TW04 The Zenda Vendetta NEW (28 page)

The only problem was that Forrester was losing his concentration. He kept staring into Drakov’s eyes, trying to put all thoughts out of his mind, but it was like staring into his own eyes in a mirror. In combat, especially close combat, the mind had to be empty, free of any thoughts of winning or losing.

The idea was to get into the rhythm of the deadly ballet, to flow with it without thinking. To think about winning was to admit the possibility of losing. To think about surviving was to dwell upon the spectre of death. Yet, try hard as he might to focus himself on the pure interplay of motion, Forrester’s mind kept drifting, like a boat with a sleepy captain that kept wandering off course, then lurching back as the captain caught himself and seized the wheel.

Drakov’s eyes were his eyes. It was like locking gazes with himself. His face echoed Vanna’s face so strongly that Forrester kept seeing her. He kept pushing the vision away, but the thought resurfaced again and again in his mind—
I’m
in deadly combat with my son, with my own flesh and blood.

Don’t think about it, he thought to himself, you’ll slip, you’ll make a mistake! And, having thought about it, he made one.

He recovered in the very nick of time, blocking madly, and Drakov’s blade opened up his forearm from wrist to elbow. The daggers were sharp, both at the points and on both sides of their narrow blades and the knife bit deeply. The blood flowed freely, dribbling down onto the stone floor. Forrester began to move more quickly, never staying for more than a second or two in the same spot, so that the blood would not puddle and create the danger of his slipping in it. For a brief instant, Drakov’s eyes left his and glanced quickly at his wound. Forrester lunged. Too late, he saw that he had been taken in. Drakov had done it on purpose.

Already committed, Forrester tried to recover and, for a second, he was caught off balance. Drakov dropped to the floor instantly. Using his leg as a scythe, he swept Forrester’s legs out from under him. As Forrester went down. Drakov rolled and in an instant he was on him, pinning him to the floor and grasping Forrester’s knife hand with his own free band while his other hand holding the knife flashed in on Forrester’s throat. Forrester felt the point of the dagger penetrate the skin at the hollow of his throat ever so slightly and in that moment, a great calm swept over him and he ceased to struggle. But the white heat of the killing thrust never came.

Instead, Forrester looked up into his son’s eyes and saw that they were wet with tars.

He saw the tremendous inner struggle going on as Drakov tried to will himself to finish it and found that he was unable to. He saw his son’s lips begin to tremble, whether from rage, sorrow or frustration, he did not know. Perhaps it was all three.

“It’s all right, Son,” he said. “It’s all right. I thought that I could do it, too, but now I know I never could. She never would have let us.”

He let his hand go limp, opened it and the dagger rolled off his palm and onto the stone floor with a gentle clink. Slowly. Drakov got up and backed away from him, saying nothing, his tears speaking more eloquently than any words he could have said.

“Come back with me, Son,” said Forrester. “You don’t belong here.” Drakov shook his head violently, then turned and bolted out the door and down the stairs.

They fought fast and furiously, their sabres flashing almost quicker than the eye could follow. Hentzau was exultant, filled with seemingly boundless energy. He was in his element. Fighting without the slightest care for his survival, reveling in the sheer joy of the swordplay. It was, Falcon realized, what made him such a deadly swordsman. It was one thing to train for hours, days, weeks and years on end, refining one’s skill in constant practice until it was second nature, but it was something else entirely to put that skill to the test in earnest, deadly combat, where one would live and one would die: Hentzau was one of those rare people to whom it made no difference. Some people walked the razor’s edge, but Hentzau fairly danced upon it. He felt himself to be almost immortal, admitting the possibility of death in only the vaguest sort of way, with supreme indifference. His life would have meant nothing to him without the chance of casually tossing it away with the same abandon with which a gambler risked all on one turn of the wheel.

He quite literally did not know fear and
that
frightened her. He was better than she thought he was, far better. The better his opponent was, the better he became, rising to the occasion. It suddenly occurred to her that she could lose.

