by Tom Hunter
Samuel lay on the ground, clutching his shoulder in a vain attempt to soothe it. He was in no fit state to engage Pin in hand-to-hand combat, but he couldn’t sit back and watch him collect up the relics. He had to do something.
Samuel shook his head in despair, but as he looked round the room, he caught sight of Pae’s crumpled body lying nearby.
“I bet you’d love to get your revenge on your assassin,” Samuel mumbled, pulling himself to his feet and stumbling towards the corpse of the dictator.
“Stay down, Samuel!”
Out of nowhere, Pin tackled Samuel. All the air flew out of his body, as Samuel hit the ground next to Pae, landing on his injured shoulder. Tears filled his eyes at the pain, and he writhed around, lost in a world of seemingly endless agony.
“You made your choice, McCarthy,” warned Pin. “Time to die!”
He brought the rock in his hand down on Samuel’s head. The archaeologist struggled to stop the blow, but due to his injury, he couldn’t move fast enough. He saw stars as Pin hit him in the temple.
“If you’d only listened to me, I’d have granted you a quick, and simple death,” Pin told him, pulling back his arm to punch him again. “I keep my word. You only have yourself to blame for what’s coming next.” He was so intent on caving in Samuel’s skull that he didn’t notice Samuel rooting about on Pae’s body with his other arm.
BANG!
A comical look of surprise came over Pin’s face, as he slowly slid off Samuel, collapsing to the ground.
Panting, Samuel propped himself up on his good elbow, tossing to one side Pae’s smoking gun.
“That was for Shafira,” he revealed.
Pin laughed, the laugh turning into a cough. “You’re no better than me, McCarthy,” he told him. “For all your high and mighty morals, you’re just another murderer. Blood is on your hands and it will never wash off.”
“I’m okay about that,” Samuel shrugged.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Pin whispered. “I was promised the world.”
His head rolled to the side and he took his last breath.
“Samuel! Look at the state of you. Are you all right?”
Waleed and Akhenaton scrambled down the stairs to the bottom chamber, rushing over to help him.
“It’s worse than it looks.” Samuel tried to wave his friends away, but he winced at the pain such a simple movement caused. “Okay, maybe it’s not worse than it looks. Could you give me a hand?”
Waleed came and put his arm around Samuel’s waist to help him to his feet while Akhenaton collected the papal cap and scepter.
“Are you going to be all right to climb back up the stairs?” asked Akhenaton in concern.
“Don’t worry about me,” Samuel replied. “There’s still a battle raging above ground. We need to stop it before more lives are lost.
Forty-Three
“Is it me or is the fighting even more frenzied now?” asked Shafira anxiously, as she, Josh, and Basile hurried towards the Capitol building of Dougga. Gunshots echoed through the ruins, but none of them dared to stick their heads over the walls to see what was happening.
“Maybe the Bruard are turning on each other?” suggested Basile. “Perhaps they’ve seen they can’t win and they’re doing the army’s job for them.”
“Not them.” Josh shook his head. “They’re too self-interested to kill themselves. No, I have a horrible feeling they’re tracking down the remaining survivors and gunning them down. We have to keep to the shadows. If they find us, we’ll be dead before we can cry for help.”
“What will we do if Samuel hasn’t been able to stop Pin and Pae?” asked Shafira. “If they have all the artifacts, they’ll be free to run amok across the globe.”
“If they have all the artifacts, we won’t care,” Josh pointed out. “We’ll all be lining up with everyone else, begging the Bruard to do whatever they want with us.”
“Why isn’t that thought of any comfort?” sighed Basile.
“Well, I believe in Samuel and the others,” said Shafira, trying to sound as though she meant it. “There’s no way we can lose, not with them on our side.”
