by Jack Whyte
He returned quickly, a strange expression on his face, so that Sinclair, after hawking to clear his throat, asked, “What’s wrong? Did you not find a place?”
Moray shook his head. “Did you pray? You must have. I hoped to find a gap between the stones that would shelter us. I found a cave instead—a cave that has been very recently in use as a living place. I found a cache of bread—stale but edible—along with water, dates, dried meat and a bag of dried dung, camel and horse both, for fuel. If I had not been here in this accursed Holy Land for so long, I would think it a miracle. As it is, it’s a stroke of fortune of the kind a cynic like me can barely contemplate.”
Sinclair was frowning. “Who would live out here?”
“Some nomad. There are more than a few of them out here. And who but a nomad would think to hoard dry dung?”
“But—think you he might be still around here?”
Moray stooped and hoisted the bier by the short cross-brace at its head, throwing the mass of straps across Sinclair’s legs at the same time. “I doubt it,” he said, grunting with the effort of lifting Sinclair’s weight again. “Whoever he was, he’s probably at La Safouri now, or at Tiberias, celebrating our defeat. Since you appear to be praying effectively, pray then that I am correct. One way or the other, we will know soon. Now lie back, it’s not far.”
SINCLAIR AWOKE IN THE DAWN LIGHT, his arm on fire, the pain of it a living thing that he could feel somewhere at the back of his throat, or so it seemed to him. He knew immediately what had happened to him, and that his arm was broken, but he had no awareness at first of where he was or how he had come there. Then he heard a soft sound and turned his head to see Moray’s shape silhouetted against the morning brightness at the cave’s mouth, and everything came back to him. He tried to call Moray’s name, but on the first attempt, although his lips moved and he articulated the sounds, nothing emerged. He swallowed, trying to moisten his dry mouth, and tried again, his voice emerging as little more than a croak.
“Lachlan.”
Moray did not stir, although Sinclair knew he must have heard him, and his eyes narrowed as he took note of the tension and rigidity of the other man’s posture. Moray stood stiffly in the entranceway, one hand braced against the side of the deep cleft in the rock that was their shelter, his entire body inclined slightly forward as he peered at whatever it was in the distance that had caught his attention.
“Lachlan, what is it? What can you see?”
Moray straightened slightly, the tension fading from his stance as he did so, and spun to move purposefully back towards Sinclair. “Vultures,” he said, as though the word explained everything. “I saw them circling when I went outside to piss and I’ve been watching them ever since, until the last of them disappeared.”
Sinclair felt as though he were missing something painfully obvious. “I don’t understand. There are always vultures in the sky out here in the desert. Always one, at least …”
“Aye, until something dies, and then they gather in flocks as by magic. No one knows how they know, but they always do.”
“What are you saying?”
“There were scores of them, Alec, and now they’re all gone. They’re down and feeding, on dead men, I am sure, for only large carcasses would attract so many of them. And they’re not too far from here.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“I can see that, but consider: here we are, in dire straits. We have a small amount of food, thanks to our absent, solitary host, but we ate most of it last night. Our water supply is little better. But if there are bodies lying out there on the sand within reach of us, there might well be food and water lying by them, for the taking. I have to go and find out, and I have to go now, because I mislike the cast of the sky out there. The air is dead calm and sultry and there might be storms about. I’ll prop the end of your bier up on that low ledge, so that you’ll be above the floor and comfortable, and I’ll leave you here for the morning. I should not be gone longer than that. I gauged the distance from the size of the birds, and my guess is that I’ll be an hour, perhaps slightly more, in reaching them, and then the same in coming back, so I should return before noon.”
“What will you use to fight them off?”
Moray smiled. “What, the vultures, or the dead men? I’ll take the Mussulman’s bow with me. How is your arm?”
“It feels as though it’s afire. Hot, but little pain, unless I jar it.”
“I thought as much. I have another packet of the powder I fed you before, and you will please me by taking it without complaining. The first one worked wonders for you, so this next one should do even more, and if you improve as much between now and tonight as you did yesterday, then you’ll be able to walk on your own and I will not have to break my back again.”
