by Tom Haase
THE SECRET OF THE THORNS
______
by
Tom Haase
Copyright 2013
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About the Author
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Copyright
Book One | Book Two | Book Three
The Donavan Chronicles series are the:
Secret of the Thorns
Secret of the Assassin
Secret of the Bibles
Secret of the Icon
And the prequel to the series:
Secret of the Oil
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To Laurel Rose Haase
BOOK ONE
Prologue
September 12, 1683
Vienna, Austria
The clash of steel, the clanging of ax bashed helmets, and the smell of splattered blood still lingered in the nostrils of John III Sobieski, King of Poland and the overall commander of the multi-national Christian forces. The triumphant royal banner, carried high by the king’s bloodied standard-bearer, flapped behind. Sitting on his black stallion, the king scanned the area, searching for his captain of the Polish heavy cavalry, the Husaria.
He sighted the gore-covered captain, and shouted, “Cheslaw, round up all our men and secure the abandoned wagons. Keep everything.” The man’s loyalty and the sovereign’s trust in him never wavered. More than once Captain Cheslaw had saved the king’s life on the field of battle.
“Yes, my lord.” His battle hardened captain galloped off to obey the command.
King John watched his valiant subordinate rode away and took one last approving gaze over the battlefield devastation. The priests gave the dying the Church’s last rites. The dead were placed in wagons for burial. With clenched eyes, in an unsuccessful attempt to wipe the crimson-soaked scene from memory, he turned his steed toward the bivouac area. His standard-bearer and personal guards followed.
Reaching his tent, he dropped his dented shield on the ground. King John forced himself to move one leg out of the saddle. When it touched the ground, he gritted his teeth against the pain shooting through his back. He’d deflected a heavy strike to his shield during the battle, but the blow had left lasting effects.
Inside his headquarters, he discovered a delegation from the city of Vienna awaiting his return. They stood before him with their hands clean, while his troops’ dripped in blood.
“Your highness, we are eternally in your debt,” the senior Austrian alderman said, making a respectful bow. The rest of the delegation followed suit by bowing low. “Without your intervention against the Islamic invaders, the Saracen army would have destroyed our city…you are the savior of all Europe.” The alderman rose and faced King John.
King John examined the groveling nobleman, as he stood there clothed in his finery. The king clenched his fist. Why had he bothered to come to the aid of such cowards? All of Europe might well be better off without these sniveling weaklings. They failed to fight yet waited for someone else to save them. If the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor hadn’t pleaded for his help King John would have let them rot in their besieged city. As it was, he’d given his word to save them and despite his feelings the king could not break his word.
“Our Emperor, Leopold I, wishes to welcome you in triumph tomorrow,” exclaimed the head of the delegation. “He requests that you follow our defense force commander in a tribute parade.”
“The devil take you, I say. You and your commander can…” He paused to regain control of a temper that was about to explode. Unclenching his fist, he lifted his hand to stroke his salt and pepper beard before massaging his sore neck. He wanted to strangle these ungrateful bastards. They planned to put him behind the do-nothing defender of the city when he and his cavalry had charged into the mightiest army ever to assault Europe. The invading Muslim forces would certainly have destroyed Vienna had his ferocious and bold attack into their ranks not routed them.
“Your commander and defense forces shall follow me and my men!” King John declared.
“But sire,” the alderman sputtered. “He is our military leader.”
“And I am the victor, not he. I led my army of 70,000 men against twice as many Muslims and defeated them. I will lead my victorious troops through the streets of Vienna at ten in the morning. I expect every citizen to be out to welcome them. Good night, gentlemen.” He turned and strode into his private quarter of the massive tent.
After a few minutes, he heard Cheslaw outside. “Your majesty?”
“Enter,” he commanded.
“Sire, we have secured the wagons the infidels abandoned in their flight and I placed them under guard.” Cheslaw, the captain of the cavalry, remained at attention after speaking. His face was splotched with blood and his chest armor displayed dents from blows suffered that day.
“At ease. Tell me, what is in the wagons?” King John asked.
“There are eight holding gold and silver coins. I believe they used these treasures to buy items they could not steal on the march.”
Delighted to learn about the gold, King John smiled, and then sat down on a wooden chair covered by a sheepskin. The money would provide a way for him to pay his men. Perhaps he could even undertake improvements he longed to carry out in Warsaw. “Anything else?”
Cheslaw nodded. Relaxing his rigid stance, he said, “A wagon full of manuscripts. I cannot read all the texts. There is Arab scribbling on most of them, but some appear to be Latin or Greek. One of our priests examined them and speculated the documents may be booty from the fall of Constantinople.”
“Well done. Keep the guards on the wagons and have them start for home at first light. Prepare the rest of the troops for a parade through the city at ten and then we will continue toward home. We have been away long enough.”
“I will attend to it.” Cheslaw made a slight bow of his head and started to turn.
