Before her were several gastric pellets containing watches and rings and teeth and hair. In another pellet were belt buckles, a man’s necklace, and the frames of eyewear. She had stumbled upon a Megalania Prisca lair. Once the food is digested, then the lizard will regurgitate masses of things not wholly digestible into a malodorous pellet.
“Oh no!” She quickly backed away, the pellets growing further away and falling back into the dark.
Something moved behind her.
Turning and shining the lantern, she screamed when something moved within the circle of light and rushed her.
The great lizard had cast aside the body of Butcher Boy with as much fanfare as destroying an insect. Blood and gore were everywhere; the ropes of Butcher Boy’s bowels seemed impossibly long as they lay strewn across the landing. Yet the creature was not satiated by the act of the kill. There were others remaining inside its territory, abominations that scattered like vermin caught within the sudden shine of a flashlight.
It went to the existing pod and sniffed inside. The carcass was too ancient for its liking, too corrupt, its flesh having grown rancid over the millenniums.
With a huff of dismissal it went from drainage hole to drainage hole, finding them too small for it to enter. But it had the instinctive cognition to realize that its quarry had ventured into the lair below.
And that was all the Prisca needed to know. Inflating its frill to maximum expansion around its head, the creature raced out of the Chamber of the Primaries and into the corridors that led the way to the cavern underneath, quickly closing gap between it and its prey.
Obsidian Hall raced like the wind through the hallways, fueled by adrenaline. His heart pounded against the wall of his chest, the man wheezing as he held his lantern aloft, his legs running with no intention of slowing down. Since the tripwires had been activated on their downward journey to the burial chamber, they no longer posed a threat on the return trip to the surface. The temple had altered into many shapes during the reconfigurations, creating new passageways where there were none before.
Sweat poured off him as he ran with reckless abandon through the warrens — afraid but not afraid at the same time — always wondering if something lurked in the shadows in front or behind him, waiting to reach out with its raptor-like claw to rake it across his belly, and eviscerate him with a clean cut.
But none of that mattered to him as he clutched his backpack against his chest and ran toward the light of salvation, through hallways that seemed less of a labyrinth than before, his flight to the surface quick and unimpeded.
At the top level, when he came upon the primary hallway, he saw a circle of light at the far end, the way out. Trying to catch his breath, with his lungs laboring for air, Hall hugged his backpack close, held the lantern high, then ran for the exit in a drunken gait, the man completely exhausted.
“Almost there… Almost there… Almost there…”
The entrance was a glorious site, the light of the outside world shining in like a ray of hope. Scrambling through the hole, he ended up sliding down the sandy incline, the sun above him hot and boiling.
I did it! I actually did it!
When Obsidian Hall started to laugh, it sounded like the harmony of madness.
“It’s just me,” said Savage, coming into the ring of Alyssa’s light. When he hunkered close to her, she fell into his arms, sobbing.
“I thought they killed you,” she cried.
“It was close. But that thing came back. It came out of nowhere and took out Butcher Boy before he had a chance to pull the trigger.”
“And Hall?”
He shrugged. “He was still alive when I jumped down the hole.”
“John, we have to get out of here. Quick!”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
She flashed the lamp in the direction of the pellets. “Do you know what those are?” He saw the flash of the metal against the light. “They’re called gastric pellets,” she said. “When certain lizards eat their prey, they vomit up items that cannot be digested. This is where they feast, John. This is their lair.” This is where they brought my father.
He held a hand out to her to help hoist her to her feet. But when she tried to stand, she cried out in pain and fell back, clutching her ankle.
“Alyssa—”
“I hurt it in the jump,” she told him, wincing. “I don’t know if it’s broken or not.”
He grabbed the lamp and placed it by her foot. The ankle was badly swollen and bruised. “This isn’t good. You can’t walk on it at all?”
She shook her head. “Please don’t leave me, John.”
He saw the tears surfacing in her eyes and along the brim. With his thumb, he gently caressed her cheek and brushed an errant lock of hair to the side. “I have no intentions of leaving you behind,” he told her. “If I have to carry you out of here on the back of my neck, then that’s what I’ll do.”
“And if they come?” He produced a knife but she knew it was a futile instrument. And by the look in his eyes he knew the same. “We need to move,” she said.
He looked at the remnants of the river, at the speed of its flow. “This is what we’re going to do,” he said. “We’re going to get in the water and ride the current. It has to go somewhere.”
“There’s no indication of an oasis for miles.”
“Would you rather stay here?”
Point made. He aided her to a stance where she stood on one foot, and then she hopped to the river’s edge. Slowly, they got in the water and waded in until they were chest high in depth, then leaned back and allowed the current to take them.
Running beside them along the bank and keeping pace was the Megalania Prisca.
It knew exactly where they were going.
No one on Leviticus’ team had seen Obsidian Hall begin his solo journey across the desert to the west. The team was completely obscured by the rise as they aligned charges against the opposite wall of the temple’s perimeter.
Although the sun was beginning to set, it was always the hottest in late afternoon. Heat shimmered off the land in waves, giving the illusion that the surface of lake water was rippling in the distance, a cruel joke of a mirage. His throat was severely parched, his mind baking within his skull, and his skin began to flake and peel, especially at the lips.
Yet he held the backpack close, his mind not that far gone to realize what he had inside was so precious that it was perhaps more valuable than his own life. He cradled it to his chest with both arms. And he spoke nonsensical syllables, worthless semblances of words that became nothing more or less than garble. As the sun hung close to the brim of the horizon, he finally collapsed onto the sand and closed his eyes.
Even with the lids closed he could see a shadow fall over him. When he opened them, he saw Adskhan standing over him holding the reign of a camel that looked down at him with the same indifference. “Where is Ms. Moore?” he asked in clipped English.
Obsidian Hall tried to lick his lips with a tongue that was as dry as a strip of carpet. He murmured something, but it was indecipherable.
“Where is Ms. Moore?” Adskhan repeated.
“Leave my backpack… alone,” was his answer, and then he pulled the pack close and away from Adskhan.
Adskhan shook his head. Foreigners! And then he grabbed a lambskin sack filled with water and offered some to Hall, who drank greedily. “Now, you tell me where is Ms. Moore?” he asked again.
“Dead,” he whispered. His throat was dry and sore. “In the temple…”