The Caldera

by John Flanagan

  Then, as so often happens, while he was concentrating on something else, a chance word had triggered the elusive memory. The word hostages reminded Demos of the young boy being held for ransom on Santorillos, and he remembered where he had seen the Skandian before.

  “He was the commander of the guard!” he said suddenly, as memory dawned on him.

  Myrgos stopped and looked at him, puzzled by the abrupt outburst. “What? Who was?” he asked, unable to follow his subordinate’s train of thought.

  Demos spoke quickly now, the words tumbling over one another. “That Skandian we saw the other day. The older one.”

  “The one-armed man?” Myrgos asked. In truth, Olaf had hardly impressed himself on Myrgos’s memory. He’d said very little during their encounter.

  But Demos was shaking his head emphatically. “No. The other one! The one who was sitting to the side. I knew I’d seen him before!”

  “All right, where did you see him?” Myrgos asked, with only faint interest. The strongbox was getting heavy, and he wanted to get back aboard Vulture.

  “When we kidnapped the boy—Constantus. The Skandian was the commander of his bodyguard. I remember seeing him when we were scouting the location where we took the boy. He was ill, in a litter, which made our task a lot easier. But it was definitely him.”

  “So what was he doing on Cypra?” Myrgos asked, his interest fanned now. The two pirates exchanged a long glance.

  “He’s got a ship and a crew. And he’s left Byzantos,” Demos said slowly. Then realization dawned on both of them at the same moment.

  “It’s the boy!” Demos said.

  “They’re heading for Santorillos to snatch him!” Myrgos exclaimed.

  Demos rammed a fist into his palm in frustration. “I knew it!” he said. “I told you the other night that they’d doubled back on us!”

  After the Vulture had lost sight of the little ship in the squalls and darkness, they had argued the point fiercely. Eventually, Myrgos’s viewpoint prevailed—as it usually did. Now he uttered a curse as he realized how he’d been duped. He started toward Vulture at a run, still clutching the heavy strongbox to his chest. He leapt awkwardly over the gap between the two hulls, staggering as the weight of the box unbalanced him.

  “Get back aboard!” he yelled at his crew. “We’re heading for Santorillos!”

  Puzzled by the unexplained turn of events, the crew hurried to obey. Myrgos pointed wildly at the grappling lines holding the two ships together.

  “Cut those lines! Back her away! We’ve got to get moving!”

  Three men ran to cut the grappling lines while the others dropped into the rowing benches and ran their oars out. At a word from Demos, they backed water together, trying to wrench the ram out of the shattered hull.

  For a moment, it was jammed and there was no movement. Then, as Myrgos screamed at them to redouble their efforts, Vulture began to slide backward, the ram disengaging from the trader’s hull with a splintering, tearing sound. As it came clear, Vulture moved more freely, and the sea began to rush into the massive wound in the trader’s hull. The three surviving crewmen cried out in fear as the hull tilted wildly beneath them, but Myrgos paid them no heed. He was already issuing orders to have Vulture turn to the southwest. The oars backed on one side, went forward on the other, and as the hull pivoted, other crew members ran up the sail.

  She gathered speed quickly, heedless of the little trader sinking beneath the waves in her wake. Within minutes, she was heading at full speed to the south.

  And Santorillos.

  chapterthirty-two

  Hal lifted the replica windlass handle and carefully aligned the socket he had made with the five-pointed axle. The wooden fitting slipped neatly into place. He tested it for movement. There was less than a centimeter of free play, then the shaped socket locked on to the axle. He beckoned to Ingvar.

  “Take the strain here, Ingvar. I’ll check and make sure there’s no restraining brake.”

  It would be useless to haul on the windlass if it was locked in position. He crouched and peered under it, but there was no sign of any lock.

  “Give it a turn—gently now,” he ordered, and Ingvar moved the handle through an arc of about twenty centimeters. At first, nothing happened as the cable stretched. But then the windlass began to turn.

