“No,” Nina whispered.
“What?”
“Don’t. Not yet.”
Montross faced her as the tablet’s aura sprinkled them both in a sheen of fairy dust. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“I—”
“Uh oh,” Harris said, dropping his oar. He stood, just as the nose of the boat struck something and they all lurched forward.
“We hit the shore,” Hiltmeyer yelled. He collected himself, leapt to his feet and spun around, hoping Nina had dropped her guns, but in an instant she was there, tripping up his legs and pushing him back down into the belly of the boat.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Montross grunted, fumbled for the tablet and retrieved it, then held it up to illuminate the boat. “Alexander?”
He was outside, picking himself up on the shore, right behind Harris who was scrambling to his knees. Suddenly both were caught in flashlight beams probing wildly ahead. They were on a small inlet, a pathway sparkling with gold bending in a thirty-foot S-shaped pattern to the gate.
Alexander took out his flashlight. “Wow.” His beam stretched out and searched, then struck a wall of immense marble blocks around a huge sealed archway. Above the arch, between two turrets, stood four immense statues.
Giant terra cotta warriors, each manning huge crossbows.
“Oh no,” Harris whispered.
Just as something whistled through the air.
He grunted, making a surprised choking sound as he clutched at the end of a six-foot iron bolt protruding from his chest. And with the point erupting out his back he looked like game piece on a foosball table. He stumbled backwards, past Alexander. His mouth opened as he fell, arching backwards until the silver point stabbed into the soft earth and his head flopped backwards.
Alexander opened his mouth, tried to cry out, tried to insist that he hadn’t seen this, knowing that the reason was because he hadn’t asked the right questions. I only asked about the river!
Desperately, he looked back to the ramparts, to the silent, impassive guardians, three of which had yet to fire.
8
Caleb hadn’t even stepped off the boat before the first scream ripped through the cavern, and suddenly there were gunshots, flashlight beams probing desperately. Men yelling.
More gunshots, and Phoebe, Orlando and Qara ducked low on the boat just as a sudden volley of arrows whistled past, sailing behind them and plunking into the water.
“Back!” Chang shouted. “Stop firing!”
The soldiers formed a semi-circle around Renée, Chang and the boats. Their flashlights swept back and forth, revealing the first rows of terra cotta warriors, many of them now shredded with 7.62mm rounds. No more arrows flew, and the army rested in silence and apparent innocence.
“What happened?” Renée asked.
“Someone went scouting ahead.”
“Who told him to do that?”
“Procedure.” Chang said. “Sorry.”
Renée shoved aside two soldiers and looked at what their lights had settled on. One of the soldiers lay face-down about five feet beyond the first row of warriors. His left leg was severed above the knee, lying by itself a short distance away. His back was punctured by three arrows.
Another soldier came limping back, shrieking for a medic, an arrow in his hip and a gouge cut through his left arm.
Renée shined her light in the direction he had come from, and saw a statue with a sword held up before his face. The blade was wet. The statue wobbled slightly as it returned to its dormant position.
“Ballistic vests,” Chang said, pointing to the fallen man. “Help little against arrows. Or swords.”
Renée lowered her gun. She scanned the shot-up faces of the nearest terra cotta soldiers. “Okay, lesson learned. No one’s going in there until we know what this is. Apparently Temujin has this field rigged as well, with pressure-sensitive plates that trigger the statues into attacking.”
After testing the air and believing themselves safe for the moment, the soldiers removed their gas masks and started checking their gear. They tightened their flak jackets, still hoping they’d provide some protection, donned their helmets and prepared their weapons, reloading and checking their lights.
Caleb walked carefully out of the boat, then helped Qara disembark as Phoebe and Orlando got out on the other side.
Renée scouted ahead with night-vision binoculars. “I see something. Looks to be about four hundred yards, past this field and the army. There’s a gate. That’s the entrance into the city, and where we need to go.”
Chang nodded, surveying the field. “But direct path is most fortified. See? Largest concentration of soldiers appear to guard way.”
“So what do we do?” asked one of the men.
“No one moves ahead,” Renée ordered, “until our seers show us the way.” She glanced back at Caleb, waved her .45 at him. “Come on, Kreskin. What’s the trick this time? A certain path to take, or maybe some tune we all need to sing to let us waltz on by?”
Caleb shrugged. He took his flashlight and swept it around the shore, along the walls on either side, walls that widened from their river approach, encompassing and enclosing the massive underground field, the army and, eventually, the distant walled city. He blinked, focusing out there, wondering if Alexander had gone around, taking the other passageway with Montross, and if he might even now be up ahead now, looking this way for him.
“Wait,” said Orlando suddenly. “There! Above us.”
Phoebe brought her light up as she stepped closer to him, brushing against him and noticing that he trembled, but still leaned in toward her. She gave him a smile, then looked up at the letters hammered into a marble crossbeam overhead. “Nice work. You keep bailing us out like this and my brother will have to give you a bigger bonus this year.”
Orlando’s voice cracked after the compliment. “So here’s more of those funky letters. Qara, can you do your thing?”
She stumbled forward, her wrists still tied behind her, the bandages on her side soaked through with fresh blood. She looked pale and weak, but she lifted her eyes and with dried lips, read the inscription: “The Secret of the Way Past is the Secret of the Way In.”
Renée glared at Qara, then looked at the script, and then to Chang, raising an eyebrow.
He shrugged. “Pretty close.”
“The secret of the way in?” Renée asked.
“What was the secret of the way past?” Phoebe asked, shining her light on Caleb, who blocked it with his hand. It reminded her, for just a moment, of the descent into that tomb in Belize when as kids they joked at blinding each other to ease their fears. What we can’t see can’t hurt us, right?
Caleb stopped the smile and looked back past Renée and over the field of warriors, the guardians. Thinking. Imagining a course through them, past them. But they covered every square foot, in no particular pattern. The secret of the way past is the secret of the way in. Very symmetrical. Perfect. But no help.
“I have no idea,” he said.
“RV it, then,” Renée barked. “All of you. Do it now, before I risk any more of my men.”
Caleb glanced at Phoebe and Orlando and nodded. The three of them sat cross-legged together on the hard ground away from the mercury-laden water.
“Shouldn’t we hold hands or something?” Orlando asked, reaching for Phoebe.
“Keep dreaming, Romeo.” She gave him a look, then relented. “All right, but only because I know that sometimes psychics can chain their powers if they’re touching.” She noticed Caleb and stopped talking.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll kill your mojo if we link up, but if it’s all the same to you—”