'My name is Halt,' Halt continued, raising his voice. If the news that he was a Ranger had caused a stir, the name Halt had a more far-reaching effect. Halt was famous throughout the Kingdom. He was a legend. Those who had pulled back from him when he first challenged Alseiass now began to crowd in to get a closer look at him.
Halt decided to up the ante a little. He pointed to the jumble of rocks where Will was concealed.
'And up there is another Ranger you may have heard of. Will Treaty.'
Heads turned and Will rose slowly from his position in the rocks. They could see the well-known Ranger cloak and cowl and the unmistakable longbow, favoured weapon of the Ranger Corps. He pushed the cowl back now so they could see his face in the dim light.
If people had shown interest at Halt's name, it was redoubled when he mentioned Will. They weren't all that far from Macindaw, where Will had defeated a Scotti invasion. Halt might be a national legend, but Will Treaty was a local hero.
'We've been trailing this man,' Halt indicated Tennyson once more, 'for months. He murdered King Ferris, King of Clonmel. He stole from the people of Hibernia and he fled to Picta. Now he's here to steal from you – him and his cohorts who were here before him. Chances are they've already killed friends and neighbours of yours.'
Again, there was an angry reaction from the crowd. People had been killed by the bandit group that worked in parallel with the Outsiders cult. Now those present began to realise who had really been responsible.
'You've been tricked,' Halt told them, after the angry muttering had died down. 'And we're here to take Tennyson and his gang into custody. But first, I wanted to prove to you that Tennyson is a fraud and Alseiass, the god he pretends to worship, is a fake. If you choose to stand by him, well and good. But if not, I'll give you this chance to leave now. Turn your back on him and get out.'
Fifty
For a moment there was silence in the vast cavern. Then one of the crowd called out.
'What about our gold?'
There was a chorus of assent from the others. They might be prepared to walk away from the false religion they had embraced. But their gold and jewels were another matter. Halt held his hands up for silence.
'You'll have a chance to get it back,' he told them. 'But right now you have to make a decision. You've been fooled by this man. But stupidity isn't a crime. Go now and there'll be no further consequences. Stay and we'll consider you're part of his gang.'
He pointed to the tunnel leading out of the cavern. There was another long pause, then two people began to make their way towards it. They were followed by three more. Then another man on his own. And slowly, the trickle of people leaving the cavern became a flood.
Tennyson, watching, couldn't believe his luck. The stranger was letting them go. And in doing so, he was giving Tennyson and his men an advantage. Against a hundred or so angry country people, they would have stood no chance. But now he had twenty men and they were faced by only three – four if you counted the small, monk-like figure he could now make out at the rear of the cavern. He gestured to his men to wait. And he backed up a few paces to the cavern wall behind him. There was another exit from the cavern. He knew about it but the secret was shared by only a few of his followers. The access to it was high above him, where a tunnel led off from a ledge on the wall.
Once the local people had left, he would order his men to attack. In the confusion, he'd climb quickly to the ledge, go through the tunnel and emerge at the top of the cliffs, free to move on and start again. He'd have to abandon most of the loot they had taken from the local countryside. But he'd stashed a bag of gold and a selection of the more valuable jewels in the tunnel, against such an eventuality as this one. It would be enough for him to escape and start up again somewhere else, far away from here. Perhaps this time he'd head for Gallica. There was no real law and order in that disorganised country. A man could do very well for himself there, he thought.
The last of the local people were making their way out of the cavern now. Halt watched them go. He'd wanted to get them out of the way. He knew Tennyson wouldn't go quietly and with the cave full of people, it would be difficult to tell friend from foe. Besides, as he had said, these people were fools, not criminals, and he didn't want to see any of them injured or killed. Now, he thought, it might be time to pare down the odds even further. He looked at the row of white robes facing him. They were all armed, he saw. A few had swords or maces. Most carried clubs and daggers. There might be a few real fighters among them, he thought, but the majority would be nothing more than thugs. He was confident that he, Horace and Will could handle them relatively easily.
'My argument isn't with any of you, either,' he said. 'I want Tennyson, that's all. Any of you who choose to leave now can go freely.'
He saw a few of the white robes exchanging uncertain glances. They'd be Araluans, he thought, people who knew that tangling with two Rangers might not be the best idea in the world. Tennyson's Hibernian followers stood fast.
