John Flanagan: Halts peril

The white robes drew back to take stock. They had lost nearly a quarter of their number in that first mad rush. Clubs and daggers were no match for Horace's sword and even those among them with swords had no real weapon skill. And the Ranger with the two knives was as fast as a striking snake.

Then one, bolder or angrier than the others, stepped forward, waving them to follow.

'Come on! There's only…'

A deafening BANG! drowned out his words and a vast cloud of brown smoke billowed up right before him. He staggered back in panic. Another loud detonation and another dense cloud of smoke followed as Malcolm hurled a second mudball at the group of men. They fell back, crying out in fear.

Then the first man stopped, shaking his head. The explosion had happened right at his feet, barely a metre away. Yet, apart from a ringing in his ears and the sour smell of the smoke, he was uninjured. The missiles, whatever they were, were harmless.

'They can't hurt you!' he yelled. 'They're just noise and smoke! Come on!'

He led the way forward, but only a few of the others went with him. The rest huddled uncertainly, disoriented by the deafening explosions and the whirling smoke.

Perched on the rocks, Will stood ready to pick off any of the white robes who might pose a threat to Halt and Horace. His instincts cried out for him to scramble down the rocks and join them, but reason told him he would be more use to them up here.

Besides, he could see that the bulk of the white robes were no longer interested in the fight. They were cowed, huddled together in a group, backing slowly away from Halt and Horace. Something rattled against the boulder beside him, then a thin trickle of sand fell from the ceiling of the cavern, lost in the darkness above him. He had noticed this happened with each of the explosions. The mudballs might be harmless, but the noise set up vibrations in the cavern and sent loose rocks and sand falling from the walls and roof.

There was a louder noise of falling rocks now and a small cascade tumbled down from the roof in the centre of the cavern, falling close to the group of dispirited white robes. Will hoped that Malcolm would be a little more circumspect with the explosive balls. The roof seemed to be decidedly unstable. Too much vibration and they could be in trouble. It wouldn't take a lot to…

Where was Tennyson?

The thought struck him out of nowhere. He looked wildly around the cavern. He wasn't with the small group left facing Halt and Horace. He'd been by the altar when Will had last seen him, when he called on his followers to attack. But he…

There! There was a robed figure climbing the far wall, behind the altar. He was nearly six metres from the floor of the cave already. Above Tennyson, Will saw a ledge and the black mouth of another tunnel just a few metres away from the desperately climbing figure. There was no doubt that he was heading for it.

And there was no doubt in Will's mind that the tunnel was an alternative route out of the cavern. In a few more minutes, Tennyson would reach it and he'd be gone.

He nocked an arrow, drew and shot. But the uncertain, flickering firelight, coupled with the roiling brown smoke that filled the cavern, made it almost impossible to shoot accurately. The arrow struck sparks off the rock half a metre above Tennyson, and screeched off into the darkness. Galvanised by the sight and sound of it, Tennyson quickly moved sideways, into the cover of a vertical buttress that protruded from the wall. Will could see only occasional glimpses of him as he continued to climb – not enough to get away an accurate shot. When he reached the ledge, Will would have a second to aim and shoot again. But the flickering light and clouds of smoke would make an accurate shot almost impossible. And if he missed, Tennyson would escape.

He hesitated. Then he was bounding down the rocks to the floor of the cavern, racing across the cleared ground to the boulder where Malcolm was perched, his padded box of mudballs at his feet. Will scrambled up beside him. He had time to register that now there were only three attackers facing Halt and Horace and as he did so, he saw the three men throw down their weapons and call for quarter.

But across the cavern, Tennyson was escaping.

He reached down and grabbed the box of explosive mudballs from Malcolm, glancing into it to see how many there were.

Malcolm had started with a dozen and had used three. Like Will, he had noticed the effect the noise vibrations were having on the cavern and decided it was too risky to continue with them. Besides, Horace and Halt were taking care of things quite admirably, he thought. Now he watched, aghast, as Will seized the box containing nine more mudballs and drew his arm back.

'Will! Don't!' he cried. 'You'll bring down the…'

He got no further. The young Ranger brought his arm forward and sent the box spinning across the cavern. Instinctively, Malcolm fell into a crouch and covered his ears with his hands. The violent movement involved in throwing the box could be enough to rattle the mudballs together and detonate them.

But the box, spinning slowly, sailed across the vast cavern, reaching almost halfway to the altar before it sank to hit the sandy floor. It skipped, bouncing into the air again, then toppled in the air and hit the ground again, this time on one corner.

In the instant before the cavern filled with the massive eruption of noise and smoke, Will saw Tennyson emerge onto the ledge leading to the escape tunnel. The false prophet glanced back once at the scene on the cavern floor.

Then the earth shook beneath their feet and thunder filled the cavern. Rocks and earth fell from the ceiling in ever-increasing amounts. Small landslides started in the jumbled rocks that lined the sides of the cave, rapidly growing in size and violence. A gigantic pillar of brownish yellow smoke shot up. Just before it obscured the far wall, Will saw a massive rock shaken loose from the cavern wall above the ledge where Tennyson stood. It hit beside him, barely a metre from him. Instinctively, the preacher recoiled, stepping back onto empty air and toppling slowly off the ledge. He smashed against the jagged rocks at the base of the rock wall and Will had one final glimpse of his broken, lifeless body.

Then he was hidden from sight by the billowing masses of brown smoke.

Rocks were falling faster and in increasingly greater numbers now and the sand trickle had become a dozen cascades in different parts of the cavern. There was no doubt. The walls and roof were coming down and they had only seconds to get clear. Will grabbed Malcolm's arm and dragged him down from the perch on the boulder.

'Come on!' he yelled.

Malcolm was frozen momentarily. He stared at the falling rocks and tumbling showers of sand. 'Are you mad?' he asked and Will shoved him roughly towards the tunnel entrance.

'Yes! Now get the hell out of here!' Will yelled and, finally, the healer started towards the exit. Satisfied that he was moving, Will ran back to where Halt and Horace still stood, facing the defeated white robes, barring their way to the tunnel. Tennyson's followers, already defeated and demoralised, were now totally disoriented as well by the terrifying sequence of events they had just witnessed.

'Come on!' Will shouted. He grabbed Horace's arm, dragging him along with him. 'Halt! We've got to get out now!'

Horace was moving with him but Halt hesitated.

'Tennyson?' he queried, but Will beckoned him urgently.

'He's finished! I saw him fall. Come on, Halt!'

Still Halt lingered. But then an entire section of roof gave way and came crashing down in a cloud of dust and sand, adding to the masses of brown smoke, and his decision was made. He turned and ran for the tunnel entrance.

In a fatal mistake, the surviving white robes ran in the opposite direction, disappearing into the swirling dust and smoke.