Aaaaand, we're back! This week, on 'Uncharted: On the Shoulders of Giants', we explain how the only thing more heroic than finding Atlantis is actually getting a chapter out in the middle of one of the busiest summers of all time! ;-) Not to mention that I think the exceeding length of this chapter more than makes up for the brevity of the last!
We now rejoin Nate to find out who the mysterious voice at the end of last chapter belongs to!
...after we check in with Chloe, Sully, and Charlie!
"Whoa now! Steady as she goes!" Chloe pressed the brake and the stolen jeep skidded to a stop near a fork in the river. Putting the engine in neutral, she leaned back in the driver's seat and draped her hands loosely over the top of the wheel. "Which way do you think he went?"
The river split at the corner of a mountain, one side winding its way through a shady canyon and the other meandering through an grassy valley. Cutter had his arm resting on the top of his door and was drumming on the rusty exterior of the jeep as he studied both options. After a few moments he lifted a finger and pointed toward the valley. "I say-"
"Ah-ah," Sully interrupted, leaning over both of their shoulders from the back seat. Plopping a cigar into his mouth, he rumbled, "Last time you got to pick, you got the wrong one. It's my turn, and I say we go that way." He pointed down the canyon, then leaned back, lit his cigar, and took a long draw on it.
"He's not wrong," Chloe said, grinning impishly at Cutter before dropping the shifter in gear and giving the jeep some gas.
"That was a fifty-fifty shot," Cutter complained. "And it worked out in the end."
It was a slow crawl over rocks and through gulleys, and occasionally they had to get out and drag logs or push boulders out of their way, but they made steady progress through the canyon. As they went along, Cutter kept a curious eye on the increasingly striking rock formations around them, but said nothing.
About thirty minutes later, they rounded a bend in the canyon. Chloe pushed the accelerator a little harder to ease the jeep up out of a ditch, and then glanced skyward. Her eyes went round as saucers and she slammed the brake again, catching both of her passengers by surprise. "Hey!" Sully cried as he fell forward against the back of the front seat, losing the butt of his cigar in the process. The smoldering stub landed on the cracked vinyl of the front seat and quickly melted through. "Those things are expensive," he complained, rubbing the back of his neck as he leaned back in his seat.
"Well, don't worry- it's about to be put to good use as a seat warmer," Charlie said as he peeled himself off the dashboard and eyed the wisp of smoke trailing up from the hole.
Sully grunted in response and folded his arms. "Yeah, well If it gets too hot up there let me know. There's an extinguisher in the back and I'll be glad to empty it in your general direction."
Looking at Chloe, Charlie asked, "Seriously though, love, what gives?"
She pointed wordlessly, and Cutter and Sully followed her finger toward the tops of the cliffs ahead, a hush falling over them as well. "And I thought I had seen it all," Cutter mumbled.
"Now I know I have," Sully added.
Finally, Chloe shook her head and moved her hand back to the gear shift. "Well, I'd say if Nate came this direction there's almost no possibility he didn't end up in there somehow. Agreed?" Without waiting for an answer, she put the jeep in gear and began driving toward the object in question.
"Molly?" Nate laughed in disbelief. Turning around, he shook his head and put his hands on his hips. "God, you really had me going there for a minute!"
A grin spread across the Englishwoman's freckled face, and she spun her pistol on the tip of her finger before holstering it. Crossing her arms, she leaned her weight on one hip. "Well, god knows you probably deserve it."
Nate scoffed, his smile diminishing a bit. "You have no idea," he said.
Still smiling heartily, the redhead looked him over. "What about it then? You look like hell spit you back out."
"Mm." Nate considered a moment. "I think as long as I keep coming out that end of hell, I just might survive it."
Molly laughed in earnest at that, and flicked her loosely tied, fiery red ponytail over her shoulder. "Really, though. What in the blazes are you on to?"
Frowning at the sun as it rose ever higher, Nate pondered before replying. "I'll tell you that if you tell me how the hell you even got here."
"Oh, please," she said with a smirk. "You're not under the impression you're hard to find are you? I mean, you spent less than forty-eight hours in Xi'an but still managed to blow up Shihuangdi's tomb. That's the type of thing you tend to hear about when you're in the archaeological field in China, so if you were going for being under the radar you're doing a fantastic job."
Nate rolled his eyes at the understating sarcasm that he now remembered was kind of her MO. "Yeah, that's not ever gonna be one of the smarter things I've done." He shrugged. "What can I say? We were kind of under pressure."
"Right," Molly drawled. "So anyway, from there I just did some digging, followed the explosions, and here we are. Some things never change, after all. Knowing you, I was pretty sure that you were on to something big- hopefully big enough to justify the desecration of an important cultural site like the tomb of the First Emperor."
