The Codex (An Armour of God Thriller Book 2)

by Daniel Patterson

  "Uh oh," Sydney said as her hands stopped tracing across the stone's inscription.

  "Uh oh? Uh oh, what?" he asked. "Don't just say 'uh oh' and then stop talking."

  "Naseu warb... uh... something."

  "Something?"

  "Something," she said with a firm nod of her head. "Something covered in blood."

  "Well, we are in a graveyard."

  "Very funny. I think this word here means evil. So... Evil covers us in blood. Or, the evil covered in blood. Or maybe, pour blood onto the evil."

  "That's less than helpful."

  She slapped a hand on his bad shoulder and Zack winced.

  "Sorry. I forgot!" she apologized. "But you deserved it. Translating ancient languages is rarely an exact word-for-word comparison," she continued. "Languages all have their own meanings for the same words. I'm doing my best here."

  He bent down closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder. She didn't pull away "I know you're trying, Sydney. I know. Look, this is... amazing. But our top priority now has to be getting out of here."

  "And something about a devil awakening."

  "Devil?"

  "Yes. And this next line is something about a sacrifice."

  That did unsettle him. But he didn't want to admit it. Not that he was afraid of the legend, of course. "Okay, so what does the rest of this say about the devil?"

  "I don't know."

  "What do you mean, you don't know?"

  "I mean, I don't know. It's a warning of some kind, but that's all I can get out of it." She pointed at a string of symbols that looked like dance instructions for chickens.

  Zack nodded, running his tongue over his teeth. "Okay. So the stone says these people had a bad death for painting evil with blood when the devil woke up..."

  It made no sense. Whatever had happened here happened centuries ago, and they might never know, but from what she'd said so far there was no way to understand...

  Sydney stared at the tablet.

  "Serpent!" she yelled out loud. "Not devil. Serpent!"

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  SYDNEY READ THE INSCRIPTION again. "An evil death away from home," she read, "the serpent covers us in blood. Our sacrifice is not enough." She looked up at him with her eyes large and round. "It's Mikkel's legend..."

  He smiled and said, "Hey, these people lived centuries ago. They made up stories to explain natural phenomena that they couldn't explain. The hissing sound those air vents made sounded an awful lot like snakes, didn't they? And these people made a sacrifice by moving underground, right?"

  He saw her try to relax.

  "Trust me. I'm Indiana Jones. Remember?"

  She finally smiled. "Yeah. I saw that movie... I know how you feel about snakes."

  They both laughed.

  "I'm just not used to this," Sydney said. "Field experience, real experience, I mean, has been hard to come by."

  "I've got to say, Sydney, for a girl who doesn't do the actual grunt work, the hands-on work, you're proving yourself good at it."

  She smiled a little. "Got any pointers for me?" she asked.

  "Don't die. The rest of it will come to you."

  She stood in a beam of sunlight that fell through an opening somewhere high up in the canopy above. Pride and fear were fighting for control of her expression. The sun outlined her face, making her features even more striking. He traced the outline of her face with his eyes. She was smart, and she had some guts. That combination was rare.

  "So, Professor. Has a way out of here come to you yet?" she asked.

  Zack pointed up. "Sunlight gets in." He gestured around them. "These people got down here somehow, and it sure wasn't the way we came. We just need to find a way up. And we've got to do it before Mikkel sounds the alarm and gives our location away when he brings the entire Dutch army out looking for us. Tomorrow we'll make some phone calls to the right people. We'll come back with a team of experts and take photographs and document the site. We'll get published in all the scientific journals as being the two people who solved a six-hundred-year-old mystery. Lost Norse settlement, found!"

  "Promise me," she demanded in a soft voice. "Promise me you'll get us out of here. You promised you wouldn't let me die back when we were hanging out over that ice shaft. I believed you, and you kept your promise. So promise me again, now."

  She moved close to him and put her hand on his chest and a rush of warmth, stronger than mere body temperature, spread throughout his body. Looking down into her eyes, he didn't know how he was going to get them out. Up to this point, it had just been a matter of surviving. But he couldn't stop trying. "I promise," he said and found himself leaning forward, his eyes locked on Sydney's lips...

  The earth moved.

  Shaking.

  Trembling.

  "The graves..." Sydney said.

  "What?" he asked, distracted, irritated that the moment had been spoiled. The world hated him that's what it was.

  Zack followed Sydney's gaze. She was looking in horror at one of the burial outlines.

  The vibrations were shaking the rocks out of their formations.

  The entire cave floor started to shake from side to side, rumbling and roaring. Zack lost his balance and fell to the ground, bracing himself so he wouldn't knock his shoulder again. Sydney tumbled too. They looked at the houses surrounding them. Bits and pieces broke loose and crashed down to the ground, sending up clouds of dust.

  The rumbling died down, and the cavern was as quiet and mysterious as it had been a moment before.

  "What was that?" Sydney asked, her voice trembling.

  "I think it was just an earthquake, a mild one. Look, there's minimal damage to the houses, and they would have been the first thing to come down considering how old it all is."

