The Spirit Banner

by Alex Archer

  Well, at least they had tended to her injuries. That was a good sign. Better than killing her outright, anyway. Now to see about getting out of here.

  She got up and walked over to the doorway. When she pulled aside the thick felt covering that served as the door, she found herself looking into the face of a large Mongol warrior standing just outside. He was dressed like the other warriors she'd seen from the bridge, in a long del and armored coat. A sword hung in a scabbard at his hip.

  "Excuse me," Annja said and moved to go past him.

  The guard, for that was what he was, stepped in her way.

  "Ugui," he said sharply, putting a hand on the hilt of his weapon.

  Annja had been in Mongolia long enough to recognize the word no.

  She tried again, this time moving around him in the other direction, but he stopped her again, repeating his command more loudly and shaking his head to clarify his point.

  Annja knew she could take him down if she wanted to; he was seeing only an unarmed and apparently injured woman, no match for a trained Mongol warrior. But there was nothing to be gained by giving away her secret at this point, so Annja decided to play nice and see what happened. She could always bust them out later if need be.

  "All right. Okay," she told the guard. "No need to get uptight."

  Without taking her eyes off him, she backed up and returned to the tent.

  "The guard's still out there, I take it," Davenport said, when she came back inside.

  "Yep. And as ugly as ever."

  Her comment got a quick smile out of Davenport, which was what she was hoping for. If they could keep their spirits up, they'd be more prepared when the time came to get out of here.

  There was tea on the stove and a covered platter that turned out to be some kind of noodle dish with chunks of meat, maybe lamb or mutton, Annja wasn't sure. But she was hungry and that was all the excuse she needed to dig in. She convinced Davenport to have some, as well, not knowing when they might get another chance to eat. It was always best to keep their strength up in situations like this.

  "Who are these guys, Annja? What do they want with us?"

  She'd been thinking about that herself. Legends stated that the tomb of the Khan had not only been hidden from human eyes but that a special guard, the Darkhats, had been posted to watch over it for all eternity. She had put that story right up on the shelf next to the one that said that Genghis would return to the Mongol people as their leader when they needed him most; both of them had seemed ludicrous to her. Maybe at one time there had been such a group, and perhaps they were the reason everyone but the Khan's descendants had stayed out of the Ikh Khorig, or Great Taboo, but to expect that group to continue their duties for eight hundred years or more was crazy.

  Of course, so was a mystical sword that could vanish into thin air.

  Maybe she had to reevaluate her thinking on the matter.

  She explained about the Darkhats to Davenport and suggested that maybe these people were the descendants of that original group.

  As she was finishing her explanation, the door was pushed aside and four men entered the ger. The leader, a short thin-faced man with a wide scar on his left cheek, rattled off a long sentence in Mongolian.

  Unable to understand anything he was saying, Annja and Davenport simply stared back at him.

  He repeated it, and then said something sharply to the men standing behind him when his captives still didn't understand what he wanted. The three men moved around and behind Annja and Davenport and, using their arms, began herding them toward the door.

  "I think they want us to go with them," Davenport said.

  Annja refrained from thanking him for stating the obvious, though it was a close call.

  Outside, the sun was high in the sky, letting Annja know it was at least a day, maybe more, after she'd taken the plunge into the river. Around them, camp was being dismantled. Groups of Mongols were breaking down and storing nearby gers that were practically identical to the one they'd just left. Horses were being loaded and a few dogs roamed freely about, looking for scraps.

  As they passed by, the workers stopped and watched them with impassive faces. There was neither welcome nor anger in their eyes, just a casual indifference, as if they had already ceased to exist, and that worried Annja a bit more than she let on. She had a feeling things were going to get worse before they got better.

  The gers had been set up in an orderly fashion, two long rows of them on either side of the encampment, leaving a makeshift road down the center aisle that led to a larger, more ornate tent that probably belonged to the leader of the group. Apparently they were going to find out if she was right, for it was toward this that they were being led.

  They were almost to their destination when another group emerged from the right and joined their own. There were ten men in the group, eight Mongols and two foreigners. The first was a muscular Hispanic man with a carefully trimmed goatee, the second a nondescript sandy-haired man in his midforties. Annja didn't recognize either of them, but Davenport did. He leaned in close to her so the others couldn't overhear.

  "The one on the right is Ransom. The other man is his bodyguard, Santiago."

  Seeing the architect of all their trouble so close at hand enraged her. Her mind was already calculating the angles, deciding who she had to take out first to get close enough to strike at Ransom, and then decided it wasn't worth getting split in two by a Mongol sword for the trouble. Ransom would get his; she'd make sure of it, one way or the other. She just had to be patient.

