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Bones crunched beneath his feet when he reached the bottom, the remains of jungle animals who had wandered into the cave in search of food and had apparently not paid enough attention to the path ahead. Logan glanced at them fondly--he was at home with dead things--and then unwrapped the rope from his body and shouted for the others to make their way down.
When Hale and the rest of the group made it to his level, Logan took the lead once more. The first two obstacles had been successfully navigated, but there were certainly more to come, and Logan found himself increasingly nervous as his sense of security was slowly stripped away. At some point, one of these traps was going to get them; he was sure of it.
About fifteen minutes later, Logan brought the group to a halt once more. This time he found himself staring at a narrow rock bridge that stretched across a gaping chasm that dropped away for hundreds of feet below them.
The bridge looked to be about fifty feet across, maybe a bit more, but what it had in length, it lacked in width. Logan figured it was no wider than a foot, and that was only at the start. The center of the bridge looked to be just a few inches in width and would require putting one foot very carefully in front of the other.
Logan turned and called back through the tunnel to Hale.
"We should probably rope ourselves together--"
He didn't get any further.
"And have you drag me to my death when you slip and fall? Not a chance, you imbecile! Get moving!"
Fucker, Logan thought, but he got moving nonetheless, not wanting those behind him to crowd him on the narrow causeway ahead.
Taking a deep breath, he put his arms out to either side to help his balance and stepped out onto the bridge.
The rock felt sturdy enough beneath his feet, which helped. He didn't want to think about what crossing this thing would have been like otherwise. Setting one foot carefully in front of the other, he began making his way across.
He was fine for the first few steps; psychologically, he knew he could always turn and throw himself back to the ledge if something went wrong. But as he got farther out, the realization that there was nothing to hold on to--nothing that could support him in the event of an emergency--began to take its toll. His body began to tremble as if with cold, the shaking impacting his balance, until suddenly Logan found himself wobbling side to side as he tried to take another
step. His foot skittered off the rock before him, and for a frantic moment he thought it was all over--he was going to slip off the stone bridge and plummet hundreds of feet to his death in the darkness below--but then his foot found purchase and he managed to steady himself anew.
Easy, he thought to himself as his heart raced like wildfire and he tried to regain control of his fear. You can do this. Another twenty feet, that's all.
Summoning his courage, he managed to get himself moving again, and before he knew it he'd reached the other side. He stepped off the bridge onto the far ledge with a huge sigh of relief.
He turned, gave the hold sign to the next man waiting in line, and then pulled a rope of his own out of his pack. He attached a cam to the rope with the help of a nylon sling, then seated the cam deep in a crack in the nearby wall. He used a second cam to anchor the rope even more firmly in the same manner, and then tugged on the rope to make sure it would hold. When he was satisfied, he stepped up to the edge of the bridge and hurled the other end of the rope back across the gap to his companions.
A man on the other side secured it in a similar fashion, and suddenly the party had a hand line to use; the rest of them made their way across. Even Hale made use of it, though he couldn't be bothered to compliment Logan on his foresight and ingenuity when he reached him on the other side.
Another obstacle down, Logan took point once more. The tunnel began to twist and turn at sharp angles, growing narrower as well, making him thankful that he didn't suffer from claustrophobia.
He had just finished squeezing himself through a particularly narrow section when the passage ahead of him opened up and he found himself on the threshold of another chamber.
Holding the torch in his hand high above his head, Logan took a good look around.
This room was rectangular in shape and about twice the size of the previous chamber, but still small enough for the torch in Logan's hand to reveal the interior to him. On the far side of the room stood an altar. Atop the altar was a stand made from human bones, and hanging on that stand was a necklace.
That was what they had come for: the Necklace of Yum Cimil.
The artifact barely drew a glance from Logan. He was far more interested in the room's other occupants.
Between him and the altar, lining both sides of the room, stood two ranks of dead Mayan warriors in full regalia. The weapons and feathered headdresses they wore looked as fresh as the day they had been placed there, but their bodies were dry and desiccated with mummification.
Logan had seen his share of dead bodies--what necromancer hadn't?--but something about these particular corpses left him feeling unusually unsettled. Before he could figure out why, however, the rest of the party caught up with him and stepped into the chamber to make room for them all.
"At last!" Hale exclaimed, pushing past Logan to stride between the silent guardians on his way to the altar.
Logan felt something shift in the air around them.
He glanced about, taking in his fellow acolytes as they examined the stalwart warriors. He watched Hale climb the steps of the altar and examine the necklace, but he didn't see anything particular that would set his alarms ringing.
And yet . . .
Something had changed. He was certain of it.
