Текст книги "Cry Wolf"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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surrounded by silent but watchful throngs of dark men, all of them

heavily armed like the Harari she knew, but these were a different

people. She did not know why, but she was sure of it.

There were many others camped in the grove. She could see their fires

and hear the stamp and snort of their tethered horses, the voices of

the women and the laughter of the men.

The throng opened for her and she crossed the veranda and entered the

large room which was crowded with many men, and lit by the smoky

paraffin lamps that hung from the ceiling. The room stank of male

sweat, tobacco and the hot spicy aroma of food and tej.

A hostile silence fell as she entered, and Vicky stood uncertainly on

the threshold, scrutinized by a hundred dark suspicious eyes, until Lij

Mikhael rose from where he sat at the far end of the room.

"Miss Camberwell." He took her hand. "I was beginning to worry about

you. Did you send your despatch?" He led her across the room and

seated her beside him, before he indicated the man who sat opposite

him.

"This is Ras Kullah of the Gallas," he said, and despite her weariness,

Vicky studied him with interest.

Her first impression was identical to that she had received from the

men amongst the cosa flora trees outside in the darkness. There was a

veiled hostility, a coldness of the spirit about the man, almost

reptilian aura about the dark unblinking eyes.

He was a young man, still in his twenties, but his face and body were

bloated by disease or debauchery so that there was a soft jelly-like

look to his flesh. The skin was a pale creamy colour, unhealthy and

clammy, as though it had never been exposed to sunlight. His lips were

full and petulant, a startling cherry red in colour that ill suited the

pale tones of his skin.

He watched Vicky, when the Prince introduced her, with the same dead

expression in his eyes, but gave no acknowledgement though the flat

snakelike eyes moved slowly over her body, like loathsome hands,

dwelling and lingering on her breasts and her legs, before moving back

to Lij Mikhael's face.

The pudgy, swollen hands lifted a buck-horn pipe to the dark cherry

lips and Ras Kullah drew deeply upon it holding the smoke in his lungs

before exhaling slowly.

When Vicky smelled the smoke, she knew the reason for the dead eyes in

the Ras's puffy face.

"You have not eaten all day," said Lij Mikhael, and gave instructions

for food to be brought to Vicky. "You will excuse me now, Miss

Camberwell, the Ras speaks no English and our negotiations are still at

an early stage. I have ordered a room made ready where you may rest as

soon as you have eaten. We shall be talking all the night," the Lij

smiled briefly, "and saying very little, for a blood feud of a hundred

years is what we are talking around." He turned back to the Ras.

The hot, spicy food warmed and filled the cold hollow place in the pit

of Vicky's stomach, and a mug of fiery tej made her choke and gasp, but

then lifted her spirits and revived her journalist's curiosity so that

she could look again with interest at what was happening around her.

The interminable discussion went on between the two men, cautious

plodding negotiations between implacable luctantly drawn together by a

greater danger and enemies, a more powerful adversary.

On either side Ras sat two young women, pale sloe-eyed creatures, with

noble regular features and thick dark hair frizzled out into a stiff

round bush that caught the light of the lanterns and glowed along the

periphery like a luminous halo. They sat impassively showing no

emotion, even when the Ras fondled one or the other of them with the

absent-minded caress that he might have bestowed on a lap dog.

Only once, as he took a fat round breast in one plump soft paw and

squeezed it, the girl winced slightly and Vicky seeing the crimson

linen of her blouse dampened in a wet dark patch at the nipple realized

that the girl's breast was heavy with milk.

Vicky's artificial sense of well-being was fast fading now, sinking

once again under the weight of her weariness, and lulled by the food in

her belly, the thick smoky atmosphere and the hypnotic cadence of the

Amharic language. She was on the point of excusing herself from the

Lij and leaving when there was a disturbance outside the room, and the

shrill angry cries of a voice creaking with age and indi nation The

room was immediately electric with a charged feeling of expectation,

and Ras Kullah looked up and called out querulously.

A youth of perhaps nineteen years of age was dragged into the room and

held by two armed guards in the centre of the hastily cleared space

before Ras Kullah. His arms were bound with rawhide that cut deeply

into the flesh of his wrists, and his face was wet and shiny with the

sweat of fear, while his eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.

