Mai ran to the hole in the wall, peering through and then signaling the all clear. They jogged after her, leaving their dead and dying enemies behind. The castle was a warren of rooms, some partly furnished and some left barren and bare. Modern displays and cabinets clashed with ancient austerity. The empty rooms felt haunted and lonely, things that could not quite be seen shifted among the dirt and the dust, befitting for a structure built atop a tomb of the most wicked gods ever known. The wind whistled through gaps in the windows and through hidden loopholes among the battlements. More than one empty shadow made the group turn their heads as they ran past.
Mai led the way, following footsteps and wisps of smoke and damage left by the modern-day invaders. Bluetooth chatting kept them organized and highly alert. Drake swapped his mag for a fresh one. A head count confirmed what they all already knew — three of their number had fallen. Both of Mai’s agents and one of Gates’s. Sam was still human and frosty enough to give Drake a look as Mai led the SAS team forward. The regiment leader seemed in awe. Oh no, Drake thought. Not another.
Through another room where tapestries and paintings had been torn off the walls and flung to the floor. Cayman must have been looking for something. Maybe something explained by the whorls — the ancient language they had found in the other tombs. Drake wondered if Dahl’s language expert had been trying to contact them.
At last, they tore through the open doorway of a grand state room, throwing flash-bangs before them. Mai had heard the voices of whispering guards from two rooms away. Once the guards were taken out, they finally arrived at the blasted hole in the wall — a wide, ragged void through which a frigid, keening breath of wind blasted in intermittent gusts.
Drake paused for a moment and looked at Dahl. “One more time, mate?”
“Let’s hope so.” The Swede’s serious face spoke pessimistic volumes.
Ben’s small voice spoke up from the back of the group. “Can you tell why they chose this place to break through? Any clues are good right about now.”
Drake lifted his eyes to the demolished wall for the first time. The far edges and some of the top blocks were intact. A picture of some kind had been carved into the wall. Hard to decipher at first, but then Torsten Dahl’s eagle eyes figured it out. “Look at both edges of the wall, and the base, where part of the wall remains. You have the base and far side of a triangle. This—” he said.
“Was a carving of Odin’s symbol, the Valknott.” Ben finished. “A symbol of death.”
“And there.” Karin moved closer to the wall. “The whorls again. The language of the gods. Odin, it seems, really was the father of the gods.”
“He sacrificed his eyes for wisdom.” Ben recalled their search for the first tomb. “For future knowledge. He knew what was going to happen.”
“In that case,” Hayden said, “his eight pieces — the ones that seemed redundant after we found the first tomb — might be more important than we thought.”
Mai and Alicia were itching to move forward. “We’ll learn nothing stood around up here,” Mai said softly and Alicia grunted.
Drake and the other soldiers agreed. The enemy shouldn’t be allowed any more time to prepare.
Mano Kinimaka eyed the hole and the narrowing passageway beyond. “I’m not even sure I can fit down there.”
“But the gods are waiting,” Hayden said carefully. “And so is Cayman. Sir—” She half turned toward Gates.
“Screw it, Jaye. I’m coming.”
The darkness beckoned them, a darkness that crawled with the presence of evil gods, evil contraptions and evil men.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The four-man SAS squad took point with Mai Kitano, closely followed by Hayden and Kinimaka. Drake shadowed the big Hawaiian closely, impressed by the big man’s agile moves as the passage started to descend quite steeply. The walls turned from smooth clad stone to ragged earth and then to roughhewn rock as they moved down. The breeze died for a while and then began to sweep past them again, carrying with it the stench of ages, the reek of old things gone bad.
They heard whisperings on the wind. Faint voices that tugged at their ears, that caught their attention like the suggestions of a malicious temptress. Down and down the passage ran. Their feet crunched through ancient debris, their heads brushing against bruising rock and stone. The way was already lit, but the SAS team left nothing to chance, stopping the team regularly whilst they scouted ahead.
Everyone knew they were heading into a trap. There could be no other outcome. It was simply a matter of when and if they could identify and counteract it.
Time slipped by. The real world fell away. There were no traps they could see. The malevolent air would be enough to warn most people away. They passed a high gothic archway with supreme care. A foul miasma drifted up and began to swirl around their bodies as if sniffing, testing, and touching, and even the Special Forces soldiers shivered.
“I.Don’t.Like.This.” Alicia was the one who spoke up, enunciating her words like bullet shots, probably trying to chase away her own feelings of dread with her form of ammunition.
Farther down and underneath another gothic arch, they still couldn’t hear their enemies. Drake began to wonder if this passage was a false lead, and that Cayman was somewhere else. The backs of his calves burned. Several times something dropped on his head, something that skittered or squirmed quickly away, making him swallow hard to conceal the revulsion.
Then, from a distance, they heard faint voices — many men shouting. The team halted for an agonizing five minutes and then began to proceed even more cautiously. Drake knew even the shouting could be a ruse. Where Russell Cayman was concerned, nothing could be taken at face value. Behind him, he heard Komodo whispering at Ben and Karin that they should now prepare for absolutely anything, even running back the way they had just come.
At length, and after interminable minutes of sneaking slowly through the awful creeping dark, an enormous archway could be seen ahead. Still some way to go, but Drake, craning his head around Kinimaka and Hayden, could make out the floor of a well-lit cavern. He could hear men shouting back and forth. He could hear heavy gear being dragged.
But he saw no one.
He whispered to Hayden. “They can’t risk a firefight in the tunnel. It might cause a cave-in and trap them. They’ll wait until we emerge.”
“Agreed.”
Kinimaka grunted. “So get ready. I got a Christmas luau to get to soon. Time off and everything. Nothing like Christmas in Hawaii, man.”
Drake got a glimpse of how lonely his Christmas might be, when only a few weeks ago it had held such promise. Whoever said “life can turn in a dime” sure knew what they were talking about. He thought about the dynamics going on in their little group and couldn’t think of anyone who might look forward to cast-iron Christmas happiness. Except Kinimaka.
“We’ll do our best, Mano.” No guarantees.
A whisper came back up the line as they approached the light. “We’re going to punch it. Fast and hard. Keep moving.”
There was one more moment of pause and then the SAS team broke cover with extreme prejudice. But they didn’t just run and shoot, they threw flash bangs and smoke grenades all while staying in perfect fighting formation, covering each other as they ran. Mai fitted in perfectly with them as she would any specialized team. Hayden and Kinimaka burst out next, staying calm, then Drake, Alicia and Dahl, ready for the fight of their lives.
Mayhem and violence confronted them. Heavy lifting gear and abseiling equipment was piled in the center of the huge cavern. Cayman’s men were arrayed around it and around the far walls, weapons spouting fire as they discharged their weapons. Drake and Alicia veered sharply to the right, firing into the central mass of the enemy. The SAS team advanced at pace. Komodo and his men burst out a second later, adding to the firepower. For several moments, the cavern floor was a warzone, a lethal free-for-all where skill was outmatched ten to one by pure luck.