by Rick Jones
“Oh no!” She quickly backed away, the pellets growing further away and falling back into the dark.
Something moved behind her.
Turning and shining the lantern, she screamed when something moved within the circle of light and rushed her.
#
The great lizard had cast aside the body of Butcher Boy with as much fanfare as destroying an insect. Blood and gore were everywhere; the ropes of Butcher Boy’s bowels seemed impossibly long as they lay strewn across the landing. Yet the creature was not satiated by the act of the kill. There were others remaining inside its territory, abominations that scattered like vermin caught within the sudden shine of a flashlight.
It went to the existing pod and sniffed inside. The carcass was too ancient for its liking, too corrupt, its flesh having grown rancid over the millenniums.
With a huff of dismissal it went from drainage hole to drainage hole, finding them too small for it to enter. But it had the instinctive cognition to realize that its quarry had ventured into the lair below.
And that was all the Prisca needed to know. Inflating its frill to maximum expansion around its head, the creature raced out of the Chamber of the Primaries and into the corridors that led the way to the cavern underneath, quickly closing gap between it and its prey.
#
Obsidian Hall raced like the wind through the hallways, fueled by adrenaline. His heart pounded against the wall of his chest, the man wheezing as he held his lantern aloft, his legs running with no intention of slowing down. Since the tripwires had been activated on their downward journey to the burial chamber, they no longer posed a threat on the return trip to the surface. The temple had altered into many shapes during the reconfigurations, creating new passageways where there were none before.
Sweat poured off him as he ran with reckless abandon through the warrens—afraid but not afraid at the same time—always wondering if something lurked in the shadows in front or behind him, waiting to reach out with its raptor-like claw to rake it across his belly, and eviscerate him with a clean cut.
But none of that mattered to him as he clutched his backpack against his chest and ran toward the light of salvation, through hallways that seemed less of a labyrinth than before, his flight to the surface quick and unimpeded.
At the top level, when he came upon the primary hallway, he saw a circle of light at the far end, the way out. Trying to catch his breath, with his lungs laboring for air, Hall hugged his backpack close, held the lantern high, then ran for the exit in a drunken gait, the man completely exhausted.
“Almost there . . . Almost there . . . Almost there . . .”
The entrance was a glorious site, the light of the outside world shining in like a ray of hope. Scrambling through the hole, he ended up sliding down the sandy incline, the sun above him hot and boiling.
I did it! I actually did it!
When Obsidian Hall started to laugh, it sounded like the harmony of madness.
#
“It’s just me,” said Savage, coming into the ring of Alyssa’s light. When he hunkered close to her, she fell into his arms, sobbing.
“I thought they killed you,” she cried.
“It was close. But that thing came back. It came out of nowhere and took out Butcher Boy before he had a chance to pull the trigger.”
“And Hall?”
He shrugged. “He was still alive when I jumped down the hole.”
“John, we have to get out of here. Quick!”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
She flashed the lamp in the direction of the pellets. “Do you know what those are?” He saw the flash of the metal against the light. “They’re called gastric pellets,” she said. “When certain lizards eat their prey, they vomit up items that cannot be digested. This is where they feast, John. This is their lair.” This is where they brought my father.
He held a hand out to her to help hoist her to her feet but when she tried to stand, she cried out in pain and fell back, clutching her ankle.
“Alyssa—”
“I hurt it in the jump,” she told him, wincing. “I don’t know if it’s broken or not.”
He grabbed the lamp and placed it by her foot. The ankle was badly swollen and bruised. “This isn’t good. You can’t walk on it at all?”
She shook her head. “Please don’t leave me, John.”
He saw the tears surfacing in her eyes and along the brim. With his thumb, he gently caressed her cheek and brushed an errant lock of hair to the side. “I have no intentions of leaving you behind,” he told her. “If I have to carry you out of here on the back of my neck, then that’s what I’ll do.”
“And if they come?” He produced a knife but she knew it was a futile instrument. And by the look in his eyes he knew the same. “We need to move,” she said.
He looked at the remnants of the river, at the speed of its flow. “This is what we’re going to do,” he said. “We’re going to get in the water and ride the current. It has to go somewhere.”
“There’s no indication of an oasis for miles.”
“Would you rather stay here?”
Point made. He aided her to a stance where she stood on one foot, and then she hopped to the river’s edge. Slowly, they got in the water and waded in until they were chest high in depth, then leaned back and allowed the current to take them.
Running beside them along the bank and keeping pace was the Megalania Prisca.
It knew exactly where they were going.
#
No one on Leviticus’s team had seen Obsidian Hall begin his solo journey across the desert to the west. The team was completely obscured by the rise as they aligned charges against the opposite wall of the temple’s perimeter.
Although the sun was beginning to set, it was always the hottest in late afternoon. Heat shimmered off the land in waves, giving the illusion that the surface of lake water was rippling in the distance, a cruel joke of a mirage. His throat was severely parched, his mind baking within his skull, and his skin began to flake and peel, especially at the lips.
