Lily bowed her head and nodded, understanding the cryptic phrase.
It came from Jack’s mother, a most unusual woman who, on those occasions when she’d spent time with Lily, had always encouraged her to try new things, go to unusual plays or movies, and most of all, to pay attention in school.
‘Who knows, you might just learn something,’ she would always say.
Which was Jack’s intent: go with Hades, because you might learn something about all this.
Lily turned to the Lord of the Underworld. ‘Okay. Fine. I’ll go.’
With a final kiss on the cheek to Jack, she left with Hades, Iolanthe, the British doctor and Hades’s guards.
A moment later, Monsieur Vacheron, the bald Master of the Games appeared in front of Jack’s cell and offered a leering smile.
‘Hello, maggot,’ he spat. ‘For the Third Challenge, you may bring one weapon. You must also choose a companion and bind him to yourself.’
Vacheron carelessly tossed something small through the bars at Jack. The object bounced off Jack’s chest and landed on the floor with a clatter.
A pair of steel handcuffs.
Fifteen minutes later, Jack and Sky Monster stood in a tight iron-barred antechamber not much larger than a phone booth, facing a steel outer door, handcuffed to each other.
Stretching away from them on both sides were similar cages containing the other champions, all handcuffed to a companion of their own and all facing their own outer doors.
In the dark tight space, Jack felt like a racehorse in a starting stall, waiting with the other horses for the gates to spring open.
He and Sky Monster had been led here from their hostage carriage via a series of tunnels, before being pushed into the antechamber via a door in its rear.
Tense silence.
Jack now wore his fireman’s helmet strapped tight around his chin along with his Simpsons t-shirt.
He still wore no shoes. The lone oversized boot he’d acquired in the water maze was no good and Alby had much smaller feet than Jack so his sneakers didn’t fit; and Sky Monster was wearing his. Since Sky Monster had no weapon, Jack had given him the knife he’d taken from the minotaur at the very start of all this.
An odd trumpeting came from somewhere outside, beyond the door, followed by a muffled booming.
This must have been how Roman gladiators felt, Jack thought. Waiting to fight, not knowing what lay on the other side of that door.
His nerves jangled. His heart pumped loudly inside his head.
Beside him, he could see beads of sweat forming on Sky Monster’s brow. The big Kiwi looked beyond petrified. He wasn’t used to being on the ground and in the thick of things. He was normally up in the plane, circling, waiting to provide the getaway. He performed his heroics from a pilot’s seat, which didn’t require him to be lean or fit, and he was neither.
In the cage to their immediate right, Jack saw another pair of men cuffed together.
The older of the two was a short, wiry man with the dry caramel skin of a Nepalese. He wore a distinctive black bandana and—more importantly to Jack—he gripped in his hand a bent-bladed short sword.
Jack knew that kind of sword.
It was a kukri or khukuri, the traditional weapon of the Gorkhas, the legendary Nepalese warriors who had served with distinction for the Nepalese, British and Indian armies over the centuries. Given their high-altitude Himalayan origins, Gorkhas were renowned for their endurance. They were also known for their ferocity in battle.
Jesus, there’s a goddamn Gorkha here, Jack thought in despair.
Monsieur Vacheron paced behind the line of cages.
‘Maggots!’ he shouted. ‘This is the Third Challenge! A Golden Sphere sits atop the tower. The champion who acquires that sphere will be allowed to leave the arena via a special bridge that will then be retracted. Glory and honour await him. The rest of you shits will have to get out via the Coward’s Route. Be quick about it. The last two champions left in the fighting space will have their heads blown off and their support teams liquidated.’
Vacheron turned to walk away.
‘Wait!’ Jack called, stopping him. ‘What about our companions?’ He indicated Sky Monster, cuffed to his left wrist.
Vacheron turned to face Jack, as if galled to be addressed by a champion. He glared at Jack and for a moment it seemed like he wouldn’t answer.
But then he did.
‘Your companions have even less value than you do, maggot. They are only here to weigh you down. It does not matter to me, Lord Hades or to anyone else if they survive the test or not. Adieu.’
Vacheron departed.
Beside Jack, Sky Monster began to hyperventilate.
‘Hey. Monster.’ Jack put his face right up close to Sky Monster’s. ‘It’s okay. I’ll be right there with you, right by your side. There’s nothing outside those doors that we can’t overcome together. Okay?’
Sky Monster nodded quickly. ‘Okay. Thanks, Jack. Thanks.’
With a loud clang the outer door of their cage sprang open . . .
. . . and Jack beheld the enormous space beyond it.
‘Holy shit . . .’ he breathed.
CHAMPION PROFILE
NAME: ‘THE GORKHA’
AGE: 31
RANK TO WIN: 6
REPRESENTING: SKY
PROFILE:
Nepalese by birth, the Gorkha is a member of one of India’s most famed regiments, the 8th Gorkha Rifles. (While it is part of the Indian Army, members of the 8th are all Nepalese.)
He will be easily spotted, as he will be wearing a black bandana and he will be brandishing a kukri.
Ranked 6th out of 16 to win the Games.
