Eddie wasn’t going to give it to him. He landed at the room’s foot, moving to put as many obstructions between himself and the gunman as possible. If the bastard wanted to shoot him, he would have to come and find him – and by then he would have armed himself . . .
One of the long spears lay near the dead giant, but he went for something smaller. Gold gleamed in the crystals’ glow. The trikan.
He snatched up the ancient weapon. It was larger and heavier than the Atlantean version, but the basic design was the same – something to be hurled at enemies.
Which he did.
Braun climbed down through the outer ring of coffins, leaning around one to find his prey – and took the heavy, bladed discus hard in his face. Teeth broke, a thumb-sized chunk of flesh flayed from his upper lip and cheek. He screamed, stumbling and falling onto another sarcophagus—
The one Eddie had hit.
Its weakened base sheared apart. Man and coffin both bowled towards the bottom of the mausoleum. Eddie’s eyes widened as the golden wrecking ball plunged at him. He flung himself clear, the falling container smashing down where he had been standing.
Braun tumbled off it into the broken debris. But even winded, blood streaming from his mauled face, he still twisted to aim his gun at Eddie—
Yellow gas gushed from a crack in the sarcophagus.
The toxic cloud caught the mercenary. He collapsed with a choked scream, flailing and twitching.
‘Shit!’ gasped Eddie, frantically clambering higher. Not only was the deadly gas welling below him, but there was another jet higher up where the sarcophagus had ripped away. He took in deep breaths, then held the air in his lungs as he angled as far away from the coffin as he could.
He passed the gap where the king’s sarcophagus had stood and kept climbing. The gas was slightly heavier than air, slowly roiling downwards. Once he was above it, he should be safe. Just a couple more metres—
The room shook again.
He grabbed a sarcophagus as the ship – the whole iceberg – rolled. It went further than before, the chamber pitching several degrees towards the horizontal, then tipping sickeningly back. Cracks lanced through the glowing crystal walls with the noise of shotgun blasts. The whole place was tearing itself apart—
Another coffin broke loose above him.
He swung underneath the sarcophagus he was holding as the golden torpedo tumbled past. It hit another below, pounding it from its base. Both crashed onwards in a destructive chain reaction.
More gas escaped above. Eddie regained his hold, then scrabbled higher. Whichever way he went, he would have to pass through one of the streams to reach the stairs.
He readied himself – then closed his eyes and made a flying leap.
Even with his eyelids squeezed shut, the hissing gas still stung, but there was no time to think about it as he made a hard landing on the topmost coffin. He clawed at it, hauling himself upwards and groping blindly for the stairs. He couldn’t risk opening his eyes until he was clear; some poisonous gases could destroy sight on contact.
His fingers found the lowest step. He pulled himself up, boots slithering on the smooth metal. The urge to breathe was rising fast, a balloon swelling painfully inside his chest. He kept climbing . . .
The ascent suddenly became easier as the ship tipped towards the horizontal once more. He increased his pace, opening his eyes. They stung, but he was clear of the gas. He took in more air and clambered into the throne room.
Gunshots rang through the ship. Not close – they were coming from the corridor with the armoury. What was happening – and where was Nina? He hurried to the broken window.
Pieces of ice fell past as he looked out, briefly disorientated; the whole cavern had changed, the once-sheer cliff now well off the vertical. This time, the berg had not rolled back to its original position. The water churned, the two moored boats tossed about like toys.
The Dionysius’s anchor swung towards the cliff – drawing his gaze to Nina. She was about halfway along the narrow ledge. Harhund and another man were ahead of her, the mercenary carrying the key behind. All clung to the ropes as the wall shuddered, so nobody could threaten her . . . but nor could she escape.
That meant the gunfire in the ship was being aimed at Cheng, Imka and Janco – no, just Cheng and Imka, he realised as he saw Vorster’s impaled body near Naider’s. He hurried up through the throne room. As long as Nina could hold on, she was safe – and Harhund’s employers wanted her alive.
