Sam walked to the ledge and shined his headlamp down into the next chute. “I’m sensing a trend,” he told Remi.
For the next fifteen minutes they descended, following a series of winding platforms and chute formations until finally they found themselves in a barn-sized cavern with a stalactite-spiked ceiling and walls covered in mottled brown-and-cream-colored flowstone. Barrel stalagmites jutted from the floor like gnarled fire hydrants.
Sam pulled a chem-light tube from his pack, cracked it, and shook it until it glowed neon green. He dropped it behind a nearby barrel so it couldn’t be seen from the platform above.
Directly ahead lay a dead-end wall; to their right were three tunnels, each a vertical fissure in the wall. To their left a curtain of dragon’s-teeth stalactites dropped to within a foot of the floor.
“We’re at least a hundred feet underground,” Remi said. “Sam, there’s no way anyone could have gotten the Karyatids down this way.”
“I know. There must be another entrance. Farther down the pass, I’m betting. Do you hear that?”
Somewhere to their left beyond the dragon’s teeth came the sound of rushing water. “Waterfall.”
They walked down the curtain, stopping to peek beneath it every few feet. At the midpoint they found a section of dragon’s teeth had broken off, creating a waist-high gap. On the other side lay a four-foot-wide rock bridge spanning a crevasse; halfway across a thin curtain of water tumbled into the chasm, sending up a cloud of mist that sparkled in the beams of their headlamps. Barely visible through the waterfall they could see the dark outline of another tunnel.
“It’s incredible!” Remi called over the rush. “Is it from the lake?”
Sam put his mouth beside her ear. “Probably snowmelt runoff. It probably won’t be here in another couple months.”
They walked back the way they’d come.
Somewhere in the distance came a metallic ping, followed by silence, then a series of pings as Sam’s rock screw bounced down the chutes above.
“It may have just slipped,” Remi said.
They crept back to the platform and stood still, listening. A minute passed. Two minutes, then an echoing voice: “Lower me down.”
“Damn,” Sam muttered.
The voice was unmistakable: Hadeon Bondaruk.
“How long do we have?” Remi asked.
“He’ll have more people. Twenty, twenty-five minutes.”
“He must think we’re on the right track,” Remi said. “He’s come to claim his prize.”
At that moment there was only a handful of people who knew this cave was the likely hiding place for the columns: Sam and Remi, and Bondaruk and whoever was with him. Bondaruk couldn’t allow them to get out alive.
Sam said, “Then he’s going to be disappointed. Come on.”
They zigzagged their way through the stalagmites to the opposite wall and checked each tunnel in turn. Down the first tunnel and the middle tunnel they could see nothing but darkness. The third one jogged left after six feet. Sam looked at Remi and shrugged. She shrugged back and said, “Coin toss.”
They slipped through the fissure and followed the bend. Remi tripped and fell; she rolled onto her butt, rubbing her knee. Sam helped her up. “I’m okay,” she said. “What was that?”
An object on the floor glittered in her headlamp. Sam walked past her and picked it up. It was a straight, narrow sword about two feet long. Though heavily tarnished, spots of bright steel showed along the blade.
“This is a Xiphos, Remi. It was carried by Spartan infantrymen. My God, they were here.” He shook himself from his reverie and they continued on.
The tunnel continued on for another fifty feet, turning this way and that until merging with a three-way intersection. “Left is the middle tunnel, I think. Leads back to the cavern,” Sam said.
“No, thanks.”
After twenty feet the tunnel began sloping downward, first gently, then more dramatically until they were sidestepping and groping the walls for handholds. The minutes ticked by. They turned a corner and Sam skidded to a stop, sliding a few feet before bumping into a wall.
“Dead end,” Remi said.
“Not quite.”
Where the wall met the floor there was a horizontal split. Sam crouched down and shined his headlamp inside. It was barely eighteen inches high. Cool air gushed from the opening.
“That might be the other entrance,” Remi said. “I’ll check it out.”
“Too risky.”
Behind them a voice echoed down the tunneclass="underline" “Anything?” It was K holkov. In turn, two voices called back, “Nothing!”
“Bondaruk, Kholkov, and two others,” Sam said.
“I’m going,” Remi said.
“Remi—”
“There’s less chance of me getting stuck. If I do we’ll need your strength to get me back out. Don’t worry, I’ll just go in a few feet and see what there is to see.”
Sam frowned, but nodded.
She took off her pack and harness. Sam knotted one end of the rope to her ankle and she dropped to her belly and crawled into the split. When she was up to her ankles Sam put his mouth near the opening and rasped, “That’s far enough.”
“Hold on, there’s something just ahead.”
Her feet disappeared and Sam could hear her scrabbling over loose rock. After thirty seconds the sound stopped. Sam held his breath. Finally he heard Remi’s whispered voice: “There’s another cavern, Sam.”
He took off his own pack and belt, stacked them atop Remi’s, then jammed the Xiphosbetween the packs. He clipped on the rope and gave it a tug. The bundle disappeared through the slit.
“Okay, now you,” Remi called.
Sam lay flat and wriggled into the opening. The sides and ceiling closed around him, brushing his elbows and the top of his head.
Then, behind him, a noise.
He stopped.
Footsteps pounded down the tunnel, followed by the sound of boots skidding on gravel. A flashlight beam danced off the rock walls.
“There he is!” a voice said. “I’ve got them!”
Sam scrambled forward, hands clawing at the floor, boots pushing off the sides.
“You! Stop!”
Sam kept going. Ten feet away was another slit; silhouetted by her headlamp, Remi’s head appeared. Her hands came into view, then a carabiner, at the end of her rope, clattered across the floor toward him. He grabbed, kept crawling. Remi began hauling the rope hand over hand.
“Shoot him!” Kholkov shouted.
There was a roar. The tunnel filled with orange light. Sam felt a sting on his left calf. He grabbed Remi’s outstretched hand, coiled his legs, and shoved hard. He tumbled out headfirst, did a clumsy somersault, and landed in a heap. The gun roared twice more, the bullets ricocheting harmlessly through the slit just above their heads.
Sam rolled over and sat up. Remi crouched beside him and lifted his pant leg. “Just a crease,” she said. “An inch to the right and you wouldn’t have a heel.”
“Small miracles.”
She pulled the first-aid kit from her pack and quickly wrapped the wound with an elastic bandage. Sam stood up, tested the leg, and nodded his approval.
From inside the slit came sounds of crawling.
“We need to block it,” Sam said.
He and Remi looked around the cavern. None of the stalactites was narrow enough to break loose. Something near the right-hand wall caught Sam’s eye. He jogged over. He picked up what looked like a pole, but quickly recognized it for what it was: a spear. The hardwood shaft was amazingly well preserved, coated in a lacquer of some kind.
“Spartan?” Sam asked.
“No, the head is shaped wrong. Persian, I think.”
Sam hefted the spear, sprinted back, and pressed himself against the rock beneath the split. “Turn around and go back,” he shouted.