Shadow of the Tomb Raider--Path of the Apocalypse

by S. D. Perry

  The rounds thundered through the tunnel. Chips of rock sprayed across her right shoulder, ricocheting off into the dark ahead, the tunnel faintly visible now as her pursuer ran into a clear sight line. Lara saw the ragged hole in the wall across from the river room and dove for it, two more rounds blasting after her, barely missing, too high. Salamanders had started screaming, echoes rising up from below.

  She hit her headlamp as soon as she was inside the rough passage, and spotted the abrupt edge only two meters ahead. She had less than ten seconds before he came in after her, firing. If she couldn’t get a grip or if the edge crumbled—

  There! A thick notch in the lip. Lara ran and ducked down, slapping her left hand across the notch, pivoting and letting herself drop over the edge.

  Her body slammed into the rugged rock, her boots finding purchase as the short passage lit up and a man ran inside, ducking, firing round after round, his face contorted with rage. He was moving too fast and aiming high.

  Kevlar. Lara brought up the Remington and fired, aiming for his belly but not steady. She hit low, two rounds tearing into his upper left thigh.

  He spun but stumbled forward, shock registering on his blandly handsome face as he pitched toward a yawning abyss. She’d envisioned him flying over her head, but he fell short by a meter, crashing toward her.

  Lara crammed her right boot into a crack, ducked and crouched as the man fell half on top of her, the top of her head suddenly buried in his stomach, her neck jacked down painfully. He was overbalanced. He dropped his weapon and grabbed for her, the heavy metal clanging off the rocks all the way down.

  Lara got her gun hand under his hip and stood up, pushing with her legs, lifting him into the air. She fired again, the gun angled wrong to do anything but make him flail, which he did, losing his grip.

  The man shouted in rage and disbelief, a wordless howl as she tipped him over her and into the well. Weight shifting, she scrabbled to keep her grip on the side, hearing his fury turn to pain when he hit the labyrinth below. Bone snapped—then there was a final thud, and his scream cut off. The echoes faded quickly. The salamanders were chirping inquisitively; it sounded like they were approaching in numbers to see what had fallen. If her attacker was still alive, she didn’t think he would be for much longer.

  Lara climbed up into the passage, moved well away from the drop and then reluctantly turned off her headlamp to wait and listen. There was only the puzzle chamber left, then she’d be on her way out, less than a klick from the drop now. Even a hundred meters of lost ground felt like a slap, but she couldn’t afford to give in to impatience. West Coast had been impatient. The broken man below had been impatient.

  I’m coming, Jonah. As soon as I can.

  She checked her watch. She was officially late.

  * * *

  Sergei had dropped down a tight crawlspace to get back into the lower tunnel, past the cave-in, and hurried north through the terrible dark, expecting to be shot or eaten at every step. He finally found a narrow alcove near a branch of the main corridor and backed in, immensely relieved to be surrounded on three sides by solid rock.

  The good feeling fled after less than a minute of waiting with no light. The screamers were in the knot of tunnels only meters beneath his feet, roaming through the dark, doing God knew what. They made rasping chirps almost like birds, like something harmless, and then they’d scream suddenly, violently, and Sergei’s blood would run cold.

  You’re going to laugh about this later. You will absolutely nail this bitch if she comes through, and if someone else gets her that’s fine, too, because you’ll be back in that shitty truck soon, on your way back to the plane, and you’ll make a joke about how scared you were, and you will laugh.

  He checked his watch. Another ten minutes and he could fall back. That would suck, too. Minutes of walking the winding, muddy tunnels back to where the commander waited, wondering if one of Croft’s arrows was about to come flying out of the dark, listening to the monsters scream. He’d fully support a decision to pull out and wait for the target to come back for the boyfriend.

  Why had they even come down in the first place? It had seemed an adventure back at the drop, chasing the girl down, competing for placement, but the reality was just terrible. They shouldn’t be here, people didn’t belong down here. It had barely been an hour since they’d descended but it felt like days; the Dozen were down another man and for all he knew—

  Shots, south and above him, three rounds from Hux’s HK, he thought, then two more. The cave creatures started shrieking, and then there were two weapons firing, Hux’s drowned out by a heavier blast from another weapon— Croft’s. A .45 or .357. She fired the last round.

