Alex Archer - Serpent's Kiss

Annja moved into his path.

Nigel threw a vicious punch at Annja’s head.

Annja shifted, dropped her hips to lower her center of gravity, blocked his punch with the back of her left wrist and turned it outside, away from her head. She responded with a jab and almost caught him full in the face with it before she opened her hand to slap him.

The young man went down again. This time he remained on his hands and knees for a moment while his senses whirled. He spit curses.

Ignoring the venom in his tone, Annja grabbed him by the shoulder and hustled him to the nearest tree large enough to support their weight. Four other site workers had already taken refuge among the thick branches.

“Higher!” Annja shouted.

The others clambered higher.

“Get up the tree, Nigel.” Annja pressed him against the rough bark of the teak tree.

Teak grew freely in southern India, especially in the Tamil Nadu district. The trees towered over a hundred feet and provided plenty of branches for the climbers to use to haul themselves up.

Growling curses, Nigel climbed the tree. Annja followed just as the wave smashed into the cliff face hard enough to make the ground shiver. In the next instant, the wave rolled into Annja like a battering ram and knocked her into the tree trunk with enough force to stun her.

The rough bark smashed into the side of her face, and burning pain followed. She hung on to the tree out of desperation, but as she realized her grip would hold, the wave rolled over her. In the next second she was underwater and drowning.

Annja clung to the bark and hoped it didn’t give way beneath her fingers. All she saw was swirling water. The floodwaters muted her hearing, but she heard her heart beating frantically. Stay calm, she told herself. You’re going to be all right.

She knew from experience that she was prone to tell herself that lie every time things turned out badly.

She tilted her head back and looked up the tree. She couldn’t tell how high the water went. She felt the tree quiver under the onslaught of the flood.

Staying underwater wasn’t an option. Grimly, Annja slid her arms and legs up the trunk and felt the bark bite deeply into her bare flesh. She crept up slowly, only inches at a time.

Just as her lungs felt near to burst, her head broke the surface. She managed a quick breath and turned seaward. Another wave slapped her in the face and almost knocked her from her precarious hold. She caught a branch above her head and hauled herself out of the water.

Almost full dark had rolled in with the tsunami. Annja surveyed the trees for the survivors. The roar of the water made conversation almost impossible. But she heard her name.

“Annja!” A flashlight beam lanced through the darkness.

“Here!” Annja shouted.

The bright beam stung her eyes. She turned her head away. She sat on a branch eight feet above the water. The level didn’t appear to be rising.

“They said you were underwater,” Lochata shouted from the nearby tree.

“Not anymore.” Judging herself to be at a safe height, Annja shrugged out of her backpack and checked it. It was constructed so the main cargo area, where she carried her notebook computer, her camera and her other electronic equipment, was waterproof. She’d carefully packed it when the storm approached. The only worry was that debris might have smashed it.

Everything felt all right. She didn’t want to open the backpack in the rain to find out. After selecting a sturdy branch above her, she used the straps to secure the backpack. She took a flashlight from one of the outside pockets.

For the moment, no sign remained of the cliff as the water continued to surge through the jungle and inland.

That’s got to be at least fifteen feet deep, Annja thought. She tried to remember how high the lowest tree branches had been from the ground. Then she realized she didn’t know where the lowest branches were anymore.

“How long is this going to last?” someone above her asked.

Annja looked and saw Jason Kim sitting a few branches up. He clung to the tree bole. A young German woman had her arms wrapped around his waist. Both of them looked terrified.

“I don’t know,” Annja said. “Could be only a few minutes. Might possibly be hours.”

“Is it over?” the young woman asked.

Annja was hesitant to answer. “I think so.” Given the amount of water that had flooded the land, she knew that whatever had happened at sea to cause it had to have been powerful.

The massive tree swayed under the constant bombardment of the waves. They were lessening, but still dangerous.

Lightning burned through the night and revealed the dark clouds swirling and twisting overhead. The harsh peal of thunder came immediately.

Another crack, this one different from the thunder, issued from the left. A chorus of yells and cries for help followed.

Turning in the direction of the voices, Annja spotted a teak tree as it fell into the water. Three dig members clung to the branches as it went down. Annja guessed that the tree had been poorly rooted or had rotted and weakened. Either way, the surging sea started to carry the tree away.

“They’re going to get killed,” Jason Kim said.

Other people voiced the same concerns.

Annja knew that death was a possibility. If they stayed with the tree, if they didn’t get smashed by the branches, they might survive. But the water might carry them a mile or more into the interior, just far enough for them to get lost and possibly die from some other cause.

She grabbed her rope and shimmied along the thick branch she was on. Just as the branch started to sag beneath her weight, she jumped forward for the next tree. The teaks overcrowded the area and the branches grew close together.

By the time she caught a thick branch in front of her, she’d already chosen her next landing point. Like an aerial gymnast working uneven bars, she made her way through the trees faster than the floodwaters could carry away the huge tree. She also got closer to the water level. Her hands burned from friction against the bark.

After her fifth jump, when she knew she was out of trees, Annja shrugged the rope from her shoulder. Setting herself on a limb as wide as her body, she shook out the rope, swung the grappling hook and cast.

The grappling hook landed in the branches of the fallen tree. It jerked and bounced as it slid along the length of the tree without securing a hold.

C’mon, Annja thought. Take hold somewhere.

The grappling hook snugged up against a thick branch. Annja yanked on it like fishing line to set it. Satisfied it was securely in place and knowing that she’d never be able to hold the tree on her own, she dropped over the back of the branch she was on and paid out rope as she plunged into the water.

For a moment as she entered the water, she was afraid. The drop was little more than six feet, but she knew anything could be under the water. If she was knocked unconscious or seriously injured, no one would be able to help her.

The flashlight beams of the other dig site members played over the water as they tracked the tree caught in the surge. The glowing light continued moving away from Annja.

When the rope bit into her hand, Annja paid out more line and fought the current to get to the base of the tree she’d dropped from. Once she had hold of the tree, she pulled herself around it and looped the rope. Then it, too, became a deadly threat.

If she got caught in the rope, if the weight didn’t amputate her fingers or a hand or break them, it might trap her below the water and leave her to drown. The coarse fiber burned along her palm.

The rope pulled taut. The tree she’d attached it to shivered under the assault. But it held.