Chapter 299: The Scenic Route

Eighty paces of an archipelago of platforms, altars and broken bridges above the black abyss separated them from the sarcophagus.

James tipped his hat across the gap and grinned. "Last one to that wee box buys the rum, Commodore, and none of your navy swill, mind. The good stuff!"

Anne bounced on her toes, her wet hair flying loose about her face.

He set the lantern in the altar’s bowl, and she shot one glance at the redcoats. Then James vaulted over the altar and onto the bridge.

"Gentlemen, Mister Calloway has proposed a race."

The commodore’s voice carried across the drop, calm and deep enough to suggest that no issue in the world could hurry him.

"His Majesty accepts, naturally. At the double, if you’d be so kind."

The pioneers broke into a stumbling run, timber bouncing on their shoulders.

"Planks across, lads! Double quick, ye idle buggers! That gap won’t mend itself!"

Boards came crashing into place as the corporal’s hoarse voice took over.

"Make rea-dy! Pre-sent! Fire by ranks, and God rot the man who misses!"

The volley crossed the gulf in wild shots, most far away from their targets, but one lucky shot hit the lantern. Its flame spun out and flickered over the pit like a little star end before the darkness swallowed it.

While shots were fired unrestrictedly, the bridge cracked straight across beneath James’s stride, and he barely had time to realize that the slab was breaking apart before throwing himself off the far end.

"Jump, lass!"

The whole structure broke loose and slid from its supports, and Anne jumped it by a hair’s breadth while the rumble went on down into the pit.

"I was within an ace of goin’ down with it!"

"She’s just a wee bit weary, that’s all!"

Across the gap, the redcoats rushed over its planks while the commodore strolled among them, hands clasped behind his back, as comfortably as taking his morning walk.

"What a pity, Mister Calloway."

His voice accompanied them without the least sign of exertion. "The stone bridge behind you was so very well situated for your tomb, one might almost say it was built for the purpose. And now you have quite ruined the arrangements."

Two more slabs brought them to a half-ruined ledge. Beyond it, a stretch of floor had simply disappeared, leaving a single stone beam across the hole, about as long as a ship’s boat and slick with water seeping through the rock.

James rushed onto it with his arms spread, balancing himself.

"Make rea-dy! Pre-sent! Take him on the beam, lads! Steady, steady, and fire!"

Multiple lead bullets missed, while one shot whined off the beam a hand’s breadth ahead of James’s toes, sending splinters into his torn cheek, and across the gap a musket pan flashed and fizzled, but no shot followed.

"Blimey, Corp! This bleedin’ wet’s done me powder! It’s all gone to porridge, it ’as!"

Behind him and halfway across, Anne’s boot slipped on the wet stone.

"Holy Mother of God and all the saints in heaven! Don’t let me die on a wet rock!"

She threw herself flat, slapped a palm against the stone, and scrambled onward, cursing all the while, as a lead bullet cut a lock of hair clean off her head.

"Me hair! They’re after takin’ me bloody hair, the thievin’ sods!"

"Behold, gentlemen, the scenic route!"

The commodore called across the chasm as leisurely as ever. "Observe Mister Calloway, capering over it like a hen on a hot griddle, while His Majesty’s highway lies broad and waiting. I can only conclude he chose it for the view."

"Grand view, Commodore, you should come and see it yourself!"

James bellowed, then twisted round, eyes wide with mock alarm.

"Whatever you do, don’t look down lass!"

"I’m looking at the redcoats, you gormless eejit!

The next platform ended at a sheer edge, with ten paces of empty air between it and the other side. A chain hung from the dark vault above, thick as a cable, with a corroded bronze fire-bowl the size of a cask swinging from its end.

A fool who ran hard enough and trusted the thing might make it across, and James was prepared to risk being the fool.

"Watch how it’s done! Don’t think, jump!"

"I’m thinkin’ plenty! Thinkin’ ye’re a madman, and I’m a bigger one for followin’ you!"

James jumped from the edge and caught the iron above the bowl, his weight sending the chain swinging, and when he reached the top of the arc, he let go, landed on the flagstones, rolled, kept his hat clamped to his head, and came up grinning.