Another burst made it clear that that didn’t apply to the rest of them. He snatched up some of his abandoned gear from beside the altar, then ran down the stairs.
Nobody was in the passage below. He pounded up it, following the sound of the gunfire.
‘Run, run!’ gasped Cheng as he passed the armoury. The towering suit leered demonically at him and Imka.
‘It’s a dead end!’ the South African protested.
‘There might be another way out – Mr Chase didn’t go all the way!’ But the young Chinese lacked confidence in his own words. He had gone upwards at the end of the entrance tunnel purely on instinct, the primitive urge to find higher ground when threatened. But now there was no turning back – a mercenary was pursuing them.
The corridor ahead started to descend, not as steeply as before. The ancient vessel seemed to be pulling itself upright, somehow dragging the enormous mass of the iceberg with it—
Bullets ricocheted from the walls behind them. Imka shrieked. They raced down the slope. The glow of the crystals meant there was no need for flashlights. Cheng saw the damaged end of the passage ahead – and also the exploded remains of the Dionysius’s crew.
He averted his eyes as he ran past. They were almost at the crushed section of corridor.
But Mr Chase had been right. No way out—
Wait! An opening, half hidden by a buckled orichalcum panel. ‘In here!’ he cried, letting Imka slip through before squeezing into the narrow gap.
But his hope that it would lead to an escape route was instantly dashed. The small room had no other exits. Imka spun to face him, her expression almost accusing. They were trapped!
Nina gripped the rope as the cliff shuddered. Somehow, the fortress was trying to break free—
An explosive crack echoed around the cavern. She turned her head – and saw a truck-sized spearhead of ice plunge from beside the Dionysius to strike the water like a bomb. Smaller lumps skittered down the cliff from above, one forcing her to jerk aside to avoid it. Harhund and the other mercenaries faced the same danger, Martel taking a blow from a falling chunk and almost slipping from the ledge. ‘Get to the boats!’ Harhund roared.
He and Martel resumed as quickly as they dared. Roche started towards Nina – who remained defiantly still. ‘What are you doing?’ he yelled, stopping four feet away. ‘Move, you stupid bitch!’
‘Fuck you, asshole!’ the New Yorker shouted back. ‘Just climb past me! I’m going back to the fortress!’
‘The hell you are!’ He fumbled to unshoulder his MCX. Even in its short-barrelled model, the rifle was still awkward to manoeuvre at such close quarters. ‘Move or I shoot you!’
‘Whoever hired you needs me alive, moron! Think you’ll get paid if you kill the only person who can make that thing work?’ She jabbed a thumb towards the pouch containing the key.
Roche looked down as if he had forgotten it was there, then his eyes flicked after Wintz’s departed boat. ‘They’ll have the coffin, they’ll have the key,’ he said. ‘Two out of three ain’t bad.’
He aimed the SIG at her chest—
The cavern rocked again, a great swell of water smashing into the cliff’s foot.
Both Nina and Roche were thrown against the wall. The iceberg continued its roll, metal groaning above as the hanging Dionysius was brought almost overhead. Nina gripped the ropes, flattening herself against th
e ice – which she realised with shock was now nearly thirty degrees from the vertical. The fortress would soon be on the level – would it stop when it got there?
The thought vaporised in the face of danger as Roche recovered. His expression was one of near-panic, self-preservation his only concern – and she was the biggest obstacle in his way. He brought the gun up again—
A whoosh from behind – and the Dionysius’s swinging anchor smashed into him with the force of an artillery shell.
August reached the corridor’s end, spotting the opening and shining his light inside. Two figures were huddled together, nowhere to go. His finger went to the trigger—
Running footsteps, rapidly closing. He glanced back, expecting to see one of his comrades – but instead saw Eddie Chase charging at him with something in his outstretched hand.
He spun, raising the rifle—
Eddie reached him first, pulling a trigger of his own – on the Fast Ice drill.
A foot-long steel screw spinning at two thousand revolutions per minute punched into the mercenary’s chest, its clawed tip cutting effortlessly through flesh and bone into the man’s heart. August managed a gargling scream before crumpling.
