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forest with his staff while Merry raced the engine.
Oak turned and tried to see what the laibon was pointing at. Nothing but rain,
rain, and jungle. Not a shetani in sight.
Then Kakombe was pointing too, and the movement Olkeloki was trying to draw
their attention to could no longer be ignored.
Part of the forest was alive and slithering toward them.
At first it looked like the branches of the trees were falling off and making
for the bog, wiggling and squirming with some horrible, artificial life. Then
Oak saw that it was an army of four-foot-long worms, Generated by ABC Amber
LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
each as green as an Irishman's bouquet on St. Paddy's day, a bright,
reflective pale green that was somehow not reassuring. Not when it was coming
toward you with sinuous deliberation.
Of course, they weren't giant worms, any more than they were animated
branches.
Oak yelled at Kakombe as he pulled with all his strength on the nylon line.
Those snakes are they poisonous?
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The giant hesitated long enough to study the oncoming legless horde. No, but
they can still bite. All snakes bite. We do not want to share this water with
them.
We sure as hell don't, Oak murmured to himself. He was no squamataphobe, but
neither did he count snakes as among his favorite inhabitants of the earth.
The last thing he wanted was a couple dozen exotic varieties curling around
his legs. There were hundreds of them squirming and slithering through the
undergrowth and they were all heading for the bog. A glance to his left
revealed that the other side of the forest was equally alive with rustling
bushes and leaves. But why had they appeared here so suddenly and in such
numbers?
As he leaned into the rope he tried to remember some of what Olkeloki had told
them about the shetani.
There was one variety, the Mbilika, that fed exclusively on snakes. Maybe
these bright green beauties were being driven toward the bog by something
farther back in the trees, by horrors as yet unseen.
Apparently the shetani were not ignorant of simple tactics. The snakes would
attack and confuse the prey, and when the inhabitants of the Land Rover had
been suitably worn out and weakened...
Come on, pull, damn you!
Kakombe whirled to glare back at him. Pull yourself, ilmeet. Then he saw
that Oak was grinning at him and, after an instant's hesitation, the giant was
grinning too.
A new sound, a delightful, mellifluous, altogether exquisite sound: an aria of
rubber on gravel as the Land
Rover's tires found solid purchase under the mud. As the two men scrambled
clear, Merry drove the
Rover halfway out of the water, swung the wheel back to the left, and in
seconds had it idling high if not dry on the cracked pavement above the bog.
Olkeloki was leaning out his window and motioning anxiously.
Quickly, quickly!
Oak fastened the emergency line and heaved it onto the roof of the car while
Kakombe unhooked the tow cable from the tree. There was something on Oak's
boot. Looking down, he saw tiny dark eyes staring back up at him out of a
triangular green head. The snake was trying to bite through the leather. He
stomped it with the heel of his other shoe and it let go, sliding back into
the mud.
He turned to face the car and froze. A second streamlined skull was staring
directly into his face. The snake must have gone up his back. Now it was
resting on his shoulder, pausing while it decided which portion of his face to
sink its teeth into.
The head vanished and snake blood struck him in the eye.
It was warmer than the sweat and rainwater. A glance showed Kakombe beckoning
to him as he retreated toward the Land Rover. In the giant's right hand was
one of those oversized Maasai knives.
The rain was already rinsing the blood from the blade.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Shaking as much from exhaustion as from the near encounter, he stumbled up the
slight slope and fell into the back seat alongside the equally fatigued senior
warrior. Up front, the winch was reeling in the rest of the steel cable like a
fat man sucking spaghetti.
Drive, Merry Sharrow, drive! he heard Olkeloki say.
As soon as the cable's all in or we're liable to foul an axle there! The
Land Rover lurched forward and started to slide backward on the slick
blacktop. Oak twisted around and stared out the back window. The surface of
the bog was alive with thrashing, twisting serpents slithering over one
another by the hundreds and biting at rocks, broken branches, one another,
anything within reach of their teeth.
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The transmission growled as the tires bit in. The Rover held its ground,
shuddering, and then began moving forward: an inch, a foot, a decisive yard.
Faint crunching noises came from beneath the floorboards as they rolled over
several dozen legless bodies. The Rover's speedometer needle rose slowly and
like a bad dream the bog began to recede behind them.
No one relaxed until they neared the outskirts of Chalinze.
Here a small piece of the primeval had been pushed aside and cleared for human
settlement. The sun was down and the rain made it impossible to see more than
a few feet in front of the car. But Olkeloki seemed to know where they were
and where he was going. Merry was more than content just to follow his
directions.
The old man pointed to his left. Over there, there is a place I know. A good
garage. We will sleep there tonight. It will be cleaner than the local rest
house.
The owner of the garage was a Sikh named Jana Singh.
He greeted Olkeloki effusively, leading Oak to suspect that the garage owner
and Maasai gold were old friends. He led them to a back room of the garage
which turned out to be a vision lifted straight from paradise: dry cots laden
with clean linen and real pillows. Half an hour later Singh's wife and two
elder daughters appeared carrying bread and a curry that smelled like
ambrosia. He was not in the least dissuaded by the fact that the principal
ingredient of the curry was goat meat. As for Merry, she finished two bowls
and asked for a third.
We're both going to end up with the trots. She giggled. Her face was
streaked with mud and grime.
You know what? I don't care. This garage has a real bathroom with a real
john. I'm going to sit on it for a while just to enjoy the feel of it.
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