Read Fault Line for Free Online

left.’
    Amber shuddered.
    It wasn’t long before Paulo’s voice came back through the trees. ‘Guys, come and look.’
    Li led the way through the undergrowth. Paulo and Alex were standing looking at something on the ground. Alex was waving flies away from his face. An awful lot of flies.
    ‘Do I really want to see this?’ groaned Amber. ‘What have you found?’ She kept her eyes on Paulo and Alex until the last moment and then looked down.
    ‘A donkey!’ Li was incredulous.
    It was lying on its side. Flies buzzed around its eye and nostril, packed into its ears like currants. They swarmed into various small wounds on its body.
    ‘Probably died last night, by the look of it,’ said Paulo.
    ‘What killed it?’ asked Hex. ‘What are all those cuts?’
    ‘It’s not those you need to look at,’ said Paulo. He touched his boot to the donkey’s knee. A cluster of flies rose, buzzing angrily. Underneath was a swelling and a small, sticky wound. ‘That’s not like the other wounds. It’s a snake bite. And look at this.’ Paulo touched its head gently with his boot. The flies lifted; underneath was a dirty halter. There were sweat marks on its coat where it had carried panniers. ‘It was probably tethered in the camp, got bitten, panicked and bolted.’
    For a moment they looked down at the corpse. It looked so small and harmless. Big furry ears, its eyes and muzzle ringed with white fur. Poor thing, they thought, to die like that.
    They retraced their steps back through the camp to the notch in the tree. Amber and Alex reorientated themselves with the map and they were soon back into their routine again.
    ‘A donkey,’ said Hex. He began to giggle. He tried not to but it quivered inside him like jelly. Next to him, he saw Amber’s eyes and mouth screw up.
    That was it. The five friends roared helplessly, clutching each other, holding trees, letting out the tension.
    Li was the first to recover. ‘It’s not funny.’ She dabbed her eyes, shaking her head. ‘It must have been horrible.’
    ‘We really scared ourselves there,’ gasped Amber. She caught Hex’s eye.
    ‘A donkey,’ he said severely.
    Amber biffed him on the shoulder. ‘Oh, don’t make me laugh again – it hurts.’ But then she was off again, and so were the others.
    She stopped laughing all of a sudden and froze.
    ‘Hey, Amber,’ said Hex, ‘why so serious?’
    Amber spoke through gritted teeth. ‘There’s something under my foot.’ Slowly she looked down.
    The others followed her gaze.
    The last embers of their laughter dwindled away when they saw what it was.
    Just beyond the black toe of Amber’s boot something in the shape of an arrowhead was swaying from side to side.
    A snake.

5 S NAKE
    Li moved away. ‘Whatever you do, Amber, don’t move. Your foot is stopping it biting. Alex, you’re too close.’
    Alex shifted backwards, never taking his eyes off the thing Amber was standing on. She had her boot on it, just behind its head. The rest of its body lay in a coil behind her. It blended so well with the dark brown leaf litter that until it moved it was invisible.
    Amber stared down. She felt it shift under her boot and froze. Her stomach did a somersault. ‘Um . . . the way you’re all looking at it tells me it might be a bit . . . poisonous?’
    ‘It’s a fer-de-lance,’ said Paulo quietly. ‘A kind of viper. Very, very poisonous.’
    The snake’s body uncurled. Two metres of zigzagged tail thrashed against a tree, cracking like a whip. Amber flinched. One thought was in her head – keep her foot where it was, at all costs.
    The snake thrashed again. It was angry. Hex felt its tail touch his foot and crashed into Li as he darted away.
    Amber took deep breaths. It was like standing on a mine – one false move and someone could die.
    ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Now what?’
    ‘We all run away and you stay standing there,’ said Hex. ‘Only joking.’
    ‘That’s not funny.’
    ‘How does she get her foot