main concern is to get out of the gorge and back to civilization."
He looked up the slope. The trail above them had been obliterated
beneath the rock fall. "We can't get back that way," he told her, and
took her hand. But when he lifted her to her feet she gasped and quickly
shifted her weight to her right leg.
My knee!" Then she smiled bravely. "It will be all right.)
However, she was limping heavily as they scrambled down to the rivet,
terrified that their movements would set off another rock slide. They
ended up waist'deep in the water under the bank.
Royan stood behind Nicholas and washed the blood and dust from the wound
in his scalp. "Not too bad," she told him. "Doesn't need a stitch."
"I have a tube of Betadyne in my pack," he said. He fished it out, and
she smeared the wound with the yellow brown ointment before binding it
up with the Paisley bandana.
"That will do." She patted his shoulder.
"Thank the Lord for my burn-bag,'Nicholas remarked as he zipped it
closed. "At least we have a few essentials with us. Now our next job is
to look for any other survivors."
"Tamte!'she exclaimed.
They floundered along the bank. The river was clogged with loose rock
and earth that had fallen from the cliff. In the deeper places they were
forced in up to their armpits, and Nicholas carried his pack at arm's
length above his head. The loose rock was treacherous, and gave way
under them when they tried to scramble out of the water to search for
the other members of the caravan.
They found the bodies of two of the monks, both of them crushed and
half-buried. They did not even attempt to dig them free. One of the
mules lay with one leg in the air and the rest of its body completely
covered with broken rock. The pack that it had carried had burst open
and the contents were scattered about. The rolled skin and trophies of
the dik-dik had been churned into the muck. Nicholas rescued them and
strapped them on to his burn-bag.
"More to carry,'Royan warned him.
"Only a pound or two, but worth it," he replied.
They made their way towards the point below the itail where they had
last seen Tamre and Aly. But though they searched for almost an hour
they found no sign of either of them. The slope above them was
devastated: raw ravaged earth, great rocks shattered, bushes and trees
uprooted and smashed to kindling.
Royan climbed as high as her injured leg enabled her, then cupped her
hands around her mbuth and shouted, "Tamre I Tamre! Tamre!" The echoes
took her cry and flung it from' all to valley wall.
"I think he is done for. The poor little devil has been buried,'
Nicholas called up to her. "We have been at it an hour now. We cannot
afford more time, if we are to get out ourselves. We will have to leave
him."
She ignored him and worked her way along the rockslide, loose scree
rolling under her feet, and he could see that the knee was giving her
pain.
"Tamre! Answer me," she called in Arabic. "Tamre!
Where are you?"
"Royan! That's enough. You are going to damage that knee even more. You
are putting both of us at risk now.
Give it up!'
At that moment they both heard a soft groan from higher up the slope.
Royan scrambled up towards the sound, slipping and sliding back almost
as far as she climbed, but at last she gave a cry of horror. Nicholas
dumped his pack and went up after her. When he reached her side, he too
dropped to his knees.
Tam-re was pinned down in the rubble. His face was barely recognizable.
It was torn and lacerated, with half the skin ripped off. Royan had
lifted his head into her lap, and was using her sleeve to wipe the filth
out of his nostrils to allow him to breathe more freely. Blood was
oozing from the corner of his mouth, and when he groaned again it welled
up in a fresh flood. Royan dabbed at it, smearing it across his chin.
His lower body was buried, and Nicholas tried to clear the broken rock;
but almost immediately he realized the futility of it. A lump of raw
rock the size of a billiard table lay across him. It weighed many tons,
would be able to move that massive weight unaided. Even if it were
ossible, the grinding action of any movement would inevitably aggravate
the terrible injuries that Tamre had already sustained.
"Do something, icky," Royan whispered. "We have to do something for
him."
Nicholas looked at her and shook his head. Royan's eyes flooded with
tears, and they broke over her lower lids and scattered like raindrops
into Tamre's upturned face, diluting the blood to the pink of ros6 wine.
"We can't just sit here and let him die," she Protested, and at the
sound of her voice Tamre opened his eyes and looked into her face.
He smiled through the blood, and that smile lit his dusty, broken face.
"Ummee!" he whispered. "You are my mother. You are so kind. I love you,
my mother."
The words were bitten off and a spasm stiffened his body. His face
contorted with agony and he gave a soft, strangled cry, and then
slumped. The rigidity went out of his shoulders and his head rolled to
one side.
Royan sat for long time holding his head and weeping softly, but
bitterly, until Nicholas touched her hand and said EentIv. "He is dead,
Royan."
She nodded. "I know. He held on just long enough to say goodbye to me."
