David Gilman - Ice Claw

Corentin had phoned an old friend, a former Legionnaire who now worked in the French DGSE, the Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure, their secret service. Corentin’s urgency ripped through the usual formalities. Governments were frightened now. Pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit more neatly. Intelligence communities and the French police were liaising, scientists were forced to look at a possible disaster scenario, and while no one could actually agree and put a plan together, Corentin and Thierry had made their own.

A flurry of sleet danced around the car. Corentin opened the trunk and hauled out two huge holdalls. Each man pulled out the equipment he needed: ropes, climbing gear, two Heckler amp; Koch machine pistols with laser sights, extra clips of ammunition, grenades, flares, two-way radios, bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles. Thierry led the way. They couldn’t destroy the obstacles in their path-that would warn Tishenko’s people-so, like Max, they had to find another way in. Corentin’s contact had told him about the vucari . Private armies were one thing, but blokes who thought they were so special they called themselves wolf men needed a lesson in reality. It would take time, but Corentin and Thierry would climb round, find a way inside the mountain and engage the enemy. That had a nice ring to it.

That felt good.

Max had cut the stone out of his trainer’s heel, and within minutes it was confirmed that this was indeed the vital, final part of Zabala’s secret.

“And those numbers etched into the crystal?” Tishenko had demanded.

Max could only shake his head. “I’ve no idea. Part of some code. But I don’t know what.”

The truth of Max’s ignorance convinced Tishenko. Numbers meant nothing now-the time was what mattered.

He gestured to his men and Sharkface was pulled to his feet. “I shall give one of you the opportunity to die quickly-the other will be torn apart by wolves.”

A gaping hole led out onto a snowfield. Churning clouds muscled each other aside as they rolled across crevasses and peaks. The cold air bit into Max’s face, but it wasn’t the chill wind that made him shudder.

Max and Sharkface stood on a steel grid. A pack of about twenty wolves yelped and snarled five meters below their feet. These animals had been deliberately starved.

“You two seem destined to fight each other,” Tishenko said.

He gestured to his men, who grabbed Max and Sharkface. They attached a stainless-steel clamp to Max’s left wrist and another to Sharkface’s right. Two meters of chain joined them. Max had been chained to Aladfar, but this boy was a far more dangerous beast.

“You have ten minutes to run before my wolves and I give chase. Two kilometers away, on the edge of this escarpment, you will find two ice axes. If you live that long, I expect one of you to kill the other, and then I, or my wolves, will kill the survivor.” Tishenko checked his watch. “I suggest you start running.”

Max leapt forward, Sharkface half a second behind him.

They ran through hardened snow covered by a few centimeters of powder. The two boys were dependent on each other at least until they found those ice axes-after that, Max didn’t even want to think about.

Despite the darkness there was enough light to see the sweeping valley and the mountain’s jagged claws of bare rock reaching down into the ghostly white. Max took a handful of the swaying chain, tightening it, making it easier to run. After a moment Sharkface did the same. Max glanced at him. Spittle flecked away from the boy’s jagged mouth. Was Sharkface fit and strong enough to keep this pace going for a couple of kilometers?

It was almost as though Sharkface had heard Max’s thoughts.

“I’ll kill you, Max. I’m not ending up as wolf bait. You’d better keep up.”

“You worry about yourself!” Max said, breathing hard, the sweat already clammy under his clothes.

“He’ll come out of the sky. It’s how he hunts. We have to keep watch,” Sharkface grunted.

Max looked over his shoulder. Clouds obscured just about everything except the lower thousand meters or so of the Citadel. A dull light flickered from the cavelike hole they had left, but a couple of hundred meters higher a broad tongue of shiny dark rock stuck out, from where another light glowed within the mountain. Max saw a giant bat flutter, drop momentarily, then rise and level out. It was a black-winged paraglider.

Max stumbled and fell. Sharkface went down with him. The snow felt like sandpaper as he piled in. Sharkface was on his feet in an instant, grabbing Max by the front of his jacket, shaking him angrily as he hauled him to his feet.

“Get up, you fool! Every second counts!”

Max shoved his opponent’s arm away. “Keep your hands to yourself!”

They glared at each other, tightened the chain again and ran on-desperation powering them forwards. A lone wolf cry called the pack to the hunt-then others took up the call, their voices changing as they answered. They were loose.

The sickening realization that the wolves could soon be on them gave added strength to their legs, but now Max also knew that Sharkface was strong. He had lifted Max out of the snow with little effort. How could he beat such a strong opponent?

Their labored breathing was steady; their footfalls crunched the snow almost in unison. Tears from the cold air blurred the distant ground, yet Max’s instincts were operating at maximum. Blood pounded in his ears, but he was attuned to any shift in the wind, any unseen rocky outcrop illuminated by the lightning breaking free of the clouds.

He heard the flutter of wind against fabric and dared another glance over his shoulder. Max barely believed what he saw. The winged hunter was less than fifty meters behind and above them. Tishenko wore a wolf-skin mask. A lightning flash threw a harsh glow across him and glinted off the arrow shaft that he now held full back into his shoulder.

Max dug his heels in, yanked the chain with both hands and twisted Sharkface down into the snow. The boy grunted, surprised and shocked, a savage look on his face ready to curse Max.

The arrow thudded into the ground with a terrifying thwack at exactly the place Sharkface would have been in another two strides. Max knew every hunter aimed ahead of a moving target and his instinct had saved Sharkface’s life.

Sharkface knew it too. He nodded. Both boys were back on their feet, running full tilt-zigzagging, making themselves a difficult target. Tishenko would need to steady the paraglider, get himself into position before loosing another shaft. But the longer the boys weaved and dodged, the more ground they had to cover. And the closer the silently hunting wolves would get.

Max concentrated on their running pattern, but he could hear the ruffle of air entering the wing’s vents each time Tishenko changed course. The paraglider fluttered dully in the night air, the canopy resisting the wind. Tishenko was giving away his location. They were on a level stretch of snow, and lightning shattered the low clouds, showing them the broken landscape about half a kilometer away. Pockmarked globules of snow and ice, cracks and jagged shapes-the edge of the glacier-dangerous, unstable ground. Two hundred meters to the right of that a marker flag fluttered. The ice axes had to be there.

The mountain raked down, obscuring the valley to the left, where there was a lot of lightning activity. It danced and shuddered in a confined area, and Max could see the tops of what looked to be two towers, which attracted the creased lightning. But there was no time to consider what they might be, as Tishenko had altered course dramatically, curving the paraglider, finding a position to steady himself for the next attack.