The Bones Of Odin (Matt Drake 1) (8 page)

“And I guess you’re used to this crap?” Kennedy waved an arm. “Being SAS and all?”

Not SAS,
Drake couldn’t shake the poisoned words. “Used to be.” He said, and walked ahead more quickly now.

Another abrupt turn and Drake felt a breeze on his face. A sense of vertigo hit him like an unexpected clap of thunder, and it was a second before he realised he was standing on a ledge, a cavernous drop below him.

An unbelievable sight greeted his eyes.

He stopped so suddenly that both Kennedy and Ben walked into him. Then, they too, beheld the sight.

“OMFG.” Ben spelled out the title of the Wall of Sleep’s signature track.

The World Tree stood before them in all its glory. It never
had
been above ground. The tree was inverted, its solid roots delved into the mountain of earth above them, held fast by age and surrounding rock formations, its branches golden brown, its leaves a perennial green, its trunk stretching a hundred feet down into the depths of a gargantuan pit.

Their path became a narrow staircase, cut into the rock walls.

“Traps,” Ben breathed. “Don’t forget the traps.”

“Screw the traps,” Kennedy voiced Drake’s very thought. “Where’s Goddamn
light
coming from?”

Ben looked from side to side. “It’s
orange.”

“Glow sticks,” Drake said. “Christ. This place has been prepped.”

In his SAS days they would send men in to prepare an area such as this; a team to assess the danger and neutralize or catalogue it before returning to base.

“We don’t have long,” he said. His faith in Kennedy had just risen. “Come on.”

They descended worn and crumbling steps, the sudden drop always to their right. Ten feet down, and the staircase started to slope sharply. Drake stopped as a three foot gap opened up. Nothing spectacular, but enough to give him pause - because the yawning drop below became all the more apparent.

“Shit.”

He jumped. The rock staircase was about three foot wide, easy at play, terrifying when any misstep meant certain death.

He landed true and turned immediately, sensing Ben would be on the verge of tears. “Don’t worry,” he ignored Kennedy and concentrated on his friend. “Trust me, Ben.
Ben.
I will catch you.”

He saw the faith in Ben’s eyes. The absolute, child-like trust. It was time to earn it again, and when Ben jumped, then tottered, Drake steadied him with a hand on the elbow.

Drake winked. “Easy, eh?”

Kennedy jumped. Drake watched closely whilst pretending not to. She landed with no problem, saw his concern and frowned.

“It’s three feet, Drake. Not the Grand Canyon.”

Drake winked at Ben. “Ready, mate?”

Twenty feet more and the next gap in the staircase was wider - this time thirty feet, and spanned by a thick wooden plank that rocked as Drake walked it. Kennedy followed, and then poor Ben, compelled by Drake to keep his eyes up, to look ahead and not down, to study his destination and not his feet. The young man was shaking by the time he reached solid ground, and Drake demanded a brief break.

As they paused, Drake saw that the World Tree had spread so wide here that its thick limbs almost touched the staircase. Ben reached out reverently to stroke a limb that shivered at his touch.

“This is . . . this is mind-boggling,” he breathed.

Kennedy used the time to retie her hair and study the entrance above them. “So far, all clear.” she said. “I gotta say, on current form it sure as hell ain’t the Germans who prepped this place. They woulda ransacked it and burned it to the ground with flame-throwers.”

A few more gaps and they had descended fifty feet, almost halfway. Drake finally allowed himself to think that the old Vikings weren’t the equal of the Egyptians after all, and gaps were the best they could do, when he stepped on a rock stair that was in fact a cleverly fashioned section of hemp and twine and pigment. He fell, saw the endless drop, and caught himself by the fingertips.

Kennedy hauled him up. “Ass swaying in the breeze, SAS man?”

He scrambled back on to solid ground and flexed his bruised fingers. “Thanks.”

They proceeded more carefully, now more than halfway down. Beyond the empty expanse to their right the massive tree stood in perpetuity, untouched by breeze and sunlight, a forgotten wonder of olden days.

They passed more and more Viking symbols. Ben guessed the odd one. “It’s like a primordial wall of graffiti,” he said. “People just carving their names and leaving messages - early versions of ‘John was ‘ere!’”

