Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [13]
The crocs went nuts, scrambling over each other to get away from it—disappearing into some little holes in the walls or massing on the far side of the lake.
In some places on the great tiered rockface, oil came spurting out of the wall, forced out of small openings by enormous internal pressure.
Worst of all, a river of the thick black stuff came pouring down the main course of the Scar, a vertical cascade that tumbled down the vertical riverbed, overwhelming the trickle of water that had been running down it.
And then the clicking started.
The clicking of many stone-striking mechanisms mounted above the wall-holes.
Striking mechanisms made of flint.
Striking mechanisms that were designed to create sparks and . . .
Just then, a spark from one of the flints high up on the left sidewall touched the crude oil flowing out from the wall-hole an inch beneath it.
The result was stunning.
The superthin waterfall of oil became a superthin waterfall of fire . . .
. . . then this flaming waterfall hit the oil-stained lake at the base of the cavern and set it alight.
The lake blazed with flames.
The entire cavern was illuminated bright yellow.
The crocs screamed, clawing over each other to get to safety.
Then more oilfalls caught alight—some on the sidewalls, others on the rockface, and finally, the great sludge waterfall coming down the Scar—until the entire Great Cavern looked like Hell itself, lit by a multitude of blazing waterfalls.
Thick black smoke billowed everywhere—smoke which had no escape.
This was Imhotep’s final masterstroke.
If the fire and the traps didn’t kill you, smoke inhalation would, especially in the highly prized upper regions of the cavern.
‘Fools!’ del Piero raged. Then to his men: ‘What are you standing there for! Finish the crane! You have until they get back to the Second Level to do so!’
West’s team was now moving faster than ever, leapfrogging each other beautifully amid the subterranean inferno.
Up the rockface they went, first to the left along the Second Level, crossing the left arm of the Scar before the thick fire-waterfall got there, dodging wall-holes, jumping gaps in the ledge, nullifying the traps inside the arched forts that straddled the narrow walkway.
Droplets of fire were now raining down all around them—spray from the oilfalls—but the fiery orange drops just hit their firemen’s helmets and rolled off their backs.
Then suddenly West’s team ran past the unfinished arm of the Europeans’ crane and, for the first time that day, they were in front.
In the lead in this race.
Up the wall-ladder at the end of Level 2, on to Level 3, where they ran to the right, avoiding some chute traps on the way and coming to the fiery body of the Scar. Here West fired an extendable aluminium awning into the Scar’s flame-covered surface with his pressure-gun.
The awning opened lengthways like a fan, causing the fire-waterfall to flow over it, sheltering the mini-ledge. The team bolted across the superthin ledge.
Then it was up another ladder to the Fourth Level—the second-highest level—and suddenly six 10-ton block boulders started raining down on them from way up in the darkness above the giant rockface.
The great blocks boomed as they landed on the diorite ledge of Level 4 and tumbled down the rest of the massive tiered wall.
‘Get off the ladder!’ West yelled to the others. ‘You can’t dodge the boulders if you’re on it—’
Too late.
As West called his warning, a boulder smacked horribly into the last man on the ladder, Fuzzy. The big Jamaican was hurled back down the rockface.
He landed heavily on the Third Level—setting off a trap of spraying flaming oil (it looked like a flamethrower) but he snap-rolled away from the tongue of fire—in the same motion avoiding a second boulder as it slammed down on the ledge an inch away from his eyes!
His roll took him off the ledge, but Fuzzy managed to clasp onto the edge with his fingertips, avoiding the 30-foot drop down to Level 2.
The final wall-ladder was