Kismet’s feet abruptly hit something solid — stone treads buried beneath a covering of skeletons — and he redoubled his efforts. As he emerged from the mire, he swung his arms out, caught hold of Marie’s wrist, and yanked her from the bony embrace of the ossuary, but their flight did not end there. Pausing only long enough to scoop up the light-stick, Kismet led the way up the steep staircase. The crunching noise of their footsteps suggested that simply escaping the mass grave had not ended their encounter with the venomous denizens of the chamber.
A second beacon materialized in the darkness ahead; a single shaft of brilliant light stabbing down from above. Kismet gave an audible sigh of relief as they stepped into the cone of illumination cast by the powerful lantern Hussein had activated in order to guide them back. Both he and Marie sagged onto the steps beneath the protective aegis of overhead light, catching their breath and letting the adrenaline drain from their extremities.
“Nick? What happened?”
Kismet took several more deep breaths before looking up to answer Chiron. “Marie fell.”
The short statement did not begin to explain what they had seen and experienced in the chamber below, but Kismet found that as he tried to put it into words, he kept sticking on that initial point: why had Marie fallen? Why had she even attempted to descend the dark stairway alone?
“Did you find anything?”
Kismet looked up again. “What we found…no, there’s nothing down there. Get us out of here and I’ll tell you all about it.”
He dragged himself erect then proffered a hand to Marie. Shelving his doubts, he focused on the more immediate problem of how to escape the tunnel shaft. The well-lit opening where Hussein and Chiron waited was a good three meters from the stair tread directly below. The narrow steps were a precarious platform from which to attempt an ascent, and even more so for what Kismet had in mind. His gaze flickered between the opening and the steps, trying to gauge the optimal location from which to boost Marie high enough for the others to pull her clear. He finally settled on a position that placed him sideways beneath the opening, squatting on one leg while the other was extended downward as a brace.
“All right, let’s get you out of here.”
She made no effort to hide her relief. Despite the awkwardness of using a living stepladder, she gripped his shoulder and planted her foot on his thigh. Her balance did not waver as she lifted herself from the stairs then reached up to take Hussein’s hand, leaving Kismet to wonder how she had fallen in the first place. She seemed as footsure as a tightrope walker. After only a few seconds, her weight lifted and she rose through the hole. There was a moment of darkness as her body eclipsed the bright lantern and Kismet was once more alone in the stairwell.
When the light returned, he began looking around to plan his own exfiltration, but something was different. As he stood and brought his extended leg back up, he both heard and felt a crunch beneath his boot soles. The brilliance of the lantern had compromised his ability to see into the shadowy crenellated recesses of the steps, but he was sure of one thing: there had been nothing on the bare stone moments before. He knew without looking what had caused the sound and hastened up several steps as a pure reflex. Just as quickly, dark menacing shapes began to materialize under the rays of the lantern. The multi-appendaged swarm had followed them from the ossuary. The scorpions, as kings of their food chain, once more led the charge, but behind them were species of arachnids and insects too numerous and diverse to identify.
Kismet backed up the stairwell, instinctively withdrawing from the creeping menace. His head was now level with the opening and he could see the faces of his companions, staring down in horrified disbelief as the miniature army overwhelmed the area where he and Marie had rested only moments before. Drawing a deep breath, he flexed his legs and thrust himself toward the opening.
His fingertips grazed the edge of the hole and in a single instant, bloated out of proportion by the rush of adrenaline, he knew that his hold would fail.He would rebound from the overhang and plunge headlong into the swarm. But then, as his weight came down and his fingers slipped against the stone, Hussein seized his forearms with an iron grip.
He hung there like an offering, arms extended over his head while his feet dangled above the squirming mass. Hussein’s hold seemed to be failing — he could feel his wrists slipping through the young man’s hands — but it was just an illusion. With Marie and Chiron lending their support, the Iraqi scholar hauled Kismet’s upper body through the hole in a single heave.
Hussein did not immediately let go, even though his ferocious pull had caused him to lose his footing and fall backward. His eyes reflected his determination — he would not let go until Kismet’s feet were once more on solid ground — but his grin was a triumphant assertion of victory. Kismet returned the smile with a grateful nod, but in that instant, Hussein’s expression changed to a mask of sheer terror.
A single black scorpion scuttled along Kismet’s right arm and darted toward the exposed flesh of the young Iraqi’s hand. Hussein instinctively let go of Kismet, shaking his hand to thwart the attack, but it was already too late. The creature’s pincers closed around his fingers and it jabbed forward with its tail, planting its sting.
Kismet immediately began sliding back through the hole. His hands curled into claws, fingertips scratching against the smooth rock for a purchase, but the forces of gravity and inertia were allied against him. As his chest scraped over the stone lip, the buttons popped from his shirt like a burst from a machine gun.
And then he stopped.
Nothing he had done in the brief struggle had arrested his fall. At the last possible instant however, Marie had leapt into motion, bracing her feet against the tunnel wall and knotting her fingers in the fabric of his shirt. The strain of halting his slide and simply holding him was evident in the bunched muscles of her jaw line, and Kismet knew that without more assistance, her efforts would merely serve to postpone the inevitable.
Hussein wailed in agony, unable to shake the scorpion free. In desperation, he slammed his fist against the wall, crushing the relentless arachnid even as it stung him again. Through the pain, he remembered his friend’s peril and hastened to relieve Marie. Kismet could see bright red welts erupting like tiny volcanoes on the back of the young man’s right hand and blood streaming from the wounds caused by the scissor-like claws. Only when he and Marie had nearly succeeded in drawing Kismet back from the brink, did Chiron shake off his languor and lend a hand.
As soon as Kismet’s knees touched the stone, he rasped: “I’m good. Let go.” His first concern was to make sure that the scorpion that had stung Hussein was a solitary hitchhiker — it was — then he rushed to help the young scholar.
Hussein’s hand had swollen like a balloon. The stings had darkened and spread to form a single grotesque bruise. Kismet searched his memory for the first-aid treatment for venomous bites, but his ability to offer aid was limited by the scant medical supplies they had brought along. He activated two instant cold-compresses and bound these to the affected area with a loose wrapping of bandages. Beyond the initial pain and surprise of the attack, the swelling seemed to be the only ill effect from the toxin.
Chiron watched as Kismet finished ministering to the young man, then broke his silence. “Nick, what did you find down there?”
Kismet gave him a sharp look. He had never known the Frenchman to be so single-minded, and had in fact always thought of him as a compassionate figure. His apparent disregard for Hussein’s misery seemed out of character. “Nothing. Whatever was down there was completely looted when this tunnel was cut.”