Return to Dark Earth (25 page)

Nera leaned against the tree trunk. “Nor are
you.”

Nik bit back a grin. “Nera thinks we can
travel along the branches in the canopy. It’d be faster. We could
avoid the undergrowth.”

Avril looked skeptical. “I don’t know…”

Galen strode over, his face covered in a
sheen of perspiration. “This isn’t working.”

The astro-archeologist rubbed her forehead.
“Darc thinks we can travel through the canopy. Along the
branches.”

Galen looked up. “I’ll give anything a shot
right now. I have two injured agents and we haven’t gone ten
meters.”

“Fine.” Avril looked up at Darc. “How did
you get up there?”

“I climbed,” came the dry response.

Nik slid his machete into the sheath on his
belt. Then he eyed the handholds Nera had cut into the trunk. He
set his boot in one and gripped another. Slowly, he started his way
up.

Soon, he reached her, and pulled himself
onto a branch twice as thick as he was. There was a flutter of
wings and he spotted a brief flash of color through the black
foliage. “Pretty incredible.” He walked along the thick branch to
Nera. “These do look like they get a lot of use.” A wear pattern
was worn into the wood.

“I didn’t mention it to the others, but
whatever lives and travels up here…it’s big and possibly
nasty.”

Nik sighed. “Of course it is. How do you
know?”

She motioned him around the massive trunk.
He carefully stepped onto another branch and looked where she
pointed. Slash marks were carved into the tree trunk. They had to
have come from very large, very sharp claws.

They were fresh.

“Well, let’s hope they don’t like the sound
of Avril’s voice.”

Nera snorted. “Whatever it is, it can’t be
much worse than acidic plant-life and zombies.”

“Right.” But even he heard the doubt in his
voice. “Don’t jinx us.”

Soon the team were all standing on the
branches, finding their balance.

“Trust your boots,” Galen called out. “They
have built-in stabilizers. They’ll help you balance.”

The team started off. It soon became
apparent that Solomon had very good balance. He was grinning and
running along branches and leaping onto adjacent ones.

Nik shook his head. Oh, to feel young and
invincible again. He frowned. Actually, he wasn’t sure he’d ever
felt young and invincible. His father and their dangerous homeworld
had made sure of that. He watched Nera leaping carefully but
gracefully between branches. He now knew Nera had never been as
carefree as Solomon.

But Nik had decided he was going to make it
his mission in life to see she had more fun in her life. To make
her smile, to ensure he saw pleasure flushing her face every
day.

Nik’s boot slipped. He grabbed for the
branches and caught himself.

“Daydreaming, Phoenix?”

Nera was watching him, one hand resting on
her grappler.

“Fantasizing.”

Her lips quirked. “I suggest you focus on
where you’re putting your feet or none of those fantasies will
become reality.” She turned and looked back over her shoulder. “And
I have a few of my own I plan to bring to life when we get back to
the ship.”

He slipped again and grabbed the nearest
branch. “Nera.”

She laughed. A light, if slightly rusty
sound, and turned, running along a branch.

With a smile, Nik followed her.

Soon, Avril was calling out that they should
be nearing the cave entrance. They all climbed down to the jungle
floor. Mud squelched under Nik’s boots. It was wetter here, the
ground fragrant with rotting vegetation. He studied the area, but
all he could see were vines and plants. There were a few large
rocks here and there, so it made sense they were getting close to
the cave. He studied one vine-covered rock a bit harder. He
stiffened. Was that what he thought it was?

“Nera.” He waved her over. As he neared the
rock, he realized he was right. “This is a statue.”

She drew her machete and set to work,
helping him cut the vines away.

“Keep away from the green vines,” he warned.
“We don’t want poison everywhere.”

She nodded and kept hacking. It didn’t take
them long to uncover the statue.

Nik stepped back. “Magnificent.”

It was a carving of a warrior. The man was
wearing an elaborate headdress and holding what looked like a bow
and arrow.

“Incan?” Avril demanded.

Nik shook his head. “It has some
resemblance, but no, this is something different. I’d say the
craftsmanship is less detailed, almost like it’s older,
less-developed.”

“Pre-Incan,” Avril said, excitedly.

