Time of Trial by Michael Pryor

Author:Michael Pryor
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction/General
ISBN: 9781742740683
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 2008-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

The raft trip was madness. Within minutes, Aubrey was convinced that Carlito was the man for the job.

The raft itself was a ramshackle assemblage that looked more like an accidental coming-together of flotsam than a water-tight, navigable vessel. Some of it was made of barrels, some of it was sheet metal, some of it was rope and netting, a fair proportion of it was prayers. Branches were woven in and out of the chaos, but most of the raft was still open space. Carlito had to steady Aubrey as he boarded because his feet found gaps more easily than solid construction. The raftman’s grin didn’t waver as Aubrey wobbled, lurched and eventually threw himself at the spot Carlito indicated with a blackened finger. Then, picking a rope somewhat at random, Aubrey thought, Carlito cast off and they were whipped into the maelstrom.

Aubrey’s first reaction, after a faceful of icy spray, was that the river had more than grown up. He’d first encountered it as a wild mountain stream, wayward, but still young and with a chance to reform. Now, it was a hardened villain of a waterway, carving its way through solid rock at the bottom of the perilous gorge. In seconds, Aubrey’s breath was driven from him in a series of plunges that jarred his bones and drenched him in water he was sure would have frozen if it had stayed still for even an instant. His teeth chattered; his hands hurt from gripping whatever structural component was closest and least likely to detach itself.

The darkness at the bottom of the gorge was almost complete, so Aubrey couldn’t anticipate the wild changes in direction and the plummeting, swerving passage of the raft. Flashes of white foam made him jerk his head left and right but imminent death was on every side, only interrupted by the towering darkness of immense rocks that even the thunderous river couldn’t shift.

As they were flung through the watery violence, Aubrey was constantly battered by the roar the river made as it sped along, madcap and unbridled. The noise filled the narrow space and assaulted them as if it were alive and malicious. It was an all-consuming sound, a head-filling sound. It hissed and bellowed, and underneath was the grinding of boulders being dragged along the riverbed.

Carlito’s navigation was eccentric. He stood, swaying, at the rear of the craft, with a heavy wooden pole under his right arm which he used to fend off the rocks that threatened to bring their journey to an abrupt end, although how he saw them Aubrey had no idea. This was a rational, even sensible course of action, but it wasn’t consistent. At times Carlito simply grinned as the raft slammed into the sides of the gorge or into a fang of rock, and allowed the raft to career away down the gorge. How he chose which to fend off and which not to defeated Aubrey. He gave up trying to work out the raftman’s method. Instead he concentrated on hanging on.

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