Father Gabriele grabbed Yarik and spun him around. “You didn’t say you fought with demons. How can noble servants of God fight beside such monstrosities?”
“Hedon and Victor are dragon-blooded, not demons. Their powers are a gift from the czar himself. You don’t mind taking weapons and money from our master, but you complain when his most-favored warriors come to fight beside you? Perhaps I should recommend to the czar that he find more reasonable allies.”
“No need for that,” the priest said. “A simple misunderstanding, you see. Let us go forth and slaughter the heathens.”
Gabriele led his forces down the steps, careful not to touch Hedon or Victor. Yarik followed then paused beside his companions. “Let them worry about the French. Keep your eyes peeled for the girl. Once we find her we can leave this stinking dump.”
The dragon-bloods flashed their fangs, he pulled his revolver, and the three of them set off after the holy warriors. The tunnel was lit by intermittent lanterns that barely kept Yarik from stumbling in the dark. On the plus side he spotted the glow from the French base three seconds before the first grenade went off.
Shouts and machine-gun fire echoed up the tunnel. Yarik let Hedon and Victor take the lead. Unless the enemy had heavy weapons, their scales would protect them from stray bullets. At the end of the tunnel they reached a round chamber filled with tents, many of them now on fire.
People ran and screamed and shot each other. It was everything he hated about war compressed in a tiny area. Hedon grunted when a bullet bounced off his chest.
A man in a green uniform came running at them with nothing but a long knife. Victor caught him by the wrist and throat then pulled. The soldier’s arm went one way and his head the other.
Yarik ignored the quickly spreading pool of blood and tried to pick a single girl out of the chaos. It was harder than he expected.
“Sir, in the back, near the left-most tunnel,” Hedon said.
He spotted a flash of blond hair and pale skin. That was good enough for Yarik. “After her.”
* * *
Anya sat straight up in the hard cot the French officer had provided for her. For half a second she stared around the dark tent and tried to figure out what had woken her. An explosion shook the canvas. The crack of automatic weapons filled the air.
What was going on? It sounded like a war out there.
The flap of her tent opened and Fedor stepped inside, his lantern making her squint. “We’re under attack. Get dressed, it’s time to go.”
Anya scrambled over to the edge of the cot. All she needed to do was put on her socks and shoes. As she tugged them on she asked, “Who’s attacking us?”
“The zealots I assume. I didn’t stop to ask. Hurry.”
She laced up her second boot and stood up. “I’m ready.”
Fedor handed her a small automatic pistol. “Now you’re ready. Remember what I taught you on the train. It’s loaded and ready. Don’t hesitate to use it if you need to.”
He took her hand and they stepped out into Hell.
Tents were burning.
Men screamed as they died.
In the fire and madness she couldn’t tell friend from foe.
Fedor tugged her toward the end of the chamber farthest from the fighting. They angled toward one of the tunnels that ran deeper into the subway system.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Anya asked.
“Yeah, away from the people trying to kill us. Wherever this goes it’s got to be better than staying back there.”
She had no argument for that. They ran by the light of his lantern. The tracks had been torn up, but the wooden ties remained to try and trip them. It took all her concentration to stay upright.
Soon tumbled-down chunks of rock mixed with the timbers, turning the tunnel into an obstacle course. They slowed from a run to a quick walk to a shuffling trudge as the chunks of masonry grew ever larger.
“What happened down here?” Anya asked as she slipped between a pair of boulders as tall as she was.
Fedor grunted when he forced his bulk between the rocks. “The elves collapsed most of the tunnels during the war. Some got dug out, most didn’t. The locals decided it was safer to travel on surface roads so no one bothered to finish the work.”
She swung her leg over a waist-high stone, suddenly glad for the sturdy trousers and shirt she got on the boat. “You mean we have to climb over this rubble because the government got sick of cleaning the tunnels?”
“Basically.” Fedor stopped and cocked his head.
“What?”
“Thought I heard something.”
