Wilbur Smith - C11 Blue Horizon

by C11 Blue Horizon(Lit)

  "Keyser is no dumbhead," Bakkat went on. "He knows by now that we are going to a meeting with your father. If he does not know where, all he has to do is follow us. If you are not going to kill him, you will need

  help from the Kulu Kulu himself to throw Xhia off our spoor. I could not be certain of doing it even if I were travelling alone. But now we are three men, a girl who has never been in the wilderness before, two horses and six loaded mules. What hope do we have against the eyes, nose and magic of Xhia?"

  They reached another ridgeline where they stopped to rest Drumfire and let the pursuit come in sight once again.

  "Where are we, Bakkat?" Jim rose in the stirrups and gazed around at the awe-inspiring chaos of mountain and valley that surrounded them.

  This place has no name for ordinary men do not come here, unless they are lost or mad."

  Then which way are the sea and the colony?" He found it difficult to keep a sense of direction in the maze of the mountains.

  Bakkat pointed without hesitation, and Jim squinted at the sun to check his bearings, but he did not question Bakkat's infallibility. "How far?"

  "Not far if you ride on an eagle's back." Bakkat shrugged. "Perhaps eight days if you know the road, and travel fast."

  "Keyset must be running out of supplies by now. Even we are down to the last bag of chagga, and twenty pounds of maize meal."

  "He will eat his spare horses before he gives up and lets you go to the meeting with your father," Bakkat predicted.

  Late that afternoon they watched, from a safe distance, as Sergeant Oudeman selected one of the horses from the remount herd and led it into a ravine near where Keyser's troop were camped. While Oudeman held its head, and Richter and Le Riche stropped their knives on a rock, Koots checked the flint and priming in his pistol. Then he walked up to the animal and placed the muzzle against the white blaze on its forehead. The shot was muted but the horse dropped instantly and kicked convulsively.

  "Horse steaks for dinner," Jim murmured, 'and Keyser has food for another week at the least." He lowered his telescope. "Bakkat, we cannot go on like this much longer. My father will not wait for ever at the Gariep."

  "How many horses do they have left?" Bakkat asked as he picked his nose thoughtfully, and examined what he had excavated.

  Jim lifted the glass again and ran it over the distant herd. '... sixteen, seventeen, eighteen," he counted. "Eighteen, including Keyser's grey." He studied Bakkat's face, but it was innocent. The horses? Yes, of course!" he exclaimed. Bakkat's studied expression broke and his face creased into an impish grin. "Yes. Their horses are the only way for us to attack them."

  The pursuit drove them on relentlessly into wild country where not even Bakkat had ventured before. Twice they saw game once a herd of four eland crossing the skyline, then fifty beautiful blue buck in a single herd together. But if they had turned aside to pursue the animals they would have lost ground and the gunfire would have brought Keyser and his troopers on at full tilt he would be with them before they could butcher their kill. If they shot one of the mules, the same thing would happen. They rode on with the last of their provisions almost gone. Jim hoarded the last handful of coffee beans.

  Gradually the pace Zama could maintain with Louisa and the mules fell off. The gap between the two parties dwindled until Jim and Bakkat caught up with them. Still Keyset's troopers came on apace, so that Jim's little band had more and more difficulty holding them off. Fresh horse steaks grilled over the fire seemed to have restored the strength and determination of Keyser's troopers. Louisa was flagging. She had been emaciated before the chase began, and now, with little food and rest, she was nearing the limit of her endurance.

  To add to Jim's worries other hunters had joined the chase. Sleeping fitfully in the darkness, cold and hungry, unable to afford time during daylight even to collect firewood, expecting at any moment that Keyser's men might creep up on them, they were startled awake by a terrible sound. Louisa screamed before she could stop herself.

  "What is that?"

  Jim leaped out of his fur kaross and went to her. He put an arm round her shoulders. She was so terrified that she did not pull away. The sound came again: a series of deep grunts, each louder than the last, crescendoing into a thunder that echoed and rolled off the dark mountains.

