The Seventh Scroll tes-2

by Wilbur Smith

  direction from which he had come. The sunlight glinted in his nearest

  eye, and the set of his head and the alert, tense stance made it clear

  that something had disturbed him.

  For a long moment he stood poised like that, and then, still without

  being aware of the presence of Nicholas and Royan, he snorted and

  abruptly leaped away in full flight.

  He vanished from their sight behind the ridge and the sound of his run

  dwindled into silence.

  "Something scared the living daylights out of him."

  "What?" enquired Royan.

  "Could have been anything - a leopard, perhaps," he replied, and he

  hesitated as he looked down the slope. The caravan of mules and monks

  had set off already and was following the trail Up along the river bank.

  "What should we do?" Royan asked.

  "We should reconnoitre the ground ahead - that is if we had the time,

  which we haven't." The caravan was pulling away swiftly. Unless they

  went down immediately they would be left behind alone, unarmed. He had

  nothing concrete to act upon, and yet he had to make an immediate

  decision.

  "Come on!" He took her hand again, and they slid and scrambled down the

  slope. Once they reached the trail they had to break into a run to catch

  up with the tail of the caravan.

  Now that they were again part of the column, Nicholas could turn his

  attention to searching the skyline above them more thoroughly. The

  cliffs loomed over them, blocking out half the sky. The river on their

  left hand washed out any other sounds with its noisy, burbling current.

  Nicholas was not really alarmed. He prided himself on being able to

  sense trouble in advance, a sixth sense that had saved his life more

  than once before. He thought of it as his early-warning system, but now

  it was sending no messages. There were any number of possible

  explanations for the reflection he had picked up from the crest of the

  cliff, and for the behaviour of the bull kudu.

  However, he was still a little on edge, and he was giving the high

  ground above them all his attention. He saw a speck flick over the top

  of the cliff, twisting and falling - a dead leaf -on the warm, wayward

  breeze. It was too small and insignificant to be of any danger, but

  nevertheless he followed the movement with his eye, his interest idle.

  The brown leaf spiralled and looped, and finally touched lightly against

  his cheek. He lifted his hand as a reflex, and caught it. He rubbed the

  brown scrap between his fingers, expecting it to crackle and crumble.

  Instead it was soft and supple, with a fine, almost greasy texture.

  He opened his hand and studied it more closely. It was no leaf, he saw

  at once, but a torn scrap of greased paper, brown and translucent,

  Suddenly all his early'warning bells jangled. It was not just the

  incongruity of manufactured paper suddenly materializing in this remote

  setting. He recognized the quality and texture of that particular type

  of paper. He lifted it to his nose and sniffed it. The sharp, nitrous

  odour prickled the back of his throat.

  "Gelly!" he exclaimed aloud. He knew the smell instantly.

  Blasting gelignite was seldom employed for military purposes in this age

  of Semtex and plastic explosives, bu was still widely used in the mining

  industry and in mineral exploration. Usually the sticks of nitrogelatine

  in a wood Pulp and sodium nitrate base was wrapped in that distinct tive

  brown greased paper. Before the detonator was placed in the head of the

  stick, it was common practice to tear off the corner of the paper

  wrapper to expose the treacle brown explosive beneath. He had used it

  often enough in the old days never to forget the odour of it.

  His mind was racing now. If somebody was expecting them and had mined

  the cliff with gelignite, then the reflection he had picked up could

  have been from the coils of copper wiring strung between the explosive

  in the rock, or it could have been from some other item of equipment.

  If that was so, then the operator might even at this moment be lying

  concealed up there, ready to press the plunger on the circuit box. The

  kudu bull might have been fleeing from the concealed human presence.

  "Aly!" he bellowed down to the head of the caravan, "Stop them! Turn

  them back!'

  He started to run forward towards the head of the caravan, but in his

  heart he knew it was already too late. If there was somebody up there on

  the cliff, he was watching every move that Nicholas made. Nicholas could

  never hope to reach the head of the column and turn the mules around on

  the narrow trail, and get them back to safety before ... He came up

  short and looked back at Royan.

  Her safety was his main concern. He turned and ran back to grab her arm.

  "Come on! We have to get off the track."

  "What is it, Nicky? What are you doing?" She was resisting him, pulling

  back against his grip on her arm.

  "I'll explain later," he snapped at her brusquely. "Just trust me now."

  He dragged her a couple of paces before she gave in and began to run

  with him, back in the direction from which they had come.

  They had notcovered fifty yards before the cliff face blew. A vast

  disruption of air swept over them with a force that made them stagger.

  It clapped painfully in their skulls and threatened to implode the

  delicate membranes of their eardrums. Then the main force of the blast

  swept over them, not a single blast but a long, rolling detonation like

  thunder breaking directly overhead. It stunned and battered them so that

  they reeled into each other and lost the direction of their flight.

