A quarter mile farther, Mercer found a suitable spot to make their climb. The cliff still soared in a near vertical massif, but its face was scarred with deep fissures and scaly projections that would act as hand and foot holds. And most important, they were out of earshot of the monastery.
“Wait here.” He moved away from the cliff so he could study the whole wall, mapping a route to avoid climbing into a dead end. A more experienced climber would have been able to judge the features of the stone in the moonlight and possibly pick a safe route, but Mercer was, at best, a climber by necessity. He’d never had a burning desire to hang hundreds of feet above his death. He allowed himself only a few minutes, his mind absorbing every possible detail before rejoining Selome.
“Well?”
“Have you ever climbed before?”
“No.”
“All right, you’ll lead. I’m going to be right behind you so I can give you directions.” He couldn’t afford to have her freeze below him. “It looks a lot worse than it is, so just move where I tell you and everything will be fine.”
“I have to tell you that I’m afraid of heights,” she said in a small voice.
“Well, I’m afraid of spiders and that’s the real reason you’re going first. You get them for me and I’ll make sure nothing happens to you. Okay?” His grin seemed to give her that last bit of confidence she needed.
“Okay.”
Their progress was smooth at first. The base of the cliff had a shallower pitch than what lay ahead, and the stone had been cleaved by erosion. They kept three points on the rock at all times, cautious but moving well. After thirty feet the face steepened, and they could no longer climb in a stooped position. Forced to stand upright, they pressed themselves to the cool stone, the void sucking at them from below. Mercer could sense Selome’s panic rising, and he touched her ankle gently, reassuring her that he was still with her.
“Veer to the left more,” he whispered. “There’s a natural chimney that should take us up another twenty feet. It leads to a shelf where we can take our first break.” He didn’t add that after the shelf, the climb would become more difficult.
The chimney was wide enough for Mercer to jam his shoulders against both sides and wriggle his way upward. Selome had a better strength-to-weight ratio, so she could climb even faster. They reached the shelf a half hour after beginning their assault and lay side by side, both panting from the exertion. “Keep moving your fingers or they’ll stiffen,” Mercer warned as he sucked the blood from where he had scraped two of his knuckles.
“How am I doing?”
“You’re wonderful.”
“You aren’t so bad yourself.” Selome kissed him. “Ready?”
“You bet,” he replied, heartened by her positive attitude. “You’ll want to move to the right. There’s a thin lip of stone about six feet above us. It’ll be tricky getting to it, but we’ll be able to walk along it until we reach another vertical fissure.”
She looked above them to see the features Mercer was describing, but a rocky bulge blocked her view.
“You’re going to have to trust me on this one.”
She placed her hands on the wall, toed her boot into a shallow cup in the stone, and lifted herself. The rock brow pushed her out over empty space, and her balance shifted almost too far. Mercer could hear her nails digging into the stone and his heart raced, fearing she would panic. Seconds trickled by. The only sounds were a caressing breeze, Selome’s labored breathing, and the rasp of her clothes against the stone.
“I’ve got it,” she finally wheezed.
Mercer followed and in a moment he was beside her, a ten-inch-wide strip of stone under his feet. Immediately, Mercer saw his miscalculation. From the ground, the narrow ledge looked as if it continued for a dozen yards to the next crack, but it narrowed after just a couple of feet until it was nothing more than a band of shadow against the cliff. It vanished completely for about four feet before reappearing again, if anything even narrower than where they now stood.
He saw nothing but glass-smooth stone for twenty feet above them. They couldn’t climb up from here, and backing down was next to impossible. They were trapped.
“What are we going to do?” Selome saw their predicament reflected in Mercer’s eyes.
He stared at the problem before answering. “We’re going to have to jump to the next ledge. Do you see that knob of stone at chest height in the middle of where the ledge disappears? You have to lean out and grab it with your left hand and then swing across. You’re tall enough so your feet will land on the other side.”
“No way!” she cried.
“If you see a better option, I’m open to it.”
She looked around. The stone protrusion Mercer had seen was fist-sized, jutting from the wall no more than four inches, but it could provide an anchor point for them to pendulum across to the remainder of the ledge.
She kept her shoulder pressed tightly to the stone, her eyes fixed on the knob rather than the sixty feet of nothing beneath them, then reached out, her palm encircling the knob completely. Without allowing herself even a second to think, she eased her weight further onto her hand until her body was bowed backward. She kicked off gently, swinging smoothly, her clothes hissing against the rock. Her right foot landed on the ledge first, and she quickly shifted her weight, twisting so her left knee touched down next to her foot, her free hand clutching the wall. She let go of the knob and grinned over at Mercer.
He smiled back and was readying himself to repeat her feat when a stone sailed past his head. He looked up. A dark figure loomed at the top of the cliff, silhouetted against the night sky. Mercer could see another stone in the man’s hand and the outline of an automatic weapon over his shoulder. The man saw Mercer’s gaze and waved him up eagerly, taunting him by tossing the stone from hand to hand. Mercer lunged for the stone protrusion, arcing violently through the air.
The stone thrower was a moment too late. Mercer landed on the narrow ledge just as the other rock sailed behind him. He hustled Selome along the ledge, only his toes and the balls of his feet finding purchase on the lip. The next vertical fissure was wide and angled into the cliff. Once they had climbed high enough into it, it was possible to move up it like a ramp. There was no way they could reach the top before the gunman saw them again, but Mercer hoped to get high enough to give him a nasty surprise.
Fifteen feet from the top, Mercer grabbed Selome’s leg. “Duck.”
He climbed over her so he could take the lead. He saw the gunman waiting at the head of the eroded fissure, his gun now cradled in his hands. Had the man wanted to, he could have shot them both, but Mercer suspected his orders were to capture, not kill. The stone throws had been intentional misses. Mercer had prepared for this contingency by making sure their climb was far enough from the monastery to prevent a guard from shouting for reinforcements. If the Sudanese rebel wanted backup, he would be forced to run back to the church, giving Mercer and Selome a chance to escape.
“Stay flat and hold on tight,” Mercer whispered.
He was climbing up the steep defile like a machine, his legs pistoning, propelling him forward deceptively fast. Mercer wished he could use Selome’s pistol, but a shot would alert everyone within a mile. He was ready to implement a plan born in desperation. The lighting was poor enough for him to get closer to the Sudanese than the rebel suspected. The soldier didn’t recognize the danger until it was too late.