  Sydney nodded.

  "Do you think this has anything to do with Leviathan?" she asked, her eyes wide like those of a child.

  In theory, it was possible that a giant awakening sea serpent had caused the tremor, but not in Zack's reality. "Of course not," he said. "But I do think we need to get out of here. Now."

  He didn't like the feeling in the cave. The foreboding silence that enveloped them now, and he liked the idea of the cavern collapsing on them even less.

  He looked around. The opening of the tunnel they'd come from was visible on the opposite side of the cavern, but he wasn't going back in there. It was a dead end. They couldn't go back the way they'd come.

  He turned and looked at the far wall that closed off the cavern on the other side. There appeared to be several dark openings.

  "Come on, this way," he said and started toward them.

  "I'm not going in there," Sydney said, refusing to follow him.

  "We can't go back," Zack said over his shoulder.

  "Are you kidding me? I'm not climbing into some dark tunnel that might have some kind of creature in it!"

  "Don't be silly, there's no creature down here," Zack said, turning around to face her. "The real danger is the earthquakes. What if there's another tremor, worse than before? I don't want to be buried here next to those Vikings. We can't go back the way we came in, we both know that's not a way out. And we can't stay here. There must have been a way the Norse used to get in and out."

  Sydney looked like her resolve was buckling, but she still didn't move.

  Zack was starting to get impatient.

  "Come on, remember what I told you. Forward is the only way we can go. We're bound to find an exit. The Norse didn't teleport themselves down here."

  Sydney nodded and started toward Zack. A rumble echoed from somewhere in the tunnel they'd come from, and it was enough to spur her on. In a few short quick steps, she was next to him.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  THEY RAN FOR TEN-MINUTES and finally reached the edge of the settlement.

  "Which one?" Sydney asked, looking down the two tunnels in front of them.

  They were both the same size and quite dark.

  "Grab me a stick and
some of that dry moss," Zack said

  "What are you doing?"

  "Finding us a way out," Zack said, removing a flint striker from his backpack. "I just need a flame to check for a draft."

  Zack lit the makeshift torch and held the flame up to the first shaft.

  Nothing.

  He tried the second.

  The flame flickered.

  Thumbing his handheld flashlight on, he headed into the narrow passage. The shaft started wide enough for them to walk side by side. But the farther they went, the tighter it became. Sydney had to follow behind him, and he was starting to get nervous about how close the walls were on both sides.

  The shaft led in what Zack imagined being a spiral. He wasn't sure, but it felt like they were going in circles. They walked for a while before the tunnel widened out again and opened up into another room.

  "What is this?" Sydney asked, looking around as Zack played his beam across the room.

  This room was roughly circular with a diameter of about fifty feet and colder by several degrees. The ceiling was only about fifteen feet high. Zack shone his light on the wall across from them, then let it slide to the side. Compartments lined the outer walls, and half-walls divided the floor.

  "Come and look at this," he said stepping forward, running his fingers along the half-walls. "This is man-made."

  "Man-made? Is that even possible?"

  "I don't know. It's still a mystery what kind of tools and technology they had."

  They walked in and out from one square opening to the next until Zack stopped.

  A pile of animal bones. Goats and sheep judging by the few skulls that Zack picked up to examine. The bones were in a neat stack in one of the rooms made by half-walls. "You know what, this is a cold storage room!" he exclaimed. "Yes, yes. It makes sense."

  Zack shone his light around the room again and found a long stone slab, perfect table height. Slashes marred the top and grooves led to the edges above similar grooves on the floor. "And an abattoir."

  "A who?" asked Sydney.

  "Abattoir. Where they slaughtered and prepared the animals.

  She shuddered. "Can we get out of here, please?"

  "Oh, so you don't eat meat?"

  "I do. I just buy it in packages in a grocery store."

  "Already dead and cut into chunks?" Zack grinned.

  "Yes," she said with a smile.

  There were two openings to the chamber. The one they came in and one other. Sydney was already standing next to the second opening. Zack joined her, and they stepped through into the shaft, wider than before. It was almost a passage. They followed the tunnel another few feet. Then it split off. One side was blocked off. They only had one other option. They stepped forward. Zack's flashlight revealed steps heading down, carved out of the rock.

  "Don't we want to be going up?" Sydney asked.

  "There's nowhere else to go. Forward, remember? There has to be another way out of here. It has to go up again at some point."

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ZACK TOOK THE LEAD and continued down the shaft. Sydney mumbled something from behind. "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "Counting."

  "Counting what?"

  "Counting steps in case we get lost."

  Zack didn't answer. He couldn't, there was nothing to say. He could only hope Sydney was wrong.

  They followed the staircase. It led down what Zack estimated to be about twenty feet before it flattened out again into another passage. When they stepped into the next room, it was larger than the first. A wide trench on the side of the room drew Zack's attention.

  "A drainage channel?" he suggested, and Sydney nodded.

  A gust of wind rushed past them, and Zack flung himself around and shone his flashlight in the direction the wind came. Wind meant an opening. And an opening meant an exit.