He was followed by a shrieking crone, a wizened baboon like figure,

swathed in a voluminous black sham mastiff with filth and greenish with

age. Repeatedly she attempted to attack the captive youth, clawing at

his face with bony hooked fingers, her toothless old mouth opened in a

dark pink-lined pit as she leaped and cavorted before the terrified

youth, trying again and again to reach him, while the two guys pushed

her away with c ee gu aw and playful blows, never relinquishing their

grip on their prisoner.

The Ras leaned forward to watch this play with awakening interest, his

dark dull eyes taking on a sparkle of anticipation as he asked a

question, and the crone flew to him and flung herself full-length

before him.

She began to bleat out a long high-pitched plea, attempting at the same

time to grasp and kiss the Ras's feet. The Ras giggled with

anticipation, kicking away the old woman's hands and occasionally

asking a question that was answered either by the guards or the

grovelling crone.

"Miss Camberwell whispered the Prince. "I suggest that you leave now.

This will not be pleasant to watch."

"What is it?" Vicky demanded, her professional instincts roused. "What

are they doing?" "The woman accuses the youth of murdering her son.

The guards are her witnesses and the Ras is trying the case.

He will give judgement in a moment, and the sentence will be carried

out immediately."

Here? "Vicky looked startled.

"Yes, Miss Camberwell. I urge you to leave. The punishment will be

biblical, from the Old Testament which is the centre of the Coptic

faith. It will be a tooth for a tooth." Vicky hesitated to take the

Prince's advice, all human experience was her field no matter how

bizarre, and suddenly it was too late.

Laughingly, the Ras thrust the old woman away again with a kick to the

chest that sent her sprawling across the beaten earth floor and he

called a peremptory command to the guards who held the accused youth.

Flapping like a maimed black crow upon the floor, the crone set up a

wailing shriek of triumph as she heard the verdict, and she tried to

regain her feet. The guards guffawed again and began to strip away the

condemned man's clothing, tearing it from his body until he stood

completely naked except for his bonds.

The crowded room now buzzed with excitement at the coming

entertainment, and the doorway and windows were packed with those who

had come in from the encampment amongst the cosa flora trees. Even the

two impassive madonnas who flanked the Ras had become animated, leaning

forward to chatter softly to each other, smiling secretly as their

dark-moon eyes shone and the full swollen breasts swung heavily under

the thin material of their blouses.

The doomed youth was whimpering softly, his head turning back and

forth, as though seeking escape, his naked body slim and finely muscled

with dark amber skin that, glowed in the lamplight, and his arms bound

tightly behind his back. His legs were long and the muscles looked

hard and beautifully sculptured, and the dark bush of curls in his

groin was dense and crisp-looking. His thick circumcised penis hung

limply, seeming to epitomize the man's despair.

Vicky tried to tear her eyes away, ashamed to look upon a human being

stripped thus of all dignity, but the spectacle was mesmeric.

The old woman hopped and flapped in front of the captive, her wrinkled

brown features contorted in an expression of utter malice and she

opened her toothless mouth and spat into his face. The spittle ran

down his cheek and dripped on to his chest.

"Please leave now," Lij Mikhael urged Vicky, and she tried to rise, but

it seemed that her legs would not respond.

One of the Galla warriors sitting opposite Vicky drew the narrow-bladed

dagger from the tooled leather sheath on his hip. The handle was

carved from the horn of a kudu bull and bound with copper wire, the

blade was slightly curved and viciously pointed, twice the span of a

man's hand in length. He shouted to attract the woman's attention,

then sent the weapon skidding across the floor towards her and she

pounced upon it with another gleeful shriek and pranced before the

cringing youth, brandishing the knife while the watchers shouted

encouragement to her.

The captive began to twist and struggle, watching the knife with the

fixed concentration of despair and terror, but the two tall guards held

him easily, chuckling like a pair of gaunt ogres, watching the knife

also.

The old woman let out one more high-pitched shriek, and leapt at him

the long skinny black arm lunged out, the point of the blade aimed at

his heart. The woman's strength was too frail to drive it home, and

the point struck bone and glanced aside, skidding around the ribcage,

opening a long shallow cut that exposed the white bone in its depths

for the instant before blood flooded out between the lips of the wound.

A howl of delight went up from the assembled Gallas, and they goaded on

the avenger with mocking cries and yips like those of a pack of excited

jackals.