Nate hedged. "I mean, technically it wasn't the tomb. It was a side chamber that served as a hideout for some rogue alchemists. But yeah, it's big." He inhaled deeply and then let it out in a sigh. "I need a gun," he said suddenly.
"Why am I not surprised?" Molly jerked her head in the direction of the tree line. "Lucky for you, I plan ahead."
"I... have been known to plan ahead," Nate said as he walked behind her. "I lost mine in a- in a rock crusher," he said, not really sure himself if that was an explanation or justification.
The woman in front of him paused mid-stride and glanced back. "That... I might be surprised about." She cocked her head to the side but kept walking. "This must be a fascinating adventure you're on."
Scoffing again, Nate agreed. "Trust me when I say that losing my gun in a giant meat grinder is one of the least incredible parts of this trip. By a lot." As he followed her through the trees, accompanied by the rustle of leaves and the snap of branches, Nate studied Molly. It wasn't the way he might have studied her several years back when they first met- not only was he a (technically?) married man now, but his present circumstances had any thoughts of that sort pretty far from his mind. Now as he saw her beige button-down shirt with sleeves cuffed to her elbows over top of some snugly-fitting olive drab chinos, he thought of how little she'd changed, and that's when it hit him. All these people- Sully, Chloe, Charlie, Molly- they all were like pillars in his life. No matter what kind of crazy shit he ended up in, no matter how many times he flaked out on them, they were always there for him. And, for better or worse, they never changed. They were a constant in his life, something comforting, that he felt safe to depend on. At this point, he wondered if anyone could depend on him to be anything but undependable.
They reached a jeep a little ways back in a less densely wooded part, and Molly walked around to the back and pulled a Para 9 from an ammunition box. "Here you are," she said blithely, extending the butt of the weapon to him. "It's new, so try not to scratch it."
Nate raised an eyebrow as he took the gun and used it to fill his empty holster. "Was your humor always this dry?"
"English," she said with a smirk as she hopped into the driver's seat. " But also, I may have learned a thing or two from someone I worked with a few years ago."
Nate smiled ironically as he climbed into the passenger's side of the jeep.
"Where to?" she asked as she depressed the clutch and dropped the shifter into first.
"Upstream," Nate pointed. "I'll fill you in on the way."
"...and then I landed in the river and got washed over the falls, fell unconscious, and washed ashore. And that pretty well brings us to now," Nate concluded his recounting of the events of the last two weeks or so, carefully edited to leave out his personal drama. A twinge of guilt over entirely omitting Elena from the narrative kept gnawing away at him, but he told himself that it was for the better. Molly didn't need to get all wrapped up in that right now.
"Hmm. That must have been some kind of emergency to take you away from going to Alexandria with everyone else," Molly observed as she carefully guided the jeep along the banks of the mountain river.
And there it was. Of course she had to be nosy, Nate thought to himself. "Yeah. Some debts I had to settle." He hoped his lame excuse sounded better to her than it did to him. In his peripheral vision he could see her curiously side-eyeing him, but he pointedly avoided meeting her gaze in favor of watching the scenery. Just when it seemed like she might open her mouth to pry further into his story, Nate spotted something across the river.
"Hey, hold up!" he shouted. She rammed the brake, and the jeep shredded turf as it skidded to a stop near a fork in the stream. The redheaded Englishwoman looked expectantly at him as he pointed, directing her eyes to the soil on the other side which had recently been disturbed. "Tire tracks," he said. Frowning, he continued, "Which means either Chloe and the others came this way, or Floki and Garnier." He looked at her meaningfully.
For a moment her face was grim, then she shoved the jeep in gear and proclaimed optimistically, "Only one way to find out!"
For a while the conversation died, much to Nate's relief, and the only communication was that which was related to traversing the canyon the trail led to. Besides the ruts left by the tires in the soft ground, they also spotted drag marks where branches or boulders had been moved aside to make a path for whoever had gone before them. Nate kept one hand on the Para 9 Molly had given him just in case it turned out not to be friends at the end of those tracks.
The jeep juddered violently as it bounced over a ledge, and Nate pressed his hands against the dashboard to brace himself. Molly glanced over, then asked, "Married man now? See, I told you you'd find someone good. Who's the lucky lady?"
He tried to hide his scowl as his eyes drifted down to the ring on his finger, the one he had left on expressly for the purpose of sparing him any awkward conversations with Sully and the gang. Just can't win for losing, he thought.
"Yeah," he tried on a laugh that he hoped sounded happy. "Her name's Elena Fisher." Glancing at his companion, he said, "You may have heard of her- former t.v. personality for Uncharted History, now investigative journalist?"