  It was a gradual movement as Ingvar used just enough force to set it in motion. But the cable began to come in, a few centimeters at a time.

  “Easy,” Hal said, barely daring to breathe.

  Ingvar pushed on the handle again, as gently as he could, and the line began to move. An ominous creaking sound came from the wooden socket fitted over the axle.

  “Slow down,” Hal said.

  Ingvar rolled his eyes. “I’m going as slowly as I can,” he protested.

  But Hal was unmoved. “Just keep the minimum force on it that you can,” he said. “If it breaks, we’re finished.”

  Ingvar strained once more. The handle moved through a quarter of a turn, and the axle creaked and groaned alarmingly. But the rope was moving. Hal peered closely at the winch handle. Was there a small split forming in the wood where it fitted over the axle? Or was that just a natural seam in the wood that had been there all the time? He didn’t know. But he prayed it was the latter. Ingvar, seeing him inspecting the handle, stopped turning and held it steady. He glanced interrogatively at Hal. Hal made a slow winding motion with his forefinger.

  “Go again. But gently, for Loki’s sake!” he said.

  Another eighth of a revolution. A few more centimeters of rope recovered. Now that they were used to the creaking and groaning of the windlass handle, they relaxed a little. It protested but, so far, it had held.

  “The basket’s loose,” Lydia called.

  Hal looked quickly up to the top of the cable. The carrying basket had come free of its retaining cradle and it was now dangling from the cable, a few meters down from the top station.

  “How does it feel?” Hal asked Ingvar. The big lad was sweating profusely—from tension rather than effort. He shook his head to clear a few drops of perspiration from his eyes.

  “Awkward,” he said at length. “But it feels solid.”

  “It should be easier now,” Hal told him. “The weight of the cradle will be working for you.”

  Ingvar nodded. “Of course, on the way back up, it’ll be a lot harder.” He turned the handle again—tentatively, a few centimeters at a time. More cable came in to wind around the drum of the windlass.

  “I think you’ve done it,” Thorn said, his voice full of admiration.

  Then, with an ugly cracking sound, the wooden cogwheel split into four pieces.

  Ingvar lurched as the cogwheel collapsed and lost its grip on the axle. The handle came away in his hands and the cog itself dropped to the planks of the dock, totally ruined. Hal stared at the split pieces of wood. He drew in his breath to curse but could think of nothing vile enough to suit the situation. There was a concerted groan from the watching Herons as they realized what had happened.

  “Can you fix it?” Stig asked, hoping against hope.

  Hal turned a scornful look on him. “Are you kidding?” he said bitterly. The cog was beyond repair. And even if he could have patched it up, it was obvious that a wooden cog wouldn’t be up to the task. He picked up two of the splintered pieces and studied them gloomily. Then, with an expression of disgust, he tossed them aside.

  It had been a long time since one of his ideas had failed. In his younger days, his inventions and devices had a fifty percent record of success—like the running water system he had devised for his mother’s kitchen, which had collapsed spectacularly, flooding the kitchen and nearly knocking Stig unconscious as the components flew in all directions.

  But since then, he had become accustomed to success. And the crew had become accustomed to expecting him to
succeed. It was a bitter pill to swallow now as he stared morosely at the bare axle protruding from the windlass. Myrgos had outthought him, and he didn’t like contemplating that idea.

  Thorn seemed to sense his feelings and dropped his left hand on Hal’s shoulder in a consoling gesture. “I guess you can’t get it right every time,” he said.

  Hal looked at him bleakly. “It would have been nice to get it right this time.”

  Thorn shrugged. There was nothing he could say to that.

  “So what do we do now?” Olaf asked.

  Hal glanced angrily at him. “I don’t know, Olaf,” he said. “What do you suggest?”

  Why does everyone depend on me for ideas? he thought. Then he pushed the bitterness aside. They looked to him for ideas because he was the skirl, because he was the leader of the brotherband and because he could usually come up with a way to solve most problems that faced them.

