The Bark of the Bog Owl (17 page)

“But not now,” he continued. “Fire’s half gone. We got to get back. Boys!” he shouted. “You coming or not?”

Aidan and Arliss didn’t answer. They heard the voice of Clayton. “Seems a shame not to let them look around a few minutes. They’re that close.”

Gustus was firm. “No. From the start I said we’d turn around when we lit the eleventh pair of torches, even if we could smell the Pyrthens. This part of the mission is over. We found the passage. But what good does that do if we don’t get back to camp with the news?”

Aidan and Arliss pressed their ears to the crack, straining to hear every word. “Tomorrow,” continued Gustus, “we come back with a whole troop of soldiers and as many torches as they can carry. Aidan! Arliss!” he bellowed, “you’re about to get left!”

“I’m not going back,” whispered Aidan. Arliss stared at him. “I’m going to see the Pyrthen end of this cave with my own eyes. Are you with me?”

Arliss was obviously torn. He wanted to continue the mission as badly as Aidan did. But he had never disobeyed Gustus. “He’s my foreman. And he’s the best foreman that ever wore a miner’s helmet.”

“You’re not a miner anymore, Arliss. You’re a scout. If they’re going to the camp and coming back here, they don’t need our help. They know the way now.”

“But I didn’t bring torches or tinder,” whispered Arliss, but he was only making excuses now.

“I’ve got two torches and a tinderbox. That leaves the rest of the company with two tinderboxes and more than enough torches.”

“Arliss!” came Gustus’s voice, angry now.

“Here’s the thing,” whispered Aidan, “they can’t get back here with a troop of soldiers until sometime tomorrow, maybe even the next day. If the Pyrthens fire up those thunder-tubes again, there may not be a tomorrow for the Corenwalder army. In the meantime, there’s a tiny little chance that we can do some good on this end.”

“Arliss! Aidan!” Gustus was furious now.

“I’m sorry, sir,” called Arliss into the crack. “We aren’t coming back.”

“I ain’t asking, Arliss! I’m giving you an order!”

But Aidan and Arliss had already started making their way down the passage toward the Pyrthen camp.

As Aidan and Arliss moved westward along the edge of another underground pool, the smell of the thunder-tubes grew stronger. They hadn’t gone far when Aidan saw up ahead a patch of gray, hovering high in the middle distance. Arliss saw it, too, and as they moved closer, they glimpsed a twinkle of light and realized they were seeing a sliver of the night sky.

“We’ve made it through,” Arliss gasped. “We’ve made it through!”

“Shhhh!” hissed Aidan. He was as eager as Arliss, but that glimpse of sky reminded him that they were very close to the world where Pyrthens stalked, and he had no desire to attract their attention.

They crept closer to the entrance, through a narrow neck that opened into a small chamber. The floor of the chamber sloped up to a jagged hole, about six feet across, that opened up to the starlit heavens.

Aidan and Arliss stood gazing at the sky. It had only been a few hours since they had last seen it, but in that short span there had been many moments when they had doubted they would ever see the sky again.

“What next?” whispered Aidan.

Arliss was a few feet away, just out of the torchlight,
looking at something that Aidan couldn’t make out in the darkness.

“Pssst!” whispered Arliss. “Bring the torch.”

When Aidan got closer with the torch, he saw what Arliss was looking at: dozens of barrels stacked against the cave wall.

“So the Pyrthens are using the cave as a storeroom,” whispered Aidan. “Just like Harlan’s family did. Good place for it, I guess. Nice and cool. What are these, ale barrels?”

“That’s not ale we’re smelling,” Arliss remarked. He pointed at the ground near one of the barrels, where a little black spot stood in stark contrast to the white clay. “What you suppose that is?”

Aidan swung the torch in the direction of the spot where Arliss pointed. As he did, a bit of torch pitch popped and sent a shower of orange sparks in all directions.

Ka-poppp!

The little black spot on the ground exploded in a blaze of white light that blinded Aidan and Arliss and threw up a plume of white smoke that enveloped them in the sweet, acrid smell they knew from the Pyrthen thunder-tubes. Aidan’s ears rang. He could see nothing but bright spots of color swirling in front of him.

When the thud of heavy boots echoed in the cave entrance, Aidan barely had the presence of mind to react. He snatched off his helmet and put it over the torch to kill the flame. Then he grabbed Arliss, who hadn’t moved since the fire flash, and pulled him behind a barrel.

A Pyrthen soldier, fully uniformed and armed, burst through the cave entrance bearing a flaming torch. “Who’s there?” he growled, scanning the chamber. But
his eyes weren’t adjusted to the profound darkness, and he didn’t see the two Corenwalders who peered at him from behind the barrel.

The torchbearer was followed almost immediately by a second soldier, who pulled off his own helmet and killed the torch flame, just as Aidan had his own.

“Hey,” began the first soldier, “what’s the big …”

“Idiot!” snapped the second soldier, cutting him short. “You know not to come in here with a flame!”

