Gale watched Indy exit, the hatchway door closing behind him. She sat nervously until she could wait no longer and went after him. As she reached the hatchway the door opened and he came through.
"She went up a gangway, then started up along a ladder. I've got a funny feeling. Caitlin was moving as though she knew where she was going and was heading toward someone."
"And we both know who that someone is," Gale said. "Indy, we've got to go after her. She might need us."
Gale started for the hatchway and Indy grabbed her arm. "The cabin first."
"You're right. Let's go. Indy, please hurry."
In their cabin they opened their luggage. Gale snapped together the interlocking pieces of a small but powerful hunting crossbow with spring-fired arrowhead darts. She slipped a flexible metallic baton into her belt. Indy knew the weapon. With a flick of her wrist it would extend into a steel rod that bent as it was swung, striking its intended target with tremendous force. Indy slipped his whip to his belt, opened the door, and they hurried out.
Moments later they were closing the hatch door behind them. For a moment they stared up at the cathedrallike vessel. The Graf Zeppelin seemed to be writhing in pain, the outer shell pulsating. Thunder boomed and echoed like the continuous crash of giant kettledrums. High above and to the sides floodlights cast eerie lights and shadows.
They moved toward the midsection, climbing steadily, at times gripping stanchions and rails. Several times they froze in position, assailed by great hissing sounds as sheets of loosening ice slid down the sides of the ship to the storm-whipped ocean. Indy could hardly believe the deep groaning booms as duralumin girders and rings bent and flexed. High above them static electricity danced and flickered in ghostly blue light. Indy could taste the sharp ozone in the air. He had never felt so helpless.
"Indy! Hurry! This way!" He saw Gale gripping a girder with one hand, pointing with the other. Lightning flashed, sending a brief but intense glow through the fabric shell.
In that sudden flare of light he glimpsed a tableau that turned his blood as cold as the ice crashing down the sides of the huge airborne cavern.
Three men stood on a catwalk. Lightning reflected from the long gleaming blades they held in their hands.
Facing them, alone, Caitlin St. Brendan had shaken off the heavy, Japanese ceremonial robe and large hat and dark wig.
She was braced, legs wide to counter the shuddering movements of the Graf. A deep red gleam of light came from the great sword Caliburn, withdrawn from its scabbard. On that narrow catwalk her three adversaries would have to face her one at a time. Caitlin had selected the best of all possible places to face Konstantin Cordas.
Indy and Gale climbed faster. The first man before Caitlin lunged, his steel blade stabbing.
Indy watched in disbelief.
Caitlin made no move to defend herself as the man's blade slashed her arm, sending blood spraying from the wound.
17
Indy sucked in air; the sight of steel ripping through Caitlin's arm was almost a physical shock to his own system. Lightning flashed, turning the air about Caitlin into a crimson spray as the glare reflected from the blood that spattered outward.
In almost the same moment, even as his feet propelled him higher toward the catwalk, he understood. Caitlin had explained it days before. No matter how terrible the actions against her or her family, she could not strike the first blow in a confrontation. Caliburn's great powers, the legacy of the fabled Merlin, would come into play only if Caitlin was defending herself.
But now the ancient rules had been observed. Indy hauled himself up by the ladder cables. Caitlin faced three adversaries, each of them a formidable opponent, skilled in the art of killing. He heard Gale racing after him, desperate to reach Caitlin.
But it was not quick enough to prevent another slashing move against her. Indy saw an arm upraised from one of the three men, a glint of reflected light, and a throwing knife.
Indy had seen great swordplay in his time; he had become skilled in fencing. But never had he seen the moves now made by this warrior woman from the deep forests of southern England. Caitlin's moves were subtle; at this distance and in the deep gloom, speared intermittently by lightning flashes and booming thunder, she seemed hardly to be twisting and turning as Indy knew she must to survive the assault against her.
The knife hurtled at Caitlin...
Her timing was perfect. She did not flinch left or right; instead, she leaned toward the knife flying at her. Caliburn came up and forward in a blade-twisting motion to strike with a sharp ringing cry of metal as it struck the knife and hurled it aside, where it clattered and banged through the zeppelin structure.