Again and again the old woman struck, and the youth kicked and

struggled, his guards roaring with laughter and the blood from the

shallow wounds flying and sparkling in the lamplight, splattering the

old woman's knife arm and speckling her angry screeching face. Her

frustration made her blows more wild and feeble.

Unable to penetrate his chest, she turned her attack upon his face. One

blow split his nose and upper lip, and the next slashed across his eye,

turning the socket instantly into a dark blood-glutted hole. The

guards let him fall to the floor.

The old woman leapt upon his chest and, clinging to him like a huge,

grotesque vampire bat, she began to saw determinedly at the youth's

throat until at last the carotid artery erupted, dousing her robes and

puddling the floor on which they rolled together while the Galla

watchers roared their approbation.

Only then could Vicky move; she leapt to her feet and pushed her way

through the throng that jammed the doorway and ran out into the cool

night. She realized that her blouse was damp with the sweat of nausea

and she leaned against the stem of a cosa flora tree, trying to fight

it, unavailingly; then she doubled over and retched tearingly, choking

up her horror.

The horror stayed with her for many hours, denying her the sleep her

body craved. She lay alone in the small room that Lij Mikhael had

ordered for her, and listened to the drums beating and the shouts of

laughter and bursts of singing from the Galla encampment amongst the

cosa flora trees.

When she slept at last, it was not for long, and then she awoke to a

soft tickling movement on her skin and the first fiery itch across her

belly.

Disgusted by the loathsome touch she threw aside the single blanket and

lit the candle. Across the flat smooth plain of her belly, the bites

of vermin were strung like a girdle of angry red beads and she

shuddered, her whole body crawling with the thought of it.

She spent what remained of the night huddled uncomfortably on the floor

of the armoured car. The mountain cold struck through the steel of

Miss Wobbly's hull, and Vicky shivered into the dawn, scratching

morosely at the hot lumps across her stomach. Then she filled the

growling ache of her empty stomach with a tin of cold corned beef from

the emergency rations in the locker under the driver's seat, before

driving up the slope of the western pass to the German mission station

where she experienced the first lift of spirits since the horrors of

the night.

Sara had responded almost miraculously to the treatment she was

receiving, and although she was still weak and a little shaky, the

fever had abated, and she was once more able to give Vicky the benefit

of her vast wisdom and worldly experience.

Vicky sat beside the narrow iron bedstead in the overcrowded ward,

while other patients coughed and groaned around her, and held Sara's

thin dry hand from which the flesh seemed to have wasted overnight and

poured out to her the horrors still pent up inside her.

"Ras Kullah," Sara made a moue of disgust. "He is a degenerate man,

that one. Did he have his milk cows with him?" Vicky was for a moment

at a loss, until she remembered the two madonnas. "His men scour the

mountains to keep him supplied with pretty young mothers in full milk

ugh!" She shuddered theatrically, and Vicky felt her unsettled stomach

quail. "That and his hemp pipe and the sight of blood. He is an

animal. His people are animals they have been our enemies since the

time of Solomon, and it shames me now that we must have them to fight

beside us." Then she changed the subject in her usual mercurial

fashion.

"Will you go down the pass again today?"

"Yes," Vicky said, and Sara sighed.

"The doctor says that I cannot go with you not for many days still."

"I will fetch you, as soon as you are ready."

"No. No," she protested. "It is shorter and easier on horseback. I

will come immediately but until then carry My love to Gregorius. Tell

him my heart beats with great fury for him, and he walks through my

thoughts eternally."

"I will tell him," agreed Vicky, delighted at the sentiment and the

choice of words. At that moment a tall young man in a white jacket,

with the face of a brown pharaoh and huge dark eyes, came to record

Sara's temperature, stooping solicitously over her and murmuring softly

in Amharic as he felt for her pulse with delicate finely shaped

hands.

Sara was transformed instantly into a languid wanton, with smouldering

eyes and pouting lips, but when the orderly left, she was instantly

herself again, giggling delightedly as she drew Vicky's head down to

whisper in her ear.

"Is he not as beautiful as the dawn? He studies to be a doctor, and

goes soon to the University at Berlin. He has fallen in love with me

since last night and as soon as my leg is less painful I shall take him

as a lover." And when she saw Vicky's startled glance, she went on

hurriedly, "But just for a short time, of course. Only until I am well

enough to ride back to Gregorius." When Lij Mikhael came, riding with

his wild horsemen.

