Kingdom of Darkness

  ‘I hope so. It doesn’t mean we won’t run into something ourselves, though.’

  ‘Find out soon,’ the Yorkshireman said, with a note of impatience. ‘We can’t stand around when there’s a bunch of Nazis coming after us.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ she said, turning the light back to their route. ‘How long do you think we’ll have before—’

  Gunfire erupted above.

  ‘About that long,’ said Eddie. ‘Arse!’

  Nina turned unwillingly to hurry on down the narrow path. The unyielding stone wall brushed her right arm, nothing but darkness waiting below to her left.

  The firing continued, the Mossad agents’ shots interspersed with more distant retorts and the whine of rounds ricocheting off stone – then a much louder boom made both Eddie and Zane look up in alarm. A cry came from one of the Israelis, followed by the sound of something crashing over the lip of the precipice. Zane snapped up his torch just in time to see one of his men flash through its beam. He plunged out of sight. A few seconds later, a faint thump reached the group.

  The remaining man above shouted in Hebrew. ‘They’ve got a sniper rifle,’ Zane told Eddie, tight with anger.

  ‘They must have thermal sights,’ said the Englishman. ‘Get your other guy out of there.’ Zane yelled an order, then hurried after Nina and Eddie as they set off, even faster than before.

  The American made her way around another crease in the rock – then slowed. ‘Careful, there’s a junction,’ she warned as Eddie came up behind her. The path split, the right-hand route continuing on around the chasm while the other doubled back, beginning a clockwise descent.

  ‘Which way?’ he asked. ‘Right again?’

  ‘What if it’s a trick?’ said Zane.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Nina said, with what she hoped wasn’t misplaced confidence. ‘Alexander said always to follow the right path.’ She set off down it.

  Zane looked up as the rest of the team descended after her. A light above told him that Arens was making rapid progress. But a rising tramp of boots also warned that the Nazis were closing. He shone his torch past Eddie and Nina at the route ahead. ‘There’s no cover – they’ll be able to snipe us from the top ledge.’

  Nina traced the path with her own light. The Israeli was right: anyone at the entrance would have clear line of sight, unless . . . ‘No, keep going!’ she said. ‘We couldn’t see the statue until we were partway around, so if we go far enough, the wall will block us too!’

  ‘Unless they follow us,’ Eddie pointed out. ‘Maybe we should’ve gone the other way at that junction.’ He directed his torch along the alternative route. ‘Or maybe not!’

  Nina looked across the chasm to see what he had found. Another section of the towering wall bore carvings, these of trees, rising sinuously up along the other ledge. Ominous holes dotted amongst them suggested that the petrified forest held secrets. ‘I definitely think we came the right way.’

  Shouting in German. She looked up. They hadn’t yet gone far enough around the shaft for the upper ledge to be blocked from sight; lights flickered from it as the Nazis exited the tunnel. ‘They’re here,’ Zane warned. ‘Come on, faster!’

  ‘Sie sind hier unten!’ someone yelled. Torch beams swept from the high ledge, finding Arens as he scurried down the path, locking on—

  Muzzle flashes erupted amongst the shafts of light. The chasm rang with the shrill crack of bullets hitting rock – then a scream as the Mossad agent was hit. He fell into the darkness below.

  Galitz yelled an obscenity. He stopped to fire back up the shaft – forcing Haber behind him to halt as well. ‘No, keep moving!’ Eddie shouted. He, Nina and Banna were almost at the point where the towering fold in the cliff face would shield them.

  Zane hesitated, caught between the desire for revenge and the need to reach safety. He chose the latter. ‘Come on!’ he cried, hurrying after the trio. ‘Get into cover!’

  The next three men followed their leader as Haber yelled for Galitz to move. He turned, starting after his companions—

  A boom from above – and a high-velocity bullet ripped through his back and exploded out of his abdomen, the impact throwing him against the wall.

  Haber jerked away in shock before recovering. He started to step over the fallen body—

  A second round blew his skull apart.

  ‘Got him!’ the sniper reported, staring intently through the thermal imaging scope attached to his MSG-1 rifle. There had been no time to check that the sight was correctly aligned after its hurried fitting, but at a range of less than a hundred metres, it made little difference.

