Lara Croft and the Blade of Gwynnever

  She felt something through the foliage as she reached for her next handhold: a corner, a carved edge, geometric.

  Lara pulled the creepers away, raking the leaves aside. She found a sill, the bottom of an aperture. A window or drainage chute was cut into the cliff. It was small, barely half a metre square.

  Lara smiled. This was her way off the cliff.

  She squirmed up into it, headfirst. The hole was choked with wet dirt and vines. Lara had to grapple with her numb, bloody hands to get any kind of secure purchase. She crawled, forced to fold her arms around herself and wriggle forwards like an earthworm into the slender chute.

  It was pitch-black. The air stank of organic rot. Daylight was a pale green square behind Lara’s scrabbling boots. She inched on, panting. She felt cobwebs as thick as heavy silk drape across her face, and pulled her way through them. She felt things scurry over her hands and arms. The red-tail huntsman spider could kill from a single bite in twelve seconds. Then there were the snakes: the krait, the yellow viper...

  Well done, Croft, Lara thought. You’ve discovered a brand-new place to kick the adrenaline up a gear.

  Something ran across her hand. She smacked it away. In the gloom, her dark-adapting eyes made out a centipede almost forty centimetres long. Lara made a fist and mashed it into the stone of the chute, immediately smelling the dead-fish stink of its spattered ichor.

  She crawled on, through thicker cobwebs that made her sneeze and choke. Lara spat them away. She flicked a large, inquisitive borer beetle off her collarbone.

  Then she smelt something new, something

  unexpected.

  Fresh air.

  With renewed energy, she elbowed on, and suddenly the mat of vegetation under her gave way.

  Lara fell, and landed hard.

  She had fallen into gloom, but not pitch darkness. There was a cold stone floor of red basalt and a damp smell. The air was almost chilly, cooled by the depth of the chamber and the thick rock. Her sweat-soaked body shivered. Lara rolled and sat up. The cut rope was still wrapped around her wrist, drawing blood. Both ends of it trailed back into the chute from which she’d fallen. She unwound it and then nursed her wrist and rotated her seized, pulled shoulder. There were leaves matted into her hair. Lara finger-combed them out and found something else. Her hand came away from her hair with a large, black spider dancing across the knuckles. She flipped it away. Another spider was advancing up her chest. She flicked that off too and got up fast. She brushed herself down vigourously. The last thing she needed right now was a poisonous bite or sting.

  Lara thought about ditching the rope, but she had no pack or other kit, apart from her utility knife. The line had saved her, twice: her lucky rope. She drew it out of the chute and coiled it up.

  The chamber was deep. Pale daylight shafted in through tiny slit windows high above her. It was an offertory of some sort, or perhaps part of the storage cellars used for ritual items. Lara was sure Tapyantore followed a common architectural scheme favoured by the Karasagor culture. All their temples followed it. She’d suspected it from findings she’d made at another ruined site at Kalangahl, and it had been corroborated by the insane scrawled maps the eighteenth-century explorer Sir Hubert Morris-Moses had left in a notebook she’d punched out a Hungarian mercenary in a bar fight to obtain. The world was full of mercenaries, and they all seemed to be working for people who had a grudge against Lara.

  Morris-Moses had been quite a character, and the world authority on Karasagor culture, a field of study so abstruse, the rest of academia had been pretty sure there didn’t need to be a world authority on it. His works had been derided by the Royal Society, and by Sri Lankan scholars (scholars of Ceylon, as it had been then).

  He had persisted. He had continued his explorations of the interior and written six more books, none of which had found publishers. Morris-Moses had been a fighter, like Lara. He’d never given up, but key elements of his work could be found only in his personal notebooks.

  They’d never found his body. He had vanished on an expedition to find Tapyantore. Were his bones down there in the gorge, resting in the secret peace that had tried to welcome her, too? Had the Green Death taken him?

  Lara and Sir Hubert Morris-Moses could have spent eternity together, tranquil under the vines and moss, swapping campaign stories and trade secrets. From his notebook, Lara was sure she’d have liked him.

