Rogue Angel 47: River of Nightmares (19 page)

Chapter 32

Roux explored the cavern, collecting anything that looked like it might burn—roots, bits of plants and two broken planks that must have been dropped down here by the miners. They’d probably done a little exploring themselves and discovered no veins of emeralds. He also discovered a fairly recent corpse amid the bones where Annja hadn’t searched.

The man, once young and fit, had probably been dead two days, maybe three. Roux had been around corpses enough to hazard a good guess. The chill of the cavern had helped preserve the body.

The dead man looked like one of Dillon’s crew, dressed in coveralls. Two bullet holes in his chest, all the pockets on the coveralls ripped, back and front, big pockets on the thighs shredded, fingers broken...maybe from the fall, but Roux didn’t think so. His mind played over the possibilities. Maybe the man had gotten greedy and tried to keep some of the emeralds, the pockets ripped to check for pilfered stones.

Since Roux had nothing better to do at the moment, and since he’d been long inured to the condition of corpses, he searched the body, thinking maybe he might find something useful. Under the coveralls the man had worn a T-shirt and boxers. The boots had steel toes and were expensive looking. He tugged these off, wondering if they might suit the unconscious man better than the flimsy things he was wearing. Provided Edgar ever regained consciousness.

Roux smiled grimly. As he removed the boots from the dead man, uncut emeralds fell out and onto the ground. There had been a dozen pieces in one boot, three in the other, all of which he pocketed, the fading light from his helmet wasn’t enough to let him properly inspect the gems. The dead man did not need them, but Roux might.

His fellow thieves had killed him because he’d broken their code. But a handful of gems were not worth more than a man’s—even a thief’s—life.

Man’s cruelty never ceased to surprise Roux. But in all the centuries he’d never come to understand where the evil came from. Why was there such darkness in some men’s souls and only light in others? Roux knew his own soul held a mix of darkness and light that sometimes battled each other. Always the light managed to prevail, but that hint of darkness provided a balance, and it was why the poached stones were now in his pockets.

He’d only seen light in Joan’s soul.

In Annja’s? She had both, and it was probably that blend that gave her such fire and drove her. He rolled the dead body over, seeing bugs clustered around the exit wound in the corpse’s back.

Annja had been so confident about finding a way out. Gone eight hours now, he prayed she actually could. Roux didn’t fear death. He’d “died” so many times or came close to it, that staring the Grim Reaper in the face was old hat. But he feared being trapped down here.

He worried that if Annja did not prevail this cavern would be permanent; his company—Annja and the young man still unconscious—would eventually die. Roux would be left alone. Would he go mad? He shuddered and paced, watched the fire die down and fed it a little more. And when the fire was out and the batteries dead, would he spend eternity in darkness?

He would have liked to dump everything he’d gathered onto the fire and make it rage to match his spirit and keep him and Edgar warm. But he needed to conserve his bounty. The fire would remain small to extend its life. He flipped off his helmet light again. The batteries were dying and he wanted to conserve those. Annja had given him two more, but he could suffice by the meager firelight.

Roux cursed himself for coming here. In France he’d been worried about Annja; he feared that fate was telling him something had gone horribly wrong and that she was in jeopardy. He didn’t want to lose Annja as he had Joan. A failed knight once, he did not want to repeat the experience.

And so he was here, in this damnable cave.

And so here he was wondering if that warning he’d felt wasn’t so much about Annja’s fate, but about his own...a hint that his existence was the thing in jeopardy.

If he hadn’t come to Brazil and subsequently found Annja stumbling around in the rainforest, she might not have regained her memory. She wouldn’t have charged back to Dillon’s camp in search of Moons and Edgar, nor would she have wound up captured and thrown down here. If he hadn’t followed her, he’d not be here either. Moons might be alive.

Had he set all these unfortunate things into motion? Or was he merely playing a role that had been assigned to him? Roux glanced at some of the cave paintings, knowing Annja had been excited by them. They were mildly interesting, but did not intrigue him.

He returned to the fire and stared into it, in his mind’s eye seeing Joan burning at the stake. Roux closed his eyes and let a more pleasant recollection consume him. Joan had been an amazing commander, aggressive and smart. He’d ridden with her on many campaigns, winning most of them. And he’d traveled with her to places far and wide—all of them surrendering when she’d approached, banner held high. They hadn’t wanted to fight her.

Wise, Roux reflected, she was a remarkably skilled swordswoman, whether fighting on foot or from horseback. And tactics? She knew precisely how to direct an army and how to orchestrate her gunpowder artillery, the cannons that had so often made a difference in the battles.

But when the odds had become overwhelming, when she did not have access to those cannons...that was when the defeats had come about. Those were the battles she shouldn’t have joined. So while her aggression and skill made her formidable, Roux also knew she had weaknesses. Those traits had led to her capture.

