Wilbur Smith - C09 Birds Of Prey

by C09 Birds Of Prey(Lit)

  "Come on, you rogues!" Schreuder goaded them. "You will let them get clear away. Faster! Run faster." They came scrambling and straining up the slope.

  "Good!" Hal muttered. "They are sticking in our tracks, as I hoped." He whispered his final instructions to Aboli. "But wait until I give you the word," he cautioned him.

  Closer they came until Hal could hear the Hottentots" bare feet slapping the ground, the squeak of Schreuder's tack and the jingle of his spurs. On he came, until Hal saw the individual beads of sweat that decorated the points of his moustache, and the little veins in his bulging blue eyes as he fixed his obsessed and furious stare on the skyline of the ridge, overlooking the enemy who lay hidden much closer at hand.

  "Ready!" whispered Hal, and held the burning slow match to the fuse of the powder keg. It flared, spluttered, caught, then burned up fiercely. The flame raced down the short length of fuse towards the bung hole.

  "Now, Aboli!" he snapped. Aboli seized the keg and leapt to his feet, almost under the hoofs of Schreuder's horse. The two Hottentots yelled with shock and ducked off the path, while the horse shied and reared, throwing Schreuder forward onto its neck.

  For a moment Aboli stood poised, holding the keg high above his head with both hands. The fuse sizzled and hissed like an angry puff-adder, and the powder smoke blew around his great tattooed head like a blue nimbus. Then he hurled the keg out over the hillside. It turned lazily in the air before striking the rocky ground and bounding away, bouncing and leaping as it gathered speed. It jumped up into the face of Schreuder's horse, which reared away just as its rider had recovered his balance. Schreuder was thrown forward again onto its neck, lost one of his stirrups and hung awkwardly out of the saddle.

  The horse spun and leaped back down the slope, almost into the platoon of infantry that was following close upon its heels. As both maddened horse and bouncing powder keg came hurtling back among them, the column of green jackets sent up a howl of consternation. Every one recognized that the smoking fuse was the harbinger of a fearsome detonation only seconds away, and they broke ranks and scattered. Most turned instinctively downhill, rather than breaking out to the sides, and the keg overhauled them, bouncing along in their midst.

  Schreuder's horse went down on its bunched hindquarters as it slipped and slid down the hillside. The reins snapped in one of its rider's hands while the other lost its precarious hold on the pommel of the saddle. Schreuder fell clear of his mount's driving hoofs, and as he hit the earth the keg exploded. The fall saved his life for he had tumbled into the lee of a low rock outcrop and the main force of the blast swept over him.

  However, it ripped through the horde of routed soldiers. Those closest to it were hurled about and thrown upwards like burning leaves from a garden fire. Their clothing was stripped from their mangled bodies, and a disembodied arm was thrown high to fall back at Hal's feet. Both Aboli and Hal were knocked down by the force of the blast. Ears buzzing, Hal scrambled upright again and stared down in awe at the devastation they had created.

  Not one of the enemy was still on his feet. "By God, you killed them all!" Hal marvelled, but at once there were confused Cries and shouts among the flattened bushes. First one and then more of the enemy soldiers staggered dazedly upright.

  "Come away!" Aboli seized Hal's arm and dragged him to the top of the ridge. Before they dropped over the crest Hal glanced back and saw that Schreuder had hoisted himself upright. Swaying drunkenly he was standing over the mutilated carcass of his mount. He was still so dazed that, even as Hal watched, his legs folded under him and he sat down heavily among the broken branches and torn leaves, covering his face with his hands.

  Aboli released Hal's arm, and changed his sword into his right hand. "I can run back and finish him off," he growled, but the suggestion stirred Hal from his own daze.

  "Leave him be! It would not be honourable to kill him while he is unable to defend himself."

  "Then let us go, and fast." Aboli growled. "We may have put this band of Schreuder's men up on the reef but, look! The rest of his green-jackets are not far behind."