  “Maybe we could haul it up by hand,” Stig suggested, “if we all tailed onto the rope?”

  But Hal shook his head. “The cage is too heavy,” he said. “We might get it down, but it would be too difficult to haul it up again, even with one person in it. And we need two people at a minimum. That’s why the windlass is so heavily geared,” he added.

  Lydia had been pacing the dock, looking from the windlass to the rope cable wound round its drum, to the Heron moored alongside.

  “Could we row it up?” she said finally. They all stared at her.

  “Row it?” Hal said. “You want to put oars on the cage?”

  She shook her head. “I mean if we cut the rope and tie it to the ship, couldn’t we row the ship out into the bay and haul the basket up and down that way?”

  Hal opened his mouth to dismiss the idea, then stopped. Maybe it would work, he thought.

  Thorn grinned at the serious-faced girl. “You’re a genius,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

  She flushed, thinking he was making fun of her. “It was just an idea. But maybe it’s not such a good one.”

  “It’s a great idea!” Hal said, and she looked at him in surprise. “With eight rowers on the oars, that should be enough to lift you and me to the top. We’re probably the lightest, apart from Edvin. And the oars will give us the extra leverage we need.”

  Olaf stepped forward. “I’ll need to go too,” he said. “You’ll need me to help find Constantus.”

  Hal nodded agreement. “You can come in the second trip,” he said. “It’ll be one less rower, but it’ll be a lighter load with just one in the cage.”

  Stig was scratching his chin thoughtfully. “If we cut the rope to bring it down, how do we get it up again?” he asked. “The loose end will go back up the cliff.”

  But Hal had already considered this. “We’ll lengthen the loose end,” he said eagerly. “We’ve got a sixty-meter anchor cable and heaps of spare rope for rigging. Plus there’s maybe ten meters wound round the drum. That should give us enough rope to reach to the top. Then we change ends over and row out again.”

  He stepped quickly to the windlass, reaching for his saxe as he did. “Take the ship out and turn her around,” he said. “We’ll attach the rope to the sternpost. It’ll be better if we row her forward, rather than in reverse. Then get to work splicing the anchor cable with as much of the spare rigging as you can find.”

  Stig and Ingvar boarded the ship and, with the twins’ and Stefan’s help, unmoored her and poled her out into clear water, where they could turn her around. Then Stig backed her into the dock. At the same time, Edvin, Jesper and Olaf raised the hatch to the cable locker and brought out the long, heavy anchor cable and half a dozen coils of rope intended for use as rigging. When they traveled across the world as they did, they needed to take plenty of ship’s stores with them.

  Once the ship was back at the dock, now facing outward, they sat on the planks and began to splice the various lengths of rope together to form one long cable. While this was being done, Lydia and Hal experimented, hauling on the cable to see if they could bring the cage down. Hal grinned in satisfaction as the weight of the elevator worked for them, and the cable came in hand over hand as the cage came sliding down the cliff face. They avoided using the windlass drum, letting the cable pile up on the dock behind them. Olaf and Ingvar, who weren’t required for the work of splicing, joined them. Within a few minutes, the elevator cage was resting on the dock, ready to ascend.

  Hal cut the cable under the windlass drum and unwound the extra eight meters of rope that it held. Then Stig brought him the new length of spliced rope and they tied that to the loose end, leading the long rope back aboard ship. Once that was done, they fastened the other end of the cable to the sternpost of the ship. Hal and Lydia collected their weapons. For a moment, as he buckled on his sword belt, Hal considered taking his shield, but then dismissed the idea. His sword and crossbow should be enough. Lydia, of course, had her quiver of darts and her atlatl, along with her long-bladed dagger.

  “I’ll wave when we’re a few meters from the top,” Hal told Thorn. “Keep an eye on us and slow down when you see me wave. We don’t want to go crashing full tilt into the stops.”

  Thorn nodded his understanding, and Hal and Lydia climbed aboard the cage.

  The skirl caught Olaf’s eye. “We’ll send the cage back down and you come up next,” he said.