Anya held her breath and listened. After a few seconds she heard something scraping on stone followed by the crunch of boots on gravel. Someone was after them.
She grabbed Fedor’s sleeve. “What are we going to do?”
“Keep calm, keep quiet, and keep moving,” Fedor whispered. “We’ve got to be close to a street access.”
Anya nodded and pushed on, moving as fast as she could through the rubble. Please, let there be no real cave-ins. If they came to a dead end they’d really be in trouble.
No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than they reached a heap of rubble that reached just short of the ceiling fifteen feet over her head. There was a gap, but it would be a tight squeeze for her. How Fedor would fit she had no idea.
They eyed the pile and Fedor growled. “Let’s get you up there.”
“What about you?” Terror raced through Anya at the thought of traveling through the tunnels on her own. She didn’t know where they were going, who they were meeting, none of it.
“I’ll manage. If we get separated make for the Eiffel Tower Memorial.”
“Where is that?”
“Near the city center. Just head north, you’ll find signs pointing to it.”
Fedor laced his fingers together and she put her foot in the stirrup. He heaved and she grabbed a protruding stone. Between them she got to the top and wriggled through the gap. On the other side it was pitch black, the only light coming from the gap and Fedor’s lantern.
She stood in the dark, trembling and trying not to imagine what might be hiding in the tunnel. Spiders, rats, did snakes live in tunnels? Probably, if there were rats to eat.
Her skin crawled and she rubbed her arms. It was all in her head. They hadn’t seen so much as a mouse since they’d been down here. There was no reason to think all the awful things were just waiting on this side of the rockfall, though they probably were.
“Catch!” She looked up just in time to grab the lantern when Fedor lowered it down to her. He was halfway through the opening and wriggling for all he was worth.
Anya held the lantern up. Hurry, hurry!
One leg popped out then the other. He braced his feet and pushed.
“Ah!” Fedor came loose and tumbled down the slope.
Anya rushed over. Blood covered his right arm from an ugly gash in his bicep. She tore the sleeve of her shirt and tied it around the cut. He grunted when she tightened it.
“What happened?” Anya asked.
“Got stuck on a piece of rebar. We need to get going. Just before I got free I saw a light coming behind us. I couldn’t tell who it was and I don’t want to find out.”
Anya seconded that motion and they were off. Beyond the rockfall the tunnel smoothed out and they set a brisker pace. Unfortunately there was nothing ahead of them but more tunnel. How far were they going to have to go to get out of here?
A little ways further she got her answer in the form of a set of rusty iron rungs hammered into the side of the tunnel. When she raised the lantern she saw there was a hatch or something in the ceiling.
Fedor looked up and frowned. “Emergency hatch. Probably rusted solid.”
“Do we keep going?”
He looked up the tunnel and frowned. “Let’s try it. I’d like to get out of here if we can.”
“Me too.”
He climbed up, grasped the mechanism,
and twisted. The shriek of metal on metal hurt Anya’s ears, but ever so slowly the release wheel turned. When the bolts had fully withdrawn Fedor put his shoulder against the hatch and pushed. It rose six inches, then a foot, then the rung Fedor was standing on snapped and he came crashing down to the tunnel floor.
“Are you okay?” Anya asked.
He muttered curses as he got up and brushed himself off. “Fine. Get on up there. I’ll be right behind you.”
He didn’t have to tell her twice. Anya scrambled up the ladder and squeezed out the gap. She spun around as Fedor climbed up behind her. He put his shoulder to the hatch again and shoved.
A second rung broke and he fell once more to the tunnel floor. He looked up at her. “Go. I’ll catch up.”
Her stomach did summersaults. “Alone?”
“I can’t make it this way. Toss me the lantern and go. I’ll meet you at the rendezvous like we talked about.
Anya clutched the lantern handle so tight her knuckles turned white. She couldn’t navigate the city alone, at night. Maybe during the day, but even then…
“Hurry, Anya, they’re coming. I can’t stay here.”
