Kingdom Of The Nanosaurs (trilogy)

Kingdom Of The Nanosaurs - chapter 14

14. Escape from Inish Crag

Morgan squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He couldn’t bear to look. Memories came flooding back of the days when he and Winston used to play in the sunshine, climbing trees together, chasing Nucloid around the garden. Everything had been so perfect then. He hadn’t been sent to boarding school and his life was filled with hope and expectation. And Winston had been part of it. He was just an ape but he was also his best friend and companion.

“Morgan,” Lin was shouting at him. “Morgan look.”

He was holding the ape’s head tightly, his fingers touching the rough hair on the skull.

“Morgan!” Lin was shaking him. “Open your eyes.”

Morgan took a deep breath and looked down at the head he was cradling. He gasped and looked at Lin. They both laughed with relief. It wasn’t Winston after all. It was an ape but not a true orangutan.

“It’s not Winston,” he cried. He dropped the head into the water where it bobbed for a moment before floating back down the tunnel.

“Come on, genius,” Lin said trying to encourage him. “Get us out of here.”

Morgan sloshed his way to the brink of the cave opening where the waterfall was rushing headlong into an abyss. He was saturated with salty spray but then none of them could possibly get any wetter. It looked impossible. There was no way they could climb up the blow hole against the flow. The waterfall was too powerful and it was sluicing some hideous body parts. It was difficult to see anything through the spray so Morgan contemplated the sluice. It was clearly man-made so engineers had constructed it. Maybe back then there had been no waterfall to hinder them. But still, the mechanism had not been built from the side they were on. So, how then? Morgan stared hard at the water. The sluice gate was housed in a metal frame that was lagged for protection. The frame vanished into the spray on the other side. Morgan kept on staring. Then he saw it and his heart leapt. There was another cave on the other side. He could see it through the mist. And were there steps beyond?

This was it. This was their way of escape. The sluice gate housing had to be fitted on the other side and that cave was an access point for maintenance. But, how were they going to cross the tumbling torrent? Morgan tried to estimate the distance. It was around twelve feet to the other side of the blowhole. If only they could block or divert the flow somehow? Maybe Taurus could lean across and act as a bridge then haul himself over? He was certainly powerful enough. The vertical drop into the blowhole was too small to swallow him. He would block it and there would be a backwash but, if they could scramble across holding their breath, they could make it. They would have to make it.

Morgan explained his idea to Lin who paled at the thought. Then he wondered how he could instruct Taurus. Keep it simple. He pointed to the waterfall and mimed leaping across and grasping the other side. Taurus seemed to understand. He lumbered forward kneeling under the cave entrance. His hoof hands could turn into powerful claws. Taurus leaned out and reached for the sluice gate frame hooking one powerful arm around it and locking on. Then he just fell forward into the waterfall reaching out with his other huge arm and gripping the lip of the other cave. The waterfall burst over him almost obliterating him but the flow was halted and filling rapidly back up the vertical tunnel. Taurus was now effectively a bridge, blocking the blow hole. “Organorganora,” he spluttered.

“Come on,” said Morgan to Lin. “You go first. I’ll be right behind you.”

Before Lin could cry out Morgan was pushing her onto Taurus’s back. She took a deep breath and started across underwater. Morgan did likewise. They crawled as fast as they could, their lungs bursting, across the huge frame of the minotaur holding on to tufts of hair and armoured skin. Gasping and spewing out water, Lin and Morgan made it to the other side and hauled themselves up into the cave entrance. Wearily they got to their feet and turned.