A NOVEL OF ADVENTURE
BY JEFFREY BLAIR LATTA
Desperately his urgent
glare swept the enclosed darkness of their prison. The walls were
polished like curved mirrors; not even seams showed in the glossy stone.
The floor was earth packed hard. Thin trails of rainwater trickled
down the gleaming walls, seeping past the crystal plug and soaking into
the dirt.
Seagrave shifted his
stance as the pressure weighed heavier and heavier on his powerful frame.
He braced his legs widely, supporting the burden with one broad shoulder,
muscles twisting and rippling across his back. The wound in his thigh
throbbed under the terrible strain.
For a moment, he sucked
in a quick breath and heaved up against the crystal with a force that shuddered
in his calves. The plug sluggishly retreated, rising barely an inch
in the smooth bore of the pit -- only to drop several inches when his strength
could sustain the pressure no longer.
On her knees, almost
between Seagrave's wide-braced legs, the princess gazed up with enormous
eyes, fearfully awed as much by this staggering display of savage endurance
as by the ghastly death inching relentlessly nearer. The light rippled
down her supple back, flashing on the blades of her wings, shimmering like
billowing veils on the small globes of her panting breasts. Her slim
hands clutched Seagrave's breeks-clad legs on either side as if they were
great stone pillars erected against the terrible death overhead.
Unable to speak, Seagrave
could only groan as the inexorable water surpassed three hundred pounds,
his lithe frame bowing as if before a conqueror, legs steadily buckling.
Dimly, through the
rush of falling water, the two prisoners suddenly heard a strange din from
above. Astonishment rose through the fear in Shyrin Shas's voice.
"Listen," she gasped.
"Flash worms. I hear worm cannon. But who would use worm cannon
in the rain? The Kamir and the Trayken know the flash worms dissipate
too quickly in a downpour."
Seagrave was barely
aware of the sounds of battle from above; all his attention was centred
on his incessant burden. The weight of the water was surely nearing
four hundred pounds. In his life, Seagrave had once met a man --
a giant of a man -- who could raise five hundred pounds for a few seconds
-- but no more.
Through grinding teeth,
Seagrave groaned: "The floor -- dig a pit -- quick, girl -- "
The princess hesitated
only a moment. Understanding his purpose, she bent her supple back
and began clawing recklessly at the hard-packed earth with naked hands.
The dirt gave way with surprisingly little resistance as she scraped and
scratched deep furrows in the ground between the pirate's legs.
"Hurry, girl -- ah!
-- hurry --" Seagrave dropped heavily to his knees, straddling the
princess and nearly crushing her under his weight. Her smooth shoulders
twisted and knotted in sleek sinuous ridges as she desperately raked the
sandy soil. But it still wasn't enough.
He didn't need to look
to know the terrible truth. His only hope was that he might stave
off death long enough for the princess to dig a shallow depression deep
enough for herself; there wasn't time enough for her to make the depression
for both of them.
"Hurry -- girl --"
He groaned again, his
entire body shuddering, torso gleaming like polished brass under the spectral
flicker of watery light. The sound of worm cannon had stopped.
Between his knees, Seagrave felt the princess's frenzied exertions, the
rapid labouring of her damp exhausted lungs. The weight of the water
topped five hundred pounds. The depression was deep enough -- it
had to be.
"Lie down --"
gasped Seagrave.
"There isn't room for
you --"
Frantically he threw
her down with a rough shove of his hand launched against her spine.
Instantly the relentless press crushed him down to his hands and knees,
the full force surging down on his grinding back. For a moment, his
thigh bones were trapped vertically between the crystal and the earth.
He screamed as blinding pain flared in his hips and legs. Twisting
desperately, he dropped flat on the cool soil beside the depression, unable
even to cry out now as six hundred pounds or more rammed his ribs like
a vice.
Denied breath, his
vision blurring, unable even to rotate his head in the cramped space, Seagrave
couldn't turn to look at the girl; but, dimly, as if through a long tunnel,
he could hear her frantic sobbing cries, feel her small desperate hands
dragging pitifully at his arm. Ridiculously she sought with all her
strength to pull his pinioned frame into her tiny sanctuary, to save him
from the water squeezing the life from his shuddering length. The
inexorable weight increased to seven hundred pounds. Seagrave heard
bones creaking like timber. Then eight hundred...
Suddenly gelid water
surged in a foaming tide about his face, spilling in his open mouth and
racing up his nose. He sucked the rising water deep into his burning
lungs, choking and coughing on the bitter wash. With eyes closed,
as if in a dream, he felt a soft belly sliding liquidly over his tortured
back, smooth hands urgently gripping his shoulders; a lush voice was in
his ears screaming and laughing at the same time.
Slowly he opened his
eyes.
He lay in a pool of
water no more than a few inches deep. Crystal shards jutted from
the foaming surface like blue- white icebergs glinting with the warmth
from above. Three feet of the smooth stone wall had been replaced
by gleaming glass; he was inside the crystal plug. Somehow,
by some miracle, the base had shattered.
With delirious detachedness,
Seagrave realized the princess was trying to lift his face out of the water;
as shallow as it was, he would drown if he didn't raise his head.