She peeled her fingers off the handle and tossed it down. Fedor caught it and immediately set out up the tunnel. Anya turned to look back the way they’d come.
A pair of yellow eyes stared back at her. Her breath caught in her throat and she ran. Whatever she found in the city couldn’t be worse than whatever was down there.
* * *
Fedor secured the lantern and ran. Every pounding stride jarred his aching arm, but he didn’t care. He’d seen those glowing yellow eyes once before, when the Empire sent a dragon-blood to raid one of their meetings. There had been twenty rebels at that gathering, all of them armed and experienced men. Only Fedor and two others had escaped with their lives that day. He’d hoped to never see those eyes again, but it seemed he was out of luck.
The elite soldiers of the Empire could see in the dark as well as having their other senses enhanced. Their scales were tough enough to turn aside bullets and the less he thought about their sheer physical strength the better.
He needed to put as much distance between himself and the monsters on his trail as possible before they forced their way through the rockfall. At least Anya was safe for the moment. If the ladder rungs broke under his weight, no way could a dragon-blood follow her. He leapt a boulder and sighed. She was alone in a city filled with zealots hunting for her yet he was relieved she wasn’t in the tunnel with him. The world had clearly gone completely upside down.
Behind him the crash of falling rocks alerted him to his hunters working their way through the barrier. It wouldn’t take long. He’d seen the monsters rip a man completely in half with their bare hands. A few rocks wouldn’t slow them for long.
Fedor winced at a particularly bad twinge and grabbed his arm. His hand came away wet. The wound had soaked through Anya’s makeshift bandage. Not good. He was probably dripping a trail for them to follow.
He tore a strip out of his shirt and wrapped it around the wound, grunting when he pulled it tight. That should buy him a few minutes, maybe. What Fedor really needed was some way to throw them off the trail.
As he ran his mind raced. What could he use? His gun was useless against the monster’s scales and he needed the lantern to keep from breaking his neck in the dark. That pretty much summed up his assets and he wasn’t encouraged.
A loud squeak drew his attention. He shifted his lantern and found a fat brown rat with its paw caught between pieces of broken cement. Maybe he could lay a false trail. That would buy him a little time.
The rat bared its fangs as he approached, but Fedor grabbed it tight by the back of the neck and worked it free of the stone. He kept running, a rat in one hand and a lantern in the other. If anyone had seen him they’d have laughed, but Fedor wasn’t in a laughing mood.
Fifteen minutes later he reached a three-way intersection. Finally, exactly what he’d been hoping for. He set the rat down and stepped on its tail. Next he tore of a strip of bandage and tied it around the rat’s neck. A poke of his boot sent it rushing down the left tunnel. Fedor grinned and ran down the central passage.
* * *
Yarik stood at the base of the rockfall and stared up at Victor. They’d been chasing the fugitives through he didn’t know how many miles of tunnel before reaching the barrier. He was thoroughly and completely sick of the dark, dank passage. The sooner they got to the surface the better. From his position at the top of the rubble Victor mumbled something, but his face was pointing away and Yarik couldn’t make him out.
“What did you say?”
Victor pulled his head back and looked down, his eyes glowing in the dark. “They split up. The girl has returned to the surface and the man went down the tunnel.”
“Can you get through?”
“I need to shift a few boulders, but it won’t take long.”
“Get on it.” Yarik paced as Victor sent rocks tumbling down from the pile. Why would they split up now? Leaving the girl on her own was risky at best and insane at worst. He’d been so careful to keep her close, why leave her alone now? Maybe to force them to choose who they wanted to chase.
Victor tumbled down and crashed into the ground beyond the rockfall. “It’s clear on this side!”
Yarik clambered up the pile, through the widened gap, and down beside the dragon-blood. Hedon joined them a moment later.
“Who do we chase?” Hedon asked.
“The girl of course. Get up there.”
Hedon made it to the third rung before one snapped under his weight. Yarik eyed the rusty ladder. That explained why they split up. Anya made it up, but her heavier companion couldn’t follow.
