being hot, I think they can use magic.”
“Perceptive,” the other one commented, before reaching down, picking him up one-handed and plonking Connor down in front of him on the very, very big piebald horse. The very, very big telepathic piebald horse. On cue, the horse snorted loudly. “My apologies, but we have need of speed. The wolf has cubs to feed and we must find her before harm comes to the stolen child. And I hope you’ll forgive me when I say that I do not entirely trust soldiers in black with strange weapons.”
“Although you do not feel evil,” his twin added.
“T… thanks,” Connor stammered before the horse sprang forward, nearly throwing him off his precarious perch. “I think.”
“Relax,” the rider murmured. “I will not let you fall.”
“You’d better not,” Matt Rees commented, loudly enough to be audible to the rider as well as to Connor.
“Trust me, I won’t,” the man said.
The strong arm tightened around his waist as the horses sprang across the frozen river, their hooves barely touching the ice. They ran smoothly up the slope towards the woods as Matt Rees waited by the tree line, his rifle now trained on the second anomaly as it flared brightly to reveal a furry creature waddling through, wearing a somewhat dazed expression and what appeared to be a frilly apron.
The piebald horse came to a halt in a flurry of snow and stamping hairy feet – or hooves – or whatever. The rider lowered Connor to the ground and slid off the horse behind him, buckling his sword belt around his waist with practised ease.
Connor stared at the furry animal that had just walked out of the second anomaly. “Matt, I think it’s harmless. It’s a beaver wearing a pinny!”
The beaver reached into a pocket of its pinafore and settled a pair of round spectacles on its quivering nose. “Where am I?” it asked politely.
The man on the golden horse stared down in open amazement. “Fuck me, a talking beaver!”
The beaver stared up at the horseman disapprovingly. “Language, young man!”
“I do apologise for my brother,” the piebald horse’s rider said smoothly. “You are just east of the Baranduin, in the land known as the Shire. I am Elladan of Rivendell. My more vulgar brother is named Elrohir.”
“Connor Temple,” Connor volunteered, wondering when he was going to wake up.
“You’re not asleep, Conn,” Matt Rees muttered.
Connor groaned. “Oh shit, have I done it again?”
The beaver winced at his language.
Elladan grinned and looked expectantly at Matt Rees.
“Lieutenant Matt Rees,” the young soldier said. “Look gentlemen …” he looked down at the beaver, “and lady, we’ve got a situation here, a wolf has taken a child …”
“And we need to find her …” Elladan said.
“A wolf?” the beaver squeaked. “But the White Witch’s wolves have been cleared from the land…”
“There are still wolves that obey the Witch King, but none of them venture this far south. The Dunedain keep watch on the northern borders and few escape their watch.”
“I think you’ll find the White Witch is female, young man.”
“Can we debate royalty and gender another time?” Matt Rees asked. “Mrs Beaver, would you mind stepping back through the sparkly light behind you? That’ll take you home.”
The beaver’s whiskers quivered as she stared down her nose at Matt, which was no mean feat as she was not even a quarter his height. “Miss Beaver, if you please. Mr Beaver has not yet declared his intentions although he has given me cause to believe …”
The man who’d introduced himself as Elladan bowed low with a flourish. “May I assist you, Miss Beaver?” He offered his hand to the beaver who took it in her small brown paw. “We would hate you to miss your own wedding …”
“What do you know about the sparkly things?” Connor hissed to Elrohir.
“Enough to know that they are not to be trusted. And not being children, we call them rifts. Come, my brother will ensure the safety of our furry friend. We have a wolf to track.” He stared down at the tracks in the snow. “And fortunately, that is unlikely to be a problem. You clearly have a means of communicating with your comrades. Tell them not to injure or kill the wolf. She has cubs reliant on her.”
“Your wolf has taken a child!” Rees snapped. “We do our best, but we’re not running a fucking petting zoo.”
Elrohir grinned down at Rees. “Language, young man.” He dismounted smoothly and set off at a run into the trees, Rees hard on his heels while Connor struggled to keep up.
~~~~
The tracks weren’t hard to follow, but the wolf outpaced them all, despite the weight of the child in its jaws.
The Little Folk, as Jacobs was now thinking of them, were light on their – very bare – feet as they weaved through the undergrowth, leaving only light imprints in the thinner snow beneath the trees.
“Only shoot to kill if there is no other choice, Alec,” Cutter ordered. “I don’t know when or even where we are …”
“Am I usually trigger happy, Professor?”