He let her mourn a little longer, and then he told her softly, "We must
go, my dear."
"You are right. But it is so hard to leave him here. He never had
anybody. He was so alone. He called me mother.
I think he truly loved me."
"I know he did," Nicholas assured her, lifting the boy's dead head from
her lap and helping her to her feet. "Go wait for me. I will cover him
the best I can." down an Nicholas crossed Tamre's hands upon his chest,
and folded his fingers around the silver crucifix that hung around his
neck. Then he piled loose rock carefully over him, covering his head so
that the crows and vultures could not reach him.
He slid down to where she waited in the water, and slung his pack over
one shoulder.
"We must go on," he told Royan.
She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand and nodded. "I am
ready now."
They waded upstream, pushing hard against the current. The rock-slide
had blocked half the river bed and the waters squeezed through the gap
that was left. When at last they reached the point on the bank above the
avalanche, they climbed out of the river and picked their way up the
steep bank until at last they could crawl out on to the intact section
of the pathway.
They took a moment to recover and looked back. The river below the
rock-slide was running red-brown with mud. Even if the monks at the
monastery downstream had not heard the explosions, they would be alarmed
by that flood of discoloured water and would come to investigate.
They would find
the bodies and take them down for decent burial. That
thought comforted Royan a little as they struck out along the trail,
with two days' hard travel still ahead of them.
Royan was limping heavily now, but each time Nichoto help her she
brushed his hand away. "I am all right. It's just a bit stiff." She
would not allow him to inspect the knee, but kept on stubbornly along
the trail ahead of him.
They marched mostly in silence for the rest of that day. Nicholas
respected her grief and was grateful for her reticence. This ability to
be quiet and yet not give out a sense of alienation and withdrawal to
those around her was one of the qualities he admired in her. They spoke
briefly late that afternoon while they paused to rest beside the path.
"The only consolation is that now Pegasus will believe that we are
safely buried under the rock-slide and they won't bother to come looking
for us again. We can push on without wasting time scouting the trail
ahead," Nicholas told her.
They camped that night below the escarpment, just before the path began
the climb up the vertical wall.
Nicholas led her well off the path, into a heavily wooded gully, and
built a small screened fire that could not be seen from the trail.
Here at last she relented and allowed him to examine her knee. It was
bruised and swollen, and hot to the touch.
"You shouldn't be walking on this," he told her.
"Do I have any option?" she asked, and he had no reply. He wetted his
bandana from the water bottle and bound up her leg As tightly as he
dared without cutting Off the circulation. Then he found a phial of
Brufen in his burn-bag and made her take two of these anti,
inflaminatories.
"It feels better already," she told him.
They shared the last bar of survival -rations from his pack, sitting
hunched up over the fire and talking quietly, still subdued and shaken
by their experiences.
"What will happen when we reach the top?" Royan asked. "Will the trucks
still be parked where we left them?
Will the men that Boris left to guard them still be there?
What will happen if we run into the men from Pegasus again?"
"I can't give you any answers. We will just have to face each problem as
it comes up."
"One thing I am looking forward to when we reach Addis Ababa - reporting
the massacre of Tamre and the others to the Ethiopian police. I want
Helm and his gang to pay for what they have done."
He was quiet for a while before he replied. "I don't know if that is the
wisest thing to do," he ventured at last.
"What do you mean? We. were witnesses to murder.
We cannot let them get away with it."
"Just remember that we want to return to Ethiopia. If we make a huge
fuss now, we will have the entire valley swarming with troops and
police. It may put an end to our further attempts to solve Taita's
riddle, and to trace the tomb of Marnose."
"I hadn't thought of that," she said thoughtfully. "But still, it was
murder, and Tamre-'
"I know, I know," he soothed her. "But there are more certain ways of
wreaking vengeance on Pegasus than trying to turn them over to Ethiopian
justice. Consider for the moment the fact that Nogo is working with
Helm. We saw him in the helicopter. If Pegasus have an army colonel in
their pay, who else is working for them? The police? The head of the
army? Members of the cabinet? We just don't know at this stage."
"I hadn't thought about that either," she admitted.
"Let's begin to think African from here on, and take a leaf out of
Taita's scrolls. Like him we must be devious and cunning. We don't go
rushing in shouting accusations. If we could just sneak out of the
country, leaving everybody to believe that we are buried under the
avalanche, that might be ideal. It would make our return to the gorge
that much easier. Unfortunately I don't think we will be able to get
away with that. But from now on, we should be as cagey and careful as
circumstances permit."