“Change of plans,” Yarik said. “We follow the man and make him lead us to the target.”
“That won’t be a problem.” Victor sniffed the air. “He’s bleeding. We can track him easily.”
The three hunters set out after their prey. Hedon and Victor ranged ahead while Yarik brought up the rear with his flashlight. Unlike the dragon-bloods, he couldn’t see in the dark.
As they jogged through the tunnel he couldn’t stop thinking about his wife, all alone in their little cabin. She had to be worried. He’d had time to let her know where he was going, but still he wished he had a chance to call and tell her he was okay. It would have been nice just to hear her voice.
He’d seen a lot of the Empire and its allies over the last few weeks and while he knew it was corrupt and self-serving, he never imagined the czar working with lunatics like Father Gabriele. The priest would happily burn everyone and everything that didn’t fall into line behind his mad church and that included the Empire. Since Yarik knew the czar wasn’t a fool, that meant he was planning to betray the zealots before they betrayed him. The whole exercise left Yarik nauseous.
Hedon and Victor’s snuffling was just starting to get on his nerves when they stopped. Yarik jogged up to join them. The tunnel branched in three directions.
“Which way?”
The dragon-bloods looked at each other then at him. “We’re not sure,” Victor said. “From the smell it’s like he went in two directions, left and straight.”
“How can that be?” Yarik asked, the first hint of a headache building behind his eyes.
“It can’t,” Hedon said. “Yet I smell it that way too. That’s why we stopped. I don’t know which one to follow.”
Gah! Why couldn’t anything be simple? “Go left. If we’re wrong we can always backtrack.”
Victor led the way and they were off. Yarik didn’t know how long they followed the tunnel before it came to a rockslide that filled it from top to bottom. A rat was nibbling something brown and disgusting off to one side. A piece of cloth was tied around its neck.
Quicker than someone his size should be able to move, Victor grabbed the rat and sniffed it.
“The man tied part of his bandage around its neck to lay a false trail,” Victor sai
d. He squeezed, crushing the rat to pulp.
The hunters backtracked and hurried down the central tunnel. It seemed to run for miles. At the end they came to another platform with a set of stairs leading to the surface. They went out in the early morning light. There was no sign of their prey.
“Can you smell anything?” Yarik asked.
Hedon shook his head. “It’s too open up here. The tunnels concentrated the scent. I’m sorry, Agent.”
Yarik spun in a slow circle taking in the ruined buildings and pocked streets. He took deep breaths, trying to cool his rising anger. These amateurs were making them look like idiots. They needed to return to Calais quickly. The only advantage they held was knowing the target’s ultimate destination.
* * *
Anya slunk along at the edge of the sidewalk, ready to duck out of sight at the first sign of movement. She clutched the pistol Fedor had given her like it was a talisman. The dawn light cast long shadows which at first had unnerved her before she realized that they were telling her how to get where she needed to go. He said the memorial was north, so judging from the direction of the shadows it didn’t take much to figure out her path.
The silent, near-empty city gave her the creeps. Even back home there were more people than this. They’d studied the war between France and the Blessed Realm, but she no longer trusted much of what she’d learned in the Empire. Her time in the Land of the Night Princes had taught her the Empire tended to lie when it was convenient.
She paused at an intersection and heard voices. Part of her brightened at the thought of other people then the rest of her panicked since anyone she met could potentially want to hurt her. Better to avoid everyone until she caught up with Fedor.
A few paces behind her was a porch. She darted back and ducked behind it. She’d barely gotten out of sight when a group of four dirty kids about her own age, dressed in rags and carrying a mixture of hammers and pry bars came sauntering on by. There were three boys and a girl and they were chatting in French, at least she assumed it was French. Anya spoke Russian, or New Imperial as the officials called it, and English. If she’d known she’d end up wandering Paris on her own she might have made an effort to learn a little.
Escape From the Dragon Czar: An Aegis of Merlin Story Page 14
