by N. J. Croft
A knot tightened in her stomach as they approached the camp. Would her people see this as a betrayal? While she had her doubts, it was all she had ever known. And she loved her father.
Darkness was falling as they rode into the camp. Her father was waiting, standing with the rest of the council, his face expressionless, and she had no clue what he was thinking.
Time to find out whether they lived or died.
…
The welcoming committee didn’t look particularly welcoming.
It was a group of seven men. Sara had told him that while her father was the ultimate leader, all important decision were discussed and determined by a council of six men. The seventh he recognized as Tarkhan, still leaning on crutches. It was these men they would have to convince.
Sara didn’t believe their chances were high.
He halted his horse next to hers and swung down from the saddle. Someone came up behind him and said something, presumably in Mongolian. He glanced at Sara where she still sat on her horse.
“They want to search you for weapons,” she said.
He shrugged out of the rucksack and dropped it to the ground then held his arms out while they frisked him. He wasn’t armed. He had a pistol in his bag. After checking him, the man searched through his bag, took the pistol and pushed it down the back of his pants, then nodded to the council members.
Sara dismounted and handed her reins to the man, who took Noah’s horse as well and led them away.
“This is my father, Ulagan,” she said to Noah, gesturing to the tall man at the center of the group. He spoke to her in Mongolian, and she answered in the same language. Then turned to him. “He wants to know why you’re back when it was made very clear that you were to leave the country and never return.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That the enemy have your daughter. You are loyal to your family and willing to risk your own life by returning here in order to save hers. And that you have a proposition that you wish to share with the council.”
He studied her father. He was tall, with sun-darkened skin and black hair, and clearly Mongolian, unlike Sara. Maybe her mother had been from somewhere else. He caught Noah’s gaze and pursed his lips then nodded and turned. They followed the small group as they disappeared into a nearby yurt.
The yurt was empty except for one chair, which Tarkhan took with a sigh. Kerosene lamps hung from the ceiling, casting flickering shadows. The rest of them sat cross-legged in a circle, leaving the space farthest from the door and next to Sara for him. He sank down to the ground and composed himself, pushing thoughts of Harper to the back of his mind because he had one chance at this.
“So Major Blakeley, my daughter tells me you have a proposition for us. Perhaps you could explain why we shouldn’t kill you right now?” The man’s English was perfect.
Noah took a deep breath. “I know where the tomb is.”
Ulagan’s eyes narrowed. “So you lied when you were last with us?”
“No. At that point, I didn’t have the location.”
“I gave it to him,” Sara said.
Shock flashed across his face. “You had the location and you never told us? Instead, you gave it to this man. Why?”
“Because he needed it. The Descendants have kidnapped his daughter. They will only give her back in exchange for the location of the tomb.”
“How was it found?”
“Eve Blakeley. We discovered an image in a safe deposit box in Irkutsk. I destroyed the image but memorized the GPS location. That’s what I gave to Noah.”
“So why come here? Why tell us when you know what the outcome must be?”
He figured that was him dying. While he didn’t want to die, this had been a calculated risk. He would never have survived a trip to the Great Taboo anyway. If he had come without Sara, he would have never made it inside the area. They would have picked him off first. Then Harper would die. Christ, she would probably die anyway. But this was her one chance.
“Because it’s time for us to adapt,” Sara said. “We’ve spent centuries protecting the location of the tomb, but times change. Technology moves on. How long do you think the secret will remain a secret? If one person found the tomb, then others will also find it. It’s over.”
“You’re sure the location is real?”
“The image showed the Talisman. It’s real.”
“The people who have my daughter don’t want the tomb itself,” Noah said. “They want the Talisman—they don’t wish to desecrate the body. And they won’t give up. They have the resources to tear this place down around you until they find what they want.”
“We can’t risk that. We cannot risk our enemies knowing the location of the tomb. We cannot know their intentions for certain.”
“Then move the Talisman. Take it to a new location.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Though it was close to midday, the air was chill, and Sara shivered, wrapping her jacket around herself. They were close to the summit of Burkhan Khaldun, and they were in the clouds. The air was damp against her face, her nostrils filled with the pungent scent of pine and damp earth.
The biggest hurdle was over, so why couldn’t she shift the knot of unease that tightened in her belly?
She had expected more of a fight.
It had been a long night. The council had questioned Noah extensively then gone into a huddle. Finally, and to her surprise, they’d agreed to the plan, and much of the night had been spent discussing details and possible locations.
They’d finally slept on the floor of the yurt, wrapped in blankets, and then set off at dawn.
Beside her, Noah stood, hands in his pockets. Some of the tension had eased from him. She hadn’t realized just how tightly he’d been wound until it was gone.
“Eve should have been here,” he said. “She would have loved this.”
The day had turned cloudy as they climbed until they were moving through thick white mist. First on horseback and then on foot, her and Noah, plus her father and eight volunteers. They would have to dig, and they had only hours to complete the move if this had any hope of working.