  He heard Hux scream as he fell. The echoes sent Hux’s fury and pain running in every direction, whispers and shouts of sound that cut off at the bottom of his drop. He must have landed in the maze.

  Fell down one of the wells, maybe. Sergei pulled out his tablet with numb fingers, the soft glow sudden and intense in the black. He called up the layout of the upper tunnels, scanning… There. One of the larger connecting wells, several hundred meters south. He remembered passing the branch that led to it.

  Go up. The chamber he was in had one of the few walking passages connecting the top tunnels; it was why he’d chosen it. He could be at the top of the well in two minutes; if she was climbing up or down, he’d have her. He could take her out before she did any more damage.

  He swapped his tablet for a flashlight and draped the beam, then walked quickly to the spot where the tunnel branched, jogging up the sloping incline that would let out on top. He turned south and hurried, trying not to make noise.

  Hux. He couldn’t believe it. How had the target gotten the better of Hux Lane? It was ridiculous. Up until he’d heard that scream he might have said impossible. Ace had been reckless, his death wasn’t a complete surprise, but Hux was the poster boy for prepared.

  Was. Sergei slowed down, listening. He was surprised at how fast his heart was beating, how loud it was. Croft was a little English girl. Yes, she was trained, but up against someone like Hux?

  How good was he, really? He’s dead, he missed. You wouldn’t have missed. It was undoubtedly true that if Sergei had been firing at Croft, she wouldn’t have had the chance to fire back. The perfect shot was always fatal.

  He must be close to the well by now. Sergei stopped and covered his flashlight completely, listening.

  Ahead of him, a flash strobed, a stutter of weak light against the curving tunnel.

  She’s at the big pillar room, with the mine in front. The bitch was taking pictures.

  When the light stuttered again, Sergei moved, walking in a crouch, close to the slight curve. He didn’t make a sound, using his own light sparingly, only to place his feet.

  He came to a stop just where the tunnel curved. The flash stuttered again, and Sergei dared a quick glance around the curve, saw the sharp reflection against the stones of the passage ahead, twenty meters away.

  He pulled back, grinning. This was the only exit from the pillar room. She was going to walk out in a minute, and it didn’t matter which way she went, he would step out from the curve and hold up his light and fire until she dropped. Even if he wasn’t the best, he couldn’t possibly miss.

  There was no more light. She was very quiet, he couldn’t—

  Ah! A rattle of pebbles clattered in the chamber, soft but clear. She wasn’t so careful as she thought.

  Sergei held himself ready and waited, listening.

  * * *

  Lara heard the commando coming while she was finishing up her pictures—the faintest scuffle of gritty mud being gently crushed against stone, the creak of fabric. Whoever it was, they were very careful, but she had been listening for an approach.

  Time to go. The chamber was magnificent—the speleothems, hourglass columns, had been painted with all sizes and widths of blue rings. Mateus had sketched them in his diary several times, she recalled, and they were incredible;
the Maya artists had climbed high to paint the brilliant rings, outlining them in black. On the south wall of the lofty room was a huge, masterful painting of the ballgame that the Maya had revered, blue players running across the court holding daggers and bleeding hearts, stone rings at either end. Opposite the mural was another, this one of Kukulkan, its strange serpent head peering out from its plumage, with more overwritten glyphs alongside. All along the back of the chamber were extensive writings laid out in grids.

  The puzzle. At least the hieroglyphs on the back wall hadn’t been overwritten. If someone had messed with the site, they’d left the important part alone. There was too much to even begin to read. Lara desperately wanted more time, but she would have to make do with what she had.

  The quiet sneak had stopped moving not far north of her. She slipped to the entrance and out, south, carefully stepping around the trigger stone, placing her feet just so. She could hear them loudly shifting about in their hiding place—settling in to wait for her to emerge. When she’d managed a nearly silent two meters, she stopped and slipped her hand to her belt, pulling out a few waterproof matches. She tossed them into the chamber before slipping farther away. How long would the sneak wait before he or she figured it out? Would they come after her or fall back?