She stared into the dancing flames for a long while, then sighed and
asked, "You said there is a better vengeance to he had on Pegasus. What
did you have in mind?"
"Why, simply whisking Marnose's treasure out from under their noses."
She laughed for the first time that long cruel day. "You are right, of
course. Whoever owns Pegasus wants it desperately enough to kill for it.
We must hope that depriving him of it will hurt him almost as badly as
he has hurt us."
Both of them were so tired that it was already half-light'when they woke
the next morning.
As soon as Royan tried to stand she groaned and sank back. He went to
her immediately, and she made no protest when he placed her bare leg
across his lap.
He unwrapped the bandana, and frowned as he saw the knee. It was nearly
twice its normal girth, and the bruising was plum and ripe grape. He wet
the bandana again, and rewrapped the knee. He made her take the last two
Brufen from the phial, and then helped her to her feet.
"How does it feel?" he asked anxiously, and she hobbled a few paces and
smiled at him bravely.
"It will be all right as soon as I walk the stiffness out of it, I'
sure."
He looked up the escarpment. So close in under the wall, the height was
foreshortened, but he recalled every tortuous step of the way. It had
taken them a full day to come down.
"Of course it will." He smiled encouragement at her, and took her arm.
"Lean on me. It'll be a stroll in the park.
They toiled upwards all that morning. The trail seemed to rise more
steeply with every pace they took. She never complained, but she was
ashen pate and sweating with the pain. By midday they had not yet
reached the waterfall, and Nicholas made her stop to rest. They had
nothing to eat, but she drank thirstily from the water bottle. He did
not try to ration her, but limited himself to a single mouthful.
When she tried to rise, and go on, she gasped and staggered so violently
that she might have fallen if he had not steadied her.
"Damn! Damn! Damn!" she swore bitterly. "It's stiffened up on me."
"Never mind," he said cheerfully, and stripped his bumbag of all but the
most crucial items of equipment. He kept the dik-dik skin, however,
rolling it into a tight ball and stuffing it into the bag. Then he
rebuckled it around his waist, and grinned at her cheerfully. "Skinny
little thing like you. Hop on my back."
"You can't carry me up there." She looked up the trail, steep as a
ladderway, and was aghast.
"It's the only train leaving from this station," he told her, and
offered her his back. She crawled up on to' it.
"Don't you think you should dump the dik-dik skin?" she asked.
"Perish the thought!" he said, and started up.
It was slow and heavy-going. After a while he had nothing left over for
talking, and he trudge' upwards in dogged silence. Sweat drenched his
shirt, but she found neither the wet warmth of it that permeated her
blouse on to her own skin, n
or the strong masculine odour of it
offensive. Instead, it was comforting and reassuring.
Every half hour he stopped until his breathing became regular and even
again. Then he opened his eyes and grinned at her.
"Hi ho, Silver!" He pushed himself to his feet, and bowed his back for
her to scramble aboard.
As the day wore on, his jokes became more forced and feeble. By late
afternoon the pace was down to an exhausted plod, and at the more
difficult places he had to pause and gather himself before stepping up.
She tried to help him by climbing down from his back, and supporting
herself on his shoulder as they struggled over the more arduous pitches,
but even with this respite she knew that he was burning up the very last
of his strength.
Neither of them could truly credit their achievement when they reeled
around another corner of the track and saw before them the waterfall,
spilling down like a white lacy curtain across the trail. Nicholas
staggered into the cavern behind the sheet of falling water and lowered
her to the floor. Then he collapsed and lay like a dead man.
It was dark when he had at last recovered sufficiently to open his eyes
and sit up. While he was resting Royan had gathered'some wood from the
monks' stockpile and managed to get a small fire going.
"Good girl," he told her. "If ever you want a job as a housekeeper-
"Don't tempt me." She hobbled over to him, and examined the cut in his
scalp. "Nice healthy scab," she told him, and then suddenly and
impulsively she hugged his head to her bosom and stroked his dusty,
sweat-stiff hair off his forehead.
"Oh, Nicky! How can I ever repay you for what you did for me today?"
A flippant reply rose to his lips, but even in his weakened state he had
the good sense to bite it back. He was in no state to attempt any
further intimacy. So he lay in her embrace, enjoying the feel of her
body against his, but not taking the risk of scaring her off with a move
of his own.
At last she released him gently, and sat back. "I very much regret, sir,
that the housekeeper cannot offer you smoked salmon and champagne for
your dinner. How about a mug of mountain water, pure and nourishing?"
"I think we can do better than that." He took the drycell torch from his
burn'bag, and by its beam selected a round, fist-sized stone from the
floor of the cavern. With this in his right hand he turned the light