Russell Blake: The Goddess Legacy

The cult scattered, its members running from the gunfire back into the cover of night, and then they were alone. The dark priest lay dead near the fire pit, face down in a lake of blood.

Allie eyed Spencer as he approached and unfolded a pocketknife. “Took you long enough.”

“I had a nap,” he said, and then glanced at Drake. “You okay? Looks ugly,” he said, studying the bleeding tear in the side of Drake’s head left by the torch.

“It only hurts when I breathe.”

“Hold still, or you won’t have to worry about that for long.”

Spencer worked the small blade through the knots that bound them together on the pole, and after a few judicious cuts, Allie pulled free. Drake shook off the rope and turned so Spencer could sever the bindings that secured his wrists. Spencer freed Drake’s hands and was attending to Allie when the staccato rattle of rifle fire shattered the silence in the clearing, and fountains of rock and dirt geysered around them.

“Take cover,” Spencer cried, pulling Allie down with him behind a small mound of stone blocks. Drake dove in the opposite direction and dragged himself to the crumbled base of an ancient wall as rounds whizzed nearby.

Spencer returned fire and emptied his magazine in a sustained burst as he felt for another in his pocket. He slipped it free, ejected the spent one from his rifle, and slapped the fresh magazine home as more gunfire strafed their location.

“I guess we drew some unwanted company,” he yelled to Allie, their ears ringing from the gunfire.

“You got a spare gun?” Drake called to him.

“Just my pistols,” Spencer screamed. “Useless at this range.”

“Toss one over here. Better than nothing.”

More slugs thudded into the stone blocks as Spencer freed his holstered pistol. He waited until there was a lull in the firing and hurled the gun to Drake. “I’ll lay down some cover,” he called out, seeing the gun fall short. “You try for it when I start shooting.”

“Try?” Drake said, and then more incoming fire chewed up the ground near the pistol. “Maybe I’ll wait.”

“How many more rounds do you have?” Allie asked.

Spencer frowned. “One more magazine, but it’ll go quick at this rate.”

“Shoot slower.”

Spencer loosed another volley. “I can’t see much.”

“I know,” she said, and winced as a stray bullet blasted chunks of stone a few feet from her head.

Rounds pounded their hiding place from off to the right, and Spencer shifted his aim to the new threat, doing his best to conserve ammunition but fighting a losing battle. He emptied his rifle and ejected his second spare magazine before seating the final full one, and then continued fending off the attackers, who were multiplying like mosquitoes with each heartbeat.

Drake rolled and snatched up the pistol and barely made it back behind his remnant of wall before a flurry of shots ground the earth around him to hamburger. He kept his head down and held his fire, recognizing that to waste shots was foolish — the pistol would only do him good when the enemy was within thirty yards.

Spencer emptied the AKM and tossed it aside, and then drew Helms’s Beretta from his waistband. The slavers sensed their opportunity in the sudden halt in the shooting, and Spencer spied movement from the brush as the gunmen closed in. He looked over to Drake with a grim expression. “Make every shot count,” he said.

“How many rounds does it hold?” Drake asked.

“Eighteen-round box mag.”

“That won’t go far.”

Spencer eyed Allie. “Best to save two bullets, Drake.”

Drake swallowed hard — Spencer’s message was clear: better a swift end than whatever horror the death cult had in store for them.

“On your left,” Spencer warned, and Drake twisted in time to see a pair of gunmen nearing, crouched low. He squeezed off six shots as Spencer fired at more slavers closing in from their right, the report of the pistols mere pops after the AK’s blast. One of the two gunmen went down, but the other opened fire, and it took Drake four more shots to silence him. More shooting exploded from the trees, and then another slaver ran toward Drake, strafing his hiding place with his assault rifle. Drake loosed a half dozen rounds and the man pitched forward no more than fifteen yards from his position.

Remembering Spencer’s words, Drake glanced at the pistol and then to Allie, whose eyes were locked on him, her expression terrified… and something else. Time seemed to slow to nothing, and he realized that what he was seeing reflected in her eyes was resignation — the quiet acceptance of the unthinkable.

The moment was shattered when more rounds slammed into the ground by Drake, and then the brush line shielding the slavers shredded to pieces as a deafening roar sounded from the sky. Hundreds of high-velocity rounds chewed the gunmen to confetti, the stream of glowing tracers slicing through everything in their path. Drake blinked in disbelief and rolled onto his back in time to see the hazy outline of a huge helicopter nearing, its heavy machine gun relentlessly raining death on the attackers.

The gunship hovered over the clearing, and two lines unfurled from either side of it and bounced against the ground. A string of black-clad figures rappelled down, weapons blazing. Answering fire greeted them from a grove of trees on Spencer’s right, which immediately invited several hundred rounds from the new arrivals, decisively silencing the slavers and terminating the threat.

Drake watched the commandos mop up the few surviving gunmen, and then the helicopter set down on the ground and a spotlight blinked to life, its high-wattage beam blinding him and framing them in its glare.

Suri heard the gunfight erupt over the hill from the mobile buildings and was immediately on his handheld radio, ordering more gunmen to the clearing. Something had obviously gone wrong if there was shooting — the cult had no guns, preferring to rely on antiquated but effective methods: the dagger and the garrote. Which meant that they’d missed a straggler earlier — an annoying wrinkle, but hardly fatal.

A dozen guards raced over the hill with orders to kill anything that moved, and then Suri was faced with the approaching terrorists, obvious worry written across their faces. The elder faced him with a snarl.

“What is happening?” the man demanded. “And no more of your ludicrous stories of target practice.”

“We have some hikers who stumbled onto our land. We are dealing with them.”

“Hikers? Do you not think I know the sound of an AK? What sort of hikers carry Kalashnikovs?” the man snapped.

“That is what we are trying to identify. Many of the hill people carry those types of rifles — they are readily available due to the proximity of Afghanistan and Pakistan.” They listened as the gunfire stopped, and Suri nodded. “See? It is over.”

His radio crackled, and he turned from the men and listened for several tense seconds, and then issued an order. The night was shattered by more shooting, this time many weapons, and Suri returned to the men. “I sent a patrol to finish them off. That’s what you’re hearing.”

The lead terrorist frowned at his men and then turned to Suri. “We’ll take our chances in the mountains tonight. Where is our material?”

“In your sleeping quarters. You are free to leave if that is your wish. I can arrange for an escort.” Suri looked at the ATVs the men had ridden to the camp. “Your vehicles have headlights — you should be fine as long as you drive prudently. Shall I have your case strapped to the back of one of them?”

“I’ll take care of that,” the terrorist said. “Just fetch me some line.”