Quest

Chapter 22

Dane stopped and dropped to one knee as dark figures appeared from the cover of the surrounding trees, stalking toward them. They were natives, armed with axes, spears, clubs, and wooden sword-like weapons with teeth, probably those of a caiman, set in either edge like the Aztec macuahitl. Oddly, they didn’t charge Dane and his party, nor did they halt, but stalked toward them, weapons at the ready.

“Stop! Don’t come any closer!” Dane shouted, hoping they would get the gist of his words, despite the language barrier. No luck.

He fired off a warning shot with his M-16 just over the head of the foremost warrior, held up his hand with his palm toward them, and again shouted for them to stop. It didn’t do any good.

They charged.

Gunfire opened up on all sides, shredding the line of attacking natives. Some stumbled, some reeled or staggered backward.

But they did not go down.

Bloodied and torn, the warriors kept coming. Some stumbled forward, slowed by their wounds, but none of them stopped.

Willis, pumping and firing his Mossberg at a steady rate, blew the legs out from under an attacker. The man tumbled to the ground, shook his head, and began crawling forward. Willis fired another shot, taking the man in the top of the head, and he lay still.

“No body shots!” Dane ordered. “Legs or head!”

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Bones shouted, taking aim with his M-16 and hitting an attacker with a clean head shot. Matt opened up with his MP 5 submachine gun, spraying a thigh-high stream of lead across the line of attackers. The withering gunfire was taking its toll, sending the attackers to the ground, but more were appearing, drawn by the sounds of gunfire.

Dane emptied his M-16, drew his Walther, and opened up on the attackers. “Everybody retreat back to the tunnel entrance!” Dane ordered.

“No can do, boss man.” Bones spoke as calmly as if he were discussing the weather. “They’re behind us.”

Dane glanced back to see an even larger group of warriors stalking toward them. They wouldn’t be getting through that way any time soon.

“Scatter and meet up at the waterfall!” he called. “Kaylin, follow me!”

He dashed to their left, where only a few warriors stood in their way. Two shots with his Walther put bullets through two skulls. He trained his weapon on the next warrior who impeded his path, and was about to pull the trigger when Kaylin screamed.

His shot caught the attacker in the shoulder, and he turned to see Kaylin use her shotgun to deflect a spear thrust by a warrior who had just emerged from behind a tree. He had time to fire off a hasty shot that caught Kaylin’s attacker in the chest before the warrior whom he’d shot in the shoulder was on him.

Dane ducked beneath the vicious stroke of the primitive sword, and fired off two rounds into the man’s chest, emptying his clip. The warrior staggered backward, but before Dane could finish the job, another attacker charged in, from behind. Still holding his M-16 in his left hand, Dane deflected the downstroke of the man’s club, but the rifle was battered from his hand. He lashed out with his right foot, sweeping the stumbling warrior’s legs out from under him, and delivered a kick to the temple. The warrior groaned and slumped to the ground.

He heard someone coming at him from behind. Dropping his empty Walther, he snatched up the warrior’s club, drew his Recon knife, and turned to face the second attacker, who was charging back in despite gouts of blood pouring from twin holes in his chest. They didn’t seem to feel pain, but surely loss of blood would take its toll. The problem was, before that happened, the man just might live long enough to finish Dane off.

The warrior, snarling through gritted teeth, swung his weapon in a deadly arc with much more speed and precision than Dane would have expected from someone who had taken two bullets to the chest. Dane dodged the stroke and lashed out with his knife, opening a cut on the man’s arm. It might as well have been a mosquito bite for all the difference it made. The tooth-lined sword came around in a vicious backhand stroke. Dane deflected it with the club and stabbed twice for the heart in rapid succession. The warrior staggered backward, clearly on his last legs. He raised his weapon, his arms quaking, but before he could bring it down, Dane leapt in, opened his throat with the Recon knife, and shoved him backward, where he landed atop his stunned tribesman, who was just beginning to rise.

Dane retrieved and reloaded his Walther, then finished each man with a head shot. His life no longer in immediate danger, he looked around for Kaylin. Her shotgun lay abandoned on the ground, but she was gone.

