King's Crusade (Seventeen)

by Starrling, AD

  The sun rose on the horizon shortly after they passed Moscow. They flew over the frozen landscape of the Eastern European Plain and the Kama River before landing at the deserted Bolshoye Savino International Airport nine miles outside the city of Perm just before midday. Storm clouds raced across the gray skies from the foothills of the Central Ural Mountains and brought a flurry of sleet over their heads as they made their way to the four-by-fours waiting on the edge of the tarmac.

  ‘Where are the rest of your men?’ asked Reznak stiffly of the Crovir Hunter who appeared to be in charge of the team of ten immortals.

  The Hunter shifted awkwardly. ‘I’m afraid the new Head of the Order delayed their deployment by two hours,’ he replied in a low voice. ‘Something came up in Germany.’

  Reznak swore. ‘I should have brought men from my own bloody Section!’

  ‘Yeah, but they’re not exactly warriors, boss,’ said Carrington with a grimace.

  Reznak scowled. ‘They didn’t do too badly against Agatha Vellacrus’s army a month ago.’

  They climbed in the vehicles and made their way east along a motorway. Soon, they exited a main road and pulled up under a copse on the edge of a military airbase southwest of the city.

  The lights of the Il-476 blazed brightly as it taxied at the end of a runway a thousand feet from their location. It turned onto a side ramp before slowly rolling to a stop. The cargo hold opened moments later.

  Alexa raised a pair of powerful binoculars to her eyes and stared at the fleet of SUVs that drove out of the aircraft. A muscle twitched in her jaw when she glimpsed the immortals who had attacked them at the Freemasons’ Hall.

  ‘I don’t see Cavaleti or Dragov,’ she said after a few tense seconds. She shared a troubled glance with Reznak.

  They got back in the four-by-fours and caught up with the convoy of vehicles on the road heading into Perm. They followed cautiously from a distance.

  The SUVs finally turned onto a dirt track after several miles, crossed an empty industrial estate, and parked next to an abandoned warehouse. Carrington switched off the headlights of their vehicle and brought it to a stop in the shadow of a building about four hundred feet away.

  Reznak stared through the windscreen from the rear seat. ‘What the hell are they up to?’ he murmured.

  The snowfall had almost doubled in the last ten minutes and an eerie twilight had fallen across the city. Icy rain pelted the roof of the four-by-four, the noise of the drops mimicking the ricochet of gunfire.

  They were at one of the train stations that served the city of Perm and the Trans-Siberian Railway. Up ahead, the shadowy figures of Kronos started to unload crates from the rear of the stationary SUVs. Light flared across the frozen ground next to them when the doors of the warehouse opened. A pair of forklift trucks rolled out of the building. A second group of men followed behind.

  ‘Looks like they’re going somewhere,’ said Jackson.

  ‘Eva’s viewpoint above us is not going to be of any use,’ said Reznak, frowning at the gray screen of the computer on his lap. ‘Even infrared imaging will prove futile in this weather.’

  Alexa looked at the rail tracks on the right. She opened the passenger door and stepped out of the vehicle. An icy wind whipped sleet across her face and the hood of the white parka she wore over her jacket. Her gaze shifted to the dim shapes in the distance. ‘I’ll do some recon.’

  Reznak looked at her steadily from the rear seat. ‘Take Yonten with you,’ he ordered. He turned to Carrington. ‘Go around the opposite way with a couple of the Hunters.’

  The Crovir grinned and slipped out of the driver’s seat.

  Alexa looked at Yonten. Although he had been unhappy about it, the monk had been persuaded to change into a snow camouflage suit before they left the jet. He had, however, insisted on wearing the saffron robes beneath it.

  They used the cover of the worsening blizzard to cross the two hundred feet of open ground that separated them from the rows of goods wagons to the right. Alexa halted in the shelter of the first boxcars and moved slowly forward across the icy ground. Light stabbed through the gloom in front of them. Muffled thuds rose above the whistling of the wind.

