Chapter 66 - The Kraken Gate
Rain was still falling when Ty put me down. We were both soaked through.
‘Sorry, lass, but you’ll have to crawl in on your own.’ He indicated the narrow opening of a cave. ‘It opens out once you get past the entrance.’
I looked at it doubtfully. ‘Will we be safe in there?’
‘Been safe so far. They won’t brave a fire in the entrance.’
‘You want me to go in there?’
‘Aye.’
‘There might be one in there now,’ I pointed out.
‘Fine. I’ll go in first and check.’ He stooped and went in cautiously. I waited in the rain, half lying, half propped up. Nervous of the darkness all around, but even more worried about the cave. The Charg like caves. That’s where we first came across them.
After a few moments I started at a strangled cry. Ty half fell from the tunnel, hands scrabbling towards me.
He cried out, terror in his eyes, ‘Help!’
I stretched full-length on the mud, reaching for him, ignoring the wrenching of my shoulder and the agony in my arm. He grinned, and then, when he saw my expression change, he roared with laughter.
‘Oh, you total arsehole!’ I groaned. ‘Not funny!’
‘Oh, ma’am, if only you could ‘ave seen your face. Priceless!’ He got to his knees and made way for me. ‘In you go,’ he said. ‘It’s all clear.’
Ty followed me inside carrying an armful of wet wood which he added to the pile. Using some of the wood collected earlier, Ty lit a fire right by the entrance. Mercifully, the smoke channelled up and out of the back of the cave. Ty saw me tracking it.
‘It took me a gods-awful long time to find this place,’ he explained. ‘At first, I thought the hole would be too small for the Charg to get through. I got the shock of my life when they first tried to winkle me out. Luckily, I ‘ad a fire lit at the back of the cave. Their poison gas didn’t work. The ‘ot air from the fire carried it right out of the chimney, and I jabbed their tentacles with a burning stick until they got fed up and went home.’
‘How have you survived so long?’ I asked. ‘And what have you found to eat?’
Tyrone stripped off his shirt and draped it over a rock. It soon began to steam gently with the heat from the fire. ‘Come on, lass. Don’t be shy. You can’t lie in them wet things all night. Besides, I need to clean your wounds or they’ll go bad real quick.’
Tyrone cut a strip off the hem of my shirt and used it to tend to my cuts and bruises. My bosom stayed wrapped. I’m not entirely shameless! He worked quickly, seemingly indifferent to the fact that I was a woman in a state of undress. I had never managed to prise much information from him, but he’d seen pretty much all there was to see during his time in Caddria’s merchant marine. While he worked, he told me how he’d managed to stay alive for nearly a whole Illesian cycle. Roots of plants mostly, and some small furry creatures he called Pratids.
‘“Pratids”?’
‘Aye. Cross between a rat and a praying mantis. Ugly bastards. I never come across anything more deserving of toasting on a spit.’
My stomach growled. I realised that I’d not eaten since the day before. ‘You got any?’
‘No. Sorry. How about a grub root?’ Ty proffered a tuberous object that might have been the larval stage of a particularly large insect.
‘Seriously?’ My face may have betrayed some reluctance.
He winked and skewered it on a twig. ‘It looks a lot like a grub, but it’s a root, I promise. The sugars caramelise when you hold it over a flame.’ He demonstrated and handed it to me when the skin had blackened all over. I nibbled at the wizened tuber. Ty smiled when he saw my face light up.
‘Um…actually not bad.’ Then I remembered how thirsty I was. ‘Have you got any water?’ Ty had managed to scoop up my water bottle as well as me, but it was still empty.
The Caddrian passed his water bottle to me, explaining that one of the reasons he’d picked this location was because of the spring nearby. I stopped before I wet my lips.
‘Is it safe?’
‘Well, I’m not dead am I, so I guess it’s alright. If it’s poisonous, it must be slow acting, or maybe there’s eggs in my stomach that’ll hatch out in a few days.’ Ty shrugged.
‘You did filter it, didn’t you?’
‘Aye, chief. I weren’t born yesterday.’
I drank greedily, then ate the root. Ty passed me another, and while I toasted it, he explained how he had scouted the rim of the crater, looking for survivors while his hope dwindled day-by-day. There had been no wildlife at all for the first few days. He’d discovered the grub roots and tasted minute portions, in case they made him sick. Eventually his hunger had forced him to gorge on them. By then, the creatures had begun to trickle back, but so had the Charg. Ty had moved around carefully and worked hard to remember sightings so that he could avoid the hotspots.
‘Anyway, I figured it would take you a long time to find to me, so I learned what I could and settled down for the long haul.’ I got me a routine with a regular patrol so that I would ‘ave the best chance of spotting you when you finally did turn up.’
‘It’s Aripole’s Blessings that I’m here at all, Ty!’
‘Oh, aye? Why’s that then?’
I was tired, so I gave him an abridged version of all we’d been through.
‘Spit on the dead!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m lucky you’re ‘ere at all. You really thought I was a goner?’
I nodded. ‘We even held a remembrance service for you.’
‘I ‘ope it was a nice service.’
‘It was lovely! I even said a few words.’
‘Oh, aye! And what were they then?’
‘Complimentary, mostly.’ I laughed, but the pain in my ribs cut it short.
‘You’ll not tell me will you?’
‘No. I don’t believe I will.’
‘Good. No one should hear their own eulogy.’ After a brief pause, he spoke again. ‘Chief, there’s something I don’t understand.’
‘What’s that?’
‘How was the failsafe triggered? I lured them creatures away from Finnian and the others, so what set it off?’
‘Are you sure that they all followed you?’
‘Aye. There were three of them. After about a quarter bell, I turned to check they were still on my tail. That’s when I saw the flash of light. I threw myself on the ground… force of habit, I guess. An ‘eartbeat later it was as though Aballas was tearing the whole planet apart. We must ‘ave been just on the edge of it, but the dumb Charg didn’t know to take cover. Trees and huge rocks flying overhead, and then this big wind came and sucked everything back to the centre of it all. Ain’t never seen anything like it. They wouldn’t ‘ave stood a chance if they were caught out in the open.’
I shook my head. ‘You must have led them a long way from the gate in order to get away from the worst of it. Perhaps in that time, they ran into some more of the bloody things.’
‘Could be, Chief.’
I nodded slowly, considering the possibilities again. ‘Or maybe the failsafe really did malfunction.’
Ty looked doubtful. ‘No. That’s not it. Our work’s better than that…your work.’
‘Alright, so you’re leading three of the Charg away. While you’re doing that, Kandesh, Finnian and the others see more of them, or maybe just one, Draxil knows. They get spooked, so they head back for the gate, probably leading the Charg right to it.’
‘Or maybe someone’s bracelet broke.’
‘I don’t think so, Ty. Those leather straps were designed strong, but I suppose it’s possible someone took theirs off and forgot to put it back on.’
The other possibility was sabotage, but by who? I’d have guessed Banks, but he hadn’t been directly involved in the project until the next day. Perhaps an explosion was the only way to trigger the kind of weapon he’d accused Director Harman of creating, but that would mean the old man or his niece destroying the very thing they’d worked so hard to create. None of it made any sense.
‘So young Finnian and Ankush Malek are gone?’
‘They are, Ty. Well and truly.’
‘I’m sorry to ‘ear it lass,’ Ty said, wearing a solemn expression. He placed three more sticks on the fire, keeping it to a low burn. ‘Finnian was a’right, I suppose. Ankush Rah Malek, well now he was something special. His brother’s gonna take it hard.’
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