  He had been a fellow maverick.

  Following her memory of his sketch maps, she climbed the steps and crept along the offertory passage, a stone corridor that led to the well chamber. The smell of rot was stronger here, rot and wet.

  Lara hoped there was still time. If Sarap had been paid to dispose of her, then the intention was to prevent her reaching the Heart of Serendip, said to rest in the shrine of the temple. That meant someone had paid him to get it for him or her instead.

  The Heart, said to be a gold-and-ruby effigy of a civet about a foot high, in which the ancient Karasagor stored their primordial wisdom, was a precious object in its own right. If it possessed legendary properties, and Morris-Moses claimed it did, it was beyond monetary worth.

  Lara heard footsteps. She ducked into cover. Putra, Sarap’s right-hand man, strode into view. He was carrying the short-pattern M1 assault rifle he had assured Lara was “excellent for jungle hunting” during the trek to the gorge.

  She waited until he had passed her, then threw herself onto his back. Surprised, he lurched forwards and smashed his forehead against the passage wall.

  Putra fell. Lara was on top of him. He rolled, blood dripping down his face, and blinked up at her in honest surprise.

  “You?” he gasped.

  “Yes,” Lara said. “I made it.”

  She punched him on the jaw, bouncing the back of his head off the paved floor.

  He was out cold. She got up and helped herself to his precious M1. One clip in place, safety on. She found a second clip in his bandoliers.

  Lara hurried down the corridor, up a further flight of steps, and entered the vast and echoing vault of the shrine.

  Two huge, deep, stone-cut sacred pools filled with brackish water flanked a stone platform that led to a breathtaking altar of limestone inlaid with silver. Pitch-dipped torches burnt in wall brackets around the chamber, filling the shrine with a dappled, moving orange light. The flames glinted off the water and reflected off the golden idol perched on the magnificent altar.

  The golden effigy of a civet. The Heart of Serendip.

  Bless your lost bones, Morris-Moses!

  Lara was about to step into the open when she saw a figure walk down the stone platform to the altar. It was a woman, tall, strong, blonde, wearing high-laced boots, camo shorts, and an army-surplus canvas jacket.

  Lara knew the walk, the saunter, the arrogant stride.

  It was Florence Race…Florence bloody Race.

  Race was a stunning woman, Lara had to admit. She was about as fit as a person could be, lean-limbed and athletic. Despite the heat and filth, despite the unglamorous conditions and lack of makeup, Race managed to be staggeringly beautiful. She had high cheekbones, a slender neck, and hair like spun gold. In her forties now, Race had been a Vogue cover model, a famous painter’s muse, a rock star’s girlfriend, and a war photojournalist, all before she had turned to the shadier profession of treasure hunter.

  Florence Race was damn good at that. She was damn good because she was utterly, murderously ruthless.

  As Lara watched, Race gazed at the Heart. Then, she slowly lifted it in her hands, raising it triumphantly.

  “I win!” Lara heard her say to herself.

  Lara stepped out of cover, the M1 held at her hip, and aimed at Race.

  “Not today, Flo,” she said.

  Race turned, the golden treasure in her hands. To her credit, she only slightly blinked at the sight of Lara Croft.


  She smiled, as if they’d met at the opera at

  Glyndebourne.

  “Lara bloody Croft!” Race exclaimed, laughing. “Alive and kicking. You are a piece of work, Lara.”

  “Alive, despite your best efforts and cold hard cash,” said Lara. “The Heart, hand it over.”

  “No, no, dear, this is mine. I win this time. No hard feelings, sweetie.”

  Lara raised the rifle to her shoulder.

  “Now, Flo,” she said. “I have had quite a morning, and my finger is so tired, it’s getting twitchy.”

  Race smiled more broadly.

  “I’m sure we can come to some arrangement,” she said.

  “Such as?”

  “Drop that gun for a start,” said Race.

