Surface Detail

The pale fog now almost filled the place where the grating had been. The men nearest it, the two tunnellers, stood back, letting go of the grille; it crashed down into the water. One of them took a step back. The other seemed transfixed by the sight, remaining close enough to sniff the milky grey cloud; he started coughing immediately, doubling up, hands on knees. His lowered head met a long silky strand of the gas at waist level, and he wheezed suddenly, standing up and coughing again and again. He turned and waved down the tunnel, then seemed to have a seizure. He fell to his knees, clutching at his throat, eyes wide. His breath rattled in his throat. The other tunneller moved towards him but was waved away. The fellow slumped back against the wall of the tunnel, eyes closing. A couple of the other men, also now near to the advancing cloud, started to cough as well.

Almost as one, they started to run, suddenly pounding down the tunnel, slipping and sliding and falling, the surface underfoot that had supported slow and steady steps with barely a slip turning to something like ice as they tried to run through the calf-deep water; a couple of them pushed past Vatueil, who had not yet moved.

We will never get past the narrow places with the bars, he thought. We won’t even make it up the slopes before them, he realised. The cloud was flowing up the tunnel at a moderate walking pace. It was already at his knees, rising to his groin. He had taken a deep breath as soon as he’d seen the dirty looking bubbles rising out of the water. He let it out, took another one now.

Some of the others were shouting and screaming as they ran away up the tunnel, though the principal noise was a frenzied splashing. The cloud of gas enveloped Vatueil. He clamped his hand over his mouth and nose. Even so, he could smell something sharp, choking. His eyes began to sting, his nose to run.

The grating would be too heavy, he thought. He stooped, felt for it, then with an effort he would not have believed himself capable of, lifted it in one movement and swung himself beneath it, stumbling through the water beyond as he let the grille go. His boots crunched on shattered pieces of glass under the surface of the water. He remembered to lift his feet for the blocks the bottles had smashed on.

The grey cloud was all around him like a cloak, his eyes were stinging and starting to close up seemingly of their own volition. He stepped quickly over the blocks, staggered into the water on the far side, then ran as fast as he could into clear air beyond, his lungs feeling as though they were about to burst.

Somehow he managed to delay breathing until he could see no trace of the grey mist either in the air or rising in bubbles from the water. He could hardly see, and the first deep, heaving breath he took stung first his mouth and then his throat all the way down to his lungs. Even the exhalation seemed to sting his nose. He took more deep, deep breaths, standing doubled over with his hands on his knees. Each breath hurt, but stung less than the one before. From up the tunnel, he could hear nothing.

Eventually he was able to breathe sufficiently freely to move without gasping. He looked back into the darkness and tried to imagine the scenes he might find walking back to the breach, once the gas had cleared. He wondered how long that would take. He turned and made his way in the other direction, towards the castle,

*

Guards found him hollering at the far end, where a vertical well shaft descended to a deep pool. Taken before the castle authorities, he informed them that he would tell them anything they wanted to know. He was just a humble tunneller who’d been lucky and resourceful enough to evade the trap which had claimed the lives of his fellows, but he knew of the scheme to tunnel to near the castle and set up some sort of compact but powerful siege engine, and additionally he would tell all that he could about the little he knew of the disposition, numbers and quality of the forces besieging the castle if they would but spare his life.

They took him away and asked him many questions, all of which he answered truthfully. Then they tortured him to make sure he’d been telling the truth. Finally, uncertain where his loyalties might lie, unwilling to support yet another mouth to feed and judging his torment-broken body of little practical use, they trussed him and fired him from the giant trebuchet in the great tower.

By chance he fell to earth not far from the tunnel he had helped dig, landing with a thump that some of his old comrades heard above them as they tramped back to camp after another back-breaking shift stopping up one tunnel and continuing with their own.

His last thought was that he had once dreamed of flying.

Three

It was some time before Yime Nsokyi realised she was the last one left firing.