"Go away."

Stepping forward, Lesauvage said, "Get out of there. You're digging too slowly."

Eyes tearing with emotion, looking scared and confused, Avery climbed from the hole. He threw the shovel back into the half-dug pit and started cursing.

Quick as a snake, Lesauvage slammed his pistol into the side of Avery's head. Dazed and hurting, the young man dropped to the ground. He rocked and mewled in pain, holding his head, bleeding down the side of his face. Crimson drops fell from his jawline to the stone floor of the cave.

Anger surged through Annja, but she knew she had to contain it for the moment. At the bottom of the wolf trap, she paused a moment and reached for the sword. The leather-bound hilt felt rough beneath her fingers.

Then she drew back her hand and started to dig. Now wasn't the time. But soon.

For a time only the sounds of the storm and the two shovels cleaving the earth existed. Thudding impacts competed with the rumbling that sounded as if it were on top of the mountain.

A moment later, Roux's shovel struck something hollow.

"Here," he called.

Annja vaulted out of the pit where she worked and crossed the cave. Roux tapped the shovel several times, causing the hollow thump each time.

Looking at Roux's pit, Annja immediately noticed the difference between it and the two she'd worked in. The ones she'd dug tapered like inverted cones. As she'd neared the bottom, the excavation had been harder because the earth had been previously unworked.

Roux's pit had obviously been completely dug out. He kept shoveling, working around a stone oval that fitted onto mortared stoneworks below.

"Is that a tunnel?" Lesauvage asked.

"Maybe," Annja answered. "It could also be a well. The Roman soldiers would have wanted a water source if they were besieged."

More of Lesauvage's men shone their beams into the hole Roux had made.

Within minutes, the old man had completely dug out around the oval. He leaned back against the wall. Perspiration soaked his clothing.

Fear swarmed inside Annja. They were nearing the point of no return. Soon, Lesauvage would no longer need them. If the treasure was revealed beneath, she was certain they'd be shot immediately.

"Get that cover off," Lesauvage ordered.

"I can't," Roux replied. "It's too heavy." He levered the shovel under the stone oval and demonstrated the difficulty he had in raising it only a couple inches.

"We need ropes," Annja said. She directed the flashlight up at the ceiling. There, almost hidden in the shadows, an iron ring was pounded into the ceiling. If it had been found in the past, it might have been mistaken for use with heavy supply loads.

"Get the ropes," Lesauvage ordered. He grinned at Annja. "Very good, Miss Creed."

Minutes later, Annja had tied a harness around the stone oval, then connected that to a double-strand line running through the iron hook mounted in the ceiling. Lesauvage put a team of men on the rope. Together, they pulled and the stone lid slowly lifted from the hole. The sound of running water echoed inside the cave.

Anticipation fired every nerve of Annja's body.

When the lid was clear, Lesauvage walked to the edge of the wolf trap and aimed his flashlight beam. The yellow cone of illumination melted the darkness away.

"What's that sound?" Lesauvage asked.

"Running water," Annja said. "There's probably a stream or groundwater running down there. Like I said, the soldiers would have wanted a steady supply of freshwater."

"How far down?"

Holding her flashlight, Annja climbed down into the wolf pit. She shone the light around and spotted rusty iron handles covered with fungus set into the wall.

"Do you need a rope?" Lesauvage asked.

"No." Annja threw a leg over the edge of the pit and started down. Her boots rang against the iron handles. Three rungs down, one of them snapped off beneath her weight, nearly rusted through.

She almost fell, only hanging on with her hands.

The tunnel walls showed tool marks. Someone had cut through the solid rock into the shallow stream below. Cold air rushed up around Annja, chilling her.

She thought about the tunnel. The Romans, or whoever had constructed it, had known the stream was there. They hadn't drilled blindly through the rock in the hopes of hitting water.

They found it sometime before they decided to dig down to it, Annja realized. And if they found it before they dug down to it, there had to be another entrance.

That gave her hope. She finished the climb and dropped into the stream. The water came up to her calves, but her boots were tall enough to keep her feet dry.

She aimed the flashlight up the stream and down. The tunnel was almost eight feet across and barely five feet in height.

Upstream? Or downstream? She wasn't sure. Her flashlight didn't penetrate far enough to show her much.

A gleam of white suddenly caught her attention. Mired in the dirt and clay that coated the rock, scattered bones lay in disarray.

Enemies? Annja wondered. Or soldiers no one else cared enough to bury?

Amid the death, though, the dull gleam of metal reflected the flashlight beam. She knelt and dragged a hand through the running water, closing her hand on some of the smaller objects she touched.

When she lifted her hand, she held three gold coins and two silver ones. One of the gold ones bore the insignia of the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain.

"Miss Creed?" Lesauvage called.

"I'm here." Annja pocketed the coins and returned to the tunnel. When she looked up, Lesauvage was shining his light into her eyes.

"Well?" he asked.

"I'm coming up. Douse the light."

For a moment Lesauvage hesitated, obviously struggling with whether he wanted to obey.

"Please," Annja called up. "I can't see the rungs."

That near admission of helplessness salved Lesauvage's pride somewhat. "Of course." He moved the light away.

Annja glanced down, trying to will the spots from her vision. Then she noticed a single green leaf riding the stream.

Upstream, she thought, smiling. There's nowhere else that leaf could have come from. She felt certain another opening existed upstream. The storm's fury had probably torn leaves from the trees, and at least one of them had found its way into the cave.

She took hold of the rungs and climbed. At the top, she clambered out of the wolf trap.

"Well?" Lesauvage asked.

Roux and Avery stood near the wolf trap. The young man looked anxious. Roux wore an irritated look, like someone who'd been asked to stay on long after a party had lost its charm.

Annja looked at Roux and spoke in Latin, trusting that for all his hauteur, Lesauvage hadn't learned the spoken language. He might have learned to read bits and pieces, but surely not enough to speak it.

"We can escape down there," she told Roux. "Upstream. Take the boy."

Roux nodded, looking slightly less irritated.

Lesauvage pointed his pistol at Annja's head. "What the hell did you say?"

Without a word, Annja took the coins from her pocket and tossed them to the middle of the stone floor. Enough light existed to catch their golden gleam.

"The treasure's down there." Annja pictured the sword in her mind as she switched off her light and shoved it into her pants pocket. "It's in the stream. You're rich."

Drawn by greed, Lesauvage and his men looked at the coins, swiveling their flashlight beams.

"Now," Annja said in Latin.

Roux grabbed Avery and shoved him toward the hole. The boy yelped in fear and tried to get away, but the old man's strength proved too much for him. Avery disappeared, falling through the wolf trap with Roux on top of him.