  ‘Shoot the others, quick!’ Kroll ordered. More lights were scuttling along the ledge ahead of the two dead men – heading for cover behind part of the cavern wall. The first three torches disappeared from view, the others racing to catch up.

  The sniper swung the rifle to track them. Bright shapes appeared in the electronic haze of his sights. He zeroed in on the leader. Taking out the first man would trap the others behind him, making them easy prey. The luminous red cross-hairs found the running figure . . .

  He fired – just as the ghostly shape disappeared as if it had darted behind a curtain. A flash as the bullet struck rock. The cavern’s walls were a uniform temperature, a featureless grey in the thermal scope, rendering the obstructing outcrop invisible. The sniper whipped back to find a new target and fired again, but in his haste the round hit only stone between two of the fleeing men. Before he could reacquire, they too had vanished.

  ‘Damn it, you missed them!’ Rasche snarled.

  ‘Go after them,’ Kroll ordered. ‘Schneider, take the lead.’

  ‘With me,’ Schneider told the sniper, before calling several other soldiers to join him. He fixed his torch upon the left-hand path. ‘Down here! We’ll go around that rock formation and pick them off from above.’ He led the descent, heading clockwise around the chasm’s inner wall.

  ‘I’ll go the other way,’ said Rasche. ‘We’ll catch them in a pincer.’ He summoned more men, then addressed Kroll once more. ‘Will you follow us down?’

  ‘Of course,’ the obese German shot back, not liking his mocking undertone. ‘I want to see the spring for myself.’

  ‘I understand. It’s just that these ledges look rather . . . narrow.’ Rasche couldn’t quite contain a smile.

  Kroll’s anger flared. ‘Shut up and get after them!’

  ‘Yes, mein Führer!’ The second-in-command snapped an overly enthusiastic salute, then ordered his group down the right-hand path.

  ‘Is everyone okay?’ Nina asked as the Israelis caught their breath.

  ‘We are – but we lost Galitz and Haber,’ said Zane, grim. ‘And the explosives too. That only leaves us the poison – if we can even reach the spring to use it.’

  ‘Can’t exactly go back now,’ Eddie pointed out. He heard voices above. ‘Shit, they’re coming after us. If they get past that statue, they’ll have a clear shot.’ He directed his torch up at the imposing figure of the Phytoi. ‘How far down are we?’

  Nina briefly redirected her flashlight downwards. ‘Nearly halfway, I’d guess.’

  ‘Not far enough!’ Eddie saw spears of light stab out from the ledge leading past the statue. The Nazis were fifty feet higher, about to round the great fold of rock to get a direct line of sight upon their quarry. ‘Keep going – if we can get under ’em, it’ll make it harder for them to target us.’

  But even as he followed Nina down the winding ledge, he knew they wouldn’t make it. The first man’s light came into view, another appearing behind it a moment later.

  Someone shouted in German. Nina recognised the reedy voice: Schneider. The creepy little Nazi was leading their pursuers, running past the statue to reach the perfect firing position—

  An echoing crunch – and
the shouts from above turned into screams.

  Everyone on the lower ledge whipped their torches up to see the Phytoi’s outspread arms swing out from the wall – swatting the entire column of Nazis off the path. Those not sent flying into nothingness were impaled on the spikes, while Schneider’s shriek was cut off as he was pulped between the two stone limbs when they smashed together.

  ‘We definitely took the right path,’ Nina gasped.

  Kroll stared down the shaft. ‘Rasche!’ he bellowed. ‘What happened?’

  Rasche hurriedly ordered his team to hold position. Lights shone across the chasm. ‘There’s . . . it’s a giant statue,’ he called back in disbelief. ‘Its arms swung out and knocked everyone off. It’s a booby-trap.’ Fury rose in his voice. ‘This whole place – you’ve brought us into a fucking booby-trap!’

  ‘Stay calm, Rasche!’ Kroll shouted, less concerned about his increasingly unreliable subordinate than the morale of the men with him. He needed everyone to focus on their task. ‘It’s part of Andreas’ test. Only those who are Alexander’s equal can pass it.’

