‘They’re not my mates,’ Berkeley snapped back. ‘They used me — they were going to kill me!’
‘They still might if you don’t keep your voice down.’ Eddie weaved through the hanging tree roots and advanced to the intersection, Kagan and Berkeley following. With greater caution than before, he peered around the corner at the gate.
The mercenary team’s entrance had been literally explosive. The two lead-sheathed doors were ripped open as if someone had punched through a sheet of aluminium foil, mangled metal curled back from the edges of a ragged hole. Broken wood littered the floor. But Eddie was only concerned about what was outside. He squinted against the glare of sunlight on snow, eyes adjusting to reveal figures in the cutting. ‘They’re waiting for us. Definitely can’t get out that—’
‘Chase, look out!’ Berkeley yelped, suddenly shoving him into the open. Eddie whirled, the torch raised like a club — the thought flashed through his mind that the renegade archaeologist was betraying him to regain favour with Lock — but then he saw both the other men jumping clear as the ceiling beams above them sagged, then snapped. Hard-packed earth spewed down where they had been standing, a section of the stone wall toppling into the passage.
‘Run!’ shouted Kagan as another beam split with a whipcrack sound. Eddie needed no further prompting. The trio rushed across the intersection — and bullets smacked against the wall behind them as one of the mercenaries spotted movement in the shadows.
The gunfire ceased as they reached cover on the other side, but more sounds of tormented wood came from overhead. ‘Don’t stop!’ Eddie yelled. ‘Keep going!’
‘This is a dead end!’ Kagan objected.
‘No, there might be a way out — if we can get to it!’ He shone the light forward. The next corner was just ahead—
The ceiling behind them completely gave way. Hundreds of tons of frozen soil and ash roots plunged into the empty space, the shock of the impact kicking flagstones up from the ground and sending all three men tumbling. Blinding dust swallowed them.
‘Whoa!’ said Hoyt, shielding his eyes from flying grit as a dark cloud belched out of the entrance. Above it, an ash tree swayed before falling with a savage crackle of breaking branches. Others thrashed wildly as the entire top of the barrow sagged. ‘God damn! The whole place just caved in.’
Lock watched from further away, mercenaries guarding the zip-cuffed Nina and Tova behind him. ‘I don’t think anyone’ll be getting out of there. And nobody else will find the runestones before we get to Baffin Island, that’s for sure.’
Nina stared at the sight in horror. Smoke began to gush from the heart of the broken mound. ‘Oh my God. Eddie…’
Lock turned to her with an obnoxious smile. ‘May I be the first to say sorry for your loss, Dr Wilde. But,’ he went on, seeing her expression change to fury, ‘it seems appropriate, somehow. Valhalla is the last resting place for heroic warriors, and Chase was that if nothing else.’
‘You’re givin’ him too much credit,’ said Hoyt, joining them. ‘Guy was an asshole.’ Nina fixed him with a glare of hatred, but was filled with too much rage and grief to speak.
‘All right,’ Lock said, addressing his men, ‘let’s get back to the trucks. Dr Skilfinger, I hope you don’t suffer from travel sickness, because you’re going to get right to work on translating the runes. Otherwise, Dr Wilde will be joining her husband in the land of the honoured dead.’
‘You are a monster,’ Tova told him bitterly. ‘Nina, I am so, so sorry.’
Again Nina was too overcome with emotion to answer. All she could do was look back at the remains of Valhalla as the mercenaries led her away into the snowy forest.
28
Inside the ruins, there was nothing but darkness. Silence had descended, the roar of flames snuffed by tons of earth. Everything was still, no movement, no sound…
‘Buggeration and fuckery!’
Eddie stood, shaking off soil and broken wood. His head throbbed where part of the fallen ceiling had struck him, and he had acquired an entirely new collection of bruises all over his body. But he was alive.
And sightless. There was a moment of near-panic at the thought that he was blind, but he quickly overcame it when he realised he had simply lost the torch. He crouched and swept the floor with his hands, soon finding the plastic casing, but a sad little tinkle of glass told him that he wouldn’t be getting any more use from it.
The air was thick with dust, caking his lips. ‘Kagan?’ he said, suppressing a cough. ‘Where are you?’
‘I am here,’ the Russian rasped from somewhere to his right.
‘Are you okay?’
A pause as the other man sat up with a grunt. ‘I am not worse than I was,’ he concluded.
‘That’s about the best we could hope for, I suppose. Berkeley?’
‘Chase?’ came the quavering reply from the darkness. ‘Oh my God, we’re trapped! The entire roof must have come down! The air — there won’t be enough air!’
‘Don’t wet yourself,’ Eddie told him, closing his eyes for several seconds before opening them again. He slowly turned on the spot, picking out indistinct shapes in one direction. ‘We’re in a passage that’d already collapsed, we found it when we came in.’
‘And how’s that going to help us? That just means we’re doubly trapped!’
‘If I could see you, I would fucking slap you right now,’ Eddie said with a sigh as he carefully advanced towards the dim light. ‘There was a dead eagle; if it got in, there must be a way out. We’ve just got to find it.’ He felt stone slabs give way to dirt underfoot; he had reached the cave-in. The light was coming from above, a faint blue-grey wash that he realised was being filtered through a layer of snow. ‘I think I can see it.’ He scrabbled to the top of the irregular slope.
There was indeed a hole, as he had thought. It was less than a foot wide, but as his eyes adjusted he saw that its sides appeared to be loosely packed earth. He scraped experimentally at the opening. Some small stones came away, but most of the soil was frozen. ‘Don’t suppose anyone packed a pickaxe, did they?’
‘Can’t you get through?’ Berkeley asked, worried again.
‘Should be able to, but it’ll take a fair bit of work.’ The thought that every moment he was stuck in Valhalla saw Nina and Tova being taken further away was at the forefront of his mind. ‘Pass me the torch, I might be able to chip the— No, wait, forget that,’ he said, reaching into his coat. ‘I’ve got something better.’
He took out the Wildey. ‘You are going to shoot your way out?’ the dubious Kagan asked.
‘I like the idea, but no.’ He took his spare magazine from the holster strap and loaded it to ensure dirt couldn’t clog the feed, then turned the hefty weapon around and began to hack away at the soil with the grip. ‘Nina always said she couldn’t see the point of having a gun like this. Shame — if she was here I could gloat at her.’
‘Smug superiority, the perfect building block for a marriage,’ said Berkeley sarcastically.
‘Works, doesn’t it? I don’t see any wedding ring on your finger.’ Eddie kept up the attack with his makeshift pick. Larger chunks broke away, the bottom of the hole widening. ‘Okay, let me see if I can reach up…’
He stretched his arm through the opening, fingertips exploring its sides. He found hard stones, cold soil… then felt a sudden chill. A quick scrape, and he withdrew his hand to find ice crystals encrusting his fingernails. ‘I reached snow,’ he told the others. ‘The hole can’t be that deep — we can get out!’ With renewed vigour he raised the Wildey again and resumed his assault.