He concentrated on the waters, directing his own mind’s image of the ape into the vortex, which immediately started boiling, further agitating the waters within the bowl.
‘Where is Duma?’ he called, his voice booming and threatening within the mind of the ape.
In the spiralling waters, he could see the world through the ape’s eyes. He watched as the ape looked around the hall, seeing the other apes lying dead or battered on the floor. The ape looked at the destruction of the tables and the windows shattered by the thrown chairs. It turned its head towards the river of blood still oozing from the twisted body of Duma, also lying on the floor. The ape looked down to where Duma’s hands gripped the knife that he’d finally plunged into his own chest. HE saw it all.
He stood above the swirling waters looking at the scene of death and destruction, his rage burning like an inferno in his eyes.
‘I told you to keep him alive. I told you to play your sick games, but I wanted him alive!’ The rage in his voice seemed to shake the temple walls.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and concentrated on bringing a vision into his mind of the ape standing before him. He created a picture of the ape starting to shake, gripping its head in pain, falling to its knees, screaming in agony. He focused his mind onto an image of the ape’s mind exploding within its skull, and felt the surge of power and pleasure that came every time he inflicted pain and torment on another.
He could see the ape, writhing in agony, desperately trying to quell the pain inside its head. Its legs twitched one final time before lying on the floor of the hall, lifeless. Blood seeped from its ears, nose, eyes, and mouth. Around the room, the other apes watched expressionless as their once-mighty leader lay dead before them.
He turned his thoughts to an ape standing over the broken body looking with lifeless eyes into the face of the former alpha male, now contorted with agony, its death-mask a warning to all those who failed him.
‘Crag!’ he shouted the ape’s name. ‘Find the girl, Holly, and find me the boy, Carter. You will not play your games with these two. They are mine. They are not to be harmed, yet!’ The threat in his voice made the ape physically cower. ‘GO, NOW!’
The waters within the bowl started to bubble. The vortex spun faster as the tail at the bottom of the bowl broke free and disappeared into itself, until finally it became still.
*
He stood, deep in thought. This was the second time the Crystal had slipped from his grasp. A deep rage bubbled below the surface of his outer calm, though anyone stupid enough to look into his eyes at that moment would have been blinded by the intensity of the fire burning there.
Duma died too soon. He should have been kept alive and made to suffer for his failure to deliver me the Crystal. He deserved everything the evil minds of those worthless apes could think to inflict upon him. Duma failed to bring it to me. He wanted to keep it for himself. He deserved every punishment for disobeying me.
He soothed himself with the memories of the pain Duma had suffered day after day at the hands of the apes.
Why didn’t he hold onto it a little longer? My apes were coming. Did he want to give it away? An uncertainty took hold.
Did he let it go? Did he let them take it?
His mind ran through all the pieces of the puzzle, the players all coming together to finally return the Crystal to the one who had the knowledge to use it and the strength to control it. But the seed of doubt now started to spread its roots through this plan.
I’m missing something, he finally admitted to himself.
Had it been too early to destroy the line to Carter? Should I have waited before inflicting the Thunder and Lightning on Carter’s mind?
No, Carter was going to stop Holly, he argued with himself.
Carter was going to keep Holly from bringing the Crystal across the border to me.
But the doubt started to gnaw at his mind. He ran through his decisions, at each step confirming his arrogant self-belief in order to pamper himself. But still there was a nagging doubt.
In sending the Thunder and Lightning to Carter’s mind, I’ve cut off any future control over him. Had it been too early to stop Carter?
The doubt came again.
He could have still been useful to me.
No! I should have destroyed him then, and not given in to Holly’s demand to spare him. I do not bargain, I COMMAND!
The temporary surge of ego filled him with relief.
NO! Carter had to be stopped, Holly had to cross the border.
Now it is within my grasp. It’s within my borders.
If Carter is still interfering in my plans, then what better way to stop Carter than with jealousy and revenge?
He smiled to himself. It’s time to find Sonny.
*
The afternoon dragged by in a lazy haze. The midday meal had filled their bellies with warm soups, sweet bread, and stewed fruits.
Sonny lay on a bunk below deck, the late autumn sunlight filtering in through shafts of light coming down between the decking covers. Bright rays filled with swirling bits of dust, lighting the dim brown cabin floor and drifting back and forth across his face with the swaying of the boat in the current.
The gentle rocking and the creaking timbers seemed to numb him into a world of his own making. A world where the only thing that mattered was him being with Kerri.
He closed his eyes against the dazzling shafts of sunlight drifting across his face. His eyelids finally became too heavy to hold open anymore. His mind filled with passing images of Carter returning home with Holly.
The hero that I should have been, he sneered.
He drifted into a restless sleep while his dreams descended into a collection of self-loathing and hatred towards Carter. He saw Kerri look up at Carter and smile, throwing her arms around Carter’s neck. Then he saw her turn and laugh at him, at his own failures to act. A thought came to him, a revelation.
Holly had said Kerri was her best friend. If I bring Holly home, Kerri is sure to love me forever. Why haven’t I understood this before?
In his world, there was only room for himself and Kerri.