  Don’t try to guess. If they follow you’ll hear it; if they don’t, you’re still blocked. What are you going to do?

  She’d planned to go to the vertical drop at the north end of the site and then make a decision about where to come out, depending on what she could gather about the team’s movements. She had enough rope to drop down into the maze from there, if necessary. But now there was a commando in the way, standing in the dark with a loaded gun. The top tunnel was no longer an option.

  She let herself pick up speed the farther she got from the chamber, thinking over her choices. Climb down and out the lower tunnel, or try to get under him and come back up. Neither was ideal, both opened to the same spot, where someone would surely be waiting. There was no way past them—

  That’s not true. The labyrinth of tunnels that made up the main body of the site had an exit that let out way back at the beginning. She remembered the first tunnel she’d passed before she’d fallen down the slide—the one the Trinity excavators had marked with a red X, in the small bat chamber. She could go into the maze, find the passage that let her get out behind her pursuers. The fact that the sneak was another solo act suggested to her that the team she was dealing with might be even smaller than she’d originally thought. There wouldn’t be anyone wasting time on the maze, and maybe not enough bodies to spare covering unlikely exits…

  But you don’t know how to get there. Marin’s notes were for a quick in-and-out job; they didn’t tell her how to navigate the labyrinth. If she couldn’t find the right passage, or if the ascent proved to be unmanageable, she could lose a lot of time backtracking. And the labyrinth was where the salamanders seemed to live and hunt, where the largest bat colonies had presumably settled. She wasn’t worried about facing off with the troglobites while walking through the tunnels—they weren’t going to overpower her and she was armed—but what if she was halfway up a pitch somewhere when a big group moved in and got bitey?

  And what if these killers just decide to fall back to the cenote and wait for me to climb up?

  What if. What if was useless.

  She passed the room of rivers and the short tunnel that led to the dead man, passed the narrow entrance to the slope where she’d clawed her way up after the cave-in. She could use the double chamber with the cataclysm mural to get down, slip back into the labyrinth through the access hole that Marin’s team had blasted. She had marked the few tunnels she’d wandered. If it got to be too much she could always climb back up farther north, re-evaluate.

  At least you’ll be moving. She had to keep moving, couldn’t let herself slow down or even acknowledge how tired she felt suddenly, trying to imagine how she was going to secretly climb fifty meters of rope at the end of all this and then face off with whoever was guarding Jonah and Miguel.

  And then work out what all of this actually means, get to the hidden city, find the silver box, and figure out how to stop the rest of the prophecy from being fulfilled. That’s assuming you can get past the rest of these psychopaths, which is by no means certain.

  I got off of Yamatai. I made it back from Kitezh.

  So this is a sure thing, then? You’ve survived terrible things, so this one’s in the bag?

  No, I’ll likely die and Jonah will die and then everyone will die. She was tired of this inner critic, pushing doubt. Before that, I keep trying. What more can I possibly do?

  The critic had no response and Lara hurried on, affirming that simple truth to herself: she would do the best she could, and if that wasn’t good enough, she still couldn’t do any better.

  * * *

  Harper heard the shots, and the scream. In the dark, the sound was monstrous, the death cry of Hux Lane chorused by the squall of cave creatures. He heard movement, close in, footsteps maybe—from the lower tunnel? Whoever it was, they weren’t heading toward him. The sound faded quickly.

  Goddamn it. Was Hux dead? Or had he taken out Croft?

  “Report,” he said. The word whispered back at him from the walls, but there was nothing from his headset.

  He waited impatiently for someone to get into talking range, his jaw clenched. It was almost 0000; they’d be on their way in, anyway.

  This was a bad idea. You should have stayed on top, waited.

  Not necessarily. Turnover on any mission isn’t unexpected. If Croft is dead, it’s a success.