Cutter shot him a wry glance as he swerved around a thick-trunked beech tree. “No, which I’m grateful for.”
The undergrowth thinned out under the canopy of the beeches and the ground started to rise, grey rocks adorned with low dark green juniper thrusting their jagged profiles out of the white ground.
Connor’s voice cut into the shared comms channel, breathless with exertion, “You’re about to get company. Tall bloke, looks like he’s walked out of a King Arthur movie, armed with a sword and a bow. Running faster than me. His identical twin’s escorting a talking beaver back through another anomaly.”
Jacobs nearly went flying when he caught his foot on an exposed tree root. “Did you say a fucking talking beaver?”
“Language, young man,” Connor panted, in a high pitched, faux posh voice.
Jacobs and Cutter shared a puzzled look. Jacobs wondered what it said about his job that a taking beaver was by no means the weirdest thing that had happened to him recently.
Ahead, the Little Folk came to a halt as the woman flung out her arm imperiously.
“Gone to ground in the cave,” she murmured.
“That’s where she’ll have hidden her cubs.”
Jacob’s swivelled around and found himself face to face with a dark haired, grey eyed supermodel wearing a dark green tunic over soft brown leather trousers tucked into well worn high boots.
Jacobs glared at the man. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Elrohir of Rivendell at your service. And you?”
“Captain Alec Jacobs, at his service.” He nodded to Cutter.
“And I’m Bella Took,” the little woman said. “And this is my Gorbadoc. Now stop glaring at each other and start coming up with a way of getting our Rorimac back!”
“Were you going to have a picnic?” Connor asked, going off on a tangent as usual.
Too surprised to query the question, Bella nodded.
“Then get the food out, we need to see what we can tempt her with.”
“Gorby, the sandwiches!”
Gorbadoc swung a leather pack off his back, spread a red cloth on the snow and turned the contents out into it. “Ham sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, pork pie, rabbit pie, smoked garlic sausage, hard boiled eggs, seed cake, apple cake, buttered scones …”
“How long were you going camping for?” spluttered Connor as the seemingly never ending pile of neatly wrapped waxed paper parcels tumbled out.
Gorby looked up at him, a puzzled frown on his round, slightly weatherbeaten face. “Just for the afternoon.”
“Not cheese, it’ll upset their stomachs.” Elrohir gestured at the packets. “May I?”
Gorby held one up to him. “Be my guest. Help us get Rorimac back and we’ll lay on the finest spread the Shire has ever seen. Just make sure you come back in summer, we’re on short commons now while the snow lasts.”
“Short commons?” Cutter said faintly. “You must know my gran if that’s your definition of short commons.”
“I like family trees as much as the next Hobbit,” Bella interrupted, “but I’d be grateful if you ridiculous Big Folk would just concentrate!”
Through a mouthful of cheese sandwich, Elrohir mumbled, “We’ll start with the rabbit pie and the hard boiled eggs.” He shucked off his heavy cloak, laid his sword on top of it and took another bite of sandwich. “Nice. I’ll finish the rest when I get back. Now wait here and don’t do anything stupid unless I tell you to.”
Jacobs glared at him and watched in irritation as a look that had quelled several generations of gung ho lads fresh from Selection slid off the other man – if that’s what he was – like water off sodding duck’s back. “I’ll be the judge of what’s stupid or not.”
Elrohir nodded thoughtfully. “Don’t come after me unless I call.”
Matt Rees raised his eyebrows at his CO and Jacobs nodded.
“I won’t need to come after you. I’ll be coming with you. You might need a medic.”
“A what?”
“A healer,” Connor volunteered.
“Stay behind me, stay quiet and leave that thing,” he gestured at Rees’ M4, “behind. She will smell it coming.”
The woman named Bella gathered up two of the packages and stuffed them into her jacket. “He’s my son. And I know the cave. You can both stay behind me. Do you understand?”
~~~~
Without waiting for a reply, Bella Brandybuck moved silently through the snow towards the mouth of the cave. They’d played here as children when she’d visited Brandy Hall. Gorby had never really been the adventurous sort, preferring to wander the woods and listen to birdsong, but the cave had fascinated Bella and she’d loved the thrill of walking as far as daylight would allow then using her tinderbox to kindle a spark so she could light the candle stub she’d taken from her bedroom. She would creep further and further, staring up at the shapes in the rock, entranced by hanging pendants of creamy white and tiny twisted slivers of white growing at strange angles that would sparkle in the flickering light like myriad tiny glowworms.