‘You know the drill,’ Eddie told him. He detached the bloodied rod from the chuck, then collected the dead man’s gun. ‘Cheng! Imka! It’s me, Eddie – are you okay?’
‘Yes, we’re here!’ was Cheng’s fearful reply. ‘What happened to that man?’
‘He’s screwed. Come on, the whole fucking place is coming apart!’
Imka emerged first, Cheng behind her.
‘Where is Professor Wilde?’ he asked, before gulping at the sight of August’s chest wound.
‘On the cliff – I hope.’ He set off, hoping they would have the sense to follow.
They did – as far as the frozen remains. ‘Oh no, no!’ wailed Imka, staring in horror. ‘It’s Arnold!’
Eddie told Cheng to keep going before returning to her. ‘You don’t know that.’
‘No, I do! This boot, it’s a Scarpa, bright orange – I bought it for him! He . . . he was . . .’ She struggled to breathe in her shock.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Eddie, grim-faced, ‘but we have to go. Now!’ As much as he wanted to offer sympathy, time was running out. He pulled her with him after Cheng.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Nina gasped. The swinging anchor had hit the base of Roche’s spine, punching straight through his body to bury itself two feet deep into the icy cliff. The mercenary was still alive, twitching and shuddering – though he wouldn’t be for long as his blood sluiced down the frozen slope. His gun fell from his spasming hand and slid towards the water, followed by one of his legs.
The most immediate threat had been removed, but she was far from out of danger. The anchor’s impact had damaged the ledge, forcing her to dig her crampon spikes into the wall to keep from slipping – and the noise of half a ton of steel slamming into the cavern’s side had drawn the attention of the two other mercenaries.
Harhund was partway around the outcrop, Martel just reaching the end of the crack. The leader shouted an order. Nina couldn’t hear it over the crashing waves, but the gist was obvious: get her! Martel started back towards her.
The ledge broke away from beneath the anchor, taking a few feet either side with it. She yelped and shifted her footing as another lump beneath one boot disintegrated in sympathy. Her only chance of escape was to reach the fortress – but how?
Roche was by now mercifully dead. If she could jump across the gap and grab the anchor pinning him, she might be able to clamber around and reach the ledge on the other side.
Martel closed in. Nina unclipped her carabiner, then drew back, took a breath – and jumped.
She caught the anchor’s long main shank with both hands, swinging for a moment before catching the end of its horizontal stock with one foot. Gasping, she pulled herself against it and looked along the ledge. The jump across the broken ice was about six feet, farther than the gap she had just crossed, but she was sure she could make it—
The cavern shuddered again – and the anchor burst free from the cliff.
Nina screamed as it carried her helplessly out over the freezing water.
12
Eddie entered the tunnel leading to the hatch, seeing a mercenary regaining his balance. He gunned him down without hesitation, then ran out onto the ledge – to see his wife sweeping across the cavern on the Dionysius’s anchor, what was left of another mercenary impaled upon it. ‘Buggeration and fuckery!’
Martel was rapidly traversing the cliff towards him, Harhund on the outcrop beyond. The Yorkshireman whipped up his stolen SIG and locked on to the nearer man. One shot was all it took. A burst of blood from Martel’s chest, then he spasmed and slipped from the ledge. The rope snapped tight, leaving him flopping like a fish on the sloping ice face.
Eddie didn’t spare the dying man another thought, fixing his sights on Harhund. The Norwegian had already brought up his own rifle, but firing one-handed from his precarious perch, the best he could do was to unleash a frenzied hail of suppressing fire at the fortress.
It was enough, forcing Eddie to drop as rounds struck the hull behind him. He registered that the impacts sounded somehow wrong, but had no time to wonder why.
Harhund’s magazine ran dry. Eddie rose and reacquired his target – only for the mercenary leader to scramble around the outcrop. He fired again, but the rounds only smacked against ice. ‘Balls!’