One of the three men started a climb up along a steel cable angling from the catwalk to a position well above Caitlin, where he could strike at her out of the reach of Caliburn. As the man struggled along the cable the other two lashed out at Caitlin in an attempt to divide her attention.
To remain where she now stood would be an open invitation to disaster. The last thing the two men expected was for the woman to rush forward directly at them and their weapons.
"Indy—" Gale gasped, but they were still too far away to help. Still climbing, almost to the catwalk, they watched Caitlin rash forward, stop, crouch, and spin with Caliburn singing its deadly song through the air. The sword came up in a slicing thrust from right to left, cutting through the rib cage of her nearest attacker. Slashed nearly in two, he sagged to his knees, his eyes bulging, and then collapsed.
The third man, the one remaining opponent directly before her, struck as quickly, his sword stabbing swiftly. Caitlin's gasp of pain came with a sharp sword point thrusting into her rib cage. By now Indy and Gale were close to her.
"Help her!" Gale shouted. Before Indy could stop her, Gale dashed past Caitlin and dropped low just beyond the slashed and now still body of her first victim. The swordsman, face obscured by a cloth wrapped just beneath his eyes, laughed and brought his sword to the ready. Quickly Gale brought up the small crossbow from beneath her leather jerkin. Just as she placed the barbed bolt into position for firing, a fierce blast of wind rattled the Graf Zeppelin, swerving the airship's nose wildly to one side. Gale instinctively reached one arm out for support. Her small but deadly bolt fell away from her, bounced on the metal catwalk, and dropped away forever into the recesses of the zeppelin.
Gale could not go forward, left or right, and to go back meant getting up and crossing over the body behind her. No time! Steel flashed as her attacker brought his sword down. She knew she must die.
A pistol shot cracked loudly just behind her. A pistol? Impossible! No one had a gun aboard this—
She stared, eyes wide, as a long dark shape whistled over her head. Indy! His whip! She just had time to glance upward as the thick leather smacked against the sword blade, tearing it free from her attacker's grip and hurling it far to the side of the catwalk. The whip snapped again, louder this time. Before her the man now without a weapon stared in disbelief as the leather cut through his face as if it were butter. His scream echoed and mixed with thundering blows of the storm still raging against the Graf.
As he fell back, collapsing in pain and shock to the catwalk, Gale remembered the man who had climbed the cable leading well above them. She knelt, this time fitting a bolt snugly within her crossbow. In a single smooth motion, balanced on one knee, she turned with the crossbow raised and cocked to fire. Above her the man, holding to the cable with one hand, held a throwing knife in the other. Gale squeezed the crossbow trigger. The small bolt shot in an upward blur.
The man's eyes bulged as the bolt pierced his throat. He tried to scream but emitted only a strangled, gurgling cry. The throwing knife whirled away to one side, the man clutched his throat, and fell from the cable. Gale watched his body plunging, arms and legs waving about madly, as he dropped against another catwalk, bounced against a girder, spun about like a rag doll, and plunged through the belly fabric of the zeppelin, lost in a blur
as he began the long fall to the merciless ocean below.
Indy watched the man he had struck with his whip stagger back, trying to stanch the blood flow from his face with one hand, the other holding the guide cable as he struggled to escape the maddening pain. Indy let him go. He was no danger now. Indy came back quickly to where Gale knelt alongside the bloodied, wounded Caitlin.
"Indy..." Gale's voice faltered. "She's hurt, badly."
Indy saw with a glance just how severe the wounds were. And he understood now how Caitlin had survived shots fired directly into her body when the Glen was attacked. Under her outer garments, the covering from the scabbard of Caliburn was already working whatever sorcery Merlin had wrought in the leather. Open wounds were closing before his eyes, blood had dried. Yet she had been struck so severely it would take time for her strength to flow back into her body.
"Caitlin," Indy said to her, studying the glaze in her eyes. That upset him, for it spelled shock that could still overwhelm her. She took several deep shuddering breaths and grasped his arm for support. "I hear you well."