  Moments later, they dropped and crawled under one of the wagons. Alexa shuffled forward and suddenly froze in the shadows beneath the carriage.

  Boyko Dragov stood fifty feet ahead and to her left. He was talking to the immortal with the pale blue eyes. Behind them, the forklift trucks loaded the crates from the SUVs onto a train. Smoke curled from the roof of the diesel locomotive at the head of the linked goods wagons. The muted roar of the engine shook the metal tracks and sleepers she and the monk lay against.

  She studied the busy scene for several seconds before rolling carefully out from under the boxcar. She signaled to Yonten. The monk nodded and followed her as she crept back along the line for some twenty feet. They moved behind the next column of cars before edging forward again.

  ‘Dimitri, they’re getting ready to leave on a freight train,’ Alexa said into the wireless transmitter pinned to the hood of her parka. ‘The tablet and the pendant must be in one of the carriages.’

  Reznak’s voice came through the receiver in her ear. ‘Carrington can’t get to the other end of the tracks. He’s in the line of sight of two of their vehicles.’

  Alexa finally stopped and scrutinized the train thirty feet to their left through a gap between two cars. The first three carriages behind the locomotive were passenger coaches; shadows moved behind the steamed-up windows above the tracks.

  Unease darted through her. They had to move now.

  ‘I’m going in,’ she said in low voice.

  There was a long pause. Alexa heard the words of caution her godfather did not express in the tone of his voice. ‘Okay,’ said Reznak reluctantly.

  She looked at Yonten over her shoulder. The monk grinned at her.

  They slipped under the coupling of the two cars, ran across the gap to the freight train, and halted in the shadow of a wagon. Yonten looked up and quickly scaled the side of the boxcar. Alexa followed him to the top.

  The icy wind whipped at their clothes and stung their faces when they slithered onto the roof of the train. Their snowsuits protected them from the worst of the cold as they lay exposed to the harsh elements.

  Doors slammed somewhere below. The metal carriage shuddered under Alexa’s hands. She shifted carefully to the edge of the snow-covered surface and looked down. Dragov had disappeared from the edge of the tracks.

  She peered ahead to where the last sect members were climbing into the passenger carriages. A burst of smoke accompanied the rising rumble of the diesel locomotive as the train slowly pulled away and started to move east.

  Ten seconds later, Yonten tapped her on the shoulder. Alexa looked back to where he pointed. A shadowy figure in a snow camouflage suit was climbing onto the roof of the last boxcar some hundred and sixty feet behind them.

  It was Jackson.

  Alexa stifled a curse, turned, and moved swiftly toward the Harvard professor. Yonten stayed put, an anxious smile hovering on his lips as he watched her leave.

  The train started to gather speed after it exited the station. The frozen waters of the Kama River materialized to the left of the tracks. She had just cleared the second of the three wagons separating her from Jackson when he suddenly disappeared from view.

  Her heart thudded painfully inside her chest. Alexa rose and ran across the shaking rooftop.

  The train lurched beneath her when she landed on the final boxcar. She staggered to the edge of the wagon as it swerved north onto a bridge that spanned the river and caught a glimpse of the distant ice-covered waters below. She steadied herself a second before she lost her balance.

  Frost coated her eyelashes and a glacial rain numbed her face as she p
eered into the deepening gloom. Relief flashed through her. There was a faint, square-shaped brightness ahead. She crouched and inched carefully to the edge of the skylight. As she peered over the metal lip of the opening, the birthmark on the back of her neck started to throb.

  A feeble glow illuminated the interior of the carriage below. It was an old livestock wagon with louvered windows making up its east wall and a pair of stalls at the north end.

  It was empty—except for two large stone tombs strapped heavily to the middle of the floor.

  Alexa stared at the sarcophagi, the trishula burning fiercely at her nape. A heartbeat later, she spotted the figure creeping from the shadows beneath her toward the tombs. She choked back another curse and dropped through the opening.