Kaylin fled from the natives with reckless abandon. She didn’t know which way she was headed, and she didn’t care. All that concerned her right now was getting away from the silent attackers who, despite their usual measured paces, could move quite fast when they wanted to.

She leapt across a fallen log and landed awkwardly. Her ankle rolled over and she went down in a heap, pain shooting up her leg. Something moved behind her, and she reached for her .380, but she was too slow. A sharp blow to the head sent flares of pain through her skull and stars swirled across her field of vision.

Strong hands hauled her to her feet, and she felt someone relieve her of her pistol and knife. She stamped down on the man’s foot, eliciting a grunt of surprise, and spun, throwing out an elbow, but she struck only air. Her injured ankle twisted beneath her as she spun, throwing her off-balance, and a blow to her stomach sent the breath shooting out of her in a rush. Before she could recover, her assailant had her by the hair, raising her head. She felt the cold pressure of steel against her throat, and she froze.

“What have we here?” A tall, blocky man with a scarred cheek, outfitted in jungle camouflage stepped in front of her. He had the bearing of a military man, his every move suggesting scarcely-contained danger. “You would be Kaylin Maxwell, Thomas Thornton’s special friend.”

She finally regained her breath, gasping and coughing, still very much mindful of the blade pressed against her throat by unseen hands. “Who are you?” she croaked.

“I represent the company who paid Doctor Thornton a lot of money to do a job. He didn’t live up to his end of the bargain, and I’m here to find out why.”

“He’s lost out here in the jungle is why, you idiot!” She didn’t know where the words came from, because she was more frightened than she had ever been in her entire life. Perhaps she had just enough of her father in her to give her a measure of courage.

The man slapped her, just hard enough to sting. The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. She spat at him but he sidestepped, and slapped her again, this time on her ear. A loud pop like a bursting balloon made her ears ring.

“No more playing around. I want answers.” He drew his knife and moved in close.

“I won’t tell you anything. You’re just going to kill me anyway.”

“Oh yes. But if you tell me what I need to know, we won’t make it hurt.” He touched the tip of his knife to the corner of her eye. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to turn her head, but he pressed the blade harder against her flesh. “Open your eyes or I’ll cut your eyelids off.” He didn’t sound the least bit annoyed with her, and that’s what convinced her he would do what he threatened. She opened her eyes to meet his cold, impassionate gaze. “Good. Now, tell me how you found this place. Did you follow us?”

“Yes. We tracked you.” It was technically true, though not the whole truth.

“How about the river? You can’t track us on water.”

Kaylin couldn’t think of what to say next. Her lips moved, but no sound would come.

“Tell me, or I take out your right eye.” The man brandished his knife.

“Fawcett’s map,” she gasped. “We followed it until we found your tracks.”

“You’re lying. We have Fawcett’s map. You couldn’t have followed it.” He grasped her right eyelid and yanked it up. She couldn’t pull her head away, no matter how she tried. The tip of his knife touched her eyeball and she broke. A swift death might have been one thing, but torture was something she wasn’t prepared to endure.”

“Okay! Okay! We also found the book.”

“The book.” The man sounded like something important was falling into place. He didn’t take the blade away from her eye, though. “Tell me everything and tell me fast, and you keep your eye.”

Tears poured down Kaylin’s face as she hastily told the man about Fawcett’s other map, and about the copy of The Lost World that one of his descendants had preserved. She was ashamed of her weakness, her moment of bravery evaporated in the face of mortal fear. She should have held on to that fighting spirit, but she couldn’t. This wasn’t like books or movies — the terror was real, the knife was real, and the possibility, no, the probability of her death was real, too. As much as she wanted to hold back information, she was too afraid.

“After you get past the last landmark,” she gasped, “which we don’t have…”

“We already have it,” the man snapped. “Go on.”

Tears trickled down her face. She tried to summon the courage to resist, but the razor sharp knife hovering inches from her eye made that impossible.

“You have to follow the path of five steps…”