They waited outside in the sun while the Prince came into the ward to

take farewell of his daughter. His sombre mood lightened momentarily

as he embraced Sara, and he saw how well she was recovered. Then he

told the two women, "Yesterday at noon, the Italian army under General

De Bono crossed the Mareb River in force and has begun to march on A

owa and Ambo Aradam. The wolf is into the sheepfold. There has

already been fighting and the Italian aeroplanes are bombing our towns.

We are now at war."

"It is no surprise," said Sara. "The only surprise is that.

they took so long."

"Miss Camberwell, you must return as swiftly as you can to my father at

the foot of the gorge, and warn him that he must be ready to meet an

enemy attack." He drew out a gold pocket watch and glanced at it.

"Within the next few minutes, an aircraft will be landing here to take

me to the Emperor. I would be obliged, Miss Camberwell, if you would

accompany me to the-landing field." Vicky nodded, and the Lij went on.

"Ras Kullah's men are assembled there. He has agreed to send fifteen

hundred horsemen to join my father, and they will follow you-" He got

no further, for Sara intervened hotly.

"Miss Camberwell must not be left alone with those hyenas of Kullah's.

They would eat their own mothers." The Lij smiled and held up a hand.

"My own bodyguard will ride with Miss Camberwell, under my strict

charge to protect her at all times."

"I do not like it," pouted Sara, and groped for Vicky's hand.

"I will be all right, Sara." She stooped and kissed the girl, who

clung to her for an instant.

will come soon," whispered Sara, "Do nothing until I am with you.

Perhaps it should be Gareth after all," and Vicky chuckled.

"You're getting me confused."

"Yes," agreed Sara. "That's why I

should be there to advise you." Mikhael and Vicky stood side by side

on the hull of Miss Wobbly and shaded the sun from their eyes as they

watched the aircraft come in between the peaks.

As a pilot Vicky could appreciate the difficulty of the approach,

down into the bowl of Sardi, where treacherous down-draughts fell along

the cliffs, creating whirlpools of turbulence. The sun had already

dispelled the chill of the night making the high mountain air even

thinner and more treacherous.

Vicky recognized the aircraft type immediately, for she had trained for

her own pilot's licence on a similar model.

It was a Puss Moth, a small sky-blue high-winged monoplane,

powered by the versatile De Havilland four-cylinder aero engine. It

would carry a pilot and two passengers in a tricycle arrangement of

seating, the pilot up front in an enclosed cabin under the broad sweep

of the wings. Seeing the familiar aircraft reminded her, with a

fleeting but bitter pang, of those golden untroubled days before

October 1929, before that black Friday of evil reputation. Those

idyllic days when she had been the only daughter of a rich man, spoilt

and pampered, plied with such toys as motor cars and speed boats and

aircraft.

All that had been swept away in a single day. Everything had gone,

even that adoring godlike figure that had been her father dead by his

own hand. She felt the chill of it still, the sense of terrible loss,

and she turned her thoughts aside and concentrated on the approaching

aircraft.

The pilot came in down the western pass under the cliffs, then turned

steeply and side-slipped in towards the only piece of open ground in

the valley that was free of rocks and oles– It was used as a stockyard,

gymkhana ground or polo field as the need arose and at the moment the

ankle-deep grass was providing grazing for fifty goats.

Ras Kullah's horsemen drove the goats from the field at a gallop,

and then as the Puss Moth touched down, they wheeled and tore down the

field at its wing-tips, firing their rifles into the air and vying with

each other to perform feats of horsemanship.

The pilot taxied to where the car stood and opened the side window. He

was a burly young white man, with a suntanned face and curly hair. He

shouted above the engine rumble in an indeterminate colonial accent

Australian, New Zealand or South African, "Are you

Lij Mikhael?" The Prince shook hands briefly with Vicky before jumping

down. With his sham ma fluttering wildly in the slipstream from the

propeller, he hurried to the aircraft and climbed into the tiny

cabin.

The pilot was watching Vicky with a lively interest through the side

window and when she caught his eye he pursed his lips and made a circle

with thumb and forefinger in the universal sign of approval.

His grin was so frank and boyishly open that Vicky had to grin back.

"Room for one more!" he shouted, and she laughed and shouted back,

"Next time, perhaps."

"it will be a pleasure, lady," and he gunned the motor and swung away

lining up on the short rough-surfaced runway.