  Hal wiped the sweat and dust from his face and blinked to stop his eyes blurring.. He saw that Aboli was right. The dust cloud from the second detachment of the enemy rose from the scrub of the flatlands on the far side of the vleil but it was coming on swiftly.

  "If we run hard now, we might be able to hold them off until nightfall and by then we should be into the mountains,"Aboli estimated. " Within a few paces, Hal stumbled and hopped as his injured leg gave way under him. Without a word Aboli gave him his arm to help him over the rough ground to where he had tethered the horse. This time Hal did not protest when Aboli boosted him up onto its back and took the lead rein.

  "Which direction?" Hal demanded. As he looked ahead the mountain barrier was riven into a labyrinth of ravines and soaring rock buttresses, of cliffs and deep gorges in which grew. dense strips of forest and tangled scrub. He could pick out no path nor pass through this confusion.

  "Althuda knows the way, and he has left signs for us to follow." The spoor of five horses and the band of fugitives was deeply trodden ahead of them, but to enhance it Althuda had blazed the bark from the trees along his route. They followed at the best of their speed, and from the next ridge saw the tiny shapes of the five grey horses crossing a stretch of open ground two or three miles ahead. Hal could even make out Sukeena's small figure perched on the back of the leading horse. The silver colour of the horses made them stand out like mirrors in the dark, surrounding bush, and he murmured, "They are beautiful animals, but they draw the eye of an enemy."

  "In the traces of a gentleman's carriage there could be no finer," Aboli agreed, "but in the mountains they would flounder. We must abandon them when we reach the rough ground, or else they will break their lovely legs in the rocks and crevices."

  "Leave them for the Dutch?" Hal asked. "Why not a musket ball to end their suffering?"

  "Because they are beautiful, and because I love them like my children," said Aboli softly, reaching up and patting the animal's neck. The grey mare rolled an eye at him and whickered softly, returning his affection.

  Hal laughed, "She loves you also, Aboli. For your sake we will spare them."

  They plunged down the next slope and struggled up the far side. The ground grew steeper at each pace and the mountain crests seemed to hang suspended above their heads. At the top they paused again to let the mare blow, and looked ahead.

  "It seems Althuda is aiming for that dark gorge dead ahead." Hal shaded his eyes. "Can you see them?"

  "No," Aboli grunted. "They are hidden by the folds of the foothills and the trees." Then he looked back again. "But look behind you, Gundwane!"

  Hal turned and stared where he pointed, and exclaimed as though he were in pain. "How can they have come so quickly? They are gaining on us as though we were standing still."

  The column of running green-jackets was swarming over the ridge behind them like soldier ants from a disturbed nest. Hal could count their numbers easily and pick out the white officers. The mid-afternoon sunlight flashed from their bayonets and Hal could hear their faint but jubilant cries as they viewed their quarry so close ahead.

  "There is Schreuder!" Hal exclaimed bitterly. "By God, that man is a monster. Is there no means of stopping him?" The dismounted colonel was trotting along near the rear of the long, spread-out column but, as Hal watched him, he passed the man ahead of him on the path. "He runs faster than his own Hottentots. If we linger here another minute, he will be up to us before we reach the mouth of the dark gorge."

  The ground ahead rose up so steeply that the horse could not take it straight up, and the path began to zigzag across the slope. There was another joyous cry from below, like the halloo of the fox hunter, and they saw their pursuers strung out over a mile or more of the track. The leaders were much closer now.

  "Long musket shot," Hal hazarded, and as he said it one of the leading soldiers dropped to his knee behind a rock and took d
eliberate aim before he fired. They saw the puff of muzzle smoke long before they heard the dull pop of the shot. The ball struck a blue chip off a rock fifty feet below where they stood. "Still too far. Let them waste their powder."

  The grey mare leaped upwards over the rocky steps in the path, much surer on her feet than Hal could have hoped. Then they reached the outer bend in the wide dogleg and started back across the slope. Now they were approaching their pursuers at an oblique angle, and the gap between them narrowed even faster.