“But I heard a pop, and I smelled smoke, and I …”

“If you touch off that flame powder, we’ll hear a pop like the world has never heard before!” He pointed at the barrels stacked along the wall. “That’s enough flame powder for enough cannon shots to conquer this pitiful little country ten times over. One little spark is enough to set the whole thing off.”

“I just thought …” began the first soldier. He was shaking now, terrified at the thought of what his carelessness might have led to.

“We’ve been guarding this cave entrance all night,” said the second soldier. “There’s nobody in here.” He pointed out the cave entrance. “Look, it’s getting light out. Our watch is over. It’ll be less than an hour before the cannon fire begins again. Let’s try to get some rest.”

The Pyrthens heaved themselves out of the cave, leaving Aidan and Arliss in the darkness. “Flame powder?” whispered Arliss. “What’s flame powder?”

“It must be what makes the thunder-tubes boom,” answered Aidan. He looked in awe at the stacked barrels. “And that’s tons of it.”

Arliss thought back to the little explosion that had so
stunned them minutes before. “How much flame powder made that flash a minute ago?”

“It would fit into the palm of your hand,” said Aidan.

“Then that’s enough flame powder to …” Arliss shivered to think about what that much powder could do.

Aidan finished his sentence: “Enough to put an end to Corenwald.” The boys sat glumly in the dim light that made its way in from the brightening sky outside.

A strange light was visible in Aidan’s eyes, even in the dimness of the cave. He reached into his pack and pulled out the tinderbox. “It’s also enough to put an end to an invading army!” Before Arliss knew what was happening, he heard the
tchk … tchk … tchk … tchk … tchk …
of Aidan madly striking flint on steel. Sparks were flying at the dry tinder.

“Hold on there, big boy!” whispered Arliss as he snatched up the tinder. “Let’s think on this a minute. I ain’t opposed to blowing up the Pyrthens, but if we can do it without blowing up our own selves, I’d rather do it that way.”

“What do you suggest then?” asked Aidan, his eyes still flashing.

“You’re a farm boy, right?” asked Arliss.

“Yes,” answered Aidan, “what about it?”

“You ever do a straight burn?”

“Sure. Every winter.”

“I saw a farmer near Greasy Cave do it once. He made a narrow little line of fire go straight from one end of the field to the other. I never knew how he did it.”

“It’s not hard,” said Aidan. “You just pour a line of turpentine where you want fire to go, put a flame to it, and there it goes.”

“I was just wondering, could we do a straight burn that runs from back there somewhere”—Arliss pointed in the direction they had come from—“maybe that little pool—to these barrels? We could pour a line of flame powder instead of turpentine, put fire to it at the far end, and be a long way off when the barrels boom.”

Aidan grinned and pounded Arliss on the back. “Arliss, you’re a genius.”

Arliss tapped his helmet.

“I know,” said Aidan. “It’s the miner’s head.”

“Our best bet is to get into that pool if we can,” remarked Arliss. “I don’t know what kind of fire we’re about to let loose, but I doubt even flame powder can burn water.”

“Good plan,” agreed Aidan. “The Pyrthen guards said they’d start firing in an hour. We better move fast.”

Enough daylight found its way in for the boys to work. The seal was broken on one of the barrels, and they managed to tip it over. The powder fuse would lead there. Using their helmets for scoops, they poured a thick rope of powder along the cave floor as far as the squeeze that served as the cavern’s back door.

The task got much harder once they were into the next chamber, for the sunlight didn’t reach there. They couldn’t safely light their torch, so they felt their way in the dark.

They were only a few steps beyond the squeeze when they heard a faint
boom
from outside, followed by another and another. “The thunder-tubes!” said Aidan in a hoarse whisper. “They’re firing again.” He thought of
the terror of his countrymen, the helplessness they felt against such weapons.

“If they’re firing those thunder-tubes,” observed Arliss, “it won’t be long before somebody comes down here for more powder. We’re out of time, Aidan. We’ve got to touch this thing off.”

“You’re right,” answered Aidan. “But let’s be smart about it. How much powder is left in your helmet?”

“Two or three heavy handfuls, I’d say.”

“Mine’s almost half full. We’ve got to empty these helmets. But we can’t just dump them out. It has to be a nice, even line like we’ve been making.”

Boom! Boom! Boom!

“Aidan!” shouted Arliss. “We’ve got to light this thing! We got no more time!”

Boom! Boom!

“All right,” agreed Aidan. He put the tinderbox and a wood splinter in Arliss’s hands. “You step off ten or twelve strides and light this splinter. Hand me your helmet. I’ll finish the powder line while you’re making fire.”

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Aidan bent to his work, trying to ignore the booming of the thunder-tubes. This was a crucial part of the task. At the other end, the powder line was thick and ropelike; big fire was good as the fuse approached the powder barrels. But at this end, they needed a controlled fire; they wanted to blow up the barrels without blowing themselves up. In near-total darkness, with the booming of thunder-tubes overhead and the threat of Pyrthens uncovering their plot any second, it was hard for Aidan to create the narrow, even powder line he needed.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Tchk … tchk … tchk.