Annja had those traits. They’d led to her capture by Dillon.

Gone eight hours? Maybe he should go in search of her.

Instead, he lost himself in another memory. Charles VII wanted the city of Troyes to surrender, but after days of intense negotiations, it was clear that wasn’t about to happen. Roux had been in the room when Charles asked Joan her opinion. She didn’t hesitate.

“Nous devons commencer le siège,”
she’d said.

Charles agreed to the siege and designated Joan in charge of it. Roux walked with her that night as she placed the cannons and directed her army and her knights to fill the ditches that circled the city.

At dawn, Joan yelled for their forces to attack.

Without a single cannon firing, the city yielded. Roux knew it was the mere sight of her forces that made the enemy’s troops surrender.

Annja lacked the cannons, but she had her own heavy artillery...laptops and the internet, satellite phones and a cadre of archaeologist peers throughout the world to call upon. But just as Joan saw defeat in battles where she lacked her best weapons, so, too, Annja was now missing hers. She had only her wits and Joan’s sword.

Would that be enough?

* * *

S
IXTEEN
HOURS
GONE
and Edgar woke up. He grieved over Moons, and then Roux moved the woman’s body into the space with the other corpse, hiding death from their view, if not their thoughts.

He listened politely while Edgar alternately mourned Moons, complained about how much his arm hurt, and spilled his life story. So many people talked endlessly when they were frightened, as if their words could keep the terror away. And while Roux listened, taking in only bits and pieces, he continued to ruminate about Joan and Annja, cannons and computers.

Eighteen hours gone.

Twenty.

“Roux.” Annja’s voice was a whisper. She looked beaten, defeated, a mere stick of a woman. She stood far enough away from the tiny fire that he couldn’t see her eyes, only the shadowed sockets. “I might have found a way out of here.” She collapsed on the stone and he went to her, picked her up and laid her next to the fire, adding the last bit of kindling.

He watched her sleep until the fire went out and the cavern was plunged into blackness.

Chapter 33

“Stop complaining.” Roux sent Edgar a withering look, but Annja knew the expression was lost on the young man.

Edgar was shuffling along with his face down, grumbling about wearing a dead man’s shoes.

She stepped ahead of the pair. The cavern was large enough that they could walk side-by-side, but she opted for a little solitude and so walked faster than was comfortable for either of them. Still, she could hear Edgar.

“My arm, it hurts like nothing I’ve felt before. Like sometimes I can’t feel it, sometimes like an elephant stepped on it. And it’s cold down here. You’d think under a tropical rainforest it would be warm, same latitude and everything.”

Annja agreed with Roux—Edgar prattled so he wouldn’t have to think. If his tongue stopped wagging he’d have to face up to how unfortunate Becca Mooney had been and the dire predicament they were all in. Bats scattered as the three of them followed Annja’s earlier path, disturbed by their noise and the light on her helmet and Roux’s. She took a large step to avoid a slick patch, though she couldn’t avoid the stench that made her eyes water.

“And these boots, they’re tight. Sure, they’re better than what I had. But they belonged to one of Dillon’s goons, and—”

Even Annja reached a point where her patience wore thin. “Edgar, if you’re so uncomfortable, maybe you should wait for Roux and I back in the hole that Dillon dropped us in. You can safeguard my mapinguari skull.” That had actually occurred to her at the outset, leaving him back there. But she wouldn’t have left Edgar a light and doubted he could handle the dark for what might be days.

“And starve? Die of thirst? Because you might not come back for who knows how long...provided that you
can
find a means to escape this place, and then provided that you can find the camp and get past Dillon’s goons, and get a rope down to me. I don’t think so.”

It was Annja’s intent to get out of this cave, reach the authorities, and have them deal with Dillon’s goons. Roux had told her that he tried to call them on her satellite phone, but the charge was gone and he had no way to remedy that. It had been why he’d come after her and been subsequently captured. There was no other cavalry coming. They’d already been down here going on two days—or was it three?—and Edgar was right—he could starve by the time she or someone else could get back here.

“So I’ll deal with tight boots, and I guess I’ll manage with my arm and the cold and—”

“You’re breathing,” Roux said. “Be happy that you’re breathing.”

“Yeah, and I’m in pain.”

“Pain is your body’s way of letting you know you’re alive. Deal with it.”

Annja smiled. Roux had used a similar line on her shortly after they’d met.

Edgar continued to talk, but changed the subject to the rainforest and how Dillon had not been content to steal the plants from the Dslala but to steal emeralds from the Brazilians. She ignored his chatter and instead focused on the primitive paintings that lined the walls. She thought of the
Chasing History’s Monsters
crew and hoped they’d recovered by now from whatever struck them.

