#
Jack reluctantly led Sophie to the city gate. Following the road, they ascended toward the fall. Occasionally they would stop and peer down upon the city below hoping to catch sight of Jolly and her father. During one of these pauses they heard an increasingly loud whine emanating from the Grand Pyramid.
As the high pitched wail intensified bright patterns of multicolored lights from within the black stones of the pyramid pulsed more and more rapidly in a unified pattern. As the spectacle moved toward a crescendo, the four structures around the pyramid shuttered to life. The gold panels running the height of the buildings four corners folded outward like huge shutters. The entire mammoth superstructure lifted from the ground, rotated ninety degrees and then fell back to earth with a resounding thud that shook the entire chamber. Faster and faster they turned, each time they struck the ground beams of intense light coursed through illuminated conduits in the black stone pathways leading to the pyramid.
Above their heads the opaque crystalline globe switched on like a giant light bulb. As its intensity grew a single narrow beam of flaming light burst forth and connected with the triangular gold block atop the pyramid as if it were channeling its power.
Out of the corner of his eye Jack saw Quaid Grissop far above them leaving the switchbacks.
“Sophie look, its Grissop. Come on, we need to keep moving.” The two tore themselves away from the spectacle below.
Colonel Wolfgang tracked the escaped prisoners to the gate. Cage had somehow killed his men and escaped with the girl. Wolfgang was livid. He had been subjected to the caustic climate of the loathsome jungle. He had been forced to endure the pattering obnoxious Schmidt. He had been expected to consort with that repugnant Quaid Grissop and his group of degenerates. He had seen the pride of Germany, his own creation, his Waffen soldier’s, their lives squandered on the delusional quest of a mad man. And now this insignificant pest had taken the lives of his two finest men. Wolfgang would cripple him, kill the girl in front of him and then slowly and painfully terminate his existence.
As he ran up the ascending road he heard the pyramid begin its terrible whine and he knew that Venoma had begun his journey.
Jack and Sophie moved forward at a much slower pace and the Colonel calculated that he would overtake them near the fall.
Suddenly a tremulous roar echoed through the immense cavern. Jack and Sophie were knocked to the ground and the Colonel barely kept his feet under him. Looking down they saw one of the tall square structures crumble in a pile of rubble and two of the others split apart sending twenty ton black jagged stones soaring through the air in every direction. Huge slabs of mountain rock separated from the chambers ceiling and fell to the city below crushing houses and buildings. As huge stones and boulders crashed around them Jack pulled Sophie to her feet and pushed her forward.
A second quake shook the chamber, followed seconds later by a third, each more intense and more destructive than the last. The sphere of light above the city came loose from one of its gussets. The beam of light emanating from it struck the side of the pyramid resulting in a deafening, blinding explosion that leveled half of the city and set many structures ablaze.
The explosion caused the rock shelf upon which the bridge rested to shift so that the bridge dropped more than eight feet at one end and causing its center to almost completely collapse. The mountain wall behind the bridge formed a narrow fissure that now spewed out a torrent of water that crashed down upon the bridges surface.
As Jack and Sophie approached it a fourth quake rocked the chamber causing the sphere to break free. They watched it fall slowly toward the pyramid as if it were suspended in time. Jack pulled Sophie to the ground and covered her body with his own as a blazing flash of light and heat washed over them. Jack clutched Sophie tightly and rolled over the edge of the broken road down on to the tilting surface of the bridge. Cold water washed over them protecting them from the intense heat wave that followed the blast.
Jack dragged Sophie to her feet and pushed her forward as a giant hand reached out from behind a wall of water and pulled him back in. Sophie took a few steps forward before she recognized that he was missing.
“Jack?” She shouted above the rushing water.
Jack literally flew out of the water fall and slid across the slick black surface just at her feet. She raised her eyes as Colonel Wolfgang stepped out of the falling cascade. The right side of his face was blistered and his shirt and trousers had been burned on that same side.
“CAGE!” he roared above the din.
Jack stumbled to his feet, turned away and pushed Sophie forward along the narrow section of bridge.
“Cage you coward. Come back and fight me!” He bellowed.
