But I held tight to the rope and tried to duck my head away from the falling glob. The fluttering sound rose and seemed like thunder in my ears. Small black objects were zooming around my head and off to distant parts of the cave. Soft wings beat at me.
And then I knew.
Bats.
The cave had been strangely absent of life when we had entered it, but that opening that provided light should have told me that wildlife of some sort must be using this cave. That wildlife was bats and they had all been in their favorite nest in the opening of the chimney.
That black glob that had looked like a soot-covered boulder was a cluster of several hundred bats.
Elicia was screaming below me, but I knew she was in no danger. She was merely reacting to the bats that were now streaking back and forth in the cave, dive-bombing every alien object spotted by their special radar. While the bats occupied themselves with harassing Elicia and the warriors, I continued my climb to the top of the rope.
My side was on fire and every muscle in my body — especially my hands — threatened to go soft on me as I took one hand from the rope and clasped it around the rock spear. The spear, I could see in the dim light, actually was the leading edge of a small ledge just outside the hole leading up.
There were hundreds of baby bats in a nest on that ledge.
A high-pitched squeal came from the nest when my hand bumped against it. This set off the other bats in the cave. They were still streaking back and forth, dive-bombing Elicia and the four warriors. Now they began a screaching and squealing that was almost deafening, and was certainly hair-raising.
Distasteful as it was, I raised myself with both hands on the rock ledge and reached in to scoop out the nest. Bony wings flapped against my arm and face as the debris came falling down past me. Straw, twigs, dried grass and large cakes of bat shit made up most of the debris.
The screeching in the cave reached a fever pitch when the baby bats went plummeting down to the platform. The adult bats began swooping down and catching the little ones in wiry claws, then flying around and around in a circle, looking for a safe place to nest them. But I had fought hard for this place at the peak of the cave's dome and I wasn't about to be unseated by mama bats.
It took several minutes, however, to work my way up through the hole and onto the ledge. The hole was bigger than it had looked from below.
There was plenty of room for me to stand on the ledge, haul the others up one by one with the rope and let them get past me into the chimney.
I looked up to see if other ledges existed above me, but the walls were smooth and black. I stood on the ledge and ran my hands over the smooth walls of the almost round hole. Soot fell away, covering my body and falling down into the cave.
The only way to climb, I deduced, would be to put my feet on one side of the wall and my back against the other. By scooting along, like a mountain climber in a narrow ravine or cleft, I'd be able to make progress. It would be slow progress, but I knew the chimney must narrow as it rose. It must also twist and turn, giving us purchase with our feet and hands.
Then again, I thought, this isn't a man-made hole up through the mountain. Smoke and air don't need large or perfect openings. The chimney might have places where it narrowed too much to permit the passage of anything the size of a man.
There was, of course, only one way to find answers to all my speculations. And that was to climb up.
I was tempted to go on alone, knowing that time was precious and that I could make much better time on my own. But I would need the warriors and Elicia at the top. I would need firepower. That is, if this chimney had an opening at the top big enough for us to get through.
I loosened the loop of rope on the jutting rock and made a more secure link over a greater section of rock. When the rope was ready, I looked down and saw that Elicia and the four warriors were still fending off bats.
"Climb up first, Elicia," I shouted. "The rope is secure."
"Nick, I can't do it," she shouted back. "The bats. They're attacking our eyes."
I looked harder and sure enough the bats were not missing them in their diving attacks. Most were still swooping past Elicia and the others, but some — perhaps the mothers of the disenfranchised babies — were making direct hits, going for the eyes.
I remembered reading somewhere that bats were frightened of loud noises. The sound of our voices had alarmed them and had got them stirred up. What would a louder sound do to them?
I didn't know, but anything was worth a try. I got Wilhelmina out of its pouch and aimed at a point to the side of the platform. It wouldn't do to have a ricochet or a hunk of splintered rock hit Elicia or the others.
BOOM!
The whole damned cave seemed to explode in a rolling crescendo of thunder. The sound of the shot echoed from wall to wall and back again, nearly blasting out my eardrums. I could imagine what the sound must have been like below.
The bats went wild then. The deafening sound of the luger shot must have fritzed up their radar. They screeched and slammed into the walls of the cave. The mothers gave up their attack on Elicia and the warriors and went sailing off into walls. Some of them even flopped into the icy pond and a few others sailed out through the narrow opening into the afternoon light.
"Hurry and climb," I called down. "Once they get their senses back, they'll renew their attack. Come on, Elicia."
Elicia climbed as though she'd been squirreling up ropes all her life. She reached the outcropping of rock and I put out a hand to help her. She missed my hand on the first try and did a crazy spiral on the rope. Her hand slashed at the air and she was about to lose her grip with her other hand. I leaned down, caught her swirling arm and literally dragged her into the hole and onto the narrow ledge.
"Climb farther up to make room for the others," I said. "Put your feet against one side and your back against the other. Just scoot your body along until you're ten to fifteen feet up the tunnel."
She was short and her body barely gained purchase on the opposing walls. When she went past me, I put my hands on her buttocks to give her a boost. Her skirt was hanging free and my hands were against bare flesh. For a fleeting moment, I remembered that delicious hour in the council hut, then put it all out of my mind. Wrong time, wrong place. And she was Purano's woman now.
Most of the rest went smoothly and without mishap. But not all. When three of the warriors were shuttling along up after Elicia and the fourth was on the rope, climbing up, the bats returned.
"Hurry, before their radar picks you out," I said in a hoarse whisper. "Climb, man, climb."
The Indian came streaking up the rope, hand over hand, his legs dangling free. The bats sensed him and, after making several swoops just beneath him, they zeroed in on his body and, finally, his face.
He was almost at the top when a huge bat came swooping in a wide arc around the full circumference of the cave below. It took a radar bead on the warrior's eyes and scored a direct hit just as my hand was touching the Indian's outstretched hand.
We never made the proper link.
The warrior let out a scream, and let go of the rope. The bats skittered to dark areas of the cave and I lunged forward to catch the man's flailing arms. I missed and he went plummeting thirty feet through the dimly-lighted air.
I heard him hit, heard the sickening thwack of skull being cracked open. I knew he was dead the moment he landed. But I waited there at the opening to make sure. The Indian had landed on his |head, and his rifle had gone clattering across the platform, sending up a cloud of ashes. Human ashes. I stared at his body, at the grotesque way he was strewn on the platform. There was no movement and the bats were already attacking his face.
Even as a sick feeling was rumbling through my stomach and chest, I looked up to see that the others had also witnessed the disaster. The three warriors and Elicia were silent, watching the bats work over the battered corpse below. I didn't try to imagine what they were thinking or feeling: there was no time for the obvious.