Oddly, the assault paused, and so did Zahra. She skidded to a halt as something immense stomped out of the darkness of the passage. A native, much larger than the rest, marched right for Zahra. He didn’t carry a bow and arrow, either. The only thing he held was the thick femur of an animal. One end was adorned with several sharply cut stones. The handmade mace looked wicked, and it was stained with dried blood.
She raised her fists and prepared for a brawl. There was no way for Zahra to make it around the behemoth without taking some hits. She was a fighter, but still — this guy was huge.
“Ehh, screw this,” she muttered. Invoking the scene from one of her favorite movies, Zahra drew her Glock and shot the living mountain in the gut, then took off, leaping over the fallen man with ease. Before another arrow could get close to her, Zahra entered the corridor, flicked on her flashlight, and ran like her life depended on it.
Because it did.
The Amazonians moved impossibly fast and were on top of Zahra in seconds. They seemed to move with superhuman speed, though Zahra figured it was that they, more than likely, already had people closing in on ground level while she and Joe were caught out in the open at the city center. Razor-sharp arrows pinged off the tunnel walls all around her. Tiny pieces of stone shrapnel peppered her body, forcing her to cover her head with her arms. It was amazing that she hadn’t been seriously harmed — not that she was complaining.
The beam of her flashlight bounced like crazy, making it difficult for her to see where she was going. But within its aura, she noticed that the path was natural, not manmade. It was like the one she had originally entered through. At one point in the distant past, it had contained water that had flowed into, or possibly out of, the hidden cenote. The passage’s surfaces were smooth, and the way carried on forever. Zahra thought about blindly firing behind her to keep the incoming voices at bay but knew the action would do very little except ruin her hearing. It was a sense she could not afford to damage or lose altogether.
The feeling of freedom gave her what must have been her fourth or fifth wind. Even though her legs felt like burning Jell-O, she put on a touch more speed. The pinging projectiles slowed as she pulled away from her pursuers until there was nothing but her heaving breath and pounding footfalls.
The pinprick of light grew quickly, and she slid to a stop just before the ground beneath her feet fell away. Zahra leaned out over the immense drop and cursed under her breath. The corridor had once been a waterfall. Now, the only thing there was a dead end. She was, by all accounts, trapped.
Wind pummeled the rock face, forcing Zahra away from the exit. She turned and shot her powerful flashlight down the tunnel, spotting movement. The barbaric Amazonians were here, though they didn’t look all that interested in killing her.
Feeling like Harrison Ford in
It meant that Zahra needed another option.
The air buffeting her back settled down long enough for her to hear the telltale sign of swiftly running water. The white noise was somewhere far below her, out of sight. The tunnel exit overhung the sound’s source, jutting out far enough that it hid what she hoped was a deep river from view.
And with that, Zahra put her faith in Lady Luck. She leaped backward and fell, immediately peering between her feet. She was high, easily over a hundred feet up. Once, after diving off of an Olympic-height platform following a lost bet, Zahra knew that entering the water without the proper technique hurt.
From
She flipped forward and angled herself toward the cliff, bringing her body over the fast-moving, narrow current just like a skydiver would. Nearly there, she decided to avoid injuring her shoulder worse and enter the water feet first. She flipped back around, straightened her legs, and pointed her booted toes. Suddenly, more graceful than she thought possible, she entered the churning rapids like a fleshy torpedo.
