by E L Russell
They repeated the scenario again in the next cave and then again and yet again, all with the same discouraging results. Hot and tired, they sat on the cliff ledge to catch their breath “That nap didn’t make a dent in my exhaustion,” Yasmin said ruthlessly shoving strands of hair off her face. “I can hardly think straight. Maybe we should quit and start again tomorrow.”
“It’s tempting.” Finna, leaning back against the rock face and carefully keeping her eyes off the ground. “You know, these caves are too close together. What lackwit thief would hide stuff here? I think we need to move up a level.” She pointed to a solitary opening twenty feet above them. “Like there. Don’t you think that makes more sense?”
“That unholy pig Sabas probably misdirected us on purpose. Without the information the queen gave you, we’d probably be dead in a ditch . . . or in the sea . . . or in the—”
“Stop. I get the picture.” Finna managed a weak chuckle. “Me, too. Tired, I mean.” She studied the cliff face. “I think I see a way up—”
Yasmin groaned. “Allah be with us. Let us begin, perhaps you are right and what we seek is there.” She stood and offered her friend a helping hand. “Let’s look.”
* * *
After a harrowing climb where Yasmin lost her footing and slipped ten feet down the cliff before Finna and the attached rope stopped her fall, and Finna, having made it to the cave opening, almost fell off the narrow ledge, they entered the dark hole together. The wick in the lamp sputtered and Finna swirled the oil to get a sense of how much was left. Very little.
Sandstone walls and floors greeted them. “Nothing different from the other hollows. Not even animal droppings.” Merde. “I was so hoping.” Finna turned to leave and tripped over a medium rock. It rested on the cave floor having broken off the huge boulder nestled against one cave wall. She went to the boulder and ran her hand across the smooth surface, following the expanse from one side to the other. It did not meet the far wall. Finna’s innards did a tumble in hope.
Yasmin returned from a check with Jamal. “Still clear below. Let us leave this place.”
“Hold on. Look here.” She ran her fingers down the gap between the wall and the stone. It grew wider as she dropped to her knees and at the floor opened wider. She pushed the lamp inside ahead of her and squeezed her shoulders through to a small space beyond. “Thank you, St. George.”
The small glow of the tiny lamp reflected around a miniature cavity where many shiny things winked at her. Finna reached her arms out and drew the treasure toward her like a whale swallowing krill. It was more wealth than she had seen in a lifetime. Even more than she’d seen collected on the Abby’s highest Holy Days of collection.
Her eyes and fingers skimmed over the dimly lit booty until they fell on two thickly wrapped objects that had to be the stolen chalice and urn. Relief flooded her bones and carried away her fatigue. They’d found them. The burden that weighed on her lifted. She could go home.
27
Greek Fire
Disaster
Leeth woke with a start and vized the beach below. Six men circled the women’s small craft. The ruffian at the rear pointed directly at the cave that once contained the booty. When the sun rose, they would attack. Wait. This was wrong. They shouldn’t be there now.
< If you mean the six men by the boat, yes. Why didn’t you mention this?>
Leeth’s anger rose and he snapped the small twig he’d been holding.
Leeth turned his attention to the men on the beach and then vized the women and the boy sleeping in total exhaustion in the large chamber of their cave. Feeling temporarily safe, they had ignored the need for a guard. Not good.
Meanwhile, the men huddled below made plans for an attack and Leeth once again, sighed heavily. It was getting to be an automatic response when he checked in on Finna. He knew what was coming, a collection of un-dos and re-dos. Although time travel to the future remained an impossibility, Finna’s future was in Leeth’s past. This meant he could select a path that held some promise to a solution from the muddled collection of options.
Whether or not it could actually be a success would not reveal itself until he examined its future. His head reeled and he wished he’d brought a thermos of dark espresso, but it would be a few hundred years before coffee made the scene, and anyway, according to Overlord rules, it was another bullshit no-no.
Thou shall not harbor items from the future when you are in the past.
Jeez, lousy English to boot.
* * *
Leeth watched and waited for the exact moment he could extract Finna, Yasmin, and Jamal without endangering the timeline. The rules required that redemption occur by an extraction the instant prior to their death. Unfortunately, the seeming death had to be witnessed by someone living. Only in this way would the death be reported and recorded.
Another bullshit rule.
* * *
Finna woke as Jamal grabbed the empty water bladder and slipped cautiously through the narrow passage. The distant sound of men’s voices brought him up short.
“They figured it out,” she said. “The men from the ship got tired of waiting for the men we killed.”
Since Jamal was trapped in the cave with them, he could be put to use. He was strong for a twelve-year-old and was well disciplined. For all that he was young, he had been trained in fighting for years and she hoped his mother agreed.
“We’ll need Jamal at our backs armed with a short sword and a fighting stick,” she told Yasmin.
Deep lines of worry formed on her face, but seeing the need in their situation, she prepared her son for what was to come. “Put your sword in your belt and use both hands to keep your spear high and to one side. You’ll be able to catch one of the men making a move to parry our thrust. When he puts his back agai
nst the wall, you drive your stick through his body for all your worth. If you don’t kill him, Finna or I will finish him.”
