struck once more, knuckles stabbing at his throat. Eddie brought up an arm just in time to block the blow, but it was still searingly painful.
A windstorm whirled around him as he stumbled towards the steps, the Dhruv moving into position above to winch up the chest. Any thoughts of sabotage were now forgotten as Eddie raised his fists. Tandon was fast, but if he caught him at just the right moment he could use the brute force of a punch to crush his nose, blinding him with pain, and toss him over the edge. He would still have Zec to worry about, but one problem at a time . . .
Tandon’s hand flashed at Eddie’s eyes. He swept up his bruised arm again to deflect the blow, then twisted with all his strength to smash his fist into the other man’s face—
The Indian’s palm snapped up, stopping the punch an inch short.
Before Eddie could react, another savage kick caught him in the midsection. Winded, he lurched backwards, wobbling at the top of the broken stairway . . .
With a cruel smile, Tandon darted at him to deliver a final strike. It wasn’t a kick, or a punch - insultingly, it was nothing more than a poke to Eddie’s chest.
But it was enough to push him down the stairs.
With a yell, Eddie bounced down the stone steps - and flew off the end into the void below.
28
The tiers along the valley sides flashed past as Eddie fell, one, two—
A white line rushed at him. He desperately grasped at his only chance of survival - and jolted to an agonising stop as he caught one of the ropes stretched across the valley.
The line shook, batting him like a cat toy as he clung with one aching arm - and saw Tandon looking over the edge of the steps above, the expectant satisfaction on his face replaced in quick succession by disbelief, then anger. The Indian shouted to Zec.
He was a sitting duck. He had to reach the valley’s side before Zec shot him—
A crack - and he fell again.
The rope had broken!
Only at one end. He was swinging like Tarzan - straight at a cliff face.
Eddie braced himself, but knew he had no chance of surviving the impact. The wind whistled in his ears as he followed his inexorable arc towards the wall. He would hit under the fourth tier, smacking against the carved rock.
But it wasn’t rock. An archway loomed, darkness beyond—
The rope caught on the edge of the fourth tier as he whipped beneath it - flicking him upwards through the doorway. He sailed across the room, bouncing off the ceiling before falling again . . . to land with a huge thump amid an explosion of something soft.
He choked, grains filling his nostrils and mouth. For a moment the fear of suffocation overcame any other thoughts and he thrashed wildly, coughing and spitting - to find that he had landed on a pile of rice sacks, the supplies secretly provided to the guardians by the villagers around Mount Kedarnath, the impact bursting them.
‘Saved by Uncle Ben,’ he groaned as he achingly stood, rice cascading from him like dried snow, and staggered to the entrance. He would have to climb all the way back to the Vault to help Nina and Kit—
Only the fact that he was looking up at the ledge as he emerged kept him alive. Several mercenaries were lined up across the top of the stairway - aiming down at him. Muzzle flashes bloomed like deadly sunflowers. He jumped back from the hailstorm of stone fragments that erupted round the archway.
Shit! He was pinned down, no other way out of the room - and now the MD 500 joined the assault. There was no way he could reach the Vault without being cut to pieces . . .
More shots - but from a new kind of gun. The onslaught stopped, and he heard a scream. A sharp clang of lead against thin aluminium, and the MD 500 hurriedly ascended.
Not a new kind of gun, he realised. A very old one.
The Martini-Henry. The weapons the guardians had taken from the unfortunate British explorers in the nineteenth century were not all rusting relics. Some had been well cared for.
The surviving .577/450-calibre ammo was easily powerful enough to penetrate a helicopter’s fuselage. The MD 500 might be acting as a gunship, but it was still a civilian aircraft, lacking any kind of armour. One good shot could kill the pilot, sever a hydraulic line, rupture a fuel tank. Retreating was the smart move.
But that still left the Chinook, an ex-military helicopter with armour where it was needed . . .
Another scream. Eddie risked a glance outside to see a mercenary tumble down the steps and plummet to the valley floor. The others had switched their aim to the new threat - but now they were at a disadvantage. With its short barrel, the MP5K - designed for compactness and easy concealment - had a limited effective range and comparatively low power. The Martini-Henrys, on the other hand, had proved their range, precision and fearsome punch in battles throughout the British Empire. He couldn’t see the guardians, but their gunshots told him they were in positions on both sides of the valley above, a good fifty yards from the Vault’s entrance - almost twice the accurate range of the mercenaries’ weapons.
Zec had apparently come to the same realisation. He shouted an order, and the mercs pulled back. The MD 500 opened up with its M249, trying to force the guardians to retreat into the caves.
Eddie steeled himself, then ran out on to the ledge, searching for a way back up the tiers.
Nina reached the back of the Vault. The statue of Kali glared down at her in the firelight, blood-red tongue extended mockingly.
Mahajan was right behind her. After what had happened to the two mercenaries, she knew there was no way she would be able to trick him into range of another siege engine. Instead, she ran down the narrow passage to the room that had contained the Shiva-Vedas. The goddess’s weapons jerked impotently as she tripped the triggers beneath the paving slabs.
She dropped and squirmed under the giant stone foot. Mahajan was already in the passage. There was no light in the chamber - she had to rely entirely on memory to find what she was after . . .
The iron rod jamming the machinery.
She pulled it - and it caught between the cogs as Mahajan’s weight set them in motion. ‘Shit!’ she cried, tugging harder, but still unable to free it. The Indian slithered beneath the foot—
The pressure on the rod was released.
Nina yanked it out - and the mechanism ground into action. The foot descended. Realising the danger, Mahajan reacted in fear and crawled faster . . .
Wrong move. The trap had fooled its victim - and the huge foot dropped like the stone it was, stamping down on Mahajan’s back with a terrible snap of crushed bone. Blood spurted across the floor. The final sound from Mahajan’s ruined mouth was an anguished gurgle . . . then he slumped, dead.
After a few seconds, the dripping foot slowly rumbled back up. Nina waited for it to stop, then shoved the rod back into the cogs. ‘Aw, jeez . . .’ she said, cringing in disgust and nausea at the sight greeting her in the entrance. She pushed Mahajan to one side, then gingerly slipped under the bloody statue to do the same with his other half before hurrying back down the passage.
Eddie reached the fourth tier, sheltering in an arch as he plotted his ascent. He was cut off from his original route up the valley sides by broken balconies on at least the next two tiers, meaning he would have to climb the carved walls all the way to the sixth level.
Not an ideal plan. Even though they had been forced back by the rifle fire, Zec’s men would still be likely to spot him as he ascended and pick him off. But short of making Olympic-length jumps over the gaps, he had no other way to get to the top.
The withering fire from the gunship eased off as the guardians moved into cover. None of the mercenaries were visible on the main ledge - though the Khoils’ helicopter was now lowering the harness once more to pick up the chest.
Once they had their prize, they would leave - and destroy everything left behind. He had to act now. He braced himself, ready to rush out and start his climb—