“I guess we’re about to find out one way or the other.” Josh motioned to his companions to get down. “This is the only way clear to the Capitol building from here. Once we go round this corner, we’ll be exposed to whatever’s on the other side. If it’s the Bruard wiping out all their enemies, well…” He inhaled deeply; exhaled slowly. “Stick to the edges and hope they don’t look too closely to the shadows. If they spot you, run like your life depends on it.” He looked Shafira and Basile straight in the eye. “Because it does.”
Shafira threw herself into his arms, squeezing him tightly. Josh stumbled back a little, taken by surprise, but he folded his arms around her, hugging her back. Basile stepped forward, and the three of them embraced each other, taking a moment to savor what might be the last time they were together.
“All right. Let’s go.” Josh’s eyes were suspiciously damp when he broke away. He beckoned to the other two, and edged around the corner onto the battlefield.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw what was happening.
The Tunisian military were advancing, pushing back the final few remnants of the Bruard army.
“Oui!” Basile punched the air, letting loose a torrent of French in his excitement.
“Thank goodness our signal got out in time,” Josh remarked. “Now if Samuel and the others have done their part, we can all be celebrating tonight.”
CLICK!
The three of them whirled round at the sound of a pistol being cocked. Karim stood in front of them, fresh bandages covering one side of his face, his pistol trained on the group.
Josh sighed heavily, as Shafira and Basile exchanged a weary glance. Slowly, he put up his hands in surrender, the other two following his lead.
Karim looked at them, nodding slowly.
“I’ll be honest. I wasn’t expecting to see any of you alive again.” His face broke into a grin. “Is Samuel around?”
“Samuel?” Shafira stepped forward anxiously. “Is he alive and well?”
“He’s bound to be,” said Josh. “I’m more interested in knowing how our soldier friend here knows Samuel’s name.”
“And why he held a gun on us for so long,” Basile added.
“After Samuel saved my life, I got caught up in a gunfight with some Bruard mercenaries,” Karim explained. “We managed to capture one of them alive and submitted him to questioning. Although he wasn’t high up enough in the food chain to be able to tell us much of any real worth, he did confirm that Samuel has been a thorn in the Bruard’s side for quite some time. Given how… explosive things have been round here, I took it upon myself to personally seek out Samuel to see how the military could help him in his quest.”
“And did you find him?” Shafira urged. “Please, tell me that Samuel’s okay.”
“He’s absolutely fine,” Karim reassured her. “My men encountered Samuel and two other men leaving the Capitol building. We took them into protective custody to keep them safe while we cleaned up Dougga. It’s a sad day for my beautiful country’s heritage. We won’t be showing any mercy to those scum.”
“What about Pin? And Pae? The Bruard’s dictator was here. What’s happened to him?”
Shafira, Josh and Basile bombarded Karim with questions, but he didn’t answer any of them, holding up a hand for silence. With his other hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a key.
“This is the key to a transport vehicle parked just behind that wall.” He gestured with his head in the direction of the car. “You’ll find Samuel and the other two over there. I owe your friend a debt of gratitude for saving my life, so I’ll turn a blind eye to the theft of an army vehicle. These things happen in the heat of battle. However, I want you all to get the hell out of my country. Bruard or not, I hold you personally responsible for the recent devastation that’s befallen Tunisia. If I e
ver see you again, I’ll decide that you need questioning about your knowledge of the Bruard. You’ll never see the outside of a jail cell by the time I’m done with you.”
“Thank you, Karim. We really appreciate it.” Spontaneously, Shafira dropped a light kiss on his cheek, making the hardened military man blush, and she followed her two friends in the direction of their new wheels.
“It’s here!” Basile beckoned to Shafira as he ran towards a transporter big enough to hold all six of them in comfort.
She raced up to the back. Flinging the doors open, she burst into tears. Samuel was lying across the seats, fast asleep. Blood stained his clothes, but his shoulder had been bandaged, and his thigh strapped up. Across his chest lay the hat and scepter.
Shafira climbed into the car to sit as close to him as she could get without hurting him, Basile close behind. Josh made his way to the driver’s seat.