  Nicholas seized her in a steadying embrace, and looked back. He saw a

  series of explosions leap from the crest of the cliff. Tall, dancing

  fountains of dirt and dust and rubble, pirouetting one after the other

  in strict choreography, like a chorus-line of hellish ballerinas.

  Even in the terror of the moment he could appreciate the expertise with

  which the gelignite had been laid. This was a master bomber at work. The

  leaping columns of rubble subsided upon themselves, leaving the fine,

  tawny mist of dust drifting and spiralling against the clear blue of the

  sky, and for a moment longer it seemed that the destruction was

  complete. Then the silhouette of the cliff began to alter.

  Slowly at first the wall of rock started to lean outwards.

  He saw great cracks appear in the face, opening like leering mouths.

  Sheets of rock collapsed and in slow motion slithered down upon

  themselves like the silken skirts of a curtseying giantess. The rock

  groaned and crackled and rumbled as the entire cliff began to fall into

  the river far below.

  Nicholas was mesmerized by the awful sight, and his brain seemed to have

  been numbed by the explosion. It took a huge effort to force himself to

  think and to act. He saw that the centre of the explosion had occurred

  further down the trail, near the head of the mule caravan. Tamre was up

  there, beside Aly. He and Royan were at the tail of the caravan. The

  bomber up on the cliff had obviously been waiting for them to come

&nb
sp; directly into the epicentre of his explosive trap, but had been forced

  to trigger it when he saw them running back down the trail and realized

  that they had been alerted and were about to escape.

  Yet they were not clear - they were about to catch the peripheral force

  of the landslide that was developing above them. Still holding Royan,

  Nicholas stared up the falling cliff face and made a desperate

  calculation.

  He watched in petrified fascination as the vast tide of falling rock

  swept over the trail ahead of him, picking up men and mules and carrying

  them with it over the edge and down into the river bed. It swallowed

  them, lapping them up like the tongue of some fearsome monster and

  chewing them to pulp with razor fangs of red rock. Even above the

  rumbling roar of the rock tide he heard the terrified screams of men and

  animals as they were ploughed under.

  The wave of destruction spread towards where he and Royan stood upon the

  trail. If they had been directly under the explosion they would have

  stood as little chance as those others, but as it ran down the cliff its

  destructive momentum was dissipating. On the other hand, Nicholas

  realized that there was no hope that they would be able to outrun it,

  and what was about to fall upon them would still be devastating.

  There was no time to explain to Royan what they had to do - he had only

  seconds left in which to act. Sweeping her up in his arms, he leaped

  over the bank towards the river. He lost his footing almost immediately

  and they went down together, rolling end over end, but thirty feet down

  there was a spur of rock the size of a house. As they came up against

  the upper side of it, it broke their fall.

  They were half-sturined, but Nicholas dragged Royan to her feet and

  guided her into the lee of the rock wall.

  "Mere was a cut-back here, and they crept into it and crouched flat.

  Pressing themselves hard against the wall, they both held their breath

  as the first chunk of cliff came bounding and bouncing down towards them

  like a gigantic rubber ball, picking up speed with gravity, until it

  smashed in to their shelter with a force that made the solid rock

  against which they were cringing vibrate and resound like a cathedral

  bell, and the hurtling missile leaped high over their heads, spinning

  massively in flight before it dropped into the river. It raised a tidal

  wave from the surface that broke like storm surf on both banks.

  This was merely the forerunner of the maelstrom that now poured over

  them. It seemed that half the mountain was falling upon them. As each

  slab crashed into their shelter daggers and splinters burst from its

  leading edges, filling the air they breathed with fine white dust and

  the sulphurous stink of sparking flint. This immense cascade flew over

  their heads or piled up in front of their shelter, and loose chips and

  pebbles rained down upon them.

  Nicholas crawled over the top of Royan, and covered her with his body. A

  stone struck the side of his head a lancing blow that made his ears

  ring, but he gritted his teeth and fought the impulse to lift his head

  and look up.

  He felt something warm and ticklish snaking through the short hairs

  behind his right ear. It crept down his cheek like a living thing, and

  it was only when it reached the corner of his mouth and he tasted the

  metallic salt that he realized it was a trickle of blood.

  The fine talcum dust powdered them and irritated their throats, so that

  they coughed and choked in the uproar.

  The dust seeped into their eyes, and they were forced to clench their

  lids and keep them tightly shut.

  One mass of rock the size of a wagon sprang high in the air and then

  fell back close beside where they lay. The impact made the earth jump so

  violently that Royan, with Nicholas's weight on top of her, was struck

  in the belly and diaphragm with a force that drove the wind from her

  lungs, and she thought that her ribs had been crushed.