  “—copy? Just a—”

  Sergei, in a crackle of static. Harper waited for light to appear, finally saw a glow sketch out the opening meters of the top tunnel. He suddenly felt like he could breathe easier. He pointed the Glock, waiting, until he could hear soft footsteps.

  “Coming out of tunnel one now, copy?”

  “Copy,” Harper said, and then Sergei was stepping out. He looked terrible, pale and sweaty by the soft light of a dimmed flashlight.

  “Report.”

  “Ace and Hux are dead.”

  “Confirmations?”

  “I saw Ace get hit with two arrows before he fell into one of the charges. I didn’t get eyes on Hux, but… that was a long fall. And she fired last.”

  “Where is Croft now?”

  “No info on that,” Sergei said. “She was a klick south ten minutes ago, on the top. I thought I had her pinned in the pillar room, but she got out. She must have gone south, but there are a lot of connections between tunnels and levels down there. Places to move.”

  “Anything from Mitchell?”

  Sergei shook his head. “She was going to lay up somewhere and wait.”

  Harper looked at his watch. Mitchell had three minutes to report.

  “Commander, we should fall back to the drop. The target’s got an edge on us down here, and she won’t be going anywhere without her pilot or her friend.”

  He was trying to sound reasonable, but his voice was strained. Sergei was as close to shook up as Harper had ever seen.

  He’s also right. It galled him to think that he’d made a mistake, but half of his caving team was dead and Croft wasn’t.

  “We’ll wait on Mitchell,” Harper said. “Put your back to a wall and turn off that light.”

  Sergei hurried to obey. “Did you hear those scr—”

  Harper cut him off with a terse hiss. They waited in silence.

  As his watch ticked over from 2359, there was a whisper in Harper’s ear, Mitchell’s voice low and quite clear. “I may have a line. Request channel silence for twenty.”

  “Copy that,” Harper said.

  “Stand by.” Mitchell’s cool voice snapped off.

  Yes! He couldn’t imagine what had happened with Hux, but if Mitchell had Croft in her sights, that bitch wouldn’t escape.

  The thought was more hopeful than certain.

  “S
ergei, get back into range of the drop. Put Reddy in charge, have him bring in the airfield team, including Winters, and get that collateral locked down tight, gagged and hobbled.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ll station yourself at the first chamber from the opening tunnel, where there’s that drop into the maze. It’s the last place she can come out before the cenote opens.”

  Sergei had been looking relieved, but his expression sagged at the additional order, even as the lines around his eyes tightened.

  “You don’t like caves?” Harper asked, and didn’t wait for the obvious answer. “Me either. Creepy as fuck down here. But you’ll hear her if she climbs up, and if you’re any closer to the drop, she could get behind you. I’ll wait on Mitchell, we’ll meet you at the branch ASAP.”

  Sergei nodded more firmly and turned to leave, moving quickly. His shoulders were still high, his Springfield tight in his hand.

  Harper waited until Sergei’s light faded and then chewed on the facts. Even with the rest of the team coming in, the Dozen were down to eight. Ace had finally blown his winning streak. And Hux… The fury that he felt at Croft for Hux’s loss was fiery and sharp, a burning blade in his guts, a beat of blood at his temples. Who else on his team was as qualified to keep operations running smoothly?

  And how could she possibly have beaten him? It was beyond infuriating, and perplexing, and it was driving home that he’d made a bad choice, following her into the dig.

  If Mitchell gets a shot, Croft’s dead. And if she doesn’t, we’ve still got the insurance. He would set up his snipers in the trees, get the area covered, then wait. Croft would likely fall for the same pitch that had drawn Jonah from his hiding place: surrender or watch your friend die… Or, she’d open fire. Either way, as soon as she popped up, she was dead. No more fun and games, no spitting in her face or making her suffer, no frills. She would be gunned down like the rabid dog she was.

  Not rabid. Smart. And careful.

  The tunnels seemed to go silent as Sergei’s footsteps disappeared in the black. Harper checked his watch again, trying to regain any of the confidence he’d felt only moments before. He had faith in Mitchell’s abilities… but he’d had faith in all of his top players, and two of them had failed to make the grade. Was Mitchell up to the task?