He busied himself then mixing the powder with water while Sinclair watched, and when he was done, the sick man swallowed the potion down obediently, with only the wrinkling of his nose denoting any unpleasantness of thought or taste.
“I’m going out there now, and as I say, it ought not to take me long, but we are in the desert, so it makes sense to take precautions against my being delayed. I might get lost, or have an accident, or even meet some of Allah’s faithful servants. You are not strong enough to come looking for me and it would be foolish of you even to try. I’ll leave this bag of food above you, hanging from this peg provided by our thoughtful host, and with it will be this bag of water. I’ll take some food and the smaller water bag with me, since it is lighter.” He tilted his head, smiling down at Sinclair, whose eyes were now dull and unfocused beneath fluttering lashes as he fought against the powerful opiate. “Alec? Can you still hear me? Your eyes are closing. Will you remem …”
FOUR
Sinclair woke up to find the cave filled with whirling sand and the pandemonic screaming of a wind such as he had never heard. His mouth and nostrils were clogged, so dry that he was unable even to spit to clear them. The terror he felt at that moment was overwhelming. He tried to move, but he was hampered by his bound arm. Several times he tried to reach the water bag that Moray had hung on the peg above him, but his efforts were wasted against the howling force of the wind. There was light, too, filtering weakly through the depths of the churning dust, so there was still daylight beyond the cave, although it appeared to be more dusk than day out there. Moray had wrapped the sole remaining fragment of his torn surcoat about his shoulders. With one trembling hand Sinclair now wound it around his head, covering his face as completely as he could, worrying that he might not be able to breathe, but fearing the sandstorm more. He struggled with the burden of his tightly trussed arm until he managed to turn onto his right side, his back to the cave’s entrance and the calamitous wind that raged through it. The stupefying noise was unrelenting, but lying on his side, with his good hand cupped over the folds of cloth about his face, he found it easier to breathe. With nothing more in his power to help himself, he fell into unconsciousness again, wondering about how Moray might be faring and hoping he had been able to find some kind of shelter before the tempest struck.
Sinclair’s next conscious thought was that the silence had awakened him, for it was tomblike after the tumult of the awful dreams that lingered, shapeless yet full of noise and dread, in the deep recesses of his memory. He continued to lie there for some time, motionless, eyes closed, focusing his mind on the absolute stillness around him, and it was only when he finally attempted to open his eyes that he realized that something was seriously amiss, for although his eyelids twitched obediently, there was pressure against them, weighing on them and preventing them from opening. Panic-stricken, he drew in a quick breath and tried to claw at his face with both hands, forgetting that his left arm was tightly bound. His right hand sprang up quickly enough and landed heavily against what felt like a cloth, a cloth covered with sand, enveloping his face. Still deep in the grip of panic, he clutched at the thing and tried to jerk it away from him, only to discover that it was wrapped abou
t his head. His fingers still gripping the bindings that shrouded him, he slowly sagged back against his bracings, knowing with sudden certainty that his nightmares had been real. He had dreamed of a chaos of noise, the demented screaming of a multitude of damned souls, and seething clouds of roiling smoke that threatened to choke the life from him and hurl him into Hell. But it had been no dream.
What was it Lachlan had said? The air is dead calm and sultry and there might be storms about. He was right, then. But where was he now? He had not been in the dreams.
“Lachlan? Are you there?”
His voice was muffled by the folds of cloth, but it was loud enough, nonetheless, for Lachlan to have heard and answered, and in the ensuing silence he realized, with great reluctance, that he was not surprised. Lachlan Moray must have been out there when that cataclysm came down, and Sinclair knew that the odds against his having been able to locate their cave under such conditions were incalculable.
Cautiously then, working one-handed, he hunched forward as far he could and unwound the remains of his white linen surcoat from his head.