The engine burst into life, as Waleed and Akhenaton welcomed their friends onboard. Josh put the van into gear, and pulled away from the battlefield.
“We did it, Samuel,” whispered Shafira, brushing a loose strand of hair away from his forehead. “We really did it.”
Samuel opened his eyes and smiled up at her. “Yes, we did,” he said, before falling unconscious again.
Forty-Four
Port Sudan
One week later
Samuel and the others loaded their luggage into the back of a large cab outside Port Sudan airport.
“Let me take that for you, sir,” offered the cab driver, reaching out for a large box in Samuel’s hands.
“No!” Samuel snatched it away. The cab driver frowned and looked offended.
“I’m sorry,” Samuel apologized. “I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that this package contains valuables that are very breakable. I need to keep it with me so I know it’s safe.”
“Of course, sir.” The cab driver nodded, turning to load the last of the cases into the trunk.
Samuel cricked his neck from side to side, rolling out his shoulders to relieve the stiffness caused by a long flight. The medics who’d treated his bullet wounds had done an excellent job, but it was going to be long time before he was fully healed.
He joined his friends inside the cab, as the driver took his seat.
“Do you mind if I turn on the radio?” he asked. “The news is about to start and I want to know the results of this afternoon’s football match.”
“Not at all.” Samuel indicated the radio. “Be our guest.”
The driver turned on the radio, before pulling out into the traffic to take them to the docks. The final few chords of a current hit song faded out to be replaced by the blare of the news jingle.
“Breaking news!” came the announcement. “Although the reports have yet to be fully confirmed, reliable sources tell us that the body of Pae Min-Soo has been discovered underneath the Capitol building in Dougga alongside one of his generals. The Bruard dictator was reported missing a few days ago, leaving the Empire’s military efforts in Mongolia in disarray. If this is correct, the death of the notorious dictator would leave a power vacuum at the head of the Empire, just at a time when internal unrest has been undermining the dictator’s attempts at expansion.
“The Bruard have been causing serious trouble across North Africa in recent weeks, with many ancient sites having been devastated by terrorist violence. This comes on the heels of threats from the Bruard to use nuclear weapons, causing the UN Security Council to call an emergency meeting to deal with the Bruard threat once and for all. If it is true that the dictator is dead, then this could mean an end to the Bruard’s plans, signifying the start of a new era of peace.
“However, despite the lack of an obvious successor, analysts warn…”
The driver reached forward and turned off the radio in disgust. “All I wanted was to know about the sport,” he snapped. “Instead it’s all Bruard this, Bruard that. Who cares? It’s not like ordinary people like you and me can do anything about it. It doesn’t matter who’s in charge. Our lives won’t change.”
Shafira and Samuel exchanged a cheeky grin.
“I don’t know. I think my life’s changed,” said Samuel, bringing Shafira’s hand to his lips and lightly kissing the top of her knuckles.
At last, they reached the docks. Waleed jumped out of the car almost before it had stopped moving, dashing off to the drains where he’d left his gold.
“Thanks for being such a great sport, Samuel,” he yelled over his shoulder, leaving the others to settle up with the driver and unload their things.
At last, the cab driver drove off, leaving the remaining five friends to plan their next step while they waited for Waleed to return.
“There’s a café over there,” Josh pointed out. “Why don’t we have a nice civilized coffee while Waleed recovers his ill-gotten goods?”
“Coffee sounds great,” Basile nodded. “Who’s paying?”
“My treat,” offered Samuel, as the five of them gathered round a table set on the sidewalk. It was relatively quiet, but after everything they’d been through recently, by unspoken mutual consent, they chose a table as far away from passersby as possible, one that gave them a view of anyone approaching.
Samuel inputted their order into a server drone, and sat back, finally allowing himself to relax a little, even if he wasn’t going to loosen his grip on the package containing the artifacts.
“So, what now?” Josh said, voicing the question on all their minds.
