I realize now that Pilgrim must have been waiting on the steps somewhere near the top of the tower when I threw the grenade. He would have heard it coming – bouncing and clattering down the steps towards him – and then, as it sailed past him, and it suddenly dawned on him what it was, his instincts had kicked in, telling him to run, and hede run back up into the turret – not knowing how he was going to escape, but knowing that if he stayed where he was, or ran down the steps, hede be killed when the grenade exploded – and when hede reached the turret and seen that I wasnt there, he must have spotted the cable tied to the battlement---

And now he was clambering down over the parapet and grabbing hold of the cable, and any second now he was going to start climbing down---

The cable was never going to hold.

He was at least twice my size, probably more.

And even if the cable could take the extra weight, the battlement never would.

I looked down.

I was still at least 60 feet from the ground. If I let go and jumped now, the fall would kill me.

7 seconds---

I loosened my grasp and let myself slide, and as I hurtled down – keeping hold of the cable with just enough grip to stop myself freefalling – I closed my eyes and saw in my heart the dead-eyed human plunging down the cable above me, plummeting even faster than me, dropping down on me like a great black bird swooping in for the kill---

8 seconds.

I dont know where the grenade was when it exploded.

My memory of the moment is unclear.

I vaguely remember hearing the blast – a low muffled boom from inside the tower – but I cant recall if it came from above or below me. There was an unearthly sense of silence for a moment – a strange hanging hush – and then something slammed into me, a massive jarring impact from above, and the silence erupted in a great rumbling roar of crashing stone---and all I remember after that is falling, tumbling down through the darkness in a thunderous torrent of rock and dust and howling black air---thoughtless, blind, breathless, gone---engulfed in an avalanche of pounding stone---

Then a sudden shattering crash.

A crack of bone---

Then nothing.

Pilgrim was standing over me with his gun in his hand when I opened my eyes---the dead-eyed human. Standing over me like a living corpse – a thing of dust and earth and tattered rags, a thing of the underground, a thing of the grave. His skull was caved in – shattered bone, torn flesh hanging down, raw red, blackened blood thick with dirt---