The Testament

"She's right." Bravo kept his gaze on Je

Je

"Meanwhile, I'll continue on," he said. "According to my father's instructions the cavern where the cache is buried is about a kilometer northeast of here. Come as quickly as you can."

The Albanian had a long memory. He could resurrect every man who had ever attacked him, every man he had killed or maimed. The number was more than a few, less than a shitload, as he liked to joke with his fellow Knights of the Field when he was half drunk. But in all that time he'd never come up against a woman, let alone been bested by one-until he'd attacked Je

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 i

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, ru

With this on his mind, he rushed forward. Je

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 Je

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 Muhlma

Je

Then she saw Camille looking at her, and by her expression knew that she understood what was going through Je

"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 Je

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 ma