“Shut up,” Raine snapped as he quickly removed the downed soldier’s goggles. The underground ruins came to life around him but he forced his mind not to be distracted by the overwhelming enormity of what he saw.
This would give Benny an orgasm, he thought. Too bad he can’t see it.
Taking hold of the soldier’s QBZ-95 assault rifle, he did a quick sweep of the surrounding area. It was clear, for the moment.
He expertly relieved the corpse of his equipment, pulling on the black tactical vest which he had worn over his NBC suit. He checked the equipment: a knife, three grenades, to replace those he had lost during his tumble over the falls, a wad of C4 plastic explosive, extra ammo clips for the rifle and a Norinco M-77B handgun.
“Here,” he handed King the Norinco and the torch but told him not to use either unless he really had to. “Follow me.”
Raine led the way through the ruins, rifle held at the ready. King kept hold of the back of his shirt so as not to get lost in the maze of ruined buildings which grew denser the further they ventured from the Gateway — the deeper they ventured into Xibalba.
The ghostly green glow of the goggles cast the ruins in an eerie aura. Crumbled walls and fallen statues of grotesquely depicted creatures, half man, half beast, lay scattered all about him, littering the narrow passageways between rows of terraced buildings. The stonework was covered in layers of moss and hardy vines which he presumed needed little, even no sunlight to survive. The spongy green coating gave the ruins an almost magical feel, as though they could be home to fairies or pixies.
Hell’s not so bad after all, he thought.
He came to a dead-end, turned a corner and peered down a long avenue lined with human skulls.
Shut up, Nate!
Most of the skulls were still hugged tightly within the rough mortar the ancients had used to affix them to the walls, but many had fallen to the ground and smashed, shattered craniums and hollow eye sockets peering up at him accusingly.
His eyes panned up the wall, registering its enormous height. Twelve feet, he guessed. The same as the gateway. But this was no city wall, but an avenue which would only take them deeper into the metropolis.
“What’s the matter?” King whispered. “Why have we stopped?”
Raine had a bad feeling about this. He glanced back the way they had come, the path from the gateway following the water’s edge until now. It seemed the Avenue of Skulls was the only way to go.
“Nothing, I just—”
He saw movement only a fraction of a second before the first bullet erupted. He hurled King forward, pushing him in through one of the open doorways of a long abandoned building just as a cascade of bullets strafed across it.
“Stay down!” he told him, pushing him below the lintel of a window sill. Something crunched beneath them.
“What’s that noise?” King asked.
Raine peered down, already fearing he knew the answer. Skulls. Lots and lots of skulls. But also other ancient bones; ribs and fumers and spines. They covered the floor of the room, piling up higher towards the rear wall. A mass grave from eons ago.
“Uh, don’t ask,” he replied, focussing his attention back on their attackers.
Through the hollow window he saw them; two ghostly shapes perched high up on the frame of one of the tallest ruins, giving them a perfect vantage point of both the river-side path from the Gateway and the Avenue of Skulls.
They were trapped.
“What’s happening?” King demanded between bursts of automatic fire.
“We’re in a spot of bother.”
“I gathered that!”
“Come on.” He grabbed King’s arm and dragged him to his feet, forcing him to run towards the rear of the room. Each footfall crushed another skull or snapped another body, the sounds seeming colossal within the enclosed environment.
“They’re bodies, aren’t they?” King groaned in realisation.
“Yup.” He pulled King up the mountain of human remains at the rear of the room. They piled up almost to the top of the roofless wall, bringing the pair closer to the enemy’s position. Stunned by their prey’s unusual direction — moving towards them rather than away — the soldiers took a second to re-aim at them. Raine used that second to peer over the wall. It was a twelve foot drop into the alleyway on the other side, but at least there were no more skulls down there.
“Try to land on your feet,” he told King.
“What?!—”
Raine hauled them both over just as a spray of bullets chattered into the wall!
They hit the ground, hard, the impact jarring, but they both rolled forward, crashing in a heap against the opposite wall.
“You really are insane!” King spat angrily.
“I told you.” Without giving his unwilling partner a chance to complain further, he again dragged him to his feet and ran down the ancient alley. The wall temporarily blocked the shooters’ line of fire but a quick glance up revealed them navigating the tops of the walls, deftly homing in on them.
Raine fired a sporadic burst in their direction as he led King to a cross-road. He took the left-hand street, then at the next junction turned right, zigzagging his way away from the enemy.
But there were more soldiers, he saw, at least another half a dozen deftly jumping from wall to wall, trying to circle around the fleeing men. Raine fired again. Two men ducked for cover, jumping down into a distant alleyway but return fire sent him reeling.
Ahead, the narrow alleyways all opened on to a wide plaza, a series of eight, three foot-high steps rising up to a platform over a hundred feet, end to end. Immense, jig-saw-puzzle stone walls towered above them, leaving a fifty-foot wide avenue running down the centre. It looked almost like some ancient arena, with spectator stands looming on either side.
Raine felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. There was something he didn’t like about this. The wide open space would leave them open to attack by the Chinese forces. There were no walls to hide behind, no alleyways to dash down. It was simply one long, straight avenue, five hundred feet in length. The only advantage was that the walls of the stadium were so high that the Chinese soldiers wouldn’t be able to scale them. They would have no choice but to leave their elevated positions and pursue their quarry on the ground.
With no other option, Raine increased his speed, dragging King behind him. He helped him up the huge steps and then told him to run as fast as he could in a straight line.
Like two Olympic marathon runners, they shot off the mark and raced down the avenue. The only way they would survive would be to get to the far end before the Chinese.
That plan went to hell when King fell.
Blinded in the darkness, Benjamin King ran for all his worth, his muscular legs pumping hard, his boots hitting the ground and propelling him through the blackness, Raine’s hand constantly clutching his upper arm.
He was reliant totally on the other man and, despite Raine keeping him alive this far, he still felt a niggle of distrust. He longed to have his sight back, not just so he could see the dangers around, but also so he could see what he was missing.
He was inside the real city of Xibalba, the Underworld of Mayan legend. No one had even suggested that it could be a real place, merely a figment of ancient imagination, a hellish realm beneath the earth dominated by twelve demonic lords. It was a place of torture, punishment, humiliation, misery and death, filled with diabolic tests: Houses of Darkness, Knifes, Bats, Jaguars and Fire; Rivers of Scorpions, Blood and Pus. According to legend, the cenotes or sinkholes of Mesoamerica hid the entrance to Xibalba and he realised now the accuracy of that belief. Only Xibalba wasn’t hidden beneath the limestone of the Yucatán, but beneath one of the giant sinkholes of Venezuela’s table-mountains.