"Heard of her. She seems like a spunky woman. She didn't want to tag along?"
Nate was suddenly keenly interested in a rock formation approaching off his side of the vehicle. "Yeah, she decided to sit this one out."
Molly hummed in response, but kept her eyes straight ahead and her expression neutral. Nate scratched uncomfortably at the stubble growing in on his chin and made a face that Molly couldn't see. She wasn't dumb- most likely she could see straight through his bullshit, but he chose not to think about it. Draping his arm over his seat back, he continued to stare at the rocks they were passing. When he first started looking at them, it was mostly just to be not looking at Molly, but eventually the unusual formations of stone caught his attention in earnest. After watching for several minutes in silence, he pointed it out to Molly.
"Hey, d'ja get a load of the mountains here? All the rock strata are running pretty much vertically." He traced his finger through the air to demonstrate. "These all got squashed up out of the ground- like a deck of cards being folded." He furrowed his brows and followed a particularly striking outcropping with his eyes. "Must've been some major seismic activity here at some point."
Molly half smiled and raised one eyebrow. "Coincidence?"
Nate snorted. "Fat chance, right?"
They rounded a long, sweeping bend in the canyon and came out onto an open plain that stretched out for a few thousand feet ahead before diving back into a gorge on the other side. Sunlight washed over them as they emerged from the shadows and Molly and Nate both looked up at the same time, their mouths falling open as if in coordination with each other. Molly's foot came involuntarily off the pedal, but in her shock she couldn't even think to pull it out of gear and the jeep eventually stalled and jerked to a standstill. Neither of them noticed or cared, though, but instead they continued to stare in awe, for up high, near the top of the cliffs at the entrance to the next section of canyons, a huge, weathered, wooden ship was lodged, its dark hull spanning the gorge like a bridge while its rigging hung down from rotting masts in a gloomy tangle like spider's webs.
"Holy..." Nate leaped up in his seat and stood with his hands on the top of the jeep's windscreen, a look of wonder on his face. Even before he spotted the scowling face of a guardian lion on the bow of the ship, just partially visible above where it was smashed up against the mountain, he knew what he was looking at, but that last clue confirmed his suspicion, and he began to laugh softly.
His laughter broke the trance that had fallen over the pair, and Molly looked quizzically at him. "What's so funny?"
Nate did something of a double take at her, as he was still struggling to pry his eyes away from the incredible sight before them. "It's just," he paused as he struggled for words. "I guess I've spent so much time running around bustling cities and grimy old mines, shooting and being shot at, it's like... it's like I forgot what we were even looking for or something. But this-" he waved a hand toward the ship, "this is amazing! I mean, you know what that is, right? It's one of Xu Fu's ships that he took to find Peng Lai!" His excitement bubbled over as he continued, "This means we're close! Atlantis has gotta be somewhere right around here!"
Molly's eyes dropped, and she nodded toward an object across the valley from them. "So must our friends we've been following. At least, let's hope they're friends."
Nate looked where she had indicated and frowned when he saw the empty jeep parked near the entrance to the opposite canyon. "Yeah, let's be careful. We'd better get up there."
"How would this thing even end up here?" Molly asked as she climbed the narrow path up the mountain behind Nate. The question was apparently rhetorical though, as she answered herself without waiting for Nate's opinion. "It must be whatever earthquake formed these mountains also caused a massive flood, and these poor blokes got caught in it. Bloody hell, that would've had to be some serious waves..."
As he climbed over a boulder and dropped down on the other side, Nate eyed the ship which now loomed very close in front of them. "Yeah. Almost like an act of the gods, huh?"
From their current position he could see that when the stern of the vessel struck the mountain it smashed a sizable hole near the keel, the exposed portion of which was now just off to their left and down a small slope. He considered using the breach in the hull to explore it, but decided against it in favor of climbing up a slab in front of them and accessing it via the deck. He led the way up the smooth rock face and paused at the top while Molly came up behind him.
Before them, the wrecked barque stretched over the void, its planking grey and rough with age and weather, reaching out till it splintered against the unforgiving cliff on the other side. The deck was broad and littered with the few remnants that hadn't blown away or rotted with the ages: the stump of a mast, some tattered cloth that may have once been a blood red flag or sail but now was a washed out and barely discernible pink color, a spar that was broken at an angle like a discarded toothpick and leaning on the rail, the shattered remains of a cabin, and some moldy piles of rope. Nate gave a wry glance at Molly.
"I'm sure it's still structurally sound enough to walk on, right?"
A breeze whistled through the canyon and the ancient timbers creaked and groaned.
Molly gave a farcical nod of agreement. "Positive. In fact, I'm so sure, I'll let you go first."
