Sam swore.
Tom said, “At least now we’re only a hundred feet short.”
Sam looked down at the small opening in the cliff far below. “It may as well be a mile.”
A strange humming sound resonating from the crevasse behind them changed its pitch. Both of them swung around with their weapons aimed at the hidden entrance. Something had changed. Despite the difficult and narrow climb, they had no doubt the army of temple guards would eventually overcome the unique route.
With the distant rumble of the combined war cry in the background, a new, higher pitched wail suddenly shot out of the opening. The obsidian blade was the first thing Sam saw. It jabbed forward toward the ledge, before its owner ran out at full speed — and over the cliff.
The warrior continued to scream his strange war cry as he fell. His voice became distant until they could no longer hear him, and he eventually disappeared into the canopy of the jungle far below.
Tom said, “That poor man simply ran to his own death. He didn’t even stop his war cry after he’d gone over the edge!”
Sam’s heart pounded in his chest. He swallowed hard. “What a horrible waste of life.”
There was no time to discuss a plan, or the morals of killing innocent people from the Pirahã tribe who’d been enslaved by the Master Builders using a combination of hallucinogenic drugs and extremely high-frequency radio waves to persuade the Pirahã to follow their every order. Instead, another attacker came through.
This one had a spear in his hand.
Tom grabbed the weapon as the guard approached the opening. He pulled on the shaft with such sudden ferocity that it slid out of its owner’s hand.
“Stop! Stop!” Tom shouted, as though he might be able to somehow get through to the man, and protect him from blindly following the orders of the Master Builders.
The man looked at him, his eyes fixing upon Tom’s.
Sam shouted. “That’s it! You don’t have to do this. You don’t want to fight us…”
“Look at me!” Tom continued. “We don’t want to fight you…”
The warrior focused on Tom’s face and ran forward. Tom lowered the spear — and the Pirahã guard impaled himself on his own weapon.
The man looked up at them, his eyes filled with confusion, as though whatever magic spell he’d been under had now passed.
Tom said, “I’m sorry.”
And the man fell forward into the jungle eight hundred feet below.
Tom fired a few short bursts into the cavern, trying to stop the next set of attackers from following. His eyes glanced at Sam. “Why don’t they stop?”
“They never will. It’s not that they don’t want to. They simply can’t. They have no more free-will than a puppet.”
Tom checked his last magazine. “I’m nearly out!”
Sam removed the magazine from his MP5 and glanced at the bullets housed inside. “I have four shots left.”
“Great. So, we have about ten shots between us. We’d better make them count. How many Pirahã do you think there are?”
“Billie said there were around four hundred in the Maici River of the Amazon when she was there. Inside the temple earlier, she thought the entire tribe must have been moved here recently to guard the temple.”
“Okay. Now that’s ten shots for about three hundred eighty Pirahã warriors, taking into account the twenty or so who might have gotten stuck or killed trying to reach us. What are our odds?”
“Impossible.”
“Exactly.”
Another warrior slipped through the narrow gap, and Tom shot him in the head. He turned to Sam. “Have you got any other ideas?”
“None that come to mind, presently.” Sam continued to search the sandstone rock face for any cracks or openings through which they could somehow escape. “You hold them off… and I’ll see what I can find.”
Tom laughed. “All right. You want me just to hold the army here while you do your thing?”
“That would be good.”
Fifty seconds later, the best solution Sam could work out was that they might have a better chance at defending themselves at the narrowest section of the ledge. It was then that he heard the distinct sound of the tiny hammer inside Tom’s MP5 clicking as it struck an empty cartridge.
Tom said, “I’m out.”
Sam removed his own magazine and threw it. “Take this.”
Tom inserted the magazine into his weapon. A moment later, Sam heard the sporadic shots get fired, until the last round was finally released.
Sam raced to help Tom.
Tom and a Pirahã warrior became entangled in a death struggle. The warrior gripped Tom by the throat.
The loud report of a sniper rifle filled the ancient valley.
And a red mist defiled the sandstone face of the Tepui Mountains. The strong and wiry frame of the Pirahã warrior spasmed, and then relaxed, before the entire body slumped to the ledge. Tom stepped back, quickly, and teetered briefly at the edge.
Sam turned to the open expanse, where a dark experimental stealth helicopter silently approached.
Chapter Ten
The shadow of the Black Hawk shrouded the golden wall of sandstone.
Sam looked up. With its long rotor blades turning overhead, the Black Hawk couldn’t get close enough to the vertical wall to throw them a rope. Instead it circled overhead and fired a short burst of several hundred rounds via its Gatling style heavy machinegun into the opening through which the Pirahã were now swarming out. A few moments later, the helicopter banked away from the cliff and increased its altitude, before finally landing on the sandstone tabletop high above.
Two ropes were then dropped right next to them.
Sam smiled. “I told you something would turn up!”
Tom matched his grin as he tested that the rope was secure. “So you did.”
Neither of them had to be told to hurry up. The next group of attackers would swarm out through the crevasse any minute, and by that stage they both needed to be out of the range of even the best spear thrower.
Sam looped his pre-tied harness prusik around the static rope and then through his harness with one hand and hauled himself upward to rest on it while he drew his knees upward. He secured his foot prusik to the rope and slipped his feet into the loops at the bottom, then stood upright close to the static rope while moving the harness and foot prusiks up. He repeated the move, inching up the static rope like a caterpillar.
Tom looped onto the second rope and started to climb quickly. Despite his weight, Tom was able to ascend remarkably quickly.
Fifteen feet above the ledge, Sam spotted a single Pirahã warrior climbing out of the crevasse. The warrior ran his eyes along the ledge, down and then up. An instant later, he threw his spear.
“Watch out!” Sam yelled, and quickly shimmied another few feet up the rope.
Next to him, Tom made a slight grunt sound.
“You okay, Tom?” he yelled.
“Just a scratch. But I’d like to put some more distance between us and any of the Pirahã guards before they get another lucky shot in.”
“Agreed!”
Adrenaline fueled their efforts, and Sam and Tom soon reached the top.
Genevieve looked at Tom’s leg wound. “That looks painful.”
Tom smiled. “I’ve had worse.”
Sam glanced at his friend. There was blood oozing out of a small wound to his left thigh. “That looks like more than a scratch.”
Tom shrugged. “I’ll get a tetanus shot, antibiotics, and some stiches and it’ll be fine.”
Veyron stepped forward. “Are you sure you’re all right? You look pretty pale.”
Sam studied Tom for a second. His face was ashen, and small beads of sweat had formed on his forehead. “Okay, let’s get him into the back of the Black Hawk.”