Chapter 12

The pit, a gaping hole in the ground, was so deep Jesse could not see its bottom. There was nothing but blackness below, and Jesse almost felt that he would be sucked in if he stood too close.

“I suppose you’re going to ask us to jump in,” he guessed, trying to prepare himself for the worst.

Samar snorted a laugh. “Hardly. You would contaminate the water supply. These cisterns are used by shepherds and nomads. I’m sure they’d rather you didn’t waste what little water we can store in these parts. And,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “it would be a very long fall.”

“If there’s water below,” Rae said, a worried frown creasing her face, “then how can we hide? I don’t know how to swim.”

“I used to,” Jesse said. “But now, with one good leg, I can only stay above water for a few minutes.”

Samar waved at them impatiently. “Just watch.” He crouched down beside the pit and reached down inside of it. “It should be here,” he said, groping around in the darkness.

Silas lurched forward to grab the old man’s shoulders as he started to tip.

“Here!” Samar said triumphantly, seemingly unaware that he had nearly fallen into the cistern. He pulled out a stretch of thick, coiled rope with large knots spaced evenly along it.

“So, we’re all going to hang from the rope and wait until the Patrol members pass by,” Rae suggested, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ll take my chances and hide myself in the sand,” Jesse said immediately.

Rae shuddered. “Not me. Never again. It felt like I was being buried alive.”

“If you don’t stop talking, you will be buried dead in a few moments,” Samar snapped. They stopped talking. “Climb down the rope into the cistern. At the end of the rope, you should find a ladder to your left.”

“Should?” Jesse asked pointedly.

Samar ignored him. “The ladder leads to a cavern dug into the side of the cistern. There is enough room for all of us.” He glanced back over the hills. “Now, hurry, before the Patrol finds us here!”

“I’ll go first,” Silas said. “I’ll be able to help the rest of you.” Without wasting another second, he grabbed the top of the rope and slid into the cistern.

The rope held.

Jesse breathed a sigh of relief. If it could hold Silas, it would hold any of them.

“You next,” Samar said to Rae. “I will go last.”

Rae is supposed to climb while Silas is still on the rope? “I don’t know if….” But Rae was already edging into the darkness of the cistern.

Jesse knew that he was next, and he willed his hands to stop sweating. He wondered if he would be able to climb. Perhaps Silas and Rae had been through exercises like this in their training, but since the accident, all he had done was help with farm chores and clean tables.

Relax, he told himself. It will be just like the bridge. You can do it.

“Now you, Jesse,” Samar said. Jesse glanced at the walking stick in his hand, and Samar followed his gaze.

“Leave it,” Samar advised. “We’ll be back up eventually. Bury it in the sand.”

“Won’t the assassins find it and know we’re here?”

Samar’s weather-beaten face was grim. “If they’re that close, they’ll find us too. Now, hurry.”

Jesse started to bury the stick, then stopped. “No. I’ll take it down myself.”

“You’ll never make it with one hand.” Samar sighed, then snatched it from him. “Here.” He thrust the walking stick into a loop of his belt that held his sword, money pouch, and other valuables. Cinched tightly against his waist, the staff barely moved. “Now go.”

As soon as he crouched down on the ground, Jesse knew that the hardest part would not be the climb: it would be the first drop into the darkness. His mouth was as dry as the desert around them as he began to climb down.

It was dark in the cistern, but cool, a nice change from the hot, dry night. Jesse had little time to enjoy it, however. Since only one leg was strong enough to support him, almost all of his weight rested on his arms. He clung to the first knot for a few seconds, then loosened his grip and slid to the next.

Each drop made his stomach turn over. I must not vomit into the cistern, he thought. The shepherds and nomads wouldn’t appreciate that at all.

“Eight knots,” Silas called up. He must have reached the ladder.

Jesse had just reached the fourth knot, and already his arms were trembling. A bit of dirt fell from above him. Samar must be beginning the climb.

Jesse grasped at the rope with his good leg, trying to give his arms a rest, but it was no use. “I’m not going to make it,” he gasped, already out of breath.

“Keep coming,” Silas said, from below him somewhere.

He doesn’t understand! Jesse loosened his grip again, slid to the next knot. This time it was harder to tighten his grip again. One hand fell away, and he jerked it back again.

“Look up, Jesse,” Samar said.

In the dark, Jesse could barely make out the old man’s hand, reaching down toward him. He tried to grab it.

No! As soon as Jesse let go with one hand, the other lost its grip on the rope, and he felt himself falling.