  Lara felt a double prod in her back: gun barrels.

  She turned slowly, lowering the M1.

  Sarap and Bapanni faced her, weapons ready to fire.

  “Drop it, if you please,” said Sarap.

  Lara tossed the rifle. They led her up the platform between the sacred pools to face Race.

  Race was packing the effigy into her rucksack.

  “Lara, dear, I’d love to stay and natter, but I have a buyer waiting in Colombo. I’d take you along, but I have to travel light.”

  Race looked at Sarap.

  “No witnesses, please,” she said.

  Sarap glanced at Lara.

  “Now!” Race ordered.

  Sarap hesitated.

  “I think,” he said, “perhaps a little extra consideration for the dirty work you suggest?”

  Always the mercenary, Sarap.

  “You want more?” asked Race, zipping up the rucksack. “I’ve raised your fee already, and you didn’t perform as required for that bonus. She survived.”

  “Even so,” Sarap began.

  “No deal,” said Race. She’d bent to take a 9mm automatic from her rucksack. Rising, she casually shot Sarap in the chest with it.

  With a look of confounded surprise on his face, Sarap toppled backwards and fell into one of the sacred pools. His body began to sink. There was a burbling sound, and then Lara heard the distorted ringtone theme from that movie bubbling out of the water.

  There was a sudden, frenzied thrashing in the water. Lara recoiled. An immense mugger crocodile, larger than any she had ever seen, had risen from the depths and taken Sarap’s corpse in its fat jaws. It thrashed, rolling. The water frothed red.

  Race looked at the shocked Bapanni.

  “Any questions about the fee from you?” she asked.

  Bapanni shook his head.

  He was too late raising his gun and turning it on Lara.

  Lara Croft heard Florence Race’s question and knew that it was all over if she didn’t act fast. She took one step back, turned, and lowered herself into the pool.

  Bapanni aimed at where Lara had been standing a moment before. Florence turned back when she didn’t hear a shot. Both were just in time to see the faintest ripple on the surface of the water as the top of Lara’s head disappeared.

  “You’re a fool, Bapanni,” said Florence, firing her 9mm into his chest at point-blank range. He dropped at her feet. Then Florence looked out at the pool. “And you’re a bigger fool, Lara Croft. A bullet would have been a lot less painful and a lot more dignified than being eaten alive by a dumb croc. And at least you would have left a beautiful corpse.” She picked up her rucksack and walked away.

  Lara sank further into the murky darkness. The water was like oil. Still and calm, she watched the lurking shape of the croc through the algae and silt. It was moving in figures of eight through the water, trailing clouds of blood.

  She’d been under for maybe twenty seconds, and she didn’t know what was happening. She’d heard the shot, assumed Race had killed the other mercenary. Florence could be waiting for her. She had to play dead for long enough to convince the woman to leave.

  The croc had eaten. If she was still enough, it might not know she was there.

  The croc turned in its figure-of-eight pattern, and swung back in Lara’s direction. She waited for it to continue in the pattern, but it just kept coming. Another second and she could see its teeth protruding out of its lower jaw. Another and its nostrils appeared to flare. Another second, and Lara could clearly see the croc’s eyes, wide open and looking right at her.

  Lara had one chance. She yanked the coil of rope off her shoulder. As the croc came in, she dived away from its strike, and lashed the climbing line around its snout.

  The massive croc powered away with a smash of its heavy tail. Lara held on, and the thrust pulled the looped rope tight, clamping the monster’s snout shut. It began to thrash and churn, struggling to get its jaws out of the rope snare.

  Her lucky rope indeed.

  Her breath nearly spent, Lara surged to the edge of the pool and broke the surface. She rasped in a lungful of air. There was no sign of anyone on the platform above her.

  Cautiously, expecting a gunshot at any moment, Lara clawed her way up and rolled out onto the platform. Behind her, its snout now freed, the mugger crocodile surfaced and snapped jaws the size of a trouser press at her. It missed.

  Dripping, Lara rose.

