The hybrids snapped out of their daze and launched after the three. The hair on their backs rose up. Their teeth gnashed. Their voices growled. They became as inhuman as the mothers . . . or grandmothers . . . who suddenly appeared at the courtyard exit, partly concealed in shadow.
King, Queen, and Sara slid to a stop on the wet courtyard floor. King looked back at the temple as he stopped. They were still too close, though the inch-deep water already flowing quickly past their feet was a good sign. The problem was that they would be torn to shreds before his plan could come to fruition. Either way they would be killed.
Still, he thought, I may have to risk it. He pulled the wireless detonator from his pocket and held it tight.
The hybrids stopped as well, confused by the sudden appearance of their ancestors.
Without pause, the old mothers charged.
King took aim despite the situation now being totally hopeless.
But he held his fire. Something wasn’t right.
The wall of charging Neanderthal women wasn’t converging on their position. In fact, the wall of fur opened up as it passed by them. The mothers were charging Weston and the hybrids!
King spun, watching as Weston’s and the hybrids’ shock turned to anger. This fight had been a long time coming. The two forces stopped short, sizing each other up and calling out like a horde of angry apes. Weston stepped back, looking fearfully at the mothers . . . and his children.
A heavy hand took King’s shoulder. He spun and raised the weapon between a pair of blue eyes that hovered above a wide smile.
“What do you think of my cavalry?”
Rook.
He was shirtless and bore a bloody bite mark on his shoulder and three broad slices across his chest. King lowered the weapon and smiled.
A second large body stepped out from behind him. “We should go.”
Bishop.
The hooting reached a crescendo, but the mothers were still waiting for something. As King wondered what they were waiting for, Rook stepped forward and shouted, “Now!”
King watched in shock as the old mothers followed Rook’s command and launched forward, fifteen five-foot-tall demolition balls. Their hair raised up, shimmering with wetness, and bouncing with every confident stride. Their yellow eyes glowed in the wet orange light delivered by the crystals through the still-falling torrent of rain.
Some of the younger and smaller hybrids ran straight off. As did Weston. But the larger males stood their ground. The old mothers launched at them, biting, swiping, and leaping from the larger males as though they were trees. Screams of pain and roars of anger rolled up through the cavern and cut through the sound of the falling rain.
“C’mon!” Rook shouted. “Knight is waiting for us by the river.”
They climbed over the ruined balustrades and made for the large gate, its massive opening a beacon of hope.
As they ran, Queen looked at Rook, his bleeding chest glowing orange in the surreal light. She looked at the bite wound on his shoulder. “You didn’t actually . . .”
Rook looked incredulous. “Hell no! I just made all sorts of promises I couldn’t keep, blah blah blah.”
“Like most of your relationships,” King added.
Rook smiled and nodded. “What can I say? I’m a ladies’ man.”
They passed through the gate as the hoots of hybrids in pursuit sounded out behind and around them. The city was alive. Full of hybrids. They would never escape, even with the help of the old mothers, who would most likely die as well.
As they neared the fourth gallery gate, five hybrids launched into the street, stalking toward them. King led the group to one of the nearby houses, pushing the button on the detonator once. When the team was off the street and headed up the stairs behind him, he stopped and let the others pass.
He looked out at the amazing city, lost for thousands of years and home to a forgotten civilization. The beauty and history of the place made King cringe at what he was about to do. This wonder could not be duplicated. It couldn’t be replaced.
But neither could the human race. Seeing no other option for escape, he shook his head, closed his eyes, and pushed the detonator button a second time.
SIXTY-THREE
THE FOUR HYBRIDS charging up the street toward the team’s position on the staircase stumbled and fell as the massive amount of explosives planted by King detonated. The temple burst like a volcano, raining Volkswagen-sized chunks of the temple around the city. Buildings imploded as the giant pieces of wall, stairs, and balustrades descended like missiles. The fragments launched from the center of the blast shot up and struck the great crystals above.
From the outside, Mount Meru really did look like a volcano as smoke filtered out of the holes in the mountainside. But not all of the smoke made it out. Torrents of rain mingled with the smoke and fell back inside, collecting on the city walls as sludge.
The ground shook violently as a deafening shock wave shot out from the blast and ricocheted off the cavern walls, lingering painfully in the ears of everyone in Meru—human and Nguoi Rung alike. As the shock wave subsided, a new rumble filled the air, this one slower yet growing in volume. The hybrids in the street stood, still dazed. They looked at each other, then, as a group, retreated toward the outskirts of the city.
After watching the hybrids retreat, King entered the small second-floor room, rejoining Queen, Bishop, Rook, and Sara. They were looking out a window. Through it, a massive plume of smoke rose from the temple. Chunks of stone still fell around the city, mixed with the rain.
Portions of the temple twisted and fell, the sound of their collapse mingling with the still-expanding roar.
Sara turned away from the spectacle suddenly, looking at King. “Weston’s close.”
“Your senses are back?” King asked.
“I can smell him!”
King sniffed. His nose filled with an odor close to that of a spoiled French onion soup. He turned toward the door just as Weston entered wielding a pistol. He fired.
