Power of the Sword - Smith Wilbur. Страница 61

We have made up five or six hours on them while they slept, Blaine murmured, and looked at Centaine. She straightened up immediately from her weary slump but she was pale and light-headed with fatigue.

He's using up his horses like a prodigal, she said, and they both looked at the two animals that Lothar had abandoned. They stood with heads hanging, muzzles almost touching the ground, a pair of chestnut mares, one with a white blazed forehead and the other with white socks.

Both of them moved only with pain and difficulty, and their tongues were black and swollen, protruding from the sides of their mouths.

He did not waste water on them, Blaine agreed. Poor devils. 'You will have to put them down, Centaine said.

That's why he left them, Centaine, he said gently.

I don't understand. The shots, he explained. He'll be listening for gunfire job Blaine! What are we going to do? We can't leave them. Make coffee and breakfast. We are all played out, horses and men. We must rest for a few hours before we go on. He swung down from the saddle and untied his blanket roll. in the meantime I will take care of the cripples. He shook out his sheepskin under-blanket as he walked across to the first mare. He stopped in front of her and unbuckled the flap of his holster. He drew his service pistol and wrapped the sheepskin over his right hand that held the pistol.

The mare dropped instantly to the muted thud of the pistol, and kicked spasmodically before relaxing into stillness. Centaine looked away, busying herself with measuring coffee into the billy as Blaine walked heavily across to the blazed chesnut mare.

There was a tiny movement of air, not truly a sound, light as the flirt of a sun-bird's wing, but both Swart Hendrick and Lothar De La Rey lifted their heads and pulled up their mounts. Lothar raised his hand for silence and they waited, holding their breath.

It came again, another spit of distant muted gunfire, and Lothar and Hendrick glanced at each other.

The arsenic trick did not work, grunted the big black Ovambo. 'You should have really poisoned the water, not pretended, and Lothar shook his head wearily.

She must be riding like a she-devil. They are only four hours behind us, less if they push their horses. I never believed she could come on so quickly. You cannot be sure that it is her, Hendrick told him.

It's her. Lothar showed no trace of doubt. She promised me she would come. His voice was hoarse, his lips cracked and flaky with dry skin. His eyes were bloodshot, gummed with yellow mucus thick as clotted cream and deeply underscored with bruised purple smudges. His beard was particoloured, gold and ginger and white.

His arm was wrapped in bandage to the elbow, the yellow discharge had seeped through the cloth. He had looped a cartridge belt around his neck as a sling, and the arm was supported partly by the belt and partly by the black japanned despatch case strapped to the pommel of his saddle.

He turned to look back across the plain with its sparse covering of scrub and camel-thorn, but the movement brought on another wave of giddiness and he swayed and snatched at the despatch case to prevent himself falling.

Pa! manfred grabbed his good arm, his face contorted with concern. Pa! Are you all right? Lothar closed his eyes before he could answer. All right, he croaked. He could feel the infection swelling and distorting the flesh of his hand and forearm. The skin felt thin and stretched to the point of bursting like an overripe plum, and the heat of the poison flowed with his blood. He could feel it throbbing painfully in the glands below his armpit and from there spreading out through his whole body, squeezing the sweat out through his skin, burning his eyes and pounding in his temples, shimmering a desert mirage in his brain.

Go on,he whispered. Got to go on,and Hendrick picked up the lead rein with which he was guiding Lothar's horse.

Wait! blurted Lothar, rocking in the saddle. How far to the next water? We'll be there before noon tomorrow. Lothar was trying to concentrate but the fever filled his head with steam and heat.

The horse irons. It's time for the horse irons. Hendrick nodded. They had carried the horse irons from the cache in the hills. They weighed seventy pounds, a heavy burden for one of the lead horses.

It was time to be rid of some of that weight now.

We'll give her a bait to lead her onto them, Lothar croaked.

The short rest, the hasty meal and even the strong, hot, over-sweetened coffee seemed only to have increased Centaine's fatigue.

I will not let him see it, she told herself firmly. I'll not give in until they do. But her skin felt so dry that it might tear like paper and the glare ached in her eyes, filling her skull with pain.

She glanced sideways at Blaine. He sat straight and tall in the saddle, invincible and indefatigable, but he turned his head and his eyes softened as he looked at her.

We'll break for a drink in ten minutes, he told her softly.

I'm all right, she protested.

We are all tired, he said. There is no shame in admitting it. He broke off and shaded his eyes, peering ahead.

What is it? she demanded.

I'm not sure. He lifted the binoculars that hung on his chest and focused them on the dark blob far ahead that had caught his attention. I still can't recognize what it is. He passed the glasses to her and Centaine stared through them.

Blaine! she exclaimed. The diamonds! It's the diamond case! They have dropped the diamonds. Her fatigue fell away from her like a discarded cape and before he could stop her she put her heels into her gelding's flanks and urged him into a gallop, overtaking the Bushmen.

The two spare horses were forced to follow her, straining on their lead reins, the water bottles bouncing wildly on their backs.

Centaine! Blaine shouted, and spurred his mount after her, trying to catch her.

Sergeant Hansmeyer had been drooping in the saddle, but he roused himself instantly as the two leaders galloped away.

Troop, forward! he shouted, and the whole party was tearing ahead.

Suddenly Centaine's gelding screamed with agony and reared under her. She was almost thrown from the saddle, but recovered her balance with a fine feat of horsemanship, and then the spare horses were whinnying and kicking and lashing out in agony. Blaine tried to turn out, but he was too late and his mount broke down under him, his spare horses shrieking and bucking on their leads.

Halt! he screamed, turning desperately to try and stop Sergeant Hansmeyer's charge, signalling him with both arms. Halt! Troop, halt! The Sergeant reacted swiftly, swinging his mount to block the troopers who followed him, and they came up short in a tangle of milling, tramping horses, the dust swirling over them in a fine mist.

Centaine sprang down from the saddle and checked her gelding's front legs, they were both sound and she lifted a rear hoof and stared in disbelief. A burr of rusted iron was stuck to the frog of the gelding's hoof and dark blood was already pouring from the wound it had inflicted, mingling into a muddy paste with the fine desert dust.

Gingerly Centaine took hold of the metal rose and tried to pull it away, but it was buried deeply and the gelding trembled with the pain. She tugged and twisted, carefully avoiding the protruding spikes, and at last the horrible thing came free in her hand, wet with the gelding's blood. She straightened and looked across at Blaine. He also had been busy with his own mount's feet and held two of the bloody irons in his hands.

Horse irons, Blaine told her. I haven't seen the cruel damned things since the war. They were crudely forged, shaped like the ubiquitous devil thorns of the African veld, four pointed stars aligned so that one point was always standing upright. Three inches of sharp iron that would cripple man or beast, or would slash the tyres of a following vehicle.