  Jackson turned around at the soft sound of her landing. His ice-blue eyes were bright with barely concealed excitement and frustratingly devoid of all apprehension. ‘It’s the tombs,’ he whispered shakily, his hand inches from the dark stone.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she hissed, storming toward him.

  A guilty grimace dawned on his face. ‘I was coming to join you. I just happened to spot these through the skylight,’ he said defensively, indicating the sarcophagi.

  Alexa glanced at the bulkhead behind him. A door stood in the middle of the wall. The boxcar had a second compartment. She looked around. There was an exit in the north wall of the carriage, between the two stalls.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ she said briskly.

  ‘But—’ started Jackson.

  The bulkhead door opened and the immortal she had shot in the head in Istanbul stepped over the threshold. He backed into their compartment as he talked to someone in the adjacent room. A second later, he turned and stared into the twin barrels of the Sigs.

  Alexa smiled grimly and pulled the triggers. The immortal jerked as the bullets slammed into his chest. Wide-eyed incomprehension flared in his eyes before he slumped to the floor. Shadowy figures shifted in the dimly lit chamber behind him.

  Still firing, Alexa stepped swiftly backward toward the opposite end of the wagon. She glanced over her shoulder.

  Jackson was already at the exit door. He grabbed the handle and pulled; the door slid open half an inch before jamming in its tracks. He swore. It was locked.

  Gunfire erupted from across the compartment. Alexa grabbed Jackson’s arm and ran into the shelter of the stall to the left. Bullets pummeled the boards in front of them as they landed heavily on the floor. Wood chips and splinters rained down on their heads and slashed across exposed skin.

  She checked the magazines in the guns, rose on one knee, and shot at the three men framed in the doorway next to the tombs. A lightbulb exploded in a shower of shards in the other room. One of the figures cried out and fell under her bullets. The other two retreated in the gloom behind him. She dropped behind the shelter of the stall wall.

  Jackson’s rapid breaths warmed the skin on the back of her neck in the deadly hush that followed. Alexa glanced at the skylight in the roof of the boxcar and formulated an escape plan.

  A faint, metallic noise suddenly reached her ears. She looked over the top of the stall and saw the immortal with the pale blue eyes standing with a grenade launcher on the end of an AK-74 rifle. Instinct took over. She turned and pushed Jackson toward the second stall on the other side of the carriage.

  A second later, the world went white around her.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Awareness slammed into her with the force of an earthquake. Alexa gasped and sucked freezing air into her starving lungs. Deep, shuddering breaths wheezed past her numb lips as oxygen flooded her blood. She lay still for timeless moments as she concentrated on simply inhaling and exhaling.

  Inch by slow inch, she became conscious of the cold shroud that encased her body. Her eyes fluttered open, dislodging a thin crust of frost from her lashes.

  Snow fell thickly from a dark, overcast sky framed by a ring of trees. The flakes landed silently on her chilled skin and melted into icy trails. She turned her head slowly.

  She was lying on her back in a shallow, frozen stream fifty feet from the edge of an embankment that ran alongside the railway line. The faint gurgle of flowing water reached her ears from beneath the inch-thick ice.

  Pain suddenly washed over her in a blinding wave. She choked on her breath as dark spots danced across her vision. Wetness stung her eyes.

  Alexa panted unevenly for several seconds. She gritted her teeth before slowly rolling onto her side. She froze and stared at the crimson stain spreading in an irregular circle across the whiteness around her. Beyond it, charred chunks of the wagon dotted the landscape in a semicircular blast radius. She looked down.

  The fragments from the grenade had ripped through the snowsuit and slashed her body from her chest to her thighs. She was bleeding from dozens of cuts and jagged tears. She could make out a particularly large wound on her upper abdomen.

  Alexa sat up unsteadily and bit her lip when fiery trails of agony stabbed through her once more. She had dislocated her left shoulder and broken a couple of ribs when she landed on the ground.