“The cavern’s makers, maybe,” Kennedy said.

Drake tested another step, clinging to the cold rock-wall, and a deep grinding roar echoed across the cavern. A river of rubble fell from above.

“Run!” Drake cried. “Now!”

They pelted down the staircase, heedless of other traps. A gigantic boulder fell from above with a mighty roar, chipping off more ancient stones as it clattered down. Drake covered Ben’s body with his own as the boulder smashed through the staircase where they had stood, taking about twenty feet of precious steps with it.

Kennedy flicked stone chips off her shoulder, and regarded Drake with a dry smile. “Thanks.”

“Hey, I knew the woman who saved the SAS guy’s
ass
could outrun a mere
boulder.
”

“Funny, man. So funny.”

But it wasn’t over yet. There was a sharp
twang
and a thin but solid length of twine snapped across the step that separated Ben and Kennedy.

“Fuuuck!”
Kennedy shouted. The length of twine had shot out with so much force it could easily have separated her ankle from the rest of her body.

Another snap two steps further down. Drake danced in place. “
Shit!”

Another roar from above signified the next falling rock.

“It’s a replicating trap,” Ben told them. “Same thing keeps happening over and over. We need to get below this section.”

Drake couldn’t tell which steps were snared and which ones weren’t, so he trusted to luck and speed. They ran headlong down about thirty steps, trying to stay airborne as much as possible. The sides of the staircase crumbled as they traversed the ancient pathway, scathing away into the depths of the rocky cavern.

The sound of rubble hitting the bottom began to grow louder.

The snapping of hard twine followed their flight.

Drake stepped on another false stair, but his momentum took him over the short void. Kennedy leapt it and him, graceful as a gazelle in full flight, but Ben tumbled in her wake, now rolling into the gap.

“Legs!” Drake shouted, then fell backward across the void, becoming the ground. Relief washed tension from his brain when Kennedy pinned his legs into place. He felt Ben hit his body, then tumble across his chest. Drake guided the kid’s momentum with his arms, then gave him an extra push onto solid ground.

Sat up quick, crunch style.

“Keep going!”

The air was filled with bits of rock. One glanced off Kennedy’s head, leaving a cut and a gush of blood. Another struck Drake’s ankle. The agony made him grit his teeth, and spurred him to run faster.

Bullets raked the wall above their heads. Drake ducked, and took a momentary look up at the entrance.

Saw a familiar force gathered there. The Germans.

They ran at full pace now, beyond reckless. Drake took precious seconds to fall to the rear. When another salvo of bullets pitted the stone next to his head he dived forward, bouncing down the steps, rolling full circle with his arms tucked in, and coming back up to full height without losing an ounce of momentum.

Ah, the good old days were back.

More bullets. Then the others collapsed in front of him. Horror sheared a hole through his heart until he realised they’d simply hit the bottom of the cavern at a dead run and, unprepared, had ran themselves right into the ground.

Drake slowed. The bottom of the cavern was a thick mess of stone and dust and tree-debris. When they rose, Kennedy and Ben were a sight to behold. Not only covered in dirt and mud, but now with extra baked-on dust and leafy mould.

“Ah, for my trusty camera,” he intoned. “Years of blackmail stands before me.”

Drake picked up a glow stick and hugged the curve of the cavern that ran away from the gunmen. It took five minutes to walk the outer limits of the tree. They were constantly overshadowed by its imposing stillness.

Drake clapped Ben on the shoulder. “Better than any Friday night groupie sesh, eh mate?”

Kennedy glanced at the young lad with new eyes. “You have
groupies
? Your band has
groupies
? That’s a conversation we’re gonna have
real
soon, bro. Believe it.”

“Only two - ” Ben began to stammer as they rounded a portion of the final curve, and then clammed up in shock.

They all stopped.

Ancient dreams of amazement stood before them, rendering them speechless, practically brain-dead for about half a minute.

“Now that’s . . . that’s . . .”

“
Gobsmacking, ”
Drake breathed.

A row of the biggest Viking longboats they’d ever imagined stretched away from them, single file, resting end to end, as if stuck in the middle of an archaic traffic jam. Their sides were adorned with silver and gold, their sails festooned with silk and jewels.

“Longboats,” Kennedy said dumbly.

