Artemis Fowl - 04 - Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception by Eoin Colfer

Author:Eoin Colfer
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Young Adult
ISBN: 9780786852901
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Published: 2005-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

The Temple of Artemis exhibit was a scale model that had been constructed with painstaking accuracy, complete with animatronic humans going about their daily business as they would have been in 400 B.C. Most of the human models had been stripped to the wires by the trolls, but some moved jerkily along their tracks, bringing their gifts to the goddess. Any robot whose path brought them too close to a pack of trolls was pounced on and torn to shreds. It was a grim preview of Artemis and Holly’s own fate.

There was only one food supply. The trolls themselves. Cubs and stragglers were picked off by the bulls and butchered with teeth, claws, and tusks. The pack leader took the lion’s share, then tossed the carcass to the baying pack. If the trolls were confined here much longer, they would wipe themselves out.

Holly shouldered Artemis roughly to the ground. “Quickly,” she said. “Roll in the mud. Cover yourself, smother the scent.”

Artemis did as he was told, scooping mud over himself with his manacled hands. Any spots he missed were quickly slathered by Holly. He did the same for her. In moments the pair were almost unrecognizable.

Artemis was feeling something he could not remember having felt before: absolute fear. His hands shook, rattling the chains. There was no room in his brain for analytical thought. I can’t, he thought. I can’t do anything.

Holly took charge, dragging him to his feet and propelling him to a cluster of fake merchants’ tents beside a fast-flowing river. They crouched behind the ragged canvas, peering at the trolls through long claw rents in the material. Two animatronic merchants sat on mats before the tents, their baskets brimming with gold and ivory statuettes of the goddess Artemis. Neither model had a head. One of the heads lay in the dust several feet away, its artificial brain poking out through a bite hole.

“We need to get the cuffs off,” said Holly urgently.

“What?” mumbled Artemis.

Holly shook her manacles in his face. “We need to get these off now! The mud will protect us for a minute, then the trolls will be on our trail. We have to get in the water, and with cuffs on we’ll drown in the current.”

Artemis’s eyes had lost their focus. “The current?”

“Snap out of it, Artemis,” Holly hissed into his face. “Remember your gold? You can’t collect it if you’re dead. The great Artemis Fowl, collapsing at the first sign of trouble. We’ve been in worse scrapes than this before.” Not exactly true, but the Mud Boy couldn’t remember, could he?

Artemis composed himself. There was no time for a calming meditation; he would simply have to repress the emotions he was experiencing. Very unhealthy, psychologically speaking, but better than being reduced to chunks of meat between a troll’s teeth.

He studied the cuffs. Some form of ultralight plastic polymer. There was a digit pad in the center, positioned so the wearer could not reach the digits.

“How many numbers?” he said.

“What?”

“In the code for the cuffs.

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