  The trouble was that patience wasn't one of her virtues.

  40

  As they drew closer to the final ger, a man came out to greet them. Annja recognized him immediately as the one who had confronted her at the bridge. He still wore his armor, but he had removed the feathered helmet, which gave her a better view of his features. Even from here she could see his deep gray eyes as he looked them over, the anger clear on his face.

  The captives were marched to the end of the pathway to stand in front of the wooden platform on which his ger had been constructed. The added height required them to look upward to meet his gaze and Annja almost laughed at the obvious psychological ploy it represented, but then decided being in his good graces was probably best for the near future.

  Much to her surprise, the leader spoke to them in English.

  "I am Holuin, the Voice of the Wolf. It is my duty to inform you of the charges against you and to ask how you plead."

  "Wait just a minute, you stupid, arrog—"

  Holuin gestured slightly and one of the escorts next to Ransom drove his elbow viciously into the other man's gut. Ransom stopped in midsentence, his lungs paralyzed by the sudden strike, and he toppled over as he fought to regain his breath.

  "I will read the charges."

  The leader read out a long list of charges, or, at least, what Annja thought were charges, for the recitation took place in Mongolian and she couldn't understand more than a word or two. She did notice that the escorts around her grew angrier as the list continued.

  This was not good.

  To her surprise, when he was finished, Holuin repeated the charges, this time in English. Now she understood what had gotten the others riled up; the list included trespassing, grave robbing, disturbing the dead and murder.

  Annja listened just long enough to understand that she wasn't going to be able to talk her way out of this one easily. She was eyeing the edge of the platform in front of her, deciding whether she could draw her sword and make it up there before she was dragged down by the crowd around her, when the leader finished speaking.

  His gaze drifted over her, lingering for just a second, as if he could tell exactly what she was thinking, then honed in on Ransom and Santiago. "How do you plead?" he asked.

  One of the escorts dragged Ransom back to his feet, where he spent another minute or two trying to catch his breath. When he finally managed to do so, he straightened and told the man exactly what he
thought of his charges and where he could put them.

  A crowd had formed around them by this time, as word spread through the camp about what was happening. The Mongols cheered, though for what Ransom had said or for what the Voice of the Wolf was going to do about it, Annja didn't know.

  Somehow, she suspected the latter.

  She shot a glance at Davenport, but he was watching Holuin and didn't notice. She looked at the platform again, gauging the distance, planting her feet so that she would be ready when the moment was right.

  "Bind them," the leader ordered and her opportunity vanished in an eyeblink.

  Still, she tried, anyway, kicking out with her legs as those around grabbed her arms and attempted to wrap them with rope. For just a moment she thought she might stand a chance, might be able to fight her way clear enough to draw her sword and cause some real damage, but then several of those closest to her simply threw themselves onto her and she went down beneath their combined weight. An elbow, or maybe it was a knee, smacked her in the head and darkness closed in for the second time in as many days.

  * * *

  W HEN A NNJA CAME TO , she was on her knees next to Davenport at the edge of a wide circle in the forest behind the camp. Her legs were numb, so she must have been kneeling in the cold for at least ten minutes or more. When he sensed she was awake, Davenport used his hands to ease her up off of him and it was then that she realized that each of them had their hands bound together in front.

  A shout rang out, grabbing her attention, and she looked around groggily to find Holuin standing off to one side. Next to him was a line of eight archers. All of them, the leader included, were looking at something on the other side of the circle.

  What she saw when she turned in that direction wiped any sense of confusion from her mind, letting her see and hear everything with stunning clarity.

  Ransom and Santiago had been tied to two trees directly opposite the archers, their arms and legs stretched out so that both men resembled human Xs. As Annja watched, the two men stopped struggling against their bonds and instead began to try to reason with their captors.

  "Look," Ransom said. "I'm sorry for what I said earlier. I'm sorry for anything I've done to offend. Can't we talk about this, work something out?"

  Annja could see the thick sheen of sweat on his skin even from this distance, and she knew he had to be terrified, though he was obviously trying hard not to show it.

  Santiago, on the other hand, didn't care who knew he was scared out of his mind. He was already pleading, begging them to let him go; he was sorry; so sorry, he'd go away and never come back and would do whatever they wanted him to do to make up for what he had done; he'd never meant to hurt anyone and—

  The leader barked out a command and the archers raised their bows.