“Long-ships.”
Ben still had wits enough to correct her. “Damn, these things were considered great treasures of their time. There must be . . . what? Twenty here?”

“Pretty awesome,” Drake said. “But it’s the Spear we came for. Any ideas?”

Ben was now staring at the World Tree. “Jesus, guys. Can you imagine? Odin hung in that tree. Fuckin’
Odin.”

“So now you believe in Gods, hmm? Groupie-boy?” Kennedy sidled next to Ben a little saucily, making him blush.

Drake climbed onto a narrow ledge that ran the length of the long-ship tailback. The rock felt sturdy. He gripped a timber edge and leaned over. “These things are filled with loot. Safe to say, no one’s ever been here before today.”

He studied the line of ships again. A display of unimaginable riches, but where was the
real
treasure? At the end? The end of the rainbow? The sides of the cavern were adorned with ancient drawings. He saw a depiction of Odin hanging on the World Tree, a woman kneeling before him.

“What does this say?” He beckoned Ben over. “C’mon, hurry. Those dodgy bastards aren’t jamming Bratwurst down their throats up there. Let’s move.”

He indicated a rough swirl of text underneath the woman’s supplicating figure. Ben shook his head. “But technology will find a way. “ He took a snap with his trusty I-phone, which, thankfully, had proved to be out of signal down here.

Drake took a moment to include Kennedy. “My only idea is to follow these longboats,” he said. “You okay with that?”

“Like the cheerleader said to the football team - I’m game, boys. Lead the way.”

He forged ahead, aware that if this super-tunnel came to a dead end they would be trapped. The Germans would be hard on their tail, not sat resting on their laurels. Drake compartmentalised the thought, focusing on the ledge that had been hewn into the rock. Every so often they came across another glow stick. Drake masked them or moved them to create a more shadowy environment, preparing for the struggle ahead. He searched constantly among the long-ships, and finally made out a tight path meandering between them.

Plan B.

Two, four, and then ten long-ships went past. Drake’s feet started to ache with the effort of negotiating the narrow path.

The faint noise of a tumbling boulder, and then a louder scream echoed through the gargantuan cavern, its meaning obvious. Without a sound they bent even harder to their task.

Drake came at last to the end of the row. He’d counted twenty-three ships, every one pristine and laden with loot. As they approached the back of the tunnel darkness started to encroach.

“Guess they never got this far.” Kennedy remarked.

Drake rummaged for the big flashlight. “Risky,” he said. “But we need to know.”

He clicked it on and swept the beam from side to side. The passageway narrowed drastically, until it became a simple archway up ahead.

And beyond the archway lay a single set of stairs.

Ben suddenly stifled a scream, then stage-whispered: “They’re on the ledge!”

This was it.
Drake took action. “We split up,” he said. “I’ll go for the stairs. You two get down there among the ships and head back the way we came.”

Kennedy started to protest, but Drake shook his head. “No. Do it.
Ben
needs protection, I don’t. And
we
need the Spear.”

“And when we reach the end of the ships?”

“I’ll be back by then.”

Drake sprang away without another word, leaping off the ledge and making for the blind staircase. He looked back once and saw shadows advancing along the ledge. Ben was following Kennedy down the rubble-strewn slope to the base of the last Viking ship. Drake sent a prayer of hope and hit the stairs at a dead run, taking them two at a time.

Come on.
He climbed until his calves ached and his lungs burned. But then he came out onto a wide landing. Beyond that lay a wide stream, rushing madly, and still further away stood a raised altar of rough hewn rock, almost like an archaic barbecue.

But it was the massive symbol engraved into the wall behind the altar that caught Drake’s attention. Three triangles, overlaying one another. Some mineral within the carvings caught the artificial light and gleamed like sequins on a black dress.

No time to lose. He waded across the stream, sucking in air when the freezing water rose to his thighs. As he approached the altar, he saw an object resting on its surface. A short, pointed artefact, not astonishing or impressive. Actually mundane . . .

. . . the Spear of Odin.

The object that had pierced the side of a God.

A surge of excitement and apprehension passed through him.
This
was the event that made it all real. Up to now it had been a bunch of
maybes,
just clever speculation. But beyond this moment it was frighteningly real.