Gale was wrapping the crumpled Japanese robe about Caitlin to keep her warm and cover the terrible wounds and caked blood on her body. "Can you make it to our cabin?" Indy asked.
Caitlin nodded.
"Indy!" exclaimed Gale. "We just can't send her there! She needs our help to—"
Indy pointed. Two large men moved menacingly from the stern of the zepplin along the catwalk leading directly to them. He didn't need to say that Caitlin must leave the scene with or without help. She pulled herself to her feet. "I feel stronger," she said, despite what he knew was tearing pain.
"You're in no condition to fight. You need time. Leave now," Indy pressed. "Go slowly but carefully. Go to our cabin. Now, Caitlin; go."
Strong fingers squeezed his arm. He was surprised by her strength. Most men would have been unconscious from the punishment she'd taken. "Thank you," she said quietly, then started down the ladder, holding carefully to the guide cables as Graf Zeppelin rocked and swayed.
"Indy, three more," Gale warned. She was right. First the two men that he'd seen. Now three others behind them. He knew they couldn't all have come aboard the Graf before departure. Not from Cordas's group, anyway. So Cordas must have members of the crew who would fight for him. That made the situation doubly dangerous; they were experienced in moving around and through the structural maze of the dirigible.
The last thing Indy wanted was a struggle in the territory of his opponents. "You see any weapons?" he asked Gale.
She shook her head. "Indy, I don't understand... I mean, the others had swords and throwing knives."
"They were the pros. These are crewmen," Indy said quickly. "It looks like hand-to-hand. You have more of those bolts?"
"Another dozen."
"Load up, lady. The game is about to begin," he said a lot more casually than he felt. Gale had that small but deadly crossbow, he had a whip. It wasn't easy now to figure what these three men coming at them would use. Hand-held knives. As crewmen of the Graf, they could never explain to their superior officers why they were carrying anything with a long blade. Anything that could shoot was out of the question. So they'd come in close, grapple, and go for direct thrusts with knives. Indy looked about him. He wanted to be higher than these menacing figures. A ladder was almost in reach and—
There was something else. All these three knew about him and Gale was almost certainly restricted to what the passenger manifest read. A zookeeper and a game warden. Easy targets, then. That would be their judgment, and the last thing they'd expect would be innovation and daring.
Well, Jones, he told himself with an inner humorless grin, guess it's time to he daring....
He had to get higher. Immediately he lashed out with his whip, curled the end tightly about a ladder rung, and launched himself across the yawning space between the catwalk and the ladder. His left hand grasping a rung, he planted his left foot solidly beneath him just as one attacker lunged toward him, knife in hand. At that moment the man was off balance and Indy snatched the advantage. It was a stupid move on his attacker's part. A hard driving kick to the man's face was all it took. Caught between catwalk and ladder, he was stunned by the blow, his arms flailing for balance. The knife flew from his hand, the man's eyes widened, and his mouth hung agape as he felt only thin air beneath his feet. He fell downward with a long scream, bouncing off girders and through the belly fabric to vanish from sight.
Indy clung tightly to the whip for balance and security. "Gale! Up here!" he shouted. "Come up the ladder over me!"
She didn't need a second call. She scrambled up the ladder, reached Indy. He grasped her jacket to help haul her upward. One foot shoving hard against his belt, she pulled on his shoulders, grasped a ladder rung above him—scraping her boot across his face in the process—and climbed quickly to a higher position.
The two remaining men shook their fists helplessly. They spoke quickly to one another, then ran to another ladder farther back in the swaying, rocking zeppelin.
"They're going to climb to the top of this thing," Indy told Gale.
"But why—"
"I don't think it's for sight-seeing," he interrupted. "They can get on top of the hull and work their way forward to the hatchway directly over us. If they do that, we'll be at the bottom of the well and they'll have us right where they want us. Move! Go up!"
She nodded, turned, and began another rapid climb up their ladder, Indy right behind her. She stopped to undo the hatch while he grasped her ankle to give her greater support. As the hatch opened, a blast of icy wind rushed over them.