"Attagirl." Nate grabbed the edge of the rock and slowly lowered himself down until he felt his toes touch the deck. Slowly, tentatively, he transferred his weight onto the ship, praying that it wouldn't give out. Finally, he pulled his hands away from the cliff. "See? Solid as a rock. Eh, no pun intended."
"Good, cause I don't think I get it if you did intend one." Molly said as she eased herself down behind him.
Glancing over his shoulder at her, Nate gestured vaguely around them. "It's a mountain- ah, forget it."
Their footsteps sounded hollow on the petrified boards as they moved carefully out over the gorge. As he scanned the vessel beneath his feet, Nate became increasingly interested in the many small holes that had been punched in the deck, ranging from about one foot to two or even three feet in diameter. When he took note of it to Molly, she pointed at a rock laying on the deck near the rail.
"Looks like it got caught in some kind of a rock slide?" she said uncertainly.
Nate studied the spherical object curiously. "Is that-?" He began walking toward it to take a closer look.
Molly looked uneasy. "Nate, be careful. Nate!"
Suddenly the brittle planking cracked beneath him and Nate fell into the depths of the ship. A cascade of splinters and fragmented boards raining down around him, he hit a lower deck about ten feet down, landing heavily and rolling over on his back. Dazed from the fall, he groaned, sat up slowly, and squinted up at the hole he had just made. Sunlight streamed through until Molly's face obscured it as she peered down at him.
"Are you OK?"
"Never been better," he lied. With another groan, he started to push himself up until a noise behind him made his instincts kick in, and he launched into a backward roll and came up wielding his pistol.
Sully took a step back, holding his hands in the air. "Whoa, now. Put that thing away."
Standing behind him, Cutter added, "Yeah, might put somebody's eye out."
"Sully? Charlie?"Nate's eyes went wide and he lowered his gun. "Oh, thank god. I was hoping that was your jeep."
Chloe stepped up beside Sully and folded her arms. "Don't forget me, now," she drawled, then scanned him up and down. "Good to see you still in one piece. You look like absolute shit though."
Shoving his gun back in his shoulder holsters, Nate snarked, "You like? I had to go over a waterfall to really nail the effect, but I think it was worth it in the end."
"His jaw still works," Charlie announced. "I'd say he's alright."
"Ah-ha, funny."
"So," Chloe said in an upbeat tone, "now that we're not being shot at at the moment, how'd the visit with the wife go?"
Nate's gaze flicked over to her, his expression going cold as ice, but he was saved from answering her by Molly suddenly dropping down through the hole he had fallen through. Cutter instinctively drew his gun, but Nate waved him down. "Relax, tiger. She's a friend."
Chloe put her hands on her hips and looked confused, her gaze going back and forth between Nate and the new arrival. "I'm sorry... am I missing something? Elena? Did you dye your-"
"This is Molly," Nate interrupted, "Molly Greene. Molly, this is Charlie Cutter and Chloe Frazer."
"Charmed," the redhead said as she shook Chloe's hand. Then to Sully, "Victor Sullivan... It's been a while." She smiled. "It's a pleasure to work with you two dashing scoundrels again."
"The pleasure's all mine," Sully said, shaking her hand in turn. "Didn't expect to have any more help show up on this carnival ride."
"You wouldn't be so lucky," Molly quipped, and then went on to explain to them how she caught up.
Nate wandered away from the conversation to examine the inside of the stranded vessel. The air was musty and stale, and in the dim light filtering in through the gaps in the exterior planking, he could make out more round or teardrop-shaped rocks scattered across this lower deck. He picked one up and turned it over in his hands, feeling its weight and the exceptionally rough surface. Charlie appeared at his side, and Nate waved the spherical object at him."You see these?"
Cutter nodded. "Yeah, I did. They're all over. It's igneous rock."
"I know," Nate said in a low voice. "Lava bombs. There must've been some kind of an eruption long ago, probably caused by the earthquake that shaped this part of the Atlas range."
"You noticed that too," Charlie said, impressed. "That's what I figured. Probably made the tidal wave that landed this mess up here, too. An earthquake of that kind of proportion-" he paused and looked at Nate meaningfully. "I'd say we have our Atlantis story."
Nate nodded. "I was pretty sure even before we stumbled on this thing, but especially now. It must be the catastrophe that sunk Atlantis, which means we're very- very- close."
"Only problem is the timing," Cutter added. "If this is Xu Fu's ship, then these guys would have come along after the sinking of Atlantis."
Nate considered that. "Maybe the eruption happened later? Or there were multiple earthquakes over the years." He and Cutter both shrugged.
