Eric Lustbader - The Testament

He moved through the forest without sound, as he had been taught. He could smell the pine sap, the leaf mold, the must of mushrooms, the sweetness of ferns and wildflowers. He listened, automatically filtering out the small sighs of his own breathing, the inner sound of the blood pumping behind his ears. He was scenting for Jenny as a bloodhound hunts a body-the quick or the dead, it made no matter to the bloodhound, but it mattered plenty to the Albanian. The scent of his quarry had not left his nostrils; it lingered there, as if mocking the surprise she had delivered to him. Her smell had become the smell of his own defeat.

He saw her first, just a flash that might have been the quick-winged streak of a bird taking off from the underbrush, but he was downwind of her and her scent came to him, distinct as ammonium carbonate. With a grin in his face he set out after her, hunched over, running low and quick, taking as direct a route as he dared. The faster he came upon her the better. His hands curled into fists, then flexed outward, stretching his leathery fingers. He saw her again, and he corrected his approach, veering a bit to the left. She had seen something or someone-perhaps the Russian, who had taken the sprinting lead-and was after it with a single-minded intensity that gave him an advantage. He sprinted forward, taking his opening. He meant to make the most of it, to make her pay, to bring her down and, between his thighs, to beat her senseless. He couldn't take too long-there was the Russian to think of. He didn't want the Russian to get all the glory, he wanted to be in on the end, when the cache of secrets was opened.

With this on his mind, he rushed forward. Jenny heard him at the last instant, began to turn even as he buried one fist into her kidney. Her eyes opened wide, the breath was knocked out of her and she fell, rolling and gasping.

The Albanian laughed, then, couldn't help himself, a short bark appropriate to the hunting dog that he was, shaggy-haired, muscular, red-meat-loving, loyal. He dropped onto Jenny, his arm cocked for a follow-up stunner to the bridge of her nose, when she reared up, crashed her forehead into the point of his chin. His head snapped back, his teeth clashing. Blood filled his mouth from where he had inadvertently bitten his tongue.

He reached down, but she swatted his wrist away with a remarkably powerful jab and, lifting one hip, tried to displace him, to regain some leverage. But he wouldn't let her, his superior bulk weighing her down. And now, while he struck her with one hand, his other clamped itself around her throat. He pressed down.

Then he heard a percussion-a gun firing. He looked down at the blood leaking out of his chest. He felt nothing, however-no pain, nothing at all. It was as if he had been anesthetized. His grip did not loosen on the Guardian's throat. Her face was congested with trapped blood, darkening the skin, and her eyes were bulging. He felt, then, the whisper of someone coming up behind him and he waited, waited, while the world slowly pulsed to his laboring heart, his damaged lungs. Still, he felt nothing at all, and so at the last possible instant, he twisted his torso. Now the pain came, excruciating, blinding pain, but he ignored it as he struck out with his free hand, knocking the gun out of Camille Muhlmann's hand, grabbing her, jerking her off her feet. His grin grew wider-two birds with one blow. He took his hand off Jenny's throat, curled the fingers into a ball, cocked his arm. That was when he heard the snik! of a blade opening, saw the ripple of sunlight as it ran across the edge of stainless steel. Then she had plunged the knife into his throat and he began to thrash like a fish out of water.

Jenny, eyes watering, choking on her own breath, was showered with the Albanian's blood. Half unconscious, she didn't immediately know what had happened. Not until she saw Camille appear, gun in hand. The first thing she thought of was how grateful she was not to have asked for it back. Then, with mounting horror, she saw what the Albanian did, how strong and determined he was even after being shot. The taste of her own death was in her mouth. Still, the moment the Albanian withdrew his hand, she raised herself on her elbows. He had turned away from her to attack Camille. She was about to strike him in the vulnerable spot on his neck where a major nerve bundle was located when she saw Camille drive something into his neck. The knife was in front of her face, she saw it and there was no mistaking what it was: an exact duplicate of her own switchblade, the one used to slit Father Mosto's throat. In that instant so many things clicked into place: why she had been bothered by the big picture, Rule's nonresponse when she had said that the Knights must be using another method to track Bravo. Most of all, who had knocked her unconscious in the Church of l'Angelo Nicolo` and then slit Father Mosto's throat.

Then she saw Camille looking at her, and by her expression knew that she understood what was going through Jenny's mind.

"Camille-"

But it was too late, Camille was already lunging at her, and the blade sank into her.

As Bravo wound his way upward, he could hear the soft splash of the Cauldron, the spring deemed sacred by the Orthodox Greeks. Through the trees and clumps of crocuses, Grecian anemones, and snowdrops he made out stone ruins and the remnants of carved marble columns from another era.

The land fell steeply away now, into a small valley amid the towering Black Mountains, at the end of which was the cavern. Birds flew, diving and twittering, while honeybees hovered over wildflowers, droning away at their endless work. The long afternoon had reached the zenith of its heat, even here so high up. The merciless sun beat down without the intervention of cloud or mist, the sky was that particular depthless blue peculiar to high altitudes, appearing vulnerable as an eggshell.

As he was crossing the valley, he heard from behind him the report of a single gunshot, echoing off the surrounding cliffs. He paused and almost turned back, then, but he remembered his father's explicit instructions, he remembered his mission, what he had vowed to protect at all costs, and with an effort and a heavy heart he put Jenny and Camille out of his mind, hurrying across the remainder of the flat ground.

Up ahead, he could see the mouth of the cavern, amid a number of others, guarded on either side, as his father had written, by two pencil cypresses. As soon as he entered its shadow he turned and, crouching down, looked out across the small verdant valley. At first there was nothing to see but the birds and insects, but the afternoon was waning, and it was in the lengthening shadows that he first spotted the movement. An arm, a shoulder as big as a haunch of deer came into view from behind a tree trunk. Then the side of a football-shaped head, a black eye, a face he identified as Russian through its dour expression, the manner in which the eye took in the valley in quick, precise vectors. Bravo moved then, rising to his feet, and the Russian's gaze centered on the mouth of the cavern. He'd seen movement, a slight difference in the depth inside the shadowed mouth. Bravo retreated and the Russian came silently on, exposing himself only for an instant until he found another natural feature behind which to crouch.

He was coming now and there was nothing Bravo could do to prevent it.

Jenny opened her eyes, saw sunlight filtering down through a layer cake of leaves. A swift flew by, its sharp call bringing her fully alert. Short-term amnesia gripped her and she felt a chilling wave of panic, but then she sat up and pain lanced through her side. Everything flooded back, then: the fight with the Albanian, Camille shooting him, stabbing him-the pearl-scaled switchblade, the twin of hers, that Camille used to attack her. Putting her hands on her waist, she felt the sticky warmth seeping out of her. The blade had been partially deflected by a rib; she knew the wound wasn't deep, wouldn't be fatal. Nevertheless, loss of blood could render her useless. Ripping off the bottom third of her blouse, she wrapped it around her rib cage so it covered the wound, tied it as tight as she could stand.