The Emerald Key - By Christopher Dinsdale Page 0,11
strength gave out completely, he heaved on the root, found a temporary toehold, and brought both hands to the rocky ledge that had saved his life. Tentatively sticking out his foot again, he could finally hoist his leg up onto the flat surface. With a final push, he swung himself back onto the path. His body collapsed onto solid ground and he thanked the heavens that he couldn’t see what nightmare lay below him at the base of the cliff.
Suddenly, his side exploded in pain. A foot had lashed out from somewhere in the dark, crunching hard into his ribs. Wilkes ignored the stinging fire from his side as he rolled away from the edge. He sprang up into a crouch. He heard a blade being unsheathed somewhere in the darkness. Wilkes slowly reached down to his feet and grabbed a large handful of dirt. His attacker must be close and likely moving in for the kill at this very moment. With a wide arc from his arm, he released a cloud of dirt at what he guessed would be head height. A grunt of pain just to his left told him the dirt had found the wide open eyes of his attacker. He leaped to his feet and charged like a bull at the sound, shoulder down, catching his attacker in the side. Wilkes felt a searing pain in his back from the swing of a sword as he slammed the attacker hard into the side of the mountain. Then he heard a satisfying crunch as his full weight crushed the attacker into the jagged rocks.
Stinging hand chops suddenly exploded around his neck and head. Instead of blocking them, Wilkes ducked and swung a leg low, tripping the attacker, who fell to the ground, but Wilkes lost his balance as well and fell hard onto his injured back. He could hear his attacker get to his feet first and charge forward. Wilkes curled into a ball, feet up, ignoring the fiery pain from his back. He felt a sudden weight on the soles of his boots. He used momentum to roll backwards and with the attacker’s weight still perched on his feet, kicked his legs out over his head. For a second, there was only silence as his attacker was launched high into the night air. A terrified scream fell away as the invisible man tumbled down the side of the dark cliff to his doom.
Curled on his side, it took a minute for Wilkes to catch his breath. He felt his back, and the warm stickiness of fresh blood told him he would have yet another scar decorating his tattered body. He ripped off a piece of his shirt, rolled it into a ball and placed it over the wound. He then used the strap of his satchel to keep it in place.
Working his way back along the dark face of the mountain, his hands suddenly disappeared into a hidden fissure. It was a perfect secret entranceway that led into the heart of the mountain itself. Turning sideways, he squeezed his tall frame into the fissure. Complete darkness enveloped him. He paused and listened. From somewhere deep inside the mountain, he could hear the rhythmic chanting of Buddhist monks. Surely they would not be worshipping in the dark, he surmised. Therefore they must be a long way off.
Wilkes decided to take a huge gamble. He checked his gun to make sure that it was cocked and loaded. Then he pulled out his torch and lit it. A long, narrow tunnel suddenly flared to life in the orange glow of his torch. His eyes were drawn to a beautiful oval-shaped shrine that had been carved into the stone wall of the tunnel. Sitting inside the shrine, surrounded by a stunning halo of iridescent stars, was a golden statue of Buddha. His welcoming smile and extended arms were highlighted by a ruby-encrusted toga that adorned his rotund belly. Wilkes instantly knew the statue alone was worth a small fortune. He could only imagine what treasures lay further down the tunnel. Wilkes was not stupid. A bird in hand was worth more than two in the bush. He opened the flap to his leather bag, removed the Buddha from its perch, and carefully lowered it in.
The three years, eleven months, and fifteen days of waiting it out in the Himalayas had finally paid off in spades.
His adventure in Tibet now seemed so long ago. Wilkes did return to that same cave