Timeline - Crichton Michael - Страница 94

• Предыдущая
• 94/107
• Следующая

The river was narrower, and moved faster, threading its way among the stalactites. It reminded her of a Louisiana swamp, except it was all underground. Anyway, they were making good time; she began to feel more confident. At this rate, they would cover even ten miles in a few minutes. They might make the two-hour deadline after all. In fact, they might make it easily.

The accident happened so fast, she hardly realized what had occurred. Chris said, "Kate!" and she turned in time to see a stalactite just by her ear, and her head struck the stone hard, and her torch hit it as well - and the burning cloth tip shook free from the stick it was tied to, and in a kind of ghastly slow motion, she watched it fall from her torch onto the surface of the water, joining its reflection. It sputtered, hissed and went out.

They were in total blackness.

She gasped.

She had never been in such darkness before. There was absolutely no light at all. She heard the dripping of the water, felt the slight cold breeze, the hugeness of the space around her. The boat was still moving; they were banging against stalactites, seemingly at random. She heard a grunt, the boat rocked wildly, and she heard a loud splash from the stern.

"Chris?"

She fought panic.

"Chris?" she said. "Chris, what do we do now?"

Her voice echoed.

It was now early night, the sky deepening from blue to black, the stars appearing in greater numbers. Lord Oliver, his threats and boasts finished for the moment, had gone with de Kere into the great hall to dine. From the hall, they heard shouts and carousing; Oliver's knights were drinking before the battle.

Marek walked with Johnston back to the arsenal. He glanced at his counter. It said 01:32:14. The Professor didn't ask him how much time was left, and Marek didn't volunteer. That was when he heard a whooshing sound. Men on the ramparts yelled as a huge fiery mass arced over the walls, tumbling in the air, and descended toward them in the inner courtyard.

"It's starting," the Professor said calmly.

Twenty yards away from them, the fire smashed onto the ground. Marek saw that it was a dead horse, the legs protruding stiffly from the flames. He smelled burning hair and flesh. The fat popped and sputtered.

"Jesus," Marek said.

"Dead for a long time," Johnston said, pointing to the stiff legs. "They like to fling old carcasses over the walls. We'll see worse than that before the night is over."

Soldiers ran with water to put the fire out. Johnston went back into the powder room. The fifty men were still there, grinding the powder. One of them was mixing a large, wide basin of resin and quicklime, producing a quantity of the brown goo.

Marek watched them work, and he heard another whoosh from outside. Something heavy thunked on the roof; all the candles in the windows shook. He heard men shouting, running onto the roof.

The Professor sighed. "They hit it on the second try," he said. "This is just what I was afraid of."

"What?"

"Arnaut knows there is an armory, and he knows roughly where it is - you can see it if you climb the hill. Arnaut knows this room will be full of powder. If he can hit it with an incendiary, he knows he'll cause great damage."

"It'll explode," Marek said, looking around at the stacked bags of powder. Although most medieval powder wouldn't explode, they had already demonstrated that Oliver's would detonate a cannon.

"Yes, it will explode," Johnston said. "And many people inside the castle will die; there will be confusion, and a huge fire left burning in the center courtyard. That means men will have to come off the walls to fight the fire. And if you take men off the walls during a siege…"

"Arnaut will scale."

"Immediately, yes."

Marek said, "But can Arnaut really get an incendiary into this room? These stone walls must be two feet thick."

"He won't go through the walls. The roof."

"But how…"

"He has cannon," the Professor said. "And iron balls. He will heat his cannonballs red-hot, then fire them over the walls, hoping to hit this arsenal. A fifty-pound ball will tear right through the roof and come down inside. When that happens, we don't want to be here."

He gave a wry smile. "Where the hell is Kate?"

She was lost in infinite darkness. It was a nightmare, she thought, as she crouched in the boat, feeling it drift in the current and bump from stalactite to stalactite. Despite the cool air, she had begun to sweat. Her heart was pounding. Her breathing was shallow; she felt like she couldn't get a full breath.

She was terrified. She shifted her weight, and the boat rocked alarmingly. She put both hands out to steady it. She said, "Chris?"

She heard a splashing from far off in the darkness. Like someone swimming.

"Chris?"

From a great distance: "Yeah."

"Where are you?"

"I fell off."

He sounded so far away. Wherever Chris was, she was drifting farther and farther from him every minute. She was alone. She had to get light. Somehow, she had to get light. She began to crawl back toward the stern of the boat, groping with her hands, hoping her fingers would close on a wooden pole that meant one of the remaining torches. The boat rocked again.

Shit.

She paused, waiting for it to steady beneath her.

Where were the damn torches? She thought they were in the center of the boat. But she didn't feel them anywhere. She felt the oars. She felt the planking. But she didn't feel torches.

Had they fallen off the boat with Chris?

Get light. She had to get light.

She fumbled at her waist for her pouch, managed to get it open by feel, but then could not tell what was in there. There were pills… the canister… her fingers closed over a cube, like a sugar cube. It was one of the red cubes! She took it out and put it between her teeth.

Then she took her dagger and cut the sleeve of her tunic, tearing off a section about a foot long. She wrapped this cloth around the red cube and pulled the string.

She waited.

Nothing happened.

Maybe the cube had gotten soaked when she went in the river at the mill. The cubes were supposed to be waterproof, but she'd been in the river a long time. Or maybe this one was just defective. She ought to try another one. She had one more. She had started to reach into her pouch again, when the cloth in her hand burst into flame.

"Yow!" she cried. Her hand was burning. She hadn't thought this through very well. But she refused to drop it; gritting her teeth, she held it high above her head, and immediately she saw the torches to her right, pushed up against the side of the boat. She grabbed one torch, held it against the burning rag, and the torch caught fire. She dropped the rag in the river and plunged her hand under the water.

Her hand really hurt. She looked at it closely; the skin was red, but otherwise did not appear too bad. She ignored the pain. She'd deal with it later.

She swung the torch. She was surrounded by pale white stalactites hanging down into the river. It was like being in the half-open mouth of some gigantic fish, moving between its teeth. The boat banged from one to another.

"Chris?"

Far away: "Yeah."

"Can you see my light?"

"Yeah."

She grabbed a stalactite with her hand, feeling the slippery, chalky texture. She managed to stop the boat. But she couldn't row back to Chris, because she had to hold the torch.

"Can you get to where I am?"

"Yeah."

She heard him splashing somewhere in the darkness behind. :

Once he was back in the boat, soaked but smiling, she let go of the stalactite and they began moving again with the current. They spent several more minutes in the stalactite forest, and then they came out into an open chamber again. The current moved faster. From somewhere ahead, they heard a roaring sound. It sounded like a waterfall.

• Предыдущая
• 94/107
• Следующая