“Pin destroyed a third of St. Augustine’s secret in one fell swoop,” sighed Akhenaton. “I’m convinced he was wrong in draining the vial. Although we were all mistaken in the nature of the final artifact, I recall a myth we were told about St. Augustine’s blood. It stated that the saint’s life force was eternal, ever flowing. I believe that if Pin had left some behind in the bottle, eventually it would have regenerated.”
“I guess we’ll never know if you’re right,” shrugged Josh. “It’s still all a load of superstitious baloney to me.”
“Regardless, even without the blood, these relics still have power,” Samuel reminded his friends. “We’ve all seen what they can do on their own. While that power could do tremendous good, it could also do terrible harm. Much as the archaeologist in me would like to put them on display in a museum, it’s not safe. All it would take would be for another Pin wannabe to do his research and then steal them. Then we’re back to square one. They have to be somewhere no one can ever get their hands on them again.”
“The Knights of the Spring Dream have cared for them for centuries,” Akhenaton said. “There’s nothing to say we can’t do the same again. There are still a number of cells that weren’t caught up in the recent fighting. Once we have elected a new leader, they could send the scepter and hat to two different cells in new places and nobody else would know where they were.”
“I understand your loyalty to your Order, but I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Shafira replied. “The Bruard have devastated so many of your number and you yourself have admitted that you don’t know how many cells are remaining out there. For all you know, there might only be a handful of you left, hardly enough to guard the relics. Would they all have ancient booby trapped catacombs conveniently waiting for the artifacts? I don’t think so. And we can’t put them back where we found them. It isn’t safe.”
“Especially not if Pin copied the files with all the details of the various cells,” Basile pointed out. “He might be dead-and good riddance-but that doesn’t mean that Pae’s successor won’t try to pick up where he left off. No, your secret Order isn’t so secret anymore. They can’t be relied upon to keep the artifacts safe.”
“Then we hide them in plain sight,” suggested Akhenaton. “Let’s not conceal them again. As Samuel pointed out, they can do great good. We could travel the world, using them to end conflict and bring peace. What better way to live up to the saint’s legacy than that?”
“It’s a beautiful idea, but I
don’t think it will work in practice.” Samuel shook his head. “Pin might have been a madman, but when we first dealt with him he was cold and calculating. By the end, he was a raving lunatic. After all, power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely. Even with the greatest of intentions, once you taste the power of the artifacts, it’s difficult to avoid sliding down the slippery slope into self-interest and abuse. I’m not ashamed to admit that, while I used the scepter to protect myself, now that I don’t have to worry about Pin ambushing me, part of me is curious to see how far the abilities of the relics can go. Of course, that would be a slippery slope.”
Ahkenaton looked into the distance, contemplating deeply. “All of this proves one thing,” he said slowly. “There was only one who was worthy, who was pure enough not to be corrupted by their powers: St. Augustine himself.”
“A god amongst men,” said Shafira.
Akhenaton nodded. “It all makes sense to me now: why the Order was founded. It took thousands to protect the artifacts, so that even if a few found them and fell under their spell, the rest would see sense and stop them. The questions I’ve had since boyhood are now answered.”
“So what do we do?” asked Josh. “The Bruard have the jump drive and will target the Knights if they have the artifacts. We can’t keep them. We don’t exactly have the firepower to protect them.”
The group fell into a gloomy silence. It was such an anticlimactic end to their adventures to realize that, potentially, all they’d done was delay the inevitable. There was still a chance that the Bruard could come after the relics.
“I’ve got it!” Samuel snapped his fingers.
“What-you’re going to see if you can bribe NASA into launching them into space?” joked Basile.
“Dibs on piloting the spaceship if so,” put in Josh. “It’s one of the few craft I’ve always wanted to fly but never had the chance.”
“That’s one idea,” conceded Samuel. “But I was thinking a little more… down to earth. Or rather, under the ocean.” He reached out and squeezed Shafira’s hand. “Do you want to tell them, or shall I?”
