Chapter 9: Temple of the Ancients

Disclaimer: I don't own Pirates. It's short, and I'm AWFUL at action scenes. Heads up.

The group of pirates walked through the Arctic winter. Will and Sparrow walked together with Depp, as AnaMaria and Elizabeth reflected on old times. The weather was amazing; the snow had stopped blowing, and they could see for miles.

Not that there was much to be seen.

"So what's the...whole idea with this? You just...cut my hand..." Will began, still struggling to breathe easily and walk at the same time.

"Left hand," Depp corrected.

"...over a stone?" Will was a little incredulous.

"Well, yeah."

"Hm. That makes..." Will stopped.

"Hm? What's that, Will?" Jack asked Will.

"I was...going to say...that makes...no sense...but look who I'm with." He smirked at the pirates. H then received a quick swat on the head by Jack, as they moved on, seeing Depp looking around.

The three kept walking as Depp said, "And by my memory, we should be right about..."

He never finished. The three fell face forward into a hill, rolling down for what seemed to Will like an eternity.

Until a rock came up and mercifully ended the dizzying view.


Up ahead, Will, Jack, and John tipped forward and vanished. AnaMaria and Elizabeth ran forward, watching their step. Then they saw why the men had fallen.

They had gone down the edge of a bowl-shaped crater. It was amazingly deep, easily over a mile. In the center of this pit was a large temple, a foreboding structure of rock that reached high into the air-but not high enough to be seen away from the edge. AnaMaria was right-it looked more Aztec than anything else. The girls stood in awe for a moment.

Then the hillside, weakened by the sun, collapsed out from under them.


It was a long way down. Rolling and falling, Elizabeth was, in the back of her mind, the part not terrified, astonished at the smoothness of the hillside, and how it had not been warped by the unforgiving Arctic winds.

Then they came to the end of the hill, at the temple mount. The two Jacks had hoisted an unconscious Will up and were moving towards the door, as AnaMaria grabbed Elizabeth's arm and dragged her quickly to the door. "What's wrong?" Elizabeth asked.

"They'll have heard that," AnaMaria rushed as the two women caught up with the men and grabbed Will's feet.

"How?"

"Doesn't matter now. Point is, they're on their way." Jack was not in the mood for more explanations. "Come on, inside!"

Up the stairs and inside the dark building they went.

The inside was a cavernous room. There were doors at the far end of the hall, which seemed to descend as it went on.

"No time to note the fineries, luv-move!"

They ran down the dark stone halls as they heard the winds outside pick up. Then, on the hilltop, figures appeared. They began a climb down the hill, far more graceful than the pirates. Meanwhile, they kept running as AnaMaria guided them through the confusing halls.

"Turn this way!" They ran down a hall, and found it had only one room at the end. "In there!" They charged the door, and broke in.

Inside, Elizabeth gasped. There were nets above them, nets filled with clothes, items...

And bones. Thousands of bones. "You forgot to mention this part, Ana."

"Didn't want to scare you."

"Quiet. So long as we aren't noisy, they won't find us," John hushed them.

"So try not to do anything...stupid," Jack finished.


In silence, they led Will to a form of altar in the center of the room. Judging by the amazingly tall ceiling and small beam of light from above, they were in the center of the temple. Up the stairs they went, until they reached the black rock in the center. There lay on it a knife, much like the one Barbossa had tried to slit his throat with, only white as the snow outside.

Will took the bizarre weapon in his hand, and noticed how much that hand shook. Jack took it from him, and kept his grip on that palm. He slowly brought the knife to Will's palm, and made a very small gash, barely noticeable compared to what he'd done to himself in the shop. Then he pressed Will's shaking hand into the rock. The blood vanished as the feeling of sickness left Will. He stood, and smiled at Jack.

Then something terrible happened.


Elizabeth looked at the nets, and noticed a rope held them up. One of them was fraying. Curious, Elizabeth went to look at it. She hesitatingly brushed a hand against it.

Behind her, the net fell to the ground, bones clattering on the floor.

Jack bowed his head. "Like that."

"Get yer stuff out, boys and girls-it's time to rumble." Depp pulled his pistols from his chest holsters, as Jack pulled his cutlass. Will pulled a strange two-foot long stick from his cloak, as AnaMaria and Elizabeth drew their own swords.

Then the door came down, and Inuits came in, screaming bloody murder. Depp fired twice, hitting with each shot. Then Elizabeth rushed forward with AnaMaria and swung their swords. The look in the Inuit's eyes that Bess attacked scared her. The eyes were not human at all-a cold grey that shrieked of horror, madness and fury.

Then she saw what exactly, that little stick was that Will drew. He twisted the ends, and blades shot from the ends. His swordstaff was a blur in his hands as he flew into the crowd. Twirling it over his head, he sliced through dozens of Inuits at a time.

Depp, meanwhile, was back to back with Sparrow, beating back a particularly big Inuit. He forced the other's blade down, then pulled his double-barreled pistol. The Inuit fell backwards with a smoking chest. Depp turned and shot Sparrow's Inuit from under his arm with the other round. "God, I love this thing," he said as he took its bayonet-like point and stuck it in a third.

Then AnaMaria had her hat knocked off. Her brown eyes went wide, and she pulled her bandana off (A/N: If you say something to a black woman that makes her eyes go wide and she takes her hairtie or bandana off, you RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!), and sliced through dozens of them to get to her hat. Most ended up in several pieces. Then her hat returned to her head, and she stopped hacking and slicing-mercilessly, at any rate.

The rate at which that they went through their enemies was incredible. But, while Jack was lucky, and John was brilliant at warfare, they were men, not demigods. And while Elizabeth and AnaMaria were as good as Will, they were human, and could not go on forever.

And. They. Just. Kept. Coming.