Thunderbolt Wilbur Smith (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📖

and they’d carried on, we could have been separated entirely. As it was my ‘Stop!’ reached Xander and he passed it on to the front of the line, prompting Mo and the others to double back.

We gathered around Addie. His pack had come off. I picked it up to give it back to him and realised it was at least double the weight of mine. He’d hurt his ankle as he fell. Mo squatted with him as he tested it. The boy winced putting weight on his left foot, but forced himself to take a few ginger steps.

‘Not a good start,’ Amelia pointed out.

‘He’ll shake it off, won’t he, Mo?’ Xander said hopefully.

Addie’s face was concrete in the half-light, giving nothing away.

Mo asked him something. If he thought he could keep up, I assume. I sensed Mo weighing whether, for the good of the group, we should leave Addie there. Just as I was about to object and tell him we should give the boy a bit more time to walk off the sprain, I felt something tickly against my thigh. I thought it was the dog’s tail brushing me, but when I looked down he was on my other side. Instinctively I slapped at my thigh, just as a sharp pain crackled across it. I’d made contact with something, knocking it off me, I thought.

‘What’s up?’ asked Xander.

Something had bitten or stung me. I knew that. But I didn’t know what it was. Though I inspected the ground I couldn’t see anything, just greyed-out dirt, rocks and scrub.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘A mosquito, possibly.’

‘Which you’re looking for on the ground?’ said Amelia.

‘Dumb, eh?’ I admitted.

I knew it wasn’t a mosquito. The thought of what it might have been filled me with dread: a scorpion; a spider; even, possibly, a snake? I had no idea! And I would never know. I couldn’t do anything about whatever it was, except hope.

Addie had finished rubbing at his ankle. He was insisting he could go on. Meanwhile, the electric nip I’d felt had softened to an ominous pulsing sensation. Real fear gripped me then. Might the bite have been poisonous? Was the venom working its way into my bloodstream?

‘You’re sure you’re all right, Jack?’ said Xander.

‘Fine, yes,’ I replied.

But I wasn’t. The throbbing grew heavier, giving me a dead leg from knee to hip. Addie was flexing his foot and Mo, who’d been focusing on him rather than me, had unscrewed the cap of his water bottle. Around us other kids did the same. If Amelia or Xander suspected I wasn’t telling the truth they were too worried to press the point.

‘Wait,’ said Amelia.

Mo turned around.

I wasn’t prepared for what she said next. ‘Where’s the other dog?’

The hound was still with us, sitting patiently beside me, but she was right, I’d not seen the heavier-set dog since we stopped.

Xander said, ‘I’m sure he’s around here somewhere,’ without conviction.

‘You had him tethered, didn’t you?’ said Amelia.

Xander didn’t reply.

‘If he’s gone, it will be back to camp,’ murmured Mo.

My pulsing leg was lead-heavy. A wave of helplessness swept through me, very nearly dropping me to my knees.

We were in the middle of nowhere, in the dead of night, with the sky howling above us, on the run from a crazy, slave-driving warlord. I’d been bitten or stung by God-knew-what. My leg was turning to stone; for all I knew the rest of me would follow and I’d seize up entirely. I might even die. On top of that, one of the tracker dogs we’d worked so hard to tease away from General Sir had slunk off back to him. If Mo was right about that then the dog would be able to follow its own trail here at the General’s command, and before long they’d outrun us. The situation was completely hopeless.

‘Talk about “you had one job”,’ said Amelia, acid in her voice.

Xander’s head dropped.

I turned to Amelia. Truthful to a fault, she’s never normally mean. To have snapped at Xander like that she had to be panicked to the point of an imminent meltdown. Such a loss of control – in her, particularly – was frightening.

Xander, never normally at a loss for words, was mute. He looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him up.

And Mo was muttering to himself, wringing his hands, while his entourage stood dumbly before us. Not four hours into a three-day ordeal and we were coming apart at the seams.

50.

‘Enough!’ I said, thumping my numb leg. ‘The dog could yet turn up or go anywhere. It doesn’t matter! Nothing does, except carrying on. Addie’s OK. We have a head start. Let’s build on it. Mo, lead the way!’

Nobody moved.

‘Give me Addie’s pack,’ I said, reaching for it. ‘Here, mine’s lighter, tell him to take it,’ I said to Mo.

Ignoring my dead leg, I swung Addie’s rucksack onto my back. It felt full of bricks, hard edged and heavy. But that was almost reassuring, given the nothingness of my right thigh. I tried to think positively. At least my leg was still capable of keeping me upright. I took a couple of steps and was relieved to see that the signal sent to my foot by my brain got through. Though I couldn’t feel much below my right hip, the foot went where I’d hoped it would.

‘Come on, Mo!’ I forced some brightness into my voice. ‘We have to push on. Keep Addie beside you. Set a pace he can follow. And tell everyone to stick close together so we don’t get separated. I’ll bring up the rear. OK?’

After hesitating for what seemed a dreadful minute but was probably only a few reluctant seconds, Mo nodded. I was so relieved. He addressed the others with more fire in his voice, his hands tightening into fists. A pulse of murmuring agreement went through the group. ‘You’re right,’ he said to me. ‘There’s no turning back now.’

With that he set off and the others, a string pulled tight behind