If anyone replied Sarah didn’t hear them as the storm bellowed through the heavens and lightning lanced down onto the megaliths. The winds returned, and with the way ahead revealed, Goodwin moved towards an arch in the stones.
‘Director, please … wait!’ Winter went to follow, but gunfire behind made him pause and look back the way they’d come.
‘I have to go,’ Goodwin said, ‘Susan and Rebecca need me.’
Winter looked back at him, his expression torn. ‘It’s not safe!’
‘It’s not safe here!’ Goodwin gestured towards the sounds of more fighting. ‘It’s not safe anywhere, that’s the problem. It’s time for us to leave Sanctuary, Captain, and this is our way out.’
Goodwin turned and passed beneath the ancient stones and disappeared into the glowing mists.
More lightning blazed down and the fires multiplied.
Gunfire echoed again and Sarah looked back through the building flames to see Winter’s Darklight unit emerge from the tunnel as its walls ignited into flame. The soldiers walked backwards in tactical formation while continuing to fire back into hell.
Sarah suddenly realised the fires had cut her off from everyone else and she ran back towards the tunnel as Trish and Jason passed her going the other way. They slowed and she waved them on. ‘Keep going, I’ll catch you up!’
‘Everyone, go!’ Winter ushered Trish and Jason through the stones. Locke went next, and Riley helped Jefferson brush off flames that clung to his back as they followed behind.
Sarah doubled back round the growing pools of burning pitch and sprinted back.
The storm overhead sent more bolts hammering into the ground and, on either side of the stones, two trails of flame closed in on the entrance.
Bullets whizzed past and Riley called out, ‘Sarah, hurry!’
She neared the stones and Winter waved her past as he remained on sentry. Feet away from her friends, the ring of fire completed and Sarah slid to a stop and raised her hands against the heat.
Beyond, Riley moved back in shock, not realising what was happening until it was too late.
Sarah retreated and looked through the shimmering flames into Riley’s eyes.
More gunfire made everyone duck and Captain Winter stepped forward and raised his weapon, searching for a target. ‘Darklight,’ Winter said through his radio, ‘I have your six.’
One of the men turned to acknowledge their leader. ‘Copy that, sir, reinforcements are en route.’
Sarah crouched down as the Darklight unit spread out to wait for the unseen enemy.
Muffled gunshots echoed from beyond and the sky continued to flicker before thunder cracked loudly.
A figure burst from the black, guns blazing. Colonel Samson dived forward as Darklight unleashed their weapons.
The colonel raised a black shield to deflect the bullets, while firing at five shadowy forms that were chasing him.
Sarah’s expression turned to horror as the chrome-clad assassins spun into being and tore into the Darklight unit.
Seconds later, more black-clad soldiers surged from the tunnel; their battle cries making the assassins re-camouflage as they turned to face the new threat.
‘Sarah,’ Riley called out, ‘come on!’
She looked round to see Riley had removed his jacket to create a narrow bridge through the flames.
Sarah stood up and moved closer, but the heat was too great. ‘It’s too hot!’
She retreated again and looked back to see the colonel cutting a path towards her on the left. One man went down, and then another. Her friends called out to her from behind, but Sarah remained rooted to the spot in detached fascination as Samson smashed aside another Darklight soldier.
Captain Winter leapt to meet him, but Samson deflected his onslaught and heaved him into flame. Terror seized her as the killer loomed large. Sarah wanted to run but her legs wouldn’t move, and she stumbled backwards to the ground.
And then Riley and Jefferson were there, rushing past her only to be knocked aside by the unstoppable colonel’s brutal blows.
Sarah scrambled away, knowing she couldn’t escape, knowing that she wanted to live – so desperately wanted to live. She looked at Riley in despairing horror. I don’t want to die! Her mind screamed inside. NOT NOW! A whimper of fear escaped her lips as Samson bore down on her.
‘There’s nowhere left for you to hide, Morgan.’ The colonel raised his sword aloft and its shining blade reflected in Sarah’s terror-stricken eyes
Riley shouted and Trish screamed. Time slowed as the glowing weapon plunged towards her head …
… and shuddered to a stop with a resounding CLANG and a shower of sparks.
