CHAPTER 20
As the supply truck rolled into the catacombs beneath Sandstone Mountain, Ogilvey peered out the back opening and watched the tunnel entrance shrink with distance. Sitting with a group of captured soldiers, he felt his hope fade along with the daylight. A Kra fighter-walker trailed them and another was leading them to whatever fate awaited inside Arran Kra.
The Kra turned on their headlights, bathing the stalactite-covered ceiling in ghastly green light as the route twisted into the subterranean depths. Ogilvey’s emotions were divided. One second, he was gripped by black fear, remembering the horrid procession carved on these walls and its gruesome outcome. The next second, his hopes would rise. What might his three confederates yet accomplish, if they were still free outside this hellish sub-world? For that matter, what might his own knowledge of the Kra and their language accomplish if he got the chance to speak? His guards hadn’t listened as he’d made halting overtures. One had lashed out with a tintza rifle butt, bruising his cheek.
I must find the right opportunity, he thought, or everything Gar and I have worked toward will be lost.
The truck stopped and the rear guard opened his canopy and climbed out. With his tintza rifle, he motioned for the captives to get down from the truck. Then he ushered them along a dark side-corridor that opened into a huge room lit by a volcanic orange glow. A bolt of fear coursed though Ogilvey at the sight of the colonnaded walls, the immense pteronychus-headed idol, the friezes of cannibalistic feasting—it was the temple! And it was all too terrifyingly familiar. Flaming urns now lit the chamber and their acrid smoke hung in the air. A savage tribal rhythm throbbed on unseen drums. Not far from where he, Kit and Chase had once hidden, a huge cage had been constructed of dark metal bars. He and the other hostages were herded into this cell and as the steel gate slammed behind him, Ogilvey surveyed the gloomy scene: a dozen soldiers had been sitting or standing inside when the new contingent arrived to nearly double the population. All except him were captured survivors of the tank troop.
Trembling in the clammy air and weak in the knees, Ogilvey sat down on the stone floor. Peering through the half-light of the crowded prison, he saw that most of the men were wounded. Some milled around, gaunt and bandaged with shreds of their own uniforms. Others lay motionless. A man was sprawled next to Ogilvey, prostrate and semiconscious. Orange torch-light flickered in his half-lidded eyes. His right pant-leg was split open and a nasty-looking hole gaped where a laser had filleted his calf muscle. Despite a tourniquet above the knee, a large amount of blood had oozed out and pooled on the floor.
Sensing the man would bleed to death if left in this condition, Ogilvey leaned over and twisted the cloth tourniquet tighter. As he did, the man caught him by the shirt collar with a blood-mired hand, staring into his face deliriously. “They shot me up pretty bad, didn’t they?” he mumbled. Then he coughed heavily. Sputtering and choking, he asked, “Where am I?”
“You don’t want to know,” Ogilvey replied. He took a good look at the man’s face. The fellow was so pale and the cage so dim that he hadn’t recognized him at first. But now he exclaimed, “It’s you! Colonel MacIlvain! The man who nearly shot me!”
The colonel’s hand lost its grip on his collar and slid down Ogilvey’s chest, smearing him with blood. MacIlvain’s eyes rolled back in his head and he turned his face away as if the sight of Ogilvey tormented him.
“What are they gonna do with us?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Ogilvey lied. He sat for a moment longer but didn’t like watching MacIlvain writhe. He got up and looked around the temple. Beyond the bars, the giant stone pteronychus face leered malevolently, bathed in shifting orange firelight. Drums throbbed with increasing intensity. The ornately carved walls danced in the torchlight, their scenes of bloody feasting brought alive by the flames. Ogilvey dared not speculate what was in store for him and the others. Nothing pleasant, he was sure.