King John stopped him. “Wait. I wish to keep what we need to pay the troops tomorrow. Transport the rest to Warsaw. Put the remaining gold in my personal wagons and give the manuscripts to some scholar or monk to untangle. I cannot procure money for paper manuscripts. To me, they are worthless except to start hearth fires.”
He noticed Cheslaw smile as he turned to depart.
Chapter One
Present time – Ethiopian Desert, The Temple of Isis - A Greek archeological site
Every day for the last two months had been the same: clear and stifling hot.
With her small brush, Bridget Donavan swept the sand away from a line of the ancient Greek text engraved in the stone before her with strokes not unlike those of an artist. The tablet rose eight feet above the sand and rock surface of the desert floor. The artifact hadn’t always been so exposed. Many weeks of careful excavation had brought it to this point.
Bridget kneeled and then squinted her eyes, straining to read the weather worn text near the base. Taking a small notebook from her back pocket, she then copied the newly uncovered Greek writing. At the end of the day, she would transfer it to her computer as she did every day as part of her university project.
Abruptly, she paused reading the text in front of her. A prickling climbed the back of her neck. Something was wrong. Bridget realized it was the lack of noise. No clanging of picks off stone, no helping voices. She could hear no sound, nothing normally produced by the helpers on the site. The silence disturbed her.
/> Sweat trickled down her face and fell between her ample breasts. Her sweat drenched shirt clung to her back. Salty water streamed off her forehead stinging her eyes. Her trained combat senses screamed a warning.
Before she could react, her satellite phone rang, startling her. This phone was her only way to communicate with the outside world and it to her. She stood up as she rubbed the sweat from her eyes, and then grabbed the phone from her belt.
Bridget walked toward her small equipment table and looked at the phone. The caller ID on the face of the phone read ‘Unknown’. Scanning the area, she looked for her helpers, but saw none.
The phone rang again, nagging at her. She calculated that it was evening back in the states and the project manager at the university was the only one who ever tried to reach her. She was about to start a vacation tomorrow. Maybe he wanted to wish her a safe return to the states.
Bridget punched the talk button. Before she could get out a hello, the sound of her brother’s voice boomed from the other end, “Bridget, you’re not going to believe what I found!”
She hadn’t heard from Scott since attending his doctorate graduation. She usually tried to avoid hearing from him. Not after what he’d done. Her presence at the graduation was for the family’s sake. Bridget didn’t even want to think about Scott. Someone in the family must’ve sent him her phone number in case of an emergency.
“Hello to you too, Scott. Where the hell are you? And why are you calling me?” As she spoke the last word, she heard a shuffling noise behind her, the sound of someone running in the sand.
Whirling toward the unexpected noise, she confronted an African man holding a machete. He paused, seeming surprised she’d heard him.
“Bridget.” Scott’s voice called her name over the phone.
“I’m busy now, Scott. Gotta go,” she shouted as she disconnected and then dropped the phone on a small oblong table holding her archeological hammers and brushes.
The African man charged toward her, swinging the weapon, slashing the air, eyes wide open, whites showing. He screamed a loud belly-wrenching cry that made no sense to Bridget.
Her heart pounded as the man closed the distance. She froze for a millisecond, sensing her death could be just seconds away. Move, she commanded herself, you’ve been in combat before, now move! Now!
As the man rushed headlong at her, time seemed to slow and Bridget noticed every tiny detail. She saw that her attacker stood about her height but where her frame was slender his was plump. She could smell the stench of sweat and alcohol like a bow wave before him. Tattered remains of a military camouflage uniform barely covered the lower half of his body.
Come on, stupid. Move! The words screamed in her brain again.
Her initial shock melted. Just as the attacker reached her, she managed to sidestep his lunge in a rapid, yet fluid, movement. At the last possible second, she reached out and grabbed the man’s extended arm. With all her strength she twisted it, thereby maximizing the use of his forward momentum. He howled in pain. The weapon dropped. She instinctively stuck out her foot to trip him while using her left hand to force him to pitch forward, bellowing as he did.
She breathed a sigh of relief now that her hand-to-hand combat training she’d learned as an Army Ranger kicked in, she thought with satisfaction. She was finally operating on automatic just as she had in the Iraqi desert during the war.
Did the African have a gun? She scanned him. No, none visible.
She scooped up the weapon, turned, and in one swift movement faced the machete-man, swinging the blade at her attacker. As he tried to regain his feet, she struck. The steel sliced a path across his stomach. His earsplitting scream of pain reached her as she again searched for a gun. None. He curled up, holding his stomach, a river of his blood flowing out.
Bridget needed to take this opportunity to flee. The grueling heat and her sweat didn’t enter her mind in the excitement of the fight. Her instincts told her to get away. Run. She understood one thing for sure, getting out of here would be the best part of valor. She clenched the machete tight, noticing the bright red blood on the shining blade. It didn’t bother her as much as the fear that the next blood let in this desert might be hers. Her anger boiled against her attacker. She was certain that he would’ve raped her if given a chance. But before she took more than a few steps, a second man appeared, taller, healthier and white.
