CHAPTER 14
THE DEAD SPRING
The shine of polished bronze and the symmetrical alignment of the ten steel barrels of the rotating reaper cut through the gloom of the Ca?ón de las Sombras like a divine warning.
When Nero pulled the catch and the metallic snap echoed off the stone walls, the effect was immediate.
The rhythmic clicking of the savages’ tongues stopped abruptly.
Those grey men, who seemed to have come out of the bowels of hell itself, fixed their staring eyes on the mechanical monstrosity mounted at the horse’s flank.
To a tribe living on the threshold between prehistory and madness, that machine was not merely a weapon; it was an iron demon capable of spitting fire.
Slowly, without making a single sound, the blood-painted figures began to withdraw.
They crawled back into the seams of the rock, merging once more with the shadows of the bluff.
The danger had not gone away, but fear of the unknown had bought the renegades time.
“They pulled back…” Gideon gasped, propping himself on his holster, his chest rising and falling.
“For the love of God, Nero, let’s move. I can hear water just ahead.”
The Crystal Oasis
Driven by the desperation of dehydration, the three of them hurried along the narrow throat of the canyon.
Two bends later, the walls of red rock suddenly opened out to reveal a scene that looked like a miracle carved in the middle of the desert: a genuine hidden oasis.
Broad-leafed, pale vegetation sprouted from the crevices, and at the centre of a clearing of stone a natural spring poured water into a circular pool of rock.
The water was of an astonishing clarity.
Under the moonlight it shone like liquid crystal, reflecting the starry sky with an almost celestial purity.
Gideon could not resist. He ran for the edge and threw himself down on his knees.
He plunged both shaking hands into the cold water and began drinking greedily, letting the liquid run down his grease-fouled beard.
Elena came right behind, dropping down beside him.
She used her hat to gather water, drinking in long desperate swallows, feeling the fire in her throat finally go out.
Even Nero, whose caution was usually infallible, gave in to the pleading of a punished body.
He walked slowly to the rim, knelt stiffly, and used his gloved hand to bring the icy water to his lips.
The taste was faintly mineral but incredibly refreshing.
For a few minutes the desert seemed to have been beaten.
They filled the canteens in silence, the horses drinking alongside them, slaking a thirst that had almost killed them all.
The Taste of Poison
Ten minutes passed. The silence of the oasis was broken by a smothered groan.
Nero, who was standing and adjusting his stallion’s reins, felt a violent stab turn his insides over.
A sudden burning, as though he had swallowed coals out of Gideon’s forge, began spreading through his stomach.
A bitter and purely metallic taste flooded his mouth.
Behind him, the noise of a metal canteen dropping to the ground rang off the stone.
Elena was on her knees with both hands driven into her abdomen. Her face, flushed with water a moment earlier, now showed a corpse-like pallor in the moonlight. She tried to breathe and let out only a painful gasp, her eyes dilated with panic.
“Nero… something… something is wrong,” she stammered, before bending forward and vomiting a thin dark water into the sand.
Gideon was worse. The inventor had collapsed onto his side, his goggles fallen in the mud.
He was writhing, teeth sunk into his lower lip to keep from screaming, while his hands clawed at the stone floor.
The horses began whinnying loudly, lifting their forelegs, sweat covering the animals’ necks abnormally.
With his legs heavy and his vision clouded by black lines beginning to dance along the horizon, Nero forced his own body to move.
Every step seemed to demand a ton of will.
The hunter staggered back to the rim of the crystal spring.
He fell to his knees at the edge and leaned forward, forcing his glacial blue eyes to focus on the depth of the stone pool.
The water was still perfectly clear, but now, with his mind sharpened by the poison, Nero saw the horror.
The stones at the bottom were completely white, calcined.
There was not a single thread of green sludge.
No algae. No moss on the wet rims. Along the margins there was no sign of small water insects, larvae, or any kind of living creature of the sort that usually inhabits desert springs. It was sterile water.
A dead spring, fed by deep veins of arsenic and heavy minerals rising out of the heart of the earth.
Nero spat out the blood beginning to well from his gums. He looked back toward the dark walls of the canyon, and he understood everything.
The grey savages had not withdrawn merely because of the shine of the rotating gun.
They knew about the spring. The oasis was that desert’s perfect trap.
They did not need to spend arrows or warriors; they only had to wait for the poison of the earth to do the rough work.
High up among the rocks the rhythmic, cruel sound started again, echoing in the darkness. Click-click-click-click… The Faceless were coming down to harvest the meat.
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