  The men on the path below welcomed them with joyous shouts. They flung themselves down to rest, to steady their pounding hearts and shaking hands. Hal could see them checking the priming in the pans of their muskets and lighting their slow-match, preparing themselves to make the shot as the grey mare and her rider came within fair musket range.

  "Satan's breathP Hal muttered. "This is like sailing into an enemy broadsideP But there was nowhere to run or hide, and they laboured. on up the path.

  Hal could see Schreuder now. he had worked his way steadily towards the head of the column and was staring up at them. Even at this range Hal could see that he had driven himself far beyond his natural strength. his face was drawn and haggard, his uniform torn, filthy, soaked with sweat, and blood from a dozen scratches and abrasions. He heaved and strained for breath, but his sunken eyes burned with malevolence. He did not have the strength to shout or to shake a weapon but he watched Hal implacably.

  One of the green-jackets fired and they heard the ball hum close over their heads. Aboli was urging on the mare at her best pace over the steep, broken path, but they would be within musket range for many more minutes. Now a ripple of fire ran along the line of soldiers along the path below. Musket balls thudded among the rocks around them, some flattening into shiny discs where they struck. Others sprayed chips of stone down upon them, or whined away in ricochet across the valley.

  Unscathed, the grey mare reached the outward leg of the path and started back. Now the range was longer and most of the Hottentot infantrymen jumped to their feet and took up the pursuit. One or two started directly up the slope, attempting to cut the corner, but the hillside proved too sheer for even their nimble feet. They gave up, slid back to the angled pathway and hurried after their companions along the gentler but longer route.

  A few soldiers remained kneeling in the path, and reloaded, stabbing the ramrods frantically down the muzzles of their muskets, then pouring black powder into the pan. Schreuder had watched the fusillade, leaning heavily against a rock while his pounding heart and laboured breathing slowed. Now he pushed himself upright and seized a reloaded musket from one of his Hottentots, elbowing the other man aside.

  "We are beyond musket shot!" Hal protested. "Why does he persist?"

  "Because he is mad with hatred for you," Aboli replied. "The devil gives him strength to carry on."

  Swiftly Schreuder stripped off his coat and bundled it over the rock, making a cushion on which to rest the forestock of the musket. He looked down the barrel and picked up the pip of the foresight in the notch of the backsight. He settled' it for an instant on Hal's bobbing head, then lifted it until he had a slice of blue sky showing beneath it, compensating for the drop of the heavy lead ball when it reached the limit of its carry. In the same motion he swept the sight ahead of the grey's straining head.

  "He can never hope for a hit from there!" Hal breathed, but at that instant he saw the silver smoke bloom like a noxious flower on the stern of the musket barrel. Then he felt a mallet blow as the ball ploughed into the ribs of the grey mare an inch from his knee. Hal heard the air driven from the horse's punctured lungs. The brave animal reeled backwards and went down on its haunches. It tried to recover its footing by rearing wildly, but instead threw itself off the edge of the narrow path. just in time, Aboli grabbed Hal's injured leg and pulled him from its back.

  Hal and Aboli sprawled together on the rocks and looked down. The horse rolled until it struck the bend in the pathway, where it came to rest in a slide of small stones, loose earth and dust. It lay with all four legs kicking weakly in the air. A resounding shout of triumph went up from the pursuing soldiers, whose cries rang along the cliffs and echoed through the gloomy depths of the dark gorge.

  Hal crawled shakily to his feet, and quickly assessed their circumstances. Both he and Aboli still had their muskets slung over their shoulders and their swords in their scabbards. In addition they each had a pair of pistols, a small powder horn and a bag containing musket balls strapped around their waists. But they had lost all else.

  Below them their pursuers had been given new heart by this reverse in their fortunes and were clamouring like a pack of hounds with the smell of the chase hot in their nostrils. They came scrambling upwards.

  "Leave your pistols and musket," Aboli ordered. "Leave the powder horn and sword also, or their weight will wear you down."