"Prodigious, Mister Calloway, truly!"

The commodore’s praise drifted across the gap mildly. "What a pity the performance is so brief. I shall look forward to seeing it repeated, from a yardarm, with a rope."

Anne waited for the swing to return, judged her moment, and went, wrapping her legs around the chain while a lead shot struck the bronze below her heels and set the cable humming.

"Black coat first, lads!" the corporal barked. "Leave the baggage!"

"Baggage? Baggage, is it?"

Anne shouted from the top of the swing. "You flux-faced, pig-eyed son of a bilge rat! Come over here and say it to me face, and I’ll feed you me cutlass for yer supper!"

She let go, landed beside James, and carried on with the curses.

The chamber narrowed to a throat, and the redcoats were keeping with them on the other side of the chasm, barely a dozen paces away and gaining with every step.

At the brink stood a pillar as thick as the Rose’s mainmast, leaning toward the commodore’s road, the stone looking as if it had been leaning for a thousand years, and its base cracked across a seam on a shelf of rock that shed grit whenever it pleased.

All it needed was a good excuse to fall.

"That one." Anne pointed at the foot of it. "Look at the crack."

James felt the lean in his knees and belly, the same way he felt a ship’s heel beneath him, and his grin widened.

"Launchin’ day, lass! Knock the props out from under her, and let the grand old girl run!"

Anne drove her heel into the split shelf, which crumbled, while James planted his shoulder against the grooves and heaved.

"Shove, you great useless lump! Put your back into it!"

The old pillar groaned and ground against the stone as it slid over the edge with a shriek that could have woken the dead, then gathered speed while falling down.

Its mast-thick length swung out over the gloom.

"Jesus wept, she’s fallin’! Back! Get back! Back, back, back!"

The top of the pillar struck ahead of the redcoats, and the stones burst apart like crockery. Five pioneers disappeared beneath it in one wet crunch, their blood, bones, and boots ground into the stone, while a torch flew and smashed against a coat, setting its wearer alight before he fell over the edge. The remaining torches hissed out in the dust.

"Me legs! Oh Christ, oh Christ, me legs! Please! Me bleedin’ legs!"

The crash echoed around the vault like thunder trapped in a barrel, and dust billowed through the hall until it was thick as sea fog, while the pillar lay slantwise across the gap, a fallen mast with no ship left to claim it.

Anne bawled. "God bless her, and all who sail beneath her! Or were squashed under her, as the case may be!"

Two ranks behind them, the commodore stood unconcerned.

"A vandal’s trick, Mister Calloway, and quite unworthy of a man with a title."

His voice came through the dust, steady as ever.

"Planks, gentlemen! His Majesty’s road wants mending."

The corporal hauled the survivors upright, and the last of them scrambled for the boards. "On yer feet, ye gawpin’ sods! Yer mothers aren’t here to wipe yer arses! Fetch them planks, now!"

The merry couple route ended in a slope of fallen blocks, with a toppled shrine lying across the top like. Gravel slid under their boots, and every stride lost them half the ground it gained.

At the top, a loose block the size of a cask sat on the edge, with the commodore’s route timbers a stride below and across. James kicked the block.

"Mind yer toes, lads! Here’s a wee present from us!"

The block bounced down the slope and landed on the timbers with a crash, planks splintered, pioneers were thrown off their feet, and the redcoats lost time to reorganize themselves.

A final shot chipped the rock beside Anne’s fingers.

She vaulted the shrine, and James followed. Together they came over the top and onto a flagged platform at the foot of three tiers, where the sarcophagus sat at the top, its lid carved with figures worn too smooth to read.

The commodore route reached onto the same platform at precisely the same moment.

James’s sword and Anne’s cutlass came free of their scabbards, while muskets came ready at near range, bayonets ready to lunge at his chest and her throat.

The commodore smiled up, his hands still clasped behind his back. "Arrived, Mister Calloway, and in the same breath, no less! How very democratic of us. Then I fear nobody buys the rum, and the King is the poorer for it."

The impasse remained where it was.