But before any of his followers could desert him, Tennyson's voice rose in a high-pitched screech.
'Do you think he'll just let you go?' he challenged them. 'He'll hunt you down once you're out of here. There's only one thing to do. We've got them outnumbered! An old man and two boys! Kill them! Kill them!'
And as his voice reached a peak of urgency, the tension broke and the white robes surged forward in a bunch, weapons raised.
Quickly, Halt retreated before their first rush, drawing his saxe to deflect a dagger thrust, then slashing the razor edge across his attacker's forearm. The man yelled in pain and dropped out of the fight, nursing his bloodied arm. But there were others behind him and Halt continued to back away. He had drawn his smaller knife now as well. He blocked a man's sword cut with his saxe, stepped in and rammed the short knife home. Halt saw the man's eyes glaze as his knees slowly gave way. But there was no time to see any more. Another attacker was pressing him and there were two more on his right. He turned to face the new attack.
Then there was space around him as Horace leapt to his aid, his sword flashing in the uncertain light of candles and fire like a giant blazing wheel of light. He cut down three attackers in the space of a few seconds. A fourth staggered away, clutching at the shaft of an arrow that protruded from his chest. Will again, Halt thought.
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 cei
ling 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.
Will, with Horace in tow, reached the tunnel entrance. For a moment, the tall warrior baulked at the dark hole, but Will dragged him forward.
'I'm with you!' he said and he felt Horace's resistance disappear as he followed his friend into the stygian darkness of the tunnel. A shadow filled the entrance as Halt came behind them.
For Horace, the tunnel was even worse than before. The whole space echoed with the thunder of falling rocks and crashing landslides. He could feel the terrifying vibrations in the ground under his feet and in the walls as he brushed against them. And now the tunnel was filling with clouds of choking dust. He couldn't see the dust in the total darkness but it rasped in his throat and nose and set him coughing helplessly. The darkness, the noise, the choking dust – they were all parts of his worst dreams and he was close to losing control. But Will's grip was firm on his arm and he fought back the panic, following his friend.
He felt the downward pressure on his arm and realised they must be close to the low exit from this tunnel. He crouched, following Will, felt something bump against him from behind and after a moment of searing terror realised it was Halt.
Then the three comrades staggered, coughing violently, into the smaller cavern and the blessed relief of the dim grey light that came through the ventilation slits high in the wall. Dust billowed from the aperture they had just come through and they moved away from it as the dust clouds began to fill the smaller cavern. Malcolm was waiting for them at the entrance to the second tunnel, gesturing feverishly for them to join him.
'Come on!' he yelled. 'The whole cave system is unstable. It could all collapse at any minute!'
As if on cue, a section of the inner wall fell away and slid, crumbling into small pieces, to the floor. More dust exploded into the air.
Then it was into the darkness once more and the twisting, turning, narrow tunnel, with the sound of the earth collapsing behind them and Will's steady grip on Horace's arm to lead him. For a moment, Horace had the horrifying thought that the tunnel itself might collapse an
d he would be buried here inside it. But he forced it away, knowing that if he gave into the sickening sense of panic his limbs would freeze and he would never move from this spot.
Then the blackness around him was not quite so black and he realised he could make out the dim figure of Will, leading him, outlined against the dull grey light that came from the entrance to the tunnel.
With a moan of relief, Horace staggered out of the tunnel. Malcolm, waiting just outside, grabbed his arm and hurried him away. Will waited to make sure that Halt had followed them and the two Rangers ran side by side, coughing and eyes streaming, till they were well clear of the cave entrance.
Wearily, the four turned to view the narrow cleft in the rock face. Dust poured from it. Then there was a huge rumble in the earth and the dust became a massive billowing cloud that jetted in a solid stream from the narrow cleft, vomiting from the high-level vents, forced out by the collapsing cave system behind it.
Halt wiped one hand across his dust-stained face.
'Well,' he said, 'looks as if the Outsiders cult has finally gone underground.'
Then he sank wearily to the ground. Slowly the others joined him and they sat in silence, watching the dust as it continued to vomit from the tunnel. Halt rubbed his knee, aching from where he'd knocked it against a rock outcrop in their headlong, blind dash through the tunnel.