And the drop-off point was running fast back toward Mai!
“Run!” he yelled. At that point, a thick rope slithered down from above, anchored by Kinimaka, Hayden and, Drake momentarily saw, Yorgi.
The little Russian thief must have disobeyed him. Thank God.
He launched his body on top of Victoriyah and took a blow to the ribs, but brought his weight to bear and lowered the knife. Her hands came up, stopping the tip of the blade an inch before the bridge of her nose.
Drake bore down harder. The Russian woman spat and thrashed about, screaming expletives. Alicia beat Maxim down hard, turning his face into pulp before ending his misery with a thrust to the brain pan. Mai outran the crevice’s collapse, leaped for the rope and held a hand down to Alicia. “Hurry!”
Drake removed one hand from the blade, then brought it crashing down on top of the hilt, beating at it as a hammer beats a nail. The tip sliced through skin.
Victoriyah glared coldly into his eyes. “Fuck you all to hell,” she said and let go of Drake’s wrist.
The knife, unimpeded, drove down through her forehead. Drake left it in place and grabbed the flapping end of the rope, planting his feet against the slope and leaning back, right beneath Alicia. They all started to walk upward.
Dahl ran hard up the collapsing slope at a sharp angle, his course planned to intersect the rope just above Mai.
Kinimaka and the others took the full strain. The Hawaiian’s voice could be heard clearly through the sudden stillness. “I’ve pulled many pigs out of many pits back home before, guys, but this takes the trophy.”
“Hurry, Mano,” Hayden urged. “This is far from over. We can’t let Razin get away with those other swords.”
Alicia peered over her shoulder and down at Drake. “Enjoying the view?”
Drake sent her a smirk. “I dunno, love. It’s just not quite the same when you’ve seen it all before.”
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Above ground, Drake saw that Akerman and Patterson had also been part of the rope-pulling team. Everyone except Kinimaka fell to the ground exhausted, as Drake, the last man, stepped over the top.
“Thanks, Mano.” Drake slapped their enormous colleague on one meaty shoulder. He noticed straight away that Dahl was already stalking toward two trussed up guards.
“Answers,” the Swede said. “Give them to me, men, and we might let you live. Stay quiet and you can take your chances in the pit.”
Both men stared into space, their expressions a mix of despair and hangover. One of them wrenched at his bonds. “We tell you shit.”
“Olle,” Dahl said to Akerman as he passed. “You’d better look the other way.”
As the Swede hammered his point home, Drake took a moment to approach Yorgi. “Thanks for being useful, mate.”
“It is my new job.” The thief laughed. “Saving your life.”
Drake took a momentary look at the site of the Tower of Babel. “Can’t see a thing. You think your old mates are there?”
“If they are close to finding your swords, they will not just leave. They will fight.”
“Good.”
Drake brushed himself off as he approached Dahl. The Swede was watching Hayden and Kinimaka approach a solitary crate positioned beside the furthest tent. “Our songbirds say they found three swords. Two are inside that crate. Razin and Zanko took the other.”
Patterson heard the comment and rushed up. “Wait. Why did Razin take the other sword?”
Dahl raised questioning eyebrows at their captives. One of them spat blood. “He called it Great Sword, like Alexander the Great. I do not know his meaning.”
Patterson practically wet himself. “No! They cannot have the Great Sword. It is the key. The key to understanding the whole inscription. The key to all the earth energy. The key to the vortex. It is—”
Dahl patted him on the head. “Calm down, boy. We’ll get it back.”
Mai and Alicia stationed themselves to watch the distant hillock. Time was against them now, and every second that passed increased the danger and the Russians’ chances of stealing away with the prize. Drake drifted over toward the crate with Yorgi and Patterson.
Kinimaka smashed the side open with a discarded crowbar, then stood back as the contents spilled out. Packing foam littered the sand, amongst which several tightly wrapped packages tumbled.
Hayden reached down to her feet and picked up a long bundle. Kinimaka scanned the rest, but saw no shapes consistent with that of a sword. Hayden knelt down in the sand and quickly severed the wrapping twine.
The bundle fell apart. Two swords clattered against each other, their blades suddenly revealed and catching the light. Drake shielded his eyes as the sunlight flashed off a polished blade, still potent after all these years, ablaze with promise, fire and the sparkle of unfulfilled prophecies.
Hayden held one easily, turning it before her eyes, letting the fire of the sun flicker and flare down the deadly length of the blade. “Stunning,” she said.
Kinimaka stooped down for the other. “I’ll say.” The sword was short and stylish, with a wicked curved double-edged blade and some kind of ancient pattern on the hilt. It looked to be made of cast steel.
Patterson ran up to them, frothing at the mouth. “My God, they’re real. My God. Let me touch it!”
Kinimaka handed his over. Patterson turned it to reveal the ancient symbols, a set of characters that ran down the middle of the blade. Akerman walked up to him, staring. “That, my friend, isn’t the language of the gods. At least, not as I know it.”
“But the swords, when seen together and read in order, should tell us how to deal with the device.”
Akerman let out a long sigh. “The characters, though similar, are not the same.”
“You are questioning Alexander?”
“I’m not questioning anything,” Akerman breathed. “I’m stating a fact.”
“Alright,” Dahl shouted. “We’ll worry about that later. Are you sure they’re the swords we’re looking for?”
Patterson nodded. “They bear the seal of Alexander. The portrait head and the spear thrower.”
Drake swallowed his awe. Right now they had God-Zanko to deal with.
Mai stood a little apart from the rest, making a show of watching the indistinct tower, but actually only focusing half of her mind there. Behind her, the majority of her team members talked quickly and listened hard to Patterson’s descriptions of the tower, its history, and what they could expect there. Hayden outlined a plan, but without time-consuming surveillance, they were still only a step away from swinging in the wind.
Mai attempted to shut down the creeping contemplations of her own past, particularly the terrible memories that had moved stealthily to the front of her mind during the past few weeks. The knowledge that she was being sought by the Clan smoldered through her mind like the inactive embers of a fire, just waiting to flare into life. It was an outrage that these people even believed they owned her. How could their arrogance attain such a level? The Clan Master, who had offered her destitute parents a great sum of money to take just one of their daughters off their hands, had seemed such a great man at the time, almost like a loving grandfather. Living in a poor and remote area of Japan at the time, many traders and shady dealers offered desperate, impoverished parents cash to take a child off their hands. For the parents, losing one child sometimes meant that at least the other would survive. A horrific choice, but an essential one.
Mai had been sold to a Clan Master in need of pupils. Her parents had cried; they had fallen to their knees, grasping the hand of their remaining daughter tightly so that she wouldn’t run after her sister; realized the depth of what they had done and probably never recovered. But she never saw them again.