“No. This is far newer. The vines have grown
on it, and it’s showing some wear. But it’s not worn enough. I’d
say this is fairly recent.”

Everyone in their group stirred.

“You think the zombies did this?” Avril’s
voice was incredulous.

Gunn snorted. “That’s a stretch.”

“No,” Nik answered. “I don’t think they have
the dexterity to do something like this.”

Everyone glanced around, suddenly eyeing the
trees warily.

“Well, whoever made it, I think it must be a
sign we’re headed in the right direction.” Avril glanced at her
Sync, then pointed. “Just twenty meters that way and we should see
the cave entrance.”

Galen redirected his team, and Nik and Nera
joined in, hacking away. Suddenly, with no warning, a sheer wall of
rock appeared. There were excited shouts and then Nik spotted
it.

“Look.” He pointed with his machete.

The cave entrance wasn’t large, and it was
mostly obscured with vines, but it was definitely a cave.

Avril quivered with excitement. “That’s it.
Get the vines cleared away.”

Another few minutes of hacking, and they
stood at the entrance. Inside was filled with impenetrable
darkness.

“Ion lights,” Galen called out.

The bright lights were flicked on.

Nik and Nera followed the security agents
in. At first, there was still vegetation, but that soon gave way to
a simple rock tunnel. Nik brushed at cobwebs hanging from the
roof.

“Niklas.”

Nera’s voice had him looking at her. She
nodded at the walls. He shone his light on them, and his breath
caught.

They were incredibly faint, worn away by
time, but there were images etched into the walls. He dusted one
with his gloved hand. “Oh, my God, these…these are definitely
Inca.” Damn, maybe they were on the right track to discover the
Lost Inca Gold.

Shouts from ahead reached them. Nik and Nera
hurried on. The tunnel widened out into a sizable cavern, not huge,
but there was room enough for all the team members.

Solomon kicked at something on the ground.
“This is not treasure.”

The cavern was empty. There was no glint of
gold. No rows of fabulous artifacts. Nik shook his head. Treasure
hunting took time and effort. Expecting to find something
incredibly valuable the first time you tried to achieve it was a
surefire path to disappointment.

But he also knew it paid to look beneath the
surface.

He circled the cavern. Avril’s shoulders
were slumped and she was studying her Sync again, muttering to
herself.

On closer inspection, the cavern wasn’t
entirely devoid of items. It was filled with bones.

He crouched and studied the yellowed
remains. Some were very old. He touched a nearby pile. And some
were fresher, with rotting flesh and tendons still stuck to the
bone.

“Something lives in here,” Nera murmured.
She was standing with her hand on her laser pistol at her hip.

He agreed. And he was pretty sure they
didn’t want to be here when whatever it was returned. He spied a
skeleton sitting up against the cave wall. It still had the
tattered remnants of clothing hanging off it. As Nik got closer, he
realized the skeleton’s legs were missing. He winced. Whatever had
dragged the man in here, it had eaten his legs and left the rest of
him intact. Gruesome way to go. Alive as something ate your legs.
Then Nik spotted something else. His pulse tripped. There was an
old leather satchel beside the skeleton’s remains.

He crouched and opened the bag. He pulled
out a very old-fashioned, leather-bound journal. He opened it.

He stared in disbelief at the sketches and
notations. “Oh, my God.”

“Oh, my God is right,” Nera agreed.

“What did you find?” Avril and the others
crowded around him.

Nik stared at the name on the page. “This
was George Edwin Chapman. He was Blake’s partner, the one who never
returned from the mountains.”

“Guess we know why,” Solomon said.

“This journal is filled with sketches of the
treasure.” Nik touched the fragile pages. “They found it. He talks
about the gold. We need to get this preserved before the pages
deteriorate.” He gently flipped through to the last few entries.
“Jesus.”

“What?” Avril asked.

Nik looked up and caught Nera’s gaze. “He
said he found the treasure in a cavern near here, but then was
attacked by a giant beast. It dragged him to its lair and…” Nik
shook his head. “The diary entry ends there.”

“The treasure’s close by, we need—”

A low howl echoed down the tunnel and into
the cavern.

All the security team spun, pulling their
weapons.