FROM HIS PATRON:
‘The Gorkha will be very hard to beat.’
Kenzo Depon, King of the Sky
The Dash across the First Pinnacle
A sight that was both spectacular and fearsome opened up before Jack and Sky Monster.
A huge abyss easily the size of three football fields stretched away from them.
Off to their left, flanking the abyss, was the side of the colossal mountain and on it—high, high up—was a viewing balcony for Hades and the other royal spectators. Beneath the royal balcony, arriving from the previous stadium on a set of rails, were the iron-barred hostage carriages.
Rising out of the abyss before them were two pinnacles of rock, connected by a narrow, railless bridge. The first pinnacle was small and flat-topped while the second one was simply gigantic. It rose far higher than the first and it also possessed something on it: a high cylindrical tower.
The tower was actually quite beautiful and it reminded Jack of ancient Babylonian architecture.
A series of pathways spiralled around the curved outer wall of the tower, criss-crossing each other at various intervals. The whole thing—the tower and the rocky pinnacle—rose at least ten storeys above the spot where Jack now stood, so that its summit sat level with the royal viewing balcony.
Jack could just see a glowing Golden Sphere at the summit of the tower and near it, extending from the tower to the royal balcony, a tiny bridge suspended from cables.
That was the exit Vacheron had mentioned, the easy exit for the champion who grabbed the sphere, the one that would then be retracted. For now, Jack couldn’t see the other exit—the Coward’s Route—that would serve the remaining champions.
In all honesty, right then he didn’t care for any exit. Of more immediate concern to him and Sky Monster was what lay between them and the lone bridge leading to the central tower/pinnacle:
A phalanx of about thirty minotaurs gripping swords and spears.
They stood in four rows on the first flat-topped pinnacle, in front of four elephants that wore armoured plating and ceremonial red and black war paint. Each beast bore two minotaurs
on its back and trumpeted loudly.
‘Are those elephants?’ Sky Monster said incredulously.
‘Yep,’ Jack said.
The analytical part of his brain saw the small ears of the elephants. Asian elephants had smaller ears than African ones. Maybe Iolanthe had been telling the truth about their being in India.
He snapped out of it. The thought had made him pause.
The other champions hadn’t paused.
They sprinted from their cages—running in tandem with their handcuffed partners—out across the flat-topped pinnacle toward the force of minotaurs and elephants.
The Gorkha who had been in the starting cage beside Jack’s moved with particular speed and balance, in perfect synch with his short partner.
His partner.
It was then that Jack noticed—sadly—that nearly all the other champions had companions who were short, compact, lean or small.
He glanced at Sky Monster beside him—tall and overweight—and wondered if, again, the other champions had had access to information that he hadn’t. Speed and agility were clearly important factors in this challenge and unlike all the other companions Sky Monster was neither small nor agile.
A great roar banished those thoughts from Jack’s mind.
The mini-army of minotaurs issued a war cry and, followed by the four thundering elephants, broke into a run and charged directly toward the champions.
The Third Challenge had begun.
The battle that followed was as vicious and chaotic as it was terrifying and loud.
There was movement everywhere: minotaurs running and slashing with swords; elephants rearing and landing with colossal booms; and champions dashing this way and that.
Amid all the chaos, Jack saw the Marine with the reflective glasses running low and fast through the melee, attached to a bulky female companion.
For a fleeting moment, Jack was pleased that someone else had a big partner, but then he frowned: he thought he recognised the big female Marine . . .
. . . but then his view was cut off by a rearing, roaring elephant and Jack ducked under the elephant’s feet and, pulling Sky Monster with him, took off down the left-hand side of the pinnacle.
As he ran, Jack saw the British champion, the orange-haired SAS guy, Brigham.
Running with a short sword in one hand and his compact companion handcuffed to the other, Brigham hacked three minotaurs out of his way. He was heading for an arched gate that gave access to the bridge leading to the main pinnacle.
But then Brigham did something that was beyond anything Jack expected to see.
Momentarily free of attacking minotaurs, Brigham turned and without so much as a blink, hacked off the hand of his diminutive companion.
Jack blanched. ‘Jesus Christ . . .’
The companion screamed as his hand dropped off his wrist . . . along with the steel handcuff around it.
It was one of the cruellest things Jack had ever seen, but there was a ruthless logic to it.
Released from his connection to the smaller man, Brigham now bolted at much greater speed toward the gate, leaving his companion behind, bent over the bloody stump that was now his wrist.
Within seconds, the smaller man was set upon by two minotaurs and he wailed as they hacked him to pieces.
A few yards away from Brigham, Jack saw the Gorkha do the same thing: he slashed down with his vicious-looking kukri sword, severing the forearm of his partner.
His partner, however, didn’t die as meekly as Brigham’s. No, he hurled himself into the oncoming minotaurs—a sacrifice play to give the Gorkha time to sprint away.
‘Good God,’ Jack said. ‘This is insane.’
Sky Monster had seen both dismemberments. His eyes were as wide as saucers.
‘Please don’t do that to me, Jack.’
‘We get through this together or not at all, buddy,’ Jack said. ‘Come on.’