"I don't like this," she complained to Indy. "We're supposed to walk on top of the ship?"
"Go!" he repeated.
"Indy, it's blowing like mad out there... and the surface is icy. We—"
He shoved upward on her ankle, explaining as she went through the hatch. "Toward the stern!" he shouted above the wind. "There's a glass cupola there. Jaeger told me about it. He uses it for celestial navigation and it's got grab rails." He reached into his jacket. "Here!" he called out, handing her a rope with snap hooks on each end. "Lock one end to your belt and snap the other one on the guide cable!"
"Got it!" she shouted back.
They they were both atop the zeppelin. The world was mad and beautiful and violent all at the same time. For a long moment they clung to a guide cable running the length of the outer hull. As the nose of the huge airship dipped they felt themselves lifting off their feet. They clung tightly to the rail, their bodies swaying with the motion of the ship, still being hammered by the wind. Beneath their feet the hull was slick with melting ice. Patches of open sky were now showing, through which they saw a brilliant moon and stars. Navigation and work lights along the top of the hull gave them dim but effective illumination. They glanced downward, beyond the ice-glistening hull. Far below, white shadows seemed to be drifting from another dimension, icebergs reflecting moonlight in ghostly form. Specks of white, barely visible, revealed the wind-whipped ocean surface.
"Move!" Indy ordered. "Save the sight-seeing for later!"
Clinging tightly to the cable with her right hand, left hand outward for balance, Gale shuffled and slid toward the stem, working her way to the glass cupola and its beckoning handrails. Indy stayed close behind her, ready to help if she slipped or started to fall. He heard voices behind him. Another crewman had come up swiftly along a ladder and was on the hull, moving toward them, a curved blade visible in one hand, the other gripping the guide cable.
His hand went up and back, and in a single swift motion the knife flashed toward Indy. He tried to twist his body away from the oncoming blade. One foot skidded out beneath him. Instinctively he fought to retain his balance, to keep from losing the security of the rope holding him to the cupola rail.
Fire seared along his ribs beneath his left arm. A cry of pain escaped Indy, but his reaction was as immediate as the sound of pain. The blade had pierced his jacket and shi
rt and scraped along the skin. His right arm went up and to the side, and the powerful whip cracked with the report of a pistol firing. The lash whipped about the feet of Indy's attacker; Indy yanked back with all his strength.
The man's feet flew sideways from the icy hull; for a moment he kept his handhold on the cable guide, then his own weight and the sudden movement pulled his hand free. With a thin wailing scream, he tumbled down the side of the zeppelin and vanished toward the ocean.
The two men approaching from the opposite side had stopped to see the outcome of the attack by their associate. Indy prepared himself for their rush, watching for throwing knives or swords.
No blades appeared. The unexpected happened. The second man held to the guide cable by his left hand, then withdrew a revolver from a shoulder holster. Indy stared in dismay. Of course! No passenger could board with a firearm, but a member of the crew? Absolutely.
The man smiled, brought up the weapon slowly and carefully, balancing against the wind and the heaving motions of the zeppelin. Indy felt he was staring all the way down the barrel of the gun. He tried to push Gale behind him. "Get out of there," he snapped. "Quickly! You can make it back to the ladder to—"
"Don't move."
Her words seemed to come from a stranger. "Balance me," she directed Indy. He had no idea of what she was about, but with death staring at them both over the sight on that gun, he didn't bother to reason it out. He grasped her waist, doing his best to keep her still. Moonlight broke as clouds scudded past, and in the silvery light Indy watched Gale staring at the two men. She was pressing her hands against her temples, concentrating fiercely. A low moan, a sound he could barely hear, escaped her.
He turned back to the man about to fire. He wasn't there.
An icy mist enveloped the two men, glittering and swirling in a cloud moving with the zeppelin, as though there was no wind, no other movement anywhere. Above the crescendo of engines, the groaning of the ship, the wind everywhere else, Indy heard an eerie tinkling sound, as if thousands of pieces of crystal shimmered in a chandelier. The sound of things within the glittering mist turning to ice...
Indiana Jones and the White Witch Page 18