  Santiago's pleading turned to a mewling cry as he twitched and twisted, trying to get himself free, his eyes on the arrows now pointed in his direction. Ransom had more backbone, standing still and watching to see what would happen next.

  Make it quick, Annja thought, surprised at her own sense of mercy toward her enemies.

  But it was far from quick.

  As far as they could make it, in fact.

  When Holuin's arm flashed down, all eight archers released their arrows as one. They had chosen their targets well and every single projectile found a home. How could they miss, at this distance? Annja thought. Rather than striking some vulnerable area and ending things instantly, however, each and every arrow struck at some point on the captives' outstretched limbs, digging their sharpened points into hands and wrists, feet and ankles.

  As the pain ripped through their bodies, both men screamed.

  They were still screaming when Holuin gave the command again.

  This time the arrows moved a bit farther down each limb, striking elbows and biceps, shins and knees.

  He must have been in agony, but somehow Ransom summoned his strength. "Wait," he said. "Just wait. I can make you all incredibly wealthy. I can make you princes, kings…"

  It was no use. The leader shouted again, and once more the arrows flew, once more the captives screamed.

  Annja couldn't watch any more. She turned away, burying her face in her hands.

  * * *

  I T TOOK BOTH MEN a long time to die.

  At last there was silence and Annja looked up to find her former enemies impaled by scores of arrows, so many that it was hard to recognize which man was which.

  Next to her, Davenport was praying under his breath.

  No way was she going out like that. No freakin' way! Think, Annja, think! she told herself.

  Her hands were bound in front of her, allowing her to draw her sword, but what good would it do against so many? She'd be cut down by those archers before she took two steps.

  Better to die with your sword in hand than as a human pincushion, though.

  But she wasn't ready to die, not if she could find a way out of this.

  Nothing came to her.

  She was still trying to come up with something, anything, when Holuin spoke again.

  "Bring the other captives forward."

  As the guards closed in toward her, Annja surged to her feet, and stumbled forward, drawing her sword as she did so.

  Hope surged. She would get out of this or die trying!

  The exertion was too much, though. She was suffering from a concussion, possibly even a skull fracture, and she'd been kneeling in the cold for who knew how long? The strength had slowly leeched from her body, her legs cramping into immobility, and the combination finally took its toll. The sword flashed into being in front of her at the same time her legs decided they no longer wanted to cooperate and down she went.

  The impact with the frozen earth knocked the sword from her grasp and it disappeared as quickly as it had come.

  Hands grabbed her, dragged her unceremoniously to her feet and hustled her toward the other end of the clearing where the bodies of Santiago and Ransom still hung against the trees.

  "Help! Somebody help us!" Davenport was yelling, as if there was someone to hear him in the middle of the Mongolian wilderness.

  Think, Annja, think!

  In an attempt to gain more time, Annja let her whole body go limp. Her guards weren't expecting the sudden increase in weight as she toppled forward into the snow.

  They were relaxed as they bent to pick her up, probably believing she had fainted with fear, and that was all the edge she needed.

  She waited, knowing timing was the key, and when the one on her left was close enough she reared backward as hard as she could, striking the bridge of his nose with the back of her head. There was an audible crunch as his nose broke and the guard toppled to the side, howling in pain.

  Annja barely noticed. She was already moving again, swinging both hands like a club toward the guard on her right. He was staring at his partner in surprise and never saw it coming; he caught the blow right across his temple.

  His eyes rolled up in his head and he dropped to the ground like a felled tree.

  Dazed and nauseous from the blow to her head, Annja stumbled to her feet, using both hands to draw her sword as she did so.

  She had a split second to see the surprised look on Davenport's face as she drew her sword out of thin air and then she was turning around to face her enemies, stumbling a few steps to the side as dizziness threatened to overwhelm her.

  There was a loud rustle as the archers fitted their arrows and drew back on their bows.

  In that split second, the solution came to her like a bolt of lightning from the eternal blue heaven.

  "I claim the Right of Challenge!" she called out, in as loud a voice as she could manage. She staggered again and only the fear that she would be dead before she hit the ground kept her on her feet.

  Her shout hadn't sounded very loud to her, and she was getting ready to call out a second time, when she realized the clearing around her had gone eerily silent.

  Wearily, she raised her head.


  The crowd was staring, but not at her. Following their gaze she saw that the archers were still standing in their staggered line, still facing her with drawn bows, but their leader stood with one clenched fist in the air above his head.

  Everyone was watching him expectantly.

  He made sure the archers knew they were to hold their fire and then he walked toward her, his boots crunching through the snow.

  To Annja, it seemed to take forever for him to reach her.