King grunted in pain and fell to the floor, grasping his shoulder.
“What have you done?” Weston shouted, moving toward the window while waving his gun at the team, forcing them away. He looked out the window, at the smoldering, ruined temple. The city began to shake around them. The rumble grew louder.
“No . . . ,” Weston said quietly as the source of the steadily growing vibrations surged into view. A river of water spilled from the fifth gallery gate, flowing down the main street. At its front rolled stone debris, ruined balustrades, and the bodies of more than fifty hybrids and a few of the old mothers. Mixed in with their bodies were scores of bright orange and white fish. The subterranean fishpond had been emptied. Merging with the already considerable flow of rainwater, the torrent washed quickly down through the inclined city.
A loud snap, like the crack of a falling tree amplified through loudspeakers, drew Weston’s attention up, above the temple. One of the large crystals that grew from ceiling to the city floor cracked and slowly fell.
The size and weight of the crystal was that of two 747s end to end. It struck the city below, crushing what remained of the temple with a force above and beyond the C4 explosion King had created. The shock wave flattened the fifth gallery wall, crumbled several buildings throughout the city, added force and speed to the river flowing down the main street, and loosened the other crystals above.
Meru was coming undone.
With wild eyes, Weston turned his gaze from the city to the team. He shook. Sweat beaded and dripped down his face. The gun moved from Sara, kneeling by the door with King, who was just now sitting up, to Rook, Bishop, and Queen on the other side of the room, seeing the three of them as more of an immediate threat.
The gun stopped at Bishop. Weston stared at him with wide, fear-filled eyes. “I—I saw you die.” He pulled the gun’s hammer back. “You should be dead.”
Bishop grinned. “I’ve heard that before.”
Then he charged.
Weston put two bullets in Bishop’s chest before the two collided. They stumbled back together, toppling out of the large rectangular window just moments after the stone-filled front line of the river flowed past. They fell into a six-foot-deep, fast-moving river.
King launched to his feet and ran to the window. “Let’s move,” he said, and jumped in. Sara, Queen, and Rook followed at his heels.
The raging waters slid through the city streets like a giant snake, swerving with the bends and surging down inclines. The team, and Weston, were at its mercy. Swimming did nothing, so they simply tried to stay above water and avoid being crushed by the churning debris or smashed into the side of a structure or gate as they were whisked through the city.
Bounding across rooftops, several hybrids raced alongside the river yelling, “Father! Father!” as they attempted to free Weston from the river’s grasp. One of them leaned from a stone overpass and pulled Weston up by his arm. The Chess Team flowed quickly past. He didn’t want to be rescued. He wanted vengeance. “Put me back in!” Weston shouted.
The hybrid looked confused. “Father?”
Weston yanked himself free and fell back in. He was swept away, in pursuit of his enemies, the destroyers of Meru, the killers of his family. Of Lucy.
The Chess Team quickly passed through Meru’s third and second gates in thirty seconds. As they approached the first and final gate, Knight waved to them from atop a statue, then leaped into the water. He’d seen the destruction from below, witnessed the city falling apart, and had a clear view of the hybrid horde fleeing over the rooftops. Diving into the raging water, even with an injured ankle, was far preferable to staying any longer. After passing through the final and smallest of the gates, they were free of the city. The flow spread wide and slowed as they entered the stone clearing between city . . . and river. Sara swam to King, who struggled to stay above water with his wounded shoulder.
“Do you need he—!” Sara’s words were cut off as King shoved her underwater.
Weston took aim from twenty feet back and fired twice. King ducked down as the water around them absorbed the bullets. When he came up he saw Weston again, but then the water fell out from under them and they were tumbling through the air.
They landed in the twisting moat that flowed around the city and were pushed down deep by the river falling from above. King fought the current with his good arm, to no avail. He tried using his injured arm, but the blinding pain that came with the movement almost sapped his consciousness. Then he was pulled up. Sara again. She took him by the shirt and pulled him away from the newly formed waterfall.
The normally calm river flowing around the city raged with white water, fueled by the monsoon outside and the fresh addition of the temple’s fishpond. As they were swept away and around the city, Queen, Bishop, Rook, and Knight pounded through the water and rejoined them.
“We have to get out of here,” Knight said, looking toward the river exit, which was now full to the ceiling. There would be no surfacing in the underwater river. But the smooth vertical walls of the river offered no purchase or chance of escape. They’d been designed to sweep enemies away.
“Stay close and stay down!” King shouted as they neared the river exit. “Deep breath and curl up!”
The team began taking very fast breaths, saturating their bodies with oxygen. Sara mimicked them as best she could. Ten feet from the exit, three shots pinged off the stone around them. Weston, still behind, still enraged, shook the gun at them and swam closer. He shouted to the hybrids still running along the river’s banks. “Get them outside! Go. Now!”
The hybrids obeyed, breaking off the chase and heading for the city’s other, more secretive exits.
King looked back at Meru and saw more of the giant crystals falling from above. The whole mountain was coming down. Groups of hybrids and a few of the old mothers fled, funneling out through small tunnels he hadn’t seen before. He turned back toward the tunnel exit. It loomed above them like jaws of the underworld.
