The Sword of Fire

CHAPTER THIRTY

“No!” Lea screamed.

Devlin was closest to the professor and leaped into the line of fire but it was too late; he crashed into the ground beside the now dead Henk Kloos.

“You bastard, Kruger!” Lea yelled. “He was innocent.”

Hawke saw Zito rub his jaw and cast an anxious glance at Bruno and his other men. The look on his face said: this guy’s unpredictable and Bruno seemed to share the opinion.

“Innocent!” Kruger scoffed.

Devlin clambered to his knees and checked Kloos’s pulse. He turned to the others and shook his head and then got to his feet. He dusted himself off and looked Kruger in the eye. “Where I come from, shooting an unarmed man makes you a proper fucking coward.”

“He was completely dispensable,” Kruger said. “As will you be when you get the lid off this tomb.” He swung the gun up. “Get moving you vermin.”

Hawke rolled up his sleeves and grabbed the edge of the slate lid. The others joined him while Kruger, Zito and the gunmen kept a safe distance away from the action.

At first there was no movement, but then they all felt something click and the slate began to move. Hawke improved his grip on the heavy lid and pushed harder. He thought for a moment he had caught a glimpse of some kind of blue glowing light emanating from the inside of the sarcophagus. Its strange, unique glow reminded him of something, but he couldn’t remember what it was…

Atlantis.

It reminded him of Atlantis — specifically the buzzing, neon color the sunken city had glowed when it had started to rupture and the entire underwater metropolis had exploded in a giant fireball.

He tipped his head and peered beneath the slate cap. It was halfway open now, and he saw that he’d imagined nothing — something inside the sarcophagus was definitely glowing the same soft, fuzzy lambent blue he had witnessed on the terrible day of the Seastead battle. He realized that the alluring light wasn't the only thing linking that day to this — Dirk Kruger was another common factor.

“Stop dawdling, you lazy bastards,” Kruger yelled. “And hurry the fuck up.” The South African slid the bolt back on his rifle to underline the seriousness of his mood.

With one final push, the team managed to heave the lid off the top of the sarcophagus. It crashed to the stone floor and broke in two, producing a large cloud of dust in the air around the stone coffin. When it cleared they all moved a step closer and peered into the light and what they saw amazed them all.

They were looking at a stone carving of a corpse.

The stonemason’s work was intricate. It was holding its hands together over its chest as if in prayer, and at its side was a yellowed, ragged cloth stretching from its waist down to its boots.

“What the hell is it?”

“It’s a gisant,” Ryan said.

Hawke shot him a glance. “Eh?”

“A cadaver tomb, or a memento mori tomb,” he said. “We call them effigy tombs. What we’re looking at here is a depiction of Arthur’s rotting corpse. It means the real thing is underneath, almost certainly.”

“Who gives a damn about his corpse?” Kruger said. He took a step back and raised his rifle. When the stock was neatly in his shoulder he pointed the barrel in Ryan’s face. “Open up that cloth. I want to see the glow more clearly.”

Kruger and his men took a cautious step back. They were clearly expecting another booby trap, but when Ryan carefully opened the cloth they knew at once it was no trap. As he pulled it open, the dark, neon glow covered his hands and forearms, and then the young man’s face was the same ghostly hue.

There, at Arthur’s side was a long, wide blade, and its gentle blue glow almost seemed to hum and buzz in the dark chamber.

They were looking at the Sword of Fire.