For Bella the roof of the cave was well above head height. She walked soundlessly across the snow covered floor of the entrance area. Behind her, the Elf moved with the same care, even though he had to stoop to avoid striking his head on the stone draperies. Behind him, the Man breathed so loud she could have taken his eye out with a stone without even turning around but she knew he was doing his best; she just hoped they wouldn’t need a healer.
Away from the snow, the cave floor was hard and stony underfoot. Bella crept forward, trailing her left hand along the wall as she’d done as a curious fauntling, every sense heightened now in the gathering dark. She could smell dry earth and a rich animal musk mingled with old grass and leaves, and something else … the smell of her Rory.
The sound of quiet snuffling and low whines left her in no doubt that the wolf was now holed up – literally – with her pups. A deep throated growl announced that the she-wolf was aware of their presence.
“Hush,” a gentle voice chided. “There’s no need to worry. Mama and Papa will come for me, they’ll help, you’ll see. They won’t let your babies starve, I promise.”
Her heart leapt but she knew not to approach a wolf with pups in her den.
“Rorimac?”
“Mama!”
She heard a scramble then a small shape launched itself unerringly at her, grabbing her around the waist and nestling close. “Rory, are you hurt?”
She felt her son shake his head. “She didn’t mean me harm, Mama, they’re just so hungry, and I think she mistook me for a rabbit. I had some pie in my pocket, I think she smelled that.”
Bella felt a laugh rising in her throat, but it emerged as a sob. She buried her face in her son’s soft curls and let the tears fall. “Oh Rorimac …”
“The cubs have eaten all the pie I had, Mama. Can they have some more?”
“If their mama says so,” Elrohir said softly.
Bella felt her son startle at the strange voice. “Hush, he’s a friend.” Bella pulled a chunk of rabbit pie from her jacket. “I’ll set it down here for her, and when we’ve gone, I’m sure she’ll come to get it.”
“They’re very hungry, Mama, but she didn’t hurt me, I promise.” Rory’s voice trembled and she hugged him hard. “Don’t let anyone hurt them, p… please!”
“We will not hurt your friends,” Elrohir said. “We will leave them food and bring more, I promise.”
“They liked Mama’s pie very much!”
“I’m sure they did, little one. It looked to be very good pie. We will leave what we have for them and I will return with more. Now come, we need to get you back to your Papa.”
A soft glow lit the cave passage coming from a stick in the hand of the Big Folk’s soldier-healer showing her son’s grubby face, marked by nothing more than a graze on his forehead.
They emptied their pockets of food, leaving it for the she-wolf to take as soon as she deemed it safe.
With the cave lit by the glow from the fire-stick, Bella tucked Rory close to her side and hurried back outside. With a smile almost splitting his homely face from ear to ear, Gorby swept his son up in her arms and twirled the boy around in the air then hugged him close as though he’d never let him go.
The Big Folk talked in low voices. They’d been joined by another Man, the twin to the one who had entered the cave with her. She picked up an undercurrent of urgency as the strangely dressed Big Folk quickly interrogated the newcomer, who seemed to be describing some sort of animal, but not any creature that Bella had ever seen.
The younger of the Big Folk who, despite his size, seemed barely out of his tweens, listened carefully, then delivered his verdict.
“Deinonychus.”
~~~~
“If we’re lucky, the snow will slow them down,” Connor said, not feeling particularly lucky.
“The creature did not seem very slow,” Elladan said quietly.
Connor realised the man was bleeding from a long gash on his right arm. “OK, maybe we’re not going to be lucky.”
“What do we need to know?” Elladan’s brother demanded.
“They’re fast, deadly and extremely anti-social.” Nick had the resigned look on his face that Connor and the soldiers had learned to interpret as a kill order. Raptors in general and Deinonychus in particular never took well to a polite request to leave.
Matt pulled a field dressing out of his med-pack and gave one of his pointed medic stares at Elladan who pulled up his sleeve to let Matt quickly clean the blood off and slap a dressing on the gash. “Now the blood won’t foul your sword hand.”
Jacobs said, “We stay together. The first priority is to get the little folk to safety. “How far is your home?”
“Just over the river,” Gorbadoc answered.
“We have horses,” Elladan said. “They will carry the Halflings to safety.”
“What about Ms Beaver?” Connor shivered at the thought of the polite, apron-wearing animal encountering a hunting deinonychus.
“The light shimmered then closed moments after she returned through it,” Elladan told him. “The other remains open,” he added quickly.
