The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [151]
The screaming stopped, replaced by several wet thumps. A crimson splatter encircled the spinning roller. The udghatima continued to rumble onwards until it struck the statue, the pounding iron bars tearing away chunks of stone.
One of the bull’s great horns broke off and fell, demolishing part of the frieze. Nina saw the dancing light from one of the oil channels through the mangled hole in the carvings.
Jagged wood clawing at her coat, she squeezed through the gap. Behind her, Mahajan snarled and ran after her, tearing at the broken frieze with his hands to widen the opening.
Clutching the sword, Kit heard someone approaching. The light from a nearby brazier cast a glow through the ornate gondola’s entrance: a shadow flicked past. The footsteps moved away . . .
Then slowed. Stopped.
Returned.
The shadow reappeared. Kit held his breath, forcing himself upright on his good leg. The mercenary’s curiosity had been piqued - the little parody of a palace would make a good hiding place.
An MP5K poked through the opening. The compact weapon had a second grip beneath its muzzle, the merc’s black-gloved left hand holding it tightly. The gun swept the interior, the mercenary about to step inside to complete the search—
Kit stabbed the sword into the back of his hand.
The blade’s tip ripped through skin and muscle between the bones. The merc yelled - as Kit twisted it through ninety degrees. The sword forced the bones apart with a crack before popping free in a spurt of blood. The mercenary’s howl became an agonised screech.
But he was far from immobilised, lunging into the gondola with the MP5K still held in his other hand. Kit swung the sword again in a desperate attempt to swat it away before he fired.
Ancient and modern weapons collided as the mercenary pulled the trigger. The first bullet scorched a line across Kit’s chest, the rest of the burst of fire punching holes in the walls before the final flash of muzzle flame ignited the wood and oil-soaked cloth in the central brazier.
Kit lunged at him. The gun flew across the gondola as both men crashed into a corner. The mercenary snatched out his combat knife, drawing back his arm to plunge it into Kit’s chest—
Kit struck first. The sword pierced the merc’s body armour and sank deep into his stomach. With a gurgling wail, he staggered and fell . . .
On top of Kit, knocking him down. The explosion of agony through the nerves of the Indian’s wounded leg was so great that he almost passed out.
The fire in the brazier flared as little packets of gunpowder amongst the kindling ignited, angry flames surging. Hot air swirled into the open mouth of the balloon, the fabric rustling . . .
Eddie threw himself between two large metal statues of Hindu gods, bullets clanging behind him. He had taken a wrong turn, finding himself in a dead end amongst the war machines and ancient treasures; it only took a few seconds to double back, but that was all the time his three pursuers needed to catch sight of him. Now they were homing in as relentlessly as foxhounds.
He burst out from the far end of the confined space, hopping over the faint licks of flame in an oil channel. A brazier was aflame to one side, the warm light revealing another udghatima - and beyond it a siege machine, a twin of one nearer the entrance, that could be the answer to his prayers.
If he could reach it. And if it still worked.
He sprinted for the wooden grid. Behind, the men charged through the narrow passage.
He passed the brazier, the huge stone roller . . .
A shout of ‘There!’ behind him—
Eddie dived, slithering across the stone floor as an MP5K crackled - and yanking a lever on the machine.
It was a sara-yantra - an arrow-firer.
A rapid-fire series of thwacks rippled through the framework as the firing mechanisms for a hundred arrows were triggered. The missiles hissed down the aisle, a horizontal