“Left… no, your other left, six inches and you’ll get your toehold.”
“Is yon beastie still watching me?”
“Aye. Still there, and not moving.”
He finally found the toehold, let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and began to reach for the next handhold but wasn’t given time to reach it.
“Fuck,” Davies said clearly as a barking roar split the air. A second later, Hynd was deafened as Davies fired three rounds only a couple of yards above his head.
There was no thought in Hynd’s next action. He let go of his handhold, pushed away from the wall, and was turning as he fell, already reaching for his weapon. He hit the ground solidly, flexing his knees to keep his balance, swung up his weapon, and for the first time looked up. The raptor was only yards away and coming on like a train. Blood showed at its chest where Davies’ shots had hit their mark but they hadn’t held enough power to slow the steamroller. The beast’s jaws opened, slavering bloody saliva as if already anticipating a meal. Hynd stood his ground, put two shots down its throat, then leapt to one side as the raptor hit the wall where he’d just been standing. He was able to take two steps aside. As the beast, already dying but still game for more, turned its gaze on him, he put two more shots into its left eye.
“Are there any more of these fuckers?” he said to Davies where the young private was looking down at him.
“Naw. I think they’re feart of the new king of the jungle,” Davies said with a grin.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Hynd replied. “Even Tarzan needs a hand sometimes. Tell me where the fucking handholds are. I need to get the hell out of this hole.”
In the end, the climb went simply. The jungle stayed quiet and a minute later, Hynd was up on the ledge with Davies and the others looking down at the dead body of the raptor.
“These boogers are supposed to be extinct,” the black-haired doctor said on the far side of Davies. Hynd laughed grimly.
“I don’t think they give a fuck. Now, where’s that wee bugger Wilko? Has he found us a way off this cliff yet?”
Wilkins’ pale face showed in the gloom some five yards away up a narrow track.
“It gets steeper again higher up, Sarge,” the private said. “But I’ve found us a defensible spot. There’s a cave up there big enough for us all to hunker down for the night in. It’s not safe to try climbing higher in the dark.”
“Aye, I agree. And a cave, you say? Luxury. Lay on, MacDuff. Led us to it.”
Another roar bellowed from the jungle below and a second raptor arrived in the small clearing below them at a rush, its gaze fixed on the carcass at the foot of the cliff. As it closed, its head was well below Hynd’s feet. It didn’t look like a climber but he kept his rifle sighted on it until he was more than sure that the beast was intent on the easy meal provided by the one he had killed. Only when he was convinced it had no interest in them did he turn and follow as Wilkins lead the small party higher up the slope.
- 9 -
The climb almost proved too much for Banks and Wiggins. The two of them had managed to avoid any more pursuers and had reached the crater rim with no further problems. They came up short when faced with what looked like a sheer wall rising up into the dark above them—cold, black, basaltic rock with edges as sharp as razors.
“I think we’re buggered, Cap,” Wiggins said after three attempts on what seemed like promising areas of ascent turned into retreat and bruised and cut hands and knees.
“Master of the understatement as usual, Wiggo,” Banks replied. “But our mates are on the other side so one way or another, we’re going over the top.”
“Maybe flag down a ride on one of yon dinosaurs?”
“And what are you going to pay it with? Sexual favors?”
“Hey, don’t mock it, Cap. That’s the plan that gets me home most nights after the pub.”
They were talking to avoid looking at the wall of rock and they both knew it. Banks forced his attention back to the cliff.
I’ve climbed harder.
He hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud until Wiggins replied.
“Aye, that you have, Cap. But that was a temple in the Amazon jungle and you were in your birthday suit. I think there’s too much danger to my tadger to get my kecks off here.”
But the memory of that wet climb alone in the dark stirred something in Banks, the same steely resolve that had always got him through.
“One more try then, Wiggo,” he said and put a hand on the rock face as if making its acquaintance for the first time. “First one up gets a round in.”
“That’s hardly an incentive for me to move my arse, is it?”
“I’ll throw in a fag?”
“Now you’re talking,” Wiggins replied.
The two of them took to the rock again.
It was as if a mental block had been shifted. Banks found handholds where none had previously been apparent and his muscles remembered the old climbing rhythms that had been impossible to find earlier. He swung, hand, foot, hand, in a loping movement up the cliff and even the swinging weight of his weapon at his back refused to unsettle him.
He was vaguely aware of Wiggins huffing and puffing somewhere below but for Banks, there was only him and the challenge of the rock, an old battle he had won many times and one he now won again. What seemed like only a minute or so later, he pulled himself over a slight overhang to sit on the crater lip with another drop into darkness below him on the far side.
“I’ll have that fag first,” Wiggins said, panting heavily as Banks took hold of his arm and hauled him over the overhang to sit beside him. They shared a smoke, cupping it inside their fingers to avoid the glow of the tip giving them away, sitting on what felt like the top of the world, the crater spread out under the stars below them.
Banks was looking for the flickering red of fire or a wash of brightness from a flashlight but there were only dark shadows below, no sign of any human activity, although a fresh barking roar from off to the left showed that there was life there.
“Well, we’re up,” Wiggins said as he stubbed out the end of the smoke with thumb and forefinger and let the remnants disperse naturally in the slight breeze. “What now, Cap?”
As if in answer, gunfire echoed around the crater. To Banks’ expert ear, it sounded like it came from the same direction of that last roar.
“The sarge and the lads are in trouble down there, Wiggo. Shift that lardy arse of yours—we’re going to the rescue.”
Descending proved much more difficult than the climb had been. The breeze stiffened, threatening to blow them off the cliff, and Banks had to take every move painfully slowly, testing that each point of contact with the rock would bear his weight before then reaching downward for the next. At times, movement was forced to be more lateral than downward when no holds emerged. He gauged they’d descended less than halfway before his muscles began to throb and complain. He knew that Wiggins with his heavier body would be suffering at least as equally.
And probably worse than the physical strain the fact that the climb was happening in deathly quiet only added to his worries for the team members lost somewhere out in the jungle. The assured loping dance of muscle and body he’d fallen into on the way up the rock escaped him on the descent. It rapidly turned into a test of will against strain and pain.
He only looked down once he estimated he must be getting near the canopy and was surprised to see, not trees, but the flat roofs of an extensive series of buildings, the nearest only ten feet below him. The buildings lay quiet with no sign that they’d been in recent use, although it was too dark to make out any detail. There was no sign of campfires or lights, no smell of smoke in the air, and no noise save for his own labored breathing and the scuffle of Wiggins’ feet on the rock some five feet above his head.