*
‘We’ve gotta decide now. If those apes get any closer, we’ll never get away from here,’ said Vin.
‘Naz? You’ve got to decide,’ said Carter.
‘Okay, we stick together. Our best chance of survival is together. We head for the high alps, high as we can until them apes are nothing but frozen, moth-eaten dust rags. When we’ve lost them, we’ll double back and head south for the border. Sticking together is the only way we’ll get through this. Now, rather than making as much noise as we can, we go as quiet as we can. If we’re rumbled, then we make a strategic withdrawal. You guys remember what that is?’
‘We run for our lives, right?’ said Carter.
‘Right,’ said Naz, ‘but we stick together running for our lives. Vin, you lead with Carter. Let’s go.’
Naz pointed straight up, with three fingers, then two, then one. They all turned and ran, stooped low, making for the snow line without looking back. Crossing the snowfield, it was Vin that slipped, sending loose snow and rock sliding down the rock face. That’s when they heard the manic grunts and shrill screams.
‘They’re onto us,’ Naz called. ‘Forget quiet as we can, strategic withdrawal.’
In leaps and bounds, they headed deeper up the snow field, their paws and claws making for better grip in the soft snow. They soon pulled away from the apes, heading higher up into the mountain. As the air became thinner, and much colder, they found their progress slowed to a fast walk, but it was also affecting the apes badly. Although they were still within sight, the apes could not close the ever-widening gap between them. Their progress soon turned to a slow walking pace. They stood and looked down at the apes, struggling in the high snow and low temperatures. The apes needed to rest between each step up, as the thin air and low oxygen quickly drained them of their energy. They stood looking up at Naz, Vin,
Holly and Carter, knowing they were not going to win this chase.
Without anyone seeming to give orders or direction, the group split in three, with some going west, others east and the remainder continuing the climb.
‘These apes are much smarter than they look, Vin,’ said Naz. ‘They’ll try to cut us off. Let’s lead them to the ridgeline on the eastern side. That edge is a really difficult climb. They’ll either have to follow us up, or risk falling over the edge.’
‘Good plan, Naz,’ said Vin. ‘We can also head for those rocks. Let’s see if we can start some of them rolling down on their ‘eads and start an avalanche.’
‘Good idea. Right, let’s get moving.’
They led the two groups of apes ever upwards and eastwards, until they arrived at the ridge running like a razor-sharp fold diagonally down the mountain. They knew that the apes couldn’t see the danger they were heading into. The apes were leaving themselves the way they had come as their only way off the mountain. From their own higher elevation, the four could see that the northern face of the mountain was not climbable.
Naz called the group to rest for a moment, encouraging the apes to move ever eastward, until they reached the point when the apes realised they had nowhere else to go. Either up or back. Without any hesitation, they started to climb, keeping close to the ridge.
‘Just what we wanted,’ said Naz. ‘Give me a hand to start shifting these rocks. It’s crumbling to pieces under the snow. If we can get some rocks moving, we may get the snow moving.’
They clawed and kicked at the snow and rock, trying to prize away slabs and leverage out boulders from the ice. They rained these down onto the apes below, whose only escape route was back the way they’d come. Naz succeeded in moving one of the larger boulders, managing to pick it up and throw it in the apes’ direction. It bounced, picked up momentum, then rolled again under its own inertia. This was the tipping point. The group felt a rumble through their feet and their legs became unstable.
‘It’s gonna go, Naz,’ Vin shouted. ‘Hold onto each other.’
A crack started to open just below them and they felt the mountain begin to shake. Powder snow shot into the air like steam where the crack had appeared. Holly dived toward Carter, wrapping her front paws around his neck and her rear legs around his chest. Vin reached with one arm, grabbing Holly by the ruff of fur around her neck, while Naz did the same on the right, holding onto Carter with one hand and digging his claws into the rock face with the other.
The entire side of the mountain slid from under them, a vast sheet of snow and ice disappearing in a rising cloud of powder snow, blocking out their vision. The noise filled the pits of their stomachs with the deathly rumble, physically shaking them as they desperately tried to hold onto each other and hold onto the mountain. The rumbles and snow clouds seemed to go on and on, leaving them exhausted from trying to grip the rock face.
*
Eventually the noise ceased, the snow started to settle and the air cleared. What moments before had been a vast sheet of polished ice and snow had now become a jumbled mass of rocks, boulders, and snow spread over the lower slopes. The mountain looked as if a giant slice of ice had been hacked away, leaving the cold, grey rock face exposed to the world.
They held onto where the old snow still clung precariously to the upper slopes.
‘That’s was a close thing,’ said Naz.
‘You’re right there, Naz. I don’t think I wanna try that again,’ said Vin.
A solitary small boulder bounced down the rock face, flying over their heads. They followed its progress down and realised there was no sign of the apes who’d been stuck against the ridge, nor those who’d been climbing directly up towards them. They’d been washed away from the mountainside.
‘There must have been thirty apes under that lot,’ Vin said, in awe at the destruction around them.
‘Do you think it’s safe to head back down?’ asked Carter.
