It was a steep descent, and a twisting one. Every so often, they’d pass another of the small-slit windows and hear the distant rush of the cascade. But apart from the fall of water, the only other sound was their own feet on the stone and the occasional spit and splutter from the oil lamp. The air got more damp and clammy the farther down they went, and after a time the stone ran wet, and it got slippery underfoot, so that they had to slow to avoid tumbling away into the dark.
“We’re running out of oil,” Buller whispered from behind Hynd.
“It can’t be too much farther now,” Banks said. He’d been counting steps, and trying to gauge distance from what he remembered of the drop from the nighttime climb.
We must be getting close, at least to the level of the canopy.
But still there were no windows accessible enough to give them a view as to their position, and they kept going down, following their own shifting shadows into the dark well below.
Then he smelled it, acrid, hot oil and vinegar. Somewhere below — and not too far below — something heavy moved, a darker shadow in the blackness. Banks knew that if they were caught in an open area by the mass of the snake things he’d seen on the pyramid steps, they’d be either caught again or, more likely, slaughtered within seconds. But having come this far, he was in no mood for retreat.
“Come on then, let’s see what you’ve got, you wanker,” he said and stepped forward with his knife held in front of him.
- 10 -
He’d only taken two steps when he realized Buller wasn’t following and that he had stepped down into the darkest of the shadows. By then it was too late, and his blood was up in any case. He yelled, a formless cry of frustration and rage, and swung the knife, fast, toward where he thought he’d seen movement. He was rewarded with hitting something solid, feeling the blade cut, and hot liquid splashing on his hand, bringing with it a far stronger, more acrid odor that stung at the back of his throat and caused his eyes to water. He fought off the urge to retreat and went one more step down, stabbing the knife ahead of him again and again, hitting soft warm flesh with every second or third thrust. Then he was merely stabbing at air, and he sensed rather than saw something huge and serpentine move away downward at speed. The air cleared somewhat, and the stench became at least bearable.
“Buller! Get that fucking light down here. I want to see what we’re facing.”
But when he turned to shout, he saw something else. He could see the men on the stairs above him, silhouetted where thin light penetrated through a window slit, and it was already getting brighter.
They’d seen out the night.
Dawn was coming.
He stood, waiting for the men to come down to him, looking down into the stairwell below him. It was now light enough to see the steps at his feet. They were coated with slimy fluid.
“Fucking hell, Cap,” Hynd said. “What have you got on your hand? It’s bloody minging.”
Banks looked at the knife, which dripped with the gray-green slime. The fluid coated his hand up to the wrist and over some of his forearm. It was sticky to the touch, and gave off the now recognizable acrid odor.
“Snake shite, at a guess,” he said and wiped blade and hand on the scrap of material serving as his kilt. As he looked down, he saw the slime on the steps at his feet, glistening, almost glowing, in the gloom, a trail leading away downward.
“I’ve wounded it, whatever the fuck it was. It came in from somewhere, and it’ll be going out somewhere. Come on, lads, let’s get the flock out of here. Mind your feet, the sarge is right — this stuff’s fucking worse than dog shite on Sauchihall Street.”
He turned again to Buller.
“And the next time I move in the dark, you fucking move with me, or I’ll leave you here. Got it?”
Buller tried to look Banks in the eye, but his gaze slid away, and the lamp trembled in his hand, causing the flame to flicker. When the man took a step down toward Banks and Hynd, the flame wavered.
“It wasn’t me,” Buller wailed, but Banks shushed him.
“There’s a draft here. Quickly now, follow me.”
Once again, he led them down. This time, they weren’t quite descending into darkness; thin sunlight filtered in through all the window-slits, and the green slime at their feet glistened, as if catching the rays and reflecting them back. Within a dozen steps, the passageway opened out into a wider, circular chamber. On the far side from where they stood, an open archway showed sunlight, streaming in from outside and falling across a naked body lying on the floor.
At some point in the trail from stairwell to doorway, the green slime turned red. When Banks walked over, and turned the body face up, it was a dead man’s face that looked up at him, a man who had bled out from deep knife wounds to chest and abdomen.
“What the fuck is this now?” Hynd said softly, looking down at the slime trail, then at the body.
“I’ll try to explain if we get time,” Banks replied. “But if you see any snakes, big or small, stab them first and ask questions later.”
He looked around for Buller. The man was over on the far side of the rocky chamber from the doorway, with the lamp lifted up toward the roughly hewn rock of the roof where it met the wall above his head.
“Time to go,” Banks said.
Buller didn’t reply at first, merely held the lamp higher above his head. When he did finally speak, it was in a whisper of awe. He pointed to a shinier patch of the wall above, a patch that glistened, more yellow, more golden, than the light from the lamp. It ran, in a vein as thick as a tree trunk, one with a huge network of branches, all across the roof of the chamber.
“Go? We can’t go, not now that we’ve found this. Do you know what this is?”
“It’s a distraction, that’s what it is. Now come on. We’re getting the fuck out of here, and we’re doing it right now.”
“You don’t understand,” Buller said. “This is a seam. It’s gold. It’s fucking millions of pounds worth of gold and probably the mother lode of everything we get from the river. We’ve only gone and found the bloody source.”
“Aye, very nice,” Banks replied. “But it’ll be no bloody use to man nor beast if you get eaten by a big fucking snake. Now move your arse, or we’ll go without you.”
That was an idle threat, and they both knew it, but Buller finally saw sense, and moved away toward the doorway. When they reached the body, Banks took the lamp. There was only a dribble of oil left in it. He tipped the lamp until the flame ran over the fuel then poured the oil, flaming as it fell, into the dead man’s mouth.
“Just in case,” he said.
Thick black smoke rose from the gullet. Banks waited long enough to ensure the body wasn’t about to slither to life, then he turned and walked quickly to the open archway to avoid the smell of burning flesh.
The archway led out onto a rocky track that ran along the base of the structure they had exited. Looking up, Banks saw the vertical tower looming high over them. Going left, the path headed in an upward slope, back up toward the high ridge of the hillside above them. Going right, it led gently downward toward the cascading torrent that could now be clearly seen and heard some 30 yards away.
Banks considered back going up to the pyramid complex. Now that it was daylight, they might have a chance of finding and recovering their kit and more importantly, weaponry. But Buller was the priority here, and now they had their man out of captivity so close to the river, it would be folly to put him back in harm’s way so soon. He didn’t hesitate and took the downward path, hoping to reach the riverside quay, and hoping against hope that Giraldo had somehow evaded the attention of the natives when Wilkes had been taken. If not, and both their guide and boat were gone, they were in for a long walk — and swim — back down river to the dredger, and he didn’t want to think of how long that might take them.