“Go under!” King shouted.
The Chess Team pushed under the water and curled into fetal positions. The orange glow of the fire-fueled crystal light disappeared moments later as they were plunged into the pitch-dark underground river.
SIXTY-FOUR
COLD, WET DARKNESS surrounded Sara. She felt herself pushed and pulled as the water encasing her flowed like a roller coaster through the interior of the mountain. Her back slammed into the stone roof. As she screamed out in pain, the air in her lungs escaped. The benefit was that her body became more naturally buoyant and sank down to the center of the flow. The downside was that she now needed to take a breath.
Her lungs and battered back burned. Nausea pulsed through her body, generated from the impact, the fear of death, and the rapid undulations of the river. She opened her eyes and saw only darkness. The others might have been feet away, but it was like they no longer existed. She’d entered some kind of torturous limbo where there was no up or down. Unlike limbo, there was plenty of pain to go around.
Sara clenched her hands over her mouth and nose, fighting her body’s natural urge to suck in air. Her foot struck bottom and spun her body. She opened her eyes again and saw a bright sphere floating ahead. Within the sphere she saw five silhouettes kicking toward the light. They were headed for an exit!
Moonlight glowed above her through a clearing in the fading storm’s clouds. Her equilibrium returned. Facing up, she shoved her feet down against the silt-coated river bottom and launched to the surface. She broke through the water gasping and gagging. The river slowed and deepened, allowing the team to collect themselves.
King, Queen, and Rook swam together at the center of the river. Sara, still ten feet behind, lay back and looked at the storm above. It wasn’t the swirling dark clouds, the bullet-sized raindrops, or the sweet smell of the storm that held her attention, it was the way she experienced them. A flash of lighting arced through the sky. She saw it with her eyes . . . and felt it in her chest. She could hear the wind whipping through the forest, scratching leaves. The sound tickled the back of her neck. She was experiencing the world as she knew it again. And it was beautiful.
King swam to her. “You okay?”
Sara smiled. “You have no—” A splash, different from the deep resonating river, entered her ears and created a tension in her shoulders. Something had risen from the water, behind her. The smell told her who. A metallic click caused a deep tickle in her back. “Get down!”
Sara and King ducked beneath the water as three shots rang out. They kicked farther downriver, staying underwater, and surfaced next to the other four members of the team.
“We can’t keep dodging bullets!” Rook said. “He’s going to get lucky sooner or later.”
They needed to get out of the river. King looked up. The walls around them ranged between forty and fifty feet tall—too high to scale, unless they wanted to make themselves easy targets. And there was no shoreline to speak of. If one existed earlier, it had been covered by the deepening water level. They were stuck. At the mercy of the river and the pistol-wielding Weston.
Sara grasped King’s arm. He grunted in pain.
“Sorry,” she said, then pointed up.
A group of hybrids ran along the cliff’s edge, forty feet above the river, keeping pace with the team, watching and waiting for them to exit. He looked to the other side and shook his head. Five of the old mothers, including Red, pounded through the wet brush as they too kept pace with the group being carried downriver.
With enemies on both sides and behind, their only option was to let the river take them and pray the crocodiles didn’t like to feed during a storm. King looked back and found Weston missing. He’d been far behind them, aiming his gun but never firing. Now, he had vanished. “Where’s Weston?” he shouted.
The team looked for him, too, but found nothing.
“Did he bug out?” Knight asked.
King doubted it, looking for Weston among his prog
eny. But he was nowhere to be seen.
Lightning crisscrossed through the sky and struck in the forest nearby. The pulse of thunder that followed as the globules of rain superheated in a flash ripped through the air around them. The intense sensory backlash shot a pain through Sara’s chest. She fled from it, ducking underwater.
King followed her under, afraid she had succumbed to a cramp, but found her treading water just below the surface.
Lightning flashed again, illuminating the underwater world. Fish freed from the giant pond, some living, some dead, moved through the water with them. A hybrid body bounced along below. Dead. A glint of silver far ahead, glowing brightly in the sudden light, caught King’s eye.
He kicked toward the light, but a tug on his foot turned him around. He expected to see one of the fish attempting to once again make a meal of his body, but instead found Weston’s face, twisted with anger. He’d taken hold of his ankle! King kicked and twisted, wrenching his leg free. He shot to the surface.
“Weston’s surfacing!” he shouted, then dove back under. The team followed him under as Weston, and his pistol, surfaced.
Weston growled loudly then ducked back under. He could see the Chess Team several feet ahead of him. He slid back toward the surface, waiting for one of them to run out of air. He would surface with them and then fire. It would be easy.
King turned forward and swam hard ahead of the group, making for the glint of metal he’d seen. Lightning shot through the sky again and he saw it just beneath him. He reached out, fumbled, and then wrapped his hands around the familiar object. He turned forward just as the team headed for the surface.
The Chess Team’s tactic had been to rise as one, possibly confusing Weston by giving him multiple targets, but as they watched him rise with them, each one of them realized his aim would be true.
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