Destiny

Cursing, Lesauvage raised his pistol again. "Kill them!" he shouted.

A

Chapter 29

AS SOON AS THE sword was in the cave with her, A

She swung the sword, cutting through Lesauvage's pistol before he could fire, hitting the barrel and knocking the weapon off target. When he fired, the yellow-white muzzle-flash flamed in a spherical shape and the bullet ricocheted from the ceiling.

The other men had trouble aiming at her for fear of hitting Lesauvage. She stepped toward him as he tried to point his pistol at her again.

Planting her right foot, A

A

Reacting instinctively, as if the sword had been part of her for her whole life, A

The sword sailed straight and true through the rope. Stepping over the tu

Lying in the rush of water, Avery and Roux stared at her in surprise.

In the next instant, the ropes parted and the heavy stone oval slammed down onto the tu

"The sword." Roux pushed himself to his feet.

A

"Did you get any of their weapons?" Roux asked.

"No."

The old man cursed and shook his head. "At the very least you could have slain one of them and taken his weapons."

"Next time," A

Roux glared at her. "She was never a wiseass."

"I'm not Joan," A

The young man looked as though he was in shock and about to pass out. He cradled his wounded hand in his good one.

"Can you run?" A

"I… I think so."

"Upstream," A

Behind them they could hear Lesauvage's men wrestling to remove the heavy stone oval.

"What makes you think there's another way out?" Roux asked. "I trust you haven't been here before?"

"I saw a leaf float past me. It came from outside."

"It could have passed through an underwater opening. For all you know, this stream could run for miles underground."

"I hope not." A

The way got tricky and footing was treacherous. There were sinkholes along the way that plunged them up to their chests in near freezing water. They scrambled out and kept going. The rock ran smooth as time and fungus had made it slippery. Again and again, they fell with bruising impacts that left them shaken. They kept moving, certain that Lesauvage and his men would follow.

A

Maybe not, she thought hopefully. With the treasure right there, Lesauvage wouldn't let anything else stand in his way.

She kept ru

Corvin Lesauvage was in heaven. Hanging from the rungs set into the wall, he played his flashlight beam over the treasure that Benoit the Relentless had dumped into the Roman garrison's hiding place all those years ago.

It didn't matter to Lesauvage how Benoit had managed to find the place. Maybe he'd learned of it while searching for La Bête. Or perhaps one of his men had known about it.

The fact was that everyone who knew about it now was dead.

Except for A

Lesauvage reconciled himself with the knowledge that they wouldn't get down off the mountain in the storm. He wouldn't allow that to happen. If they told the authorities about his ill-gotten gain, it could cause him no end of problems.

He stared at the gleaming precious metals in the glare of his flashlight a moment longer, then he climbed the rungs back up to the cave. His men awaited him.

"We hunt," he declared.

They all gri

Within minutes, they were all high, edgy and ready to explode. Eager to kill.

"They're down there," Lesauvage said, feeling the drug's effects himself. He felt impossibly strong and invincible. Almost godlike. "I want them dead."

Dropping back through the wolf trap, Lesauvage lowered himself into the stream. He didn't know which way to go. Closing his eyes, he tried to sense his prey, but there were no signs of them.

He reached into the water and came up with a gold coin. He laughed a little, feeling the heavy weight of it in his hand. The coin had two sides. One was blank. The other held the symbol of the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain. He designated the insignia "heads" and flipped the coin.

The gold disc whirled in the air. Lesauvage slid a hand under it and looked down at the symbol lying in his palm.

It was heads.

"This way," he told his men. They headed upstream.

Baying and laughing, the Wild Hunt took up the chase.

Brother Gaspar stood back for a moment while two of the young monks entered the Roman garrison. Cold rain pelted him, a barrage of hostility fueled by nature. He fully expected an exchange of gunfire within the cave at any moment.

Instead, the two monks returned. They were armed with pistols, rifles and swords.

"There is something you should see," one of them said.

Brother Gaspar followed the monks into the cave. He saw the stone oval suspended over the wolf trap at once. Peering down into the hole while another monk pointed his flashlight, Brother Gaspar saw the water and the gold and silver below.

"Benoit's ransom," Brother Gaspar said. "I'd thought it lost forever." He looked up at the young monk. Then he noticed a dead man sprawled on the floor. "Who is that?"

"One of Lesauvage's men."

Brother Gaspar knew that Lesauvage and his men had not left. Their motorcycles were still parked outside. "What happened to him?"

"He was shot," the young monk said. He touched a spot between his own eyes. "He was dead when we got here."

"They're in the tu

The young monk shook his head. "We've tapped into an underground stream as a well. Perhaps it's another one."