Read Online The Bone Labyrinth by James Rollins - Free Book Online Page B

behind the flowstone curtain. Its solidness seemed to help center him. He faced them both. “ Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé?” he asked hoarsely, then tried again in English. “Wh-what has happened?”
    Lena joined Roland as the priest checked the soldier’s head wound. A scalp laceration continued to bleed slowly. She suspected his injury must have happened during the explosion.
    “How . . . how did you end up down here?” Lena asked.
    Gerard stared toward the blasted remains of the old entrance, then spoke slowly, hesitantly, still dazed. “When we were attacked, I rushed down here to protect you all. That was our highest priority.”
    She understood. To keep the civilians in his charge safe.
    “But the enemy was too fast,” Gerard explained. “I barely had time to hide when they came down in force on my heels. I heard them call for Wrightson and Arnaud to show themselves. When you two did not appear with the other men, I suspected they had hidden you. To protect you, n’est-ce pas ?”
    She nodded at his assessment.
    “There were too many for me to risk an assault to free the professors. Any attempt would’ve gotten them both killed. So I waited, hoping to rescue you two, then raise an alarm when it was safe.”
    “We had a similar plan,” Lena admitted.
    The soldier frowned at the roof. “I was about to move when . . .” He shook his head. “I do not remember.”
    “The thieves blew up the entrance,” Lena explained. “You must have been knocked out.”
    Gerard gained his feet unsteadily, keeping one hand on the wall and shouldering his rifle with the other. He stared down at the water splashing over his legs.
    “The caverns are flooding,” Roland warned. “We should try to get as high as possible.”
    The soldier ignored him, stepping away. He unclipped a small flashlight from his belt and shone it down the throat of the tunnel to the neighboring cavern. A few yards down the passageway, water now fully flooded the tunnel.
    Lena joined him. “I think Roland . . . Father Novak is right. We should climb higher on these walls, try to stay above the rising tide.”
    Gerard shook his head. “Any rescue team will take too long to reach us here.”
    “Then what would you have us do?” Roland asked.
    Gerard led them back to the curtain of flowstone and pointed behind it. Lena peered into the space and discovered that the soldier’s hiding place was the mouth of another tunnel. It opened four feet above the flooded floor.
    But where did it lead?
    She turned to find Gerard pulling out a hand-drawn map from his pocket. He shook it open and splayed it on the wall. It appeared to be a detailed sketch of this cavern system.
    “We are here,” he said, stabbing a thick finger on a spot on the map. “According to Wrightson’s geological study of the surrounding area, this set of caves connects to a series of tunnels and caverns that run deeper and farther through the mountains. Possibly as far as Đula’s Abyss.”
    Gerard turned to Roland, but the priest wore a doubtful expression.
    “What is he talking about?” Lena asked.
    “You came through the city of Ogulin to get here, yes?” Roland asked.
    She nodded, remembering the quaint medieval village with its stone castle and old homes.
    “The town sits atop Croatia’s longest caving system, over twenty kilometers of caverns, passageways, and subterranean lakes. In the center of town is one of the openings into that system.”
    “In the middle of town?” she asked.
    Roland explained, “The River Dobra flows out of the neighboring mountains and carves a deep gorge that runs halfway through Ogulin. In the town’s center, it drops through an abyss, where it vanishes underground and becomes a subterranean river. That point is called Đula’s Abyss. Legends surround that place, telling of a young girl named Đula who threw herself into its depths to avoid marrying an old and cruel nobleman.”
    Lena turned to the French soldier. “And you think