  ‘Then I guess Schneider wasn’t up to the challenge!’ A pause, then: ‘Which isn’t really a surprise, the perverted little turd. But we still have to get down there.’

  ‘Can you see any more statues?’

  ‘Not from here.’

  ‘Then keep going! I’ll follow you down. We’ve got to stop them from reaching the spring, no matter what!’

  Nina arrived at another split in the pathway. Again a new leg peeled left, running clockwise around the shaft, while the original continued in the opposite direction. ‘Keep to the right,’ she told herself.

  Eddie followed her. ‘Hope Andreas wasn’t taking the piss with that part of the story.’ He looked up, following their course back around the chasm – and saw torch beams above. A large group was coming down the spiral ledge after them, approaching the first junction. ‘Go on, go left, you bastards!’

  Rasche’s team arrived at the fork. ‘Which way?’ one man asked.

  ‘Split up,’ Rasche decided. ‘Everyone ahead of me goes right, everyone behind goes left. And if you come around a corner and find a huge statue, stop!’ He followed the first group of soldiers down the right-hand path, the rest peeling away behind him.

  ‘Sir!’ someone called before long. ‘I see them, over there!’

  ‘Hold here!’ ordered Rasche. Off to the left, the other half of his group was making steady progress downwards, but his gaze was fixed on something more distant. Lights were visible on the far side of the great fissure, some thirty metres lower.

  The SS man smiled. Wilde and her companions were far enough away to make the shot difficult with a sub-machine gun . . . but several sub-machine guns firing on full auto would spray enough bullets to ensure they hit something. ‘Ready weapons! Take aim—’

  A sound like rushing wind – then the cracking of dozens of mighty whips echoed around the shaft, followed by shrieks of pain and panic.

  Rasche spun to see the second squad’s torches plummeting down the abyss, their screaming owners falling with them. ‘What in hell—’

  His own unit hurriedly aimed their lights at the clockwise path. The other group had passed in front of tall carvings of trees . . . but now only one man remained, hanging from the ledge and desperately clawing for grip with both feet.

  He found it, pulling himself up – only to be blown backwards as a fearsome gust of dusty air exploded from a hole in the wall, lashing him with something resembling switch-like lengths of branches. The luckless soldier plunged after his comrades with a howl of terror that was abruptly cut off by a wet bursting noise.

  Rasche glared back across the shaft at the fugitives. ‘Shoot them! Fire, fire!’ Weapons burst into life – but the distant figures were already hidden behind another rock formation.

  Eddie pushed Nina against the cliff wall, Banna and the Israelis huddling for cover behind them as bullets cracked off stone. But the Nazis had lost their line of sight. He squeezed past his wife to take the lead. ‘What the bloody hell was that? Sounded like Indiana Jones and Catwoman having a whip fight.’

  ‘I think I know,’ said the panting Banna. ‘There is a story in the Romance of Alexander finding trees with a sap like myrrh; when his men tried to collect it, they were ferociously whipped by invisible spirits. The carvings we saw could have been those trees, but I do not know how they killed the Nazis.’

  ‘Probably a bellows system blowing out leather strips or ropes from the holes,’ said Nina. ‘The trigger would have been under one of the paving slabs, so when someone stepped on it . . . What?’ she added, aware that her suggestion was being treated with scepticism. ‘I’ve seen this kind of stuff before! This isn’t my first ancient booby-trap.’

  ‘They do all sort of blend together after a while,’ Eddie admitted.

  ‘So Andreas based the traps on the Romance?’ asked Zane.

  Nina nodded. ‘He wrote it, so he got to cherry-pick his favourite parts. It fits with the whole idea that finding the spring is a challenge based on Alexander’s adventures, though. If you read the Romance, it gives you clues about the dangers.’

  ‘So what’s the next one?’

  ‘Who knows?’ said Banna. ‘Huge fleas, men without heads, birds with human faces – it is full of incredible creatures.’

  ‘Giant crab,’ said Eddie, looking at something below.

  ‘Yes, there is a giant crab in the story too.’

  ‘No, I mean – an actual giant crab. Down there.’