"Hey, Nate!" Chloe called. "You see these stiffs over here?" She pointed out a couple of skeletons nearer to the stern of the ship, playing her flashlight beam over the bones.
Nate walked over to see them. "Xu Fu's crew," he said, regarding them soberly. "Were they trying to get in- or trying to get out?"
Chloe side-eyed him, then moved the beam of light up onto the hull of the ship. Near the bodies of the dead crewman were some pictures, crudely scratched on the boards with some sort of chalk. Some parts of the drawing had faded and been erased over time, but the gist of it was still simple enough to make out: Some people gathered around the mouth of a fountain that seemed to be in the shape of a serpent or dragon of some kind and drinking the water that issued from it. Then the people on the other side of the fountain began to look strange and twisted, and more so the further they got from it. Though still obviously human, the figures at the fringe of the sketch seemed malformed in some way, and a bit unearthly. A shiver ran down her spine involuntarily.
"What do you think that's all about?" she asked, visibly unnerved.
Cutter checked to see if anyone else in the group was going to answer, then forged ahead. "I'd be willing to bet that, by the end of this whole mess, we'll know exactly what that is all about."
"And probably wish we didn't," Molly interjected, looking knowingly around. "That's usually how these things go."
Nate murmured his agreement, then pulled out his journal from his pocket. Bending over a partially destroyed barrel, he used the top of it as a desk to sketch the skeletons, the drawing, and even one of the lava bombs, making notes in the margin of his picture, while the others kept poking around the ship's cavernous interior.
"Need a light?" Sully's voice caught him off guard as he appeared suddenly at Nate's shoulder. Nate glanced up. He hadn't even realized until Sully said so how dark it had gotten once Charlie and Chloe took their flashlights away. The light coming through the gaps in the planking didn't really amount to much.
"Sure," Nate muttered, stooping over his work again. "I lost mine when I went over the falls, I guess."
Sully obliged, holding a flashlight on the page. Nate continued drawing, willingly oblivious to the fact that Sully's offer was likely to be more than it appeared. It was almost certain that he wanted to talk, but Nate was caught up in what he was doing, as well as being determined to act like he hadn't noticed Sully's intentions.
"Sooo..." Sully began, and Nate bristled. "How'd it go with Elena."
"Mm. Fine," Nate mumbled without looking up, his pencil in his teeth. The wind whistled woodenly through the creaking vessel to fill the brief silence that followed, the breathy sound seeming to draw attention to the hollowness of Nate's obviously untrue statement. He silently cursed himself for not being a better actor.
A frown turned up the corner of Sully's mouth, and he folded his arms. After indulging his protege with a moment's silence, he stated bluntly, "Kid, you're lousy at poker. Probably always will be. So I'm gonna ask again: How'd things go with Elena?"
Pencil scratched over paper in silence as Nate finished an aspect of his drawing before finally turning to talk face-to-face with his mentor. "Look, I'd rather not talk about it right now, OK?"
Sully's mustache twitched and a slight growl of irritation rumbled past his lips. "Nate, you're a good kid, but you have to learn the value of having friends, partners, people you can open up to every once in a while." He shrugged, lifting his palms flat in the air. "You've gotta get stuff out sometimes, it's not healthy to-"
"You a therapist now?" Nate asked coldly, cutting him off. "I didn't know that was in your skill set." He paused to glare at him, then added resignedly, "Really, Sully, I'm fine."
"Nate?" Chloe's voice interrupted their exchange. "Nate, I think we found the cargo hold. You want to check it out?"
Nate looked to where her light was shining on a hatch cover toward the other end of the ship. Eager for the distraction, he left his journal on the crate and began walking deliberately that direction, with Sully close behind him.
"Nate, you know I don't buy that bullshit for a minute," he said, his voice lowered to keep the others from overhearing them. "I just want you to know that I'm here to help-"
Nate couldn't take it anymore. Whirling in a fury on his older friend, he snapped, "If you really want to help, Sully, then why don't you-" he trailed off and looked past Sully, his eyes slowly widening. In the silence that followed Nate's outburst, the sounds of footsteps approaching could be heard clearly. "Oh, shit," Nate said, then turned and ran over to the others. Without a word, he reached around Chloe's back to grab a grenade off of her belt, startling her in the process.
"Hey, what the-"
But Nate was already running as the muzzle of the first gun appeared through the splintered hole in the stern. He rushed past Sully, unclipping the astrolabe from his shoulder holsters as he went, then pulled the pin on the grenade, keeping the safety lever depressed, and held the grenade and the astrolabe up side by side.
"Nate, the hell are you doin'?" Sully sputtered.