Yet he held the backpack close, his mind not that far gone to realize what he had inside was so precious that it was perhaps more valuable than his own life. He cradled it to his chest with both arms. And he spoke nonsensical syllables, worthless semblances of words that became nothing more or less than garble. As the sun hung close to the brim of the horizon, he finally collapsed into the sand and closed his eyes.
Even with the lids closed he could see a shadow fall over him. When he opened them, he saw Adskhan standing over him holding the reign of a camel that looked down at him with the same indifference. “Where is Ms. Moore?” he asked in clipped English.
Obsidian Hall tried to lick his lips with a tongue that was as dry as a strip of carpet. He murmured something, but it was indecipherable.
“Where is Ms. Moore?” Adskhan repeated.
“Leave my backpack . . . alone,” was his answer, and then he pulled the pack close and away from Adskhan.
Adskhan shook his head. Foreigners! And then he grabbed a lambskin sack filled with water and offered some to Hall, who drank greedily. “Now, you tell me where is Ms. Moore?” he asked again.
“Dead,” he whispered. His throat was dry and sore. “In the temple . . .”
Adskhan looked to the east and saw nothing but flat land. “How far you walk?” Hall got unsteadily to his feet, wobbled, his eyes not yet focused to his surroundings.
“How far you walk?” he asked again.
“I don’t know.”
For a long moment Adskhan stared at him. Then: “You ride camel,” he said.
“What?”
“You ride camel.”
Adskhan took his riding switch and tapped the camel’s legs, signaling it to get down and prepare itself to be mounted. When it did, Adskhan aided Hall onto the camel’s back, and began to usher Hall and the camel along with the pull of the tether.
Never once did Hall relinquish the backpack or all
owed it to slide from his grasp.
As mindless as he was, he held on to it all the way back to safe territory.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Alyssa and Savage saw the Megalania Prisca keeping pace on the bank beside them, the creature bounding like a puppy in play, its head taking periodic glances their way, the receptors within its frill telling it that they were there, they were close.
“John!”
“I see it!”
They reached out and held hands so that they weren’t driven apart by the current. In the distance was something they immediately recognized. It was the incessant roar of water rushing over the edge of a ravine.
“John, it’s a waterfall!”
The Megalania Prisca called out, its frill shaking in agitation. It was about to lose its quarry.
“Swim to the edge of the opposite bank!” he shouted.
The current was getting stronger, pulling them faster. The roar of the falls was getting louder.
“We’re not going to make it!”
“Swim!” he goaded.
They paddled for the edge with every fiber in their bodies, with all the strength they could muster, fighting their way to the shore opposite the Prisca.
They were ten feet away from the bank, the depth getting shallower. But the edge of the fall could be seen.
They were eighty feet away.
“John!”
. . . Seventy feet and closing. . .
The Megalania Prisca was livid. Its prey was about to be lost forever.
Rearing up to a bipedal stance, the creature then dove into the water. In general, the lizard is a natural swimmer, graceful and elegant in waterways, using its tail as a rudder. Its head stayed above the level of the surface, getting closer, its tail moving back and forth in serpentine motion.
“John, it’s coming!”
They were close to the bank, only feet away, Alyssa buoying them because of her ankle.
The Prisca was getting closer.
The current was growing stronger, faster.
And Alyssa was losing her grip. “John!”
The roar of the falls was deafening, coming dangerously close.
. . . Forty feet . . .
And then Savage reached the bank, clawing at dry surface, his other hand barely hanging onto Alyssa as the power of the current threatened to sweep her out of his hand, out of his grip.
The Prisca fought against the current by trying to swim vertically and against the grain. With powerful sweeps of its tail it had propelled itself halfway across the river, but it continued to fight against the increasing power of the current, which drew it closer to the edge.
. . . It was thirty-five feet away from the spill . . .
It roared.
Savage was able to grab Alyssa by both hands and pull her to the bank.
. . . It was thirty feet away from the spill . . . inching closer . . .
Now it was two-thirds across the river, its tail sweeping.
Above them was a manhole-sized opening that allowed a streamer of light to filter in. To get to it, however, was going to be tough, since it was a near vertical climb along a stone wall, which was impossible with Alyssa’s ankle.
She read his mind. “You know I can’t.”
The Prisca was twenty feet away from the fall’s edge.
“It’s going over,” she said.
But she was wrong. The Prisca made it to the bank and was watching them intently.
Savage looked at the wall, at the climb. “You have no choice!” he told her. “You have to try!”
And then the Megalania Prisca came forward.
#
Leviticus, Nehemiah and the rest of the team had completed the set up of the charges with them set to go off in a coordinated pattern beginning with the center explosion, then working outward toward the perimeter so that the structure would implode upon itself, leaving a gaping sink hole.
“An hour or so before sundown,” said Nehemiah. “We’re right on schedule.”