Then a jolt knocked the breath out of him. Hard stone wall, but no water. Someone was holding onto him with a grip like an iron clamp.

A voice was shouting in pain, and Jesse joined it. He opened his eyes. Everything was blurry.

He blinked. The ladder. He reached out, grabbed the rung in front of him. The shouting stopped, the iron grip relaxed. For the first time, Jesse realized that it was Rae who had grabbed him, who had held him and kept him from plunging into the water below.

“Go,” she said, pointing down.

Jesse climbed the ladder, which was really just a set of iron rungs welded onto the stone wall of the cistern. They looked old enough to make him nervous.

Three rungs later, Jesse saw a gash of darkness in the wall, like a giant black stain on a dark gray blanket. The cave.

Silas, standing in the opening, helped him jump from the ladder to the rocky ledge. Rae followed soon after, and Samar after her. They all stayed on the edge of the cave, almost as if they were afraid to go any deeper.

Samar shoved the walking stick at Jesse, and he clung to it, the familiar wood giving him a bit more confidence. Then Samar felt along the side of the cave. “There ought to be…ah!” he said with satisfaction, pulling a torch from the darkness. “And some flint on the ledge below. Just like I left it last year.”

With a swift and practiced motion, he lit the torch. It provided only a dim light, but it was better than the darkness.

“Are you sure we should start a fire?” Silas pointed out. “The Patrol members might see the light or the smoke.”

Samar grunted. “With all the noise we made, if they were anywhere nearby, they will find us anyway.” Jesse looked at the ground, ashamed. “Besides, we will need it, at least for a little while.”

Jesse picked up his staff as Samar led the way deeper into the cave. “This is the largest of the smugglers’ pits,” he said, holding the torch in front of him. It was barely higher than Silas’s head, but big enough to hold at least a dozen men. “It is most often a drop-off place for stolen goods, used to hide them from the Patrol of Nalatid, but sometimes smugglers with a price on their heads hide here until the king’s men stop looking for them.”

Jesse looked around the cave. From the gouges on the wall, it appeared to be hand-carved. It must have taken years, he marveled.

He was trying to figure out how high they must be above the cistern’s water level when he saw something move to his right. In the shadows of the cave, Jesse could see the coiled form of a snake behind one of the rocks on the cave floor.

Silas, next to Jesse, saw it too. He shouted and jerked back, shoving Jesse with him.

It was not a good thing to do. The snake reared back to strike.

Without thinking, Jesse hit it with his staff, dashing it against the stone wall. It appeared dazed for a moment, then hissed loudly.

I’ve got one shot, Jesse thought with desperation. At the same time, he lunged forward with his staff, slamming it to the ground with all his might. The hissing stopped.

Jesse refused to look down, and instead turned back to Samar, Rae, and Silas, trying to calm his quickly beating heart.

“Thank you,” Silas said, lowering his bow. He had not yet fitted an arrow to it. “I wouldn’t have made it in time.”

“And that” Samar said grimly, “is why we needed the torch. Pit vipers, we call them. I didn’t want to worry you by telling you.”

“Thank you for your consideration,” Rae said sarcastically. “I’m much less worried now.”

“They never stay in groups,” Samar assured her. “Very territorial. We won’t find anymore tonight.” Still, Jesse noticed that he made a careful check of the cave with the torch.

“Well,” Silas said with a shrug, “we might as well get comfortable.”

As if that’s possible in a cavern made of solid rock. “Try the far wall,” Samar suggested, seeming to read his mind. “The original builders—I was one of them—made grooves in the stone for just such occasions.”

Jesse didn’t understand what he was talking about until he examined the far wall more closely. Sure enough, there were large, deep indentations in the stone, rubbed smooth by years of use, and large enough to cradle the back of a man sitting in them. Although he was smaller than those for whom the grooves were designed, they were fairly comfortable.

Silas did the same, spreading the blanket from his pack over his lap. Rae chose instead to curl into a small ball at the side of the cave, using her pack as a pillow. As he leaned against the cold stone, Jesse realized all at once how tired he was.

“You built this cave?” Rae asked, opening one eye. “I suppose that means you are a smuggler too.”

Samar shrugged. “Perhaps,” he admitted. “Now, no more talking.” Samar put the torch back into its holder at the cave’s mouth. “This deep, noise does not travel easily, but I do not wish to take chances. Our lives may depend on it.”

With that, he blew out the torch, leaving the cave in total darkness.