Arliss was striking away with the flint.

Tchk … tchk … tchk.

Aidan could feel the nervous sweat dripping down the slope of his nose. He had emptied Arliss’s helmet, but there were still a couple of handfuls of powder left in his own.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Tchk … tchk … tchk.

Then, from the entry chamber, he heard the shuffle of boots and a murmur of voices.

“Hurry!” he whispered at Arliss.

Tchk … tchk … tchk … tchk … tchk.

The tinder wouldn’t catch.

From the next chamber came a Pyrthen voice. “Oy! Freymerge! What’s this?”

“What’s what?” asked another Pyrthen.

“This line of flame powder!” Aidan could hear the soldiers’ footsteps coming toward them as they followed the powder line.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Tchk … tchk … tchk.

Aidan trailed out the last of the powder from his helmet. “Arliss,” he whispered, “forget the tinder. Bring the flint.”

Arliss squatted beside him, flint in hand. It suddenly grew completely dark in the chamber; the few rays of light coming in through the rock squeeze were blocked by the form of a soldier trying to squeeze through.

“Fly, Pyrthen!” called Aidan. “Fly! We’re lighting the
flame powder. Get out!” The soldier stopped, but he didn’t run away.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

“Get him!” came the panicked voice of the other Pyrthen. “Stop him!” Aidan and Arliss could hear the soldier grunting as he tried to push through the narrow space.

“He had his chance,” Aidan whispered to Arliss.

Tchk … tchk … tchk … tchk.

The intermittent flash of flint sparks gave Arliss enough light to find the end of the powder trail.

Tchk.

The powder caught and hissed to life. By the white flash they saw the terror-stricken face of the Pyrthen soldier, who turned and fled from the sparkling fire that came racing toward him.

Aidan scooped up the two helmets and stuck one on his own head, the other on Arliss’s. Still seeing spots, the boys stumbled toward the safety of the pool.

They were no sooner in the water than the cave shook with the force of an earthquake. The cavern grew bright, lit by a fire that shot through the squeeze. The boys pressed themselves against the pool’s rock wall, terrified by what they had unleashed. A hail of rocks, some quite large, rocketed over their heads, propelled by an explosion that rumbled on for half a minute as one barrel of powder touched off the barrels next to it in a chain of explosions that grew stronger and stronger before finally settling down.

Even after the explosion stopped, huge chunks of stone continued to fall, thudding to the cave floor and
rocking the pool into high waves that tossed Aidan and Arliss around like chips of driftwood in a stormy sea and finally threw them out of the water and onto the pool’s rocky bank.

Bruised and terribly sore, Aidan lay on the jagged stone, spluttering and coughing in the darkness. The air was so thick with dust that it was hardly more breathable than the water he had just escaped. A few feet away, Arliss was hacking and spitting. In a brief pause between coughing fits, Aidan heard Arliss’s voice, muffled but urgent: “Breathe through your tunic!”

“Pardon?” Aidan’s mouth and throat were so gummy with inhaled cave dust that he could hardly speak the word.

“Pull your tunic over your mouth and nose and breathe through it”—Arliss was interrupted by another violent coughing fit—“or this dust will choke you.”

Aidan did as Arliss instructed. The tunic mask filtered out just enough dust for Aidan to get his breath. But both boys continued hacking and coughing so hard that they could hardly carry on a conversation.

“Can you walk?” called Aidan into the darkness.

“I think so,” answered Arliss, grunting a little as he picked himself up. “Can you?”

Aidan struggled to his feet. Everything hurt, but nothing seemed to be broken. “I think so.”

Their one exit was blocked. A single spot of light illuminated the suspended cave dust where the rock squeeze used to lead to the entry chamber. “We’re buried,” observed Arliss. “If we can’t dig our way out, we aren’t getting out.”

On hands and knees, Aidan and Arliss crawled
painfully over loose, jagged rock toward the little slit of light, their only hope of ever seeing the sky again. Arliss pulled a chunk of limestone out of the rubble pile that blocked the cave neck, and the tiny ray became a small shaft of light, no thicker than a finger. Aidan’s eyes filled with tears of gratitude as he looked along the ray that shot past him into the cave’s deeper darkness. He caught the streaming light in his hand as if it were a stream of water. Never had he been so happy to see a shaft of light and floating dust.

Forgetting about the pains in his arms, his legs, his back, his side, his neck, and his head, Aidan attacked the rubble pile. He wanted more light. He had to see more light!

“Whoa!” shouted Arliss. “Careful now!”

But is was too late. The first rock Aidan pulled out caused a collapse and a little landslide that blocked out what little light they had. They found themselves in darkness again.

“Why don’t you let me do this?” suggested Arliss. Aidan watched intently for another sliver of light as Arliss worked methodically at the rubble pile. Soon a new ray of light appeared, then another, then another as Arliss cleared stone and pebbles away.