And as each slab plunged, the remainder became even weaker.
Eddie realised the gutters were staying intact, but they were too narrow to traverse - especially at a run. ‘Get ahead of me!’ he yelled. He was the heaviest of the group - if he went through the floor, they all would.
‘I can’t!’ Nina shouted from behind. ‘Just go, go!’
With a colossal boom, the entire upper end of the sabotaged floor collapsed into the pit. The flood turned into a waterfall, dropping after it, but the damage had already been done. The remaining stones tumbled one after the other into the void, a ripple gaining rapidly on the running figures.
‘There!’ Eddie shouted. The water sweeping down the slope had revealed the last line of weakened blocks - and beyond them, the floor was reassuringly solid. ‘Just a few more yards, come on!’
He dived as the blocks under him shifted, landing hard just past the corroding section. Nina also made a flying leap, barely staying on her feet as she bounded over her husband.
Behind her, Macy started to jump—
The last slabs fell away under her.
She screamed - then the scream was knocked out of her as she fell short and slammed against the newly exposed edge of the pit.
Her torch rolled down the passage as she clawed at the wet floor, unable to find a foothold on the sheer wall. Her elbows slipped over the brink, wrists—
Eddie grabbed her hand just as she lost her grip. ‘Nina!’ he gasped as Macy’s weight crushed his knuckles against the stone edge. ‘Get her other hand!’
Nina scrambled back up the slope, seeing Macy flailing below. She reached out for her other hand. ‘Macy! Here!’
The young woman looked up at her, terrified. ‘Please don’t let me fall!’
‘You’re not gonna fall,’ Nina promised. Their fingers touched - then slipped apart.
Eddie was losing his hold. ‘Nina, come on . . .’ he begged.
Nina dropped to her knees, leaned out over the abyss - and lunged.
This time, she caught Macy’s wrist. Straining, almost overbalancing, she hauled her up - taking just enough pressure off Eddie for him to bring round his other arm. ‘Got her!’ he barked. ‘Pull!’
Leaning back, Nina pulled with all her strength. Eddie forced himself upright and dragged her up. She cleared the edge, and all three fell over, Macy landing on top of Eddie.
Nina sat up. ‘You okay?’ she asked Macy, who nodded. ‘Good. Now get off my husband.’
Macy’s chest was on Eddie’s face. ‘I’m fine with it,’ he joked, muffled, before helping her off him.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, shaking.
A low, crackling rumble made them all look up. ‘Don’t thank us yet,’ said Nina. She aimed her flashlight at the ceiling, and saw water leaking from more cracks above them. ‘Come on!’
They jumped up and ran down the slope—
An entire section of ceiling smashed to the floor where they had just been - and thousands of gallons of water followed, the remaining contents of the pool above bursting out. The deluge exploded down the passage after them.
No way to outrun it—
Macy was scooped off her feet as the churning maelstrom caught her, crashing against Nina and Eddie as they too were swept down the passage. They bounced painfully off the walls and floor, pieces of shattered stone pummelling them.
And there was a new sound audible even over the frothing thunder - a rhythmic pounding, growing louder . . .
Macy’s flashlight had been caught by the wave’s leading edge, a glowing point spinning ahead of them. Eddie saw movement, something rising up past another set of pillars - then the light vanished, crushed flat as the object slammed down with a monstrous boom. ‘Shit!’ he yelled as they were carried inexorably towards it. ‘Grab on to me!’
Nina clutched his arm, Macy a leg as he jammed his other heel into a gutter. The force of the torrent was too great for him to stop them, but he could slow them just enough to pass through the pillars while the crusher was moving upwards.
If his brief glimpse had been enough for him to judge its timing . . .
Another echoing slam of impact. He raised his foot—
They whipped between the columns, hitting a flat floor. Something huge plunged at Eddie’s head—
The crusher smashed down an inch behind him as the water flung him into the chamber beyond. The room was much wider than the passage, the wavefront quickly spreading out and losing its power. The three unwilling watersliders were deposited on the floor, coughing and flapping like beached fish.
The crusher kept pounding, slowing down. Nina retrieved her flashlight and shone it at the source of the noise. It was a stone block, painted with the figure of a woman raising her feet as if stamping on ants. The gutters had channelled the flood into a pair of water wheels; not large enough to power the crusher itself, but capable of tripping some mechanism. ‘I guess that’s our Lady of Might,’ she said, wiping wet hair off her face. ‘She really does try to “trample on those who should not be here”.’
‘Women with big feet, not my thing,’ said Eddie tiredly. The heavy tools in his pack had bashed against his back, bruising him. ‘Is everyone okay?’
Macy stood as the crusher juddered to a standstill. ‘Not feeling so good,’ she admitted. She held up her hands, unable to stop them shaking. ‘Oh, God, I think I’m gonna puke.’
Eddie stood in front of her, resting his hands on her upper arms. ‘Hey, you’re okay. And you’re not going to puke. Know why?’
She looked into his eyes, uncertain. ‘No?’
‘ ’Cause you’d puke on me! And then we’d have to have words, and that’d be bad all round. So you’re going to be fine.’ He smiled. It took a few moments before Macy managed to respond in kind, and then only faintly, but it was at least genuine.
Nina smiled as well. ‘It’s okay, Macy. We beat this trap - two traps, actually.’
‘Yeah, but there’re another three to come,’ she glumly reminded them.
‘Four-nil to us, so far,’ said Eddie, searching for the next exit. Another passage, this one stepped, led downwards. ‘And I bet we can make it seven-nil. This Osiris bloke can shove his traps right up his mummified arse!’ A grin broke through on to Macy’s face.
‘Okay, so the next arit was the Goddess of the Loud Voice, right?’ Nina asked. Macy nodded. ‘Let’s see if we can shout her down.’
At the entrance to the inverted pyramid, nothing moved except for sand drifting in the breeze. The Land Rover waited silently for its passengers to return, no sound disturbing the emptiness of the desert.
Then . . . a noise came from the northeast.
Growing louder.
A cloud appeared on the horizon, dust swirling through the shimmering heat haze. But it was not a sandstorm. It was too small - and moving with purpose. Heading directly for the ruins.
Something became visible through the rippling air, a slab-like grey and black shape. The noise increased, a roaring thrum of powerful engines and the rasp of whirling propeller blades.
But this was no aircraft.
Sebak Shaban gazed through the bridge windows of the massive hovercraft, a Zubr class assault vehicle designed to carry tanks and other armoured vehicles over almost any terrain. After observing the abilities of the four Zubrs bought by the Greek navy, the Egyptians had recently decided to follow the example of their friend/rival across the Mediterranean and purchase two of the enormous craft from Russia.
Officially, this Zubr was currently undergoing trials before entering full service. That it was almost one hundred kilometres from the isolated desert range where said trials were supposed to be taking place was down to one of the other men on the bridge. ‘I like this a lot,’ said Shaban to General Tarik Khaleel. ‘When the plan is successful, perhaps you could loan one to the Temple. Though I’m not sure where we would park it.’