The first two revolutionaries arrived in the chamber, followed closely by Floki and then Garnier. As more armed goons flooded in behind the two masterminds of the crew, all clearly looking for blood, the French scientist's eyes went round as saucers on seeing Nate and the two objects he held in his hands, and Garnier screamed into the silence, "PUT YOUR GUNS DOWN!"
Floki's men seemed confused as to whether he was talking to them or to Drake and company, so the scientist clarified. "I mean YOU, you fools! Don't you see he's about to destroy the astrolabe?"
"Smart man," Nate said dryly, smirking at them. "Saved me the trouble of explaining."
Floki glared at his French counterpart, enraged, but didn't stop his men as they lowered the ends of their rifles to point at the ground.
"Good," Nate narrated. "Now, if we can all just continue to be reasonable here, this is what we'll do: You're going to let my friends walk out the other side of this ship unharmed. After that, I give you the astrolabe, and all bets are off." His eyes narrowed in a warning. "Any false move before that, and I let this grenade blow the key to Atlantis all the way to kingdom come."
The four adventurers standing behind him all exchanged glances, then began to talk over each other.
"What the hell, kid-"
"No way we're leaving you-"
"Nate, are you crazy?"
"Go!" Nate barked without looking back. "I mean it."
He didn't even have to see their faces to feel the reluctance in the air, but soon he heard the shuffling of uncertain footsteps retreating behind him. Garnier looked as though he was unsure what to do, so Nate raised the two objects in his hands a little to encourage him to make a decision a little more quickly. Meanwhile, Floki was looking back and forth between Mathis and Nate with an expression somewhere between disbelief and seething anger.
"Fine," Garnier said finally. "Have it your way. As long as I get the astrolabe, I could care less what happens to your friends."
Nate smiled in victory. Floki looked affronted. "Oh you've gotta be-" The huge Icelander's body twisted one way, then the other as he assessed the situation and decided he didn't like it. In a movement of such speed as surprised even Nate, he shoved Garnier roughly to the side while whipping out his pistol, and then fired off a couple shots at Nate's retreating friends. Cries of surprise came from them, and Nate's jaw hardened, his hands acting almost of their own accord.
He hurled the grenade toward Floki and simultaneously hit the deck. A cacophony of shouts ensued as Garnier and the revolutionaries scrambled for cover, but the grenade bounced off of a beam that, between the low light and the heat of the moment, Nate had overlooked, and it bounced back and fell on the ground about halfway between the two groups of people, roughly in the center of the ship.
"Get down!" Nate screamed, and covered his head.
Several stray shots rang out. An explosion from the grenade rattled the ship and the eardrums of everyone present. The sound of splintering, cracking, and splitting wood filled the air, and Nate got that unsettling feeling that you get sometimes when you're in an elevator and it starts to drop. Screams of panic and confusion assaulted his senses, and then there was a series of loud pops as the deck began to pitch. Looking up from the floor where he still was sprawled on his stomach, Nate saw that the explosion had blown a hole in the bottom of the hull, straight through the keel, and now the ship was beginning to fold down in the middle, the strained planking popping out around the stress line much like when you try to break a tree branch and only half of it separates and frays, while the rest of it remains intact.
"Hang on to somethin'!" Sully yelled from above him.
"Did that really need to be said?" Molly shouted back.
The crate Nate had left his journal on ended up on the other side of the divide from him, and as the ship continued to dip down it began sliding across the deck, eventually tipping over and spilling the little leather book from the top of it. Nate watched aghast as his journal skittered across the rough planking, nearly going off the bottom before getting caught on one of the ribs of the vessel. He clipped the astrolabe back to his holsters and hurled himself across the hole, bounced off the deck on the other side, and tumbled down to the bottom, stopping himself on the same rib his journal landed on. He clambered up onto the wooden member and pocketed the book as Chloe called out to him.
"Goddammit, Nate, what are you doing?"
Nate turned around on the narrow ledge he was perched on just as the ship reached the extent it seemed it was going to sag at that moment and it stopped with a jolt. A small shower of loose debris fell in the empty space between the two halves of the ship, which was now a gaping fifteen to twenty feet wide, and Nate swallowed a lump in his throat as he wondered how he would make it back across.
"Nate, look out!" Molly called.
Shaken back to reality by the cry, he looked up to see one of Floki's goons tumbling haplessly down the now-inclined deck and heading straight for him. Nate gave a startled yelp and tried to move out of the way, but the barreling henchman bowled him over and sent him head over heels toward the precipitous drop to the canyon floor below. With a grunt, Nate caught the edge of a shattered plank with the fingertips of his right hand, but only for a second before the combined force of gravity and the weight of Floki's crony caused him to lose his grip, and he spiraled out of the ship and into thin air.