  In the wall was a small, square space. Zack walked closer and shone his flashlight into the opening. It was like a gutter, square and going both up and down. There were smaller holes at regular intervals, but there was darkness both ways.

  His stomach sank with disappointment. "It looks like a ventilation shaft, bringing fresh air from wherever it opens up to. And those holes everywhere lead the air to other rooms."

  "So, not a way out, then," Sydney's voice carried the same tone of disappointment he felt.

  "No, not a way out."

  Sydney poked her head into the opening as well and looked up and down.

  "There are so many holes. How many rooms like this are there?"

  "I think our underground settlement has just become an underground city," Zack said.

  It was magnificent. The stone passages, arches, and rooms carved out in the rock were an intricate weave of tunnels that led to what must have been a city. There was a lot of evidence that man had helped build this, but not without nature's help.

  They found another archway and another stairway. Sydney groaned but didn't protest this time as they climbed down. There was nowhere else to go and to complain, or panic wouldn't change a thing.

  They sank deeper and deeper underground.

  As they descended, the sound of running water echoed through the maze of tunnels. One of the rooms they found had a river with cold, fresh water running through it. A few fish darted down the stream.

  Zack said, "I wonder if it's the same river that goes through the settlement."

  Sydney rummaged through her backpack and pulled out her canteen. She knelt down at the edge of the river and filled it.

  "I don't know, but I'm sure glad we didn't end up washing up down here. There's nothing near warm enough to get our clothes dry down here. Not like the vents. Or the hot spring."

  "The hot spring... I wonder if that's where they bathed?" Zack asked.

  "I'd rather not think about it. We sat in that."

  Zack smirked.

  "We need to keep moving," he said.

  The next opening they found had a staircase that led upward again. They climbed it. They were getting tired and hungry. The cold breeze that traveled through the shafts and swirled through the rooms and tunnels chilled them both to the bone. Zack's body responded with shivers that started deep inside him and spread out to his extremities. It was like he was freezing from the inside out.

  More stairs, upward again, and then the shafts began splitting. Splitting was good. It means more than one destination, and with any luck, an exit.

  "Wait here. I'll try this one first and be right back," he said motioning to a passage that had more stairs.

  "Be careful Zack."

  Zack started up the stairs. His flashlight didn't hit the end of it. He gave the light a shake thinking perhaps the battery was going dead, but it was fine. This was just a long stairway. It was narrow, and they had to go single file. Ten more steps up, a chamber, opened on the left.

  There was something not quite right about this. He shined his light into the room.

  It was just a small cavern, no more than twenty feet across, and his light glittered off of something on the floor in the back of the room. He couldn't help but recoil and, in doing so, lost his footing, tumbling backward on the stone steps.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ZACK AWOKE TO THE sound of quiet murmuring. It sounded like his mother's voice, low in prayer. She always thanked God for her meals, for her children, for anything and everything that she considered to be His gifts. It was comforting for a moment, and then he opened his eyes.

  Zack winced as the beam from Sydney's helmet light stabbed through his brain, which caused, even more, pain.

  Zack groaned. That didn't help one bit. He began to sink back into the darkness but was brought alert by a sound smack to his right cheek.

  "Don't you dare!" Sydney said.

  "Argh!" he protested.

  "Zack, you stay with me! Stay with me! Don't leave me here alone!"

  He opened his eyes again to see her face inches from his own, her eyes filled with tears. Then the memory of what he saw in t
hat chamber shook him more awake. "You're not supposed to hit a person with head trauma!"

  She bit her lower lip. "I'm sorry."

  "We have to go..." Zack said, fighting back a wave of nausea as he tried to sit up.

  "Take it easy," Sydney told him, pushing him back down.

  Zack put his hand behind his head. Even that small movement brought on another strong wave of nausea. He felt a warm and sticky lump on the back of his head.

  "The good news is that the bleeding stopped about five minutes ago."

  "How long was I out?"

  "Maybe fifteen minutes." She held a hand up in front of his face. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

  "Four," he said.

  "Is that good?" Sydney asked.

  "If I say yes will you let me get up?"

  "I don't think getting up is a good idea."

  "Do you think lying here until I freeze to death is any better?"

  Sydney shook her head. "No, but..."

  He could see past her up the stairs. They were vacant. That was good.

  She followed his gaze. "You saw something up there, didn't you?"

  "No," he lied.

  "Tell me what you saw," she demanded.

  "It was nothing. We have to keep moving."

  "Nothing in the shape of what?"

  His eyes met hers. Sydney was steady now, no sign of panic. Did he want to disrupt that? But she did have the right to know.

  "Snakeskin," he said.

  "Just the skin? Like a snake had shed it?"

  "Yep."

  "How big?"

  "Big. But it could have been there for hundreds of years."

  Her eyes were huge again. "Or just a few days. Or hours."

  "That's why we need to keep moving, okay?"

  Sydney wrapped an arm around his shoulder and assisted Zack into a sitting position. The room spun around him, and he sat still for a moment, trying to let his equilibrium catch up.