The GPS coordinates had led them here, just above the tree line where the pine forest gave way to grassy scrub-land that would be deep in snow for most of the year. It was a beautiful spot, looking out over the vastness of the land far below them. She could imagine why Genghis Khan had chosen this place.
From her recollection of the image, Sara had told them where to dig.
Maybe her unease was simply that this was going against everything she had been brought up to believe. Her whole life had been dedicated to ensuring the sanctity of the tomb. She’d never balked at doing her duty, had considered it a sacred chore. Their one role in life was to ensure that the tomb was never found. And yet here they were, digging in the earth, desecrating the final resting place.
But if their actions saved one life, then surely it was worth it. The living had to be more important than the dead.
And what did she expect? A bolt of lightning from above to wipe them out?
She had no belief in divine retribution.
They were concentrating on the small area where she believed the Talisman would be buried. The image hadn’t shown the location of the actual body. There was a good chance that he hadn’t had any sort of sarcophagus. They liked to be at one with the earth, and there would be nothing substantial to show up on the imaging.
The area was small, and they worked in teams of four for half an hour and then swapped places with the second team. It was grueling work and the digging slow. They had to be careful they didn’t damage anything that might be buried here. The sound of their harsh breathing filling the air mixed with the rhythmic sound of the shovels hitting dirt, the soft thud as it hit the ground.
They dug until the men vanished beneath the ear
th, only the sound revealing their continued labor.
Had the image been wrong? Maybe it was faked and never real, but she didn’t think so. She bit down on her lip until she tasted the sharp metallic twang of blood on her tongue.
Noah edged closer and took her hand, holding it tight as if he could feel the sanctity of the moment. Or was he thinking about his daughter? Where was she? Was she afraid? So much hinged on this.
Finally, there was a cry, and the digging ceased. Noah made to move forward, and she stopped him with a hand on his arm. He wasn’t to go near the grave—her father’s stipulation.
Sara held her breath as they lifted out a box. Octagonal, it was about two feet across and heavy; she could tell by the way they lifted it then placed it gently on the ground.
At that moment, there was a break in the clouds, the mist seemed to melt away, and they stood under the deep blue sky as Genghis Khan must have done all those centuries past. She looked to the sky and prayed for forgiveness…and strength.
…
Darkness had engulfed them by the time they came down off the mountain, though the horses seemed to know their way instinctively. Noah was alone with Sara, and they rode in silence. She’d been quiet since they had found the Talisman. Was she regretting her decision to help him?
They’d left her father and the others at the new resting place, ensuring there was nothing to give away the recent upheaval. They’d picked the new site carefully with certain conditions in mind, mainly that terrain and vegetation would allow them to conceal the digging. The exchange was set up for the morning. At least now there was hope that tomorrow, they would get Harper back. Peter would see her to safety, and Noah would attempt to take out the senator. It had to be done. He couldn’t allow her to go on; she was responsible for too many deaths.
That was tomorrow. They still had the night to get through, and he found he didn’t want to be alone. While he hadn’t put it into words—even inside his head—he knew his chances of surviving the next day were almost nonexistent. As long as he got Harper out…
They rode into the camp and dismounted, took off the saddles, and released the horses into the corral. As they turned away, she slipped her hand into his and led him across the camp to a large yurt on the edge of the cluster of tents.
Inside was some sort of storage room, with shelves piled with goods. She grabbed a rolled-up sleeping bag from one and handed it to him then crossed to a huge industrial fridge. She filled a bag with food, added a few other things from the shelves, and slung it over her shoulder.
“Fancy set up for a camp site,” he said.
“It’s run on solar. Better than when I was a kid. We had to make do with warm yak’s milk. Come on, let’s get away from here.”
He half expected the guards to stop them, but the place was quiet, only the stamping and nickering of the horses breaking the silence of the night. Sara led him away from the yurts, heading back along the route they had come, but just a short way. She stopped in a clearing in the pine forest and laid the sleeping bag on the ground. After the cold of the near summit, the night felt warm. She sank down gracefully and patted the space beside her.
As he sat, she pulled a bottle of wine from the bag. She opened it with her knife and drank straight from the bottle then handed it to him, and he drank deeply, feeling the warmth in his belly. She laid bread and cheese and some sort of roasted meat on a platter between them, and his stomach rumbled. He hadn’t felt like eating in as long as he could remember. As he dug in, he concentrated on the food filling his stomach.
There was nothing left to think about. Everything had been done that could be done. Now there was just the night and Sara.
They finished the wine, and he swept the remains of their meal aside. Then he dragged her into his arms, took her mouth in a deep kiss, and pulled her down to the sleeping bag.
Chapter Forty
Michaela Clayton peered out of the window and gazed down at the immensity of the empty land below her. They were flying over the lower slopes of Burkhan Khaldun.
Where had Noah Blakeley been since the call? How had he evaded the Darkhats?