A tear rolled down Sarah’s cheek as she stared at the pulsating blade an inch from her face.
With a screech of metal on metal, the sword was knocked aside and Samson was catapulted backwards.
A hulking figure emerged from the ether, glowing sword in hand. The formidable mask turned towards her, its eyes burning like a demon.
‘Go,’ it said, its voice deep with power, ‘I’ll handle this.’
Sarah shook her head. ‘I saw you die.’
Commander Hilt raised his visor as Riley and Jefferson helped her away. ‘Things,’ Hilt said as he turned back to face Samson, ‘are not always as they seem.’
Chapter Thirty Eight
Colonel Samson shook his head and climbed to his feet. The powerful figure of the Darklight leader turned towards him, visor raised and Samson flexed his arm and picked up his sword. ‘Still alive, Darklight?’
‘I’m a hard man to kill.’
Samson gave a quick glance round to see S.I.L.V.E.R. holding their own against overwhelming odds. He turned back to Hilt, who slid his large rucksack to the ground. The man’s black armour was dented and scarred as though a building had fallen on him.
‘It’s about time you stopped running,’ Samson said, retracting his helmet’s face-plate and moving away from the stones for more room. ‘You fled Steadfast like a coward, leaving better men to fight.’
Hilt followed, his black armour reflecting the pools of flame between them. ‘And you massacred them with no offer of surrender.’
‘Surrender is for the weak.’
Hilt loosened his sword arm with three cutting sweeps of his blade. ‘And the sane.’
Samson’s grip tightened on his sword and his armoured glove creaked under the strain. He withdrew his second blade and activated the thermal device. The weapon glowed white hot and he held it up to Hilt. ‘I got this off your Major. He fought badly. He died … badly.’
Hilt’s eyes narrowed as he removed his shield from his back-plate and lowered his visor. ‘Tell me, mad man,’ he said, ‘what’s it like in hell?’
Samson bared his teeth and closed his face-plate. ‘I don’t know,’ – he surged forward as Hilt leapt to meet him – ‘TELL ME!’
Chapter Thirty Nine
Sarah jumped over smouldering jackets before the fires flashed over them in a pall of smoke and flame.
Glancing back at the Darklight leader, Sarah felt a rough hand turn her face.
Riley kissed her. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’
Sarah stared into his eyes before looking down at her feet.
He raised her chin with a finger and kissed her again.
‘Err, guys,’ Jason said, ‘we’ve got a problem.’
Reeling from the heights of terror to giddy love, Sarah gave Riley a shy smile before turning to see a network of paths leading through pools of bubbling tar, many of which had already caught alight.
The flames spread and black smoke merged with the fog to create a toxic cauldron.
‘Deploy your masks,’ Locke said.
Sarah pressed a button on her helmet and the breathing apparatus slid over her face to produce an airtight seal.
‘There’s no way we can get through that,’ Jefferson said as the heat built, ‘it’s a furnace.’
But as they watched, the oozing fluid
sank into the ground, sucked down by gravity into unseen voids. In its wake, gaping holes revealed the paths were in fact a lattice of narrow bridges that spanned the flaming tar pit beneath.
The inferno decreased in intensity, but the fires persisted as the burning pitch clung to the walkways’ sides.
Trish pointed at some of the bridges. ‘It’s too dangerous, look; some of them are ready to collapse.’
‘She’s right,’ Sarah said, over the noise of the storm, ‘it’s too risky.’
‘We can’t go back,’ Riley said. ‘And we can’t stay here.’
Locke strode forward. ‘Then we move.’
Riley stayed where he was and Locke looked back. ‘You may not like my methods, Riley, but when has my judgement in the field ever let you down? I take care of my own, you know that.’
Riley held his superior’s gaze before relenting and, one by one, they followed the SED commander out onto the fiery lattice.
But as Sarah reached the first path, the heat made her recoil.
‘What’s wrong?’ Riley said from behind.
Sarah shook her head. The vision of flame and smoke captivated her soul, dredging up scenes from nightmares past.