Connor let out a ragged breath and felt Nick’s steadying hand on his shoulder. That gesture was starting to become a habit – one that Connor really liked.
Flanked by the soldiers, with the brothers taking up position at the front and rear of the small column, they started back through the narrow band of woodland.
Deinonychus hunted in packs and they were sneaky bastard things, far too clever for comfort and once they got the scent of prey, they were relentless. One had ambushed Elladan not far inside the wood. The snow was red with blood and a headless corpse lay in mute testament to the man’s fast reflexes and sharp blade.
Tracks in the snow around the raptor’s body and the bloody chunks ripped out of the lightly feathered belly were evidence that it hadn’t hunted alone.
“The wolf won’t want for food now,” Elrohir murmured. “Which of Angband’s many pits did that hellbird emerge from?”
“The Early Cretaceous,” Connor said. At the brothers’ puzzled looks, he shrugged. “A hell of a long time ago.”
“Three others,” Elladan said, checking the tracks with the intent look Connor had seen so often on Stephen’s face.
“Could be worse,” Jacobs commented.
A heartbeat later, feathered death with scimitar heels burst from the undergrowth.
Two swords were unsheathed in a blur of motion before either of the soldiers even got a shot off.
Connor and Nick put their backs to Bella, Gorby and their small son, doing their best to keep the young family between them as they watched a terrifying display of close quarter combat. The deinonychus were still almost unnaturally fast in spite of the cold. They darted in and out, avoiding the wickedly sharp blades, attacking with their spurred heels and the small, sharp teeth.
Elrohir got in a lucky stroke, sweeping the legs from one then moving in for the kill as Matt finished the creature off with a bullet to the head, leaving Elrohir free to jump over its still twitching body to stop a second one coming at Jacobs from behind.
The brothers flinched at the first gunshots but then took the unfamiliar weapons in their stride, being careful to stay out of the soldiers’ line of fire.
Connor hated seeing creatures killed but he knew they couldn’t take any chances with these buggers. Nick had long since stopped agonising over some things and even Abby had stopped arguing for non lethal measures where the larger and more dangerous raptors were concerned.
Gorby swept his young son into his arms, pressing the boy’s face to his chest as Bella stood in front of them, small but indomitable, with a short, sharp knife in her hands and a look in her eyes that told Connor she knew how to use it.
“Four’s small for a pack,” Connor said urgently. “They’ll smell the blood …”
Three more deinonychus burst out of the trees in a flurry of black and white feathers and high pitched squawks.
Alec Jacobs whirled to face the new danger. The captain’s shot went wide as another raptor barrelled into him and sent him sprawling in the snow before throwing itself at the Connor and the Halflings. Connor grabbed Bella, Gorby and Rory, doing his best to shield them as he ducked, taking them to the ground with him. He felt a thump on his shoulder followed by a white hot flare of pain. Nick’s angry yell broke through the babble of squawks, he heard what sounded like a curse in a language he didn’t know and then the world disintegrated into a welter of blood, feathers and snow as powerful claws trampled him, pressing his face down into suffocating cold. Pain flared in his head …
~~~~
“Drink this,” a calm voice said and something trickled between his lips.
A taste like a spring morning burst in his mouth, leaving Connor wondering how hard a knock on the head had to have been to plant an analogy like that in his mind. The liquid ran down his throat, warming him to the core, taking away any pain and clearing his head like the best hangover cure ever invented.
“Yes, you did just say all that aloud,” Matt Rees said.
Connor opened his eyes to Nick’s concerned blue eyes. They were very nice blue eyes, and Connor loved the way the corners crinkled when Nick gave that funny little half smile he obviously thought no one else noticed …
Matt Rees coughed ostentatiously. “What is that stuff? 70% proof?”
“The cordial of Imladris,” one of the incredibly hot twins replied.
Connor’s wince was nothing to do with the pain in his shoulder as Matt helped him sit up. He knew without needing to be told that he’d just said the words ‘incredibly hot twins’ aloud. Maybe he should just stop thinking …
Nick said softly, his lips pleasantly close to Connor’s ear. “Probably a good idea, lad.”
“He’ll need a new jacket but the cut isn’t deep,” Matt said. “I can deal with it on the other side if we’re not hanging around. You managed to headbutt a rock as well, Conn. You’ve been out for about five minutes. I want you in a CT scan asap.”
“We’re not hanging around.” Jacobs said. “I’ve followed the tracks back to the anomaly with Elrohir. They’re all accounted for. And according to the Prof’s box of tricks, it’s weakening.”