“Whatever killed Chapman can’t still be
alive,” Avril said.

“Perhaps.” Nik stood, tucking the journal
into his backpack. “But its descendants could be.”

“Its mutated descendants,” Nera added.

“Let’s get out of here.” Galen waved them
out of the cavern.

Nik hurried down the tunnel. As soon as they
stepped out of the cave and back into the jungle, Nik knew
something was wrong.

Nera drew her sword and was scanning the
jungle, tension radiating off her body.

“What is it?” he asked.

“No animal noises. No insects. No
birds.”

It clicked. There was an unnatural silence
around them.

“We need to go,” he urged Avril and the
others.

The astro-archeologist nodded. “All right,
let’s—”

Howls echoed through the trees.

“Zombies?” Solomon said, clutching his laser
pistol.

Nera shook her head. “No, animals. Headed
this way.” She glanced at the group. “Run.”

They took off, stumbling over vines, leaping
rotting logs. They stayed close to the cliff face, where the
vegetation was thinner and it was easier to run.

“Should we climb again?” Niklas shouted at
Nera.

She leapt a log, her arms pumping as she
ran. She shook her head. “Not until we know if what we’re dealing
with can climb.”

Damn, she was right. If it was some sort of
cat, they could live in the damn trees.

Behind them, someone screamed.

Nik spun, and Nera did the same. They both
sucked in sharp breaths.

A pack of mutated…cats—or they could be
dogs—raced out of the forest. They were smaller, faster and more
agile than the giant cats they’d faced before. The pack pounced on
a fallen security team agent. They tore into the woman viciously,
lifting bloody muzzles, their gazes fixated on the rest of the
team.

“Run!” Nera yelled. “As fast as you
can.”

The team was firing at the animals. Nera’s
pistol whined and Nik fired his own over his shoulder as he ran.
“Hurry!”

The pack had abandoned their downed prey and
was loping after the rest of them. Nik thought they moved like
cats, with an elegant kind of grace, but they were hunting like a
pack of dogs. And they just looked like beasts from hell. Tough
leathery skin, misshapen bodies and wide, teeth-filled jaws.

Nik pushed for more speed. If they could get
back to the ship…

The ground disappeared beneath Nik.

He plummeted down a steep slope, and a
second later, Nera tumbled into him. They slammed into the muddy
ground, the air rushing out of Nik’s lungs. Damn, it was a hard
landing. Nera’s legs were tangled with his. She sat up, looking a
bit dazed. A second later, Galen fell in after them. Nik looked
around.

They were in a deep, steep-sided hole.

A clearly man-made hole.

Nik pinched the bridge of his nose. Damn. It
was some kind of trap.

Outside, he heard the shouts of the others,
and realized they’d fallen into similar traps.

A long, drawn-out whistle sounded.

The creatures appeared above, sniffing the
edge. They looked less crazed now, tongues lolling.

“They herded us into the traps,” Nera
said.

Nik gave a short nod. “I think so.”

“What?” Galen said. “Who?”

Another sharp whistle and the beasts
retreated.

What now? Nik stared upward.

A face appeared at the rim, peering over at
them.

A man. His head was devoid of hair but
covered in dark tattoos. He wore some sort of leather top, and more
primal tattoos twined around his muscled arms. He studied them for
a moment, then looked back over his shoulder. He called out
something in a language Nik’s high-tech lingual implant didn’t
recognize.

The man pulled back and disappeared.

“Well, I think it’s safe to say we’re well
and truly fucked,” Galen said.

Nik kicked at the ground. “Yeah, you could
say that.”

Nera marched along behind Niklas. Her hands
were bound in front of her, and while it was some natural vine that
she’d been tied with, she’d tested it, and it was damned strong.
She wasn’t slipping free any time soon.

They were all bound together in a long line,
their captors keeping guard, their tattooed faces grim.

The warriors had a primitive look, with
their animal-hide clothes and black tattoos. They carried spears
and large, machete-like knives carved from shiny black rock. Nera
also noted how they all moved with a precision that screamed
intensive training, and they gripped their weapons in a manner that
promised her they knew how to use them. On top of that, the spears
were tipped with a green-black substance she guessed was the
corrosive poison they’d encountered before.