  "What is it?" Louisa's voice shook.

  "Lions," Jim told her. There was no point in trying to deceive her so, instead, he tried to distract her. "Even the bravest of men is frightened by a lion three times- when first he sees its spoor, when first he hears its roar, when first he meets it face to face."

  "Once is enough for me," she said, and although her voice quavered, she gave a small, uncertain laugh. Jim felt a lift of pride at her courage. Then he dropped his arm from her shoulders as he felt her shift uncomfortably in his embrace. She still could not bear a masculine touch. They are after the horses," he told her. "If fortune favours us, they might go after Keyser's animals instead of ours." As if in answer to

  his wish, a few minutes later they heard a fusillade of musket fire further back down the valley where they had seen the enemy set up camp at nightfall.

  "The lions must be on our side." Louisa laughed again, a little more convincingly- At intervals during the rest of the night there came the clap of a distant musket shot.

  "The lions are still harassing Keyser's camp," Jim said. "With luck they will lose some horses."

  At dawn as they began their flight again, Jim looked back through the telescope and saw that Keyser had lost none of his horses. "They were able to drive off the lions, more's the pity," he told Louisa.

  "Let's hope they try again tonight," she said.

  It was the hardest day they had so far been forced to endure. During the afternoon a thunderstorm swept down from the north-west and drenched them with cold, driving rain. It blew over just as the sun was setting, and in the last light of the day they saw the enemy less than a league behind them, coming on steadily. Jim continued the retreat long after dark. It was a nightmare march over wet and treacherous ground, through rills that had swollen dangerously with rain. Jim knew in his heart that they could not carry on like this much longer.

  When at last they halted Louisa almost fell from Trueheart's back. Jim wrapped her in a sodden fur kaross and gave her a small stick of chagga, almost the last of their food.

  "You have it. I am not hungry," she protested.

  "Eat it," he commanded. "No time for heroics now."

  She slumped and fell asleep before she had taken more than a few mouthfuls. Jim went to where Zama and Bakkat were sitting together. "This is just about the end," he said grimly. "We have to do it tonight, or not at all. We have to get at their horses." They had been planning all that day, but it would be a forlorn attempt. Although he kept a bold face, Jim knew it was almost certainly doomed.

  Bakkat was the only one of them who had any chance at all of thwarting Xhia's vigilance and getting into the enemy camp undiscovered, and he could not un tether all eighteen horses and bring them out on his own.

  "One or two, yes," he told Jim, 'but not eighteen."

  "We must take all of them." He looked up at the sky. A sickle moon sailed through the streaming remnants of the rain clouds "Just enough light to do the job."

  "Bakkat could get into the horse lines and cripple them, hamstring them," Zama suggested.

  Jim shifted uneasily: the idea of mutilating a horse was distasteful.

  "The first animal would scream so loudly Bakkat would have the whole camp down on him. No, that won't work."

  At that moment Bakkat sprang to his feet and sniffed loudly. "Hold the horses!" he cried. "Quickly! The lions are here."

  Zama ran to Trueheart and seized her halter rope. Bakkat darted to the mules to control them. They would be more docile than the two thoroughbreds. Jim was only just in time. He grabbed Drumfire's head as the stallion reared on his hind legs and whinnied shrilly with terror. Jim was lifted off his feet but he managed to throw an arm around
Drumfire's neck, and hold him down. "Steady, my darling. Whoa now! Easy! Easy!" he soothed him. But still the horse stamped and reared and tried to break away. Jim shouted across at Bakkat, "What is it? What's happening?"

  "It's the lion," Bakkat panted. "Foul demon! He has circled upwind, and squirted his stinking piss for the horses to smell. The lioness will be waiting down wind to catch any that break away."