Now, in the deathly stillness of the cave, he took stock of his condition as best he could. If he was to survive from now on, he knew it must be by his own efforts. He flexed the fingers of his left hand and felt them move, very slightly but blessedly without pain. The pain had gone, or abated, and he felt clear headed and healthy. But he was lying on his back and he knew he had to get up, and he knew, too, from past experience, that this would not be a simple thing to achieve with his left arm lashed rigidly along his side. He made to swing his legs to the side, to his right, but they would not move and he felt fear flare up in his breast again, wondering what was wrong with him now. He opened his eyes, hugely relieved to discover he could do so without pain, then pushed himself up on his elbow as far as he could, straining against his own lack of mobility until he could look downward, his chin on his breast, to see that his entire lower body, from the waist down, was covered in sand. To his left, a blaze of brilliance announced that there was daylight beyond the cave, but inside, everything was shaded and muted by the carpet of sand that surrounded and half covered him.
He thanked God that Lachlan had thought to prop the top end of his bier against the ledge at his back. Had he not done that, Sinclair knew the sand would have covered him completely, smothering him in his drugged sleep. Calming himself then, he concentrated on moving his legs, one at a time, kicking and flexing his knees with great difficulty until first one, then the other came free and lay atop the sand that had covered them. That done, he twisted slowly to his right, grasping the pole on that side tightly and using the leverage he gained to pull himself up and swing his legs until he was sitting, with his feet on the sand that covered the floor of the cave.
He succeeded in struggling to his feet on the third attempt and stood swaying, clutching the pole that had risen with him as soon as his weight was removed from the bed. The peg lodged in the wall still held the bags of food and water that Lachlan had left for him, but it also supported a belt with a sheathed, single-edged dirk attached, and he looked down immediately at the lashings that bound his arm against his body. Moments later, he lodged the sheath firmly between his body and his bound arm and withdrew the foot-long blade. Three slashes freed the splinted arm, but the weight of it, bound as it was by the solid steel bolts of the splints, dragged immediately at his shoulder, bringing echoes of the pain he had felt the day before. He dropped the dirk at his feet and reached for the water bag, knowing as soon as he felt its sagging, flaccid bulk that it would not be an easy task to drink from it one-handed. But Lachlan’s drinking cup was there, too, he knew, and close to hand, somewhere beneath the sand.
He looked about him for the best place to sit, and then slowly lowered himself to the ledge that had supported his bier. He cradled the bag on his knee and reached down and dredged with his fingers until he found the cup, then lodged it securely between his knees. He drew the stopper from the bag with his teeth and very slowly, moving with excruciating care, manipulated the cumbersome, wobbling container until it lay along his forearm. Then, twisting down and sideways with the caution of a tumbler balancing on a rope, he brought the open spout to the rim of the cup and dribbled the precious liquid gently into it as slowly as he could until it was half filled. He barely spilled a drop, but he had to sit up again and replace the stopper with his teeth before he could lay the bag down and take up the cup.
He rinsed his mouth carefully with the first mouthful, then spat it out and rinsed again, and this time he was able to feel more water than sand in his mouth. On the third and last draft, his mouth felt normal and he swallowed gratefully before carefully pouring another half cupful. He sipped at it this time, watching the tiny ripples on the surface, caused by the trembling in his hand, and thinking that nothing in his life had ever tasted so sweet and pure. Then he filled his mouth with it, swished it around and swallowed it with a definite feeling of triumph, feeling the life spring up in him again, even if only faintly.
He sat up straighter, noting everything there was to see in the cave, which was shallow but wide. He could find no sign that Lachlan Moray had ever been there. Sighing, and refusing to think about what that might entail, he opened the bag of food and found several flat, hard disks of unleavened bread, a cloth-wrapped bundle of surprisingly fresh dates, a hard lump of something unidentifiable that he guessed was goat cheese, and several small pieces of dried meat. He did not feel hungry, but he knew he needed to eat, so he tore a piece of meat off with his teeth and spent the next few moments thinking that he might as well have been chewing on dried tree bark. But as his saliva began to moisten the meat its flavor, strong and gamy, began to emerge and with it came his appetite, so that he discovered he was ravenous and he had to restrain himself from eating everything in the bag.