  Then gradually the downpouring of earth and rock began to subside. The

  breath-stopping impact of great boulders into their shelter became less

  frequent: The fine dust they were breathing began to settle. The

  rumbling and roaring let up gradually, until the only sound was the slip

  and slide of settling earth and rock and the burble of the river below

  them.

  Warily, Nicholas at last lifted his head and tried to blink the dust off

  his eyelashes. Royan stiffed under him, and he crawled back to let her

  sit up. They stared at each other. Their faces were caked into kabuki

  masks with the antimony-white dust, and their hair was powdered like the

  wigs of eighteenth-century French aristocrats.

  "You are bleeding," Royan whispered, her voice husky with dust and

  terror.

  Nicholas lifted his hand to his face and it came away covered with a

  paste of dust and blood. "It's just a nick," he said. "How are you!'

  "I think I may have twisted my knee. I felt something give when we fell.

  I don't think it's serious. There is very little pain."

  "Men we have both been ridiculously lucky," he told her. "Nobody

  deserved to survive that."

  She made an effort to stand, but he restrained her with a hand on her

  shoulder. "Wait! The entire slope above us is broken and unstable. Give

  it time. There will be loose rocks coming down for a while yet." He

  untied the Paisley bandana from around his throat and handed it to her.

  "Besides which, we don't want-' But he changed his mind and did not

  finish his sentence, While she wiped her face she asked shakily, "You

  were going to say, besides which-?"

  don't want to give those bastards

  "Besides which, we up there any idea that we have survived their little

  party.

  Otherwise we will have them down here finishing the job, cutting

  throats. Much better they believe that we snuffed it, as intended."

  "Do you think- they are still up She stared at him.

  there, watching us?"

  "Count on it," he answered grimly. "They must be pretty chuffed with the

  fact that they have at last succeeded in getting rid of you. We don't

  want to pop our heads up right now and spoil it for them."

  "How did you know what was going to happen?" she asked. "If you hadn't

  grabbed me-' Her voice petered out.

  In a few words he explained about the scrap of gelignite wrapping.

  "Simplest thing in the world to pick one of the narrowest sections of

  the trail and mine the cliff-' He broke Off as, faintly but

  unmistakably, there came the sound of an aircraft engine and the flutter

  of rotors in fully fine pitch for takeoffs

  "Quickly," he snapped at her. "Get in as close as you can to the

  overhang." He pushed her back against the sheltering boulder. "Lie flad'

  When she obeyed without question, he lay beside her and piled loose

  rubble over them both.

  "Lie still. Don't move, whatever you do."

  They lay and listened to the sound of the helicopter approaching, and

  circling overhead. It moved up and down the valley, flying a few feet

  above the surface of the river.


  At one point it was directly above the ledge on which they lay, and they

  were buffeted by the down-draught of the rotors.

  "Looking for survivors," said Nicholas grimly. "Don't move. They haven't

  spotted us yet."

  "If they were watching us before the blast, they should have been able

  to come directly to where we are," she whispered. They seem confused."

  "They must have lost us in the dust of the avalanche and the break-up of

  the cliff face. They aren't sure where we are lying." The sound of the

  helicopter moved off slowly along the river, and Nicholas told her, "I

  am going to risk a peep, to make sure it's the Pegasus job - not that

  there can be many other choppers in this area. Keep your head down!'

  He lifted his head slowly and cautiously, and one glance was sufficient

  to confirm all his speculations. Half a mile upstream, the Pegasus jet

  Ranger hovered over the river. It was moving slowly away from him, so

  that from this angle Nicholas was unable to see through the windscreen

  into the cockpit. But at that moment the engine beat changed as the

  pilot changed pitch and pulled on the collective.

  As the aircraft rose vertically and turned northwards, Nicholas caught a

  glimpse of the passengers. Jake Helm sat in the front seat beside the

  pilot, and Colonel Nogo was in the seat behind him. They were both

  staring down into the river valley, but in seconds the helicopter lifted

  them away and the machine disappeared beyond the ridge, flying in the

  direction of the escarpment, and the sound of its engines dwindled into

  silence. Nicholas crawled out from beneath the boulder and pulled Royan

  to her feet.

  "No more doubts. We know who we are dealing with now. That was Helm and

  No in the chopper. Helm 9 almost certainly laid the gelly, and Nogo

  probably led the men who hit our camp last night. Each of them doing the

  job he does best," Nicholas told her. "So that confirms it.

  Whoever owns Pegasus is the ugly behind all this. Helm and Nogo are

  merely the stooges."

  "But Nogo is an officer in the Ethiopian army," she protested.

  "Welcome to Africa." He did not smile as he said it.

  "Here everything is for sale at a price, including government officials

  and army officers." Now he scowled so that the caked dust on his face

  was dislodged and filtered down in a fine powdering. "Now, however, our