God, what now? A white man. He probably was taken care of her workers or he would have attacked her with machete man.
This man had a knife. Shit, I hate knives, she thought.
The knifeman grinned at her, teasing her with a long-bladed hunting instrument.
She knew his type, him and his African buddy. They were rampant brigands, killers. These scoundrels were the worst dregs of devilish trash in this area of the world, outcasts from both ethnic groups. She knew they would kill anybody, especially Americans, to obtain a few dollars.
The knifeman stopped a few paces in front of Bridget. She could see two parallel slash marks on his chest from at least one previous knife fight. He swished his blade back and forth in his hands. She backed into the small table next to her on which rested equipment for excavating the site.
The attacker’s grin showed her his few brown-stained teeth. Her mind registered that half of his left ear was missing. He hopped a few steps to the right and then back. He seemed to delay his thrust as if waiting for machete-man to sneak up on her backside. He must not realize that she was the one who now held the machete behind her back, and his comrade was in no condition to help.
The heat of pumping blood flooded her face, she could feel the rush and knew the complexion of her face would now match the fiery red color of her hair. Her eyes darted around.
Where in hell are the men I pay to work on this dig?
Clearly she wasn’t going to get any more help with this thug than she’d gotten with the first.
“I’m going to have fun with you, big tits,” knifeman said.
“I’m going to cut yours off, you bastard. Come at me if you dare. I’m ready,” she shouted as her anger reached a pitch and rage took over. She swore no man would do anything to her again without her consent.
But rage wouldn’t help her fight. Bridget knew she had to clear her mind. She took a long slow breath, remembering again her army training. This was going to be the real test of her martial art skills. Just focus on one thing—killing him. Kill him fast and don’t hesitate.
With his right arm raised, slashing the blade through the air, the knifeman started slowly forward, emitting a loud guttural sound.
The sun gleamed off the blade and reflected into her eyes. Blinded for a second, she felt a visceral, gut-wrenching fear of impalement. Don’t think of what they might have done to the helpers. Don’t remember the unfulfilled plan to get a gun while out here in the desert alone. Concentrate on killing this thug before he gets me first.
The knifeman lunged. Just then her cell phone rang. His eyes slid over toward it, distracting him for the microsecond Bridget needed. She bent low. With his attention on the phone, she sprang forward with the point of her machete slicing into his chest. Thrusting upward with a twisting motion and then jerking the blade out, she used her momentum to spin toward a new sound behind her back. The machete-man she thought she’d dealt with had risen and held a hand to his stomach wound. Would he try to attack again?
Bridget wasn’t taking any chances. She stalked toward him with her weapon held high. She’d finish both these bastards.
At the sight of her, the man turned and, with something between a stumble and a run as he held his hands over the deep wound to his stomach, he disappeared over a sand dune. She let him go.
Stopping to recover her breath, Bridget let the sun beat down on her. The intensity was without mercy in the afternoon Ethiopian desert but in that moment it emphasized her feeling of aliveness. Thank God for her military training. Her life hadn’t flashed in front of her during the moments she thought they might im
pale her, so maybe it wasn’t her time. Thoughts like that were helpful after the fact, but didn’t do her any favors during the fracas.
God, she had killed this man. Bridget stared down at the bloody corpse and tried to regain some composure. It wasn’t like the killing she had experienced in combat, in the heat of a firefight. Her hands started to shake and she felt nauseated. Her stomach gurgled and she had to swallow hard to keep whatever remained from her breakfast down.
The cell phone rang again. Slowly she bent down, recovered it, and then pushed the talk button as she sat down on a nearby rock.
“Come on, sis. What’s happening?” Scott demanded.
Bridget scanned the area for other attackers in the vicinity. Holding the phone, she walked toward the main camp. In the distance, she noticed her hired hands flat against a sand dune. The outlaw renegades had only gagged and tied them up. Probably forced them down to ensure no noise of alarm came from them until after he attacked her. She had stayed behind to close up for this summer and her American coworkers had already departed for the States. The attackers knew the remaining local assistants would own no valuables.
“Bridget. Answer me.”
“Sorry, Scott, uh…had a few things I had to deal with here. Why are you calling?” she asked between large gulps of air.
Bridget didn’t want to scare her younger brother with the details of the attacker’s demise. She might still be angry with him, but her brother, the academic, would freak out at any hint of violence.
“Where are you?” he shouted.
“Not so loud. I can hear you, dammit,” she said. “I’m on a dig in Ethiopia, deciphering some old Greek inscriptions on a temple to Isis near Gortas. What about you?” Her eyes wandered to the six beautiful columns with quadrangular capitals supported by the head of Isis, as a Denderah, visible from where she stood. No need to mention them. He wouldn’t have a clue what she meant.