“And if anything else comes through, we will deal with it.” Elladan – or it might have been his equally hot brother – finished drying his sword on a cloth and shoved the sharp, shiny sword back into its sheath, and that really shouldn’t have looked quite that erotic.
Nick grinned at him, even though Connor was at least 55% certain he hadn’t commented aloud on that.
“My brother and I have some experience hunting predators,” the other one said. “And if we need help, our small friends are doughty allies.” He smiled down at Bella who was busily plucking some choice feathers from one of the corpses while her husband and small son looked at her admiringly.
“What did I miss?” Connor asked plaintively.
“Mama killed one of them all by herself!” Rory piped up. “It tried to bite me and Papa when we were on the ground.”
“Oversized chickens,” Bella said with a disdainful sniff. “And them long legs are pretty vulnerable to a sharp knife.” She stared down at the bodies littering the snowy wood “There’s a lot of meat on them. Would they be good in a pie?”
“They taste like old pheasant that’s been hung a week too long,” Nick offered.
Bella sniffed again. “My Da used to like his birds like that. Nothin’ the right herbs won’t put right.”
“Leave some for the wolf, mama!”
Bella ruffled her son’s hair. “Plenty to go around, Rory-lad.”
“And those feathers will look good in my old hat,” Gorby said hopefully.
~~~~
To Alec Jacobs’ relief, they made it back to the anomaly with just over 15 minutes to spare.
The Little Folk and the brothers embraced each of them in turn.
Bella slipped Connor a thick cheese sandwich and Elladan handed Rees a small leather flask with a quiet instruction to only use it in direst need. The medic tucked it away in a pocket while Cutter ostentatiously looked the other way.
Jacobs waited until the others had walked through the anomaly, then with a last goodbye, he followed them through the flickering shards of time, emerging to hear Rees saying, “I want a medevac to get Connor checked over, he hit his head … yes, again.”
Cutter grinned and drew in a deep breath, one arm still held protectively around Connor’s waist. “Well, we’re back.”
Connor’s eyes lit up in delight. “I didn’t think anyone else had realised!”
“Contrary to popular belief, I haven’t just read scientific papers all my life.”
Jacobs sighed heavily. “More weird shit that we need to leave out of the official report?”
Connor and Cutter promptly nodded with as much synchronicity as the terrifyingly hot twins.
Captain Alec Jacobs rolled his eyes at the pair of them. And unlike Connor’s ramblings, he was quite certain he hadn’t said that last bit aloud.
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Date: 2024-12-29 01:01 pm (UTC)This was just a perfect crossover — I always love it when Elladan and Elrohir show up and are totally awesome (and also hot! *g*). And also have a sense of humour!
Poor Connor being a little too susceptible to the magic and unable to bite his tongue was a hoot, and Alec and Matt taking all the weirdness in their stride, as usual, was just brilliant!
And the little Nick/Connor moments were precious — methinks they'll go home and bond some more over discussions about visiting Middle Earth...
Thank you!
*is absolutely not having slashy thoughts about Matt and the twins*
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Date: 2024-12-29 06:12 pm (UTC)The whole thing started when the line 'Fuck me, a talking beaver.' sprang into my mind and so I had to write backwards and forwards from that.
Like you, I adore Elladan and Elrohir (and I certainly wouldn't be averse to some hotness with them and Matt). *g*
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Date: 2024-12-29 01:42 pm (UTC)A heartbeat later, feathered death with scimitar heels burst from the undergrowth
Amazing line.
That was one heck of a crossover, but you pulled it off perfectly!
Hobbit courage, beaver manners, and elf hotness can't be beat. I'm not surprised that Connor was babbling!
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Date: 2024-12-29 06:09 pm (UTC)I wasn't necessarily expecting a three way crossover when I started, but I couldn't resist Ms Beaver's cameo.
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Date: 2024-12-31 07:19 pm (UTC)It was exciting and funny (“Matt, as well as being hot, I think they can use magic.” oh, Connor, please, not out loud), a wonderful fic! ^_^
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Date: 2025-02-21 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-01 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-21 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-02 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-21 02:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-04 06:07 pm (UTC)Yay for the wolf being OK too.
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Date: 2025-02-21 02:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-16 10:50 am (UTC)Breathe out as well, hahaha.
Jacobs and Matt and the twins were all fabulous, but the hobbits were bob on, so fantastic!!
Really a great read, what a roller coaster, especially throwing in the sneaky bastard chickens as well!
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Date: 2025-02-21 02:22 pm (UTC)