Setting his teeth, he heaved up on his elbows, lifting the startled girl
clinging to his back. Her weight was like soft down after what he
had suffered, like a cool breath caressing his aching spine.
"A stone!" the princess
exclaimed, as she tumbled into the water. "A huge stone fell from
above and shattered the crystal!"
But Seagrave had no
time for stones. Barely aware of what he did, he caught the princess
in his powerful arms and squeezed her to his chest as if to crush the life
from her, just as he had been so nearly crushed. His mouth recklessly
attacked her lips, her throat, her rising breasts -- until she was left
panting and dazed, exhausted more by those few moments of exuberant passion
than by all she had been through before.
Finally Seagrave seemed
to return to his senses. Still clasping the princess, he gazed into
her immense eyes and his teeth shone in the wide slit of his grin.
"God damn it, girl,
but that was close!"
His eyes cast upward
and he released her, sending her tumbling indelicately back into the water.
She remained as she had fallen, staring at him unblinking as if entranced.
The cooling rain sheeted down his chest and limbs, matting his hair as
he studied the opening above.
"I wonder why they
haven't noticed what happened?" he muttered. "You'd think they'd
leave someone to check on us."
It was as if the terrible
trial they had undergone was already a fading memory.
Wincing at the aching
in his joints, he shrugged to his feet, dragging the princess up with him.
The crystal plug had been lowered by four ropes fastened to holes on the
rim. Seagrave tugged experimentally on one of these ropes.
"Here -- put your arms
around my neck," he instructed the princess. "I think I've still
got enough strength to climb out of this pit."
Shyrin Shas barely
had time to wrap her slim arms over his broad shoulders before her bare
feet were drawn smoothly from the water. Seagrave had climbed many
a rain-slicked mainmast in his time, and clambering from this smooth-bored
pit was little different. In short order, he scrambled out onto the
damp grass, winded but still fully prepared to meet the attack that must
inevitably come.
He staggered upright,
the princess lying sprawled at his feet. Crouched and glaring, he
swept the glade with a truculent snarl -- quickly giving way to a baffled
frown.
All around them
lay death.
Fenok bodies littered
the damp sward like grotesque marionettes, their rangy blue-grey frames
contorted, their bulging white eyes staring blindly up into the pelting
rain. Their quarter-moon shields and paralysing prods lay strewn
about. Liquid flames roared in the circular openings to their hanging
houses, thick black smoke curling around the green rims of the hovering
islets like fingers cupping jade riches.
On the edge of the
glade, a worm cannon lay toppled on its side, the gilt serpent-patterns
sparkling with rain.
"What the devil happened
here?" Seagrave muttered in grim amazement. "These fenoks were massacred.
Who could have done this -- the Trayken?"
Still on her knees,
the princess slowly shook her head. "I told you," she said; "neither
the Trayken nor the Kamir would use a worm cannon in the rain. The
flash worms dissipate too quickly to cause damage -- that's why there are
no signs of worm burn. No doubt that's why they abandoned the worm
cannon, too."
"Who, then?"
Seagrave strode to the nearest body. "There are no marks of violence,
no wounds that I can see. How did these fenoks die?"
Shyrin Shas rose nimbly
and followed her saviour with quick, mincing steps. Her wide eyes
roved over his rolling, bronzed back, trailing guiltily down to his lean
hips, then up again. Her heart hammered in her chest. She frowned,
vaguely disturbed. The ruby burned painfully on her chest.
Abruptly Seagrave turned
and caught her guilty look. She dropped her eyes quickly, abashedly,
one hand unconsciously covering her heart-gem. After a moment, she
peered up furtively.
But now his gaze was
fastened on something behind her. Quickly crossing the glade, Seagrave
caught up his gleaming cutlass from where it had been cast on the grass.
His punch spike was also amongst the pile of items, and he slipped this
under his belt, then secured his scabbard at his hip.
Reaching his side,
Shyrin Shas snatched a small pouch from the cache, quickly tying this to
her single scanty thong garment. Seagrave observed the action and
his narrowed eyes fastened a moment on the pouch.
The Earth tal-stone
-- it had to be.
But now wasn't the
time to ask for it. There would be time for that later. Just
now he had other questions on his mind.
Turning again, Seagrave
surveyed the glade, a scowl hardening around his eyes.
"Pallin Pol is gone,"
he observed grimly. "His cage is missing, too. Whoever attacked
this place must have taken him with them." He crossed swiftly to
the toppled worm cannon, Shyrin Shas pursuing with anxious haste.
"The heavy cannon left tracks in the earth that even the rain hasn't entirely
washed away. Whoever it was didn't come from Eukara, but from the
opposite direction. If we hurry --"
Seagrave felt the familiar
caress of a prod lightly brush against his shoulder. Before he could
react, numbing paralysis washed over his frame, instantly robbing him of
strength. He groaned and slumped to his knees on the damp grass,
the cutlass tumbling from his open fingers. Unable to move, he could
only listen in helpless rage as Shyrin Shas cried out behind him in sudden
fright -- then cried out again in pain...
The water was barely
an inch deep in the crystal plug, but already it pressed down on the pirate's
straining arms with a force greater than the weight of the frantic girl
at his feet.