Nina finally stopped screaming. He saw the anchor reach the far end of its arc, pausing for the briefest moment – before swinging back at the cliff.
Nina hadn’t even heard the gunfire over her own terrified yell. She ran out of breath as the anchor came to the top of its sweep, gasping in more air – and felt the anchor chain shake as the Dionysius lurched.
She looked up with a new surge of fear. The ice trapping the ship was crumbling, the survey vessel slowly but relentlessly tearing free.
And now she was swinging back underneath it.
The chain jolted again, steel shrilling against steel as it snagged the edge of the ship’s tilted deck. A sudden rush of wind hit her as the anchor’s swing speeded up; with the pendulum effectively shortened, the laws of physics now forced it to move faster to conserve its momentum.
Sending her back at the ice cliff like a wrecking ball.
‘Oh shit!’ she shrieked as the frozen wall rushed closer—
She saw the ropes Eddie had placed across the cliff – below her.
Roche’s remains were still mashed against the anchor’s leading edge. Nina tore the waterproof pouch from his harness – and jumped.
She hit the cliff a few feet above the ropes as the anchor pounded into the ice overhead. The impact hurt, but before she could recover, she slithered downwards.
One spiked boot snagged the lines. They pulled taut, Martel acting as a counterweight to slow her—
An ice spike ripped from the cliff.
She dropped, hitting the ice face-first. Then the ropes jerked taut again, pitching her back.
She fell—
Her free hand caught the juddering lines. She slowed, Martel’s body again acting as a shock absorber to ease the jolt. Gasping, grimacing, she wedged the pouch into her harness, then twisted to clutch the ropes with her other hand. ‘Holy crap,’ she wheezed.
‘Nina!’ She squinted to see Eddie outside the fortress. For a moment she thought the blow to her head had affected her vision, as colours seemed to be crawling over the ancient structure, but then she realised they actually were. Its metal skin was shimmering, a faint rainbow effect like oil on water roiling across its surface.
But she had more urgent concerns. ‘Some of the ice screws are coming out!’ Eddie warned. Martel’s unsecured body was still swinging from the line, the steel shafts twitching and straining in the ice. ‘I’ll
put some more in, then help you up.’
Nina dug her crampons into the cliff. ‘No rush,’ she said sarcastically. The iceberg’s roll had brought the Dionysius directly overhead. Pieces of ice fell from around it, cracks widening. How much longer could it resist gravity?
He drove a new screw into the cliff face with the Fast Ice. ‘I’ll be quick. I don’t want the ship to hit the femme.’
Despite the situation, she laughed. ‘That was pretty good, for you.’
‘Law of averages. If I do enough jokes, I’ll manage a really clever one eventually.’ The screw in place, he attached a carabiner and forced the tight rope through it before sidestepping along the ledge to fix another.
Cheng and Imka looked on from inside the hatch. ‘Watch out!’ Imka cried as a ten-foot spear of ice broke from beside the Dionysius.
Nina cringed and flattened herself against the wall. The icicle exploded into glittering rubble a few metres away, but she was still hit by flying fragments.
Eddie fixed another screw, then started towards her. The cliff’s angle had changed so much he could walk across it, albeit hunched down to maintain his balance. A glance at the Dionysius looming overhead, and he quickened his pace. ‘Try to climb up,’ he called to Nina. ‘I’ll grab you and—’
A new noise over the crackle of ice. The mercenaries’ boat roared into motion. Eddie hurriedly brought up his gun as he saw Harhund raise his own weapon, but the people on the cliff were not the Norwegian’s target. Instead he strafed the explorers’ RIB before bringing his outboard to full power and sweeping through the churning waves into the cave mouth.
Eddie sent a few angry shots after him, but hit nothing. ‘Bastard!’ he growled as he continued towards Nina. ‘He popped our boat!’
‘How the hell are we going to get out of here?’ she asked, watching the Scandinavian disappear through the opening – which was getting taller but narrower as the iceberg rolled.
‘Let’s just get out from underneath this bloody ship first! Climb towards me!’
The Resurrection Key Page 14