  Hal shook his head. "We will need them soon enough. Lead the way on." Aboli did not argue and went away at full stride. Hal stayed close behind him, forcing his injured leg to serve his purpose through the pain and the quivering weakness that spread slowly up his thigh.

  Aboli reached back to hand him up over the more formidable steps in the pathway, but the incline became sharper as they laboured upwards and began to work round the sheer buttress of rock that formed one of the portals of the dark gorge. Now, at every pace forward, they were forced to step up onto the next level, as though they were on a staircase, and were skirting the sheer wall that dropped into the valley far below. The pursuers, though still close, were out of sight around the buttress.

  "Are we sure this is the right path?" Hal gasped, as they stopped for a few seconds" rest on a broader step.

  "Althuda is leaving sign for us still," Aboli assured him, and kicked over the cairn of three small pebbles balanced upon each other which had been erected prominently in the centre of the path. "And so are my grey horses." He smiled as he pointed out a pile of shining wet balls of dung a little further ahead. Then he cocked his head. "Listen!"

  Now Hal could hear the voices of Schreuder's men. They were closer than they had been when last they had stopped. They sounded as though they were just round the corner of the buttress behind them. Hal looked at Aboli with dismay, and tried to balance on his good leg to conceal the weakness of the other. They could hear the clink of sword on rock and the clatter of loose stones underfoot. The soldiers" voices were so clear and loud that Hal could distinguish their words, and Schreuder's voice relentlessly urging his troops onwards.

  "Now you will obey me, Gundwane!"said Aboli, and he leaned across and snatched Hal's musket. "You will go on at your best speed while I hold them here for a while." Hal was about to argue but Aboli looked hard into his eyes. "The longer you argue- the more danger you place me in," he said.

  Hal nodded. "See you at the top of the gorge." He clasped Aboli's arm in a firm grip, then hobbled on alone. As the path turned into the main gorge, Hal looked back and saw that Aboli had taken shelter crouching in the bend of the path, and that he had laid the two muskets on the rock in front of him, close to his hand.

  Hal turned the corner, looked up and saw the gorge open up above him like a great gloomy funnel. The sides were sheer rock walls and it was roofed over by trees with tall thin stems that reached up for the sunlight. They were draped and festooned with lichens. A small stream came leaping down, in a series of pools and waterfalls, and the path took to this stream bed and climbed up over water worn boulders. Hal dropped to his knees, plunged his face into the fir At pool and sucked up water, choking and coughing in his greed. As the water distended his belly he felt strength flow back into his swollen, throbbing leg.

  From the other side of the buttress behind him there came the thud of a musket shot, then the thump of a ball striking flesh, followed immediately by the scream of a man thrown into the abyss, a scream that dwindled and faded as he fell away. It was cut off abruptly as he struck the rocks far below. Aboli had made certain of his first s
hot, and the pursuers would be thrown back in disarray. It would take them time to regroup and come on more cautiously, so he had won precious minutes for Hal.

  Hal scrambled to his feet, and launched himself up the stream bed.

  Each of the huge, smooth boulders tested his injured leg to its limit.

  He grunted, groaned and dragged himself upward, listening at the same time for the sounds of fighting behind him, but he heard nothing more until he reached the next pool where he stopped in surprise.

  Althuda had left the five grey horses tethered to a dead tree at the water's edge. When he looked beyond them to the next giant step in the stream bed, Hal knew why they had been abandoned here. They could no longer follow this dizzy path. The gorge was constricted into a narrow throat high above his head and his own courage faltered as he surveyed the perilous route that he had to follow. But there was no other way, for the gorge had turned into a trap from which there was no escape. While he wavered, he heard from far below another musket shot and a clamour of angry shouts.

  "Aboli has taken another," he said aloud, and his own voice echoed weirdly from the high walls of the gorge. "Now both his muskets are empty and he will have to run." But Aboli had won this reprieve for him, and he dared not squander it. He drove himself at -the steep path, dragging his wounded leg over glassy, water-polished rock, which was slippery and treacherous with slimy green algae.