“You’d let Sisoka go with us?”
“No!” Joe’s voice was tight with anger. “She stays here, where she belongs.”
“Why? Aren’t you the Guardian? What do you need her for?”
“My affair.”
Ryan forced a mocking laugh. “I think you’re afraid, Joe, to mess with this place without having the hereditary Guardian on a string. You know your claim is bogus, and you want to cover all your bets.”
“Your answer,” came Joe’s stern voice.
“There’s nothing in the cavern that will do you any good,” Ryan shouted. “A light show, an old mummy. Lots of crystal, gold and silver, but you’re not interested in that, anyhow. The power you crave isn’t here.”
When Joe’s response came, it was infuriated, full of flaming fury and frustration. “Decide, you one-eyed bastard! Don’t waste any more of my time! Decide to die in there or not! I’m sick of talking to you!”
Ryan thought swiftly. This situation wasn’t much different from the one in which Hatchet Jack roared a similar ultimatum. And like then, he still had one ace on the line. It wasn’t a particularly good one, but it was worth playing.
“I don’t trust your pals, Joe,” he called out. “We’ll give our blasters to you if you come to us. Only you. Alone.”
There was a long silence, so long that Ryan was on the verge of repeating his words.
“All right, I’ll come to you. Remember, if you kill me, all of you will die. My warriors will bottle you up in there until you perish of starvation or thirst.”
Ryan patted Blood-sniffer’s head. The wolf looked up at him, its eyes showing comprehension, then slunk around to the left, past the ziggurat. It took up a position on the far side of the well, where its lean, shaggy form was hidden by the green radiance pouring upward.
Joe stepped out onto the walkway. He had his automatic rifle in hand and he froze, gaping at the well, at the ziggurat. His head was tilted back, and his mouth slowly fell open in awe and astonishment. That was the instant Blood-sniffer charged him.
Joe managed to catch the streaking movement and bring his blaster up. The weapon blasted over the wolfs head with a fiery breath and voice of thunder as the animal hit him low and brought him down, its snout buried in the man’s breechclout. Joe screamed.
As the echoes of the scream still bounced from the walls and ceiling, three of the warriors who were supposed to have stayed topside charged out onto the walkway. One of the warriors was Little Mountain. They didn’t know whether to look at Joe and the wolf or the heart of Grandmother Earth. They opted to stare with fear-widened eyes at the green blaze.
Ryan squeezed the SIG-Sauer’s trigger three times, and three men were hit. One of the 9 mm rounds tore through a warrior’s forehead, blowing the back of his skull all over the stairs behind him. His companion turned and gaped as the warrior spun and fell, and the second bullet drove through the right side of his head, taking out both of his eyes and most of his left cheek as it exited.
Part of Little Mountain’s upper left shoulder dissolved in a gout of blood and sheared tissue. He dropped his lance and tried to clap a hand over the wound as he kicked himself backward toward the stairwell.
Ryan was already running before Little Mountain reached the first step. He was trying to draw a bead on Joe, but he was in a clinch with Blood-sniffer and they were rolling together over the walkway. Behind him Ryan heard Krysty’s boot heels beating a rapid tattoo on the stone as she raced after him.
He got to within five feet of Joe just as the lithe, muscular man managed to swing the barrel of the rifle up and around. He squeezed the trigger and flame and lead tore along the right side of the great wolf.
Blood-sniffer yelped in pain, body spasming, crimson strings spilling from his fur. Ryan roared in anger and jumped in front of it, sweeping the wolf aside with one arm, aiming his blaster at Joe.