She thrust and Hentzau parried, turning her blade. She beat and riposted, using the fleche attack to drive at his face, then shifted at the last instant to his chest, but he had anticipated her, He caught her blade in a circular parry and almost hooked it out of her grasp with skillful fingerplay and easy motion of the wrist. He engaged, she disengaged, he engaged again and had her on the retreat, cutting and slashing at her while she parried madly, the sabres singing their steel song as they danced. He was laughing now,
laughing
, like a small boy balanced precariously on a rooftop, oblivious of the danger, his eyes sparkling, his teeth flashing and if this were merely practice, she would be incredibly excited by him, but the sudden, cold emotion of fear drove out all else. He was a primitive, a damned 17th-century male and little more than a child, at that, and he was better than she was and they both knew it. She knew that he had staked everything on this, that he would always put greed and ambition way above all else, He would be merciless, just as she had been with Bersonin. In her entire life, she had only met three men whom she could not control, utterly and completely: Forrester was one. Drakov was another and now the third, Hentzau, whom she most belatedly realized to be the most dangerous of them, would kill her unless she could get away from him. One moment. One moment was all it would take to grab her remote out of her pocket and clock herself to the chronoplate she had hidden in the dungeon, then to safety. Only he would not give her a moment. He would not give her even so much as a second. He was on her constantly, driving, driving, that lethal blade buzzing around her like an angry hornet trying to sting. She was beginning to grow tired and he was indefatigable.

She had only one chance, she abruptly realized. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rudolf crawling towards the entrance, intent upon lowering the drawbridge. She willed him to move faster. In his weakened condition, he seemed to be moving in slow motion, though she knew that it was only an illusion created by the adrenalin coursing through her. She wanted to shout at him to get up and run. If she could only keep Hentzau at bay for a moment or two more, the king would release the drawbridge, the very thing she had intended to prevent, only now it was her only chance.

The hornet stung.

The sabre slashed her shoulder, and Hentzau gave a triumphant cry at having scored the first touch. It was not a deep wound, but it bled profusely. He was back at her again; the clashing of the sabres reverberated through the hall. She was no longer even trying to attack. Her one concern was to keep him at bay just a moment or two longer. She could not let it end like this. She could not allow herself to be killed by a mere boy to whom this was no more than a game.

“Hah hah!” he cried, sensing victory near at hand. “I’ve broken you, my dear! Where is that indomitable spirit now, eh? Come on, come on, don’t run away, have at me!” She almost sobbed with relief when she heard the clanking of the drawbridge coming down. Almost immediately, shots were fired and she heard shouts, followed by the sound of rapidly approaching hoofbeats. Hentzau’s reaction was extremely brief, just a quick glance toward the drawbridge, but it gave her time to bolt. She fumbled for her pocket as she ran, but she would have to break stride, if only for an instant, to get out the remote and Hentzau was already running after her. She swore and ran with all the speed that she could muster, through the archway to the old part of the castle, down the long main corridor with Hentzau hot on her heels. Her only chance was Drakov now. She had to reach him.

Sprinting hard, she reached the open courtyard and ran across it towards the keep, failing to increase the distance between Denizen and herself. She kept trying to pull the remote free and she almost had it. If he would only trip, just for a moment…

She ran at full speed, gasping, bolting through the entrance to the keep with Hentzau only yards behind her. She had managed to pull the remote out of her pocket finally and—the force of the impact stopped her cold for a nanosecond, then she rebounded and fell. She heard a deep grunt and realized that she had run right into Drakov. The remote was gone from her hand. She had fallen in the entrance, in clear sight of Hentzau. Drakov was on the stairs, out of his view. Hentzau stopped. As Drakov stood, she saw that he had her dropped remote held in his hand.

“Give me that!” she said.

He held it up and looked at it, knowing it for what it was, her escape, the unit slaved to the chronoplate that she had hidden from him.

“There’s no hiding in that, Sophia,” Holm called. “Come now, I thought that you were going to give me more sport than I could handle!”

“There’s one man that I don’t think you can walk out on,” Drakov said.

