Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [8]
As he did so, West keyed his radio: ‘Noddy, report.’
‘The Americans aren’t here yet, Huntsman,’ Noddy’s voice replied, ‘but they’re closing fast. Satellite image puts their advance choppers 50 klicks out. Hurry.’
‘Doing the best we can,’ West said.
Wizard interrupted: ‘Don’t forget to tell Noddy that we’ll be out of radio contact for the time the Warblers are initiated.’
‘You hear that?’
‘I heard. Noddy, out.’
Fuzzy’s rangefinder beeped. ‘I got empty space for . . .150 metres.’
West grimaced. ‘Why do I get the feeling it isn’t empty at all.’
He was right.
The ascending slipway featured several traps: blasting waterfall-shafts and some ankle-breaking trap-holes.
But the Eight just kept running, avoiding the traps, until halfway up the inclined tunnel they came to the Second Gate.
The Second Gate was simple: a ten-foot-deep diorite pit that just fell away in front of them, with the ascending slipway continuing beyond it five yards away.
The lower reaches of the pit, however, had no side walls: it just had two wide yawning 8-foot-high passageways that hit the pit at right angles to the slipway. And who knew what came out of them . . .
‘Diorite pit,’ West said. ‘Nothing cuts diorite except an even harder stone called diolite. Can’t use a pick-axe to get yourself out.’
‘Be careful,’ Wizard said. ‘The Callimachus Text says this Gate is connected to the next one. By crossing this one, we trigger the Third Gate’s trap-mechanism. We’re going to have to move fast.’
‘That’s okay,’ West said. ‘We’re really quite good at that.’
They ended up crossing the pit by drilling steel rock-screws into the stone ceiling with pneumatic pressure-guns. Each rock-screw had a handgrip on it.
But as West landed on the ledge on the other side of the pit, he discovered that the first step on that side was one large trigger stone. As soon as he touched it, the wide step immediately sunk a few inches into the floor—
—and boom! Suddenly the ground shook and everyone spun. Something large had dropped into the darkened tunnel up ahead of them. Then an ominous rumbling sound came from somewhere up there.
‘Shit! The next Gate!’ West called.
‘Swear jar . . .’ Lily said.
‘Later,’ West said. ‘Now we run! Big Ears, grab her and follow me!’
The Third Gate
Up the steep slipway they ran, keeping to the stairs inside the rails.
The ominous rumbling continued to echo out from the darkness above them.
They kept running, straining up the slope, pausing only once to cross a five-foot-long spiked pit that blocked their way. But strangely, the stone railway tracks of the slipway still flanked this pit, so they all crossed it rather easily by taking a light dancing step on one of the side rails.
As he ran, West fired a flare into the darkness ahead of them—
—and thus revealed their menace.
‘It’s a sliding stone!’ Wizard called. ‘Guarding the Third Gate!’
A giant square-shaped block of granite—its shape filling the slipway perfectly and its leading face covered in vicious spikes—was sliding down the slipway, coming directly towards them!
Its method of death was clear: if it didn’t push you into the spiked pit, it would slide over that pit on the stone runners and push you into the lower diorite pit . . .where it would fall in after you, crushing you, before whatever came out of the side passages made its big entrance.
Jesus.
Halfway between the sliding stone and the Eight, sunken into the angled floor of the slipway, was a doorway that opened onto a horizontal passage.
The Third and last Gate.
The Eight bolted up the slope.
The block gained speed—heading down the slope, propelled only by gravity and its immense bulk.
It was a race to the Gate.
West and Big Ears and the girl came to the doorway cut into the sloping floor, ducked inside it.
Wizard came next, followed by Fuzzy and Princess Zoe.
The sliding granite block slid across the top of the doorway just as the last two members of the team were approaching it.
‘Stretch! Pooh! Hurry!’ West called.
The first man—a tall thin fellow known as Stretch—dived, slithering in under the