Vicky watched the Puss Moth climb laboriously up towards the mountain

crests. As the busy buzzing of its engine faded, a feeling of terrible

aloneness fell over her and she glanced around apprehensively at the

hordes of swarthy horsemen who surrounded the armoured car. Suddenly

she realized that not one of all these men could speak her language,

and that now there was a small cold cramp of fear at the base of her

belly to go with the aloneness.

Almost desperately, she longed for some contact with the world which

she knew, rather than these savage horsemen in this land of wild

mountains. For an instant she thought of checking the telegraph office

for a reply to her despatch, but dismissed the idea immediately. There

was no chance that her editor would yet have received, let alone

replied to her communication. Now she looked around her and identified

the knot of men and horses that comprised Lij Mikhael's bodyguard, but

they seemed very little different from the greater mass of Gallas.

Little comfort there, and she climbed quickly down into the driver's

hatch of the car and engaged the low gear.

She bumped over the rough ground and found the track that led down

along the river towards the tall grey stone portals of the gorge. She

was aware of the long untidy column Of Mounted men that followed her

closely, but her t mind leapt ahead to her arrival at the foot of the

gorge, to her reunion with Jake and Gareth. Suddenly those two were

the most important persons in her whole existence and she longed for

them, both or either of them, with a strength that showed in the white

knuckles of her hands as she gripped the steering-wheel.

The descent of the gorge was a more terrifying experience than the

ascent. The steeper stretches fell away before Vicky with the

gut-swooping feel of a ski-run, and once the heavy cumbersome car was

committed to it, its own weight took charge and it went down bucking

and skidding. Even with the brakes locking all four wheels, it kept

plunging downwards, with very little steering control transmitted to

the front wheels.

A little after noon, Vicky had come more than halfway down the gorge,

and she remembered that this final pitch was the truly terrifying part,

where the track clung to the precipice high above the roaring river in

its rocky bed. Her arms and back were painfully cramped with the

effort of fighting the kicking wheel, and-sweat had drenched the hair

at her temples and stung her eyes. She wiped it away with her forearm,

and went at the slope, braking hard the moment that the car began

rolling down the thirty-degree incline.

With rock and loose earth kicking and spewing out from under the big

wheels, they descended in a heavy lumbering rush, and halfway down

Vicky realized that she had no control and that the vehicle was

gradually slewing sideways and swinging its tail out towards the edge

of the cliff.

She felt the first lurch as one rear wheel dropped slightly,

riding out over the hundred-foot drop, and instinctively she knew that

in this instant of its headlong career, the car was critically hanging

at the extreme edge of its balance. In a hundredth of a second, it

would go beyond the point of recovery, and she made without conscious

thought a last instinctive grasp at survival. She jumped her foot from

the brake pedal, swung the wheel into the line of skid and thrust her

other foot down hard on the throttle. One wheel hung over the cliff,

the other caught with a vicious jerk as the engine roared at full

power, and the huge steel hull jumped like a startled gazelle, and

hurled itself away from the cliff edge, struck the far bank of earth

and rocky scree and was flung back, miraculously, into its original

line of track.

At the bottom of the pitch, the slope eased. Vicky fought the car to a

standstill there and dragged herself out of the driver's hatch.

She found that she was shaking uncontrollably, and that she had to get

to a private place off the track, for in reaction she was close to

vomiting and her control of her other bodily functions was shaken by

that terrible sliding, bucking ride.

She had left the column of horsemen far behind, and could only faintly

hear their voices and the clatter of hooves on the rocky track as she

scrambled and clawed her way up the side of the gorge to a thicket of

dwarf cedar trees, where she could be alone.

There was a spring of clear sweet water amongst the cedars and when her

body had purged itself and she had it under control again, she knelt

beside the rocky pool and bathed her face and neck. Using the surface

of the shining water as a mirror, she combed her hair and rearranged

her clothing.

The reaction to extreme fear had left her feeling lightheaded and

slightly apart from reality. She picked her way out of the cedar

thicket, and down to where the car stood upon the track. The Galla

horsemen had arrived and they and their mounts crowded the entire

area,

back up the track for half a mile, and in a solid mob about the

armoured car.

Those nearest the car had dismounted, and when she tried to make her

way through their ranks they gave her only minimal passage, so that she

must brush close to them.