‘Sarah,’ Trish said, waving her forward, ‘come on!’
Stepping out onto the first span, Sarah flinched as the flames licked at her feet. Steeling herself, she moved with haste towards the next junction where respite from the fires beckoned.
Safely past the first obstacle, the six explorers, bedecked in their Deep Reach gear, pressed on, working their way deeper into the infernal pit as they sought the man ahead and fled from those behind.
Chapter Forty
Hilt raised his shield as the strikes rained in. Deflecting a scything blow, he spun sideways, ducked another killing thrust and advanced. Powering forward, he drove Samson back with blow upon blow. The ring of steel on steel sang out, the glowing blades weaving arcs of light through the air as the two men clashed and clashed again.
Samson rallied and it was Hilt’s turn to defend against a ferocious onslaught that forced him towards a deep pit of boiling tar.
Wheeling away, Hilt parried a cutting slice and sent a riposte whistling past Samson’s visor.
The colonel retreated and opened his mask as they circled one another.
‘Your men are dying,’ Samson said.
Hilt glanced past him to where his team struggled to contain the chrome-clad assassins. ‘And you’ll be joining them,’ Hilt said, ‘sooner than you think.’
Samson laughed as lightning lit up the skies. ‘You can’t kill me, Darklight, I’m already dead.’
Hilt gazed into the man’s insanity and adjusted his grip on sword and shield.
‘Do you know who I saw in Hell?’ Samson said, advancing.
Hilt sidestepped a pool of fire as he let Samson stalk him.
The colonel smiled. ‘Your beloved professor, the all-powerful director general. He’d been scheduled for termination by lethal injection.’
Hilt continued to back away, drawing the madman on.
‘The old man’s already six foot under. And do you know who put him there?’ Samson’s smile broadened into exultation. ‘ME!’ The colonel closed his helmet and launched forward.
Hilt blocked a series of strikes before Samson connected with a jarring kick that sent him tumbling back through a wall of flame.
Rolling to his feet beyond the standing stones, Hilt glimpsed Morgan and her team disappearing into the fiery mists. He inched out onto a narrow bridge and Samson’s wavering form appeared through the searing flames like an avenging spirit, mask and swords aglow.
‘Had enough, Darklight?’ Samson said.
Hilt brought his sword and shield together to signal his defiance and Samson leapt forward once more.
♦
The sound of distant fighting made Sarah glance back through the thickening smog to see the Darklight commander still locked in single combat with the fearsome colonel. Praying for Hilt’s victory, she turned back to the path ahead. Trish and Jason had already made it to a position of relative safety on the next intersection, but as the storm’s winds increased, the crackling flames grew higher.
‘We need to go back!’ Jefferson said, bringing up the rear.
Locke shook his head. ‘No, we go on.’
‘Look out!’ Riley dragged Sarah forwards as a sudden gust of wind whipped up waves of burning tar.
Fire roared over the bridge and Jefferson jumped back. The bearded archaeologist cupped his hands and shouted, ‘I’ll find another way round!’
Riley called out a confirmation as Sarah felt the heat flood over her.
Trapped with Riley and Locke between rising flames, Sarah’s panic tightened its grip.
Locke shielded himself from the fire and held something up in his hand.
Through his visor, Sarah saw Riley’s expression turn to shock. ‘No!’ he said.
‘We have no choice!’ Locke pointed at the flames. ‘We go forward or back, either way we have to extinguish the fire.’ He turned and threw the device onto the bridge before them.
Riley pulled her into a crouch as an explosion ripped through the air. The ground shuddered and stone debris rained down around them.
The heat in front reduced and Sarah opened her eyes. The walkway that Trish and Jason had already navigated was now a gaping chasm into the scorching abyss beyond.
‘Why did you do that?!’ Sarah said, looking at the massive barrier between them and safety.