‘We’ll take it slow and steady, and start working our way down. You and Carter want to lead, Vin?’
‘Follow me,’ Vin said.
*
They moved diagonally across the open scar of the mountain face left by the slippage. Descending over the exposed rock, they picked their way precariously through the boulders and scree by the light of a full, cold moon. The rock under their feet was treacherous and slippery, crumbling and sliding wherever they stepped.
As they descended, Carter had a feeling the clouds were chasing him down. Looking up, he saw the stars fading from sight, being replaced by damp, heavy cloud and mist settling over everything, bringing their visibility right down, and with it the temperature.
‘Do you feel that, Carter?’ asked Holly.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘The wind’s picking up. The mist and snow is moving,’ she said.
Carter now noticed the snow flurries gradually increasing and the wind had starting to swirl around them.
‘We’ll be down soon, so don’t worry, Holly.’
‘There’s another storm coming, Carter. I can feel it. It started just like this the last time.’
‘We’ll be okay, Holly. I’ll get you down.’ His voice sounded more confident than he actually felt.
He remembered the last storm he and Holly had been caught in. How it had come out of nowhere and within minutes, a howling, blinding wind had cut through to their bones, numbing their mind and body with the cold.
‘We’ve got to hurry, guys. We don’t want to be caught out here if a storm does come,’ Carter called.
Naz and Vin looked around them. The mountain peak was now lost under heavy grey clouds being drawn away from the peak by the high-altitude winds. Where moments before there had been a sparkling, clear, star-filled sky, there was now a swirling mist-covered world of rising winds and reducing visibility. They kept their heads low, trying to hunch themselves down against the ever-rising wind. Finally, all they could see were their own feet and no further.
Naz pulled them together, huddled in a circle to hear what each other was saying over a rising, howling wind.
‘Carter, can you still sense what’s out there?’ asked Naz.
‘If you mean smell apes, then yes, but I can’t smell any around.’
‘Yes, that’s what I mean. Will you lead us, Carter? Vin, you grab Carter’s tail. Holly, you hold onto one of those straps on Vin’s pack and I’ll hold your tail. And nobody let go!’
They set off in a line, only looking down, turning their heads away from the howling wind. Carter led them further across the rock face, constantly using his sense of smell. On reaching the snowfield again, Carter ploughed a path through, ever downward. He reached a point where the fresh powder snow had covered an icy section over bare rock. In an instant, his feet slipped away from him. He felt himself falling down the rock face. A violent yank on his tail stopped him sliding further. He felt friendly paws lift him to his feet and steady him. They both turned to where Holly and Naz should have been.
‘She let go of me when you fell,’ shouted Vin.
Carter looked around, but the rising storm made it impossible to see anything. He started back and picked up Holly’s scent in the snow, where she’d cut a new trail around the place where Carter had fallen. Carter and Vin looked at each other in confusion.
Vin pointed to the trail and shouted over the howling wind, ‘We’ll follow it, you lead.’ He took hold of Carter’s tail again.
They moved away from their original direction, trying to keep to the path Holly and Naz had taken. With their heads cowering low against the wind, they desperately tried to follow the rapidly fading path, as the wind covered their own tracks behind them. Moments later, Carter walked blindly into something solid. There was shock and relief as Carter realised it was Naz’s bulk he’d walked into. Naz was coming back the same way, trying to follow his own path.
‘What happened?’ screamed Carter over the wind.
Naz shook his head. ‘She ran o
ff,’ he called back. ‘She said she’d lost you and we should head back the way we’d come. We turned around, but she didn’t hold onto me. I looked back and she’d gone.’
‘She wants the Crystal for herself,’ shouted Carter.
Naz and Vin nodded in understanding.
‘Go after her, Carter. Don’t let her be alone. We’ll catch you up.’
Carter looked at Naz and Vin, not wanting to leave his friends in the storm.
Vin could see his hesitation. ‘You go on as fast as you can. We’ll be okay. We’ve been in a lot worse storms than this. Now hurry.’
Carter took a last look at his friends, turned, and ran down the quickly disappearing trail.
Naz turned to Vin. ‘Have you really been in a worse storm?’
Vin shook his head. ‘He’d never have left if I’d told him this is the worst I’ve seen.’
Naz laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘We’ll be okay, Vin. Guards together, eh! Just make sure you don’t let go of me, not for nothing!’
Vin laughed, in spite of the danger. ‘I got your back, Naz.’
They set off, following Carter’s trail.
*
Carter stopped trying to walk through the snow. Instead he took to making leap after leap. It was exhausting, but he made much better time.
His sense of smell kept him on Holly’s trail down the mountain face, but soon he became aware of another smell on the air. He could taste the odious stench of apes. He slowed to a walk, conscious of their smell getting stronger from different directions. Finally, he stopped, trying to form an image of his surroundings from the different smells he was picking up.
Carter lay crouched in the snow, sniffing the air in all directions. He knew that Holly was ahead, but he also realised that the apes were in front of him, to his left and right and still moving. The awful smell told him that there were many apes around, and the way their smell moved could only mean they were circling around him.
Lost Lands Page 18