When he had repacked the remnants of his food, he sat back, gritting his teeth against a sudden temptation to feel sorry for himself. He had never been the type to wallow in self-pity and could not abide people who did so, but nonetheless he felt a need to fight against some kind of creeping lethargy that felt very much the same as self-pity, and he wondered if it might be caused by Moray’s drug, whatever it might have been. He knew he had to do something to help himself, alone as he was and ludicrously defenseless. He might be hurt, he told himself determinedly, but he was not yet dead or dying, and he had no intention of simply giving up and rolling over simply because he had been left alone. And so he sat up straighter yet and looked about him, searching for inspiration among the scant resources available to him.
He discovered that the bier or litter on which he had lain was made from a pair of spears lashed together to a short cross-piece that had supported his head and given the frail-looking device some rigidity, and he made short work of cutting away the lashings, along with the woven network of straps that had supported his body. Two spears were useless to him, one-armed as he was, but one would serve him well as a walking staff and provide him with a weapon of self-defense, since he had no idea what had happened to his sword. That concerned him for no more than a moment, aware as he was that he would have been incapable of using it to any effect.
Because his useless arm was rigidly splinted, it was utterly inflexible. He studied the ends of the steel shafts encircling his wrist and then, using his good hand and his teeth, he set about fashioning a sling from the longest of the straps from the bed of the litter. By dint of much knotting and adjustment, and muttering to himself as he worked, he eventually created a primitive harness that worked quite effectively, a large loop fitting around his neck while a smaller one was hooked firmly around the ends of two of the crossbow-bolt splints. The device was not comfortable—the strap cut sharply into his neck and shoulder muscles—but it kept the limb from hanging straight down from his shoulder like a leaden weight.
Sinclair could not believe how difficult it was to do even the smallest thing properly with only one hand. The simple effort of removing the belt from its p
eg and cinching it about his waist, weighted as it was with its sheathed dirk, became the most infuriating task he had ever undertaken, requiring eight attempts and a variety of outlandish contortions, and he achieved it only by clamping the belt in his teeth in the correct place and feeding the other end through the buckle with great care. Three times he lost his grip while transferring the weight, and had to restart each time. After that, seated and with the belt securely buckled, he tried unsuccessfully to shrug his massive shoulders through the loop of the belt, but he had to be content in the end with hanging it diagonally across his chest, and even then he had to undo the sling he had arranged so carefully a short time before, in order to hang the bags containing his food and water comfortably across his chest and beneath his left arm, because his earliest attempt, to make them hang comfortably over the rigid limb, quickly proved futile.
Finally, after one last look around the sand-filled cave, he took up his spear staff and carefully made his way to the cave’s mouth. He was forced to stoop lower and lower as he approached because the opening had filled up with blowing sand and was less than one third its former size. Beyond it, however, was where the surprise lay concealed, and Sinclair stood in the doorway, his eyes wrinkled to slits against the severity of the blazing sun as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing.
It had been dark when they arrived, but the moonlight had been strong enough to reveal the scoured earth of the boulder-littered bowl in which they had sheltered beneath the shadows of the giant dunes. He stood gazing now for a long time, feeling apprehension tightening his throat, for he could see nothing that he recognized. The silence was absolute, and the vast expanse of windblown sand before him bore no tracks of any living creature. The sun was halfway up the sky, but even so, he thought, it might be halfway down, because he had no means of identifying direction. He had paid no attention to such details as Lachlan dragged him into the cave, and for a moment the enormity of his own ignorance threatened to overwhelm him. Rather than give in to that feeling, however, he harangued himself in silence. Come on now, he thought. You’re alive, you’ve eaten and drunk, and you have both food and water to keep you going. You’re in no more pain than you might be with a bad toothache. You even have a weapon, by God, and it will double as a walking staff, so stop whining to yourself like a lost little boy and get on with it! But he had no clue which way to go and so he stood there, helpless.