He nodded, his expression grave. Though his heart was strong, Finna knew she was not alone in worrying he wouldn’t have the strength needed to defend himself as the fighting progressed.
“You did well hearing the brigands. You are a first-rate sentinel. Now we need you to fight like a man.”
Jamal’s eyes grew large, but he jerked his head in a quick up and down motion as he reached for his fighting stick.
“Your mom and I have the center front and the left. Make sure you stay to the right so I don’t step back and gouge you with the other end of my stick.” She looked deeply into his eyes to make sure he understood.
Yasmin squeezed his shoulder “Good boy. Make sure that after your thrust, you step back. I don’t want you engaging in close combat. The men will be at least twice your size.”
“Remember the entrance opens wide in the first ten feet, so resist going forward. We don’t want to give them room to maneuver to attack our flanks. Make them come to us in this small space.”
“Listen,” Yasmin whispered. “They approach.” She lowered her voice and prayed. La ilaha illa Allah.
* * *
The women warriors and boy took positions near the narrow entrance into their chamber. They crouched silently in the shadows, knowing the men would get as close as possible before initiating their attack.
Rather than the expected rush of men, however, a thrown pot whistled overhead and crashed to the floor, spewing rancid oil and fire. When Jamal rose to douse it, his mother grabbed his arm and pulled him close. “No.” She lowered her voice. “It’s Greek Fire. Let it burn.”
“They tossed it from below,” Finna warned. “Listen. I hear them climbing. Be ready.”
Their wait was short. Loud curses preceded a bellowed demand. “Surrender. We know you are in there.”
“If you wish to die today, come in,” Finna shouted. Her bravado covered her fear. They were two women and a boy against an unknown number of men, and to make it worse, they were trapped in a cave. What could possibly be their chances?
Two men charged the narrow passage and Yasmin killed the first one with a quick thrust through the man’s neck with her metal tipped fighting stick. The second fell to Finna’s sword. Jamal ran his spear through a third attacker’s sword arm and Finna completed the work with a vicious cross body backhanded slash, emptying the man’s bowels.
Breathing heavily, they positioned for the next onslaught. No one followed. “Listen,” Yasmin said. “They’re leaving. Are they running away?”
Without speaking the three of them pushed the dead bodies into the entrance of the thin passage making a grizzly blockade.
“They’ll be back,” Finna said, still breathing heavily. “We need to get out of here. We’re trapped and not safe.”
Sound outside the entrance stopped all discussion.
“They’re back.” Finna stood and grabbed her weapons. Yasmin and Jamal rushed to do the same. A burning branch flew through the entrance hitting Yasmin and falling to the floor next to he and she backed away, but not before one of the brigands threw in a water bladder, which erupted upon landing. Fire exploded everywhere.
“Greek Fire,” Finna cried out.
Before Yasmin could retreat farther, the blaze, fueled by the water, engulfing her in flames and screaming, she rolled on the floor away from the entrance.
“Jamal, use your sword to pull the fire away from her body.” Finna twisted to footsteps behind her and put her weight into the swing of her short sword, cutting the attacker in two. The thug behind him had no chance to run. He stood with his mouth open gawking at the bloody mess that was his companion. Hesitation cost him. Finna buried her sword in his neck and didn’t stay to watch him die. Scrambling away from the entrance, she went to help Yasmin.
Finna knew from skirmishes with the Turks in Asia Minor, any attempt to extinguish the flame with water only made it burn with more intensely. The bastards had escalated the fire with the water they’d thrown after the burning torch. Rolling on bare rock didn’t smother the flame either. Jamal had done as instructed, using his sword, he’d ripped off most of the flames cloth, but not all.
At first, Yasmin had screamed, but now she gritted her teeth and made only small mewling sounds that tore at Finna’s heart. “Work fast, Jamal. It is the only way to save her.” They both felt her suffering.
Carefully, she cut away any burned cloth fused to her friend’s flesh. Then did her best to make her comfortable. Her estimation of her fighting companion’s condition was not optimistic. Experience told her Yasmin would not survive.
28
Finna tells Jamal
Faced with Failure
Yasmin drifted back to sleep, or more likely into unconsciousness, Finna wasn’t sure which. She carefully adjusted the thin blanket her friend laid on, desperately wanting to do something to ease her pain.
“The treatment of burns is complicated.” She remembered her father telling her that when their barn had caught fire and the stable boy was burned. “Cool the burn, warm the patient,” he’d said. How the hell could you do both? She listened to Yasmin moaning in her sleep and wanted to cry. Her inability to help her was like a dagger to her soul.
Finna sat cross-legged next to her friend and watched each measured shallow breath. “In spite of what you hear others say,” her father had said, “cleanliness is a top priority.” Now that was something she could work with. A small fire crackled, spitting occasional sparks onto the stone floor. Smoke from the hard driftwood rose into the low ceiling before snaking its way toward a mysterious higher passage and final escape.
Yasmin’s burns were deep and Finna gently covered them with the precious aloe and honey mixture from her first-aid bag. It would not be enough. Of that she was certain.