  She took another deep breath, bent her left arm at the elbow, and rotated it out sharply. A hiss escaped her throat when the bone slipped back into the socket. Blood dripped from a slash on her forehead. She wiped the red drops from her eyes and scanned her surroundings.

  She was in the middle of a forest that flanked the tracks. Metal glinted in a snowdrift about twenty feet ahead of her. She pushed herself onto her knees and slowly lurched to her feet.

  The darkness swirled around her in hazy circles. Blood gushed from the wound in her abdomen.

  Alexa stood still while she fought down a wave of nausea. It took all her willpower to raise one foot and put it forward in front of the other. By the seventh step, her gait was steadier.

  Her Sigs had fallen some thirty feet from the rail lines. She picked them up and looked around. A frozen vista of trees stretched out before her for what seemed like miles. Although she suspected Perm lay somewhere to the southwest of her position, she could see no semblance of life through the blizzard and the solid barrier of pines and conifers.

  She walked to a tree on the embankment and sat down against the trunk. Her breaths clouding the air with white puffs, she stared at the sky through the branches above her head before closing her eyes. Jackson’s face swam across her dark vision.

  This time, the ache that shot through her had little to do with her injuries. The fact that she could not see his body next to the tracks meant he was still on the train—and probably still alive.

  A slow, burning anger seeped into her heart and started to flow through her veins. Alexa allowed the rage to build up until it drowned out her physical discomfort. She looked down at the gaping gash in her abdomen, grabbed a handful of snow, and started to pack it methodically against the wound.

  Something white fluttered out of her torn jacket and fell against her hand. Dark drops dripped past her eyes and landed on the fragment of paper. She picked it up slowly. Scarlet trails smudged the Cartesian coordinates scribbled across the dirty sheet.

  She was still staring at it sometime later when someone shouted her name. Lights flashed through the heavy curtain of white. Seconds later, the beams of a four-by-four washed over the tracks and zeroed in on her. The vehicle crunched over the snow and came to a stop several feet away.

  Alexa rose slowly from the ground.

  The passenger door opened and Reznak stepped out. He ran to where she stood propped against the tree, his boots sinking awkwardly in the foot-deep drifts. His eyes grew wide with horror as he took in her injuries.

  ‘It looks worse than it—’ she started to say.

  Reznak grabbed her shoulders and hugged her fiercely to his chest. Alexa winced and stifled a g
roan.

  He stood back, a remorseful grimace flashing across his face. He suddenly went pale. ‘Did you die?’

  ‘No,’ Alexa said firmly. She wasn’t sure how she knew. She just did.

  Carrington appeared behind Reznak. ‘Holy shit,’ the immortal said hoarsely. He turned to the Hunters spilling out of the other vehicles pulling up behind the first four-by-four. ‘Get the medical kit!’

  ‘How did you find me?’ asked Alexa.

  As Reznak wrapped one arm around her shoulders and walked her to the open tailgate of the closest vehicle, she reached inside the snowsuit and took out her satellite phone. It had been smashed during the explosion and her subsequent landing. She looked at him with a frown.

  A strangely defensive light dawned in her godfather’s eyes. ‘There’s a GPS tracking device in your Timex,’ he finally admitted. ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t get here any sooner. We had to take a detour across the river.’

  Alexa stared at him for a moment before looking at the expensive and miraculously intact watch on her wrist. It had been a gift from him ten years ago, on the tricentennial anniversary of the day he had found her on the battlefield outside Narva. Her gaze shifted to his unrepentant face.

  ‘I’m not apologizing for it,’ Reznak said bluntly.

  She mulled over his words and the unexpected feelings they engendered while he helped her remove the damaged snowsuit. A fortnight ago, the mere fact that Reznak had effectively tagged her would have enraged her beyond belief. Now, she felt differently.

  Her short time with Zachary Jackson had changed her in ways that she could never have imagined in a hundred years.

  A muscle clenched in her godfather’s jaw when he uncovered the dozens of gashes and tears that dotted her flesh.