  "Sweet Christ!" Jim exclaimed. "Even I can smell it!" It was a rank feline stench in the back of his throat, more repulsive than the spray of a tomcat. Drumfire reared again. The odour was driving him crazy. He was beyond control. This time Jim knew he could not hold him. He still had both arms around the stallion's neck but his feet barely touched die ground. Drumfire broke into a gallop dragging Jim along with him.

  "The lioness!" Bakkat yelled. "Beware! The lioness is waiting for you."

  Drumfire's hoofs thundered over the rocky ground, and Jim felt as though his arms were being wrenched out of their sockets.

  "Let him go, Somoya. You cannot stop him!" Bakkat screamed after him. "The lioness will get you too!"

  Jim jackknifed his body forward and as his feet struck the earth he used the power of both legs to boost himself high and swing one leg over Drumfire's back. Balancing easily to the stallion's run, he snatch Keyser's pistol from his belt and cocked the hammer with a single movement.

  To your right, Somoya!" Bakkat's voice receded behind him, but he picked up the warning just in time. He saw the movement as the lioness broke from cover and streaked in from his right. She was ghostly pale in the faint moonlight, silent, huge and terrible.

  He lifted the pistol and leaned forward. He tried to steer Drumfire with the pressure of his knees, but the horse was far beyond any restraint. He saw the lioness get ahead of them and crouch down, gathering herself to spring. Then she rose from the earth, launching herself straight at Jim. There was no time to aim. Instinctively he pointed the muzzle into her

  face. She was so close that he could see both her front paws, reaching for him with great curved claws. Her open jaws were a black pit. Her teeth shone like porcelain in the moonlight, and the graveyard stench of her breath blew hot into his face as she roared.

  He fired the pistol at the full reach of his right arm, and the muzzle flash blinded him. The weight of the lioness's body crashed into them. Even Drumfire reeled at the weight, but then he gathered himself and galloped on. Jim felt the lioness's claws rip into his boot, but they did not hold. The huge carcass dropped away, tumbled slackly across the hard ground, then lay in an inert pile.

  It took seconds for Jim to realize that he had come through the attack unscathed. Then his next care was for Drumfire. He leaned forward and clasped him around the neck, calling to him soothingly, "It's all over, my sweetheart. Whoa! There's a good boy."

  Drumfire's ears twitched back as he listened to Jim's voice. He slowed down to an easy trot, and at last to a walk. Jim steered him back up the slope. But as soon as he smelt the lioness's blood, he started mincing and dancing, throwing his head nervously.

  "Lioness is dead," Bakkat called out of the darkness. "Shot through the mouth and out the back of her skull."

  "Where is the lion?" Jim shouted back.

  As if in reply they heard the lion roar near the top of the mountain, a good mile off. "Now she is of no further use to him, he has deserted his wife," Bakkat sneered. "Cowardly and thieving beast."

  It was with difficulty that Jim coaxed Drumfire back to where Bakkat stood beside the dead lioness. He was still skittish and nervous. "I've never seen him so terrified," Jim exclaimed.

  "No animal can stay calm and brave with the smell of lion's piss or blood in his nostrils," Bakkat told him. Then they exclaimed in the same voice: That's it! We have it!"

  It was long after midnight by the time they reached the ridge overlooking the enemy camp. Keyser's watch fires had burned low, but they could see that the sentries were still awake.

  "Just a small breeze from the east." Jim held Drumfire's head to calm him. The stallion was still shivering and sweating with terror. Not even Jim's hand and voice could soothe him. Every time the carcass he was towing behind him slithered forward, he rolled his eyes until the whites glared in the moonlight.

  "We must keep below the wind," Bakkat murmured. The other horses must not catch the scent until we are ready."

  They had muffled Drumfire's hoofs with leather booties, and wrapped

  all the metal pieces of his tack. Bakkat went ahead to make sure that the way was clear as they circled out round the western perimeter of the enemy camp.