‘So, I can do this.’ Locke produced a grappling gun and fired a bolt into the crumbling stone near Trish’s feet. Connecting the cable to his harness, the SED commander swung out over burning tar. His feet skimmed the flames mid-flight and he twisted round to shoot another anchor back from whence he came. The bolt slammed home and the second cable slowed his momentum as it unwound from his gun. An instant later Locke reached out to cling to the bridge support halfway between the boiling tar and the walkway above. With an agility that belied his age, Locke scaled the crumbling stone and rejoined Trish and Jason, where he disconnected the cable and threw it back to Sarah.
‘You go first.’ Riley pulled down the zip on her decontamination suit and clipped the cable to her harness beneath, then handed her his grappling gun.
Sarah eyed the jump and the black ooze that wept from the newly exposed stone below Locke’s feet. As she watched, the fires took hold and crept up the face of the destabilised bridge. She gazed down into the pit. Visions of Trish aflame and falling to her death spun through her mind like quicksilver. Over and over again Sarah’s own screams of anguish repeated like an omen from the past. Love you, Trish’s voice said as she slipped from Sarah’s grasp. Love you.
‘Sarah,’ Riley said, looking at the fire behind. ‘You need to go.’
She looked at him and shook her head. ‘I can’t do it.’
‘Of course you can. You have to, you don’t have a choice.’
Sarah glanced back to where Jefferson disappeared back the way they’d come. ‘Look,’ she said, pointing, ‘the flames are dying down; in a few minutes we can go back and find another way round.’
‘In a few minutes Goodwin might have gone. In a few minutes the colonel or those assassins will be on us.’ He frowned and grasped her arms. ‘Sarah, you’ve made jumps far harder than this. Remember the SED when we jumped to the atrium wall – remember your training!’
‘That had no smoke! No fire!’
‘And no cable,’ he said, giving her harness a jiggle, ‘this is safer, you must see that.’
Sarah looked back to where the fire spread and pointed. ‘It’s too late … the flames.’
Riley grew angry. ‘Sarah—’ He winced as he lowered his arm.
She looked at him and realisation dawned. ‘You were going back anyway, weren’t you?’ she said in accusation.
‘I can’t make the climb,’ he said, ‘my shoulder’s too bad. If I get the chance I’ll go around and catch up to Jefferson.’
She made a decision and unclipped the largest of the Anakim pendants from the chain at her neck.
‘Jason!’ she said, waving her friend forward.
‘Sarah,’ Riley said, ‘what are you doing?’
She glanced at him. ‘Where you go, I go.’
Jason moved past Trish and Locke on the far side of the chasm.
She held up the five sided disc. ‘We’ll find another way round. Find Goodwin and the transportation device and I’ll meet you there,’ – she wound back her arm – ‘catch!’
She threw the ancient artefact into the air and Jason’s eyes grew wide as the pendant sailed towards him.
Horrified, Sarah’s heart skipped a beat as her throw went wayward, but Jason sank down onto one knee and snatched the metallic pendant from its flight into ruination.
Trish stepped forward as the flames swept higher. ‘What are you doing?!’
‘I’ll meet you there!’ Sarah waved her on. ‘GO!’
Trish hesitated, her expression a mixture of confusion and fear.
‘Don’t worry, the flames are clearing,’ – Sarah gestured behind – ‘we’ll find another way, but we can’t afford to lose Richard Goodwin, we need that transportation device!’
Jason tugged on Trish’s arm as the flames licked at their feet.
‘Go!’ Sarah said, shooing them on.
Trish gave her one last look of despair and turned to follow Jason into the smoking fires.
‘Another minute,’ Riley said, his voice muffled by his breathing mask, ‘and we go through.’
Sarah nodded as her friends disappeared into the fog while behind them, Locke hung back to make sure she and Riley made it to safety.
Heat-filled seconds passed and, as the flames crept lower, they prepared to make their move.
‘This bridge is unstable,’ Riley said. ‘You need to unclip now.’
As Sarah went to detach herself from Locke’s cable the narrow bridge beneath their feet lurched sideways. Sarah let out a shout and Riley wrapped his arms around her. ‘Hang on!’ he said.
The stone bridge collapsed, Sarah screamed and they plummeted into freefall.
2041 Sanctuary (Genesis) Page 19