  ‘What?’ said Nina, stopping to see for herself. To her amazement, she found exactly what her husband had described. Beneath them was the bronze statue of a crustacean, the body a disc about three feet across with a pair of much larger claws extending ahead of it. The metal creature faced up a steep slope descending from another junction ahead, a slot along the centre of the paved path looking suspiciously like a track. ‘Okay, so again, we definitely go right,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what that thing’ll do to us, but I’m pretty sure it’ll involve big-ass claws.’

  ‘Look – there are spears,’ said Banna. Several long bronze shafts with sharp tips were propped at the fork.

  ‘Were there spears in the story?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘Yes, but they were all broken by its claws.’

  ‘Then why are they there?’ Nina wondered aloud. ‘Another part of the challenge?’

  Eddie was first to the junction. ‘Doesn’t matter since we’re not going down there.’ He directed his light over the right-hand route, which curved around a crease in the cliff. It was devoid of mythical creatures. ‘Okay, this way looks safe. We need—’

  Flashes of fire from higher across the shaft – and bullets smacked against the rock face in front of him.

  He retreated, but the barrage followed as the Nazis hurried along their own path to bring him back into sight. It finally ceased as he pressed his back against the wall near the spears, protected by a slim overhang, but they would reach a clear vantage point in seconds. ‘Shit! We can’t go that way.’

  Nina assessed the other route. It was steep enough to shield them from the Nazis if they stayed low . . . but it had its own dangers. ‘We’ll have to go down there.’

  ‘What, and catch crabs?’ Eddie protested.

  ‘More like the crab catches us – but we don’t have a choice!’

  ‘I’ll cover you,’ said Zane. ‘Latner, stay with me. The rest of you, go!’ He went to the outer edge of the intersection, turning off his flashlight and fixing his sights on the chasm’s far side. Another Mossad agent took up position with him as Banna and two other men, Taubman and Krebs, moved to join Eddie and Nina.

  The Yorkshireman aimed his torch down the new path. The bronze monster lurked at its foot, claws poised as if ready to snap into motion at any moment. ‘Caught b
etween a Reich and a hard case . . .’ he muttered. ‘Okay, Nina, stay behind me – and keep your head down!’

  He hunched low and scuttled down the new path. Nina followed – just as the Nazis came into sight and attacked again. Zane and Latner retaliated, Banna shrieking and covering his ears as he was forced to duck under their fire to reach the junction. The two other Israelis went after him.

  The descent was so steep that Eddie had to turn sideways to find purchase on the slick slabs with the edges of his soles. Another look ahead. He didn’t know when the crab would start moving, but he was certain that it would . . .

  More rounds rained down. Zane crouched to present as small a target as possible, searching for their source. He flicked his Uzi’s selector to single-shot, took careful aim at one of the muzzle flashes, and fired. The man lurched backwards, rebounding off the wall and falling screaming into the blackness below.

  The other Nazis intensified their assault. Zane scrambled on to the slope, dropping flat on his stomach to shoot back over its top. Latner tried to follow – but was hit in the leg. The Mossad commander grabbed at him as he fell, but his fingers only brushed the other man’s clothing. Latner went over the side, a brief cry sharply truncated as he hit an outcrop below.

  Zane could only spare his comrade an anguished glance. ‘What’s happening down there?’ he shouted.

  ‘Nothing – yet!’ Eddie replied. He was halfway towards the waiting crustacean, tension rising with every step. The ancient mechanism’s trigger might be jammed or broken, but based on past experience, it was far more likely that it would activate once he reached the point of no return.

  Three quarters of the way, and the bronze beast still had not moved. Given the steepness of the slope, with a few steps of run-up he could jump right over it . . .

  Footfall on another paving slab – which shifted under his weight. ‘Aw, crab!’

  With a shrill of metal against stone, the monster jerked into motion.

  ‘Get back!’ Eddie shouted, retreating. The crab jolted after him. Its claws swept from side to side, intermittently jerking upwards to deter anyone from vaulting over it. He glimpsed a metal post protruding up through the slot into a hole on its underbelly; the mechanism was under the path itself, clanging chains hauling it along its track.