"NATE!" Cutter screamed, and in the same breath grabbed a coil of rope and dove off his perch. With the form of an Olympic diver, Cutter prayed that aerodynamics would work in his favor to catch up to Nate, who was kicking and flailing like a child throwing a tantrum. It was only after he passed the end of the deck and into open airspace that it occurred to Charlie that it would've been nice to know if the other end of this rope was tied off to anything.
Nate was screaming as he tumbled over and over with the erratic movements of his body, thrashing as though it could somehow make something appear in midair that he could grab onto. When an arm wrapped around his rib cage, just under his armpits, and then a moment later his free fall came to an abrupt stop, he was nothing short of bewildered.
"A little help here?" Cutter grunted in his ear, obviously straining with the effort to hold onto a rough rope with one hand and support Nate with the other. Nate was more than happy to oblige, and grabbed the rope with both of his hands.
"I told you all to get out of there!" Nate shouted over the wind that was rushing by as they swung.
"You're welcome!" Cutter called back.
Nate was carefully watching the cliff to make sure they wouldn't swing into it, but spared a frustrated glance at his companion. "That wasn't a thank you!"
"I know," Cutter replied dryly. "We'll talk about that later. Right now, let's get the bloody hell out of here!"
The sounds of gunfire could be heard from above, and Nate could only imagine the firefight that was going on between the two halves of the ship right now. "You're right," he agreed. "Let's go."
The two men began climbing, Cutter first, Nate second, as the rope continued to swing like a pendulum beneath the crumbling barque stuck in the cliffs. They had only made it about five or six feet when another loud crash came from above, and for a moment Nate thought that the ship was finally giving out. A moment later, though, he surmised it was the remainder of one of the masts toppling and punching a hole through the deck when a tangle of rigging and tattered sailcloth dropped out through the breach in the middle of the underside.
"Watch yourself!" Cutter called as a broken piece of a spar swung through the air from a loop of rope. Nate kicked it away when it came too close to them, the movement adding another erratic curve to their swing. "Grab that rope, will you?" Cutter prodded as they passed close to another dangling line.
"Gladly!" Nate replied, dropping off Cutter's line onto it. They climbed side by side for another few feet when suddenly several of Floki's men came falling out of the ship,screaming as they did, and one of them fell all the way to the ground while the other two snagged some lines just as Nate and Charlie had. The new arrivals swung away from Nate and Cutter, their elliptical paths putting them initially at a distance from each other, but it wasn't hard to tell that that break would only last so long.
"Oh, perfect," Cutter said sarcastically as he watched the swinging goons get closer. "We get to play Tarzan together for a bit."
"Keep climbing!" Nate shouted.
The ropes were moldy and slippery at times, and creaked disconcertingly under the weight of even a single person, but they all climbed up them with as much speed as possible, both pairs of men keeping a close eye on the other. Nate had just glanced up to see how far was left to go when he heard Cutter call out, "Comin' through!" He looked down to see the Englishman land a boot to the underside of one of the thug's jaws as he swung in close proximity. To his credit, the thug did not let go.
"See you in hell, Drake!"
Nate turned and realized that the other man was about to crash directly into him with a knife drawn. Nate managed to awkwardly fend off the attack, but not without feeling the knife's edge graze his stomach.
There was no turning back now: their passing scuffles had altered their paths to put them on opposing arcs with each other, and they would continue to meet in the middle until one side or the other had victory. Nate kicked his feet wildly to try to turn himself as he reached the end of his arc, and then slowly began the trip back. "Cutter!" he yelled. "How do we get ourselves into these situations?"
"Confusing a plan with a grenade will get you every time!" the Englishman shouted back.
"Touche!" Nate focused and planned his attack as he approached the revolutionary, but at the last moment the rope twisted him in a bad way and he was caught off guard, costing him a slash to his upper arm from the goon's knife. He cried out in pain and momentarily let go with the injured arm as he swung to the other extreme of the rope's reach.
"You OK?" he heard Cutter call. The spin had put him facing away from the clash between Charlie and his man, so Nate was glad to hear that he was still in the game as well.
"Nothin' an Ace bandage won't fix!" Nate yelled back. He could see Charlie had pulled a switchblade from somewhere in his jacket, and watched as the Englishman swung back to engage his opponent with a well-placed kick to the gut and followed immediately by slashing his rope. The goon fell to his death with a scream.
"Real sorry to do that mate..." Cutter said without much sincerity.