She shifted in her seat and studied the two people opposite. Her attention landed briefly on Peter Blakeley—she’d lost him, and she couldn’t believe how bad that knowledge made her feel. A tightness across her chest, but she couldn’t hate him. She’d known how he felt about Noah Blakeley and his children, and somewhere—deep down where she wouldn’t admit it—she’d hated that. She’d loved Peter most of her adult life, known her love was returned, but she’d wanted it all. So she’d tested him, needing proof that his loyalty was all hers. She’d lost. When this was over, she would have to deal with him.
She forced herself to catch his gaze—he was watching her, and he gave her a small smile, yet she could see the knowledge of his own death in his eyes.
She shifted her attention to his niece, Harper, sitting beside him, her good hand clutching his. She was too young to understand that he had been, if not complicit in her kidnapping, at least in league with her kidnappers.
The girl looked so like her uncle, the same black hair and gray eyes, the same beaky nose dominating a face she still needed to grow into. If they’d had a daughter, would she have looked the same? Or would she have taken after Michaela? Perhaps she would keep the girl around afterward.
The plan had always been to bring Noah into the group, but Peter had said to wait—that the time wasn’t right. Now it never would be. She was still unsure as to whether he knew her identity. She hadn’t questioned Peter, not wanting any more lies between them. It didn’t matter, anyway—Noah would know as soon as she stepped from the chopper. She could have sent someone else, but she had worked too hard for this. And he would never forgive the kidnapping and mutilation of his daughter and never forgive her.
Which meant he would also need to be dealt with, and she suspected he was aware of that. That’s why Peter was here. To take the girl to safety.
Harper looked better than she had a day ago. When she had arrived yesterday, her skin had been leached of color, a combination of fear, pain, lack of food, and a low-level infection from the wound in her hand. Now she had some color in her cheeks.
Michaela’s doctors had done a complete checkup. They’d given the girl medication for the pain and antibiotics for the infection, and she was already recovering. Strong genes.
She wasn’t a monster. She didn’t kill for no reason.
She looked away and out the window, searching the ground. Where the hell was he? They’d been circling the coordinates he had given them for ten minutes now. Had he double-crossed them in some way? Peter thought not. Maybe the Darkhats had intercepted him and he was already dead. They’d been a plague to the Descendants for centuries. Many times they’d tried to wipe them out, but they knew this area too well, knew where to hide, and after the purges, they’d always sprouted up again stronger.
Noah was a trained soldier, but he didn’t know this land.
Her heart was beating hard and her breathing short and fast. She almost didn’t recognize the feeling as fear. And desperation.
Damn, she needed this over with.
This afternoon was the start of the summit. Before it began, she had a video call with the leaders—she had to show them the Talisman and the Spear.
She needed this proof for her people and also for herself.
For the first time, she acknowledged her doubts. Doubts that they would find the Talisman, that it even existed. Doubt that she was the true heir to Genghis Khan. There had been others before over the centuries who had thought they were the one, and they had all failed.
Would she, too, fail?
At her feet lay the long case holding the spear. If she hadn’t been the one, then she would not have found the Spirit Banner. She had to hold onto that fact.
They were nearly there.
“Ma�
��am, we have a visual. We’re going in to land.” She heard the voice through her headphones, and some of the tension eased from her.
She searched the ground and homed in on Noah. He stood on the grassy mountainside, hand shading his eyes as he stared up into the sky. The area was flanked by thick pine forest, but there was a flattish, clear area big enough for the helicopter to land. Close by, the ground fell away, dropping into a deep ravine.
This wasn’t the actual location. He had said he would lead them there once he had seen his daughter. He didn’t trust her. She’d actually expected the site to be higher up the mountain—that was where they had concentrated searches in the past. Perhaps that was also why they had been unsuccessful.
The helicopter touched down lightly on the ground, and she was unfastening her harness within moments. Once free, she gripped the spear. Across from her, Peter unfastened the girl’s harness before his own. Michaela pushed open the door and jumped to the ground then stepped away so Peter and the girl could get out.
Behind them, a second helicopter landed, and three of her bodyguards jumped out and came to stand around her, then the two helicopters rose into the air, the wind from the blades pulling at her.
She was wearing a tracker. The helicopters would follow and then pick them up after they had located the tomb and she had the Talisman in her possession.
Noah walked toward them. There was no surprise in his eyes; he’d clearly known who to expect. Beside her, Harper gave a cry and then ran toward her father, hurled herself into his arms, and buried her face against his chest. Noah stroked her hair, held her close while his gaze fixed on their small group. He gave Peter an almost imperceptible nod and then fixed his cold gaze on her. His eyes were without expression, but she got the impression of immense rage held in check. He looked awful, bruises marking his face, a new scar on his forehead.
Then he placed his hands on Harper’s shoulders and held her away. He lowered his head and kissed her on the forehead then spoke to her quietly. She shook her head, and he spoke again. Finally, she nodded. Tears welled in her eyes as she stepped away, and the two of them headed toward her. They stopped in front of Peter, and he gave the girl a gentle push.