  "Even Xhia has to sleep sometime," Jim whispered to Bakkat, but he was unconvinced. They closed in slowly and were within half a pistol shot of the perimeter where they could see the enemy sentries outlined against the faint glow of their fire.

  "Give me your knife, Somoya," whispered Bakkat. "It is sharper than mine."

  "If you lose it, I will have both your ears in exchange," Jim muttered, as he handed it over.

  "Wait for my signal." Bakkat left him, in his disconcertingly abrupt fashion, seeming to vanish into the air. Jim stood at Drumfire's head, holding his nostrils closed to prevent him whickering at the smell of the other horses so close to him.

  Ee a wraith Bakkat drifted closer to the fires and his heart leaped as he saw Xhia. His enemy sat on the opposite side of the second fire, his kaross wrapped about his shoulders. Bakkat could see that his eyes were closed and his head nodded on the verge of sleep.

  Somoya was right. Bakkat smiled to himself. He does sleep sometimes.

  Nevertheless he kept well clear of Xhia, but he slipped almost contemptuously within touching distance past Corporal Richter who was guarding the horse lines Keyser's grey was the first animal he came to. As Bakkat crept up to it, he began to hum in his throat, a lulling sound. The grey shifted slightly and pricked its ears, but made no other sound. Bakkat took only a moment to sever three strands of its halter rope. Then he moved on to the next horse in the line, still humming his lullaby, and drew the blade carefully across the rope that held it.

  He was half-way down the line when behind him he heard Corporal Richter cough, hawk and spit. Bakkat sank to the earth and lay still. He heard Richter's booted footsteps coming down the line and watched him pause beside the grey's head to check the halter. In the darkness he overlooked the unravelling strands of the fraying rope. Then he came on and almost stepped on Bakkat. When he reached the end of the line he unfastened the fly of his breeches and urinated noisily on the earth. When he came back, Bakkat had crawled under the belly of one of the horses, and Richter passed without glancing in his direction. He went back to his place by the fire, and said something to Xhia who grunted a reply.

  Bakkat gave them a few minutes to settle again, then crept on down the line of horses, and dealt with each of their halter ropes.

  Jim heard the signal, the soft liquid call of a night bird so convincing that he hoped that it was indeed the little man and not a real bird that had uttered it. "No going back now!" He swung up on to Drumfire's back. The stallion needed no urging, his nerves were raw, and as he felt Jim's heels he started forward. The carcass of the lioness, half disembowelled, her reeking guts hanging out of the cavity, slithered after him and Drumfire could stand it no longer. At full tilt he tore into the sleeping camp, and on his back Jim was howling, gibbering and waving his hat over his head.

  Bakkat leaped out of the darkness on the far side grunting and roaring at an incredible volume for such a small frame. It was a perfect imitation of the beast.

  Corporal Richter, half asleep, staggered to his feet and fired his musket at Jim as he charged past. The ball missed Drumfire but hit one of the horses tethered in the lines, shattering its front leg. The animal screamed and plunged, snapping its weakened halter rope, then fell and rolled on its back kicking in the air. The other troopers woke and snatched up their muskets. The panic was contagious and they blazed away at imaginary lions and attackers, shouting challenges and orde
rs.

  "It's the Courtney bastard!" Keyser bellowed. There he is! Shoot him! Don't let him get away!"

  The horses were bombarded with shouts and screams and roars, by blasts of gunfire and, finally, by the terrifying scent of lion blood and guts. On the previous night they had been attacked repeatedly by the lion pride, and that memory was still vivid. They could stand no more. They fought their head ropes, kicking, rearing and whinnying with terror. One after another the ropes snapped and the horses were free. They wheeled away and thundered out of the camp in a solid bunch, heading downwind. Close behind them rode Jim on Drumfire. Bakkat darted out of the shadows and seized one of his stirrup leathers. While Drumfire carried him along, Bakkat was still roaring like a ravening lion. In their dust ran Keyser and his troopers, bellowing with rage and firing as fast as they were able to reload.