Jack turned to face the big man standing fifteen feet away.
“I think you better save your strength.” Jack replied.
Colonel Wolfgang had a confused look upon his face until he noticed that Jack and Sophie were looking at something behind him. Slowly he turned.
Standing ten feet away, half under the cascading water fall, stood a colossal, wet, orange haired man. Wolfgang measured the Goliath standing before him. He was easily six inches taller and forty pounds heavier than the Colonel. He was also much older.
Professor DeWulf stood next to Jolly who still had a firm hold on the old man’s lapel where he had been half dragging half carrying him up the road. DeWulf looked up at Jolly who had not taken his eyes off of the Colonel.
“Colonel Wolfgang, meet Capitaine Joley.” He said with a wry grin.
Jolly moved slowly around the Colonel until his back was to Jack. He then released the professor with a slight shove in Jack’s direction. Wolfgang bent down and slowly drew a long knife out of his boot.
“Sergeant, get these people to safety.” Jack knew that when Jolly called him sergeant it meant he was not asking, he was telling.
“Yes sir.” Jack had taken a few steps forward to retrieve the professor and he took this opportunity to slip the hilt of his hunting knife in to Jolly’s hand. He turned away moving the others on up the road.
“I was told you had been killed Captain. It seems though that you, like your cowardly friend, have a penchant for returning from the dead. I promise, this time, you will stay dead.” Wolfgang goaded.
“Are you the one responsible for disfiguring Sophie?” Jolly asked threateningly.
“No, but does it really make a difference?” The Colonel answered complacently.
“Not really.”
The two behemoths charged each other colliding with a resounding thud, each grasping the others wrists. Wolfgang had the momentum. Driving Jolly backward he stepped in behind him with his left knee throwing the older man to the ground. Jolly, feeling himself toppling over back-ward pulled Wolfgang down with him and placing his foot on the Colonels chest threw him over his head. Both men were back on their feet in a split second, circling, measuring one another. Colonel Wolfgang smiled malevolently.
“It was you who killed my sergeant’s, yes?” Wolfgang taunted. “For this Herr Cage, excuse me, “Sergeant Cage”, will suffer. I think that I will make him watch as I augment the good Doctor’s disfigurement.”
The two men fought on a long narrow area of the partially collapsed bridge, the black surface heaved up at an almost un-walkable angle at one end, a torrential cascade of water at the other spilling over the bridges broken edge and changing to a dense white mist hundreds of feet below. All the while debris fell from the ceiling far above as tremor after tremor rippled across the chamber.
Wolfgang boldly moved in towards Jolly, slicing and hacking ferociously. Loud clinking sounds accompanied by bright sparks erupted as Jolly parried the attack. The big man was forced back by the sheer ferocity of Wolfgang’s blows. Jolly again fell on his back, rolled, and again gained his feet. Wolfgang did not press the attack but simply strutted around the small arena confidently. The Captain eyed his opponent warily, waiting for the coming onslaught.
&nbs
p; “I have decided that I will allow Doctor DeWulf to live.” The Colonel continued to jeer. “Do you think, Herr Captain, that with no hands and perhaps no tongue any one will want her? And yet, perhaps someone may. I have it! I will remove her lovely little nose as well!”
“The two of you will make a handsome couple then.” Jolly retorted gesturing toward the Colonels severally burned face.
Again Wolfgang charged forward savagely, the intensity of his onslaught overwhelming Jolly as he attempted to parry and block. The younger man’s attempts to inflict any fatal blows were successfully blocked however, he did land multiple blows with his empty hand and fist. He grinned with satisfaction at hearing the Captain groan in pain with each success.
The Colonel again oddly broke off the attack, this time stepping away with his back exposed to Jolly who was unable or unwilling to press the opportunity. The old warrior felt warm blood flowing from a wound stretching ten inches horizontally across his chest, the blood staining his tattered shirt. The hilt of Jack’s knife became sticky in his palm as blood from an additional wound on his forearm streamed down and off of his fingertips leaving a trail of bright crimson droplets around his feet.