  The burly guard commander nodded. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Will three of you be enough to get the job done?” Thorn asked. He hated the idea of missing out on a fight.

  Hal shook his head. “We can’t spare anyone else from the oars,” he said. “Besides, with twenty of the enemy up there, we’re going to be using stealth, not force.”

  Reluctantly, Thorn agreed that he was right.

  Hal continued with his plan. “Once Olaf is at the top with us, we’ll wait for nightfall, then go looking for the boy. Keep an eye on the top station. We’ll signal with a flint when we want to come down.”

  Striking a flint might create only a small spark, but it would be a brilliant light, visible from a long distance. Hal caught Stig’s eye and gestured toward the ship.

  “Get the crew aboard and on the oars, Stig. Let’s get going while there’s still light.”

  It was late afternoon and the sun was close to the horizon. There would be light on the cliffs for the next thirty minutes or so, Hal estimated. That should be enough for two trips up and down.

  Stig hesitated, feeling he should say something to his friend. Then he shrugged and ran lightly across the dock to the waiting ship. The rest of the crew were in their rowing stations, waiting for him. All the oars were manned and Edvin was on the tiller.

  “Out oars!” Stig called. “Let’s send them up the cliff.”

  The oars dipped into the calm water, and on Stig’s command, they all bit as the rowers heaved. For a moment, the ship didn’t move. Then the combined force of eight rowers sent her nosing out of the inlet.

  Behind her, drawn by the cable, the elevator cage began to glide smoothly up the cliff face.

  chapterthirty-three

  Gliding up through the late afternoon shadows was a fascinating experience. The cage rode at an angle from the cliff, rather than rising vertically. The dock dropped away rapidly below them, and when they looked down, they could see the little ship surging out into the bay, the oars rising and falling as one.

  Hal could see Thorn in the stern, facing back to watch them. His face was a pale oval. Hal was about to wave when he realized that the old sea wolf might take that as a signal to stop. Hastily, he lowered his arm.

  “This is quite a rush,” Lydia said, grinning, and he realized she was enjoying the ride. She had no fear of heights, and the smooth upward passage created a breeze that stirred her fine hair. Hal returned the smile and turned to look upward. The top station was approaching rapidly. He narrowed his eyes, gauging
speeds and distances, then held up a white scarf he had brought along for the purpose of signaling. He waved it in a wide circle.

  Below, Thorn growled an order to the rowers and the ship slowed. The white cloth continued to wave from the elevator cage, now moving slowly up and down, then cutting to one side.

  “Hold her there,” Thorn said. The rowers leaned on their oars, resisting the tendency for the cage to begin sliding down again.

  Thorn saw Hal wave the scarf one more time in a rapid up-and-down motion.

  “One more stroke,” Thorn ordered, and as the ship surged ahead, he saw the elevator ride up and over the bull wheel at the top and slide into the dock. “Easy all,” he called, and the rowing stopped. He waited a few seconds, checking to see that the cage was secure and there was no need to counter its weight again with the oars.

  Then he saw the flash of white cloth again, now waving horizontally. He and Hal had agreed on the simple signaling code while the crew had been busy splicing the additions to the cable. A horizontal movement meant the cage was ready to come down again.

  “Switch the ends, Stefan,” he ordered. As they had hauled the cage to the top, they had drawn in a long section of cable, which was now loosely coiled on the deck. As the cage began to descend under the power of gravity, they would pay this out again, using a bight around the sternpost to control the speed of the cage’s descent. With the weight of the cage bringing it down, there was no need for the oars, other than to give them extra braking power over the cage.

  “Bring her in a few meters,” he told the rowers. They took two reverse strokes, and the cable began to run.

  “Steady!” he ordered, and the rowers leaned on their oars to slow the descent, while Stefan put his weight against the cable round the sternpost, using the friction to keep the cage under control.

  Within a few minutes, both the ship and the elevator cage were back at the dock. Thorn signaled for Olaf to board the cage.