The wind whistled mournfully through the canyon, combining with the strained creaks and groans of the lines as they grew slack and then tight with the changing dynamics. Determined not to mess up this pass, Nate clenched his jaw and decided on his move. He saw the grin on the approaching thug's face, and the way he was holding the knife blade out flat and to the side, and knew that the goon was planning to do the same to him that Charlie had done to the other revolutionary. "Like hell you are!" Nate mumbled to himself. Letting go with his right hand just before he engaged the thug, Nate batted the knife away and then grabbed onto the man's rope above his head, causing himself to swing around behind the thug and curtailing both of their swings simultaneously. As he crashed against the man's back, Nate brought an elbow down sharply on the hollow spot in his collarbone, and the thug cried out in pain, letting go of the rope. As the man fell the two ropes twisted, spinning Nate crazily for a moment before he let go of the one rope to keep climbing the line he first had.
"Ha! They never taught that in P.E.!" Nate joked as he climbed.
"You had physical education in the Catholic boy's home?"
When the two treasure hunters reached the ship again, the shooting was in full swing, with Garnier and Floki having both disappeared and left behind a handful of unfortunate lackeys to take the brunt of Sully, Chloe, and Molly's relentless firepower. Nate hauled himself up onto a rib to stand, Cutter taking a spot next to him, and they both drew their weapons and joined the assault on the remaining enemies. Soon it was down to just one stubborn revolutionary who had wedged himself in a hard-to-hit spot near a support post at the stern. Nate kept up his barrage of bullets from the Para 9 while he urged Cutter to get the others and start making their way off the ship. Cutter grabbed the rope he had taken to catch Nate and climbed it hand over hand, scaling the deck like a climbing wall at a gym, and soon had made his way to the rest of the gang.
"Go!" Nate called without looking away from his target. "Get the hell out of here!" Still maintaining a steady onslaught of bullets over his shoulder, Nate also began climbing the deck.
Chloe, Molly, and Charlie all began working their way toward the hole in the bow, where they could crawl out onto the mountain, while Sully fired off a few more shots and then turned to follow. But as he turned, the ship lurched again and Sully lost his footing, tumbling down toward the hole in the bottom of the ship.
"Sully!" Nate screamed. He launched off the deck and grabbed one of the ropes hanging down, swung out, and managed to grab one of Sully's hands as he fell past. They swung out together over the abyss and then slowly back, all the while bullets whizzing past them from the one remaining thug. "Grab the rope!" Nate shouted when they came within reach of the line on deck. Sully did, and Nate planted both feet and pushed off again, swinging quickly back toward the other side. The thug gave a startled cry as Nate suddenly appeared beside him, and Nate grabbed onto the man's shirt to try and rip him off of his post.
Another several loud pops split the air, and Sully yelled out, "Nate! Time to get off this thing! NOW!"
Nate wrestled with the thug and was nearly pulled from the rope, but eventually managed to drag him off his perch, sending him rolling down the deck and over the edge. There were more creaking and groans of strained timbers, and the ship fell another several feet. Nate quickly pushed off and swung back to the other side, landing on the rope a little below Sully.
"Hurry it up kid!" his mentor called as he clambered his way toward the top. Nate was right behind him, looking up as he climbed to see if the others had made it out. There was no sign of anyone. Good, he thought.
They were nearly to the top when a crack louder than the rest made Nate's heart skip a beat. The deck turned perfectly vertical, and suddenly the entire ship began to slide. "Oh, Christ!" Nate screamed.
The next few moments were chaos. Snapping, breaking, screeching, crashing, the entire ship slid down the side of the canyon wall, it's plunge only slowed by the friction of being smashed up against its own other half on the other side of the gorge. They hit the ground, and Nate and Sully were thrown around like rag dolls as the barque fragmented, different pieces spinning in different directions, and suddenly they were plunged into the river. The incredible din went quiet as once again Nate plunged below the surface, but the chaos continued as beams and boards and spars randomly plunged like knives into the water around him, which was already a swirl of splinters and debris. Nate kicked like a frog, searching the wreck for his friend while hoping not to be impaled by a stray pole of some kind. He tumbled over as he got caught up in part of the ship's structure as it rolled across the riverbed, but when he came out on the other side he saw him. Sully's dark figure loomed in the water a few yards away, also struggling to get free of the mess they were in. Nate swam up beside him, wrapped his arm around his waist, and pulled him out of the tangled remains of Xu Fu's ship.
Dang, Nate landing in a river after a big action sequence is nearly becoming a trope! I have my reasons though, and I promise it's the last time!
I just have to include a fourth wall break version of Nate's line to Molly when they first see the ship: "It's like, whoever's writing this thing spent so much time making me run around bustling cities and grimy old mines, they forgot what I was even supposed to be looking for!"
Also, for the record, this scene was planned BEFORE I knew about the flying pirate ships in the Uncharted movie, in case anyone thinks the two scenes bear any vague resemblance.