Voyager - Diana Gabaldon [488]
Suddenly a figure I hadn’t noticed before stepped out of the shadow of the cane. It went down on one knee before the struggling pair, and without hesitation, slipped a rope noose around the lizard’s jaws. The shouting rose in a yell of triumph, cut off by a sharp word from the kneeling figure.
He rose and motioned violently, shouting commands. He wasn’t speaking English, but his concern was obvious; the great tail was still free, lashing from side to side with a force that would have felled any man who came within range of it. Seeing the power of that stroke, I could only marvel that my own legs were merely bruised, and not broken.
The pole men dashed in closer, in response to the commands of their leader. I could feel the half-pleasant numbness of shock stealing over me, and in that state of unreality, it somehow seemed no surprise to see that the leader was the man called Ishmael.
“Huwe!” he said, making violent upward gestures with his palms that made his meaning obvious. Two of the pole men had gotten their poles shoved under the belly; a third now managed a lucky strike past the tossing head, and lodged his pole under the chest.
“Huwe!” Ishmael said again, and all three threw themselves hard upon their poles. With a sucking splat! the reptile flipped over and landed thrashing on its back, its underside a sudden gleaming white in the torchlight.
The torchbearers were shouting again; the noise rang in my ears. Then Ishmael stopped them with a word, his hand thrown out in demand, palm up. I couldn’t tell what the word was, but it could as easily have been “Scalpel!” The intonation—and the result—were the same.
One of the torchbearers hastily tugged the cane-knife from his loincloth, and slapped it into his leader’s hand. Ishmael turned on his heel and in the same movement, drove the point of the knife deep into the crocodile’s throat, just where the scales of the jaw joined those of the neck.
The blood welled black in the torchlight. All the men stepped back then, and stood at a safe distance, watching the dying frenzy of the great reptile with a respect mingled with deep satisfaction. Ishmael straightened, shirt a pale blur against the dark canes; unlike the other men, he was fully dressed, save for bare feet, and a number of small leather bags swung at his belt.
Owing to some freak of the nervous system, I had kept standing all this time. The increasingly urgent messages from my legs made it through to my brain at this point, and I sat down quite suddenly, my skirts billowing on the muddy ground.
The movement attracted Ishmael’s notice; the narrow head turned in my direction, and his eyes widened. The other men, seeing him, turned also, and a certain amount of incredulous comment in several languages followed.
I wasn’t paying much attention. The crocodile was still breathing, in stertorous, bubbling gasps. So was I. My eyes were fixed on the long scaled head, its eye with a slit pupil glowing the greenish gold of tourmaline, its oddly indifferent gaze seeming fixed in turn on me. The crocodile’s grin was upside down, but still in place.
The mud was cool and smooth beneath my cheek, black as the thick stream that flowed between the lizard’s scales. The tone of the questions and comments had changed to concern, but I was no longer listening.
* * *
I hadn’t actually lost consciousness; I had a vague impression of jostling bodies and flickering light, and then I was lifted into the air, clutched tight in someone’s arms. They were talking excitedly, but I caught only a word now and then. I dimly thought I should tell them to lay me down and cover me with something, but my tongue wasn’t working.
Leaves brushed my face as my escort ruthlessly shouldered the canes aside; it was like pushing through a cornfield that had no ears, all stalks and rustling leaves. There was no conversation among the men now; the susurrus of our passage drowned even the sound of footsteps.
By the time we entered the clearing by the slave huts, both sight and wits had