David Gibbins - The Crusader's gold

A Varangian battle-axe.

Jack made his way swiftly up the knobbled contours of accretion, thankful he was wearing neoprene boots that gripped the surface well. He passed over the fossilised Viking shield wall, the arching shape of the ship’s stem, the haunting form of the fallen warrior. From the top he looked down on the other side of the islet. Loki was there, no more than ten metres away. He was standing with his back to Jack, straddling Maria, who was lying on her back staring defiantly up. Loki was holding a pistol in his left hand, a Browning Hi-Power. In the other hand he held a blade against Maria’s heart, a sword. It was the Varangian sword Jack and Costas had seen in the water beside the axe.

Jack felt a chill of horror. History had never really stopped in this place. He was witnessing something ingrained in the stone of the Yucatan, impossible to exorcise. A human sacrifice.

With lightning speed Jack swept down on Loki, swinging the axe hard, severing the man’s left arm in one mighty swipe. The pistol flew into the water still grasped in the hand, spinning and disappearing into the blackness. Loki staggered, shocked, then spun round to face Jack, his face a contortion of surprise and rage. The stump was gushing blood. He dropped the sword, staggered, lifted his remaining arm to the scar on his face, then staggered back again, picking up the sword. Suddenly he exploded into action, lunging at Jack in a terrifying blur of speed and flashing metal. Jack was nearly caught off guard, raising the axe only just in time. Steel impacted against steel, clashing, grinding, ringing, a sound not heard here for almost a thousand years. Jack’s body quivered as he parried the blows, but he stood his ground. It was only a matter of time before his opponent would falter. Loki was already too weak to stop his body from following through the swing of the sword, lurching, swivelling as he struggled to regain his balance. He stood back again, in a frenzy of pain, snivelling and panting, goading Jack with the point of the sword, staggering back farther towards the edge of the water.

Loki’s rage had cast the shadow of his own downfall. He could have remained on the surface with his father, let his mind rule, retained his lethal efficiency.

Jack weighed the haft in his hands, just as he had done once before, when another long-handled, single-bitted axe had saved their lives in the iceberg.

Battle-luck.

He reared up and took two strides forward. As he swung the axe he thought he saw runes flashing in front of him, runes where Halfdan’s name had been on the other axe, runes that began with the same Norse letter.

The battle-axe of a mighty king. Thunderbolt of the North.

The axe came slicing through the air and struck Loki on the side of the head, then spun off from Jack’s hands and cartwheeled into the water above the underground river. Loki’s head jerked back and then sprang forward, like a marionette. For a horrifying moment he seemed uninjured. Then the scar on his face parted, split wide open through his eye socket. Jack could see jawbones and teeth, grimacing horribly like the sculpted skulls at Chichen Itza. Then there was blood, thick, oozing drops that splattered on to the rock below.

Loki took one step forward, then slipped on the blood, falling heavily into the water with a crash, taking the sword with him. For a moment he was suspended in mid-water, one eye staring blindly towards Jack, still alive, clawing weakly for the surface. Then he dropped deeper and the current took him, dragging him down into the darkness, out of sight, sucked into the underworld.

Loki was gone.

Jack slid down beside Maria and they lay by the edge of the pool. He was shaking with adrenaline aftershock. She clung fiercely to him. The commotion in the water died away, and the only sound was dripping rainwater percolating through from above, the sound magnified in the cavern but soothingly rhythmic after the echoing clash of steel. As Jack’s shaking subsided, Maria stared into the crystalline water inches from her face. She reached in and pulled something out, a smooth chip of rock free of accretion. They could see marks on its surface, scratches. They both sat up. “It’s a runestone,” Maria whispered.

“Can you read it?”

“It’s crude, rushed,” Maria murmured. “Like the last entry in the diary of a doomed expedition.”

“Try.” Jack sounded exhausted, his voice barely a whisper.

Maria paused, muttered a few words to herself, then read it out loud. “Only Ulf, Finn and Halldor are left. The Scraelings have taken the outer chamber. Thor protect us. Hann til ragnaroks.”

Jack felt stripped of emotion, too drained to respond. All he could do was reach out and touch the dripping stone.

“Maybe Harald himself scratched this, his last act before the Toltecs were upon him,” Maria said. “It was Stamford Bridge all over again, only this time it truly was the end.” She looked back at the spectral shapes on the platform behind her, then towards the blackness in the water where Loki had disappeared. She gave an involuntary shiver. “They got as far as they humanly could, right to the entrance of the underworld.”

“I can feel what they felt,” Jack murmured. “We’re on the edge of the spirit world here, the very boundary. Something wants me to go down that passageway, to follow Loki. It’s like a malign force drawing me in, willing me to frame the challenge. I feel as close to Harald here as I’ve ever felt, really close.” Jack looked around at the flickering shadows on the cavern walls, then shook himself and raised Loki’s air tank from where it had been left by the edge of the water, attaching it to Maria’s back. “And I know this is not a place we want to be.”

“It’s not over yet,” Maria said.

“You’ve got plenty of air. There’s a line of lights back to the entrance. Piece of cake. I’ll be right behind you.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

Jack gave her shoulder straps a final tug. He splashed water on his face to rub off the black mess and sat down beside her. Maria began to talk, slowly at first, hesitantly, then in full flow, as if she were telling something she had never told before but had rehearsed countless times in her mind. Over the next few minutes Jack heard a story more awful than he could ever have imagined, a story that made the monsters of the underworld seem as potent as they had to the Vikings, that seemed to shape the lurking malevolence of this place into a force too evil to leave unchallenged.

Twenty minutes later Jack heaved himself out of the well-hole into the painted chamber. Costas squatted in front of him, breathless after operating the winch. Maria sat dripping on the stone floor a few metres away. Despite the heat she was shivering slightly, and Costas passed her a towel and an IMU jacket along with a bottle of water. As soon as he saw she was safe, Jack swivelled round and addressed Costas.

“What’s our status?”

“The Mexicans are here,” Costas panted. “Two guys in a jeep about ten minutes ago. They’re judiciales, plain-clothed guys. Pretty unsavoury if you ask me. They said a helicopter is on its way. Apparently all this tract is Reksnys’ territory, but we’re well away from his main compound. It doesn’t look like he trusted any of his own security people to be out here. A few locals live in the jungle, Maya, but they’re on our side. As soon as more police arrive and the Lynx returns from Seaquest II with a full security team, we can relax. Ben’s doing a wide perimeter sweep as we talk.”

Jack jerked his head towards the hole. “You probably gathered our friend Loki won’t be joining us.”

Costas raised his eyebrows. “Permanently?”

“He’s gone for a cave-diving endurance record. Without air.”