Chaos surrounded them. The chamber reverberated with a cacophony of rumbling, booming, and crashing as the Grand Pyramid’s undulating death throes escalated. Bolts of static electricity crackled around it creating deafening, booming percussions. The smell of ozone permeated the air, rich, and clean, like an evening after a summer’s thunder storm.
A low guttural scream escaped the Colonels lips as he suddenly turned and attacked closing the distance between them in an instant. Jolly barely had time to raise his blade before Wolfgang was on him. Striking and blocking with razor sharp blades, blunt elbows, and solid kicks, the two men exchanged a barrage of blows. When the two finally separated for the third time both men were breathing heavily, their barrel like chests heaving from the exertion. Wolfgang appraised his older, slower opponent and saw that in the melee he had inflicted several more wounds to his arms and torso.
Pressing the advantage the Colonel abruptly and daringly attacked again, the arrogant, self-confident grin stretched across his clenched teeth. Jolly swung his knife hand, hilt first, toward the assailant’s head. Wolfgang solidly blocked Jolly’s descending arm sending the heavy hunting knife sailing and spinning through the air toward a nearby pile of rubble, his elbow then caught Jolly across the jaw sending him stumbling back.
“Pathetic! Truly pathetic!” The Colonel mocked, circling Jolly as he spoke. “What a striking figure you make Captain, with your flaming red hair and your great size. Is this how you have survived so long, through intimidation? I must admit I expected a much greater challenge.”
“Funny, that’s the same thing I was thinking after I killed your boy’s.”
“Enough banter Captain, time to die.” Wolfgang replied stiffly.
Wolfgang swung his arm in a long arc attempting to cut open Jolly’s belly. This time Jolly rocked back gingerly on his heel allowing the long blade to slice through the air harmlessly. The Colonel’s arm was now across his own body, and he attempted to swing the knife backhandedly to catch Jolly as he shifted his weight forward again. Jolly casually stepped into his attacker’s path, grabbed the man’s wrist and spun on the ball of his foot using his right shoulder to pin the Colonel’s advancing arm against his broad, bloody chest.
Striking downward with his elbow he drove Wolfgang’s body forward. Now standing side by side facing the same direction Jolly kicked the back of Wolfgang’s knee forcing him onto the ground with a solid thud that left the big German gasping for air. Jolly twisted Wolfgang’s wrist and hand, until the bones snapped and the knife he held fell to the ground.
Colonel Wolfgang, lying flat on his back, looked up at Jolly in shock and surprise. He kicked his leg up wildly catching Jolly’s shoulder knocking him off balance and loosening his grip. Wolfgang rolled away and jumped to his feet. He glared at the big Frenchman in disbelief. He realized now that Jolly had been systematically testing him, exploring his strengths, analyzing his weaknesses.
Colonel Wolfgang measured Jolly from head to toe. Only a moment ago he appeared sluggish and frail but now he stood tall, robust, and strong. Wolfgang shivered as the reality of Matroye Joley’s true strength materialized in his mind. He felt an emotion growing in his chest threatening to spiral out of control. It was a tactile response that he had rarely felt in his life, he was afraid.
His fear quickly transformed into anger and the anger to rage. Seething, he recklessly rushed toward Jolly. He wildly struck out aiming his clenched right fist at Jolly’s head. Jolly stepped into the strike seizing the Colonel’s right elbow with his left hand and striking the German’s nose with his right palm. Jolly reached across the right side of his face grabbing his right shoulder and pulling him forward and downward, at the same time driving his right knee into Wolfgang’s abdomen.
Doubled over and gasping for air Wolfgang found himself looking down at his long knife laying where it had fallen moments before. Blood flowed from his broken nose covering the knife in gore. He imprudently reached out for the blade. Jolly took tight hold of the Nazi’s collar and the back of his pants, spun him around and pitched him off the bridge.
Colonel Wolfgang disappeared into the cascading mist a hundred feet below, the only thing left behind was his lingering scream of terror.
Jolly did not linger. As the Colonel’s dying wale faded away in the drone of the crashing waterfall he snatched up Jack’s knife and, dodging falling rocks and boulders, sprinted up the black road toward the Rio das Mortes.