At the section of the tunnel that grew wide and offered the three tunnels, Annja told them, “This one. It’s the one I took and heard the water.” She replaced the batteries in her light, leaving her with four. Roux’s light was starting to fade, and she passed him two batteries, which he pocketed. “Edgar, wait here, and I’m going to investigate these other tunnels. They might—”

“You heard water. That’d be the way to go,” Edgar said.

That had been Annja’s instinct, too, but... “The slope is very steep, like a sliding board, Edgar. If Roux and I get you down there, it might be too difficult to get you back up.” She had a difficult time making it back up herself. “I think—”

“—that water’s the way to go,” Edgar persisted.

“Probably. But you could do with a few hours’ rest.” Annja pointed to the ground, and she took off down the center tunnel. She was back four hours later; the passageway had ended in a dead end.

There was one more tunnel to check out, and it, too, led to a dead end.

“The water’s the way to go,” Edgar said. From the looks of the bags under his eyes she’d doubted he’d slept while she was gone.

Roux’s light died and he replaced the batteries. She had only two spare batteries remaining.

“Then let’s be about it, all right?”

Annja led the way, and Roux kept his light off. Edgar kept his mouth shut, apparently concentrating on staying on his feet. More than once he fell, however, nearly bowling Annja down with him when the ground sloped so steeply and the rocks were too smooth to grab on to.

“This is deep,” Roux said. “I’ve been in caves in Turkey, Annja, and I thought they were deep.” Did she detect hesitation in his voice? “I can hear water.”

Annja could, too, but they hadn’t reached it yet. Still, the tunnel led down.

She’d explored part of the Huautla cave system in Oaxaca, Mexico, during her
Chasing History’s Monsters
program on the chupacabra. Some of the area residents thought the chupacabra dwelled in the caves, escaping notice by all but a few ranchers working in the evenings. That cave had been discovered in the 1960s, and supposedly its seventeen entrance points and many different routes made it convenient for the chupacabra—Annja had never managed to see one. The cave was one of the deepest in the world.

Though she had no way to measure this, Annja wondered if this one was deeper.

Her light was dimming and her feet ached, her leg muscles burning by the time they reached the water, the sound of it a roar echoing against the close walls. It was black like oil, flat and flowing under a rocky ceiling they had to stoop to get below. It looked like water flowing through some irrigation tube. Her feeble light couldn’t reach to the other side, and so she replaced the last two batteries.

“Holy crap,” Edgar said. “Don’t you realize what this is?”

Annja registered that his once pain-etched face was replaced with a look of wonder. No, it had passed that. It was bliss. Like the young man had reached Nirvana.

Edgar dropped down on his knees and touched the water with his good hand. He shivered. “This is amazing. Do you have anything that can take a picture? Cell phone? Camera? Where’s that video camera you had?”

“Nothing,” Annja said. “I have nothing.”

“So what is this?” Roux touched the tip of his boot to the water. “Some underground tributary of the Amazon?”

Edgar nodded, his eyes still wide in awe.

“Looks like a way out to me.” Annja wanted to be
in
the river and on their way. But a brief rest would do Edgar good. Let him continue to be amazed for a little while.

Annja paid attention to the current. It didn’t look as swift as the Amazon far above them, but if there was an undercurrent, it might sabotage their escape.

Edgar prattled on about how they were going to be in the history books. “We’re the first people in the whole world to see this.”

But they weren’t the first. There were more of the primitive paintings down here, fainter than the ones above, the water and moisture taking their color.

“Interesting,” Roux said. But his expression told Annja he wasn’t at all interested.

“Let’s just hope this leads us to safety,” Annja said. Again she thought of Marsha and Wallace and the others.

“It must join up with another tributary, or the source, somewhere.” Edgar stood, staring in the direction of the flowing water.

“Yes, one could hope.” This from Roux.

“The River Styx,” Annja mused. It was the main river in the mythological underworld. Acheron, Cocytus, Lethe and the Phlegeton, all underground water routes lost to time, but preserved in fables.

Edgar looked at Annja and then Roux, and back again. “Just wow. Wow. Who knows where this could actually lead?” He slapped a hand to his forehead and turned to Roux. “Do you know what this means?”

“That we can get out of here.”

Edgar made a face. “Well, yes. If it doesn’t slam us up against a wall of porous rock and kill us.”

“Best pray that is so,” Roux said. “There has been a fair amount of death on this trip already. Try not to add to it.”

Annja noted Roux’s frustration with Edgar, and their delay here. She was feeling the same about both.

“I am. I am, believe me. We’ve gotta survive this... so that I can write about it, all of it. I know how to get back here...with cameras. I can go to the Nature Conservancy and write my own ticket. They’ll hire me in a heartbeat. Hell, I could probably get on with—”

Annja nudged him. “How about we ‘get on with’ getting out of here?”