Burial Ground

'We're leaving,' Sam said, bursting from the shadows. 'Now.'

The sense of relief that flooded through Merritt freed his tight muscles so completely that he nearly collapsed.

Sam blew past him as Jay and Dahlia emerged from the tunnel with the birdman at their heels. Before Merritt found the strength to turn and join them, he looked back into the darkness. No one else was coming.

'Wait!' he called. His legs felt like noodles, but they strengthened with each stride away from the crevice until he was able to jog. He crashed through the underbrush and ducked around the others until he caught up with Sam at the front of the procession. They were headed north toward the rising rumble of the waterfall and the fallen section of the fortification where they had initially entered. The southern route would likely have been shorter and more direct, but he didn't blame her in the slightest for wanting to avoid the corpses.

She scrabbled down the black stone rubble, and when she reached the ground, made a beeline toward the trail that led into the jungle. What had formerly been a trickle of water was now a stream racing along the path, the mud beneath it as slick as ice. With the weight of their packs, balance was untenable, yet Sam refused to slow.

Merritt glanced back and confirmed that the rest were still following them. Jay had been forced to cradle the camera to his chest to keep from slipping, while both Dahlia and Galen were already covered in muck.

Sam squealed. He turned around to see her sliding on her backpack through the runoff. At the bend ahead, she slammed into the buttress roots of a massive tree with a resounding crack. She rolled onto her side and moaned.

Merritt slid sideways down the trail, bracing his hand on the ground for stability.

'Are you all right?' He helped her to her feet and gave her a quick once over. No visibly broken bones. No sign of blood. She rubbed her forehead where a knot was already beginning to swell.

'I'm fine,' she said, brushing away his hands. 'We don't have time for this.'

She turned her back on him and continued down the trail.

Ahead, the rumble of running water called to them. They had to be near the stream that divided this mountain from the next. Beyond lay the sheer rock formation that contained the cavern with the purunmachus and the path back down to the lake where they had spent the previous night.

The sun had already begun to set and twilight claimed the forest.

It would be completely dark in under an hour. No moonlight would be able to permeate the storm clouds and mist, which now formed a haze around them as it crept to the ground from the canopy.

The path ahead would grow increasingly treacherous.

Their window of opportunity had closed.

There was no way they were getting off the mountain tonight.

III

5:13 p.m.

They had barely heard their prey coming in time to duck from the path and into the jungle. Tasker didn't enjoy being surprised, but that was exactly what had happened. From where he crouched in a cage of tented roots with ant-covered vines draped over his head, he watched them race down to the swollen stream and attempt to ford it to no avail. The dark-haired woman, Carson, had tried to hop to where the first stone lurked beneath several inches of racing water and had nearly been swept off her feet, would have were it not for a last second save by the pilot, who had dragged her to the muddy shore. She now screamed up into the raging storm in frustration and futility. The others paced the bank nervously. He could almost hear their thoughts as they contemplated the possibility of braving the rapids.

What had spooked them to flight? Had they sensed his approach? He couldn't believe that was the case. Neither he nor McMasters had done anything to warrant their suspicion. They must have encountered something that frightened them up the path ahead...but what?

Again his mind recalled the carcasses they had disentombed in the cave, but he chased the image away and focused on the task at hand.

It would be simple enough to take down their targets at the river's edge right now. Five quick shots and they could drag the bodies into the underbrush, but where were the other men in their party? Had they secured the high ground at this very moment? Were he and McMasters pinned down under unseen sights? He thought it unlikely. If that were the case, then that meant the others were using the panicked civilians as bait, and that went against their job description and any even moderately developed sense of ethics. He and McMasters needed to stick to cover for the time being. It was too soon to betray their presence. They had a solid plan in place. Straying from it would only allow variables to crop up at the least opportune moments. They had been patient thus far. It wouldn't be much longer now.

The pilot attempted to console Carson, but she swatted his hands aside, whirled away from the impasse, and stomped back toward the path.

Tasker pressed back deeper into the blind. Brown ants crawled over his face and scalp. He suppressed the sensation.

Carson sloshed up the muddy slope a mere ten feet to his left. Even over the clamor of the rain in the upper canopy, he could hear her crying. The pilot followed, trying in vain to console her, even though he appeared every bit as rattled. The pudgy academic fought to keep up, while the blonde and her cameraman trailed, visibly struggling with the treacherous footing.

Tasker caught snippets of conversation.

'...wait out the storm...'

'...try again in the morning...'

'...if we make it that long.'

'...you saw the condition of the bodies...'

None of them so much as glanced in his direction.

They were distracted, which only served his purposes.

But what had they discovered? And where was their security contingent?

IV

5:37 p.m.

There was no way in hell that Colton was abandoning a fortune in gold now that it was firmly in his grasp. He had taken command of the situation and had his men running around making the necessary preparations. With the way the level of the river had risen even while they crossed it hours ago, he knew there was no chance the others would make it beyond the engorged banks tonight. Not with the way the rain continued to fall. They would return at any moment, but in the meantime, he and his men needed to ready themselves for the coming night. The fortress was too large and sprawling, and too thick with vegetation to easily patrol, so they needed to fortify a defensible perimeter. But against what were they defending themselves? While he had initially scoffed at Russell's nonsensical blatherings, the evidence was impossible to ignore. The broken and disarticulated skeletons everywhere. The slaughtered remains of Gearhardt's son's party. The feathers, and especially the feces containing human matter.

He couldn't fool himself into thinking that firepower was the solution. After all, Rippeth had been armed to the teeth when he had been torn apart.

How could anything like what Russell proposed have survived so long without being discovered, even this high in the unexplored cloud forest? He thought of Carson's theory, that the primitive Mesoamerican tribes had known about them and had worshipped them as gods. Unfortunately, all of those venerable civilizations---the Aztec, the Inca, the Maya---had all vanished from the face of the planet at the height of their power. Did one correlate to