“Nikola, please, he’ll kill me!
Please!
”

“I told you that I would see this through with you to the end,” said Drakov and she noticed for the first time that he was weeping, “I have kept my bargain. Besides, you said you didn’t need me.” His thumb hit the switch.

“
Drakov, no!”

He disappeared.

“Come on, Sophia!” Hentzau called. “Let’s finish it!”

She heard shouts and the sound of hooves on stone and several horsemen galloped through the corridor into the courtyard. Sept sat astride the lead home, with the king holding on behind him.

“You, Hentzau!” Sept shouted.

She shut her eyes.
Thank God,
she thought.

“No,” said the king. “Let them finish. Do not interfere.”

His words chilled her to the marrow. She turned and fled up the stairway to the turret. The chronoplate! There was still the plate up in the turret. If she could only reach it in time. Suddenly she recalled that she still had the other remote. She stopped at the first landing and clawed it from her pocket.

“There’s no escape, Sophia.” Heatzau said.

He sounded so close that she jerked involuntarily and the remote slipped from her sweaty fingers and went bouncing down the stairs.

“No!” she whispered.

She looked up and he was there, mere feet away, coming up the stairs towards her and grinning a vulpine grin.

“It seems we have an audience now,” he mid. “I’m afraid we mustn’t disappoint them.” She screamed and threw her sabre at him, then, when he flinched away from it, she leaped forward and kicked him in the chest, sending him tumbling down the stairs. She turned and flew up the stairs, taking them three at a time in a mad dash for the turret. She burst in and confronted Forrester, who was sitting on the cot with his head held in his hands.

“
Moses!”

He looked up at her.

“Moses,
help me!
Hentzau, don’t let him kill me!” He stood up and came towards her.

“Please, Moses, I beg of you, don’t let Hentzau get me!”

“All right,” he said. “I won’t.”

He hit her with a bridgehead strike to the throat, collapsing her trachea.

Rats!
The rats were everywhere! Drakov kicked out in total darkness, his boots connecting with small furry bodies that snarled and squealed and bit. Where was the plate? He had to get out! There were hundreds of them, their chittering deafening, they swarmed all over him. It had to be somewhere dose by, it had to be! Filled with mindless fear, he dropped down to all fours, groping madly, tearing the rats off him, making small whimpering noises, trying to keep from screaming.

He found it! He didn’t even bother to check the programmed setting. Nothing mattered more than escaping those loathesome creatures before they devoured him alive. The glow of the border circuits lit up the cell, revealing all the slithering tails, all the feral eyes and snarling mouths. He leaped into the circle screaming, beating at the beasts in an effort to dislodge them.

The click flared. Drakov and the chronaplate clocked out to an unknown tine and place. Transition was complete.

Hentzau came into the turret, sabre held ready, Falcon, the woman he had known as Countess Sophia, lay dead on the floor. He frowned and prodded her with the toe of his boot, then turned her over. He grimaced with distaste. He looked around him. The turret was empty, save for a couple of cots and several blankets and a few other odds and ends that suggested that someone had lived here for a time. Forrester had taken advantage of the chronoplate’s being already set for Pendleton Base to hurriedly dock out all the weapons and equipment, leaving only seconds to spare to reset the plate for coordinates outside the castle. He had heard Hentzau’s boots upon the stairs and had clocked out an instant before he came into the turret. Hentzau had been in no great hurry. He had known that there was no place she could run.

How had she died? He wondered, looking down at her, what had happened. Perhaps she had fallen on the stairs and struck her throat upon the edge of one of the steps, then managed to crawl this far.... He heard the sound of several pairs of footsteps coming up after him. He had helped to save the king, after all, but he wasn’t certain that he could count on royal charity. The stairs led up for a short distance to the tower’s summit and it was the only way left for him to go. He ran to the top of the tower and came out high atop the battlement, into the early morning sunshine. Dawn was breaking. There was nowhere to go.

“Hentzau,” said a voice behind him. He turned to see Colonel Sept standing with several of the king’s men. “You’re under arrest.”

“What? After I saved your king?”

“If His Majesty chooses to have mercy on you, you will have to take that up with him,” said Sapt.