The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [234]
The mare swerved wildly and came to a sliding, slithering stop, and Anjuli tumbled from the saddle, and picking herself up, ran to catch Baj Raj, who was trotting in an aimless circle stumbling over his reins, and led him through the empty doorway into the darkness beyond, to be followed a moment later by Ash with the mare.
There was not enough light to see how big the cave was, but judging by the hollow sound of the horses' hooves it was a large one; and they had reached it in time – but only just in time. The storm had been so close on their heels that even as they turned to face the entrance, a dark curtain appeared to be drawn across it and the daylight was blotted out as a churning, choking, maelstrom of dust whirled down the valley, driven by a wind that shrieked as though the Valkyries rode it, or witches from the Brocken.
The noise of the gale filled the quiet cave with sound and made the darkness reverberate with a hollow, high-pitched drone that seemed to come from all points of the compass at once, and dust poured in through the doorway until the close air within was suddenly so thick with it that breathing became difficult, and Anjuli began to cough and choke.
She heard Ash calling something, but the words were lost in the howl of the wind and the echoes that they awoke in the recesses of the cave. Then his hand closed upon her arm and he was shouting into her ear: ‘Take your coat off and put it over your head. And get back into the cave – as far as you can.’ He brushed away the silky hair that was getting into his mouth, and added: ‘Carefully now, Larla; don't go falling over anything.’
The old endearment had slipped out unconsciously, and he did not know that he had used it, for he had other things on his mind; notably the horses, who were backing and snorting in an effort to escape from the stifling dust, and might panic at any moment and lash out in the darkness, injuring each other if not Juli or himself. And if the horses went lame it was going to mean a long walk back to camp – if there was still a camp. He did not want to think of what might be happening there, and in any case there was no point in worrying about a situation that was completely beyond his control. But at least he should be able to do something about Baj Raj and the mare.
He had given his handkerchief to Juli, so there was nothing for it but to remove his shirt and tear it into strips; and he did so – using his teeth to start it tearing and tying the first strip over his nose and mouth as a filter. It was easier to breathe after that, and he kept his eyes shut against the dust and did the rest by touch, soothing the horses and knotting up their reins out of harm's way, and finally fastening a loop of cloth between each animal's forelegs, just above the fetlock, in the time-honoured fashion of the Indian villager who slips a similar loop of grass rope on his pony so that it can only hobble, and lets it out to graze in the sure knowledge that it cannot stray too far or come to much harm.
That done, he turned his attention to exploring the cave in order to see if it went far enough back to allow them all to get out of this stifling smother and into cleaner air.
The wind was blowing slantwise down the valley and slightly away from the cave, and the overhang of rock helped in some small way to deflect it. But there was no way of blocking the entrance, and the dust fumed in through it like steam from a boiling kettle. The further away they could get from it the better for all of them, and Ash moved back cautiously into the darkness, feeling his way along one wall.
He had gone perhaps twenty yards when his hand touched something that was unmistakably metal, and further investigation showed that someone, presumably the long-ago occupant who had closed in the cave mouth with those mud bricks, had driven several short iron staples into the rock wall; though for what purpose was not clear. The