“Yes,” Ming said thoughtfully. “A little.” And then the colonel was on his feet, barking at his men to rise also. He flipped his QBZ-95 around, just like Raine, and used it like a bat, slapping at the balls as they came near.
“Down!” Raine and King both shouted at the same time. Leaning against one another’s back, they dropped to the ground as the two balls, one from either side, flew above them, hit the far walls—
“Up!”
Again, bracing each other, they rose to their feet just in time to smack the balls back. This time, Raine managed to get under his and hit it from beneath, increasing its altitude. It hit the wall, only two feet away from one of the holes, bounced back—
He ran and leapt at it, swinging his rifle like a club. He smacked the ball at the centre of its gravity and it flew towards the hole. For a second he thought he had missed again, but then it slipped inside the wall, vanishing.
Almost instantly, to the rumble of stone, one of the jaguar heads spewing out oil into the Ball Court’s exit, choked and died. The raging fire at either end of the avenue diminished ever-so-slightly.
Spurred on, caring now more for their own lives than the mission, the Chinese soldiers ‘upped’ their game, throwing themselves into their swings.
Ming struck home first, followed by Xan.
One of the soldiers hit a ball. It slammed into the wall, bounced back. He ducked. It missed him. But a second ball, rebounding off of one of his comrades, slammed into his back in an explosion of blood and a cry of agony.
King struck home on the next one, his ball slipping inside a serpent’s mouth. Each time one of them scored, another jaguar head ceased belching flame and the curtain of fire shrank a little more.
But there were still eight balls left, firing out constantly now, bouncing back and forth, and all the men, Raine and King included, grew weary from hitting the heavy rubber.
“Benny!”
Two balls hurtled towards the archaeologist at the same time. He hit one and tried to duck the other but Raine hit it just in time. It hit the wall and came back at him forcing him to dive to the side. Its airborne momentum spent, it hit the floor and rolled down the incline, into one of the holes on the ground. Water pressure pushed it back into ‘firing’ position and only seconds later it was shooting towards them again.
One of the Chinese soldiers scored. The fire dimmed.
“Benny,” he called. “Back up towards the fire.” He knew that as soon as they were safe from the balls and the flame, the Chinese commander would be back on them in seconds.
King did so, smacking at another ball. On the rebound, he scored. Seconds later, so did Raine. He glanced at him, too much enjoyment twinkling in his blue eyes.
“You’re actually enjoying this, aren’t you?” he accused.
“Blows baseball out of the water!” he said, avoiding decapitation by a fraction of an inch.
Down the avenue, Ming scored again, then so did one of his subordinates.
Four balls left.
Raine looked at the fire. It was about six foot high now, still too much to jump. The heat rolled off of it, stinging his eyes with its oily perfume. He almost missed another ball, the rubber and metal glancing off his rifle’s stock.
Lieutenant Xan scored another.
Three balls. Five feet.
Ming glanced in his direction, eyes narrowed. He began to advance towards him, swinging at a ball that came too close.
King scored another hit!
Two balls. Four feet. Still too high.
With only two balls flying through the air, the danger had now diminished enough for Ming to reverse his rifle and take aim.
“Benny, when I say jump…”
“Jump?” King asked sarcastically.
A red laser sight trained itself on Raine’s chest just as a ball flew towards him. But, instead of hitting it towards one of the goals, he shifted his feet and threw his full weight into the blow, hurtling it down the length of the Ball Court, directly towards Ming.
Panicked, the colonel barely had time to move, rolling to the left but the razor-edged ball nevertheless sliced across his cheek, ripping out a wad of flesh and blood.
He howled in agonised fury but forced himself to stay focused, grasped his weapon, reacquired his target just as Xan slammed another ball into the goal.
The flames dropped another two feet.
“Jump!” Raine bellowed.
Ming fired.
16:
Pyramid of Death
The onslaught of bullets blasted apart the stone steps on the other side of the wall of fire as Raine and King touched down, their clothing singed, their nerves frayed.
With the entire city now illuminated by the conduits of fire, King didn’t have to rely on Raine to guide him. In an instant, they both found their feet and hurdled up another steep set of three foot high stairs to a wide platform, cut in half by a wide and surprisingly fast flowing aqueduct. An ornately carved bridge, now half crumbled and all-but ruined, spanned the water and on the far side a number of one and two story temples littered the base of the pyramid.
They were entering the sacred district of Xibalba.
“Get over the bridge,” Raine ordered and King didn’t need to be told twice.
“What’s the plan now?” he asked through a ragged breath as they scrambled onto the far bank.
“Beats me,” Raine admitted as a hailstorm of bullets erupted from behind. He turned to see the seven surviving Chinese soldiers running towards him, crossing the bridge.
“Get to the top of the pyramid,” he told King, hoping the archaeologist realised that the high point would be the most defensible position. “I’ll hold them off for a second.”
He dived behind the cover of a low wall, rolled, hurled his torso over the top and fired his stolen QBZ-95 at his pursuers. He hit one squarely in the neck who gurgled and groaned as he rolled over the side of the ruined bridge and splashed into the water. The other soldiers scattered, three of them on this side of the bridge, three on the other.
They moved to out-flank him.
Benjamin King ran through the streets of Xibalba’s temple district, keeping the purse containing the Moon Mask tucked snugly beneath his arm.
He hurdled toppled masonry and ducked beneath collapsed arches, rounding the final corner which led directly towards one of the pyramid’s steep stairways.
He hit it running, hauling himself on all fours as fast as he could up the ancient structure.
Gunfire suddenly came at Raine from a different angle as he failed to prevent the Chinese soldiers from slipping around his flank. He dropped down, allowing the crumbled wall to take the brunt of the weapons fire. The remaining soldiers crossed the bridge, the one with the torn cheek bellowing at another. A second later, the soldier ran off in the direction of the pyramid while the others focussed on Raine.
King was only a third of the way up the pyramid’s face when the bullets began to chase him, chipping the ancient stone work. Flecks of rock bit his skin, stinging, but he ignored the pain as he continued to climb the steep slant.
Realising he was out of range, the soldier gave up firing and began to climb also.
Raine’s keen eyes picked out the distant shapes of King and his pursuer on the face of the pyramid.
Damn it!
His cover was slowly pummelled to pieces by an endless barrage of bullets but then he heard the tell-tale click of a magazine running empty, the clang as it hit the floor and the soldier efficiently reloaded.