stick, it was common practice to tear off the corner of the paper
wrapper to expose the treacle brown explosive beneath. He had used it
often enough in the old days never to forget the odour of it.
His mind was racing now. If somebody was expecting them and had mined
the cliff with gelignite, then the reflection he had picked up could
have been from the coils of copper wiring strung between the explosive
in the rock, or it could have been from some other item of equipment.
If that was so, then the operator might even at this moment be lying
concealed up there, ready to press the plunger on the circuit box. The
kudu bull might have been fleeing from the concealed human presence.
"Aly!" he bellowed down to the head of the caravan, "Stop them! Turn
them back!'
He started to run forward towards the head of the caravan, but in his
heart he knew it was already too late. If there was somebody up there on
the cliff, he was watching every move that Nicholas made. Nicholas could
never hope to reach the head of the column and turn the mules around on
the narrow trail, and get them back to safety before ... He came up
short and looked back at Royan.
Her safety was his main concern. He turned and ran back to grab her arm.
"Come on! We have to get off the track."
"What is it, Nicky? What are you doing?" She was resisting him, pulling
back against his grip on her arm.
"I'll explain later," he snapped at her brusquely. "Just trust me now."
He dragged her a couple of paces before she gave in and began to run
with him, back in the direction from which they had come.
They had notcovered fifty yards before the cliff face blew. A vast
disruption of air swept over them with a force that made them stagger.
It clapped painfully in their skulls and threatened to implode the
delicate membranes of their eardrums. Then the main force of the blast
swept over them, not a single blast but a long, rolling detonation like
thunder breaking directly overhead. It stunned and battered them so that
they reeled into each other and lost the direction of their flight.
Nicholas seized her in a steadying embrace, and looked back. He saw a
series of explosions leap from the crest of the cliff. Tall, dancing
fountains of dirt and dust and rubble, pirouetting one after the other
in strict choreography, like a chorus-line of hellish ballerinas.
Even in the terror of the moment he could appreciate the expertise with
which the gelignite had been laid. This was a master bomber at work. The
leaping columns of rubble subsided upon themselves, leaving the fine,
tawny mist of dust drifting and spiralling against the clear blue of the
sky, and for a moment longer it seemed that the destruction was
complete. Then the silhouette of the cliff began to alter.
Slowly at first the wall of rock started to lean outwards.
He saw great cracks appear in the face, opening like leering mouths.
Sheets of rock collapsed and in slow motion slithered down upon
themselves like the silken skirts of a curtseying giantess. The rock
groaned and crackled and rumbled as the entire cliff began to fall into
the river far below.
Nicholas was mesmerized by the awful sight, and his brain seemed to have
been numbed by the explosion. It took a huge effort to force himself to
think and to act. He saw that the centre of the explosion had occurred
further down the trail, near the head of the mule caravan. Tamre was up
there, beside Aly. He and Royan were at the tail of the caravan. The
bomber up on the cliff had obviously been waiting for them to come
directly into the epicentre of his explosive trap, but had been forced
to trigger it when he saw them running back down the trail and realized
that they had been alerted and were about to escape.
Yet they were not clear - they were about to catch the peripheral force
of the landslide that was developing above them. Still holding Royan,
Nicholas stared up the falling cliff face and made a desperate
calculation.
He watched in petrified fascination as the vast tide of falling rock
swept over the trail ahead of him, picking up men and mules and carrying
them with it over the edge and down into the river bed. It swallowed
them, lapping them up like the tongue of some fearsome monster and
chewing them to pulp with razor fangs of red rock. Even above the
rumbling roar of the rock tide he heard the terrified screams of men and
animals as they were ploughed under.
The wave of destruction spread towards where he and Royan stood upon the
trail. If they had been directly under the explosion they would have
stood as little chance as those others, but as it ran down the cliff its
destructive momentum was dissipating. On the other hand, Nicholas
realized that there was no hope that they would be able to outrun it,
and what was about to fall upon them would still be devastating.
There was no time to explain to Royan what they had to do - he had only
seconds left in which to act. Sweeping her up in his arms, he leaped
over the bank towards the river. He lost his footing almost immediately
and they went down together, rolling end over end, but thirty feet down
there was a spur of rock the size of a house. As they came up against
the upper side of it, it broke their fall.
They were half-sturined, but Nicholas dragged Royan to her feet and
guided her into the lee of the rock wall.
"Mere was a cut-back here, and they crept into it and crouched flat.
Pressing themselves hard against the wall, they both held their breath
as the first chunk of cliff came bounding and bouncing down towards them
like a gigantic rubber ball, picking up speed with gravity, until it
smashed in to their shelter with a force that made the solid rock
against which they were cringing vibrate and resound like a cathedral
bell, and the hurtling missile leaped high over their heads, spinning
massively in flight before it dropped into the river. It raised a tidal
wave from the surface that broke like storm surf on both banks.
This was merely the forerunner of the maelstrom that now poured over
them. It seemed that half the mountain was falling upon them. As each
slab crashed into their shelter daggers and splinters burst from its
leading edges, filling the air they breathed with fine white dust and
the sulphurous stink of sparking flint. This immense cascade flew over
their heads or piled up in front of their shelter, and loose chips and
pebbles rained down upon them.
Nicholas crawled over the top of Royan, and covered her with his body. A
stone struck the side of his head a lancing blow that made his ears
ring, but he gritted his teeth and fought the impulse to lift his head
and look up.
He felt something warm and ticklish snaking through the short hairs
behind his right ear. It crept down his cheek like a living thing, and
it was only when it reached the corner of his mouth and he tasted the
metallic salt that he realized it was a trickle of blood.
The fine talcum dust powdered them and irritated their throats, so that
they coughed and choked in the uproar.
The dust seeped into their eyes, and they were forced to clench their
lids and keep them tightly shut.
One mass of rock the size of a wagon sprang high in the air and then
fell back close beside where they lay. The impact made the earth jump so
violently that Royan, with Nicholas's weight on top of her, was struck
in the belly and diaphragm with a force that drove the wind from her
lungs, and she thought that her ribs had been crushed.