  Bapanni, dead from a gunshot wound, lay on the platform nearby, just as Lara had suspected.

  Florence Race—and the Heart of Serendip—had gone.

  “So, Florence, you think I’m dead? Well, that’s one way to give me the upper hand,” said Lara. Some you won, some you lost, and she hated the latter kind. This was a draw. She’d get another chance at Florence Race, and the woman would never see her coming.

  CHAPTER ONE:

  NECESSARY DISTRACTIONS

  London

  Carter Bell still wasn’t answering his phone.

  Lara was getting tired of hitting redial. On her first day back in London, she’d tried him three times. When he hadn’t picked up or returned her messages, she’d assumed he was busy, or underground at the dig site and out of range.

  By the third day, she’d become annoyed. She’d been hitting the redial more frequently, so frequently she could mimic the words and intonation of his answer message. She’d tried email and even looked for a likely landline.

  Lara had only come back to the UK because Carter had asked for help. After the mess in Sri Lanka, she’d been tracking Florence Race, but the treasure hunter had gone quiet. Lara had been tempted by an expedition in South America that was asking for people with her skill set, but she still wanted to keep tabs on Florence and didn’t want to overcommit her time and resources.

  Then Carter had called. Lara had been at her hotel in Colombo, packing her case. Carter, usually so confident and laconic, had sounded anxious. He was working on a dig in London. Strange things had turned up. He told her he felt a little out of his depth, and that she was the only person he could think of who would take it seriously. When was she going to be in London next?

  “I’m on the next plane,” Lara had told him.

  Helping out a trusted friend, that was the distraction she needed. Helping out a colleague who had the same instinct for the world’s buried secrets as her. Helping out someone who sounded as if they were in trouble—or were going to be very soon—someone who had found something strange. That would distract her.

  She could help out Carter, and still keep tabs on Florence Race. When the woman made a new move, Lara would know about it.

  On her third day back in London, Lara decided to go and find Bell. She was tired of waiting for a call to arrange a meeting, and she knew where he was supposed to be. Besides, she was beginning to be concerned about him.

  London seemed to be in a bad mood. She loved the city, perhaps more than any other city, and she usually found the time she spent there stimulating and refreshing. Coming home to England after a trip was grounding. When Lara had left th
ree months earlier, spring had made the streets seem vigorous and alive.

  But summer had brought an uglier mood. There was industrial unrest, strike action, anti-austerity protests, and rancorous debate in Parliament. Despite the sunshine and glorious weather, London felt like it was in an angry slump and spoiling for an argument.

  The mood perplexed Lara. She’d only known London to seem so unfriendly once before, a long time before, back when she was just a kid. The city had been a threatening place, full of shadows in the shadows and suspicious faces in every crowd.

  Back then, though, that had been her. She’d come home after a tough time at school, before she’d made a friend, and she’d been projecting her loneliness and mistrust onto the world around her. London had seemed ugly because she’d seen it that way.

  Now it just seemed ugly all by itself.

  Crossing town on a busy, sunny morning, Lara reflected that it might still be her. She wasn’t a kid anymore. She was older and a lot more experienced. She took the knocks and setbacks of life in her stride. But the business with Race in Tapyantore had been nasty, and it had veered from the professional to the personal. No, Lara decided. The animosity she felt was towards Florence Race. London hadn’t done anything to her.

  A rally in Hyde Park had clogged the West End with traffic. A strike by London Transport had culled the number of buses and tubes running, and that had put more cars on the streets. A separate strike by refuse collectors had turned pavements into obstacle courses of unwholesome rubbish sacks spilling into the gutters. And people just seemed angry with life. The native politeness had evaporated.

  Lara had given up on public transport, and the idea of getting her car out of secure parking was laughable. She had a mountain bike, but she hadn’t used it in six months, and she couldn’t be bothered to get it out and check it over for a ride across town. She’d opted for a Boris Bike instead, hiring one of the utilitarian share-scheme machines from a public dock.