Suddenly she realized with a fresh lunge of fear in her chest that the

Harari bodyguard of Lij Mikhael was no longer with her and she stopped

uncertainly and looked about her, trying to find where they were.

An aching silence had fallen on the Gallas, and now she saw that their

expressions were tense also. The faces, with their handsome,

high-boned features and beaky noses, turned towards her with the

predatory expectation of the hunting hawk, and the eyes burned with the

same fierce excitement with which they had watched the old crone do her

bloody work the previous night.

The Harari, where were the Harari? She looked about her wildly now but

could not find a familiar face and then in the silence she heard the

clatter of distant hooves from far down the gorge and she knew without

any shade of doubt that they had left her, they had been driven away by

the threats of their ancient enemies, who outnumbered them so

heavily.

She was alone and she turned to go back, but found that they had closed

about her, cutting off her retreat and now they pressed gradually

closer about her, with the same smouldering, gloating expression on

every face.

She had to go forward, there was no way back and she forced herself to

walk slowly on towards the car. At each step a tall robed figure stood

to block her way. She knew she must show no sign of fear,

any show of weakness at all would trigger them, and she had a single

brief image of her own pale body spread-eagled upon the rocky earth,

plaything for a thousand. She thrust the image firmly aside and walked

on slowly. At the last possible instant, each tall figure moved

aside,

but there was always another beyond to take its place and each time the

throng pressed closer upon her.

She could feel their heightening expectation, almost smell it in the

hot musk of their packed bodies the change in the faces was there too;

they watched her with a growing excitement, teeth grinning, breath

shortening and eyes like claws in her flesh.

Suddenly she could go no further; a figure taller and more compelling

than any other blocked her path. She had noticed this, man before. He

was a Gerazmach, a high Galla officer. he wore a sharnma of dark blue

silk wrapped about his throat and falling to his knees.

His hair was fluffed out in a wide halo about the lean, cruel face and

a scar ran down from the outer corner of his eye to the point of his

jaw.

He said something to her in a voice that was thick with lust, and she

did not understand the words but the meaning was clear. The crowd

around her stirred and she heard the sound of their breathing and felt

them press even closer towards her. A man laughed near her, and there

was something so ugly in the sound that it struck her like a physical

force.

She wanted to scream, to turn and try and claw herself free but she

knew that was what they were waiting for. It needed just that

provocation and they would hurl themselves upon her. She gathered what

was left of her reserves and put it all into her voice.

"Get out of my way," she said clearly, and the man before her smiled.

It was one of the most terrifying things she had ever seen.

Still smiling, he dropped one hand to his groin, opened the fold of his

shamnia, and made a gesture so obscene that Vicky recoiled, and she

felt the scalding blood burn her throat and her cheeks. There was no

control in her voice now as she blurted, "Oh, you swine you filthy

swine," and the man reached for her, his robe still open. As she

shrank back, she felt the others behind her thrust her forward again.

Then another voice spoke. The words were banal but the tone hissed

like the sound of a scimitar swung at the cut.

"All right, chaps. That's enough of that nonsense." Vicky felt the

pressure of bodies about her ease, and she spun around with a sob

catching in her throat.

Gareth Swales strolled down the passage that opened for him through the

dense press of robed bodies. His whole carriage seemed indolent, and

the white open-necked shirt with an Zingari scarf at the throat was

crisp and immaculate but Vicky had never before seen the expression he

wore. The rims of his nostrils were ice-white and his eyes burned with

a controlled fury.

She would have flung herself at him, sobbing with relief, but his voice

crackled again.

"Steady. We're not out yet," and she caught herself, lifted her chin

and smothered the next sob before it escaped.

"Good girl," he said, without taking his eyes from the face of the tall

Galla in the blue robe, and he kept on walking steadily towards him,

taking Vicky's arm as he drew level with her. She felt the strength of

his fingers through the thin stuff of her blouse, and it seemed to flow

into her, charging her depleted reserves, and the jelly weakness in her

legs firmed.

The Galla leader stood his ground as Gareth stepped up to him, and for

a space of time that was less than five seconds but seemed to Vicky

like a round of eternity, the two men locked gazes and wills. Blazing

blue eyes levelled with smouldering black then suddenly the Galla

broke, he glanced aside and shrugged, chuckled weakly, and turned away

to talk loudly with the man who stood beside him.

Unhurriedly, Gareth stepped through the gap the man had left and they