Read Online The Blood Line by Ben Yallop - Free Book Online Page A

old wounds. It was the face from some terrible nightmare. Sam had never seen anything like it. So many scars.
    ‘Move!’ the man commanded with an accent that Sam didn’t recognise. ‘Get up! Come on, fight!’
    Then the man turned and fired presence at the attacking beasts. White lightning crackled from his fingers. The rogue, thought Sam trying to get his feet underneath him. By the time he had struggled to a standing position, slumped against one of the stones, the rogue had sent the attackers yelping away into the night. Sam slid back down the stone. The rogue faced away from him, looking out into the night at the fleeing garoul. After a minute he turned back to Sam, pulling his hood back away from his head. Sam saw more scars appear, shiny in the moonlight.
    ‘Are you hurt?’ said the rogue.
    Sam shook his head. ‘Just exhausted,’ he said.
    ‘I’m afraid we have not finished yet,’ the rogue said.
    ‘What do you mean?’ asked Sam.
    The rogue just gave a grim smile and turned quickly to throw his hands up, pushing upwards with a powerful presence. A massive hairy fist passed over his head, deflected by his push, smashing into one of the standing stones, showering Sam and the rogue with chips of rock and dust. The sitecah roared.
    ‘I have,’ said the rogue with a grimace ‘not been able to get rid of him since you found him yesterday.’
    Another fist came flying down out of the sky.
    ‘We’d better run.’
    ‘I’m not sure I can’ said Sam.
    The rogue pointed one arm towards him and pushed him high off into the distance. Sam flew like he was a limp doll pulled backwards on a giant elastic band, although he landed softly enough. The rogue landed next to him a second later.
    ‘I’ll push you and then follow,’ he said.
    Sam was jettisoned into the sky again, flopping like a puppet with cut strings in his tiredness. Again the rogue landed next to him a moment later. In this way they were able to cover quite a distance quickly. As they flew, wind whistling in his ears, Sam heard the faint howl of the garoul and an answering cry from the sitecah. After a while he and the rogue stopped their flight and, near a rocky outcrop with good views around, they came to rest. Sam let out a deep breath, lying back in the grass.
    ‘Thank you,’ he said shakily.
    ‘You have done well to survive out here.’ The man sat down next to him.
    ‘I saw you out in the plains the other night, didn’t I?’ said Sam.
    ‘Ah yes. I thought you had seen me,’ nodded the rogue. ‘Would you like something to eat?’
    ‘If you can spare something. Yes, please,’ said Sam.
    The rogue passed over some bread and cold meat. ‘Close as I can find to proper sausage in that damned place.’
    Sam took the food gratefully. ‘What place?’
    ‘The Rivenrok Complex.’
    ‘You’re from the Complex?’ Sam said in surprise.
    ‘Well, not originally, no. But I have been a guest there for some time. I recently found myself able to get outside the walls and with the means to sneak back in, so long as I am careful. I go back in to get food and other things.’
    ‘Where are you from originally then?’ asked Sam.
    ‘Well,’ said the rogue, ‘most recently, London.’
    Sam choked on a piece of bread he had been chewing.
    ‘What? London? But, I thought you were from here. This world, Mu? I heard you shouting a strange language when I saw you the other night.’
    The rogue laughed. ‘I am from Poland. You heard some Polish swearwords. They help me to vent my anger, yes. It makes you feel better to shout such things. Pochowaj sie w pokrzywach! ’ He shook a fist at the sky. ‘It means ‘Go hide in nettles’.’ He held out a hand. ‘My name is Aleksy.’
    Shaking the hand Sam looked more carefully at the face in front of him, still partially hidden by the folds of a black cloak. Aleksy’s scars were fascinating and horrible in equal measure. Sam couldn’t imagine the kind of treatment he had received, presumably within the