By the same author
The Lazarus Longman Chronicles
Through Mines of Deception (novella)
On Rails of Gold – A Prequel to Golden Heart (novella)
Golden Heart
Silver Tomb
Onyx City
Celluloid Terrors
Curse of the Blood Fiends (forthcoming)
https://pjthorndyke.wordpress.com/
As Chris Thorndycroft
The Hengest and Horsa Trilogy
A Brother’s Oath
A Warlord’s Bargain
A King’s Legacy
The Rebel and the Runaway
Novellas
The Visitor at Anningley Hall – A prequel to M. R. James’s ‘The Mezzotint’
Old Town
https://christhorndycroft.wordpress.com/
Through Mines of Deception
By P. J. Thorndyke
Through Mines of Deception
By P. J. Thorndyke
2016 by Copyright © P. J. Thorndyke
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
https://pjthorndyke.wordpress.com/
I
The walls in the distance appeared purple against the beige mountains, the heat making them waver as if they were no more than a trick of the light. Lazarus Longman peered at the rough stone through his binoculars, scanning the construction that had stood without mortar for centuries. He examined every block and crack up to the men who patrolled its ramparts. He frowned and rubbed his moustache.
Lazarus was a tall man; thin but not spry. His wiry frame contained enough muscle for him to be considered a challenge by most pub brawlers in London. But this was not London. This was Africa; the Zimbabwe plateau. The year; 1879. And the enemies he faced on those walls were far more dangerous than any drunk dockers the East End could throw up.
“They know we’re here,” Lazarus said to Rider, his companion. “They’ve put extra men up.”
“How many?” Rider asked him.
“Impossible to say at this distance,” Lazarus replied. “They’re like ants marching up and down.”
“How many Boers does it take to guard a mining claim?” Rider postulated.
“How many to guard a slave camp?”
“That’s true. They must have a good deal of men to keep those chaps in line. But still, we have more black fellows than they have white.”
“It’s not the numbers that worry me,” said Lazarus, swiping at a fly that was humming around his nose. “But those walls. They’re five meters high in parts and impenetrable. Not that we have artillery in any case.”
“Centuries old and still a formidable obstacle,” Rider remarked. “You wouldn’t credit it.”
“They don’t build ‘em like they used to,” Lazarus agreed.
The walls ringed the mining complex. Parts eroded by time had recently been filled with wooden palisades constructed by the Boers encamped within. Loopholes peeped out at regular intervals. That also concerned Lazarus.
“Are you sure we’re up to this?” he asked Rider.
“Don’t you start! It was your bloody idea to rally this army against our rivals instead of skipping back to Pretoria with our report.”
“I rather thought we might just leave them to it and not actually get involved. Still, here we are.”
“I always like to see a job through to its end,” said Rider firmly. “Even the ones that might get me killed.”
“I don’t suppose she has anything to do with it,” said Lazarus, turning slightly to his companion.”
“Can’t think what you’re talking about, Longman.”
The time for planning was over. The army at their back was angry and thirsty for blood. The chief and his generals began their chants; chants that were echoed and answered by the thousand-odd warriors that were massed on the hill looking down at the walled complex. They beat their hide shields with their assegais which were long throwing spears rather than the short thrusting variants favored by the Zulus. They stamped their feet, churning up the dust and causing a din like the roar of the sea. Some of the warriors leaped in the air, kicking out with their sandaled feet and jabbing in the direction of the enemy with their weapons, crying out challenges to those who held their brothers and sisters in bondage.
“Do you know, I think we might have a chance?” Lazarus shouted to Rider over the din as he thumbed a cartridge into his Winchester.
Rider had no chance to reply before the tribe swept passed them at a signal from their chief; a black tide that thundered down the hill, threatening to break upon the walled settlement, shatter it and wash it away.
“Christ, come on!” Rider yelled over the roar of feet drumming on dry earth. “Don’t let us be left behind like camp followers! On and at ‘em!”
Clutching his rifle with both hands, Lazarus ran to keep up with his companion and the charging army. The mining compound, even with its high walls, seemed pathetically insignificant in the shadow of what was coming down the hill towards it and Lazarus did not wonder at how the African tribes with their vast numbers felt so confident when going up against white men and their guns. The camaraderie and exhilaration felt when one was in the thick of a thousand charging warriors was like nothing he had ever felt before.
Puffs of smoke from rifles atop the walls could be seen but the sound of their shots was utterly drowned. Up ahead Lazarus saw some of the over-eager warriors cut down in their tracks but before the men on the walls had a chance to reload, the army was upon them.
II
The story of how Lazarus Longman – scholar, historian and explorer – came to be at the head of an army of African warriors attacking a Boer mining compound began several weeks previously in the south eastern hills of the Zimbabwe Plateau. He had been at the site of Great Zimbabwe – that ruined stone city, once the fabulously wealthy capital of the Zimbabwean Empire – for several weeks now, sketching, digging and generally uncovering all he could about the ancient metropolis.
Rider and his Zulu servant, Mazooku, appeared out of the heat like ghosts against the green hills and yellowed grass; two wavering figures emerging seemingly from nowhere. Lazarus’s own servants had spotted them while he was still bent over some bit of pottery he had dug up and called his attention to the strangers.
Great Zimbabwe was a sacred place to the locals and permission for he and his team to be there at all had only been granted after lengthy discussions with the chief of that region. Many gifts given to the tribe and a ceremony conducted by its sangoma – a priestess of sorts – had been necessary to gain their blessing. The arrival of another white man in this crumbling city of ghosts was surprising to say the least.
Rider introduced himself as belonging to the staff of the Special Commissioner of the Transvaal. His business in the lands of the Matabele was to find Lazarus; a mission that he now considered successful which he marked with the words; “Mister Longman, I presume?” along with a bark of laughter.
He was a stocky man of twenty-three years which put him one year younger then Lazarus. He had a beard but it was not a bushy, untamed thing, but the clipped, orderly growth of a man used to the towns rather than the rugged hills. The only other remarkable thing about him was his voice which would have given a foghorn a run for its money.
“It’s known that you’re the man to speak with on all things ancient in these parts,” Rider boomed in reply to Lazarus’s enquiry as to the Special Commissioner’s interest in him.
“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Lazarus replied, not without a touch of pride. He had n
o formal training as an archaeologist and his education was wholly standard but to his mind his fascination with the past and his desire to seek out the answers to the questions posed by such fragments of history as Great Zimbabwe more than made up for degrees and qualifications.
“Well, our lot in Pretoria, not to mention London,” Rider went on, “are in a bit of a funk. Now, I’m not to tell you much about it at all unless you agree to sign on. Confidential, that sort of thing.”
“Sign on?”
“Yes. It’s something of an offer of employment from Her Majesty’s government.”
“Out of the question. I’m neck deep in things here as you can see and my partner in this expedition is sick on his return from the coast. All has been hopelessly delayed…”
“How are your funds, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Lazarus glanced at him. He couldn’t quite read the man. At times he seemed jovial as if all the world was a big joke and at others he was deadly serious. “Not quite the ticket, I must admit,” he said slowly.
“Well, I have a remedy for that. Five-hundred pounds, upfront. That’s a year’s salary for men like me. Should cover your expenses here for at least a little while, eh? It’s an excursion, nothing more. Shouldn’t take too much of your time.”
“How far is this excursion?”
At this Rider seemed a little sheepish. “Not too sure, to be honest. That’s why we need you.”
“What for?”
“Finding it.”
“Finding what?”
“What the
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