Timeline - Michael Crichton [125]
Why? Chris wondered, peering around the vat. Why were they still being pursued? What was so important about them that de Kere would ignore an enemy attack and try instead to kill them?
Apparently the searchers liked the smell in the alley no better than Chris did, because soon de Kere barked an order and they all ran back up the alley, toward the street.
“What was that about?” Chris whispered finally.
Marek just shook his head.
And then they heard men shouting, and again they heard the soldiers running back down the street. Chris frowned. How could they have overheard? He looked at Marek, who seemed troubled, too. From outside the courtyard, they heard de Kere shout: “Ici! Ici!” Probably, de Kere had left a man behind. That must be it, Chris thought. Because he hadn’t whispered loudly enough to be heard. Marek started forward, then hesitated. Already de Kere and his men were climbing over the fence—eight men altogether; they could not fight them all.
“André,” Chris said, pointing to the vat. “It’s lye.”
Marek grinned. “Then let’s do it,” he said, and he leaned against the vat.
They all put their shoulders against the wood and, with effort, managed to push the vat over. Frothing alkali solution sloshed onto the ground and flowed toward the soldiers. The odor was acrid. The soldiers instantly recognized what it was—any contact with that liquid would burn flesh—and they scrambled back up the fence, getting their feet off the ground. The fence posts began to sizzle and hiss when the lye touched them. The fence wobbled with the weight of all the men; they shouted and scrambled back into the alley.
“Now,” Marek said. He led them deeper into the tanning yard, up over a shed, and then out into another alley.
:
It was now late afternoon, and the light was beginning to fade; ahead they saw the burning farmhouses, which cast hard flickering shadows on the ground. Earlier, there had been attempts to put out the fires, but they were now abandoned; the thatch burned freely, crackling as burning strands rose into the air.
They were following a narrow path that ran among pigsties. The pigs snorted and squealed, distressed by the fires that burned nearby.
Marek skirted the fires, heading toward the south gate, where they had first come in. But even from a distance, they could see that the gate was the scene of heavy fighting; the entrance was nearly blocked by the bodies of dead horses; Arnaut’s soldiers had to scramble over the corpses to reach the defenders inside, who fought bitterly with axes and swords.
Marek turned away, doubling back through the farm area.
“Where are we going?” Chris said.
“Not sure,” Marek said. He was looking up at the curtain wall around the town. Soldiers ran along it, heading toward the south gate to join in the fight. “I want to get up on that wall.”
“Up on the wall?”
“There.” He pointed to a narrow, dark opening in the wall, with steps going up. They emerged on top of the town wall. From their high vantage point, they could see that more of the town was being engulfed in flames; fires were closer to the shops. Soon all Castelgard would be burning. Marek looked over the wall at the fields beyond. The ground was twenty feet below. There were some bushes about five feet high, which looked soft enough to break their impact. But it was getting hard to see.
“Stay loose,” he said. “Keep your body relaxed.”
“Loose?” Chris said.
But already Kate had swung her body over and was hanging from the wall. She released her grip, and fell the rest of the way, landing on her feet like a cat. She looked up at them and beckoned.
“It’s pretty far down,” Chris said. “I don’t want to break a leg. . ..”
From the right, they heard shouts. Three soldiers ran along the wall, their swords raised.
“Then don’t,” Marek said, and jumped. Chris jumped after him in the twilight, landed on the ground, grunting and rolling. He got slowly to his feet. Nothing broken.
He was feeling relieved and rather pleased with himself, when the first of the