Pyramid Scheme by Dave Freer and Eric Flint

“Seker, corrupt and rot these bindings—”

“Shit! Doc—NO!” yelled Cruz, as he spat the gag bindings off.

But it was too late by then. They dropped like overripe fruit into the water.

* * *

Cruz had thought that it was all over. He’d been trying to work out whether he could flex his legs enough to kick the first croc on the snout when he’d caught sight of something in the periphery of his vision. It was Lamont, Medea and Liz, on the top of the one wing of the huge temple. Then Doc had suddenly started to spout. Then Lamont had fallen, followed by Liz and Medea jumping. To his horror, he saw crocodiles streaming like arrows towards the three of them, who were threshing their way towards the reedy shore.

In a way, the Doc’s incantation had worked. The crocs had left them to seek prey that was already in the water. Then, just as he was able to speak, the ropes parted.

* * *

Liz lost her grip on Medea as they hit the water. Medea having gone rigid, went straight down. Liz took a deep breath and duck-dived after her. She nearly met her head-on coming up. She grabbed the struggling Medea lifesaving style, just as the woman was going down again. The clinging dress was a menace. You couldn’t possibly do a scissors kick in it. She grabbed it and ripped. Time enough to worry about appearances if they survived. Those were javelins hitting the water. And not that far away either.

She looked around for Lamont, saw him a few yards off doing a determined doggy-paddle crawl. She looked at Medea, who had stopped struggling but had suddenly given a little moan of fear. Liz saw the cause of Medea’s cry. There was a V of crocodiles coming for them, led by a monster. A crocodile at least twenty-four feet long. More like a ship than a croc. It had a golden collar, and golden rings through the eye-ridges. And that switching tail drove it through the water like an oversized outboard motor.

Then she saw the others about a hundred yards off, splashing down into the water.

The crocodiles were closing in. They swam faster than the three of them could. They’d get Lamont first. Liz wanted to close her eyes. She just didn’t know what she could do. For one of the few times in her life, Elizabeth Maria De Beer was at a total loss. She wanted to scream.

Water erupted around Lamont.

Liz screamed.

35

To get to the other side,

for some fowl reason.

It rose like Leviathan. Water streamed from the gray expanse. Liz saw Lamont, facing the tail end, cling desperately to the broadness of a giant hippopotamus’ back. It threw back its massive head, exposing huge teeth, and gave that peculiar groaning bellow which is a hippo’s warning cry.

Liz was too frightened to speak. She was nearly too frightened to swim. Hippos kill far more people every year in Africa than crocodiles do. They’re curious, territorial, dangerous, enormous and fast.

This one seemed to have an aversion to crocodiles. Normally, hippos treat crocodiles with contempt and occasionally to a spot of abuse. Normally, hippos work cooperatively in herds to make this possible. But this one, having bellowed its challenge, was heading for the shore along with its clinging and wild-eyed passenger.

* * *

Jerry realized, too late, that the crocodiles hadn’t “begone” very far. That they were likely to reach the others before they could gain the shore—and then he plunged into the lake himself. The sacrificial victims had a far, far longer swim ahead of them than Lamont, Medea and Liz.

He went down like a stone, and then rose to the surface, spluttering. The water was prickled with javelins. And then something knocked stones flying from the temple wall. The huge squared blocks could have killed him, but they’d missed. And at least the javelins had stopped.

A gruff voice spoke from the water beside him. “Well, foreigner. You do like to lead an exciting life, don’t you?”

It was Bes. Somehow, sharing crocodile-infested water with the protector was a lot more comforting.