As Jack and Sky Monster ran through the melee, all around them champions ducked and punched, ran and kicked, doing battle with the force of minotaurs.
Jack quickly noticed that, while outnumbered, the champions were more accomplished fighters than the smaller, half-human minotaurs.
The thirty minotaurs were intended to merely delay the champions on their way to the tower on the main pinnacle, to separate them.
Yet they were doing it with an enthusiasm and ferocity that was nothing short of shocking. They hurled themselves at the champions, leaping at them without a care for their own lives or safety.
With one exception.
Jack saw the remaining golden minotaur—one of the two who had been elevated to champion status—running unhindered with his companion through the ranks of regular minotaurs.
The minotaurs are favouring their own, Jack realised. They may not be fully human, but they’re not stupid.
Just then an elephant—slashed across the belly by another champion in mid-charge—came crashing to the ground right beside Jack and Sky Monster.
The huge animal hit the ground with a great boom and started sliding toward them!
‘Dive left!’ Jack yanked Sky Monster and they dived full-length to the left as the elephant skidded past them and disappeared over the edge of the pinnacle, taking its minotaur riders with it.
Their dive had brought them close to the left-hand edge of the flat-topped pinnacle and as they got back to their feet, two minotaurs leapt at them.
‘Monster! Clothesline!’ Jack called and Sky Monster responded by raising his cuffed hand at the same instant Jack did and the first charging minotaur’s throat hit the chain of their handcuffs and its feet flew up into the air while it dropped to the ground.
A split second later, Jack ducked and hip-tossed the second charging minotaur off the edge of the pinnacle.
‘This is a madhouse!’ Sky Monster called.
‘Story of my life,’ Jack yelled. He pointed to the bridge leading to the large central pinnacle. ‘We can’t stay here! We gotta get to that bridge!’
They ran through the melee.
Running fast and low, Jack swerved and dodged the inrushing minotaurs and rearing elephants, but the heavier Sky Monster was slower. He was huffing and puffing, breathless and red-faced.
He was slowing them down.
A three-storey-high castle-like gate gave access to the bridge leading to the main pinnacle. It had two horn-like towers and a raised portcullis.
Looking past it at the much-larger main pinnacle, Jack saw that the golden minotaur and the British champion, Brigham, had already crossed the bridge and were now dashing up a curving ascending path cut into the pinnacle’s lower reaches, closely followed by the Gorkha.
Jack and Sky Monster were still about twenty metres away from the gate. Only one other champion-pair was still on the first pinnacle and they were just now reaching the gate.
‘We can’t win this challenge!’ Jack yelled above the din. ‘So let’s just make sure we’re not one of the last two champions in here!’
‘Gotcha!’
It was then that the champion-pair that had just passed through the gate did something particularly nasty.
They found a lever and dropped the portcullis of the gate, sealing it.
‘Bastards . . .’ Jack gasped.
He and Sky Monster, already running last in this death race, were now stranded on the first pinnacle.
‘This way!’ Jack hauled Sky Monster toward the left-hand watchtower of the arched gate.
It was made of roughly-hewn stone, which meant it was uneven, which meant handholds.
Sky Monster peered over the edge of the pinnacle and saw a mighty drop, many hundreds of feet deep, beneath them.
‘Jack . . .’
‘Don’t look down! Climb out onto the wall now!’ Jack said, looking desperately behind them.
Up on
the royal viewing balcony, Monsieur Vacheron commentated: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, if I may draw your attention this way: the fifth warrior and his companion are gamely attempting to climb around the bridge-gate.’
The crowd of royals all turned to look.
Standing among them, Lily had already seen what was happening and she watched anxiously.
Sky Monster reached for a handhold on the side wall of the watchtower and stepped out over the fathomless drop. Connected by the handcuff, Jack followed him.
They edged out along the outer wall of the watchtower, high above the deadly drop.
‘Get further, further,’ Jack urged, ‘then go up—’
Sky Monster had gone about eight feet along the wall when, suddenly, a minotaur, heedless of its own safety, took a bounding leap clear off the edge of the pinnacle and flew right at Jack and clamped its hairy arms around both of his legs.
The result was instantaneous.
The extra weight caused Jack to lose his grip on the wall and he fell.
The assembled spectators up on the bleachers gasped as one.
Lily threw a hand to her mouth.
Jack dropped off the wall.
His left wrist, connected to Sky Monster’s right, yanked Sky Monster’s right hand from its handhold, and for a nanosecond Jack thought this was it: he and Sky Monster would fall to their deaths—
But then his fall stopped abruptly.
Sky Monster had somehow managed to hold on.
His teeth clenched, his big-bearded face going red with effort, Sky Monster was grimly gripping the wall with only his left hand, holding himself, Jack and the minotaur up!
Jack felt a surge of inspired energy rush through him.
‘You’re the man, Monster!’ he yelled and he kicked at the minotaur—once, twice, three times—until it fell off him and dropped away into the abyss at the very moment that Sky Monster’s grip was about to fail—when Jack quickly regripped the wall and climbed up beside his partner, allowing Sky Monster to find a new handhold and catch his breath.
The Four Legendary Kingdoms Page 7