“The chopper is on its way,” said Leviticus. “So give it another few minutes before we blow it. We don’t want to draw the authorities too quickly on seismic readings. I want to make sure we’re long gone by the time the readings are recorded.”
“Ten minutes, then?”
Leviticus looked at the horizon. “Ten minutes,” he confirmed.
#
The Megalania Prisca was moments away from a final kill when the receptors of its frill informed it that its quarry was trying to escape.
Alyssa and Savage were about ten feet above the base floor with Alyssa struggling with the footholds, her bad ankle becoming a disadvantage, the climb glacially slow. John Savage was beneath her assuring that she made gains. In his hand was the KA-BAR. Beneath him, the Prisca was looking up with its tail swinging back and forth along the ground like an excited canine. Its jaws were open with its pink gullet and needle-like teeth, waiting for the fall.
“You can do it, Alyssa.”
She didn’t complain. With the strength in her arms and her one good leg she pulled herself upward, her good foot finding a gap that kept her firm to the wall.
He edged up behind her, taking glances at the lizard beneath him. The thing was huge, he considered, so the knife would essentially be ineffective given the toxicity of a single bite. And then he began to climb at the same painfully slow pace as Alyssa toward an opening that seemed so far and so out of reach.
The hole was at least thirty feet away and the light was fading fast as the angle of the setting sun pinched the illumination into a thin streamer of light.
The creature was growing bolder.
“I’m sorry, John! We’re running out of time! There’s no point to this! You need to pass me and climb out!”
“I’m not leaving you behind!”
“You’re not being rational!”
“I’m a man! We’re never rational!” The Prisca began to pace below, anticipating. “Climb, Alyssa! We can do this!”
She pulled herself up, straining every muscle in her body and winning the fight. She moved up another foot. And then another.
But the light was growing dimmer, causing shadows within the cavern to become pools of absolute darkness rather than just spots of gloom. When the Megalania Prisca found the moment of opportunity, when the light was at its weakest point, it began to scale the wall using its talons like pitons.
Looking downward to gauge his position, John suddenly found himself staring right into the maw of his predator.
It was that close.
#
Nehemiah had his thumb on the switch, his eyes on Leviticus as he waited for the OK.
“This is your baby,” Leviticus told him.
It was getting dark. The sun halfway beyond the horizon, which meant the chopper was on its way.
Nehemiah nodded. “Fire in the hole!” And then he hit the button.
When the center charge went off, a mushroom cloud of dust boiled skyward. And then the subsequent charges went off in sequence, the explosions working across the landing one after the other from the center to the temple’s perimeter.
The center of the facility caved, and then its edges followed, the hole growing wider as the charges continued to go off.
Dirt and rock and desert sand tried to fill the gap, but the hole was too deep.
“What was down there?” Isaiah commented softly and more to himself.
. . . Whump . . . Whump . . . Whump . . .
The Semtex continued to fire off.
. . . Whump . . . Whump . . . Whump . . .
Dust began to roll like a sandstorm across the desert floor in all directions, the dust thick and cloying. The visibility was becoming problematic with the closest thing to them nothing but vague shadows.
They coughed and swiped uselessly at the air as if to clear some space for clean breathing. At best it was a futile attempt as dust clouds swept in.
When things began to settle and the world became less brown and vagu
e, the Knights of the Holy Order went to the edge of the crater. What was once an incline was now a hole of at least forty feet deep. Whatever hollow was beneath that was filled to capacity.
The men were summarily stunned as they stood along the edge looking downward. The hole was massive.
“A little Semtex goes a long way,” said Nehemiah.
“Apparently,” replied Job.
Leviticus checked his watch. The chopper was minutes out. “Gear up, fellas. Time to bug out.”
They went to grab their gear.
#
Within the dark niches of the temple of Edin, the Megalania Priscas who had gorged themselves into a state of digestive inertia, or those finding refuge from the alpha predator, became agitated as the temple walls shook. This wasn’t like before during marginal shifts, but more catastrophic.
Numerous cracks raced across the walls and the ceiling of the black silica, the crushing pressure of a concussive explosive so powerful that it killed the majority of the lizards instantly. Others died when the walls and ceiling collapsed, the entire area imploding inward and downward, the creatures incapable of finding any kind of refuge.
When it was over and done with, the temple was destroyed along with the creatures that had been indigenous to the area for tens of thousands of years.
Eden was gone.
#
The alpha predator swung its raptor-like claw at Savage’s feet and missed, the point of its talon scoring the rock below him with a deep groove.
Alyssa gave all she had to move as quickly as she could but her Herculean effort wasn’t enough as she fell short, the Prisca quickly closing the gap.
Savage swung the blade of his KA-BAR, the point striking and dragging across the snout of the lizard, making a score of his own. The Megalania Prisca roared and shook its wide frill in agitation. It swung its talon once again, and once again scored the stone.
The opening was fifteen feet away. The sun had almost set.
And then a series of muffled pops sounded off in the distance.